Tag: Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #884 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Valley Of Spiders by H.G. Wells and Valley Of The Lost by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #884 – The Valley Of Spiders by H.G. Wells (24 minutes) read by Robert Dickson for LibriVox and Valley Of The Lost by Robert E. Howard (41 minutes) read by Tommy Patrick Ryan, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
other Jim Brill stories, The Mound, set in Texas, the same character in both?, a southern accent, a cowboy, valleys and spiders, other stories with valleys and spiders, a novel by Samuel Delany, listening to him talk about it, gay garbagemen who open a pornographic movie theater, later on they become handymen for a lesbian colony, asking around the robots, fetches reviews, the spiders are metaphorical, dude, spiders and spiderwomen go together, the female creature, a gender flipped vampire, brides of Dracula, Carmilla, LEGO minifigs, Medusa, the Spider Woman, Tiger Girl, a story here, 10 minutes to read aloud, connect these 2 stories, The White Death by Don Mark Lemon, he was an American, Virginia, South America, Mexican guide, in Tarantula Valley?, is it a pestilence of some kind, a snake?, no senor, poisonous gases, banditi?, half savage as he was, queer, policy, treble it, American gold, stack a mortgage, a Catholic, meet the White Death, superstitious, well armed, Winchester, the infernal poet, a diseased poet, with one by his side, sylvan charm, two burros, snake, buzzards, a half-wild burro, somehow, the man fools around the ear of a friend, such quick tracks, three dirty streaks of light, strangest of all, the witness of his own eyes, collections of bones, a open air cosmopolitian graveyard, the cat tribe, a cow, skeleton of a man, the prey of a month or so, a second collection, bleaching in the sun, the third day, what manner of thing it was, a great panther of some kind?, a huge snake?, then he struck gold, down the river in search of game, the latest feeding ground of the Thing, a cool million, try to bag something, proceed to watch, a huge collection of boulders, scratch her sweetheart’s name in the dirt, her name, his own name, more like spades than the human heart, his brains were tangled, 6X3 is 18, squatted upon the pile of rock, he couldn’t do other than watch, not the slightest noise, a gigantic spider, large as a full grown tiger, why, talking or thinking, the light that came out of the eyes, deprived him as the power of motion, the long white hair, intense heat, the 30 foot spring, maudlin lips, “mother”, flashed before his soul, the face had the mouth of his sweetheart, laugh foolishly like a baby, flaccid and flabby, through the hot air, horrible fangs, now I lay me down to sleep, he’s amazing right?, intense little story, a giant snake, massively oversized, the two covers, Forgotten Fantasy, guy on a horse and spider, 1966, Magazine Of Horror, guy on a horse and a giant spider, barely got any spiders in it, a spider cover, super-science fictiony, familiar, The Noseless Horror, another one, werewolf in Louisiana, the mummy one, the dude who went to Mongolia, it is kinda awesome, the number of things that Robert E. Howard does in that story, stack up, a laser beam, a tv movie in the 1970s, The Stone Tape, Nigel Kneale, audio recording company, they bought a castle, the resonance of this chamber, recording people’s experiences in the actual stone, tape doesn’t exist when Robert E. Howard was writing this, television is legit, Electrical Experimenter, recipes for making your own television, mechanical television, amazing and terrible, cathode ray tubes make it viable, so much science fiction ideas, transforming into Genghis Khan, give my wife as a gift to the mongols, jammed together in 10 pages, the Philip K. Dick and the Anne McCaffrey, Alex is fine, in spanish the vowels always make the same sound, unless dipthong, British Columbia goldrushes, reading along, it was good, the better one, of the three, the Wells had a certain ambiance to it, the gaunt man, the silver bridled man, Chinese accent, an Austrian, Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was fine, the Robert E. Howard, the aftermath, they’re escape, the disintegration ray, still happening, still talking, nothing useful, so much stuff that happens, the D&D escape from the castle, more like Gamma World, it’s not a weird western, it’s science fiction with a cowboy, a revolver?, acp 1911, he’s a cowboy, draw really fast, a cowboy in Mongolia, adapted into a Conan The Barbarian Annual drawn by Gil Kane, a whole battle sequence, Hyrkanians, a mission from Nemedia (not Texas), whenever lifting from the descriptions of the actual story it is good, to fill out the length there’s a circle around twice, Afghanistan, where the evil super-science lives, Genghis Kahn’s tomb, off-limits, sounds found, a forbidden plateau of leng, pretty small, not super important, giant spider, he did a monkey man, runs off screen, save it for the show, a great loneliness of tableland, a woman who has fled with one of the native servants, muted, mestizo, metis, mixed people, a summary of the story with characters, where are you getting the character names from, in the actual text, desciptions and pronouns, “the man”, “lord”, courser companions, waxed mustache, half-breed tracker, poet-like?, explicitly triggered, the insight about ai, Our Opinions Are Correct, people who don’t think like Jesse, science fiction related, on bluesky, almost enough said, don’t get tricked, WWII, Tolkien would hate that, he abhors allegory, Gandalf is kinda like Churchill, if Tolkien denies it later, “so done with Lovecraft”, an interview with Alec Nevalla Lee, Buckminster Fuller, the boss of his community, editor of weird tales, gross and disgusting, pejorative stuff, ugly red hair, the ugly part, good or bad, the argument describing it as good or bad, the one we weren’t supposed to do, awesome, the most interesting and difficult, pursing, mestizo, mixed race, started questioning about the H.G. Wells story, combing it for facts, not explicitly, not Africa, a little too much happening, where is the spanish?, half-breed, silver bride, Argentina, hint, Latin America, a tracker, west, commands a whole city, they have swords, Winchesters, why this story is so weird, medieval armor, a Norman helmet, why it is so interesting, what are all 3 of these stories about?, they’re all about going into unknown places, before we lose this thread, just waking up for Wells, picturing Eastern, New England, England, West Virginia, escaped woman, Appalachian weird, Deliverance (1972), not explicitly wrong, a hallucination, or interpretation, the Howard is pretty good and very fun, fun to read, compelling, what was going to happen, 25 minutes, the Howard dragged at the end, superfluous, paid by the word, rough draft, submitted, rejected, couple of weeks tweaking it, an afternoon pass, an incredibly confused history, stories published later, mistook this story for another story, The Lost Valley As Iskander, Afghanistan, crunchable media, submitted to Strange Tales, announced in the last issue and then never published, profiting by it now, multiple magazines, a story by Jack London, no supernatural element, what kinda story this is, War by Jack London, guys on horses at war at an unknown place at an unknown time, comb through it, the only indication of where it is, apples grow all over, a temperate zone, a deciduous forest, winters and summers, the point of that story, people in combat are on two teams, there’s no context clues, that’s deliberate, trying to read it as South America, make it super generic, so as to create and effect, sorted soon, the mistiness, the effect he was going for, it could be anywhere, what they’re skin tone was, are they white men, pictured as white, the kinda jerks they are chasing down this woman, whatever the deal was, white men tend to be the kind that control other people, happening subconsciously, there is one point, these white men, incredibly present, names and locations, kinds of trees, white is pointed out, the lord is shitting on white horses, the back end of the story, damned white horses, what is the final line of the story and why is that?, as he rode he picked his way, many dead spiders on the ground, feasted guilty on there fellows, in the Conan adaptation, their time had passed, a winding sheet ready, a nautical term, where we get ghosts from, could do him little evil, flicked with his belt, dismount and trample them with his boots, spiders he muttered, I will spin a web, a very weird ending for this story, 3 guys go looking for a half-caste girl, towards colonialism, the target of this story, the class system, there’s three guys, two a servants, questions the leader, the back end of this story, I’m better than you, I’m also a coward, what makes you better?, what defeats the one guy in his pursuit is nature, white men?, white spiders, what does he mean by this, deliberately so, spins a web and waits, figure out a way to trap her, why valleys and spiders go together, a place that’s protected, an attic is full of spiderwebs because their webs will last, maybe the Robert E. Howard one is the one that doesn’t fit, most of the setup for the story, The Last Valley (1971) with Michael Caine, our wizard, he’s a scientist, a chain blocking the entrance, a roadblock, get zapped, electricity explained, he’s a wizard, quite terrible, elktro, I’m out, one of these