The SFFaudio Podcast #796 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The SFFaudio Podcast #796 – The Cave Girl by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Gerald Moe (for LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (8 hour 18 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Cora Buhlert

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in All-Story, 1913, whatever, The Cave Man, 1917, a single book in 1925, Dell Mapback, can we all guess where in the book where the cave man begins?, a chapter title, end of Part 1, went on an on, dizzying, when the Cave Girl takes over the plot for a while, recover the jewels, I guess we’ll leave, the family shows up in the plot, less interesting, here’s the question that will spur anger and debate and make rage quit, classist, racist, or other ist?, really hated Germans too, WWI had not started yet, he likes the French, nasty stuff in some of the Tarzans, classist, no matter what, that race is bad, our heros always have to be Thurston Howell III, the doctor from Boston in MASH, literal count or royalty, every fuckin book, immortal warrior, an officer in a country that doesn’t have an official class, Smith-Jones isn’t even his real name, David Ogden David Ogden Stiers, reestablish the aristocracy, these are my peoples, dallies with primitives, “the main character is a mommas boy intellectual with weak muscles who washes up on an lost island full of cave folks – he disdains muscles, but there is a nude cave girl with a nice smile, so i think i know what’s gonna happen”, contessa in a cave, pirates, The Cave Contessa, just Tarzan, gender flipped Tarzan raised by cave people, rich white boy becomes man in six months, tuberculosis, his cough, the excuse for visiting the South Seas, Robert Louis Stevenson, non-specific cough of death, miserably died, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Robert E. Howard’s mom didn’t man up, king of the Cave People, doing your way for 1000 years, sharpen a stick, we’re not living in caves anymore, do some fucking farming, limited wars are over bud, obey the king, we slaughter our enemies, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, At the Earth’s Core, the Yale, cannibalistic lesbian pterodactyl people, Waldo Emerson, the advanced peoples, he a momma’s boy, a living father?, wealthy widow, not good enough for her very precious son, luckily he preserved her chastity to impress her mother, hot for him for years, we have to do this properly, turned them all into versions of themself, Nadara, full title, illiterate, sign the book, what’s sign, literally a cave woman, a high grade wife, French countess, brown skinned, that’s the tan, their babies will be white, the white goddess, wearing a skirt at the end, Son Of Tarzan, runs off into the forest, girl rescued from arab slavers, she was French the whole time, no no jesse you stupid fool, of course she’s a countess, Ralph Waldo Emerson Smith Jones, important characters, not of the upper crust, phrenology, sloppy skulls not good for learning Shakespeare, a series of villains step forth, I’m Blow Blow the killer, Flatfoot and the other guy, I was going to kill you a minute ago, I’m a cave man, 20 minutes left, fast friends with a random pirate, what kind of pirates are in the middle of the South Pacific?, 3 ships show up randomly, blackbirders, trans-pacific pirates are not a thing, grow copra all day, cannibals are very romantic, yes, coincidence and pure fantasy, Monster Men, think’s he’s a creature, a girl he thinks he’s worthy of, his genetics are not monster men, genre classify, definitely Edgar Rice Burroughs, anthropological science fiction, the anthropology is really bad, a patriarchal society, women and caves are property, cartoon cavemen, what hunter gathers were like, The Old Way by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State by Fredrich Engles, take issue, we’re gonna shoot your dog, do it straight up as a comedy, don’t change anything, the book is funny and fun and totally ridiculous, repetitive, he did no research, he could have researched, Typee by Herman Melville, not a single dinosaur in this book, a lost island, the fantastic element, all the coincidences, Caprona and Pellucidar, not a lost world, just a plateau in South America, did we get the coordinates?, FadedPage, degree, lat 10 south long 150 west, deliberate blanks to obscure the guilty, historians maintan the true answer is lost, Nagula, the earthquake and the monster in the woods, laziness?, pure Burroughs, internal mythology, the only other culture we get, a sewing kit for the sewing bag, sewed a costume for himself, grandma’s grandma remembered the earthquake, adopted parents, the lady in labour, that’s their culture, I am the strong one, King Kong at the end, the whole island sank, an atoll tho, all that’s left after the earthquake, just south of Hawaii, eat raw fish, a whole Mexico south of Hawaii, not a volcanic island, caves, a steaming volcano, used to be volcanic, how did you like the book?, fun without being great, you should check that out right now, The Mad King, lesser Burroughs, the one with the gorgeous Michael Whelan cover, fur suit, what colour is her hair, should be raven haired, if it’s not raven its not right, just a stick, a very very short spear, he’s got a shield, they throw rocks at him, cudgel, hide over a wicker frame, fire harden it?, cave men are very soft, the dialogue tree is very minimal, I’m wearing nagula skin, the morality is very simple, lesser Burroughs, some random person, a place great to get things, Burroughs ought to have a place in literature that’s taught in schools, don’t involve schools in your argument, Tarzan, this argument from twitter is overstated, the professor was a little bit like, travel narratives, yellow cover, Michael Herring, what scene is that though, grabbed on the foot, there’s a scene later, she hits him in the head with a rock, by accident, the cannibals worship her, confused, agreed, suddenly Stark shows up on the scene, need badguys, the random encounter table, a lazy book, especially because of the publication chapter, several years to be serialized out, what happened this chapter?, had to be closer, I gotta finish this thing, from the back, washed ashore, thought his life is over, staring desperately out to see, dark and mysterious interior, savage cliff dwellers, a tiny spark of bravery, with the help of the beautiful cave princess, stripped away, emdash, jum hum hum, Burroughs writing a coward and a weakling, that was funny, the Boston families all had two last names, the tell in 2024, we are very enlightened now, people are marrying money to money, the reason you have that famous last name, that money or status, changed the law, double name, politically active green leaning person, did the husband take the double name?, Saxe-Coburg, legal for a long time, marrying money, call me by my first name teachers, married the heiress of a factory, the reason people do it today, last name is Jobs, Bezos, last name was Boner, more of a left leaning green leaning tell, aspirational, all the activity that the upperly mobile middle class people, mirroring stuff from a long time ago, simulating rich people having servants, it’s a Disney ride, cleaning lady, alcohol decanters, east europeans, literal lawns are that, glass decanters, you’ve got a cask of Amontillado in your basement, or whiskey, the alcohol store, look in the mirror, what you’re doing is insane, the readership of this book, I wanna be a rich guy who marries a countess, lower class people striving to be in the upper class, that’s the fantasy, where is Heinlein showing royalty, go farm in the sky, Heinlein is not a classist, idealistic view of America, kind of a myth, striving for that, political dynasties, Bushes, Kennedys, Clintons, Adams, president of the European Commission, highest ranking person in the EU, minor aristocrat, Angela Merkel, if you’re going to canonize Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess Of Mars, once you start teaching books in school, this book has no answers, given to read vs. forced to study, Mark Twain is great, you’re on a podcast about vintage science fiction, All Quiet On The Western Front, an important book, honour kills his daughter, Nineteen-Eighty Four, Brave New World, the prison guards in that institution, punch a clock, abuse, the canon of school, the Library Of America, some sort of non-profit, funded by the US government and the Ford Foundation, let’s imagine they’re the canon, some of them are public domain, a good list of science fiction books, American science fiction from the 1950s, a Burroughs volume, for people who are Americans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, why did he choose that name, that New England feeling, sickly rich kid, politically different, named after a famous author, academic nerd, George Washington Carver, telling name, Smith-Jones makes it a this is your story reader, you asthmatic nerd you, Charles Atlas, you to can be a strongman, the sales pitch is it sells itself, slings and arrows and pointy sticks we stab into this book, page turning good writing, super-frothy and light, still a good book, read it within 24 clock hours, making things exciting, 15 20 minutes with teenagers, The Mad King, a king had died, a son had been locked in a tower, the mad king had escaped, the horse had bolted, car and horse chase, all go off a cliff, what was that, 15 minutes in, it’s on LibriVox go grab it, Edgar Rice Burroughs should be put in cars (not schools), still fun, just pick up a different Burroughs, Lexington, Kentucky, Ohio, Lexington Green bookstore, visiting family, some big road, Target, cross a road, the exact road, stupid, look at all these bookstores, pedestrian crossing, Caroline Island, the Dell Mapback, nobody living there at the moment, crime novels, murder mysteries, scarce, She, too expensive, Del Rey books, DAW books, Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperbacks, book club editions, stuck with them, coffee table books about ships and WWII, the Hornblower books, shitty women’s fiction, anything left to squeeze out of this very frothy book, his name means naked, did he know what he was going to do with him?, the old crew, William Stark, Burlingame is the captain, taciturnity, martinet, that half of a sentence, the non-cave man badguy who gets the most screentime, go rescue the kids stuck in caves, the real monsters were the civilized people all along, European villains too, a strict disciplinarian, named after the whip, hair cut in not short enough, this makes him a badguy, the sailors don’t like him, ethic common immigrants, the rich guy from Boston, rumors about this old mill, the rumors are always true, clannish religious whackjobs, ignorant, sees his big fishy eyes, Lovecraft protagonist, ready to swoon, any other author, would have been done first person, waking up on a beach, how’d I get there?, who am I?, what makes it funny, unreliable narrator, tries to rape our girl, punched her unconscious, got lusty, inside cave people’s heads, pointing sticks inside their heads, rocks, Nadara’s POV, I can’t marry you now, marrying doesn’t just involve grabbing your hair and dragging you to my cave, funny interaction, prudish, not-religious, doesn’t ever go native, not from the upperclass, fearful of cannibals, life is way better on shore, little work, lots of food, and sex available, made up earthquake, a leopard in the words, has a happy ending, what a classist, his mom dies, forced back to Earth, wife is laden with eggs, getting broody, just makes you get the next book, The Gods Of Mars, if that’s even a word, tied together, anglo-saxon and gallic ruling classes, seven novels in 1913, stinkers, Warlord Of Mars, The Mucker, The Mad King, at the typewriter labouring, he was The Efficiency Expert, the American dream worked for him, he wasn’t begging Farnsworth [Wright] for his cheque, harder, the millenial, he was web 2.0, PayPal guy, Charles Ardai, I’d like to be a sharecropper for streaming, your account is deleted, we’ve demonitized you, you have to, even if google downranks you, Eyes Left, 30 retweets and 1000 views, a huge account, turned off in a second, truth social!, all my devices, Bluesky, If This Then That (IFTTT), calling it like it is, in the bubble, we’re in a bubble, COVID is not over people, Ukraine and Russia crap, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner daughter, focused on her watermelon shirt, Palastine flag, wearing a mask outside, a celebrity daughter, a search, weirdos who take these pictures, always wearing a mask, that’s the story, an OCD trigger, people who have problems, a security blanket now, I’m a good person, she’s not going to die if she get’s COVID, it’s either she’s hiding her face or she’s triggered by it, wearing masks together, mental trauma thing, always COVID people, Trish Matson, outdoor party on the patio, vaccination status, the vaccinations don’t work, sci-fi conventions wear mask, all the killer virus stories we wrote, Glasgow worldcon, vaccination status, get bullied, allergic against these things, at a grocery store, yelled at in an empty room, murderer or something, dropped off on a primitive island, get their health up, cooking?, she made fire, Burroughs didn’t do the research, just eats those fruits he doesn’t even