readalong – Page 91

The SFFaudio Podcast #170 – READALONG: The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

The SFFaudio Podcast #170 – Jesse, Tamahome, and Jenny discuss the Brilliance Audio audiobook of The Fountains Of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke.

Talked about on today’s show:
Skyhooks and space elevators, Sri Lanka, “my first space elevator book”, Robert A. Heinlein, Friday, “it feels like a novel”, “the fictional accounting of a real construction project”, history, Colombo, afterwords, sources and acknowledgements, “what a rip-off”, Sigiriya’s Lion Paws Gate, King Kashyapa I, “past, present, and future”, engineering fiction vs. science fiction, Taprobane, Paradise Regained by John Milton, Jo Walton’s review of The Fountains Of Paradise, religion, “Heinlein in a dress”, an idea book, to think interesting Science Fictional thoughts, hard SF, Clarke’s Laws, space probe, a game changer, Gregg Margarite, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, The Nine Billion Names Of God, Sigmund Freud, growing out of religion?, Thomas Aquinas, symbolic logic, Bertrand Russell, satellites and their uses, unseen benefits to giant engineering projects and science, Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, Burj Khalifa, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, “this is what we’re meant to do”, the space age, the 1970s, Jenny gets depressed, Terpkristin‘s visit to French Guiana (PICS!), will we have a Chinese moonbase by 2022?, innovation vs. exploration, Jerry O’Neil, good reasons to go to space, we ought to do things that we can do, Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey, the daily life challenges of a space born population, The Island Worlds by Eric Kotani and John Maddox Roberts, the probe is a person, The Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy #64: John Scalzi, (Star Trek holds us back), “the God Particle”, “you’re going to die soon”, can we empathize with a character that isn’t a human being?, a complimentary cosmonaut, 2001: A Space Odyssey, one day in Jerusalem, the transhuman future in the end of The Fountains Of Paradise, Starglider/Starholme, a well developed solar society, the Wikipedia entry for The Fountains Of Paradise, The Last Theorem, The City And The Stars, a non-off putting post-human story, Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Ted Chiang, Charles Stross, sequels and science, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, in SF ideas build can on one another whereas others books are more parasitizing upon those ideas, why does it have to be a new book?, ‘these were the stepping stones to today’, a balance of both a good story and good ideas, William Gibson, Embassytown by China Miéville, The City And The City, “garbage, garbage, garbage”, 2312, Playboy’s serialization of The Fountains Of Paradise, Buckminster Fuller, why did Sir Arthur C. Clarke live in Sri Lanka?, Milton is literature, Dante’s Inferno, Lucifer’s fall from heaven, Brilliance Audio, A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke, BBC Radio dramatization of A Fall Of Moondust, Crisis On Conshelf Ten by Monica Hughes, “best book ever”, The Abyss, Tom Swift, Aquaman vs. The Sub-Mariner, Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds, The Prefect, Ray Of Light by Brad Torgeson, “Alien sun mirror block deepwater living daughter Glimmer Club surface discovery.”, the Mars tangent, Phobos and Deimos, John Scalzi, “I liked that he didn’t explain it.”, “we don’t build em that way”, “I want it to be hard”, Phobos interference would be a feature not a bug, “wiggle the thread”, atmospheric density and windspeed, carbon nano-tubes vs. buckminsterfullerene, Roald Dahl, Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator, horror, The BFG, Jack McDevitt, a waking dream, in the shadow of Vesuvius, the Prime Directive, Doctor Who, Fantasy vs. Science Fiction, Inferno (Doctor Who episode), Sliders, Doorways by George R.R. Martin, Tom Baker.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #167 – READALONG: At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Podcast
Edgar Rice Burroughs' At The Earth's Core
The SFFaudio Podcast #167 – Jesse, Tamahome and David Stifel talk about At The Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Talked about on today’s show:
the Burroughs Guy podcast, Pellucidar, A Princess Of Mars, Burroughs was a dynamic writer, 1913, Barsoom series, the Tarzan series, the Pellucidar or Inner World series, The Land That Time Forgot, Tarzan is next, Tarzan goes to Pellucidar (Tarzan At The Earth’s Core), airships, Jules Verne, The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Blackstone Audio, the hollow earth, lizard people, dry humour, Dian the beautiful and her brother Dekor, Abner Perry, Robert A. Heinlein, Jubal Harshaw, the well thought through world, the iron mole, an inverted world, Burroughs well lampshades the improbabilities he presents, the moon in the center of the earth (the pendant world), how does the time work in Pellucidar, the relativity of time, the naming of characters and places in Burrough’s worlds, Thoria vs. Thuria, must get loincloths, the 1976 movie version of At The Earth’s Core, princesses, romance, pet hyenadons, saggoths to shoggoth, H.P. Lovecraft, telepathy, the Mahars’ secret, Ja the king, like Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, near instant language learning, Doug McLure, Peter Cushing, a Connecticut Yankee, the pious Perry, Perry’s theory of time, colonialism, the white man’s burden, noble savage, Kull of Atlantis and Brule The Spear Slayer (the Pict), Beyond The Black River, Hooja the Sly One (an ignoble savage), the size of Pellucidar, Ringworld by Larry Niven, the Sahara, manifest density, telegaph line through to the center of the earth, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, “my prehistoric bride”, stone age tech, dinosaurs, giant fire breathing frogs, the various animals of Pellucidar, Hell is Earth, the raw food diet, a dainty cave wife, the illustrated At The Earth’s Core, ERBZine website, the vivisection/lockpicking scene, John Carter, Prince Of Persia, Peter Jackson, Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes, David Stifel’s filmography, Sleeper Cell, Minority Report, Gods And Generals, Jeffrey Shaara, The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, Gettysburg, Heaven’s Gate, G Vs. E, Six Feet Under, selling Tom Cruise drugs, David’s IMDB page, Sam Peckinpah, The Wild Bunch, Tarzan Of The Apes is next, racism, that David Stifel guy, The Land That Time Forgot, David is in George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House at Theatricum Botanicum in Los Angeles!

