The SFFaudio Podcast #736 – READALONG: Blaze by Stephen King

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Blaze by Stephen King.

Talked about on today’s show:
Richard Bachman, the intro and/or an interview, 170 pages and rewriting the first 100, a lost book, kind of a cool story, the least interesting Bachman books, the original when he dies, 300 years later, they’re going to find that the book is radically different, Thinner, Stephen King wrote that book and not Bachman, the reason he was outed, it was easy for people to tell, 8 hours 15 minutes, Ron Mclarty, obvious it was written by Stephen King, so pessimistic, gangsters, Roadwork, optimism in the novels, 35 years, 1972/73, 2007, Rage, The Long Walk, The Running Man, the things that he’s done to make it updated are very odd, The Smurfs, the updated version of The Stand, when a new Donald Westlake book comes out, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, updating the dates, the estate doing it, adding in cut pages, it’s inconsistent, the world seems of the 1970s, what year is it set?, set in the present day, all the profits from this book are going to a charity, sad house for boys, rich guy who wants to do good, Hard Case Crime, they don’t pay on time, maybe he cares?, why does he have to update it?, he needs to update it, something changed, salvageable material here, saleable, contemporary radio announcements, to make it more present, orphanages, the backstory vs. the frontstory, the present vs. the past, a fifty year gap, a kidnapping plot, Child Heist by Richard Stark, Jimmy The Kid by Donald E. Westlake, Parker, Dortmunder, Stark does the dark, Dortmunder finds a novel, follow this recipe, George created the plan, Blaze fulfilling the plan, the old Richard Bachman vs. the new Richard Bachman, redeeming Blaze, he loves the kid at the end, good question, very King, he almost kills the kid a few times, Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck, is it supernatural?, his son is smart, he shines, he’s actually not dumb, he’s been convinced he’s dumb, Charlie from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, George is the superego, don’t masturbate, displayed intelligence, there’s a wisdom in wash your hands, he’s not retarded, he’s just slow, bad at math, the hand of Stephen King vs. the original hand of Richard Bachman, he gives his full name, slow vs. stupid, why did he do that, you wanna get caught, raising the kid, keeping the money, going to someplace warm, we’re going to Disneyland!, that marketing phrase didn’t exist in the 70s, a much grittier book, afraid to think about it, the kid dies, the rewrite that saves the kid, comparing it to Mice and Men, George kills Lenny, too damaging to rabbits and ladies, he doesn’t know his own strength, the dustbowl, hobos, interesting characters, this only exists because of the rewrite, page 49, a pile of newspapers, raged about the redneck republicans, the republicans hated poor people, that goddamn wet in the Whitehouse, page 160, dumb shit, the republican national committee, page 125, a republican senator who had taken a bribe, 173, rich asshole republican millionaires, page 161, replacement republican, fuck those rich republicans, page 80, how the republicans fuck the poor, fat stupid republicans, “right wing”, who are we supposed to root for, we feel sorry for Blaze, he can’t be doing it to help the story, throw in HIV, the feeling is still in the 70s, the whole counter-culture narrative, hippies vs. the man, no need to think too much about it, he couldn’t resist, it doesn’t help the book, at the end of the book, the baby name, another junior, a cut on his forehead, forehead damage, trying to make some connections between fathers and sons, how a state raises a child, what we should do, what we should think, this little baby’s not going to have a scar, Blaze is snuffed out, especially for Lenny, if the town gets to him, Lenny is dangerous, societal problems, Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester, a disabled person, George tells him so, he’s sympathetic to the kid, raise him right, he’s incapable of it, this book’s message is unclear, he’s doing it AGAIN, a recurrent drumbeat, the politicians are taking bribes, campaigning for the Democrats, he can’t help himself, organized crime, in the machine, more cynical, zone out that stuff, like the boobs in Philip K. Dick, it has a woman therefore it has boobs, this is a tremendous tragedy, social programs, the orphanage, the schools, the prison programs, Bluenote the farmer, very Bachman, our institutions no longer function, that’s how capitalism works, The Running Man, why the society broke down, the best part of the book, at the local town meeting, they’re having sex!, it’s consensual, stealing stuff, leads to babies like Blaze, good upstanding Republicans, don’t beat your children, I’m going to take you on, not being a kidnapper, stealing sweaters, kidnapping is wrong, Bluenote is actively trying to fix society, his lecture about capitalism, the god of this book kills him off, direct message, The Philosophy Of Stephen King, positive reviews, of course, 50% is Dark Tower content, 25% shining related, nothing about IT, big into philosophy, the philosophy of Donald E. Westlake, in setting patterns, in some certain details, resignation is a kind of philosophy, how to be an individual within a society, Bluenote is the most Stephen King like character in the book, he kills him, why?, Bachman writing the story, in the end, a tragedy, if Blaze had stuck on the farm, his adopted son, a nice spot at the table, the farm supervisor, no poker, he’d be good at it too, that closes that door to Blaze, for this book to exist, to have him go down the path, wrong ideas in the history of humanity, evolution is a ladder, evolution is a bush, technology is progress, trying to make things less worse for some sometimes, what went wrong?, no social programs for people like Lenny, full of social programs!, you can’t own this kid anymore, send me a picture of you, major tragedy, trying to get his shit together, if I can get that money, a big hammock for me, a little hammock for him, the stereotype of the Democratic answer: throw money at welfare queens, he kills off the characters he can’t fix, an inheritor of capital, that Lovecraft trope that Evan identified, hide the past, kinda bleak, mostly right, King would have been better off, Bachman is dead, The Regulators is basically a King book, he shouldn’t have rewritten it, he should have published it with Hard Case Crime, a very 70s book, ever cover is shit, Blaze carrying the kid, the girl in the blueberry fields getting fucked, the saleswoman at the baby store, he’s fucked up this book, break into the university library and make a photocopy, more authentic, this feels inauthentic, because it was a Bachman books, more short stories, very brutal, very Bachman, what does that society mean, an allegory for life, not my life, live longer than me or not, it’s horrible, almost too easy, a baby being spoonfed, we don’t feel like Blaze is wrong, he kills the dog, he kills the old lady, when he kills the FBI agent, a movie agent, play up the FBI angle, the George angle, supernatural, the movie of Thinner, a gypsy curse, curses the lawyers, nice body horror, lizard skin, fuck you man, they meet with him, pass the curse on to someone else, cursed cake, fuck it I’ll eat the pie too, a bleak ending, Friday The Thirteenth: The Series, Red Letter Media on Creepshow and Creepshow 2, Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen, The Raft, a very different thing than a novel, for an anthology series, a Twilight Zone with a harder edge, isn’t that strange, isn’t that a reversal, the worst part of The Mist, the religious lady, King’s point, we can’t actually get along, but is he wrong?, in The Stand too, once the government is gone we’re all going to kill each other, ruined for King by Bachman, The Running Man, They Live (1988), a politically active story with a solution to the problem, operating on instinct, George is an inconsistent character, when he’s a ghost, kill the kid, I don’t want what Bachman wrote, George is not mean to the kid, George is a different kind of dumb, what can you do?, this book offers no solutions, one of those Fugitive movies, he was innocent the whole time, I don’t care that you’re not guilty, Blaze goes to the paupers field, his kid is gonna be a football player, very dissatisfying, Stephen Kinged out, Fairy Tale, the pictures, the reviews are quite good, not very many good reviews, Pauline Kael, what Evan is doing on his podcast, a bunch of theories, what exactly is Evan doing, reviewing vs. writing a review, this podcast is not a review podcast, a two hour discussion of a book is not a review, some amazing insights, It is too long, The Stand is longer, 7 books, 4000 pages, an investment of time and energy, another one like Revival, it dug pretty deep, Firestarter, a daddy daughter adventure, the mom’s dead, kinda sweet, The Night Flier, The Mist, Rage, Roadwork, Revival, Everything’s Eventual, Danse Macabre, the big house book: The Shining, Pet Semetary, 90s stuff, playing with ideas, before he was injured, high concept stuff, Dolores Claiborne, Bag Of Bones, his twitter account, people he’s following, he doesn’t follow many people, defunct TV shows, using twitter as a way of journaling and sending messaging, you can’t read that many things, what does it really even mean, Stephen King plays Bachman on Sons Of Anarchy, he’s the cleaner, 80s preferably, he’s a cool motorcycle man, fun character fun scene, off the air for years, he’s not interacting with probably half the people he would see, people who tweet at him, is it not a bubble, Jesse is in a bubble, 24/7 interested in rescue animals, desert running, 10,000 or more following, 10,000 or more followers, dog about to be put down send money now, actively trying to save the world of rescue dogs, vote and give money to charity, clearly what Jesse is doing is not solving it either, drink more beer, smoke less cigarettes, in the genre space and as a person, sentimental and squishy, fun fact, very disciplined, eating less is hard, other sins, Evan found food kinda boring, half Polish and Ukrainian, cautiously exploring the food of Vietnam, how was it Paul, [TIME TRAVEL HAPPENS], the changes didn’t help, what Smurfs?, an issue with King, Cell, engaging with the ideas of cellphones, stupid but kind of interesting, Samuel Jackson, a zombie movie with cellphones, transmit the virus by having a phonecall with somebody, a new collective consciousness, a science fictiony idea, no tech, a payphone, he fucked this book up, he’s gonna wait five years, I can fix Rage, I can fix the school shooting book, he can’t fix that book, a pretty funny project, make Stephen King fix rage, Misery, Cujo, I’m going to break your legs unless you fix Rage, I need sequels, writer friends, writers being threatened by fandom, Misery is pretty good, the captivity and the torture he endures awakens creativity, a very meta book, hardcover Misery, a Hard Case Crime, there’s life in this character, if you bully the author enough, appreciated, send Evan an email, a genuine listener to Evan’s actual podcast, a quiet listener, a year of Mark Twain coming up, a total Mark Twain readthrough, 7 or 8 volumes, Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet, regular time, a [Larry] Niven story, a political point about the lefties, Stephen King and Larry Niven should write a book, the Dungeon series created by Philip Jose Farmer, he can’t even write with himself, Bachman’s dead, Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, The Many Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Skull by Philip K. Dick, jetlagged and no wifi, The Story Of Civilization, the origin of capitalism, Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard, Prince Alberic And The Snake Lady, Bartleby The Scrivener, Black House by Peter Straub and Stephen King, to honour him, Ghost Story, they’re all 22 hours, he bulked it up, thin volumes, writing in the modes of [James M.] Cain, [Jim] Thompson, and [Richard] Stark, Wisconsin people like long books, Sinclair Lewis, highest per hundred person presence of bars, not a lot to Wisconsin, man, the scenery, the longest most brilliant books of the 70s, August Derleth, Robert Bloch, is Joe Hill the baby in this book?, literally the kid in Creepshow, Cabinet Of Curiosities, like an issue of Weird Tales, the new you skin, a horror story for girls, body horror, she kills her supportive husband, so bleak and dark, based on a webcomic, the Lovecraft adaptations, the Pickman, Popeye’s accent, they fucked it up, The Dreams In The Witch House, a bad choice, Gilman, The Graveyard Rats, The Hound, the practical effects, relies on CGI, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, necromancer, cliche Lovecraft, they’re all period pieces, Lot 36, a new star even tho he’s old, Tim Blake Nelson, a Cohen Brothers actor, Watchmen, punished, traditional, The Autopsy, Michael Shea, infodump is bad, exposition is good, The Outside, a comedy, so gruesome, morally disturbing, putting the goop on, The Murmuring, The Walking Dead, The Viewing, a 70s period piece, how big Black Mirror was, two stories from Weird Tales, movie based horror, weird fiction, the whole point of the weird, Lovecraft [isn’t] a horror writer, a science fiction writer, a good example of weird fiction example, the relationship between students, “Dicky”, a class based thing, an age based thing, the colloquial language, “dropped him”, Arkham, the subways, Boston, Salem, that annoying plot, the immigrant woman, her families heirlooms, cliche end, EC Comics is not weird fiction, a realm of knowledge beyond you, the way it was done, the hopping never pays off, NOTHING, focusing on the can of TAB, bad direction, bad editing, a prisoner in Vietnam, the class analysis was fucking awful, this guy is racist so he should die, listening to right wing radio, hate listening, “right on”, we’re supposed to hate this guy, after that monster kills him, the whole thrust of this story is to see a deplorable destroyed, having debts, spite, selling him lots on the sly, he’s punished for being an asshole, in a Lovecraft story, punished for his ancestors, Jesse is politicizing the story, they had the same problem, physically attacked for debts they owe, a gambling problem, David Hewlett, this is very cool, most people wouldn’t do it that way, chopping up rabbits, I’m glad I’m not a woman, try to appreciate it, Brown Jenkin, underrated masterpiece, see you in two weeks, don’t disturb me.