name, crabs, sashimi, fish out of the river, oysters, a girl in the forest he’s afraid of, he’s handsome, skinny rail 6 foot 2 guy, confusing tall for handsome, he runs away, gets his courage up, chases her, end it now, you’re the strongest man I’ve ever met, mischaracterized, perception wrong, I can work with this raw clay, his bumped up forehead, showed it had a brain inside, incompetent, she builds up his confidence, so many nagulas, I’ve never bothered to count, runs away like a coward, build up my muscles, she’s mad at him, he ghosted her, becomes unjustifiably angry, fully justified, dumped her with cave people, I’m right behind you, kidnapped by airpirates, drag me by my hair to that cave over there, unacceptable, needed to have the proper ceremony, honeymoon in Hawaii, fantasy wish fulfillment, gone native, what’s her name for him, Thandar!, Thundar, a Lin Carter name, the brave one, barbarian sounding name, sounds good, the beautiful one, the one with the high forehead, The Outer Limits, a Charles Beaumont story The Beautiful People, perfectly normal looking girl, it couldn’t have been like that, deformed, forehead is too high, Burroughs can’t play that game, he can’t play it, girl gets kidnapped, the same recipe every time, a great recipe, Lester Dent pulp fiction master plot, cut out all the racism and classicism, engage with the classicism, his dad turned out to be ok, the mom dominated the baby, all the languages, compose greek and latin poems, the mom fucked him up, the other girl fixes him with Burroughs, having a nice girl who can give you nice babies, the Burroughs fantasy, they don’t have kings before he shows up, Robert E. Howard had written this, civilization is bad, barbarism is good, have his book learning be useful, if L. Sprague DeCamp had written this, Mark Twain, explicitly a comedy, funny, funny on purpose, always does the same thing, American goes to Mars marries princess, Tarzan was a British guy, goes to Venus marries a princess, in the margins, his mother was an Earth astronaut, John Carter in reverse, this is also Donkey Kong, save the princess from the monkey mother, Super Mario Bros., he’s lower class, a Japanese thing, everybody knows only Americans can go to fantasy kingdom, you work with your hands?, not even an anglo-saxon, fake princess, half-breeds of whatever, not cool with it, make some friends, Woola, maybe that is why they don’t do as well as Burroughs, romance, maybe Will knows, romance is actually for men, men are more romantic than women, a romance for men, a meet cute, standards he is putting on himself, things that don’t make it romantic, maybe there are some kinds of romance books, if you look at what’s going on, Robert E. Howard stand-in, having a buff body so they can be suitable for a trad wife, Michael Crichton’s Travels, fantastic!, Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Herbert, Michael Crichton, right wing tradition, conservative, Howard’s not on the list, his fanzine, anything published before 2010, far right coded, farmers protesting, sympathizing with the farmers, unapproved people are daring to protest, useless rich kids who glue themselves to streets, heirs of tobacco dynasty, will is fuming at this statement, issuing paper, smeared as nazis, reichsburgers, more interested in romance than women, an older idea of romance, situate this, trad dudes who follow you in twitter, they didn’t exist, a mainstream audience of the working man, factory workers, marrying the rich dude, Cinderella, chunky Cinderella, adventure for sure, we do have to constitute it, this might have a grain of thought, men are much more romantic than women, is that really true, makes a very strong, 1912s, as a pragmatic woman, women have to be, a male romance, would appeal to that sensibility, 1913, more appealing, Jane Austen, contrast, which of these brooding men are most secure for my offspring, which of these cave women, a lot of dudes to kill, a lot of missing people in the female department, which of these families that are suitable for me to marry into, Persuasion, of the six, Mansfield Park, the focus, Jane Austen is to women as Edgar Rice Burroughs is to men, lower upperclass, upper middleclass, trying not to be lowered, Napoleonic wars, always stuck with the baby, always the case, baby out of wedlock, a meme, REH people, trad wife and chad, guys with beards, no NPC guy or Wojak, women and children into the lifeboats, CHADS: Yes, more problems, from the Titanic, the first class women, setting aside class, difficult, men saying that, men know they’re disposable compared to women, some other dude’s going to have to raise my kid, built into the men, romanticism, not very practical, giving insight into why it strikes the chord of popularity, class does matter because it is connected to money, a brainy boy, looking down on Nadara, little does she know, I’m going to do something I’ve never done: apologize, The Gilded Age, HBO, Cynthia Nixon, literally not important, his coping mechanism, the dad from Pride And Prejudice, dotty, Harvard or Yale, wealthy family from Boston, died because he couldn’t swim, how did he survive the shipwreck, act of God, act of Edgar Rice Burroughs, three guys went overboard, a huge endowment, every student should know how to swim, prove that they can swim, Columbia university, take a swim class, the 3rd class steerage kids, engineering classes, how many lifeboats a ship should have, lifeboats based on tonnage, added extra lifeboats, capsized at the pier in Chicago, inland waters, the great lakes are their own kinda thing, free shipping, just a highway, a line in this book about that, he looked at the map and saw these trade routes, tramp freighters, the Pacific is kind of big, real world experience, grandfather was a captain on an east Asia liner, the timing, an extended one into the forest, six months, a year, the elapsed time for the book, Gilligan’s Island, Robinson Crusoe, makes capitalism happen, a cross section of society, movie star, scientist, only one worker in this society, makes things out of coconuts, Thurston Howell III, trad wife, Mary-Ann, the movie star, boss, whatever the society tells him to do, a commentary on America at the time, what does it say?, stuck at Atlanta airport, all Cora’s stories: unaccompanied kid, a black woman reading romance novels, Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, a whole sociological different thing, endless loop, TVLand, close it with the Robinsinade Gilligan’s Island connection, he’s king, trying to reverse the American revolution, the elected king, wanted Washington to be King, a Fredosphere idea, the United States as founded by Pirates, a King Washington descendant in the White House, palace rather than a house, how would things be different, DC surrounded by the Versailles of courtiers, ruled by an upperclass, wouldn’t be that different, kick out King Washington, the slavery question, gone the way of the British monarchy, figurehead, ceremonial head of state, speaker of the house, prime minister, a twitter conversation, I’ve been drinking, the fig leaf of our democracy, you can vote, if the demos had power you would get what you want, the myth staves off revolution, German democracy, blockaded on his holiday, take a helicopter back, she’s gone, the trains are striking as well, overthrow this horrible democracy in Germany, family owned farms, family estates, pork, schweinefleisch, fresh local produce, they should be revolting if the government is fucking up, gynecologist, surname, a dashed name, married to a pig farmer, super-happy, married outside of her class?!, what a scandal!, hate her husband, a small town in Canada, very catty, the green voters, upwardly mobile middle class academics, on the side of the farmers, new stuff added to the schedule, The Seventh by Richard Stark, 1st Sunday in Lent, you have to give up things you love, besides meat, give up smoking, start smoking so you can quit, you can still have fish, a bigger thing for a week, no meat, no twitter the second week, no screens would hurt, can’t get in your car sometime, 2 short stories, Weinbaum/Simak, Return From The Stars by Stanislaw Lem, he was a committee according to Philip K. Dick, W. Scott Poole book, a Connor show, we’re signing up for something, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, a copyright strike from CBC, the closing credits of the John Carter Of Mars movie, a big nasty take-down strike, watchalongs, music playing in the background, 1821, about a guy explaining his addiction, drug memoir, pre-drug hippy style people, a bit of lingering death, a bad case of death, Lovecraft uses the pleasures and pains, The Mad Planet, a Maissa Will joint, Lucian’s True History, 2000 year old quasi-science fiction from the Roman Empire, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Triumph Of Evil, Such Men Are Dangerous, ill, get back in bed, doesn’t really matter, was it covid?, what difference does it make?, attacked Bernie Sanders, working from home, I’ve got COVID I’m sure glad I got those vaccines, DefiantLs, 2 tweets juxtaposed, not being ironic, what the hell dude, you should rest, six weeks of rest, the laptop class, Paul Kavanaugh, a pseudonym, a Florida Key island, not able to have conversations, two drinks every day, he’s gotta list, I want you for a job, hijack nuclear weapons and sell them for a profit, The Last Spaceship by Murray Leinster, interplanetary teleporters, steals the last spaceship, human read, William Sky (Stories From The Sky), a romping story, great old fashioned space opera, the pause at the end, a silent gap for five seconds, let the story sink in, Putin in his power, never read the comments, sell you on The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, first global warming ever written, human beings have descended into savagery, are their dinosaurs, Burl has spent his entire life, post-apocalyptic nature writing, June 12, 1920, 30,000 years in the future, various forms of fungi, giant insects and arachnids, toadstool forests, you had me at giant spiders, what makes it a Maissa-Will book, Will is a fun guy, listen to the narrator, if you need a sleeping age, wait for the next version, it’s a long life, if we can hold out, long novella, short novel, giant spiders, satire of outlandish tales, presented fantastic of mythical events, travel in outerspace, I doubt it, Gilgamesh is gonna have it, would Hugo Gernsback call it science fiction, he has a good definition of science fiction, trying to sell magazines, satire, parody, only an hour and half long, swallowed by a 200 mile long whale, a sea of milk, an island of cheese, deliver a letter to Calypso given to them by Odysseus, in the original latin or greek, A Witch Shall Be Born, where he gets nailed, one of the most famous scenes, gets crucified, every illustrator does the crucification scene, two semi-naked identical nude women whipping each other, female body inspector, cimmerians are all like that, the only screen adaption of a Howard story, a Red Nails was in production, a fan version, Conan The Adventurer, three TV shows, Kevin Sorbo’s Kull The Conqueror, better than the Conan reboot, would have made a great Conan, the Solomon Kane one, devil worship and shit, good scenes, good costumes, get a writer who likes the material, Max von Sydow, Max von Side-Eye (@SvenTystnad), The Last Of The Last Of The Mohicans (1992), lotta Hawkeyes, fuck the book, Daniel Day Lewis, My Left Foot (1989), Lincoln, this movie is awesome, a very male romantic movie, Edgar Rice Burroughs with noir and real villains, West Studi plays the meanest indian, Magwa will put the greyhair under the knife, a good cast, Madeline Stowe’s the love interest, Natty Bumpo and Magwa, I’m stealing your woman, let’s run through the forest for six hours, a dude movie, so romantic, great ending, Heat (1995) is almost too good, Pacino and Deniro, checkmate, Collateral (2004), Thief (1981), Miami Vice, style, substance, just out of prison, back in the business of being a thief, the mob come to him, I’m out, Willie Nelson, no you’re not you got a girlfriend, so she’ll never love him, burns his house down, before going straight, Jim Belushi, Dennis Farina, a man expressing that extreme level of independence, very Jesse vibe, the Conan thing, I’m not going to take your shit, you have to inform on your friends, may have grabbed a sword, their mistake was letting Conan in the building, Manhunter (1986), very solid, Silence Of The Lambs (1991) came out, did too good a job, William Peterson looking cool, nerd, filmed in Florida, Public Enemies (2009), very 2009, banks are evil, here’s a guy who fought the banks, noble bankrobber, Ferrari (2023), semifactual racecar movies, The Insider (1999), they made the 60 Minutes crew the heroes, The Aviator (2004), they played brothers, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993), The Lack podcast, how many podcast do you listen to?, audiobooks more than podcasts, listening to Damien G. Walter’s podcasts, interacted with him online, poor you, before he was a digital nomad, a columnist for The Guardian, he’s a prophet my dear, people are saying, he prophet greatly, he has takes, deeply ideological, the philosophy is wrong, his takes are bad, he prophet so it doesn’t matter, Sad Puppies hate him, little known writers, fantasizes about killing him, a deleted tweet