stories is not like the other, there’s more than one, a bunch, in both, what could it be in the valley of the tarantuala?, Shelob, Ungoliant, Tolkien’s spiders the valley of shadows, the valley of nightmare, a valley in the first age, consumes herself, birthed out some children, regular spiders, a sign of his genius, the disintegration ray, point it like this, press this button, you will be our king, followed the instructions, Princess Leia on that gun shooting Genghis Kahn, a 6th or 7th level spell, press a button and have things turn to dust, Thanos-like, snap the fingers, genius yadda yadda, hot Chinese dancing girl and nobody wants her, I got a girl back home, he didn’t care for Chinese women, very hot, languorous view of her body, not gonna look too long, a White Stripes song, pretty good looking for a girl, that would have been weird at the time, Skull-Face, our hero goes after the Chinese girl, Egyptian or something?, dark haired foreign chick, the scary race shit, I’m fine with being Genghis Kahn, the most interesting part of the story, meditating Genghis Kahn’s chamber with a rock from outer space, what we see in The Grisly Horror, the werewolf story, from Tibet, Black Hound Of Death, to get the guy who got away, Texas to Mongolia, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, mutating, building man-creatures, degenerating people, the finale in the trailer, almost Big Trouble In Little China, that can’t be right, Buckaroo Banzai, fun for the whole family, the climactic fight sequence, what do you need him for?, he is the sidekick, point of view character, go to Chinatown, as a non-chinese person, almond cookies, the viewpoint, Jim Brill, Steve Brill?, Conan is reused, also a Conan story set in England?, a Bran Mac Morn story, why the Wells story is so interesting, stripping away things, The Valley Of The Blind, genetically blind, he thinks he can see things, acts like an asshole, the two hot things under his brow, very symbolics, the colour of these spiders is white, did the girl get away?, how did she get through, a day ahead of them, the spider wind might have missed her, some native knowledge here, a burrow in both, Don Mark Lemon, so delightful, now I lay me down to sleep, he turns into a baby, killing everyone and everything in the valley, two donkeys, talks to his donkey, that’s odd, maybe I should get my rifle, it’s beautiful I think, Wells is trying to make a point, different kinds of assholes, hubristic assholes, the little man, we’re both cowards, why are you my lord?, the amount of text devoted to it, where the Howard puts action they ave this conversation, both made of the same material, write you into this story, it isn’t really about spiders is it?, is this a science fiction story, giant monsters, nailed it on the Wells, his bridle is silver, two minutes later he abandons him, a wealth distribution thing, he’s trying to make it universal, that half-breed could be anywhere, people realizing this is an asshole, there is no justice, in the Howard there is justice, get konked on the head, Kim Stanley Robinson, great ideas, almost no plot, full of good ideas, what happens and what’s the point, besides entertainment, body horror, turning Japanese, moral horror, what’s it all about, gettin paid, more in the Wells, prefer the narrator did the Howard, British accent, these white men, deleted the word white, does it change the story at all, absolutely not about racism, defy his racial purity, half-caste, let’s look at the actions, colonialism has happened, as a modern thing, that guy who thinks he’s better than me, just fun adventure, inventive and fun, didn’t trust the natives, beautiful fun, he doesn’t pick up the rifle, the anti-Robert E. Howard, our mad scientist, he’s not a hero, what is the white death, a giant tarantula that’s white, mesmerism, 4 giant piles of bones, imma keep looking for gold, dialogue back and forth, really happy, back in Virginia, leaps 30 feet, white hopping death, funnier, The Black Cat, where Jack London was first published, the art is always cats, mushrooms growing, a piquancy, this magazine has a flavour, The Mansion Of Forgetfulness, very Edgar Allan Poe inspired, lost their girl, sits u in a chair, a purple ray makes you forget, he lost his girl at sea, you don’t remember me, meeting again for the first time, the Poe character names, science fiction before Amazing Stories, Howard is a much better entertainer, a pointed stab at people, something beautiful about the simpleness, spoilers is a 21st century invention, Luke Skywalker stabs the guy, podcasting and stuff like that, editor of old Weird Tolds, C.C. Senf spoiled the H.P. Lovecraft, they read that story because it sounds good, every H.P. Lovecraft story starts: yes it is true i sent 6 bullets through the head of my friend, but trust me, bro, you’re going to love this story!, go back to Nemedia, sex with her along the way, that’s not Jim Brill, the honorable guy, clearly in love with this guy’s wife, less honourable, in the middle of nowhere, for honour, if he were not so honourable, makes Tommy’s skin crawl, she was pretty, who is the hero?, we know, Jim Brill’s story Jim Brill is, in the Wells there’s no heroes, man is against man, what is the point of The White Death, well written, he sees in the face of his mother his girl’s lips, he turns into a baby, the white nape, going through the list, featuring the White Death, camping for the next three weeks, Lozo, how did he know not to go there, do not mention my name, I don’t know, anybody who goes there doesn’t come back, a very short story, some white thing, this white thing took them, a little gem, a little placer gold, playfully written, bent toward Robert E. Howard, the most enjoyable story to read, a complete story, not making the same kind of point, a little horror story, pretentions of literary fictionness, dreamland with no details, class and cowardice, what does that mean?, feels like a rough draft, which would be a good movie, a Twilight Zone that’s terrible, a great cartoon, not getting the comedy out of it, rewriting, so many good movie things, more work to do, rewrite a lot of things, she’d be there with him, Temple Of Doom, Willie Scott stuff, absolutely tolerable, not the actress’ fault, we’ve done the three now, as expertly read by Alex,short to the point, extra stuff, the Wells is in the middle, the most relevant, the most important, what is Robert E. Howard’s point? buy this magazine, entertainment value, social commentary, the one they give you at school, at least it is short, Reading, Short And Deep, another precursor to Weird Tales, funny little story, I love living in this house with you, goes to the hardware store for a hammock, follows a butterfly, comes back, can you get me a hammock?, three times, she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, she’s a spider-woman, his eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark, glue covered cords, a thing that had two luminous eyes set in a woman’s face, what is the point of this stupid story, making nests and trapping men, that’s really funny, is it sexist?, I’m in favour of it if it makes me laugh, keep seeing the signs, talking donkeys, it’s a cartoon, reading it on the page, random capitalization, name brand, where nothing is capitalized in the Wells, taking away all allusion, a giant tarantula that eats everybody, a tiger sized tarantula, explicitly set in Mexico, it’s South America, the Mexican was Catholic, Mexicans can travel to South America, I don’t speak Mexican, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, cross the border into Norway, these are our Norwegian hats, Spanish in Latin America vs. Argentina vs. Spain, my name is Thomas, s into a th, they really shuh, swallowing a potato, Australians, Kiwis, Britain, French Guiana, Mayor Pete, in Peru, people from France, working at a hostel, he knew Englsh, you speak so fast, your accent was weird, is it easier for you to understand me, the Pepe Le Pew accent, laughable, we are speaking French now, German accents = speaking German, you’ve got the accent, an impression of someone speaking Spanish, what was that word, the current Pope is an American, right after Tommy became Catholic, a new Pokemon, multiclassing, do yoga and sing in Sanskrit, when he speak Italian now, the Pope’s Italian is easy to understand for Americans, The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, a wizard guy, drunken destitute British nobleman wandering around Africa, Eaton, Sandhurst!, mission from the German government, man do I love the Kaiser, still a nobleman right?, found a diamond mine, getting into British politics, car sound, bolted down, packing in, Clifford Simak, The Ablest Man In The World by Edward Page Mitchell, cyborg short story, unscrew the top of head, public domain Asimovs, The Man That Was Used Up by Edgar Allan Poe, 1839, no electronics, 19th century cyborgs, replacing body parts, lots of French, A Tale Of The Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign, all his body parts are artificial, the brain, compare and contrast, Sunfire by Francis Stevens, from Weird Tales, no previous experience, just did it, couple hours, read stories around with the kid, Treasure Island, before people started this let’s read on our ebooks, people read aloud, snitches and snatches about Poe and Dickens, I read this aloud to my wife and now she’s mad, everyone should do it, why not Mona, Sweet Slow Death, Grifter’s Game, hooks her on heroine, 145 pages.