Blaze by Stephen King

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The SFFaudio Podcast #732 – READALONG: Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Alex (pulpcovers) and Cora Buhlert talk about Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel

Talked about on today’s show:
Audiobooksnow.com, 500 other websites after Audible and Downpour that sell audiobooks, this books exists only out in the world outside of Audible and Downpour, Brian K. Fitzgibbon, the story itself is , foliage, otherwise a good narration, the ultimate book, a hard intro, all of the negative stereotypes of pulp science fiction, Planet Stories, not the literary science fiction, the luridist, fairly strong, this is fun, this is good, it fell apart, the middle doesn’t make a lot of sense, the ending is good, extending psychedelic floating, pregnant at the end, twins, this woman raped him while he was in the bacta tank, when Luke is in the bacta tank, Mark Hamill had had a car accident, injuries explained away, hand chopped off twice, disabled protagonist, crippled is offensive, a pain in your phantom arm, Gil Hamilton, a crippled protagonist, disabled war veterans, missing a hand, a scarred face, a blind eye, a missing eye, a plus for the story, three strong female characters (two of them are the same), he’d been betrayed by his fiance, clearly a villain from the beginning, a good setup for a story, mid-20th century telepathy, not a good exploration of the topic, monkey squirrel lemur thing, also telepathic, something out of 1980s kid’s cartoon, would make a great cartoon, should be adapted as a cartoon, a pretty cracking story, gets his abilities, it would be better if he didn’t have abilities, I’m the best telepathy, immune to telepathy, who’s on the cover, a scene from the story, Allen Anderson reusing the same image, lady with a sword over her head, also a Leigh Brackett cover, Black Amazon Of Mars, an axe, grey lumpy things, he’s not disabled, he has two arms (one is hidden), it is Crasna, but she’s a redhead, the interior art, the vat scene, the lavender liquid, his girlfriend Margaret getting all stabby, cutting off all of his thumb, lost in the mist, missing an arm, very accurate, page 25 art, totally missing an arm there, a scratch across his face, with a savage bellow, the pasty gray features, sluggishly back, prostrate form, soundlessly, a blue black fluid gushed from the wound, Erik Fennel is not a famous person, as Planet Stories pulpy as Jesse has read, a Gardner F. Fox, returning to Mars, returning to Barsoom, a portal fantasy, very Edgar Rice Burroughs, he’s an inventor, The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein, time travel, freezes himself, she’s much older, she’s fat, she’s been drained of sasso, very Lovecraft, Dwellers In The Mirage by A. Merritt, vikings at the north pole, squid god eating virgins, pregnant ladies are delicious, his source for the material, monolimbed, monohanded, blood gushin out of him, repainted by Anderson, Sargasso Of Lost Starships, Bettie Page haircut, yellow foil-age, a little blue city, under the text, what do you think, people talking about sensitivity readers (both pro and con), a panel of sensitivity readers, some subject they’re not an expert in, Chinese and something else (maybe Vietnamese), an expert on Japan, makes sense, a double amputee, bloody offensive, bipolar is not the same thing as an amputee, probably pretty different, gay and a minority skin colour, the writer, an expert witness, a thinking chain that’s not encumbent with the title “sensitivity reader”, immensively important to the book, not collaboration, later Elmore Leonard novels, his 90s stuff, getting up there, he had a professional researcher, professional diving, interesting facts, wow that’s amazing, it really sucked, the dialogue was the same, you could see the hands of the researcher’s work, the particular setting, civil war reenactors, “farbs”, modern underwear underneath, bringing a zippo lighter to the battlefield, hanging out with those guys as a first person person vs. having your researcher do it for you a year before you, that’s the difference, a real sense of place, a real sense of dialogue, he knows the places and he knows the cultures, this is actually why sensitivity readers are working, writing about stuff they don’t know anything about, a researcher magic wand, like Wikipedia, an inkling about something about something, Erik Fennel was disabled, an engineer, an inventor, Fall 1947, Beneath The Red World’s Crust, a dude with a blaster and a dagger on his hip, holding a blonde, blue aliens, a rocketship, a vampire bat, P.S. Feature Flash, Atavism, during a childhood spent barefoot in Hawaii, prehensile toes, Eve and Lilith, the dog insists, a propeller, 2:47 am, a model-T sparkplug, molten lead and cold water, just short of atomic, studying co-eds, Heath Parasol, a kitbuilt aircraft, a truck driver, bootlegger’s assistant, riding the rods, amateur boxer/goat wrangler, structural steel work, born without a fear of heights, one day there was a very nasty mess, a retread job in my skull, 4F, arrested development, Science And Invention, Hugo Gernsback, a housetrailer, a portable basement, used oil wells, deep auto-hypnotic research, the editor of Galaxy [Planet Stories], Nichevo, Russian for what can you do?, that’s how it is!, makes you like the story more, makes you like the art more, the art informs the story, the art of the writing, texts should stand on their own (but also they don’t), everything is connected to other things, give a kid Shakespeare, another essay from 1950, utopianism, Nobody Wants Utopia, Science Fantasy Review, Winter 1949-1950, the slave system they have, zombies, they treat them, they give them the pill, a culture that has declined, the superiors had roads, there were always two races, more primitive people, benevolent, H.P. Lovecraft with Zealia Bishop, The Mound, an underworld utopia, the closed world, creating a setting, the author insert returns to it at the end, I’m going home, she’s having my babies, genocide these poor people, kill orcs because they are elves turned by Sauron thinking, utopia, dry and hot summers, cold winters, he’s given himself a fantasy world, he chooses to go back into the fantasy, helpful to understanding the story, it’s a real lump, The Goddess Of Atvatabar, mental powers, they create an island, that happens in this too, a Leigh Brackett, The Moon That Vanished, mental powers, lost in their fantasy world, suicidal drug addict, picturing his girlfriend, he grabs the other woman, quite a common theme, also Inception (2010), WWII, trailer, not super-negative, creation of a world inside of a story, roads and a car, he’s an engineers, mid-20th century engineers knew everything, that fantastic power is the power to be a writer for Planet Stories, a product of it being a longer piece for a magazine that cranks out a lot of pulp, not a classic, snap up the IP, the She-Ra: Princess Of Power cartoon, a planet besieged by aliens, drains of energy, rebels lead by a brave woman, twins, Hordak, not impossible, why you can’t read anything out of context, all the Shakespeare plays are historical pieces, the pulp, Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, inform, time spent looking for the literary roots of Indiana Jones, drawn from the vibes, a smell, an aesthetic, the suspension bridge, cliffhanger, quite literally, movie serials, magazine serials, wait 30 years, not inspired by the original sources, the new Andor series, notably good, a guy on a planet trying to find his sister, mall cops, corporate security, too