from Cirsova, thought better of it, grey checkmark, wearing a plastic bag and a mask and a respirator under the mask, it was covid, minutes away, the only crime that occurred on J6, that’s violence, “storming”, revolution, I wish, they had no weapons, defend your lack of liking this deleted tweet, the person who was killed was shot by a cop, the narrative is that it was insurrection, they didn’t bring any weapons, the Capitol building, idiotic protestors, politicians were scared, caused a mess, a Christian holiday, if you drill down, deaths of 9 people, 5 people involved by direct cause, 4 capitol police officers caused by suicides, people don’t know, Ashli Babbit, fatally shot in the upper chest, Brian Sicknick, pepper sprayed, strokes the next day, all that transpired played a role, died of amphetamine overdose, naturally from coronary heart disease, eating margarine, in the days and months that followed, died by suicide, misdiagnosed concussion, in July, found, 15 were hospitalized, some with severe injuries, this is 9/11, the means vs. the ends, a protest, violence is bad, you should allow yourself to be killed, I don’t like these people, what shapes the narrative, flipping over our government, the government doesn’t care about you, fantasy of collecting social security one day, you can make our old people poorer and work longer, the damage done, when you put tear gas at people, furniture, Nancy Pelosi’s lectern, lady climbing through a window, an interesting life, people who have the time to go protest in Washington, D.C., the current president, even saying he has a claim is silly, the words coming out of his mouth, not the majority of the people there, or in Canada, the truckers, these are lies, all the farmers are Nazis, starve to death, buy mangoes shipped in at a huge cost to the environment, look at this, a class things, points his sidearm towards an attacker, tell the story please, broken glass, that guy is pointing a gun at a human being, roving gangs of avengers, super-powers the only way, strong young men from Boston, as only they can, like Tarzan, nosy old ladies in charge of these things, policing in Cuba, weaponize those nosy old gossip ladies, use judgement, a real gossip hound, digging up the boring dirt that is not a threat to our society, makes her really sad, recognizes it in herself, can’t we all just get a long, can’t I talk you down from this, give out a lot of tickets and do what the bosses says, a call center worker, old ladies, couldn’t sell them anything, something very benign, in house magazine for a government funded, Jesse was always at the bottom, not pressuring these old ladies more, Jesse just get off the call, call more people, impolite, Edward Bellamy, the society of the future, restaurants are horrible, a server, a greeter, hostess, that’s security guard, they’re old people, its just like a camera, a living camera, they find you a seat, part of the fantasy, American restaurant, just leave me alone, the ability to increase your wages by getting tips, feeds into each other, automat, a cafeteria, cafeterias in the future, access to a kitchen, this kind of mustard, how many kinds of mustard do we need?, dijon, honey, yellow, visible grain, thomy mustard, comes in a little tiny mug, blue lid, a literal mug, sometimes they’re not good, Bavarian classic mustard, mustard connoisseurs, #MustardAndKetchupGetup, one of the few Chinese words, sauce, tricking people into eating rotten tomatoes, Heinz family, descendants of German immigrants, curry ketchup, currywurst, gypsysauce, a bad word, gyp, sauerkraut, common here, everyday glasses are mustard jars, Hengstenberg mustards, Landsberg mustard, an export brand, other than spicy mustard, questions about Worldcon, Glasgow, what happens at worldcon?, masking, dealer’s room is good, panels, readings, signings, a gaming room, pronouns happens, old bald dude he him, pronoun stickers for your badge, cosplay, guests of honor, fantasy writer, British, Prometheus Award winner, they’re gonna take your Hugo back, take it back, they think they can revoke, don’t read Heinlein!, how dare you, listed on Wikipedia, that could be changed, withdrawn, removed, demoted, panels are a pretty normal experience, a podcast but boring, even a good panel is bad, run out of time, assuming no knowledge, not very much time, way off topic, potentially spicy, frowned upon, a moderator, to keep people from hogging the panel, someone who doesn’t talk, two podcasters who talked a lot, of Tor books, what does Teresa Nielsen Hayden have to say, podcasters don’t usually have a problem talking, kind of hates Cora, muted the thread, hyphenated, all hyphenated people are muted, not spicy enough, the usefulness of the Hugo awards, the trustworthy ones, for the best science fiction and fantasy, what role do they play, they don’t roll much, N.K. Jemisin, T. Kingfisher, Connie Willis, put Hugo after your name, a lot of misses, a lot of hits, became classics, David Brin, Hugo winner, Jesse is a total awards nihilist, bigger audience, following on twitter, pushed over the 3000 mark, meet more people, gets easier, how much did you get paid for the story, how many digits, in the 2 digit range, $2000 a year if they’re a famous writer, a cheque for $78, worthwhile exercise, a worthwhile exercise, a flash story, $25, answer the question, Cora, it depends, use it as a reading list, used to, quite miserable, fine with several of them, hated all of the books but one, Ken MacLeod, probably a lovely person, shitty people and you love their books, nice person and you hate their books, what else you got Will?, keeping up with it [short stories] in a meaningful way, top 15 nominees, just missed, crowdsourcing, big fanbase, goes to every con, great filkers, the nominations for 2023, LadyBusiness, you can add something, very democratic, list of podcasts, American Writers 100 Pages At A Time, Paul, Androids And Assets, for the Star Trek one, a YouTube, Cerebro, Chrononauts, Crafting With Ursula, Doctor Who Verity, Ex Urb Ad Astra, Fanac.org, Filkcast, Hugo Girl, Hugos There, Seth Heasley, cancelled for the Campbell reference, with David Agranoff, If This Goes On, J. Miles Explains The X-Men, vaugely science fiction related, Just King Things, Kalandi, a YouTube, SFFreader, gush about, Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, second wave, Literature Science Alliance, Are Human, Octothorpe, One Flesh One End, Onyx Pages, Our Opinions Are Correct, won too many people, Radio Free Skaro, Rite Gud, not them they’re terrible, Science Fiction 101, it’s British, skeptical of the British, SFFaudio spelt wrong, host/producer, SFFYeah, SFF180, why do people hate you Cora, good takes to all 6 of his viewers, underpitching it a bit, Staship Fonzie, Steve Sheeves, Stitch And Bitch, Sword And Laser, g4 tech TV, Take Me To Your Reader, The Book Finch, Coode Street, steampunk Victorian people, good that steampunk is over, Gary K. Wolfe, Luke Burrage, Skiffy And Fantay, Shaun Duke has blocked Jesse, 2 Minute Time Lord, all the Doctor Who references, Wizards And Lesbians, Wizards With Guns, dudes with mustaches, fart and poop jokes, Worldbuilding For Masochists, Tar Valen or Bust, Wheel Of Time, Eating the Fantastic, comics people, Tales From The Trunk, Hillary is male, Story Hour, If This Goes On Don’t Panic, two different story titles in one, Voluminous, very good, read H.P. Lovecraft letters, very liberal nice people who have nice, HPLHS, one of them (or both) is gay, made Lovecraft their jobs, actors, Chilean SFF on Youtube, The Cromcast, Rogues In The House, repeating themselves, having fun, doing their podcast only for them, we don’t repeat shows, after 10 years, that’s fine, just do the poetry instead, can only read it once, if you’re going to remake a movie, don’t remake that, stop making that, do it once, move on, Luke Burrage repeats himself, eligible?, a minimum of 4 episodes, recusing myself, since 2023 is now over, they don’t pay your flight, guests of honor, good to get the people nominating on the stage, The Oscars, cosplaying as an unmade bed, evening gowns, the clothes are more weird, actual playback history, Second Shift, an audio drama where 3 teens who work at a pizza place and transported to a fantasy realm, as in the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, The Last Drive, Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Scott Miller, great audiobook narrator, a Jesse follower, a Scott follower, too democratic, Buckaroo Banzai, Golan Globus Theater, talk about movies, two Israeli guys, action movies, Charles Bronson, quick good fun movies, ignorant and funny, American Writers 100 Pages at a time, Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Mate, Gabor Mate, 2 Jews talking about what’s going on in Gaza, Gaza all the time, Matt Taibbi, The Lack, Racket To Go, SFBRP, Witchhouse Media, Strange Studies Of Strange Stories, science fiction stuff, liberal boring, H.P. Lovecraft guys who ran out of H.P. Lovecraft, weird fiction, Guy de Maupassant month, takes aren’t spicy enough, more of an entertainment show, the plot of what’s happening, a useful service, Compact Magazine, Nina Power, Mr Jim Moon, Hypnogoria podcast, BBC In Our Time, How Doctor Who Stood The Test Of Time, their opinions are not correct, to get inside the mind and understand people, figure out why people are wrong, the alternative is violence, censorship, the same thing, too spicy, quote tweeting, migrants coming at the border, one A-10 could solve this, that would make him a monster, a very fruitful discussion, murdering a whole bunch of people, a tool for the politicians to do shit, a result of politicians acting overseas, would be very reasonable, not here to defend that tweet, there are people, show them out of the helicopters, seems a lot more reasonable and more cynical, Paul refused to be on a podcast with him, very reasonable, very cynical on the tweets, generic shitposting, naked dick pick, vile antisemitism, free Palestine, why are you harassing us with all of these reports, “one a-10 would fix this”, 15,000 individuals, I can’t with so much pettiness, are these migrants?, daywalk, refugees, farm work for a while, guest workers, replacement workers, scabs, there’s arguments to made here, about as deep as you can get on twitter, severe down-punching, practical and political, the people who replied, cosplaying, cartoon responses, this is what triggers Paul, seems to be a call for violence, doesn’t come across very well in tweets, too vile, if your house burns, we still have the rental car, an engagement point rather than a solution, seems vile, incitement to hatred, parasites, kept denying the holocaust, step back, literally not true, who is in charge of the US airforce, secretary of defense, Joe Biden, whoever is ruling the U.S., a very cynical take, when you can’t do anything, shoot refuges at the German Polish border, he’s not a politician, an aristocratic lady and far right, Tolkien vs. Lewis, Teen-Titans, politics in here, Quakers get wrecked, Biden administration, statue of William Penn, a Quaker teacher once, typical for a government, Cirsova’s politics are political realist, really horrible, feels unsafe, constantly on alert, most San Francisco, gibbering black crack head barely looked human, FAS, a lot of problems in society, mom was drinking while pregnant, alcoholism, alcohol is poison, smoke a lot, baby underweight, very funny, read between the lines, they have no faith in anything that’s political, potholes everywhere, a great place to look at the failure of everything, watching good old movies, charitable, be prepared to do violence, may do and are doing is a big difference, Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, 3 precogs, 2 predict, hence the minority report, I’m not going to do a murder, prediction vs. are doing, so kindly butted into so kindly, David Currie in the UK, fight me, I like him, not a good thing to do, joking with, Guardian article, Russian and Chinese imperialism, could happen in future vs. actually happening now, hypotheticals, most of the bad things that could happen don’t happen, I shouldn’t eat this chocolate, is it good to not eat the chocolate, adulterated chocolate, artificial flavours, Hershey’s, palm oil, seed oils, belongs in palms, not food, no business being in chocolate, they feed it to humans, palm plantations, a food additive, instant ramen, Thailand, Brazil, rapeseed oil, canola, sunflower, which we like, olive oil, actually made out of olives, not human food, feed animals, industrial lubricants into human food, no more margarine for you, make your own mayo, they don’t have flavours, rape oil, canola, people think rape is bad, fields of rape, very Orwellian, not something you should put in your body, might remove some skin oils, when Cora dissed the tobacco industry, fume as in over the tobacco, a little bit tobacco pilled, pumping toxins into the air, continuously, exercise your liver a little bit, more than 10 drinks a day, cigar, you don’t put it into your lungs, the point of the drug, smoking is probably better than drinking, smoke or drink?, alcohol in your food, inherited whiskey, brandy, cognac, mostly beer, the alcohol is dry, I’m never going to drink that.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #787 – READALONG: Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