The Valley Of Spiders by H.G. Wells

Valley Of The Lost - ad in Strange Tales

Valley Of The Lost by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #883 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson

The SFFaudio Podcast #883 – Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson (2 hours 35 minutes) read by Alex (Pulpcovers), followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion are Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
Venture Science Fiction, January 1957, the expanded book version, not a fix-up, 7 mars stories, how much more expanded is it?, one real scene added, laketown, another town, Burkeville, all the same woman, they all think the same because they’re all the same woman, kidnap the man, added sentences and paragraphs, twice, a new version, great interior illustrations that enhance the story, what’s in the text, one pronunciation error, “quay”, weird etymological one, on the water, the armour, cuirass, first audiobook, not too long, 6 days, editing the file, long pauses between sentences, tightens up the narration, go yell, clip this out, no barking is aloud, stop barking, Jesse gets his mean voice out, c’mon mom, this house was not designed by me, insulation in the ceiling for a recording booth, soundproofing, a scene early on, it wasn’t super clear he was nude, fun writing, quite deep in the book, a kilt malfunction, what’s wrong with your kilt, later cover, fits into the standard 60s sex novel, so much of the book interested in having sex, titillation, the premise is great, describing the premise to Eric [S. Rabkin], after 300 years, some parthenogenesis, clone of themselves, early feminist novel, a science fiction novel, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a nation filled with women and no men, some sort of disaster and men weren’t available, nature finds a way, Jules Verne explanation, a plateau in South America, hot air balloon, much more like a utopian novel, how money works, not a lot of militancy, corpral maiden, horspur, horse bird?, like that game Joust, massive infodump, worldbuilding, Freetoon, picturing a lot of this, a really fun animated movie, the story being told is a bit bawdy, adultish story, Heavy Metal but with less guitar and more laughs, an adaptation today, porn version or feminist twist on it: and that’s terrible, play this straight, part of the fun of plot, a planet full of virgins, I need to get out of here, giant animal, a lot of ladies in here, crushed by the corpse, stuck under, completely soaked in blood, it’s metaphor or something, not twins, cousins, just clones of each other, a scar on the hand, at the end of the book, rolling dice to see who goes with him, what if I just kept both of them, here in the future, they’d just kill each other, hinted at, makes those thoughts, Twins/Two Much, identical females and one man, the same sort of jump, not in the Westlake book, he was a cad, the women end up winning, the women are deciding which one of them has the man, whichever one of them wins, he had the grace to blush, turning him into a woman, having a lot of fun with this book, books by him that people love, The High Crusade, wrapped up in a sci-fi space story, killing ladies, courtly old fashioned, not exactly a letch, I just need to help them out, let’s go ravish a planet full of women, a comedy, a funny situation, all the excitement of this silly world, moons and eclipses, a good sense of it, seas and the mountains, the plot once it gets going, a tour of the place, a tour of the society, the highlights, this isn’t a utopia, what would a society of all women really look like?, nowadays, how do women do things differently, different in some noticeable way, war-like, peaceful, how are women’s prisons different than men’s prisons, women in mobs, talks his way through the mob, function differently, council kinda stuff, a thesis there, very interesting, tribes and defenses, conflict being the control over reproduction, gender flip everthing, a gender flipped Conan movie, She Is Conann (2023), he didn’t like it, no fixes needed, she wasn’t sure if she should stab him, gender relations between males and females, they’re all mothers, we never see them mothering, young and pretty, a crone, there are children around, for a sexy adventure story, a brief 70 pages, like a lot of other utopian novels, a sequel novel, ova fusion, they’re not using a machine, ultimately if we were to overlay a thesis on this book, not trying to make a big gender politics point, reactionary, what’s a man, a male human, a controversial point, him being a monster, unpleasantly narrow hips, men have beards, if this book has a thesis, they’re better off together, full of men, one woman comes to a planet full of men, how did that happen, it’s not going to work, in our society, the dialogue around issues related, those poor men, those poor women, baby formula, they’re fucking mammals, hundreds of thousands of years, scenarios where it helps, on a planetary scale, the babies shouldn’t be breastfed by their mothers, wetnurses, probably just as good, probably just as good, cow milk, goat milk, infants can’t, how mammals work, no other mammals, you don’t know how mammals works, cloaca, lay eggs, they feed their babies through regurgitation, copy their parents, the premise makes it fun, perfectly good execution, natural production, fun surprising, good scene, expand this very differently, drug store, if you don’t have a date on a saturday night, the Galaxy cover, Barbara, she’s in the cage with him, naked on the cover, women looking in, defiant, is that’s a brass bra?, not it is an iron currias, moons high in the sky, made the geography match the metaphor, a Yavin 4 situation, looks cool, Endor is the same way, in the Bible, most print stuff is more sophisticated, moons are female, oceans are female, suns are male, not a popular position, men are scientists and engieers, women reflect the light of the man, sounding like Jesse Lee Peterson, destroys them by asking “what is a man”?, are men smarter?, in some ways about some things, engender certain behaviors by men, on a moon, named it Atlantis, sunken in the sea, objects in the sky, giant jupiter like planet, Jupiter is male, 4 big moons, Io, Ganymede, the 4 Galilean moons, who’s the biggest of all the gods, 3 are female, 1 male, freaky for us, in the sky there’s a big looming object they can’t get to, Atlantis bound, not exactly mermaids, a society developed apart, the Little Mermaid, the Baen Books one from the 1980s, polished up, wearing pants, a lot more like Joust, shiny jewels that reflect light, Clyde Caldwell, the first 60s one, she’s leading him away, he’s got a smile on his face, a better cover than either of these, how suggestive it is, a scene that happens, nobody’s smiling, the Venture cover, defiance and stare, the copper top, a chance to describe something that doesn’t play into the fun, not a polemic, not a reaction, Heinlein could have written this book, political ideas, a perfectly Heinelian, very heterosexual, wants to transition himself, not a political tract, within that 1950s tradition, Cosmos Science Fiction, crashed spaceship, women standing militantly, long gloves, cover their hair, carrying a whip, all the men are smiling, they kinda liked it, July 1954, Bernard Safraan, a Poul Anderson story Teucan, is it on the PDF Page? [it is now], a lady in the background with a whip, jailer’s keys, a swimsuit, epaulets, what is this about?, a similar story, part of the same universe, psychotechnic league, other stuff, The High Crusade, a famous fantasy novel, Aztecs in space, Ensign Flandry series, wrote some Conan, all the Conan pastiches, an evil reptile god reigns over Stygia, Conan and Belit, a gatefold?, the publishing industry, with regards to the fantasy novel, not Jesse’s top tier, other guys, Alex is a science fiction guy, art wise, all the Asmiov books, a mistake, Nightfall, way not good, expansions are a mistake, the idea is amazing, annoying and drawn out, what I read science fiction for, take a scenario and build a story around it, Rendezvous With Rama, a planet where they’re never night, The Golden Slave, historical sword and sandal, turns out to be Thor, late Roman, the yellow one, ladies flanking, lipstick on, the only thing that makes it science fiction is the word planet, Paul [Weimer] loves it, Three Hearts And Three Lions, fairies, the wild hunt, one man, what he’s doing, norse mythology, a modern 20th century light, everybody thinks its awesome, the thing we’ve been experiencing is cast in a new light, isn’t that what we want, kinda interesting, pulp grinding out author: Ray Cummings, Sargasso Of Lost Starships, Sargasso sea idea, Brain Wave, Vernor Vinge, zones of space, what if elephants are human level intelligence, turn the retardation beam off, Flowers For Algernon, make it planetary, not-species specific, a balancing act, aliens but they make a huge mistake, reverse crusade, stay the fuck out of England, [The High Crusade (1994)] Egyptian assistant, John Rhys Davies, pretty funny, very ambitiously, I’ll do anything for a dollar, pulp covers and paperback covers as the gateway, the door into, interest in these books, endlessly scrolling, a Blockbuster or video rental place, new releases, new Tom Hanks movie, the knock off movies, a mix of sex and mystery/thriller, erotic thrillers, they tell you what genre it is, a lady standing behind some blinds holding a gun, more cleavage, Joe Mantegna and Mimi Rogers, a 90 minute thriller with a twist, the key to appreciation, seeing the little twists you can do, a book is a much bigger commitment, even the best book, that investment, one of the promises you get with film you don’t get with paperbacks, a Steve Buscemi movie, an Adam Sandler movie, that thing you either hate or don’t like, make it a series, Conan the Whatever, subject to the whims of whatever writer was licensed, a lady with a whip, a rocket ship, a moon in the sky, symbols for the ideas that will be explored, pulp cover art is the clickbait of the past, trying to sell you the thing itself, similar patterns in youtube thumbnails, solve the problem as readers, what to read, stop looking at the art and start looking at the name, TOM CLANCY!, CLIVE CUSSLER!, keeps writing books, written by some other dude you don’t care about, Lawrence Block book, consistent quality, it’s a dog, a good dog, maybe Shakespeare, but they’re not really comparable, a war between the people trynna sell us stuff and us trynna figure it out, on the ferry, ai art on the cover, just give up, some artist spent 25 minutes working on that, even the fastest was a full day, and they did a prelim first, trained artists, you want the figures in this pose, cranking out, the text, the price, have to do the work of transmitting the idea beside the title, a book with a dragon on it, fixing boats, mushrooms, the one with the dragon really sold it, The Hobbit, rewarded in the book with the promise being true, he’s invisible, a power fantasy, excitement fantasy, #BrassBra, keeping count, #KetchupAndMustardGetup, why are these ladies wearing red and blue and yellow, you have to have it bright and shiny to attract the reader, you have to vary it a little bit, red shirt this month, black vest, to make it shiny enough, strawberries draw your eye when they’re red, the colours that pop the most, our attraction, a planet of all women, lipstick means something, not blue lipstick generally, lady cyborg is fine, absolutely successful book, not the greatest author in history, if it is not a home run it is a bases are loaded book, definitely a good one, send more stuff, who would like to do this one, hopefully less free time, sit around and record audiobooks, a really good hobby, a couple of Horror Stories, Flesh For The Goat Man, I Am The Tiger Girl!, I Am The Love Slave That Slapped Hitler, the vocabulary, am I pronouncing this correctly, Poul, hard to pronounce, he never says his name, what the interviewer says, we interact through these books, some old guy at a mechanic’s shop, going to an orgy later, a Myrna Loy and William Powell movie, The Thin Man (1934), Love Crazy (1941), a kissing book, alluded to, he had to convince her some more, she was a fast learner, nothing like that, not a women’s romance book, a comedy of this fantasy, mens’ adventure, Philip Jose Farmer, a little bit repetitive, what would really happen, he would just rape people all the time, Edgar Rice Burroughs needs more murder and rape, The Green Odyssey, a similar setup, sort of medieval, hidden away high tech, an odyssey across this landscape, gets kidnapped by a queen who treats him as a sex slave, she’s got bad breath, more fun, it’s shorter, for the fun, about being fun, you can have too much fun, approaching the end of the book, promises, the gun on the mantelpiece, gonna get used later, we feel cheated, you need to fulfill it but not on screen necessarily, come back with 100 men, all satisfied, prurient for the women and the reader, the promise was made, it’s not contradicted so it is fulfilled, ruining a story by a part 2, all done, drag out the action a lot, a good story that makes promises and then fulfills them, that’s what makes it good, more commercial interruptions, how they made Television Events, Dune is a good example, added in, sometimes removed, make it an extra hour longer, fit the particular format, judge these two, paperback vs. original, the novel (expanded) version, a couple extra paragraphs, noticing women, women noticing him, a little more description, a town of all clones of the same woman, this is super creepy, reflects on the rest of the plot, an actual chapter, the flashback chapter, how he got there, trynna argue, doesn’t add a ton, easily naturally lends itself to be naturally expanded, the first 3rd of a bigger book, a few expanded scenes and a couple of new scenes, top 20, he can do good work, nothing that annoys, an exploration of this fun little idea, in the style of Heavy Metal, 8 hours of this, and yet, the wonderful thing about about the narrated word, discovering what’s happening by the text, there’s no picture, playing with the text, suddenly realized, very PG-lite, could be very R, not creepy at all, just fun, world of women stories of the 1950s, an anime in the 90s called Vandread, sci-fi in space, two civilization, all women and all men, colony ships, each think of the other as the alien race that they hate, political theorizing, anime logic, for Japanese teenagers, fighter piolots end up being captured by a ship full of women, something to unite them, the robotic aliens are actually earth, harvest organs, unobtanium problem, an ACE book, she’s wearing lipstick, cyborg purple, World Without Men by Charles Eric Maine, the human touch, that’s coming, the robot will pronounce the typos, you’ve seen that word a million times, the robot has no shame, food made by a human who likes making food, EMSH, good at what I do, they had forgotten what men looked like, breast coverings, paint, bralet, sclera is green, in a world of one sex, a happy normal, well adjusted to her work, the control and broadcasting of news, a strange body found in the arctic ice, rewritten for today, ran headlong into the murderous censorship, all female, the greatest crisis in history, one of the most brilliantly different novels, totalitarian lesboocracy, scroll through it, the text is fun, sliding glass door, effeminacy, processed it years ago, fairly chunky, this is part of the fun of the paperbacks, lady with no shirt but purple hair and green eyes, if this is for me, the 47th chromosome, love was an unnatural affair, a little Brave New World, mass deception, only motive for continued existence, never control, another damning statement, hitherto untouched, ranked with 1984 and Brave New World, it’s important!, an actual scan on archive.org, certain times of hysteria, obviously fictions, sterelin, clinical product if such there be, parthenogenesis, mystical implication, feel the need, sell me more, on the other hand it is a sex book, I’m a doctor, I’m a medical man, salacious topic of the day: mostly lesbians, a guy wearing leather pants, a bon mot for the title, a lot of our children are suffering, very retardedly repressed times, Pluribus, Vince Gilligan knows how to make story, a throwback, kind of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, a different twist on it, a little bit of Contact and Interstellar, big long wordless sequence, no text, a Conan comic a couple years ago, just Conan and a wolf and they fight, nobody mangles themselves into a conniption, books of text you can’t have a wordless sequence, the magic spell is created through the words, a writer/movie maker, what the hell’s going on, I see you are getting into this airplane, 20 or 30 minutes of this, that makes sense, we feel smart, incredibly rare for television, Rhea Seahorn, it’s for her, she’s very good at it, writing autobiographically, why is she a lesbian, him and his brother, more than 1 gender in a story, reason for the conflict, some other life outside of this, the main character is a lesbian, doesn’t supermatter, murdered or killed or whatever happens, a romantasy author, pornographic text for women, scenes, a background, book tour, alien invasion of the earth, metacommentary on the genre, genre familiarity, a science fiction idea, an episode of Star Trek, back down to a planet, everybody gets effected by a pollen that makes them happy, Kirk loves his ship, getting angry at them, apple person or not, look it up on Pirate Bay, a lot of fun, fun recording it, solid, quay, key, florida keys?, the French, sandbar, an archipelago of some kind, Flordia could extend farther south, Two Much, Fire Island is a sandbar, Manhattan goer, long island and such, erosion and movement, fun settings good books, good geography, include you in, slop some pigs, goose some geeses.

Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson

Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson

Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson

Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson

Posted by Jesse Willis

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

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

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

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #870 – READALONG: Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny

The SFFaudio Podcast #870 – Jesse and Scott Danielson discuss Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny

Talked about on today’s show:
1967, a bunch of awards?, a Hugo, nominated for a Nebula, novelettes in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jesse’s gonna have trouble with this one?, lotsa things, may have modeled Jesse’s mind properly, “like”, Nine Princes In Amber, pile of audio, digital pile, read by Zelazny, an author narrated book, Harlan Ellison, Lawrence Block, the Amber series, A Night In Lonesome October, good reason?, the new copyright when they reprint it, a performance copyright, he’s an excellent narrator of his own stuff at least, the guy for this was fine, one mispronunciation, Shiva, Mitra, Robert E. Howard lore, the politics, the suppression, the whole conceit of the novel, a colonization of a planet, pretend to be the Hindu gods, the whole caste system, the demons in the book, suppressing the people and running the show, accelerationism, do we tell all the people about this technology so their lives improve, if everyone is gods nobody will be, everybody on an equal footing, this way to be better than everyone else, getting reincarnated, moving their soul around to different bodies, flippin their genders, making up Nirvana, slowly working through Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany, Gene Wolfe’s The Book Of The New Sun, hard to read, looking at a super complex object, appreciate it on that level, that’s an interesting object, complex and cool to look at, obscured things, purposely not telling you things, revealing things, little infodump, really interesting, pretty well written, a style a lot of people aren’t gonna get along with, hard to model the people of the period, the least there: when he goes to a town and sees a bunch of people lined up to use a vending machine outside of a temple, a dig at religion?, is the book about religion?, in the Catholic Church, in the Church now, not with this Pope!, people in the past who have used the church for political power, what the church is, the Hindu deities, Hindu pantheon, sorta retelling things, fantasy or science fiction retelling, is the planet that these guys are playing Hindu pantheon Earth?, the answer is supposed to be no, our hero goes to a new town, how to do your prayers properly, played for humour, something smells like shit, that’d be all the shit I’m keeping in jars, new device called a toilet, backstory improving myself, playing a game with the reader, being a bit provocative, that attack Jesse is about to make, it isn’t just the Hindus, the Buddha, what analogy can I do, pick a religion that nobody cares about: the ancient Egyptian pantheon, worshiping Thoth, when did that end?, well documented, super-super-horrible, approx 1500 gods, very inconvenient, the Romans had about 700 gods, a god for every river, every day of the week, Janus, tons and tons of gods, used to control people vs. make your life better, valuable about it, it is helpful, true because helpful, the words of Jesus in this book, a Christian in the last story, a populist religion, topdownism, it wasn’t the king, eventually that does happen, stop viking, not how it started, a secret religion, contrary and opposite to the Roman empire and the Greek religion, they are controlled by their priests and scribes, you need to learn all of this magic, The Book Of The Dead, magic spells, the ancient Egyptian deep state, theocratic agencies, controlling the person at the top and everybody else, how lawyers run things, if you can’t navigate the laws, Augustus is chief pontiff, the head of the religion and the head of the state, the priests are running things, keeping the pharaohs in a dizzying state, subservient to this massive set of gods, we never get to see it from the little people’s point of view, the deep state fighting with itself, John Brennan, the guy with the mustache who wants to nuke everybody, John Bolton, thousands dying with their decisions, the worst example, I am science, Fauci, when they’re attacking science they’re attacking me, that is not how science is, that’s spellcraft, I am in touch with the gods and you have to go through to me, all mistakes, slight improvements and slight tweaks, peer review, Benjamin Franklin, jockeying between transhumanist elites, a topic of regular conversation, change your gender, become immortal, download yourself into an ai, handwavium, Fury by Henry Kuttner, elites controlling little people, interesting what he did here, looking at it the same way, an interesting object, same territory, admire a lot of the writing, mythic event stuff, Michael Moorcock with Elric, a zoomed out quality, Sam woke up at the beginning of the book, a moment remembered by history, paintings, this was momentous, we need to document this, The Sword Of Welleran, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, a kid takes up the sword of Welleran, other statues, half an hour long, 8 hours, 350 pages, an interesting question to think about, should stories reveal character or show character growth?, the focus has swung, modern novel of science fiction, science fiction has become a setting, no character development at all, an H.G. Wells story, The Star by Arthur C. Clarke, describing the place that he’s in, not the stuff being produced today, the older stuff, you can’t be nostalgic for things 300 years before you were born, Yama, the Death God, multiple names, fighting the assassin, that entire fight was amazing, the aftermath of the fight was amazing, become Buddhist, against my new mindset or worldview, he knew he couldn’t win, profound, beautiful, good stuff, why people like this a lot, star quotes around you like, things to like a lot, oh yes, he’s doing the thing, page 239, borrow unavailable, the fresh bitten thigh of a maiden, one ought to read this subversively, if you don’t you’re a monster, I’m a Slan, no you’re not, Beggars In Spain, I’m one of the sleepless!, the enlightened one, the goddess of night, Tak the Ape, the coexistence of the animal and the divine, like Lovecraft, not the Sam part, snarkiness, smoking, in that direction, subversive, do they smoke Marlboroughs or Lucky Strikes?, treating it kinda lightly, Dick did the same, Dick is a lot like Zelazny, co-wrote a book together, a sequel to The Man In The High Castle, Dick doesn’t do series, not able to do it, super-interested in religions, writing to the Rosicrucians, instinct, too much garbage there, busy work, when you read the words of Jesus, not legends of angels, not genealogies, he never said he was a deity, perhaps some will not agree, monotheistic religions, more conducive to human value, you know who Odin is, and Thor and his brother Loki, the Marvel superheroes, the adventures they have together, they’re a lot like superheroes, The Avengers, tied up in this book in a footnote, the movie Argo, Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four, John Buscema, other artist, The New Gods, superheroes that are actually gods, instead of Vishnu and the elephant god, or the monkey god, they’re NEW gods, like aliens, when he switches to Marvel, The Eternals, too painful, why people love Roger Zelazny, the best things, massively, 24 Views Of Mt. Fuji, By Hokusai, the new five, much less complex, family oriented, very different, the prose, archaic, old fashioned, just talking to you, very familiar, the 70s, fairly direct, The Turning Wheel, eastern mysticism, eastern religion, traveling for religious purposes, controlling people, nothing good, sympathy for Jesus, he isn’t trying to sell you much, it isn’t about enriching the pockets, or putting you under thumb of someone else, harder to do today, the ability to read and read the words, the encyclical, local language, Vatican II, a good move, pro-Vatican II vs. anti-Vatican II, overall a reverence has been lost by moving it to vernacular, the posture of the priest, facing away, worshiping with us, an impersona Christi situation, South American country, the mass, people who can’t read, the magic has gone from it, a reverence for the language, Harry Potter, Our Father Who Art In Heaven, memorizing the latin, the pater noster, just sounds, a series of sounds, what the point of this is, thy will be done, they may be pretty, no intent, alluded to it, hatin on Poe, American literary critic talking to Lesley Stahl, shittin on Harry Potter, maybe it will lead to better books, go on to Hunger Games, literally better books, capable of enjoying them, take some students to go see Harry Potter movies, the spell scenes, just Latin, it sounds interesting and magical, we only partially understand, the priests in Rome doing their holy stuff, chant, music, sounds beautiful, a lot of randos, music knowledgeable, ska has no words, musical lyrics can be incredibly powerful, incredibly inane, Abba lyrics, why am I having this runaround in my head, makes you stupid, something intitally outside of you, advertizement jingles, brain colonized by Madison Avenue, The Space Merchants is a central work, Taylor Swift, numerous commentators, writes about breakups, she writes a song about it, men are horrible, Halfway to Texas, a crazy little girl, someplace new, trying to be strong, whole thing is wrong, you held me back home, this is inane, useless, if you get some benefit out it, that would be punishment, deeply grok them, too simple, lyrics do matter, Sting lyrics, stories that he tells, exceptions to be found, not everything is equal to everything else, monotheist as an improvement over polytheistic, less subject to loopholes, the definite word on this, chemistry, valances, the periodic table, its based on a reality, how they teach it in school, the supposed to be result was, you didn’t clean your test tube enough, the flame close enough, make you conform and get your marks, confidence in chemistry, metallurgy, charcoal nearby, based in a reality, actual science, macroeconomics, no progress in macroeconomics in the last 100 years, truths we won’t factor in, access to make the purse strings open or close, super-evil shit, what is my purpose here on earth, Jesus has an improvement over anybody in this book, sum up the plot of this book: this old system of the elites controlling things and pleasuring themselves – they’re evil fucks, exploiting and denying, a fantasy, an evil fantasy, it’s false, Robert J. Sawyer books, downloading yourself into a robot, make an ai sound a lot like you, chemical treatments, biofeedback, adrenochrome, it’s evil because its lies, religious trappings, people pretending, actual Hinduism, using this framework, the answer is no, the book would have hit a lot harder, a savage attack, science fantasy thing, Urth, not on Earth, uses a name for Earth, we came from this other place, what his purpose was, religions are this, nothing more than this, a really interesting take, Lord Neriti, an extremely violent dude, it’s not that Christian history doesn’t have armies in it, Sam is trying to subvert things, that Jesus speech at the end, taken into account, the words resonate, they’re powerful, back to the stupid Eternals movie, close to 3 hours or 2.5 hours, at least 10 actors, the guy with the gold arms, the guy from India, the guy from China, came to earth to stop some demons, a more positive version of this, a superhero has to fight a supervillian, fighting a bankrobber and you’re Superman, Batman has to fight an ever expanding assortment of insane people, all the horrible Marvel movies, human beings watching superheroes fighting in the sky, we become observers of these lords of immortality and bulletproofness, alien invaders, all silly and stupid, Daredevil is a little more sympathetic, maybe it’s Catholicism or lawyerness, Batman’s fairly broken, he doesn’t have, progressed to The X-Men, from an alien immortal who is invulnerable, to a guy who has no super-weapons, super-interesting, little little kid, never read comics, Green Arrow, never went to a comic shop, at the corner store spinner rack, buying paperbacks, 8 years old, when science fiction became a real thing, original Mr. Spock, Star Trek, tv guide, wake up to see that every single week, minor Star Trek novels, before that, Dolphin Island, a library