much content, there’s way too much stuff, its very hard to know if anything is good, everything is lying to you all the time, they’re all being gamed, people mention things in twitter threads, increasingly required to ask, I can’t watch all of that, not all of them have the same taste, big long reviews, consumer reviews, you have to dig, drowned out, ignored, the latest thing, a culture war fight, American Gigolo, The Punisher, how can I know if it is good?, it’s exactly what you’re interested in, lot’s of airships, bread and butter cop dramas, cartoon dinosaur show, periphery, The Rogues In The House podcast, this is great, our serious problem, an experiment today, too deep into the story, not the ideal story to start their pulp fiction experience, Robert E. Howard, some Leigh Bracketts, C.L. Moores, higher quality pulp, this isn’t that bad, Werewile Of The Crystal Crypt by Gardner F. Fox, they all look down at Planet Stories, bad stories in Astounding Science Fiction, mid to low level Planet Stories, mediocre Weird Tales is entertaining, The Ghost Table, fun adventure, fast paced, what we got, a slower pace in the middle, lots of action, what if the speed of light changed by 3 percent?, what bad Astounding often looked like, bound charges, almost skipable, if your assignment was to fix this story, spend a lot less time recovering, three months later, drama, go with the interesting opening, lay around a little less, more time with the badguys, she’s a bad girl but a lot of fun, more from Victor’s point of view, Margaret’s catspaw, boy toy, Sin and Wor, very subtle, on the nose, Axis and Allies, written in reverse, Matson, Sasso, a fad dance from the 1950s, The Wizard Of Wor, Wor’s military tunic, Faith, Elvedon, a pocket universe, The Elf-Trap by Francis Stevens, a tradition he’s slipping into, Stanley G. Weinbaum, there’s no rocket ship, it is a portal fantasy, transports him to a world, closed worlds, thin world, like Cthulhu worshipers, A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, the lavender liquid, that sloshing, some kind of acid, absorbs their energy, a convoluted system, as a priestess, all the best cults are sex cults, Superiors, the gross gray bodies, they utterly refused to remain dead, lacking sufficient converts, Faith, Superiors, the hunted folk, thought was a tangible force, a stand in for the author, more things cut off, will the wall to light, a wish-fulfillment fantasy world, maybe we have to genocide these monsters, the little lemur guy, weak, but not that bad, the connection, Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books, what’s the scene that Paul and Cora don’t like, leprosy, white gold wedding ring, his rape daughter shows up, not real, absolutely annoying, he’s also a whiner, extremely unlikable, he doesn’t think any of it is real, half excuses the whole thing, The Gap Into Conflict, space opera, blink drives, The Real Story, an asteroid miner, roll a d100, turn people into remote control zombies, policewoman, he’s not supposed to be the hero, very gritty, well told, incorporating other people’s researches, what they’re thinking about, writing is thinking, he’s not a raw power, perfectly serviceable, problems selling, Chinese Filipino, Hawaii, that experience is his experience, a story that hasn’t sold yet, he blames that on gatekeepers of editors, half-naked, Valeria, Dark Agnes, Jirel of Joiry, Farnsworth Wright, he never got really old, oh, it’s a Howard story!, non-white protagonist, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, thalidomide, magically healed, he lies around a lot, to hide his superpower, his mind is broken, the cover does not participate in LegCling, whips, a chain whip, BrassBra hashtag, just assumed, clinging gowns, a lot of nudity, a lot of sex, disabled sex, sex orgy cult, remarkably horny, more explicit, is it less horny when it is explicit?, a shudder pulp story, the ultimate shudder pulp, the covers and the titles, the story premises, Lovecraft plus sex and humiliation and racism, Dime Mystery, not easy to find, they didn’t sell well, pricey, The Spider, the lurid stuff, Terror Tales, E. Hoffman Price, there must be something in there, the pinnacle of the shudder pulp, still fun, unique, a little lemur thing and whips, lavender acid, revealing something, Genndy Tartakovsky, a Planet Stories animated series, you’re doing Heavy Metal, technothriller science fictiony compared to this, The Rocketeer (1981), why aren’t we having more like The Rocketeer, Batman (1989), The Shadow (1994), The Phantom, Dick Tracy, Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, 4 hours, read by Evan Lampe, the back cover, they worshiped nature in the raw, scathing novel, where she came from, swim or subathe unclad, so lovely, so innocent, began to love nature a little too passionately, a she-devil had entered paradise, her own glorious body, having sex with a tree, a tree fucking contest, Germans love their nudity, naturalists, nature worship, airbathing, skyclad, a nudist beach, of course I looked, Wreck Beach, the communist had no clothes they were so poor!, they saved them for the winter, they weren’t wearing a wire, Evan Lampe: “it’s a good book”, Evan’s female voice, not a Paul book, Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake, The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard, Roger Zelazny, Blaze, Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet, Innocents Abroad, Grave Descend, sell Easy Go to Alex, in Egypt, the last tomb, scam archaeologists, a heist story, a really great sense of place, written by someone who’s been there, Greece, Amsterdam, nice and short, Topkapi (1964), Korean War vet captains, journalist/writer, especially him, a very solid very readable book, very impressed by early Michael Crichton, he’s no Erik Fennel, write to the market, slim volumes, 160 page books vs. 700 page books, mainstream thrillers, measured by inches or by weight, Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens, Vietnam, communing with the communists, a communist wedding, a half communist wedding, salvage, communist babies, The Thrill Book, after inhaling a grey dust, totalitarian Philadelphia, perhaps the first science fantasy to use parallel time track, dated and old fashioned, parallel worlds, one of the classics of early pulp, cynical anti-authoritarian, a fine anticipation of Philip K. Dick, stand in for the expertise, Fran Wilde and Chuck Wendig, definitely not a communist book reading, cool name, the cheese, a big city, skyscrapers exploding, school atlas, natural resource cards, coal and steel, pre-internet, Benjamin Franklin was president (of Pennsylvania), not a fake job, the supreme executive council, Rocky Balboa, a good writer, violent American trash, Rocky (1976), Rambo and Conan, a very good movie, he’s got heart, Carl Weathers, Dolph Lundgren, the cartoon aspect of it, this super-genius, Red Scorpion (1988), Masters Of The Universe (1987), not The Punisher (1989), Rocky IV (1985) was his best movie, Universal Soldier (1992), The Expendables movies, airplanes, Jet Li, riffs on their Hollywood personalities, speaking six languages, they’re making fun of the fact, tall and apparently smart and handsome he did very badly, Bloodsport (1988), not really a great actor, Schwarzenegger is charismatic on screen, they didn’t have the budget, Soviet Rambo, an American production, the first half of Red Dawn (1984), The Death Of Stalin (2017), American Ninja (1985), The Delta Force (1986), Iron Eagle (1986), she doesn’t understand what a podcast is, needs to grok, you don’t have to do the show nude.

Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel - cover art by ALLEN ANDERSON

Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel - ILLUSTRATION

Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #731 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey


The SFFaudio Podcast #731 – Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey – read by Thomas Rose for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (3 hours 20 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Tony De Simone.

Talked about on today’s show:
a short novel, half of an ace double or a maga books double, on LibriVox, The Sky Is Falling, aces are Dos y Dos, children don’t even what a paperbook is, two books in one, the Tor doubles, a better gimmick, a problem for shelving, two covers, makes the book shorter, written pretty quickly, science fiction vs. quasi-fantasy, a three hour drag, a one hour drag, the topic is interesting and topical for today, interesting worldbuilding, the role of government and quasi-government entities, Heinleins, people on Mars, the inexplicable girl falls for him (she’s his wife!), she falls for him all over again, a terrible harridan, they like each other again, I don’t hate you anymore, a strict bossy or belligerent old woman, Ethel Merman, is that how she is?, Doc Feldman, negative character traits, a perception thing, the mores of the time, the pattern, write women this way, let’s examine, a caduceus on the sidewalk, he’s a bum, fifty cents, 2100, generous, he’s bitter, the reason that all happened, a flashback to a weird hunting incident, accidentally shoots himself in the chest, very suspicious, a mechanism to defrock him, the ethics, sustained in practice, politics, a corrupt union, anti-union sentiment?, if you’re not super-rich, define our terms, if you have six houses…, the .1 percent, get on your plane and fly, the outcomes are worse, is that the fault of the medical lobby?, in our reality, the drug lobby, the American Medical Association, a medical doctor, practicing medicine, herbalists, surgery, my kidney really hurts, charged with a crime, laws being weaponized, abortion clinics, restrict abortion, it’s not in the book, anti-union?, thinking of it as a union?, the lobbies, the most interesting parts of this book, it’s the world building, a story set in that world, the idea of a frontier and having had a history where two big lobbies control the United States, the space lobby and the medical lobby, other lobbies, the PR lobby, is there a public relations union?, admit members, the U.S. Bar Association, guild, being anti-guild, Del Rey excoriates, stuff on the ship, getting radiated, terrible for society, the name of the book, a badge mentioned, he’s had his badge taken away, his badge is being a pariah, a grey suit, he had to have taken it with his ticket, sloppy writing, a sloppy suicide scene, notoriously a fast writer, Space Pariah, a stupid title, an interesting place to search, a free-floating phrase, did something dishonorable, a badge of infamy, freedom is heady stuff, you can’t acquire a taste for it second hand, anti-authoritarian, afraid of the tyranny of the bureaucracy, a negative effect on the world, why did he try to kill himself?, against the policy of the lobbies, being encroached upon, you have to have a taste for freedom, recent events, recent politics, I see the rise of authoritarianism, do people want to be free?, we want both, “them”, screw those people, the demonization of the other, those eggheads, standing at the top of the dungheap, I’m going to pull him down with me, an undercooked U.S. Revolution against the British Empire on Mars, a whole plot going on that’s boring, the villages are fomenting rebellion, FREEDOM!, the have brackiweed, the solution to the problem, kind of convenient, huh?, positive portrayals of smoking, Tolkien approves, they do it because they enjoy it, a fantasy a smoker might have, a defense of smoking, a government conspiracy to keep us from having fun, womens groups, temperance, a puritanical streak, in Iran, not wearing their clothes right, your hijab is not tight enough, people not liking other people wearing their mask on the chin, even outdoors, an extremely crowded place to see fall colours, close proximity jostling, during COVID, over now?, just quoting the president, in this matter the president of the united states is an ass, in 7 months, talking with Eric (S. Rabkin), some grocery store clerk, did the kid not know?, the most autistic person on the planet, the girls and women in Iran wearing the mandated headwear, space virus, being more holy, some people wear masks as a way of protecting themselves, in their car while they’re alone, they’re so lazy, some people like wearing masks, it’s freeing, sunglasses, they’re hiding, they’re cool, man, people can’t see your eyes, they can’t know your real feelings, the Murderbot series, a robot programmed to be cool, watching a lot of TV shows, their governance model, the plot doesn’t allow it, Luke Burrage and Julianne, we feel for this character, people projecting into the robot, explain it to me like I’m hyperautistic, some people would like to be that robot, a lot of evidence that reading helps support the growth of empathy, maximum empathy, Parable Of The Sower, feel people’s pain, back to our brackiweed story, they’re not like normal union, it requires that you join it, training required, abide by its rules, the lobby controls things, a union works for a larger institution, directed at Elon Musk, would you consider yourself the founder of the Space Lobby, he’s read science fiction, I want to be the head of the space lobby, start thinking about it that way, the lobbies are essentially a part of the government or control the government, taking on government functions, tendrils, more of a corporation than a union, the lobby that is not mentioned, very topical, the military , Raytheon and Mcdonnell Douglas, promoted tweets for the F35, 10 times, organized special interests, the mob, the hoi polloi, third arm of government, the old farm lobby, big farmers, little farmers, the farm vote, foods and crops, corn syrup, the corn lobby, Sprecher root beer, the last of the great lobbies, last in development, the funny way he writes, probably, who’s this narrator, Stephen King does stuff like that, grew up so fast, Russia, the first hunk of metal above the atmosphere, a myth of national prestige, sputnik, NASA, the aircraft industry, war or threat of war, a few sharp operators, subcontracts, spread profits so widely, lobby block, the first mention of recession, a continual war since WWII, Linda Nagata, the economy will tank, presidential veto, The Red, defense contractors, video on the oversight of the banking industry, they’re having a very cordial meeting, she’s going to be leaving us and going to join you guys, I hope you take care of her, her father already works for us, the men placed in government agency came from its own ranks, a medical lobby, conservative group, treatment and payment, a long series of retreats, “socialized medicine” is gonna fuck up the medical system, government spending, doctors working on a fixed fee, competence no longer managed much, as exemplified by the lobby, pretty subtle, quality vs. quantity of care, a thesis of the book, why our hero is kicked out, a tightly held belief, running up the national debt and the quality of healthcare will go down, if you look at neighboring countries, your conservative friends are factually wrong, without money involved they won’t be inspired to do anything, it could decline (eventually), its possible in the distant future, the experiments running for the last 50 or 60 years, Cuba, one of the poorest countries in North America, preventative care, not the evidence so far, there is a waiting list for a lot of stuff, you have to wait in line in the States too (unless you’re really wealthy), stuck with the system they’ve got, a lot of propaganda from the PR lobby, the focus on preventative treatment, spend extra money, local block doctor -> community clinic -> local hospital, you couldn’t have Breaking Bad happen in Canada, except for the fantasy of the blue meth, one of the hardest things about that show, fucking up your kid’s life, lying to your wife and getting divorced and fucking up your kids future, a big point of the show, a morality play, Better Call Saul, what’s ethical and what isn’t, dying of cancer, very reasonable, to make drugs that people want, murders happen because of it, that show can’t happen in Canada because its implausible on the surface, you might have to move, go down to Winnipeg to get treatment, hospital jets, very American, if cellphones are involved, for movies especially, horror movies, it took a worldwide plague, the plague began in old china, a few madmen planning to conquer the world, it might have been a laboratory mutation but