David B. Mattingly - At The Earth's Core

Ace Books - At The Earth's Core - cover painting by Roy Krenkel, Jr.

At The Earth's Core - Frank Frazetta cover illustration

At The Earth's Core - cover painting by J. Allen St. John

At The Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs - MOVIE POSTER COVER

Map Of Pellucidar

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #165 – READALONG: The Odyssey by Homer (Book XIII – XVI)

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #165 – Scott and Jesse talk, in the fourth of a six part series, about the books XIII, XIV, XV and XVI of The Odyssey.

Talked about on today’s show:
roman numerals, Ian McKellen’s narration, Genghis Khan And The Making Of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford, the host/guest relationship, Phaeacians vs. Phoenicians, Ithaca, the start is near the end, the loyal swineherd, sleeping Odysseus, Poseidon: “I’d like to avenge myself at once” (on the people of Scheria), a ship shaped rock, the generous Phaeacians tax the people to pay for their extravagant gifts, one 1%er helping another 1%er, why is Athena always in disguise?, lies and deception are Odysseus’ nature, a disguise for Odysseus, the cruel abuse of men, Eumaeus the loyal swineherd, the richness of Odysseus’s estate, the trickiest bastard who ever lived is also the richest bastard who ever lived, “In Eumaeus’ Hut”, Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, the cruelty to the pig, Athena’s plans and plots, Odysseus queries his son, the prince of Pylos, the wandering dude, Telemachus is the dutiful and well mannered, the lies parallel a truth, the parallels between the wooing of Helen and the problem of Penelope’s suitors, Odysseus will use a different method to solve this dilemma, “feats of strength”, you sometimes just have to kill a whole bunch of dudes, the stringing of the bow, extended metaphors, “Odysseus Goes To Town”, the genealogy of royal houses, the Robert Fagles translation.

Odysseus Lands In Ithaca

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #164 – READALONG: The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #164 – Jesse, Wayne June and Mirko Stauch talk about The House On the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson.