in the school, an occlusion, at 8 years old, second grade, The Three Investigators, no comics, missed Robert A. Heinlein as a young person, isolated in love for science fiction, conversations in high school, a funny book, into fantasy, when Shannara started, that list of Ballantine Adult Fantasy books, craft, quality, Audio Realms, that audio version, it had music, a book on Genesis by St. Augustine, symbolism and things we lost as humanity, the Bible was our common story, a lot of them are Christians too, Marvel or Star Wars, Star Trek, see what tattoos put on themselves, money is the driving factor, should have stopped, Thunderbolts* (2025) is good, the story had an end, the end happened, Asmongold, who is that?, what is that?, skibidi toilet, these are not corporate, they might be corpratized at some point, Colbert is cancelled, The View is cancelled, on hiatus, not an audience enough for it, the advertizing revenue is drugs and health insurance?, the medium, listen to the radio, sport radio, country radio, a huge sports fans, all the stick games, all the ball games, the Cubs won, did the guy hit the ball?, The Last Inning by Nelson S. Bond, old baseball player, cut from the last team where he gets paid $5 bucks a game, wakes up in Baseball Valhalla, the games are always good, in full swing, Twilight Zone in 15 minute installments, it’s not a sport it’s a pastime, the best episode of Deep Space 9, football now has taken that over, a football game on Sunday nights, MMA, boxing, conversation at work, football is definitely king, dangerous and painful, fantasy football is huge, pickem games, bigger than any other sport, the up down thing, soccer is a bottom up thing, you can play soccer in your backyard, you don’t even need a ball, not as dangerous, basketball you need a basket, you need a rock, rocks are cheap, part of that is participatory, they played it, in the United States there’s a lot of people who really dislike it, comparative, fits American psyche, impatience, clocks, things like that, 45 minute halves, 1 to 0, why basketball is an American sport, Real Salt Lake, she is done, why do I ever want to watch this again, 3 hours of football in which no one scored, anathema, hockey with regards to soccer, a lot more dangerous than soccer, there’s fighting, NHL, a very Canadian thing, Canadian Football League, frozen lakes, see themselves represented in it, go out on the frozen lake, need a pair of skates a stick and rock, top down vs. bottom up, dressage, horse dancing, a horse, a stable, money, stableboy, saddles, riding lessons, you can’t just teach it yourself, polo, like soccer for knights, the stick is easier than the horse, a space bigger than an apartment building, common experience, could have been better had it been a short story, unless it is radically changed for this, Zelazny is a series guy, what like what we see in Amber, not 9 serfs in Amber, sword and sorcery, Brian Murphy’s favourite sword and sorcery stories, Flame And Crimson is the book, The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros, there’s a pudding, a bowl full of pudding that eats one of the guys, Robert E. Howard, Black God’s Kiss, Dragon Moon by Henry Kutter is public domain, The Tritonian Ring by L. Sprague de Camp, Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, Ill Met In Lankhmar, David Drake, Charles Saunders, Conan in Africa basically, The Shadow Kingdom, Beyond The Black River, Red Nails, Karl Edward Wagner, at this stage of life, The Tower Of The Elephant, everything comes up except for LibriVox, so fucking broken, enshittification, well done Cory Doctorow, Mike Vendetti, just recorded The Hour Of The Dragon, 3 where he’s a king, I’m a do em all, Jesse, didn’t understand copyright, he can do it and he will do it, gets enthusiastic, Sinclair Lewis, The Broken Sword, that first novel in the Elric series, the Fritz Leiber ones are not mythic, way after, the development, Fritz Leiber reads Conan in Weird Tales, him and his friend as the main characters, taking that dungeon crawl you see in some Conan storties, a team, a team-up, D&D-splaining, the party is Tolkien, they get the fellowship, warrior, another warrior, elf, dwarf, thieves, tpk’d, total party killed, only one of them is killed, Lord Dunsany stories, really cool overlay, a sphinx, that’s awesome, he doesn’t say what he’s doing, who killed chronos, The Nightmare Tarn, The Tempter by Robert E. Howard, Howard at his most philosophical, at his most attack on the deep state, the progenitor of things like They Live (1988), really solid, weird that he’s doing kings, corruption from above, his letters with Lovecraft, civilizations become corrupt and evil, leans in and says yes, they’re evil and old and we gotta suppress this knowledge, a one way influence, his Solomon Kane stories, he’s a puritan, largely adventuring in Africa, voodoo men, this is pure evil, we must go fight it, occupy sounds somebody else’s body, here take the staff of Solomon, sort of part of my religion, a mode of that, a suspicion of magic, just fakery, People Of The Black Circle, a retelling of the Marco Polo story of the Hashashim,, reading things from 1000s of years ago, 1254-1324, a certain valley to be enclosed, every variety of fruit, most elegant, all covered with gilding, he kept at his court, 12-20 years of age, tales about paradise, just as Mohammed was wont to do, some four or six, the deep sleep, the state of stupor, delightful objects, lovely damsels, in Paradise, unwilling to relinquish, commands of their master, put death by these disciplined assassins, been exposed to the emnity of the old man of the mountain, fairly familiar, still in use today, it’s the guy who tried to assassinate Trump, evil company, super-evil, people still do this, government related, lonely needs a girlfriend, an operative paid by the government, let’s go blow up a bridge, 7 people in the van, the governor of Michigan, how do we end up doing this?, ply em with money and wine, this is how we’re told suicide bombings work, arrested, Robert E. Howard did a story on this, set in Vendhya (not India), sorcery circle, his magic is largely fake, all you have to do to survive the sorcery is not believe it is legit, a different way of doing it, fireball damage, Harry Potter wand, sumin exportorum, not getting wet, you have to play along, I’m damned, if you are not a believer, it’s an alien, kind of the same story as the book we read today, stapled to a couch for 1000 years, Howard’s a lot more grounded, The Vale Of Lost Women, a god from the outer dark, an alien, it can fly, it’s not human, not a Christian, what do these stories mean, what does it mean to wrestle with gods?, nice language he’s so good at in his poetry, less toleratnt for the stuff happens fantasy novels, a long way of getting to him being interested in this subject, playing a game with himself, readable as either science fiction or fantasy, his playing the game, starships and cigarettes, him breaking that, it depends, science fiction has rivets and fantasy has trees, science fiction that is not the same, hard Science Fiction, The Cold Equations, that’s not fantasy, a philosophical piece of fiction, we have to think about technology, most of them are completely fake, a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist, a spaceship that needs fuel, bootstrapped to get to John W. Campbell’s, power like it does, you can’t just magic everything away, the reason we love Star Trek II, the reason we love Star Trek III is Katras, planning, remember, double eyelids, all well and good, that’s series shit, that’s not the part we love, we set up a mechanical style problem and think about , a really awesome thread, the problem with screen addiction is we’ve always had this problem, a dialogue by Plato, The Symposium, people have always been addicted to screens, cave walls, shadow puppets, magic lanterns, illuminated manuscripts, movie screens, talkie movie screens, just like radio now with added screen, home video game screen, cellphones with screens, picture of the guy in the cave, always has been, your body comes with built in screens, when we look at a screen, early science fiction, visiscreens, they’re looking at a television, you can see the world, submarines do not have any windows, how can you navigate without windows, actually going to build the Starship Enterprise, there’s nothing in space to look at, when a romulan ship encounters a federation ship they’re both right side up, listing, it’s all metaphor, we’re told there’s tech, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, without all the religious baggage, deaging cream, get the botox, deluding themselves, technology is the reason it’s not magic, another axis to put this on, Star Trek: New Worlds, set in space, phasers, not magical phasers, dilithium crystal, the axis of bad science fiction, each individual episode needs to be judged on its own, the giant with the giant cigar, The Doomsday Machine, Kirk can do these infodumps, the writer knows, they built a weapon so terrible, they’re gone now, how do you know that bro?, in 45 minutes, an awesome idea, it works as a metaphor, nuclear weapons, it works in every direction, it is important that Decker try to blow it up, the shuttlecraft is not the important thing?, Star Trek is coming The Tempest, from Forbidden Planet, added a secondary hull and some tubes, things that look like a transporter, operates the same way visually, imagine The Tempest is a science fiction, the no Kill I episode, The Devil In The Dark, don’t kill all the Indians, very good, Spock has another girlfriend this season, some other girl, the cartoon, is it science fiction, some of it is definitely, pick an episode, everybody’s favourite, The City On The Edge Of Forever, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, what time travel can do, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, let that lady die, hugs Bones, it’s philosophical, how time machines work, he gives an analogy, how do warp drives, bend the paper, snake oil to get to the story, if evolution is real and things go on as they are, the workers and the effete elites, that’s him making an argument, farther into the future, nothing really matters, a crab on the beach, back to earth, love is real, our time on earth together, two different things that are going on in there, three places in time, he leaves again, is he going to go see Weena again?, she ain’t that smart, not about time travel to the past, god show out of this, Lord Of Light, The Einstein Intersection, Aye, and Gomorrah…, heard about Thorns from Jonathan Weichsel, Chester Anderson, The Butterfly Kid, exists on Amazon, hippies had a new kick from outerspace, Reality Pills, pot smoking poets and musicians, lobster shaped giants from outer space, Peter S. Beagle wrote the foreword, poet, author, and musician, underground journals, new wave movement, Ray Bradbury, his good stories are good, the pirate site, Ten Years To Doomsday, reprint in 1977, an alien invasion novel, republishment, co-authored, misclassified him, probably not a book we need, a ton of fun, standing out as not having read, A Night In The Lonesome October, super-interesting, a request, he is pretty consistent, it’s pretty short, going to wikipedia or whatever, websites memorized, 31 minutes, something to pair it with, comparing the style as well as the subject, the Brian Murphy list, Eric Brighteyes, the main character, novella length, similar length to the Howard, The Barrow Troll, a comic, The City Of The Singing Flame, capital AND, Linortis Reprise, The Ship Of Ishtar, a show from 2010, podcast 091 – Oath Of Fealty, not a good book, the number one problem, 40 or 50 people, hear the idea, at least it wasn’t a huge book, Lucifer’s Hammer, Footfall, The Great Brain, ya, middle grade books, he was really smart, your Encyclopedia Brown, exist outside of Utah?, the first house to get a toilet, charge tickets, he’s gonna invite everybody over to take a shit, making fun of his own book, Salt Lake City, a Mormon thing?, how widespread is The Great Brain, famous illustrator, The Return Of The Great Brain, real books for real children, not Edgar Allan Poe, probably worth finding a copy and looking at it, at the time it was pretty exciting, who stole my wagon?, this person has motive, the two first episodes of Bookish, the setup is pretty good, asks for backstory, we don’t know each other well enough yet, viewpoint character, spinup theories, don’t trick me bro, tried to solve the mystery, setting it up, Nero Wolfe and Sherlock Holmes, who did the murder, a little to character heavy, the UK is going strange, a rebranded itv?, bathroom, save it in a jar, getting better, how am I supposed to take this book seriously?