Jesse, Cora Buhlert, and Terence Blake talk about Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

Talked about on today’s show:
2023 novel, so contemporary, Hard Case Crime, this cover looks cool, who are these guys on the cover, a new one, good to try new things, spilling the tea, Skeletor figure, sold three or for copies, owes Cora some kickback, didn’t pirate this book, pay real money, Audiobooksnow, Black Priestess Of Varda, convoy movies, the truckers, those trucker movies, a 70s car chase movie in book form, The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, crashing cars, evil and violent and not funny, Baby Driver (2017), private TV came to town, RTL, The A-Team, Alarm For Cobra 11, The Fall Guy, the German ones got steadily better, amazing car crashes, one car crash before the credits, funny banter, Turkish character, honour killing victim, oppressed wife, well made entertainment, French car chase movies, Australia has some of the best, The Road Warrior, Mad Max (1979), one of the best revenge movies of all time, the Saw series, Cannonball Run III (1989), Matt Frewer, Brooke Shields, Jamie Farr, Roger Ebert, read my lips, it is not funny, he’s wrong a lot, best car crashes from Alarm For Cobra 11, an okay movie, John Candy smoking in a car, he’s trying to polite, what are you doing between my legs, went to soon, great and funny, Eugene Levy, really funny people, the point of the Cannonball Run movies, a curmudgeon who’s watched too many movies, or an autistic person, he gets a lot of movies wrong, a kind of snobbery, Smokey And The Bandit (1977), mustache, not funny, its fun, playing with hotwheels cars, a car chase book, it is very hard to write car chases in books, Hicksploitation, a big continent, cars are important, lived in the city, took taxis, Gene Siskel, get in cabs, they’re not car guys, you have to be a car guy if you live in a big place, Australia is massive, Canada, driving across Canada is not a small thing, a road trip is a thing, cars are dangerous, stop for gas, stretches of road, cows, more road, farmhouses, the most boring stretches of road, in Germany city people use bicycles, in the countryside you need a car, public transport is bad, 80 kilometer ride, an interpreting gig in court, highway was closed, How I Won The War (1967), bikers and biker gangs, Terence’s parents never had a car, what!, enthusiastic, small towns out, rural France can be very very lonely, sold the car, car chases are very easy to do on film, the Fast And The Furious series, driving over the furniture, the opening scene, road trip, dialogue driven book, late summer of 1974, On The Road, no mythical resonance, a nice story, except for the structure of having the beginning at the end, particular ideas, wacky and crazy, surprised at the same thing, killing the characters, when Chuck got killed, one of the main characters, Gwen on the cover, the girl on the cover is the girl who hopes to get pregnant, she’s the Daisy Duke, boom she’s dead, a so it goes book, Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, this is implausible, isn’t that funny we’re so stupid, Galapagos, evolving into small brained seals, stupidity again, people are stupid, couldn’t hold a train of thought, interrupted, supposed to be teaching, civil engineering, holding back, it’s a solid story, Jesse hates it, pretentious, irony or arch is not a solution to problems, Nineteen-Eighty Four is an indictment, Brave New World is a warning, avoid the wrong path, a book in dialogue with a very specific period, road movies and car-chase movies, just two old boys never meaning no harm, Uncle Jesse operates a moonshine still, they live in a corrupt community, backwoods Tennessee, stock cars, NASCAR, builds into the 1970s, the inspiration, nobody dies, he’s got a headache, violence has consequences, an alcohol store, former partner in crime, 1969-1974, pulled over, the reversal, she’s set him up, every subsequent scene where somebody gets killed, surely this can’t continue, they all deserve it, I made a big mistake, a kill or be killed or just kill world, Julian didn’t deserve that, Antoine was half a good guy, Dean, all bastards, likeable bastards, a fun book, they don’t match one for one, Dean and his cousin, blow a tire, backwoods family, mentally deficient, overconfident, old man smoking cigarette while on oxygen, wants his seed, all cousins, kissin’ cousins, we’re back country folk, I need you to fuck my niece, rob this place, we’re moving in, I need to get pregnant, playing with the idea, they’re all distinct, much longer in the original draft, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), like Deliverance (1972), backwoods people, this high class low class thing, the cop who doesn’t want to be a cop, working class, not by much, about breaking laws, transporting cigarettes across state lines, Cannonball Run is based on a real incident, race of cars from New York to California, road testing your vehicle, Le Mans, 24 hours of continuous driving, a Cannonball Run movie zero: Gumball Rally (1976), friendly races, the prize is bragging rights, a mix of country hicks, and a Saudi Sheik, and Roger Moore, James Bond, a Goldfarb, playing with the idea of cars being for all classes of people in the United States, Blue Ruin, low class muscle cars that were fairly affordable, a Dodge Challenger, Gumball Rally 3000, all the exotic cars, kids of the ultrawealthy, a rally across every continent (including Antarctica), Batmobile, it’s only for wealthy people, quite dangerous, cars are dangerous, only for rich people car and trucker movies were entertainment for the poorest people, almost a little bit of CB radio stuff, a precursor to internet web culture, a lot of autobahns, main routes through Europe, CB radio was a thing, a way to jam the cops, communicating about where the cops are, where to get sex on the side, a good sandwich, wild and unregulated, a huge phenomenon in the UK, three low class guys get in cars, drive them, and make jokes, the number one show, a drivers license, younger people can’t afford cars, idiots who glue themselves to the highways, it was necessary for life to have a car, you could walk, if there’s a bus, a way of getting out of the utter poverty, he’s not getting it, resentment for being forced to watch movies like that, something you don’t like and being forced to deal with it, another fairy tale retelling, this stupid TV show, no award, people who never get out of the big cities, what life is like outside Berlin or Hamburg or Munich, hyper-reality, the amount of people killed over such a short period in this book, hits him with the paper towel dispenser, he’s dead?, this book has incredible stakes, at no point in it do I think it is realistic, jump over a creek every episode, the backstory for the Snake River jump, supernatural flying things, machine guns, the cars are always brand name German cars, wrecked for entertainment, German car companies lining up, attractive to these things that cause death, give us so much, working on a taco truck, mobility, get yourself across the continent, James Cameron, cars will run you over, a police puppet show, a traffic Punch, schoolyard with actual cops, riding a bicycle, physical unpleasant, it hurts, probably dead, not answered in the book, Evel Knievel, September 1974, he and the rocket floated to the canyon floor, live in movie theaters, the cars, four year old car, Vanishing Point (1971), existential car chase movie, Zabriskie Point (1970), the Cadillac Ranch, what’s in the afterword, stunt cycle toy, a lot of this is real, he failed, there were no murders on site, someone somewhere probably found one, Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, Corvette Stingray, whole television shows are based around these cars, Calgary, Alberta, Stingray, get to see his car from various angles, a thirty year old car, mystical stuff about these special cars, every character had a special car, turn into robots, Transformers, will be my best friend, we can fight evil, temporarily stealing things, light, car chase movies, smuggling drugs or alcohol, why would you smuggle that, late 60s, new Hollywood movies about anti-heroes, Easy Rider, Billy Jack, I’m Captain America, symbol of freedom, Dolly Parton’s ex, Burt Reynolds, Pontiac Firebird, his success with that and the sequels, like pure money for Pontiac, a new Firebird for the rest of your life, where’s my car?, you can’t drive all those cars, driver movie series, Transporter, concept movies, taking the little kid who liked playing with cars, get that nostalgia into the kid, increasingly small segment, that’s what they’re doing with their money, young people can’t afford cars, cars are turned into safety vehicles, a used car that is still running is pretty impressive, hurts their ability to get jobs and keep things, get a van and live in it, steadily badly for 50 years, they cracked down, 14 in Alberta, a bicycle with a motor, tractor at 15, a relationship between and their ecnomic status of people and their car, the last new cheap car, Yugo, Dacia, still affordable in Russia, the price of a car is 20,000 at a minimum, a Volkswagen Golf, very beautiful and very bad Mustang, Citroen 2CV, the collectors have gotten to them, Volkswagen Beetle, the title again, called out in the book, on the down low, hiding, for black people in the USA it means gay, just another character, the characters on the cover, who are these people, bottom left, Jim Carrey, a good old boy, the central guy, Dean, Roy Scheider, off brand Burt Reynolds, Samuel Jackson, sheriff, Jack Elam was the doctor in Cannonball Run, guy with the weird eye, too old for the role, wearing the Daisy Dukes, Stephen Spielberg’s Sugarland Express (1974), Jaws (1975), similar to the plot, Goldie Hawn, our son has been adopted, escape from prison, a chase across Texas, a slow