Talked about on today’s show:
Wayne undersold the novel, it’s shockingly interesting, you can really see the influence on Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror In Literature by H.P. Lovecraft, blasphemous hybrid anomalies, “a classic of the first water”, the framing sequence, The Willows by Algernon Blackwood, description of sense experience, the best you can expect from the universe is indifference, cosmic horror, Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, Last And First Men, reading in translation, Chad Pfifer, the readalong concept, getting into the book, Under The Knife by H.G. Wells, the swine beasts, the sister – “she knows he’s fucking nuts”, there’s a lot of going to bed in this book, a very relatable character, Arthur C. Clarke, one of the finest works of Science Fiction ever written, marking the transition from Gothic horror to cosmic horror, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the cover art, the Corben comic book cover, the town (or street) that can’t be found, it’s a kind of haunted house story, compression of time, Einsteinian relativity, Pepper is dead and dust, Brian Stableford, Camille Flammarion, The Night Lands by William Hope Hodgson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Percival Lowell, S.T. Joshi, parallel development, authors write cosmic horror in cosmic horror time, astronomy,

“In the future, when the end of things will arrive on this earth, the event will then pass completely unperceived in the universe. The stars will continue to shine after the extinction of our sun, as they already shone before our existence.”

Enlightenment thinking and the decline of religion – tying your own shoes for eternity, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, you can’t love anything in this universe, the jade house in the arena, mythological creatures, Kalpas (is Sanskrit for aeons), it’s meta, before this book we’re living in a world run by God and after this book were living in a post God world, deep time, the recluse, are the swine people are the villagers, what book is the recluse reading?, two incommensurable realities, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, haunting, Clarke’s third law, Poltergeist, the door inward, the start as poets but they don’t end that way, the unnamed lover (let’s call her Lenore), The Crawling Chaos (SFFaudio Podcast #138), The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe, The House Of Usher, Roger Caillois: “The fantastic is always a break in the acknowledged order, an irruption of the inadmissible within the changeless everyday legality” (from Au Coeur Du Fantastique), reading old literature, C.S. Lewis, a passion for commas, a gripping book (while the character’s mind wanders), a pregnant book.

Ed Emshwiller painting for The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

Vertigo Richard Corben -The House On The Borderland

William Hope Hodgson's The House On The Borderland

The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson - illustration by Ian Miller

Freeway Press - The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson - dustjacket

The House On The Borderland - illustration by Peter Manesis

PANTHER - The House On The Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #162 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The New Mother by Lucy Clifford

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #162 – The New Mother by Lucy Clifford, read by Heather Ordover (of Craftlit). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (21 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it by Jesse, Tamahome, Julie Davis, and Heather Ordover.