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #868 – READALONG: Hombre by Elmore Leonard

The SFFaudio Podcast #868 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Talked about on today’s show:
why did we pick this particular one?, wanting to read, audio stack, he’s a good writer, Justified, his influence on it, the dialogue is amazing on that show, terrific, the Paul Newman movie, the audio drama, a very good story, the better story version of it, the movie, keeps almost everything that’s in the book, no voice over narration, the viewpoint character, just a camera telling the story, the editors, the moviemakers, who the character is, a kid, a lot of his internal thoughts, what he’s interested in, his lame thoughts about things, we get to see the story more purely, on the stagecoach, differences, the innkeeper lady, a little out of sequence, the end of the movie, our guy dead, our man dead, cut, he was the one we were following, top 5 Star Trek original series, a trick, some good episodes not easily nameable, which one was that, the Gorn episode, Arena, most episodes are excellent, dogs or semi-interesting, Amok time, alphabetical order, Galileo, categorizing things alphabetically, Balance Of Terror, Shore Leave, the surprise, Theodore Sturgeon, fun and funny, fantasy humour episode, which of them is Hombre?, you’re correct, who is the Hombre in the Galileo 7, a movie called Stagecoach (1939), the movie, tribute to John Wayne, black and white cowboy, a zoomup, holding his saddle, winchester, lever action rifle, to attract the attention of the stagecoach, two important parts, Terminator 2, a cowboy spinning guns thing, big iron, the plot of that movie, a little bit similar, 9 strange people, Arizona?, Apache territory, stop to pick up the hero, pre-war, post-war western, like Hombre, a revisionist western, the old fashioned western, horses, Hopalong Cassidy, post-classical, subverts the myth, less simplistic view, the main character dies at the end, not typical, western comics, Louis L’Amour, Lonesome Dove, what is this book about, John Russell, racism, hypocrisy, Mexican characters, culturally, his haircut, it is revealed to us, let me tell you about John Russell, he had many names, ideas going on in this book, he is like an Indian if he’s not an Indian, he has a conversation, when you talk about those people, you won’t eat a dog, this isn’t about his identity, scolding people, being frustrated, why does John Russell do what he does?, very tricky, good book?, very good book, a book for men or for women, female characters, prominent, picturing the movie, the movie has overpowered the book, the wife, long history of life in the west, a strong character, the best character that’s female in the movie isn’t in the book, she’s kind of the love interest for the audience, we love her, to take your date to, the other people on the stagecoach, we like the Mexican boss, we don’t hate the kid all the time, we don’t like Doctor Faver, the girl with the Apaches, liking her in the end, why is Mr. Spock the Apache, he’s the outsider, in the Galileo 7 which character is the Mexican stagecoach driver?, it’s Leonard McCoy, he’s also kind of the women, you cold blooded inhuman, it ends differently, a television show, just redshirts, Mr Scott’s there too, providing the plot happening, we have no fuel, what about the phasers, there’s always possibilities, deep story here, an Ernest Haycox short story, the outsider there is the Ringo Kid, pretty rare, Ringo Star, a long list of Ringos, don’t know or care, wears a lot of rings?, an outlaw, he’s not an Indian, it’s not a racism story, it’s a weirder old fashioned western, not to modern tastes, where the story came from a Desilu connection, Lucille Ball, Five Came Back (1939), South America, people pointing to that, semi-legit, Flight Of The Phoenix (1965), Guy De Maupassant, Boule De Suif, Ball Of Fat, a gender flipped version of Hombre, the Prussian takeover of France around 1870, 1880, this short novel, what being a man means, almost heavyhanded in the book, a flashback, Tres Hombres, fights like three men, what’s going on in people’s heads, a stratified society, it’s about class, last stagecoach out of town, it’s snowing, cold rather than heat, complete inversion, as they go over the road, characters and personalities, a prostitute, everybody has reasons for hating her, a high end guy, that guy’s wife, two nuns, a contrast of females, society person, two ugly women, she’s fat, she’s got big boobs, very kissable, the author’s preference, very hungry, a basketful of food, munching, mouth is watering, she shares it out, only one cup, become very chummy, getting along, the we are all getting along, what you talkin bout we?, inside job, stole the ticket from the soldier, really good actor in the movie, The Rifleman, as a kid, Have Gun, Will Travel, Richard Boone, such a bastard, we hate him a lot, more compressed, no inside man in this holdup, stuck in the mud, a Prussian officer, what you’ve learned, everybody hates the Prussians, honest hatred for the Prussians, why they’re leaving, the rich people want to save their money, it comes to pass, won’t let the stagecoach goes, deliver her services, because he’s a Prussian, they all turn on her, why it would make Maupassant into a famous guy, a woman’s virtue, she’s the most virtuous one amongst them, she didn’t have to leave, she genuinely doesn’t like the Prussians, property seized, my property is my business, the most steadfast, get the money and run, she is forced to give up her principles, forced by the group to have sex with the Prussian, the structure of Hombre, two indians go into a bar to have a drink, holdup men, jostles his arm, our hero shows up, hits him in the face with the butt end of his rifle, contempt is not appreciated, doesn’t recognize him as John Russell, recognizes his voice, a parallelism, eating the dogs, they’re dirty, they pick at themselves, her husband is literally starving the Indians, took a great story and turned it, a western, not set in 1899, a transition period, the stage line, the right period, it’s in the west, Arizona, occupation and privation, she implies, the women cut her hair, I’m not going to tell you what it was like when the men had me alone, what was it like?, raping her all day long, contemptuous of her former society, captives by natives, sometimes people prefer it, Dances With Wolves (1990), learns to dance with wolves, we’re pushed in either direction, what was it like, it must have been horrible, matter of fact, possibly they weren’t as horrible as all that, we are invited to speculate but we are not told, the way a Rashomon-style story works, an awe, that’s why the title is important, what do we mean by a man, he does what a man does, you people fucked this all up, probably gonna get me killed, a let’s go try and fix this story, even the Mexican stagecoach guy we like, the capable one, he saved the water, need this guy, their only hope, the pattern works the same, thinking of their station, not every piece works perfectly, until they get hungry, three wives, a bigger version of this story, the mudwagon is much smaller, ovens for their feet, the water is the resource that needs to be watched, a little bit of warmth, food and her virtue, when you read a gender flipped story, a Conanna The Barbarian movie, female barbarian, tougher than any man, males are disposable, that’s what a man does, men are more disposable, let’s go get in a car wrecked, let’s drive carefuller, send yourself out there, that’s what this story is about, that’s what makes him a man or three men, that’s why this story works, why it is such a good story, an aspect of it, the racism, the moral certainty of these people of his character, they ask him to get out of the stagecoach, the Mexican’s reaction, just ride on top, what does it matter, don’t rock the boat, our narrator kid, a former official of the company, I’m officially fired, see that man get kicked out, he doesn’t bully, he’s not a Richard Boone bully, so good, cold dead hand, the shit bullied out of him, just takes his ticket, you called me a bad name, we’re all in this together, we we we, individualism, libertarianism, the message, this is what a man is, this is what a man is like, don’t be like these other men, or is he doing it for the girl?, the right thing to do, what it is, why does he get out of the stagecoach, argued into it, no skin off his nose, just want to have coffee, the final scene in the mining area, to try to save the girl, her whole lifestyle is funded by her husband’s graft, Indian agents, not even a real doctor, a doctor of divinity, a man’s work, preventing a woman from dying, because somebody needs to do it, none of these other people are men, kill us anyway, coulda chucked the money down, they want the water too, why it is so disturbing, in 1967, a disturbing movie, the same story as Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations, suddenly convert phaser juice into fuel for your aircraft, gender flip it, made the pilot a female, he was going to visit his sister on Woden, we don’t think it a horror, a man killing a girl, it needs to be done, 7 people are more valuable than 1, the same setup, let’s grind em up in a meatgrinder, almost always men, opposition to women being sent into combat, via a draft, distanced from it, in the recent bombing of Iran one of the pilots was a woman, women can do it, the audio drama, only an hour long, keeps the narrator, summarize, set scenes, tricks to making audio drama work, the simplest way (not the best way), the movie does the best version, the movie is clearly the best, the book is good in some of the details, the way of the story being told, Maupassant doesn’t do it that way, third person omniscient narrator, that setup, where the book excels is in the dialogue, Fire In The Hole, they bought the character, two novels, this weird thing with his writing, he starts off for an idea for a story, he’s not really a story guy, he’s a character guy, Karen Sisco, Karen Makes Out, Out Of Sight, let me see how this character walks and talks, Carla Gugino, Pronto, Riding The Rap, Peter Falk, a paid researcher, more co-author than researcher, Tishomingo Blues, local dixie-mafia, high stakes civil war reenactors, Bounty Hunters, The Moonshine War, Swag, The Switch, City Primeval, Gold Coat, Freaky Deaky, Bandits, Get Shorty, Out Of Sight, imdb Elmore Leonard, a Tarantino movie, Three Ten To Yuma, invasion of Cuba, Teddy Roosevelt, A Coyote’s In The House, Westlake and Block, hand gestures vs. dialogue, more westerns of his, male confronting male, a good western, Be Cool, John Travolta, a tv show too, a gangster who moves to Hollywood, I really like movies, a sequel, fairly inconsistent, Block is the most consistent, I thought Elmore Leonard was awesome, a tough guy learning about civil war era underwear, a “farb”, The Rosary Murders, a very scott book, Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose, a Scott book, Sean Connery, a mini-series, a nod to Jorge Luis Borges, John Turturro, 8 episodes, do that book one day, a couple of weeks of prep, a short story in between, Elmore Leonard’s The Rustlers, the audiobook version, there isn’t much to say about it, it’s just good, this is Guy De Maupassant retold, Stagecoach is also Maupassant americanized, instead of switching from race to class, Airport (1970) and Airplane (1979), a train or plane full of different kinds of people who react and depend on one person, the burnt out guy from WWII has to fly the plane again, become the man, nuns who speak Jive, characters on the train, characters in a situation, The Towering Inferno (1974) is stationary, The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Hombre hits hard, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, listening to stupid people, we gotta fix this shit, buckle down don’t complain do it, the same essential core, everyone has to rely on John Wayne, he’s a criminal, everybody likes him, a similar thing in Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, High Noon (1952), Hombre the movie is more suitable for women as well, go to the used bookstore, a western section, very small, not a lot of women poring over that section, different kind of stories for us, how to be, why it is successful, a darn good story, talking about them today, the best version of the story, Paul Newman, movie star, Cool Hand Luke time, how simple the movie is, how cheap it is, couple of weeks in the desert, couple horses, no special effects, couple of squibs, fake blood, good result, he was old, he’s the guy on the salad dressing, Barbara Stanwyck, shaking people to their core, we need to have more special effects, where’s the action in this?, a punch, a jostle, hit with the butt end of a rifle, machine guns flying, literary kinda, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, not read by him?, out of print for a long time, he’s a good narrator, devoted to him Victor Bevine, Matt Godfrey, maybe it didn’t exist, all of the Amber novels, A Night In Lonesome October, why people love that book so much, the first five Amber novels, started late for public domain purposes, fantasy, sword and sorcery almost, colonizing another planet, in awe of it, world religion, Hindu gods, a Philip K. Dick novel that’s kind of similar, influence on the United States, The Divine Invasion, Linda Ronstadt, The Cosmic Puppets, Virginia, similarly oblivious, intolerant, gonna be the love interest, town drunk, too much detail, demi-gods, instead of having a spiritual journey, man’s role on earth, the nature of evil, using a different set of background assumptions, their different, born in Maryland or Virginia (near DC), he went back to the town her remembered as a child, an overlay, what if things are not as they seem, how Zelazny puts books together, smoking in Amber, self-insert, with Maupassant, he’s everyone, the moral failings of people, bizarre rationalizations, incredibly pregnant, so pregnant, the moral questioning goes in every direction, he’s really good, his novels, Bel Ami, visit the family, leave the dog, there and back long day, a movie each way, listen to an audiobook, look at the road?, book club at work, Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup, a spoof or a satire of a romantasy, a little meta, not-uninteresting, a very new book, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, last person executed in Iceland, still in development, none of these covers are good, just a bunch of fonts and floors, The Haar by David Sodergren, Three Body Problem, Project Hail Mary, Artemis, how couldn’t there be?, 21 hours, Theodore Bikel, Richard Poe is good, the problems with the audiobook are the main character narrator not the actual narrator, that’s coming up, metastuff, how long he’s been workin on the book, such a nothing character, she wouldn’t take my blanket last night, prudish vs. not prudish, slaps you in the face with somebody’s boob, so important to story, Edgar Allan Poe, a western and The Galileo Seven can be the same story, back burner.