strange car chase, William Atherton, based on a true story, the husband’s dead, the wife is put into prison, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), sympathetic criminals, Bonnie And Clyde (1967), they die at the end, based on a true story, an intensive media presence, every town they pass through, a James gang or Robin Hood story, not doing any harm, the circumstances of capitalism, they come from a low class, regular normal people are heroes because they’re bucking against the state, we are the media presence, this book doesn’t have any intellectual heft at all, a throwback period piece, analyzing vs. recreating, making a new story, Hicksploitation, another Hard Case Crime book, heist book, Charlesgate Confidential, doofus, Scott Von Doofus, a night palate cleanser for Cora, we don’t think of them as badguys now, what are they doing that’s so wrong, kill a lot of people, it’s never thought through, bad cops you see in American movies, quit his job cop, the sheriff is bad, drawing and quartering, artificial fuel, biker gangs are bad, first quarterback, in the chess club, going to Vietnam, doesn’t feel like a perfect book, very Elmore Leonardesque, all very eloquent, hyper-real, hyperreality, feels like a play, snappy dialogue, no word other than said, he said archly, crime fiction critic, named after Melville, probably be a pretty good movie, We Can Do It Differently, <strong>No More Mister Nice Guy (1993), communist or nazi, some kind of house somewhere in East Germany, legal files, manor house, killing people, kick up a deserted Soviet Soldier, pick up a woman, shot and killed, Russia at the time, a failed state and there’s nothing there, Thelma & Louise (1991), big surprise, bbq and happy, still an American production, relentless deaths, not trying to make a sequel, not a heavyweight book at all, enjoyable for the ride, most of Hard Case Crime, it’s not a mystery, set your cars rolling, do some jumps, playtime’s over, Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Double Indemnity, Postman Always Rings Twice, wrong Thompson, 1958 novel, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, McQueen and McGraw, Dynasty or Dallas, Sorcerer (1977), give her a role, a movie with only men, bullshit job, Roy Scheider, The Getaway, The Grifters, Angelic Huston, John Houston, Donald Westlake, The Killer Inside Me, blows you off the page, psychopathic small time sheriff, of course I had to destroy him, based on his own life, moonshine and drug runner in the oilfields, noir and hardboiled, Stephen King gave a blurb for this book, short novels, Pop. 1280, The Killoff, This World Then The Fireworks, hell, incestuous relationship, incest play, incest arguing, comes across as horror, hardboiled and noir, everybody die, Chinatown (1974), big twist, 50 year old movie, betrayed by your family, besides showing up in dreams, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, The Seventh aka The Split by Richard Stark, the movie, he’s funny, the seventh Parker novel, playing a fun game, title games, idea games, Donald E. Westlake, Travels by Michael Crichton, New Years Eve evening, Dinner For One, James I would like to retire, now do it in the style of the Colonel, two versions, the real one, key moments in this video, attention span is so low, can’t enjoy an 18 minute short film, automatic, a benefit, let’s see the car chase, that’s no way to enjoy a film, no, it’s art, Foundation TV series, earn the Mule, a podcast about season 2, Paul Levinson, Alcibiades, The Plot To Save Socrates, a media studies professor, seems to be a nice dude, blogging for a long time, nobody uses tags anymore, in the feed, Light On Light Through, funeral costs, burial and grave, 2053, dying is expensive, extended again, always 30 years, split the cost, expensive tombstone, much cheaper to just disappear like Ambrose Bierce, it’s time for me to go to Mexico, don’t tell the government that, as long as they get paid, solar panels, fight with the power company, steal a taco truck and drive across Germany, food truck guy, sausage stands and trucks, chicken trucks, whole roast chickens on a stick, pizza trucks in Nice, street food, kebab shops, migrant background, doner, donair, sandwich de turk, sad when people can’t enjoy good things, messy but delicious, life is messy, 50-70 years, an immigrant neighbourhood, Turkish, Lebanese, Syrian, what does Terence cook?, simple things, vegetables, whatever protein we come across, fish, cod, cheap and nice, quiche, leeks, whatever we have we stick in, small child, neighbour’s cat, have to be vague, deny the cat, whoever’s around, I’m not a cannibal, cannibal murder case in Bremen in the late 40s, gay guy who killed a lot of young men, preyed on refugees, Silesia, Polish and Russian, stuffed into sausages, east Prussian sausage, roadkill hogs, early school shooting, 1912, take over the world, Catholic girl’s school, kids made no sense at all, wool spinning factory, Catholic immigrants, Poles in Germany, we are German we hate those immigrants, culturally German, idiot walked in, barely ever talk about it, Germans are largely to blame for the school systems around the world, The Terminal Man, a big long life, all these humans are getting old, they all died early, one aunt left, indestructible, terrified, very active, health issues, biological grandmother, do you like her or not?, city Nazi grandma, surplus extra grandmother, I hate this woman, keeled over on holiday, in Hungary on holiday, Kiel, if Hungary on holiday go to Turkey, goulash food truck?, adopted by the Germans, make proper goulash, photo a lot of food, a good winter food, tinned mushrooms, 1982, Iron Curtain still up, cheap holiday destination, died on the toilet, break open the door, getting the body back, smuggling out important information, exporting bodies is really messy, death certificates, medical death certificates, bad James Bond movies, Roger Moore movies, Sean Connery, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Mach 1 Mustang, GoldenEye (1995), Leicester Square Odeon, had Charles been there, the tank chase is great, distinctive, the opening sequence, chemical weapons lab in a dam, do the bungee jump, Arecibo, the story explanation, communicating with an old Soviet satellite, Famke Janssen having orgasms whenever she interacts with someone, Sean Bean, a double agent, ancestors were Cossacks, returned to the UK under Operation Keelhaul, doing revenge for his grandfather’s being sent to the Soviet Union, spaceborn weapon to paralyze stuff, took the recipe, named after the house in Jamaica, a complete confection, rather than at the core there’s this idea, turn your brain off, 5 year gap, License To Kill (1989), first modern Bond film, she’s not fantastic, subtext running through the whole film, constantly emasculated, kind of sexist, found funny, shitty cars in Eastern Europe, the film works but it is not good, Skyfall, the invisible car, Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh, heavy product placement, let it die, a legend of martial arts cinema, Singapore, Robert Carlyle, Bernard Cornwell, Richard Sharpe, super-hero movies, Halle Berry, make it a period piece, done as a comedy, much crueler, occasionally stern, suave and makes jokes, what they’re doing with Craig, you’re taking away the fun, all memberberries, the Goldfinger car, not a British car, came out two years before he was born, don’t think about that, terrible, a twitter essay, when the James Bond movie series really crashed, only did two movies, the Russians are not the badguys after, friendly rivals, worked with James Bond, James Bond fucks Russian women, gave him the highest Soviet medal, occasional competitors, mostly it was capitalists, a Nazi capitalist, a Rupert Murdoch type guy, under Craig they made Julian Assange the bad guy, child star in France, tastefully rendered sex, La Boum (1980), release all the private docs the British empire did, turning into propaganda, they were the opposite, talk about the Soviets being crazy, a rogue Soviet general, eagerly watched these movies, cool gadgets, the animosity is very much one way, then high school equivalent of an essay, which Red Scare?, the one today?, why is this important, because we’re having one again, people calling people McCarthyites, the first Red Scare, super-evil top down, you’ve gone too far, the army is not full of communists, they don’t even believe it, a way of tarring your enemies, Sarah Hoyt, not mentally very well, even if you are worried about communism, Vietnam communism is not Cuban communism, Justin Trudeau is not a communist, fighting socialized dental care, for war with other countries, he is the Liberal party in Canada, Russia – Ukraine war, a horror show, they didn’t know, only the Russians are evil, from the Baltics, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, the biggest sin there is, they look like twins, you killed my family, wars, resentment caused by individual people in power, his dad had a beef with Iraq, an excuse to do something, a precedent for this, not a good thing, atrocity, killed the dog, if people want to be kings, you have to show people, we’re not going to do kings, they brought the king back, still a movement to put him back in, the Pantheon of Rome, the reinstatement of the Italian monarch, we should be done with monarchies and oligarchies, Kaiser relatives around?, King of England, Prince Louis Ferdinand, aristocratic, increasingly irrelevant, huge inheritance taxes, a punk girl, popped out a few kids, tabloid celebrity, terribly conservative, used her celebrity appeal, an actor, Young Indiana Jones movies, dukedom, private railway station, finished in 1916, can’t mingle with the common people, museum now, city government buildings these days, something to eat, Monday it is, strong painkillers, doped up, coffee, an extra hour’s sleep.

Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

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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 #696 – READALONG: The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #695 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Trent Reynolds talk about The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake

Talked about on today’s show:
1966, paperback or hardcover?, it’s better if it is a paperback, not by Westlake, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block, while burgling, on the run, five pages before the end, what the mystery was and how all things came to be, a subgenre between Westlake and Block, little excerpts, a real book, Block introduced Jesse to Westlake, from reading a series, self-flagellation, a movie the very next year, a Frazetta cover, a pretty bad movie, an episode of The Monkees, sets in relief author choices, the jacket that goes missing, heroin, literal cash, a million dollars, a typical Hollywood move, a cargo ship filled with cash, massive stakes inflation, our hero is a murderer, grave-digging was one thing, a functionary of the institution, an apparatchik of the organization, he’s redeemed, he gets out, he goes to California, he abandons his month, tell us more about your mafia connections, heat of the moment self-defense vs. deliberate planned murder, Gravito, all fun mafia stuff, over his shoulder for the entire book, comedic, tightrope walk, a Westlakeian attitude, how he can get himself out of this lifestyle he’s in, Westlake’s view of the world is very funny, human absurdity, a caper, the big send off, definitely fun, as a person living in the world, reconcile, a lot of books like this, most of the [Richard] Stark books, Paul felt bad for him, framed for something he didn’t do, go get the world, we should have trouble, 20 years after The Sopranos, a very old book, kids have turned to glue, white slavery, prostitution, running girls, subverting the religion, the roads are bad, a Protestant a Catholic funeral, if it was a less naturally gifted writer, less absurd it would be more disturbing, heightened reality, the laws of physics still work in this place, he rolls out of a moving car, a missed opportunity, Westlake adaptations to film, The Stepfather (1987), The Grifters (1990), Jim Thompson, the novel medium, one little sequence, when he wakes up in the bed with the widow, dream sequence, a frame-shift, kneeling, this guy is really old, a young vigorous guy, the fish-eye, so talented, looking in a mirror, those details mark out Westlake, great language, this guy’s a killer, future comic novels, mildly funny, more sympathetic, robbing an orphanage, a conscious move, dead serious, the desperate circumstances, keystone cops, intrusive music in bad movies in the 1960s, CW shows, music over conversation, ruinous, a detective story, phone calls, inherent in the absurdity of the situation, in real life, a phone tag conversation, it’s one of those days, like candy, Westlake’s thoughts on society are all over the page, a few years ago, all the potholes are marked, New York City, all of these things feed into reflections, how city management could be done, corruption at the airport, hashmarks up and down his uniform, the yellow brick novel, Dancing Aztecs, what it all means, the title is kind of misleading, Weekend At Bernie’s, Weekend At Bernie’s II, every decision is bad, they make the jack brown in the movie, low rez, brown for shitty, a red herring, the title, we never see the body, somebody moved it at some point, Al Engel, Aloysius, Mr. Kan, a lot of widows (fake and real), The Busie Body, a 1709 play, Susanna Centlivre, the venice carnival, gigolo, all these people wanting to get with each other, everybody is in everybody’s bedroom, kinda similar, a French farce, I’m busy, nosing into other people’s business, an older meaning, nosy Parker, 17th century meaning, sexually active, she’s a busy body, a kissing book, Gentleman Prefer Blondes [subtitled: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady by Anita Loos], a new release on LibriVox, Marilyn Monroe, a musical, a flapper prostitute’s POV, super funny, a blank book, a funny cutesy attitude, super-naive, inference work, she’s a busybody, a lot of gentleman callers, one sex scene, this woman who keeps showing up, the list of suspects, who framed him?, he didn’t play fair, you don’t feel cheated though, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), I recognize you, dinner, very small payoffs, low stakes, the threat of California, Dolly, Brody who’s a body we never see, a light confection, a nephew novel, Somebody Owes Me Money, The Organization, yeaah, pushing towards, a replacement for government, it used to be there was always big hits all the time, now that things are organized, a warlord, turned into a bureaucracy, things settle down, the origins of government, before the progressive era in the United States, the mafia providing social welfare, why Sicily is important, when the cops won’t give satisfaction, the competition, the government has a monopoly on violence, coercion, threats, asking, and paying, a second government, Engle, he’s not a murderer he’s just a soldier, Secret Service, doing his duty, they are crime books, twisted, Callahan, bribed, lots of cops are on the take, Serpico and all these other stories, paying attention to tiny details, reading the paper and seeing how things actually work, we don’t need to know his service history, a very subtle take, the insurance angle didn’t come up until the end, the fake widow, this was just honest insurance fraud, Double Indemnity, Black Widow (1987), Debra Winger and Theresa Russell, the eraser, marrying her way to riches, the great personality, neo noir, she disappears from the bathroom, he’s a great card player, the book’s greatest weakness, the funeral parlor employee, suspicious as hell, in a more mature Westlake book, the reader expects a cutesy flirty relationship, the resume sticker, the romantic love interest was behind it all, too obvious, they’re going to hook up later, the restaurant that used to be a barn, wagonwheels on the wall, workmanlike, great scenes, the explanations, Dortmunder books, long for the content, like a ping pong ball bouncing around New York, he wasn’t really steering his ship, a lair, a manipulator, thin, The Producers, a blueprint for Dortumnder, driven by circumstances, Westlake calls the tune and the characters dance the jig, recurring motifs, government is incompetent and/or corrupt, Cops And Robbers, two cops decide to supplement their income, playing both sides, moral judgement, he’s a criminal!, profiting off of death and misery, making a mockery of religion and subverting good order, good gags out of the prostitution angle, the heroine character, she gets away with it, leaving the life of prostitution when she got married, run away, one of the best tricks in the novel, a lifestyle that’s somewhat voluntary, sexual rewarding, she writes a nice note, he’s a thinker, he isn’t just punching a clock here, Humans, a fireman at Chernobyl, what does it all mean, the early days of the web, please enter, “I believe my subject is bewilderment, but I could be wrong?”, isn’t it weird we live this way that we do?, this mob world is normal, aren’t you surprised?, a bizarre situation, there’s something wrong with the world, get back in the good books, be chairman himself!, get back to normal, a pretty happy ending, an exhausted guy gets out of the thing that exhausts him, the organization put him through the ringer, pursing the widow instead of Dolly, she’s got the money, get away to Hawaii, escape the system, parallel motivations, his face was disfigured, his head was burned off, does Engel have an angle, just a name, the Brody/body, what’s his angle?, sometimes Rose is a man, this Rose person, comedic, laughing out loud, almost productive in death as he was in life, 5 books since 2008, a manuscript for a Henry Winkler production, Call Me A Cab, Redbook, eBay, $1550, $79, Redbook is the woman’s magazine, Bluebook was a men’s magazine, Yellowbook, Australian Woman’s Weekly, in Westlake’s writing career, a break from Parker, Campus Lovers, Campus Lovers, The Man With The Getaway Face, you can imagine this book ending today (as a series), change the ending and give me one a year, like a shark, emotionless vs. driven by revenge, standalones, Castle In The Air, John Scalzi comes to mind, feature not bug, what does that do for the author?, flex some other muscles, designed not to be a series, the characters are exhausted, gone off with the widow, they’ve got the money, it’s the principal, smart, 6’1, his hair colour, he’s heterosexual, he has a mom, Grofield, full time actor, part time heister, this was a character that could work, a person to see the world through, he’s not like Parker, he’s not a turncoat, a lens through which they see the world, answering the phone: California, Westlakeian humour, subtle fun, maybe’s he’s going to be a milkman, Richard Pryor, charisma, Soylent Green (1973), it’s whats for dinner, standard in American crime fiction, all the institutions are corrupt from top to bottom, chess, locked room mysteries, the social aspects, Dashiell Hammett, everyone is dirty, notable, talking to booksellers, filed under mystery, Agatha Christie style, Mysterious press, these are crime books, classifying, where to put Two Much, to get it in the bookstore section, put a dragon on the cover it’s fantasy, put a gun on the cover: mystery, a spaceship = science fiction, a heaving bosom -> romance, always slotted in as a mystery writer, much more about crime, slices of life of people in the crime industry, quotidian, a bank job, always in the background, the reality, this is business, why are you so weird, thinking weird thoughts that come across as not weird, what his philosophy is or are, the robustness of the descriptions of things, what we call in fantasy “worldbuiklding”, the geography of New York, fabulous, mixing drinks, how much scotch does this guy drink?, it was the sixties and he was on the run, God Save The Mark, Oliver Wyman rage quit twitter, an excuse, The Spy In The Elevator, it would be crime not to do it, on the heels of it, 3 or 4 a year in early years, They Also Serve, Tomorrow’s Crimes, the Starship Hopeful series, Call Him Nemesis, a pulp hero kind of deal, this is a holdup, it was in IF.