nobody could ever prove it, COVID most likely did start in a lab, no it did not, it did not start in a lab, Jesse, deny facts, look into, not a biological weapon gone wrong, the unfortunate nature of virulent disease in the modern world spreading like wildfire, a matter of contagion, monies going to the lab doing gain of function research, lab leaks happen a lot, a movie book plot, right out of this plot, a narratively disorderly way, those evil Chinese, wouldn’t it be evil if it was, most plainly not, political purposes, a political effect, conspiracy theorists with a political agenda, highly conservative, doing it on a podcast right now, those guy in that bar in Philadelphia, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, it wiped out two billion people, an obscure scientist found a cure before the epidemic hit America, the plot of this book, foreshadowing?, a pariah, Rutherford Ryan, America ran it, the bad writing again, what is the it here?, the world?, America runs the world, the two effectively ran the world, none of the smaller lobbies could buck them, as under the Roman Caesars, false democracy, a man belonged to his lobby as a serf belonged to his feudal landlord, abide by standards and practices, equates to serfdom, end of the first chapter, Christmas in the year 2100, wrong about a lot of stuff, plot that happens, prescient, thought provoking, kind of a bad book, Deeper Than Darkness by Gregory Benford, Lester Del Rey, Faith Of Our Fathers, Helen O’Loy, two dorks making a girl in their basement, the original Weird Science (1985), uplifted dogs and gorillas getting together after humans have died off, outdated, she’s a very mechanical lady, an ideal woman from the 1940s, she cooks and cleans and loves you, nagging, The Faithful, he read The Island Of Doctor Moreau, way down the road David Brin said hold my beer, he gets to the point and doesn’t linger over it, clunkily written, he compliments her quite a bit, suspicious of her, her face was shocked, Forget it Chris, you can’t find a man strong enough to rule, in relationships, it didn’t work on Earth, what could be done with a new planet, their relationship is like the divorce between Earth and Mars, Earth is dependent on the brackiweed, those are the dreams that made a mess of the old one, second hand brackiweed smoke, trends and forces over time, besides once you get back to Earth you’ll forget what happened here, what she could have been, research, what else?, they were researching together, she’s a doctor, she’s royalty in the Medical Lobby, him breaking one of their rules, some Tibetan plateau, bystander laws, if we’re operating properly, ideal conditions, sued for any reason for any time, medical malpractice, if you’re the wife or husband of the most powerful person in the medical lobby, very simplistic, if we had never found, more plausible, when he’s in the flophouse, he needs the massage and the hot water, getting whipped, authoritarian for sure, if you break one of the lobby’s rules, The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, the PR lobby dystopia, Coffeeist, floppy, if you cross the lobby, addicted to three different substances, that book is funny, this book is humourless, Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse, somebody has confused this book with that book, it’s not a juvenile, Little Fuzzy, cute fuzzy aliens, boring adults, young people learning the ropes, smoking, Dal Tigmar, earth medical school, interstellar emergency, good at medicine on Earth, specialist, uniformed, the grey uniform, pediatrics, exobiology, making jokes, pink for gynecology, brown for proctology, fun but silly, empathize with a semi-humanish alien, 1959, Sector General, James White, medical alien space things, Machine by Elizabeth Bear, interested in biology, electron microscopes, the triheaded thing, the disease from earth, measles, some background for this fake medical disease he’s curing, Jesuit bark, quinine, the same idea, PR lobbies from the early 20th century, advertising for smoking, the back of any slick magazine, medical benefits, some cases (edge cases) where the effect of smoking tobacco is not wholly bad, coffee, detriments, shakier, more nervous, keeps you awake, pee more, smoking makes you poo?, would explain a few occasions, pipe tobacco cigars, when you dig down deep into medical history, poisons are medicines, mercury, its terrible for you, water can drown you (misapplied), skillful that he puts it in early enough, enjoy smoking, old school sci-fi writers, tricked by that, not fully thought through, synthetic food vs. real food, we have a lot of synthetic food now, replicator sense, processed and artificial ingredients, people cooking real food, Sisko and Riker, like people like riding horses, a few real books in his office, status symbol, the office is the status symbol, real unreplicated food is slightly better, a prejudice or a real thing?, they never say: this is better for you, he’s prejudiced, always the same, slightly different, chocolate ice cream of number 67 flavour, AI program with the same recipe, Chrisopher Pike is also really into cooking, cooking in space, replicating the ingredients, a giant egg, replicated blankets, a gift of an egg, taste better, when Riker is cooking or Jake is cooking with his dad, Eric Rabkin talks about food in science fiction, food is love, we are on the same team, I love you as a parent loves a child, nourishing, the ritual of love, they want to spend time together, stimulant, enjoying the act of dishwashing, a novelty, an experience, electric dishwashers, pass them the dish rinse it off, drying rack, social, two strands of food, synthetics are the cheaper kind, outside the snow was still falling, no work shoveling snow, stolen the guy’s boots, if he’d had socks, synthetics, he’s hungry, a real meal on synthetics, scavenge something edible (dumpster diving), he clutched the quarter and turned to look , to which his metabolism had been switched, there’s two classes of eaters, real food, synthetic food, adjusted to synthetic (because he’s poor), this is a class thing, prescient, processed foods are way cheaper, go shopping for bread, imported foods must be listed too, manipulate terms, savvy, monosodium glutamate, plant cell walls, either of two forms, isomers, either form was digestible, the isomer to which it was adjusted, processed food, once you’re on sugar it’s hard to get off sugar, Martian plants produce different isomers, really confusing, an enzyme that could handle either isomer, the cheapness of synthetics, fudging the science a little bit, milk has additive, cereal additives, energy drinks, decaffeinated coffee, Tom Standage, a good writer, a good researcher, a bad magazine, urine and caffeine are closely related, Fritz Haber, some major role in the disease too, the red herring that wasn’t, specific point, an Earth meal and a Mars meal, if you eat the wrong one…, the food lobby in the United States is causing people to get fat, processed foods, fatter and fatter, The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker, hacking people, good takeaway, desert towns had joined, unmanned rockets loaded with atomics, demand surrender, he and Chris had put in every spare minute, that would be the montage, normal food, a handful of people, 80 of Earth’s population ate synthetics, synthesize normal food, 20% in a powerful lobby, the richest part of the United States is the communities around Washington, D.C., where the lobbies do their lobbying, don’t eat that we make that, I only manufacture that for the poors, a cynical view, the dentist who also owns a candy store, Mark Zuckerburg, Meta world is designed to increase that interest, Second Life was interesting but it wasn’t good, another Lester Del Rey story, an interest in medical stuff, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame Volume IIA, Nerves, still a good story, a more coherent way, by modern standards, a medical thriller, his impact on science fiction, an editor, a reviewer, his wife too, a half handful, Police Your Planet, Preferred Risk with Frederik Pohl, insurance in the future, why is insurance a topic for science fiction?, read more, he doesn’t take two years to craft anything, written at a furious pace, still has value, the experience of reading it, wrong about a lot of things, right about a lot of things, in real life, Doctor Kevorkian?, Christopher Duntsch, our guy’s a hero in the book, out of genre examples, geology, Galileo, [Alfred Wegener], handwashing for doctors, corpsey hands, a good way to cause people to die, Mr. Lister, Lavoisier?, Robert Malone, super-negative headlines, false claim, the development of MRNA technology, Pfizer and Moderna, produce the spike protein, an early skeptic about the effect the MRNA vaccines would have, Wikipedia is the website that anyone can edit, his listing on Wikipedia, he is not