BB - Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #865 – READALONG: A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson

The SFFaudio Podcast #865 – Jesse, Tony De Simone, and Maissa Bessada talk about A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson

Talked about on today’s show:
the last Deep Space Nine novel, Armin Shimmerman co-wrote The 34th Rule, The Laertian Gamble, Robert Sheckley, John Gregory Betancourt, Kristine Kathryn Rush, Esther Friesner, performing Quark, pinches his nose, Maissa will like this book, so right, very actoryly, an actor prepares sort of thing, how do I get into my role?, diary entries, apparently yeah, that’s the story, elements, scenes that are from the show, the way it is told, moments, backstory is the bulk of the book, after the show’s over, deep into season 7, destruction of Cardassia, his mother, Neela, episodes with her?, the housekeeper, months ago, coming, he’s the whole show, the focus of the show, steals the spotlight, great screen presence, how he got his start as a movie star?, Jeffrey Combs, Re-Animator, H.P. Lovecraft 80s movies, Brunt, Lower Decks, alternate universe Garak, delete it, there’s no such thing as a prequel to a prequel, getting the plans, what’s gonna happen next, a prequel to a prequel, fuck you with the spoilers, when the movie Alien 3 was gonna come out, walk straight into the middle of the theater, a terrible movie, fragility statements, you’re on a boat, your gonna get seasick, don’t worry about it, you can’t help them by hiding information, popular to ‘ship Garak and Bashir, neither characters are gay, Bashir is intrigued by Garak, very lonely, what’s canon, he writes Garak as bisexual, one line, the guy that he murdered later, everybody finds him attractive, palindrome, set to marry, if you were really lovers, you would have, hurt by that, happy to be close to people, that’s not really it, made lonely, closed off society, a very good deep dive on a weird society, Deep Space Nine, if it is a metaphor what is it a metaphor for?, Cardassians, TNG, Ensign Ro, in the build up of those worlds, a 1984 planet, the Obsidian Order, the occupation of Bajor, israelis occupying palestine, the occupation of Ireland by England, not a perfect match 1 to 1 for anything, all those circular conversation, all true but all lies, he built it into this backstory, his father is not his father, that girl is not his lover but she is, he’s his uncle, not just being cucked, he does love him, a man who’s raising you, the shipping thing is at its worst, at its most parodic in all the mirror universe episode, just Ezri, kissed on and kissing Kira, a lesbian in the alternate universe, Ferengi Zek, to ‘ship people, have sex with Jadzia, like a cartoon universe, not terrible trek show, more of that, in the original Trek too, episodes written by fans, The Empath, torture Spock and McCoy, interesting, but terrible, what’s going on really, not some idea they’re exploring, pick your favourite episode of Deep Space Nine, a clone of himself and he doesn’t know it, a ripoff of a great Philip K. Dick story, a sad one, Molly falls into a time hole, a ripoff of Iceman (1984), Rom bunts, declare victory, what it is actually is philosophy, pastime, recapitulation, working together as a group, so many things going on in that episode, a way to defeat the vulcans, what a great episode, kicks him off the team, doing life wrong, the heart of the show, he looks like a loser, thinks he’s cute, awkward dumb and smart, Ferengi kids, what Garak thinks about baseball, wrestling and boxing, team games, basketball and baseball, incomprehensibly inane, sent to boarding school, very similar to what the Spartans did to their children, denied enough food, denied safety, thrive or die, loses an eye, happy to have, time with their mothers, learn the war arts, have to steal, caught stealing food, learn to be resourceful and tricky, graduation, surrounding a Sparta, Helots, secretly murder, told from the Athenian point of view, apprenticeship, this class of people, the elites, the sons of the nobility, famous boarding schools, Sandhurst, rule parts of the world, John Buchan, many many such cases, abusive and fucked up and weird system, kills a bunch of Romulans, false flag, In The Pale Moonlight, the machinations behind it, evil vs. necessary, used to create that character, forced his teammate to kill himself, trained and brought up, little pet, kidnapped from its family in the desert, “Meela”, contradicts the fact, learns to blend in and disappear, essentially a chameleon, a gecko, his skin can’t change colour, the background for it, trolls, they’re more like frogs, always raining on Ferenganar, round mud huts, the Wayoun character, Odo, an uplifted species, ape-like, squirrels, living on nuts and berries, give them a gift, turned into slaves, a built in false-consciousness built into your genetic code, a little bit of blue on the spoon, did they evolve from reptiles?, possibly also bajorans, it doesn’t have to be he literally is a reptile, being reptilian, be so mean and torturey, they’re just like us, Quark is praying, a slip of latinum in the ear of the divine treasury guy, bribes the god with the coin and sneaks in with a mask later and steals it back, dark and mysterious, a great backstory that allows it, Kira’s backstory, her spiritual religion prophet stuff, all there already, the most mysterious character has the most fitting backstory, written in first person, best written, better written than most books, the actor was using this stuff to help tell the story, the sympathetic character, awful things, a real theater person, one other way of thinking about this is a one man play, 12 hours long, impressive, indulgent, paid all the receipts, his Odo is pretty good, Dabo girl trying to kill him, does Kira fine, we’re getting it from his POV, backstory is enough, is this a science fiction novel?, no it is not, a one man show set in a science fiction universe, “science fiction wallpaper”, no exploration of technologies, the wire, that episode is about it, a character focused story, a really good book, a really good exploration of how you come up with a character that’s interesting, make it fit the facts, working backwards, he had those things, how, why, referring back to the show, nicely woven, stitched up, the wholecloth of this book, where Garak is introduced, the only Cardassian on the station, nobody knows, why is he acting that way?, in continual use, he could handle the isolation and the hate, that signature smile, evil smile, hiding his feelings, pain becomes pleasure, he’s floating, a really good thing to add in, always has to reflect back of what’s on the show, a disjointment there, Sisko has sex with Jadzia, taints their relationship, lusting after Jadzia, Quark, Worf, Bashir, Kira’s after her, when she dies, Ezri is terrific, a really good character, more of a counsellor than Deanna Troi ever was, remember Barkley?, a mix of really good science fiction ideas, social ideas, what does it mean to forgive your enemies, silly episodes, Sisko thinks he’s a science fiction writer in the 1950s, the canonical stuff, what’s going on with Jake Sisko, or Nog, what a great arc Nog has, the best Star Trek show, one of the most interesting characters is Garak, Andrew Robinson, the main badguy in the first Dirty Harry movie, Clint Eastwood needs to kill him, typecast, Hellraiser movie, psycho-killer, he’s just a stage actor who likes meaty roles, tried out for Odo, Rene Auberjonois, the biggest and most interesting acting role for almost any actor, the expanded the role, interesting character, because of what he did with it, this doofus, the Rom and Leeta episode, he’s a cartoon, tries to get Vic Fontaine to take him as his opening act, making it all fit together, tailoring it, what do you do on a show like that?, build sets, sew costumes, put on a lot of makeup, can’t I be a human this episode, guest stars not wearing their makeup, interactive with the material, prescriptive, a premise, a weak one, Bashir falls with the weak boned girl, flying planet, never comes up again, she’s in a wheelchair, let’s put a blind person on the bridge, doesn’t come up that much, let’s do something a little interesting, what do they need a tailor for, bartender, replicator, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, gardener, tending the memorials, he loves his country, Family (TNG episode), after the famous Locutus of Borg, vineyard, post traumatic stress, fall down in the mud, get back to the show next week, such a rich world, soft science fiction, it is not about technology, it is about society, David Ogden Steirs is an elderly scientist, make their star better, handwavium, a program where the kill everybody after a certain age, break with his society?, not accepting euthanasia, a thing that comes up as an idea, shell shock, another name for it, drink yourself to death, awareness of this concept, the soft sciences, where is the idea in here?, there really isn’t one, what Paul called this, spaceships on the wall, robots, non-science fiction novels by Philip K. Dick, the principal is a real bitch, he just can’t say the word robot, he’s trying to understand why people are so weird, quite a personality, robot taxi drivers, please don’t stiff me on this fare, one of the weird things about Star Trek, robots, the Doctor or Vic Fontaine, sentient ais, where are you drawing the distinction, a very specific tradition, slavery, a story about slavery, replicas, sewer cleaners, not usually the best episodes, Voyager, 7 of 9, being freed, that kid she frees from the borg, you are put into a cult, the bad cardassian, is this Gul Dukat, his father died, a Pah Wraith cult on Empok Nor, obsessively sexing after Kira, kidnapped by her childhood priest, current teams plan, are you serious, this meeting will end in 15 minutes, defaults at 1, premium features, a pay system, that’s why they wanted to switch us, transistor fm, something built into Brave, short ones, a popup, distracting, something interesting, listen in 7 months to find out what it was, not happy with this system, Brave Browser, like Netscape?, Chrome, Safari, they don’t have any money like Microsoft and Google, its built in naturally, blocks up every pop-ups, no cookies, no ads, on your phone, make your life a lot better, wonderful, a system like skype, until fuckin today, a scene, going along, her childhood priest shows up on the station, spiritual development, faith and prophets, a lady on the station who’s gonna give birth to a baby, half-Gul Dukat, a miracle, tries to murder her, suicide pills, the one for him, is that a science fiction episode?, what’s going on with that, is it a miracle, a weird kind of science fiction, language as a technology, learn rhetorical and argumentation, what an ad homenim is, logical fallacies, tools to escape problems we create with language, what good writing looks like, in essay writing right now, people are using Chat GPT for the homework and their fiction novels, really good at grammar, dangling modifiers, makes writing pablum, designed to fill pages, instead of 6 words its 48, like we’re required with at work, a repository for this shit, when we go to Quark’s bar, the experience, who’s comin’ out of the holosuites, interact with people, Sisko’s dad, what’s the purpose of running that restaurant, paying customers, is it possible to have purpose without just gaining money, a journalist, get his stuff published, he lives with his dad, he would like to have some purpose, supportive of all that stuff we did get out of Garak, addicted to this tasp, Larry Niven wire, video games, you fix up an old car, the