Highbridge Audio - The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake

The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake

The Busy Body (1967)

The Busy Body - Australian Woman's Weekly - Part 1 of 3

The Busy Body - Australian Woman's Weekly - Part 2 of 3

The Busy Body - Australian Woman's Weekly - Part 3 of 3

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #645 – READALONG: Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #645 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Bryan Alexander, and Will Emmons talk about Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

Talked about on today’s show:
a book, not a novel, a fairy tale, is it a novel?, the novel format is old and no longer novel, a thread back to The Efficiency Expert, The People’s The People’s Republic Off Walmart, Four Futures, Trekonomics, Looking Backward, The Coming Race, The Iron Heel, a utopian international experiment, Karl Marx, things out of books, that terrible Vril book, THIS IS REAL!, Marxism vs. Vrilism, the worst takes on communism and the Soviet Union, a nice feel, a meditation, a very personal book, the different socialist personality types, taking personal responsibility for what happened in the Soviet Union, the blood clogging the drain, Pete Seeger, apologizing for Stalin, baiting people to defend death camps, Carl Davidson, Students For A Democratic Society, something her regrets, Democratic Kampuchea, Cambodia, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, very touching, one man’s personal meditation about his feelings about socialism, does the dog die at the end?, writing into the newspaper, more atheism, unschooled in things can hit on stuff, whether there will be mental illness under socialism, what’s truly painful about what happened in the soviet union, millenarianism, I’m for the end of the world, our religious history, colonial South Africa, they killed all their cows, trying to end the, 2012 (2009) is a comedy, Greenland (2020) is even funnier, the sad part, magical thinking, religious thinking, QAnon, the Millerites, the great disappointment, group magical thinking, a harbinger figure, 12th imamism, how this will be understood in 1,000 years, Saint George, an issue in the collective mind, Trump will be a kind of figure like a Saint George, Babylon 5, The Deconstruction Of Falling Stars, the magical tablecloth, the seven league boots, the invisible cap, a protest letter, shut up and say nothing you’ll be fine, how long can this magic work, straight to the Soviets, Uighurs, Venezuela, do you think you’ll do it better this time, 100 years of building socialism, the worst version, industrializing quickly, the high cost, the book is focused on the 50s and 60s, the break from Stalin, Khrushchev, the utopian drive, the dream, GDP data, defeating the Nazis, industrialization, a weird idea for a novel, a weird beast, exactly on the same topic, a command economy, a planned economy, putting politics in command of the economy, Dracula, Kim Stanley Robinson, science fiction and historical novels are similar, 19th century social novel, very satisfying, the dream behind it, Ernst Bloch, better sausage, the framing of a fairy tale, something Disney never touches (hunger), Hansel and Gretel is about hunger, a house made of food, you become the food, the primal level, a genius move, Ivan is the Russian version of Jack, Lois McMaster Bujold, John Brunner, Stand On Zanzibar, a meta-level, John Dos Pasoss, Soviet film and literature, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Russian humour, Jacobin, Leigh Phillips, Michal Rozworski, linear programming, Verso sales, the Soviet Union as a corporation, the math wasn’t there, what’s always left out is the other player, Cuba, embargoed from the world and yet somehow they are still communist, Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon, evident in all sorts of places, a thesis, where were the Russians were not really successful, Russian cars, everybody is competing, hard top argue that Russian military aircraft are worse, SU-27, the Steel Eaters (the military industrial complex), the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union was terrible at consumer goods, the kitchen debate, The Death Of Stalin (2017), Steve Buscemi, Network (1976), linear programming charts, lets address that idea, the problems of world communism, pro-american?, what small countries do, Vietnamese glasnost, Spains’ Mondragon, Mondragon vs. neo-liberals, a gleam of hope, not Stalinist, if Lenin or Stalin hated you…, Robin Williams, Russians jokes don’t have a punchline, the blackmarketeer, the buyer agent, standing in for a helluv a lot of people, very real, one of Jesse’s students, an unofficial offer from Harvard, this is the goal of every Chinese mom, hey I’m very happy to say my son is at Oxford, access to the reins of power, you’re one of us now, do amazingly well on the exams, you pay for it, legacy, something like an economy and rigged in the same way, Operation Varsity Blues scandal, just the tip of the iceberg, novelistic, demanding behavior, the scam artists, elaborate, my daughter is a professional rower, very real, when he gets picked up by the cops, a shakedown, a lashing out, a beat-down, spontaneous?, special arrangement shit, what greases the wheels, Pete Buttegieg, that’s very very real, a weird economy with perverse incentives, exploited effectively and efficiency, it is objectively interesting to see polite people interact with impolite people, why it is a compelling story, attempting a little Marxism, a system is going to be dynamic, look at the contradictions, the criminals became the main economy, China is the 70s and the 50s, automatically give birth to robust black market sectors, the education industry, Felicity Huffman, a bunch of rich people need to get their kid into a university, users and offerers of services, hire a Jesse, what Evan’s school does, more counselors than teachers, grade inflation, begging for grades, pressure from the bosses, top 50 or top 100 schools, they don’t really deserve it, the Svoiet Union’s education system, you can’t do humanities, more engineering, philology, a flood of highly competent flood, cancel cultures, the problem with cancel culture is it doesn’t cancel enough, during the purges, during the War, killing people and expanding operations, massively expanding education, massively educating in the sciences, so many programmers coming out of the former Soviet Union, Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, Kolyma Tales, the NRA (under FDR), an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Nog, “Treachery, Faith And The Great River”, Sisko’s desk, Picard’s desk, Jesse spends a lot of time reading, in the military, Parker’s backstory, he was selling jeeps to the Nazis, common throughout any system, external pressure keeps the people more united, the Cold War was not as pressured as we might thing, making the system work despite the problem, a lot of merit to what Marx was saying, part 4, this problem comes up, spread out the pain, prisoner’s dilemma, side quest with the police, The Wire, mandates from the top, middle managers, its kid of universal, this book doesn’t explain why all this failed, not buying the plan completely, some PUBG rando starts talking about communism, its becoming a genuine option at this point, the forever war in Afghanistan, their war in Afghanistan was too much, when the top people don’t care, the description of Kruschev, Stalin I really cares a lot, Kurschev: I care too, I’m more of an ideas man, I’m a psychology guy, Ronald Regan, George H. Bush, back to being competent, Obama’s latest 25 hour book, the clown president, no one is arguing isn’t demented, why communism talk is spreading now, the book is talking about private desires and private pleasures, overall despair at the broader systems, climate change, economic inequality, the cold war training (indoctrination), Firefox (1982) with Clint Eastwood, Gorky Park (1983), all a fantasy, in the movies its always winter in Russia, Galena’s giving birth, suffering in childbirth, give us morphine, pain in childbirth is capitalist propaganda, my husband is powerful you better give me morphine, corruption, one of the most important scenes in the book, a symbolic summing up, this really painful thing, she just breaks, this is what happens to the communists, relying on lies to ration goods, a very human thing, if that’s the attitude it’s not going to work, can they successfully manage information, free-market theorists, Ludwig von Mises, progress in women’s rights, childbirth plummeting, hero-mother, pleasure, physical goods, practical healthcare, housing, the replicators, industrial replicators, a machine that can solve your wants, 100% free when you show up, what is a little bit hard to understand, oversell on medical services, you have to be your own advocate, it helps to be vocal, I’m going to call my MP, hospital managers don’t want to deal with that shit, home-care, more and more disabled people have the ability to hire and fire their own employees, I need my butt wiped every day (not every second Tuesday), a mixed system, not top down bureaucracy, do what you want you know what you need, people are desperate, the current system of capitalism fuckin sucks, the industrialized countries are least interested in market reforms, a decline, its going to be guillotines and a revolution, time to revisit why socialism never happened in America works, the frontier, the Red Scares, running out of explanations, Russia Russia Russia!, the Democratic party, quashing its left flank, Occupy protestors, Woodrow Wilson, the populists, trans-partisan and anti-elite, upset with the status quo, Joe Biden, suspicious and skeptical, Pavlovian when it comes to socialism, Putin is communist, an old habit, reflexive, moronic, people under 50, what Scandinavia has, Canada, we’re going to flee to if X becomes president, closing comments from Francis Spufford, gender, teaching at an AP center in China, Human Geography, 6 kids vs. 3, Israel and Idaho, going through modernity, land reform, marriage law, revolutionary in terms of gender, no fully liberated, the education themes, Lenin’s parents, Philly Socialists, a public service program called Red Plenty, In hopes of 21st century socialism, the economist and the apparatchik, conscious arranger, Olaf Stapledon.