Talked about on today’s show:
Brownies!, The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven, what is the lesson of The New Mother, naughtiness will be punished without chance of redemption, Lucy Clifford’s children were good, the big people, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, button eyes, crafty, The Father Thing by Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick had two fathers, glass eyes and a wooden tail, stand the baby on it’s head, “don’t talk to strangers”, free range children, scared straight, dancing dogs, hopelessness, don’t give in to temptation, “listen to your mother”, the magic cupboards, cargo cult mindset, is the girl the devil?, Something Wicked This Way Comes, creepy warnings, has the girl been the victim of a curse?, a moral story, evil things sometimes look attractive, Anyhow Stories: Moral And Otherwise, the Wikipedia entry for Coraline, The Father Thing and Coraline have hope, horror, The Shining by Stephen King, G.K. Chesterton “fairy tales are more than true”, The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick, To Kill A Mockingbird, Stand By Me, BB guns vs. aliens, did Dick read The New Mother?, Beyond The Door by Philip K. Dick, fantasy, the world is a magical place for children, the magic of housework, mom’s like God providing manna, the “good clock” that tries to keep going, frozen peas and creamed corn, the McCarthy era, The Twilight Zone, The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, child abuse, untrustworthy parents, “this is real”, stepping into adulthood, 19th century, 1950s, Coraline’s ineffectual parents, the Turkey and Blue Eyes, what happened to the turkey?, what’s up with the peardrum?, the Dictionary Of American Regionalisms, horrormasters.com, “it’s too heavy“, deception vs. self-deception, when do we learn do we naughty?, or do we learn it?, is it a game?, naughty vs. evil, reverse psychology, Tom Sawyer, a dead rat on a string, what’s the deal with the missing father?, fairy tales, Persuasion by Jane Austen, away at sea, fun garages, the feeling of bigness, Julie makes it all sound homey, Philip K. Dick’s father was a WWI veteran, pastoral vs. mechanized hell, Vietnam veterans, the new father in Coraline, the s-word, the movie of Coraline, a giant spider with bony arms, Neil Gaiman’s inspirations are classic literature, The Graveyard Book, The Jungle Book, Silas, Nobody Owens’ governess is named Mrs. Lupescu, Mr. Lupescu by Anthony Boucher, Weird Tales, Neil Gaiman is a fantasy master like J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert E. Howard, The Sandman, Aladdin, The Sandman: Season Of Mists, rescuing readers with Neil Gaiman, the teacher’s conundrum, there’s nothing better for a young reader than comics, Red Nails by Robert E. Howard, comic adaptations, don’t play down to your audience, Gargoyles, William Shakespeare, don’t pile on memorization, pile on fun, everything of value is learned through story, if you invert everything the girl in The New Mother you still don’t know what’s going on, is she just evil?, did she sit upon a baby?, are the two dogs the man and woman missing from the box?, many locks and many keys, unanswered questions, “perhaps you’ve lost yourself”, levels of naughtiness, being naught isn’t following orders, truth in advertizing, critical thinking, Grimm’s fairy tales, the etymology of “grim”, the University of Arizona, Grima Wormtongue, Harry Potter, Grimm, Once Upon A Time, Lee Arenberg, “to wend the grim tooth” (to recourse to harsh measures).

The New Mother - Then She Kissed Them
The New Mother - A Peardrum

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #161 – READALONG: Among Others by Jo Walton

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #161 – Jesse, Scott, Tamahome, and Jenny (of Reading Envy) talk about the Nebula-winning novel Among Others by Jo Walton.

Talked about on today’s show:
What does ‘Among Others’ mean?, “the most meta book ever”, Jo on Coode Street, what’s your favorite book?, Interlibrary Loan, the Welsh accent of the audiobook, is there a plot?, “it’s post-fantasy”, list of sf books referenced, how many have you read?, books in The Canon, Jo’s Tor blog, no cyberpunk, The Litany of Fear from Dune, learning about Judaism, Roger Zelazny, Luke’s review of Lord Of Light (not Amber), 1960’s – 1980’s only, getting book recommendations, no internet!, Harlan Ellison in The Comics Journal, used bookstores, “I’d rather have a Heinlein than a headmistress!”, non-fiction too, Plato (The Socratic Method), the fairy world, Virgil, acupuncture, were the fairies ‘real’?, Among Others on The Writer And The Critic with Cat Valente, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Tempest, grief, did Mor steal her sister’s identity?, The Wizard Of Earthsea, do the book choices reflect themes?, we want an index, karass (see Cat’s Cradle), I, Claudius, Chi, other Nebula nominees, God’s War has bugs, Embassytown, Jo Walton on series, Jo on the Hugos, we’re waiting for the hugo novella blog series, The Paper Menagerie (online audio), how well read do you have to be to appreciate Among Others?, Hyperion, “it’s a book-love book”, which books from the list will you read next?, The Wind’s Twelve Quarters is the best, old Delany, Sturgeon’s A Touch Of Strange, what’s that Sturgeon novel with three brains in a jello mold on Mars internet??, James Tiptree Jr., The Dispossessed (Luke’s review), Stand On Zanzibar is on audio, length of books, Jo’s Small Change series is on audio, Tor is drm-free, don’t forget Baen and Angry Robot and Nightshade, the kindle hit Wool is optioned for a movie, “umm…no”

I happened to have this old paperback:

Posted by Tamahome