one of us anymore, attended several conservative conferences, the “sponsored by Pfizer” supercut, holding patents, they’re turning him into a piriah, he’s not invited on TV anymore, the drug lobby vs. the medical lobby, the military industrial corporations, what gets served to people at the grocery store, pretty good for a guy from the 1950s, lesser examples of science fiction, genuine science fiction, Ted Chiang, cold and clinical vs. rough and smokey, emotional but clinical, blue colours, a science fiction approach, Robert E. Howard’s style is muscley, Lovecraft, languorous, Asimov is jokey, Lester Del Rey is smokey and clunky, William Gibson is cool, non-fiction by Del Rey, a history of science fiction, a good book, New Wave science fiction, style over idea, he’s doing science fiction, setting a story in a science fiction universe (its in the future), about idea, the lobby idea, the core of this, stodgy science by having a big powerful medical lobby, the F-35, the new Top Gun movie, Jesse likes movies, F-18s, very expensive, orders of magnitude, F-22, F-14s, we need the thing that will work for the film, not showcase the technology?, its product is bad now, maximizing profits vs. maximizing benefits, intellectual property vs. helping people, the fentanyl crisis, sell max product, heroin, now you can’t use it any more, ivermectin is out of patent, Rachel Maddow and Rolling Stone, a story from August, fake stories that get spread around, official license from the government for broadcast, the bluecheck system (on twitter), the FDA gets funding from corporations, jobs in the industries lobbying the FDA, not viral enough, so depressing, constant lies all day, a comic strip, survive everyday, what effect it has on you, the poodle industry, more homeless poodles, dogs that need homes, abandoning pets, everything effects everything else, you have to inject this shit into your body, blood clots caused by the vaccination, look at the record, not true, they were lying, hoping, before they changed the definition, those clips are there, they don’t have their YouTube accounts deleted, this is how we sell it, most people are too busy, while you’re not paying attention they’re fucking you, good luck with that, born as a rich kid, the provincial premiere gets cancer treatment at the same hospitals, hesitant to take a chance, Paul got his 5th shot, a near death experience, paying attention when people get hurt, vaccination injuries are real, they seem to be ineffective, Cinnamon Sam, Coleman, Lexy-Lou, make some babies, Lake Norman Humane, cat trap, why am I in this cage?, a domesticated cat, lack of food security, a new cat owner again, you’re appreciated, Pursuit by Lester Del Rey, exploding cats, how can this not involve aliens, entertaining description, Dale Grothmann, only a two hour commitment, Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel, Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, The Pink Panther (1963), Lawrence Block, The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard, he’s really good, A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, Edgar Allan Poe, Blaze by Richard Bachman, The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper, Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, narrated by a dog, interior illustrations, Gahan Wilson is an acquired taste, The Starmouse by Fredric Brown, they make good microphones and good monitors, business practices and stinginess, premium materials, a true mono, the PDF page, The Clock That Went Backwards by Edward Page Mitchell, Back To The Future II (1989), a grandfather clock, New England, it’s a time machine!, the Netherlands, spawning the line that creates themselves, 1881, before everything, “All You Zombies”, super-creepy makes it good, The Monster Maker aka The Surgeon’s Experiment by W.C. Morrow, doing bad stuff in there, an illicit doctor, he’s a pariah, full circle, euthanized, he has some theories, super-scary, turned into The Hulk, becoming more primitive, no eyes and no ears and fed through a straw, a super scary horror science fiction story, 1887, a Victorian era science fiction story, published in a newspaper, At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs, reading with your eyes, reading aloud, monks copying books, some house is on fire, the Mad Tea Party, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland vs. Alice’s Adventures Under The Ground, the mad hatter, the Gribcast, David H. Keller, Futurama’s “snu snu” episode, The Little Husbands, a comedy piece, Amazon women, dress them up like little dolls, they could use them as dildos, implied, out of context comics, the writer’s barely disguised fetish, he was a psychiatrist, designed to be entertaining, male female relationships, sexual dimorphism, a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode [Angel One], Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Sweeper Of Loray by Robert Sheckley, a Sheckley expert, he’s different sometimes, Mindswap, Immortality, Inc., The Status Civilization, Dimension Of Miracles, what happened to John Hodgman?, he was the PC, The Daily Show, Coraline (2009), more Sheckley is always good, a novel by Sheckley, a contest, too many fucking Draculas, which racial slur?, cancel stamp, nobody cares, Olaf Stapledon, science fiction but not a novel, The Silmarillion isn’t a novel, legally they have to call it a novel, other fiction types, making an argument that’s supportable, Jesse is unpickable, Odd John by Olaf Stapledon, 194 pages, John Wyndham, A World Of Sound, a guy goes to the opera, falls asleep, has a dream, a musical world, Jesse’s analysis of it is beautiful, Paul won’t play Jesse’s don’t understand reality game, some things you can’t talk about, sometimes you have a really good show, a metaphor that makes the story better, Peter And The Wolf, pop star lyrics, its art but its not drama, Gustav Holst’s the planets, the new Bill & Ted movie, George Carlin, Rufus’ daughter, Gravity Falls, What We Do In The Shadows, Bogus Journey, nostalgia attached, saved the world, that’s your philosophy so much, one of the few things out there, music is dangerous, music is used to manipulate and control thoughts, expressing emotion, reading had a lot to do with it, read a lot more poetry, Ursula K. Le Guin’s poetry, The Next War, Deep In Earth, Shel Silverstein, Lovecraft made fun of one of his friends, a poem as a wedding speech, Strephon And Chloe by Jonathan Swift, no mortal race, such cleanliness from head to heel, no noisome whiffs, squat on her hams to make maid’s water, this goddess walking the Earth, cut to the bedroom, giggling, Jonathan Swift’s advice: 1. don’t drink too much beer or tea, 2. you have a special responsibility to the person you’re married to to not disabuse them of the ideas they have about you, reaches under the bed and puts something under herself, American Gods, eats him, she’s peeing into the chamber pot, a man’s job is to ignore women not being creatures not from heaven, its a woman’s job to not make them think that they’re not, The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, this dangerous jingle, a plot point in The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, a defense shield, ads, words control you, judo flip, if you don’t know this word you’re subject to this word, Babel-17 by Samuel Delany, language works as a weapon, Luke Burrage, too New Wavey, mid-period, his early stuff, Embassytown, The Dispossessed, the things that matter are locked, the things that don’t matter are unlocked, dispute the propaganda, Jimmy Wales is always begging, weaponizing facts, citations, a slightly better reputation is bad news, the wild west, academic research, a good starting point, academic papers are garbage, extra super nerdy, tons of these fake papers, American education vs. Canadian education (all one big evil family), Aye, and Gomorrah, a revisionist take on Scanners Live In Vain by Cordwainer Smith, not doing it for style, reaction against, we’re leaning into this shit, generally true, overlong, literary, the opposite of Lester Del Rey, a low tolerance for pretentiousness, Ursula K. Le Guin doesn’t show off, David Brin is not a supergenius (he’s okay and bad), so hit and miss, a period of science fiction where people were throwing crap at the wall, interesting, C.M. Kornbluth’s experiments are interesting, had he lived longer and written more Science Fiction, having co-written a famous book, bigger than Harlan Ellison, novels are really important for making him, nobody reads Harlan Ellison novels, he didn’t write science fiction!, Ray Bradbury makes a better case, lyrical spaceguy, a weird guy, reappraise Ray Bradbury, he wrote too much, nostalgia, anti-nostalgia, good short stories, as a percentage?, The Martian Chronicles is 1/80 of his output, The Toynbee Convector, four titles for one story, A Literary Nightmare.

Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

Magabooks - The Sky Is Falling and Badge Of Infamy

ACE DOUBLE - Badge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey

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The SFFaudio Podcast #728 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Ministry Of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper


The SFFaudio Podcast #728 – Ministry Of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper – read by Phil Chenevert for Librivox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novella (1 hour 55 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
Astounding, December 1958, why John W. Campbell bought this story, because psychic powers are real for no reason, a whipping scene for Weird Tales, robots he can take or leave, precognition, a very weird story, a day in the life of the emperor of the galaxy, a galaxy at peace, manufacture churn, a momentous day, more changes today than in the last 600 years, very ossified and stagnant, i went outside and looked at the leaves, maybe things are going to change in the future, the anticipation effect, a protest, maybe he’s going to get overthrown, no, all ginned up, some degree of power was taken from him, he wants to be replaced by a robot, the council of counts, staged a quiet coup, change who has authority, not a Russian Revolution, eventually if this technology works out, faster than light communication, an ansible, possibly time travel, courtiers around power, towards expansion, a lot of theses going on, surprisingly unfocused and yet pretty good for what it is, historical philosophical, Murder In The Gun Room, Little Fuzzy, Space Viking, he’s setting stuff up, parallel universe stories, paratime, very Oswald Spengler, a decadent empire that’s static, engineering fake plots, manufacturing disturbances, too ossified, if you have enough problems the problems solve each other, Wag The Dog (1997), domestic problems? gin up foreign problems!, Roe vs Wade, Paul’s not convinced, there was no application of heat, a tool, Paul’s going to shutup for a bit, a Machiavellian story, strange guy, weird writer, not academically trained, brilliant guy, a self-taught man, smoking all those cigarettes, drinks some coffee, conjures up a whole galaxy of intrigue, he’s our emperor Paul the 22nd, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, neo-barbarians, same kind of thinking about civilization and barbarism, Philip K. Dick, obsessed, imperial decadence, how do we keep a civilization going?, points to the frontier, some kind of disorder, they need to expand, Toynbee, Time Out Of Joint, Ibn Khaldun, dynasties last three generations, when empires begin, decadence inevitably comes in, various empires, how top heavy the bureaucracy is, automation, class conflict, how this student revolt is a sign, institution built up, technologically significant, students upset they fire my professor, A World Out Of Time, snake-cat, hydraulic empires, contaminating influence, they’re old and decadent, too ossified, stave off, the sack of Rome in 410, the tone, he’s having it both ways, very jokey, very humorous, he’s thought a lot about it, Queen Elizabeth died, people care, Caitlin Johnstone, doubling down on the monarchy, Charles the III is the king of Australia, Rodericks and Pauls, 43 generations?, semi-competent, just assumed, the only way to manage a galactic empire, in our own history, he’s having some fun, how seriously should we take all this, the robots, starts and ends with feelings of the robots, it might be silly, treating robots like people vs. treating people like robots, if so many people didn’t act like robots, poor me, i have to Machiavelli people all day long, promote the incompetent, economic systems, industrialization of society, cogs in machines, just a fun story, he’s his own author insert in the main character, he likes to write characters who manipulate, turning rye into whiskey, so clever, the point of the story seems to be they’re in a very fine balance, the solution is to promote the incompetent, he’s having it both ways, this is impossible, over analyzing it?, H. Beam Piper is the working man’s science fiction Tolkien, that makes a lot of sense, potatoes and pipeweeds and saurons, he built elvish, capable of spinning up all this stuff, we’re told he killed himself, he was interested in this stuff and it shows, interesting secondary worlds, how many of Philip K. Dick stories are set in the same world?, 2?, two Doc Labyrinth stories, Nick And The Glimmung and Galactic Pot-Healer, a lot like Asimov, galactic empire, robots, not academicy, a professor of chemistry, Larry Niven, a rich kid, Heinlein: an officer, Piper’s situation, he’s not an officer, he has no authority, I could be emperor, also emperors are silly, engaged with the idea, what makes it science fiction, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, technology never changes anything in Middle Earth, last decimal places, maybe there’s something to do now, some barbarian lands to conquer, galactic geography, China not expanding, shaped like a pork chop, a communications issue, Omnitrend’s “Universe”, expansion beyond limits of communication, a struggle with motivation, what it all means, infected Jesse’s dreams, the central idea, leveling off to a certain level of technology, becoming stable, looking at our own society, technological changes have great effects, birth control pill, social stratification, granaries, there’s no technology trees, the game has run out of ideas, technological change is what changes society, including food, a David Graeber essay, jetpacks, flying cars, going back to the moon, internet hasn’t got us to the moon, where is our post scarcity, Jesse is so close to post-scarcity, the lawyers, the ideology and the institutions get in the way, a Byzantine state, your job is to vote, paid so you can vote properly, the communist planet, he didn’t carry a weapon but if he did it would have been a slide-rule, everybody is the same, a cul-de-sac, stating facts about what’s happening, is it good for the company or is it good for me?, the inverse of Foundation, explode the contradictions, make Charles III the king and see what happens, a very serious book, Claudius The God by Robert Graves, engendering revolt, an accelerationist, silly rules, Messalina’s infidelities, he’ll get assassinated too, a very serious book, people thinking they can control and guide events, smart and lucky, Frank Herbert and Dune, dukes and plans and wheels within wheels, the trappings of technologies, interstellar travel, kings on every planet, a manipulator at the emperor’s level, wheels and airplanes, drugs, physics and robots, still dealing with the effects of life extension, fantasy stories tend to go the opposite direction, new evil coming from the east, Saruman making orcs is a technological change, Bene Gesserit yoga stuff, the cast of magic, nobody sensible, the rise of a god, Slan is the rise of a god species, The Golden Man, eugenics, it even has a map, most science fiction novels don’t have maps, Dune has a map, the tension between lack of technology and the effects of technology, science fiction is about progress and change, the breeding program is at the center of the story, sociology, Dune is science fiction in the same way that this is, at core they’re both about technologies, four shows on Dune, a purer example, very interesting buy every light, full of ideas, his Hyborian Age essay for his universe, we’re grading on a scale here, it isn’t like what happened to the Queen last week, when is the plot gonna start?, all of these things were the plot, a surprising story structure, when the title was going to come in, the minister of disturbance was the emperor, why we need a king or a queen in Canada, she doesn’t visit much that’s good, you need a head of state for reasons, forces of stability, a horrible human being, she didn’t effect Canada’s politics, the personal fortunes have survived European in drama of the 20th century, ridiculous, when you don’t think about it, Charles on my money, the Albertans aren’t going to like that, significant in the media, their wealth, public dole, the emperor is not symbolic in the story, more like Elizabeth I, historians or nerds like Paul, Augustus: not a force of stability, Hadrian, Trajan, build walls everywhere, build that wall!, good emperors and bad emperors, long term stabilizing forces, the ones who show up in the 9th grade history books are chaos agents, Antonius Pious, the most boring reign, no revolts, to his credit, an even keel, Winston Churchill is a chaos agent, commando units, trying to make this war happen, George W. Bush: chaos agent, Wanli (a late Ming emperor), hanging out with the concubines, refused to go to meetings, chose not to rule, 17th century crises, the agenda is full, he wants to take that break, the wife, the kid, he wants a robot emperor, another Asimov story, one of the big three or whatever, H. Beam Piper is weird and odd, commentary from the sidelines, Paul Krugman’s not going to become an H. Beam Piper fanboy, few do, Junkyard Planet/Cosmic Computer, on LibriVox, muting or Jesse talking?, Evan’s first Piper, some of the themes are so simuilar to some of the Philip K. Dick was writing, a connected conversation, Dick would never do it this way, a very tired robot emperor, The Last Of The Masters, all these meetings, really well done, so much going on, if The West Wing didn’t suck, I am a reflection of the reality we wish we had, everybody is still going to be smoking 4000 years in the future, coffee is a technology, cigarettes is a technology, vaping, some sort of reaction to it, engaging with the change of technology, Augustus and Caesar, intellecutal technologies, that amazing move Napoleon made, liberate the rest of Europe from Kings, an imperial dynasty, ideas are technologies, they control your thoughts, they convinced me pumpkin spice latte, people abbreviating: PSL, not all technologies are good for us, eventually technologies mature, Bryan Alexander, matured technologies, the AK-47, between 1947 and today, working on a couple of systems, the AR-15 works differently, coil guns, a slug going down a rail with a bunch of capacitors, its not in the constitution, a fully automatic railgun is not a firearm, ATF, Gauss rifles, internal combustion leveled off in the 1990s, sailboats aren’t radically changing, tech can stable off and robots can’t replace the emperor, a massive revolution, supporting the ministry of disturbance, the reviews on GoodReads, 3/5, hard to review a story like this, a manifesto, these are the things I would like to talk about, Little Fuzzy, seed vs. Foundation, they can’t make fire and they can’t talk, the talk and build a fire rule, Murder In The Gunroom, a locked room mystery, gun collector, gun nut, shot himself with a gun, a lawyer becomes a private detective solving a firearms collector, Omnilingual, Philip K. Dick thinks about how cruel his wife is, mundane things like cigarettes, focus the attention, red herrings, a pleasant fellow, Lord Sugar, the House Of Lords, you scumbags are all jealous, taking pictures of your yacht, scum, all the poors are scum, in 2022, Poul Anderson’s No Truce With Kings, espers, the tyranny of feudal structures, post apocalyptic America, you’re thinking of a sailboat.

Ministry Of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #373 – No Morning After by Arthur C. Clarke

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #373

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss No Morning After by Arthur C. Clarke