cleaning and the finding only takes seconds, 13 seconds, accomplishment, a fake car, maybe it feels real, science fiction ideas hidden in the show, how is it such a good book?, how much the worldbuilding felt real, a lived in culture and society, science fiction setting, felt real, that cartoon, its memberberries, make jokes, it is the salt vampire, over the top, are there any science fiction ideas explored in it, the characters, feels like a real lived in place, relatable stuff, do I relate to Garak, related to Boymler, that’s me, empathy for him, understand his backstory, a Jesse problem, why is this thing suck, why is this think good, the Obi Wan show, Andor’s amazing, really solid, emotional change, a reflection on reality, this is a colour revolution, post-Soviet States, to establish western style liberal democracies, Tienanmen Square, what is it exactly?, is that happening because people don’t like their system, no it isn’t happening without foreign involvement, there was a big long backstory to it, snipers were shooting at people, something bigger than it was going to be, killing people who are protesting, a functionary in the intelligence bureau, she’s good at her job, I see local corruption, become a couple, eventually he is put into position to become a spy, the best kind of revolt is one you are in charge of, stealing weapons from themselves, that’s a real phenomena, Putin is Hitler is very simple, sophisticated information, it doesn’t hurt the same way, brutally repressed, particular flag, it’s not Christianity, just good, technological stuff, historical stuff, analogous about Stalin robbing banks to fund the revolution, mostly Star Wars, cool guy with a dog friend, they get medals, they do Dambusters, a frequent argument, technically more fantasy than science fiction, because space, because aliens, split the difference, space fantasy, getting caught up in the argument, why should I invest my time in this thing, we like Garak, kinda remember them as sort of crappy, TNG ones, they were early, Picard wasn’t Picard yet, Riker wasn’t Riker yet, Data becomes a very rich character, Worf has a long career, a bad dad, didn’t even have the beard yet, didn’t have a brother who was a twin of him yet, so character based, this is good, but not science fiction, most recent attempt, a Star Trek Discovery novel, Suru, the tall alien played by Doug Jones, half the book, before the beginning of Discovery, Captain Georgiou, less interesting, it is written after, it can’t contradict anything, putting all the pieces together and filling in, James Swallow, 12 hours is too long, getting it finished in time, rushing at the end, not a bad book at all, The Tower Treasure, the Hardy Boys, the revised version, who the Hardy Boys were, a glimpse of an idea, what was the purpose, a big phenomena, let’s understand what it is, the books as a thing, why were they big?, a show with Cora, Mistress Of Mellyn, an early one, castle, nice dress, great hair, one of the windows is lit, gothic romance, a possibility, a secret there, a rich family, rich and handsome, he has a secret, life-threatening, almost never, gothics appear to have super-natural elements, traditional gothic, he’s Donald Trump, old man Jenkins, you were the tourist guide, understand adventure books, explore that, Nancy Drew, a good book, what made it good?, refining our system, a Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, What Mad Universe, The Star Mouse, pairing with a Sheckley, a non-musical version, just voice, Warm by Robert Sheckley, The Sweeper Of Loray, he can be absolutely terrific, Mindswap, fairly like a Douglas Adams novel, The Screaming Mimi, shouted out in that Lawrence Block book, Egypt, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, vampire best friend, really gaslighty, suck the blood out of everybody, really isolated, Green Tea, a monkey, a ghost monkey, A Midsummers Night’s Dream, favourite, a good one, fairy couple, the mechanicals, end of May, some rehearsals, one show in a park, midnight in the middle of summer, dusk, somewhere in July, The Nameless City, alligator people, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. by Jack London, 4 hours 30 minutes, finished by someone else, finished by Robert Fish, a society of evil ruthless killers, more than it seems, embroiled in a struggle, ethical lunatics, a year long journey, espionage, there’s a movie as well, Jack London stan, how can you live your life, To Build A Fire, White Fang, The Call Of The Wild, he dies and the dog lives, poor you, he’s old, the biggest thoughts, Cardassian society, parallels in reality, they really pressure their citizens to cover up all their emotions and hide their true selves, an anti-emotional society, frightened of intimacy, is our society becoming more like that, way less disciplined, not a lot of room fore leisure, he likes poetry, a poet he likes, you’re not supposed to share yourself with other people, people running society, more individuals as opposed to a societal phenomena, the opposite problem, more like the 1950s, the model is something like Nineteen Eighty Four, The Giver by Lois Lowry, the influence of girls, girls have a lot more power than they did, a book told from a dude’s pov, not flamboyant, not gay at all, 2 or 3 women really shaped him, chronologically, they got together after, that childhood trauma, distant from his mom, made him open up and then cut him off, better prepared for the Bajoran lady, open to them, more information about Garak, this book doesn’t lend itself to subversive reading, Bashir is a funny character, a pussyhound, the friend of O’Brien, best friends, the saddest relationship on Deep Space Nine, meme of O’Brien’s wife, no Miles I’m doing this, playing in the holodeck with his friend, Garak doesn’t have lunch with Bashir anymore, spy on the holodeck episode, Bashir shot him, he made a point of talking about that episode, the actress playing Ezri Dax, the old character, looks like she’s 6, Garak needs to keep cracking the codes, he can’t, keeps having panic attacks, seems to fix him for a minute, the spy codes, really what’s underneath it all, helping to kill his own people, really nice layering, the bumbling way Ezri seems to work, tell you a story about myself, in this other story something that will help you, here’s a story, hardwired for stories, dogs and cats wish they could, skills, a twitter video of dogs communicating, things are poisoned, almost a story, really fun, break all your legs, Cinnamon Sam has been listening, a tabby point Siamese, years ago, caught by accident, Coleman, cats don’t know how to spell, Lexy Lou, cranky, joints are painful, not running around like you wanna be, fairly young, cat traps, not indoor outdoor cats, a stray, that’s the problem, worry so much, dangers out there, getting emotional, a real bad snowstorm, no snowstorms in the summer, cars and other animals and other people, pillow, get Brave going, Brave will make your life a lot better, proper episodes, October 2024, two random songs, Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-Precious Stones by Samuel Delaney, David Agranoff, Alice In Wonderland, expanded on things and made changes, Through the Looking-Glass, Libsyn, a big job, we did The Tempest, Forbidden Planet, like an episode of Star Trek, Julie Taymor film adaptation, the gender swap makes no sense, the main character is a wizard, gave up his dukedom to his brother, a rowboat and a bunch of books, the daughter has never seen a man before, Miranda, Caliban is male, never gonna use this for podcasts again, lame ass service, Brave for Mac?, it makes no sense, what’s the purpose of a gender swap?, wanted Helen Mirren in the movie, Lady MacBeth, the Derek Jarmin version, Prospero’s Books, very artsy, you have to cut out a bunch of stuff, so much comedy in his stuff, the one with Iago, Othello, Julius Caesar, his last play, The Taming Of The Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, “the induction”, basically a drunk bum, coming back from a hunt, pretend he’s just woken up from a coma, call him by my name, won’t that be funny?, the play proper is the thing they put on for him as a show, a framing device, MacBeth or Hamlet, act in a suspicious way, the whole thing is farce, a world within a world, what’s going on In The Taming Of The Shrew, that way she’ll marry me, I hate you, what I’m hearing is you love me, becomes tamed, bitter from previous treatment, spite everybody, nobody can marry Bianca, couple who wanna get married, superfun, super funny, Shakespeare’s the best, the other playwrights of his period, Richard III, overlay WWI on it, but for what purpose, the Kenneth Branagh version, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet with Mel Gibson, edgier movies, Romeo + Juliet, cut out a lot of Shakespeare to do it that way, no sets, classrooms, a headache, at home, Franco Zeffirelli version, just reading the text is the best version, the score, a filmscore composer, create more textures, big themes, house music, Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), Hans Zimmer, hypnotic, Danny Elfman scores, John Carpenter, Mr Jim Moon and his Hypnogoria podcast, not on twitter anymore, his own synth, original music, music, it is rare, dialogue over music, it doesn’t usually work, mix it just right, distracting, that’s why people do it, because it is distracting, bad sound quality hidden by music, music over dialogue on tv shows, the music will have lyrics over the conversation, fuck off, make a snap decision, not investing any of my time in this, the signs, a good movie experience, you’re paying your $20 for everything in life, one of the greatest writers from the United States ever vs. something new maybe written with ai, a good amount of science fiction short stories, rival invisible men, the transparent route, the camouflage route, a tennis match back and forth, he bought that idea from a friend, he can turn it into something amazing, a science fiction course, undergraduate time, The Science Fiction Research Association anthology, university of Charleston, Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, The Machine Stops, [Scott Miller], PDF Page, really consistent, 3 times a week, used to be a newscaster, retired to Costa Rica, records all day long, Don Congdon and Associates, they’re not interested in reality, they’re interested in making money, automated, they don’t have actual people because that would cost money, host your own stuff if you don’t want to be deleted, difficulty with YouTube copyright for posting their own music, products put on there, when you go to YouTube, Tubi, google TV, ad free youtube, adds enrage Jesse, nobody else seems to care, used to them and desensitized, become enraged, find a way, tune them out, into the background, two things, youtube only cares whether their ads are put on their service, the advertiser really wants you to pay attention, suggestive and adult content, just as bad or worse in the ads, boobs or something, sexual content, Saberspark, animation, mobile games, happens a lot, set up systems to deal with people complauning, the removal of the headphone jack, the removal of the dislike count, me at a restaurant feeding you food, anything from the menu, break into the kitchen and see, don’t be involved in a system that disrespect you or is trying to fuck you, theoretically a student, getting involved, passed away, Phil Fox from Myrtle Beach, a very creative person, make the time to have the thing, then you’ll have it, how does it help him, coffee for this kid, see you on twitter.

A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson

Posted by Jesse Willis