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

No Morning After was first published in Times To Come, Berkley Books, 1954.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #723 – READALONG: Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert talk about Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
John Lange, 8th published, 6th under the pseudonym, 1970, finished San Cristobal, 1969, he’s on the island, pretty cool, year wrtitten, Back In The U.S.S.R., song title chapters, 18th Nervous Breakdown, we’re getting the idea here, very late 60s, Hard Case Crime, art in the audiobook, proposed adaptation, Robert Forster, “High Synch”, happy ending, a warning, Elliot Gould will ride the tiger, an announcement of the movie, Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty, an uneven filmmaker, Coma by Robin Cook, a 1978 movie based on a 1977 novel, very similar, a lot of similar scenes, anesthesia tanks, cops are out to get you, a 70s movie theme, The Parallax View (1974), if it was not definitely not written by Michael Crichton…, too well put together, Philip K. Dick is exactly correct, surrealism, unreliable to himself (and to us), the narrator is mad, he gets on the plane, blacked out windows, I think I know where this is going, oh it was!, waking up in the hotel room, bad food on a bad serving tray, so Philip K. Dick, Norman Spinrad, everybody is on drugs all the time, the world is awful and horrible, The Congress (2013), Stanisław Lem, a pill, crapsack world, blissful reality that’s not there, people turning on aluminum foil, the Philip K. Dick novel…, Time Out Of Joint, lemonade stand, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Severance, Paycheck, drug and hypnosis, losing weight, all the work that they do, sandpaper for a skinned knee, expensive, massage a couple of things, the setup, this blue pee thing, House, M.D., vacation, the chase, the economics of this island, the company is going bankrupt, Philip K. Dick would have gone whole hog, you’re our solution to this, The Matrix scene, ends in an insane asylum, a nurse who flips him over, the bang big boom, blow everything up at the end, Stephen King, Reminiscence (2021), living in his own memories, retreated into his dreams, Abres Los Ojos (1997), Vanilla Sky (2001), the story of the song, Paul McCartney, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, those Ukraine girls really knock me out, attacking the idea of nationalism, a reflection, the premise for the song, returning to the Soviet Union, the west isn’t that great, there’s no place like home, you would never want to go back, stay in Canada or wherever, East Germany, people of pension age, full bags of goodies, in a previous podcast, translations of books available in the East, Tom Sawyer, Stanisław Lem, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Masters Of The Universe are not East German, Coma has that scene, Michael Douglas, a very modern film, a therapeutic abortion, cut up for parts, a really political interesting film, they show the abortion on screen, they cut up her brain, the German dub, up in stirrups, all references to the Vietnam War cut from Magnum, P.I., evil Nazis, sick of Nazis, Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber becomes Jack Gruber, he’s a fake German, fake terrorists, character actors, that guy fought Bruce Willis, listening to the radio, blend in like a member of the staff, a critique, why are they doing this, save a little money, a mind palace, its for control of people, propaganda and drugs, in both, part of the scheme, Sharon Tate, we’ll never know, Scientology, set in Los Angeles, Chicago, a vacation to the beach, they’re contemporaries, both doctors, the modern medical thriller, Cook was bigger, Disclosure (1994), Dick and Crichton were both married five times, the hotel is their laboratory, a money making scheme, travel agent, coprophagia, you can do anything there!, Westworld (1973), Futureworld (1976), James Brolin, replace people with androids, controlling with drugs, very plausible, a science fiction novel, a drug dealer book, a thriller, techno-thrillers from the 1970s, it doesn’t look like one but it is one, the floating people, the major difference, Cook is about the medicine, Crichton is about the ideas, Binary, gases!, tanks full of gases, mixed in carbon monoxide, to steak organs, no one notices?, well explained, notable changes to the skin, part of the plot, a good poison, not a bad way to poison people, rewatch it, a pretty good movie, pretty crunchy, Michael Douglas and Geneviève Bujold, she would have been a good Kate Mulgrew, Peter Benchley, the casting couch section of this book, our hero is in Hollywood, an agent, its all there (not the focus of the book), he worked in Hollywood, he put it in the book, not an expose, women are being exploited, this drug effect, done to our hero in the white room, white gas, sensory deprivation, become compliant, faking?, gets out through dreams, the backstory for the company, to control people, to make people see what their owners want them to see, They Live (1988), we know there’s something wrong, we see all the homeless, joblessness is up, until you put on these glasses, or you start eating that trashcan, we’re being controlled by lizard people or aliens, Robert E. Howard’s The Shadow Kingdom, serpent men are replacing us, Doctor Who, The Silurians, The Sea Devils, Zygons, practically a Philip K. Dick idea, A Scanner Darkly, his drug book, bent by drugs, a drug picker, zonked on his drug, a metaphor and a reality, drugs are super-pushed, all your ads are for drugs now, forbidden to advertise prescription drugs, cream for vaginal dryness, Vagisan!, a trigger, Trump!, eventually those boys grow up, patients, doctors, he gives in and does, a drug rep, of course it’s addictive, heavily pushed, Vicodin, nasty stuff, nasty stuff in the basement, party at Cora’s house after the podcast, neoliberalism is coming to all the other countries, way too much, ouch!, fuck those pills, the word ouch, an instinctive, utsch, forearms in icewater, swearing and saying ow ow ow, they can last longer, reaction to being touched, words of pain as a prophylactic against pain, are you ok?, everybody needs attention, band-aids can be psychosomatic, hoping that it would hurt, words, a dopamine reaction, what they think is a bad word, they threw a grenade in the room, what the effects of drugs are, change your brain, change your reaction to reality, a dry run of what they can do, what you can do to your employees, they hijack him, compliant with the drug, a cheat, spectacular success, very very different writers, a better ending, the dark ending, an apocalyptic ending, the beginning of The Matrix (1999), Crichton’s ending, we’re all deluding ourselves, three games of tennis with Sharon, he broke his tennis racket, that is what happened until it didn’t, the confabulatory experience of reality, live in the mountains for three weeks, come home to a nice hot shower and a brunch at Denny’s, life is wonderful, derived from sexually transmitted shark disease, a random Crichtonian bit, a fashion for sharks, random, a rare orchid, the biography of John Lange, a marine institute in Florida, a fake bio, Lawrence Block wrote two Paul Kavanaugh books, The Triumph Of Evil, Lawrence Block wrote a spy book, Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, Ibn Fadlan’s expedition to the northern lands, a retelling of Beowulf, J.K. Rowling is a terrible TERF, a fake biography of Robert Galbraith, pretending to be in the military, always fake, magical dream, ordinary housewife, writing classes at Brigham Young University, she knew what writing was, I was inspired by Jane Austen or whatever, Fifty Shades Of Grey woman, her husband is a screenwriter, they probably have a golden retriever, The Cuckoo’s Calling, a good mystery, what a lot of great writers do, Richard Stark’s story, Donald E. Westlake, The Hook, the book promotion industry, the number 1 writer in the world, is it me?, my name?, the Harry Potter thing?, by the author of, solid midlist, BBC TV adaptation, Killing Eve, self-published, theatre critic on the side, the story of Crichton, this John Lange is doing pretty good, John Norman was John Lange, the Gor books, 1966, Stephen King, the Bachman books, Seanan McGuire, John Brunner, why Westlake left [science fiction], Brandon Sanderson, too much of a living, outliers, George R.R. Martin is mostly the TV guy, Sanderson is only books, he could live just on his books, always on the stands, barely started his career, crazy numbers, people will pay you to write books, wasn’t made on the fact he wrote the last Robert Jordan books, Tor pushes Sanderson heavily, they push him because he sells, The Wheel Of Time books, one of those Salt Lake City guys, creative writing class, Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, a know quantity, the one he’s mined the most, people who wrote sequels by other hands, Douglas Adams sequels, Tom Clancy sequels, Garth Nix, what a lot of people want, James Patterson, doesn’t write his own books anymore, not everybook is for everybody, doesn’t fulfill the promise, this is a thriller novel I gotta blow things up, if this goes on…, we’re not living in a simulation we’re living in a stimulation, early Michael Crichton, nice and tight, period pieces, well written, delivering me the story, ideas injected, no impurities, a resident doctor, a bit of an everyguy, dating actresses, an author insert, not mentioned to be six foot nine, nobody says “how tall you are, sir”, semi-autobiographical, to finance medical school, a writer that couldn’t help but do it, he studied a lot of stuff, almost nobody is like Michael Crichton, screenwriter, writer, doctor, film director, almost nobody is all of those things, not a normal guy, super-interested, thinking about drugs, speculative, psychoactive drugs, general interest, trying to understand reality, how many Stephen King movies has Stephen King directed?, I will fix The Shining, I will improve on his work on my book, Physical Evidence is not a good movie but it is entertaining, well put together, and funny, The Great Train Robbery, one of the best movies of the 1970s, virus from space, The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man was serialized in Playboy, about electronics, if he wrote nothing else The Andromeda Strain would stand on its own as a great book, let’s blow it all up at the end, basically a science fiction novel, Hard Case Crime ventures into science fiction, attractive woman on fire, she’s hot, she’s a starlet, Sharon Wilder, glow girl, plastic dresses, Binary, multiple women in it, there’s nothing to cancel in here, it doesn’t say the casting couch is good, everybody’s now going to be subject to the casting couch, Hollywood is a drug, virtual vacations, we’re all working for the drug, that’s the ending of A Scanner Darkly, propagating the plant that makes the drug, it is supposed the plant is propagating itself through people, a Philip K. Dick move, this early Michael Crichton kick, very 1960s and also so modern, manufactured pop and film stars, The Beatles, the Hollywood hills, as fake as The Monkees, all of your music is all fake, just as fake as our music, what makes it an old book: he goes to a travel agency, third world and immigrant communities, Easy Go in a few weeks, George Segal, Mike Hodges directed it, his violent seizures, violence now triggers a pleasurable response, they put some wires on his head and give him zaps, on the The Lack podcast, an Anthony Burgess novel called The Wanting Seed, they misunderstand me, the movie of A Clockwork Orange, Malthusianism, world is overpopulated as usual, encouraging homosexuality, start wars, canned food from the bodies, an angry scary sounding book, 1961, A Long Trip To Teatime, Puma, anarchist conservative?, weird British conservatives, Quest For Fire (1981)’s language, J.H. Rosny, Year One (2009), prehistorical romance, DMR Books, niche, Robert J. Sawyer neanderthal books, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, giant horned creature, went extinct 10,000, always the passive voice, we ate them, who killed all the large creatures?, we probably, Earthshock, Adric killed the dinosaurs, traveler, cheering for Wesley Crusher, Wil Wheaton is a really cool guy now, bad writing, genius kid on a ship, the giant essay on SeaQuest DSV, nobody is trying to reboot it, Shaun Duke doesn’t like Jesse, it itself was reboot, Irwin Allen’s Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, submarines are cool period, submarine adventures and warfare, a pulp series, Das Boot, Black Sea (2014), The Hunt For Red October, Roy Scheider, Blue thunder, Michael Ironside takes the lead, he wasn’t a villain in V?, Robert Englund, Jonathan Banks, the heavy from Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, glorifying drug dealing, its about capitalism and people trying to find their place in it, make some coffee, black tea, Ceylon, Frisian Blend, Earl Grey, Prince Alberic And The Snake Lady is next, Connor is doing fine in Cassel, cheap train tickets.

Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!