The Magic Tablecloth

Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

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The SFFaudio Podcast #628 – READALONG: Rage by Stephen King

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #628 – Jesse and Evan Lampe talk about Rage by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)

Talked about on today’s show:
Richard Bachman, Getting It On, not what I thought it would be, a school shooter book, only two people, a lot less group therapy, The Breakfast Club where the teacher gets shot, Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick, working his real life problems, psychologically traumatized by growing up, On Writing, Danse Macabre, single mom, he was witness, assuming schools are different today, out of the institution, it is not like it was, way less, psychological bullying, the teachers are the prison guards, you don’t squeal, it really is a prison, obsessed with bullying, It, the whole town is kind of sick, Carrie, seems kind of unrealistic, pervasive evil, neutral or brutal, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man, Thinner, The Regulators, parallel to Desperation, Blaze, one of his more Philip K. Dickian novels, an official photo of Richard Bachman, Richard Stark and Donald Westlake, everything comes out like Bach, The Dark Half, Thad Beaumont, told the father, comic crime, a Navy or Marine recruiter, a helluva lot of psychology, a very strange book, why this stuff happens, school shootings make a lot of sense, you can’t leave, if you can’t escape you lash out, the centerpiece of young people’s lives, if you do have rage inside you, projected at your guards and fellow prisoners, the math teacher, the narrator viewpoint character has something wrong with him (and also grievances), how what people say and do haunt people, too grown up?, particularly sophisticated, Stephen King re-reads, this isn’t there anymore, his kids are a little too grown up?, they aged the kids up, magic, things that 11 year olds believe that 14 year olds don’t, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, infantilizing young people, its too late, a lot of truth in this book, so pervasive in the culture, The Shining, the father figure, the genealogy of evil, he’s an alcoholic, mother issues, family issues, cycles of horror, every 28 years, brainwashing her daughter, something King grappled with for decades, written in high school, contemporary references, the math teacher is a monster, he’s being haunted, he doesn’t attack the students, fellow prisoners, prisoners of their nation, prisoners of their community, prisoners of their religion, social stigma of being a slut, backstory, telling ghost stories, takes on the role of teacher, they get it on, getting passed all the bullshit and the horror and secrets that are making their lives miserable, pedagogy, industry standard, what do you think, let’s engage on this, he’s a better teacher, facilitate learning among students, I’m at BU now, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, raw and short, 211 pages, just over 5 hours in the audiobook, one long walk, The Long Walk, only 100 people do it each year, virtually everyone fills out that form, a physical checkup, to do with the draft, the war, the guy who sells books to the school, his dad’s a creepy fuck, walking from Maine to Boston, there’s no end point, that’s life, a metaphor for life, very dark, it transforms itself rather oddly, why he withdrew the book, shooting up your school, kind of like a play, we learned something here today, another trope of his, seductive leader, Randall Flagg in The Stand, shining is King’s psychic ability, Charlie Decker shines, a very good book, an interesting book, this peculiar institution is ongoing, its global, when Jesse’s tutoring, realizing to them individually, the ability to get inside the kid’s head, building up skills and information, teaching them to ride bikes (with sentences, or analysis), use the magic words, a skill set you’re trying to impart, roll call, escaped for the day, Jesse has had good teachers, forced to be there, why or what was happening, you’re not allowed to skip, game the system, school was punishment, university was completely different, they take an exam at the beginning of the book, all the other kids are dressed down, you idiots, there’s no test, in a more horrible environment, modelling what they’re doing, you can’t do that with a whole classroom full of kids, they don’t know what they don’t know, its impossible, a disaster, 35 kids in a class, 20 is conceivable, some teacher who are capable of great work in the classroom, your attention is so divided, how normal animals work, mom bears eat blackberries, there’s no school for animals, a flock of birds, a herd of sheep, what we’re doing kind of is institutionalizing a thing, artificial parent, sometimes they’re horrible, their litters are to big, more malevolent, your pay determines how valuable you are, Elon Musk must be a genius because he’s so rich, the teacher has the right answer, showing your work, trains us for capital industrial society, obedience, the humanities (are to blame), S.E. Hinton, these are your great writers, these are your national heroes, expanding the hero set as we become more woke, an immigrant culture, 1870s, this twitter thing that happened S.E. Hinton author of The Outsiders, really good reads, reassign what you were assigned, about young kids, a JD novel, apparently alive, my students love your novel, thank you for your beautiful work, they can read a book, graphic novel, she’s a snob, a hierarchy of art, novels aren’t at the top, short stories, novellas, plays, TV movies, podcasts can be pretty amazing, her objection is interesting, make kids not hate school by showing school is totally hateable, empathizing with people of general good character (in poor circumstances), a teacher handing out copies of Rage, self-banned, shooters with this book in their locker, lifting the scales, this institution is super pervasive, half online, Michel Foucault, prison, asylum, institution, to serve modernity, the history of the prison, China, 80 years old, jail, confinement is the punishment, copying the west, public schools are very very new, what are we going to do with them, a fake labour market, what’s an alternative to prisons, tutoring is an alternative, monasteries, apprentices, student loans and free college, the industry needed skilled workers, cobblers or bakers, funded by taxpayers, the bosses don’t pay for it, it has never been the standard, why the university feels so different, exams and attendance, the lecture hall vs. the classroom, you can feel it, truancy officers, hall passes, the school to prison flow, black people in the States, being uppity in school, uppity into school, a feeding system for prison, residential schools were super-evil, away from their parents, their language, physical and sexual abuse, the legacy is not good, you can generationaly heal, Joe Hill, other problems, your society isn’t just your parents, recruitment for the war machine, another institution, professional soldiers and standing armies, clans and border incursions, the legacy of institutions gets deep inside, roots that are hard to see, penetrating layers of psychology, we’re in that forest, cultural interrogation, the asylum, Nurse Ratched, watch it if you want, asylums are the go to place for horror, reform out, group homes and group therapy, the abuses were so horrible, generational desensitization, co-op homeschooled, the default is the parent is a religious nut, overly protective, wonky, hippie, regular parents are desensitized, how crappy school is, just a thing you have to do, all sorts of things to hate about the institution, the only exception is politicians, a badge of honor, I went to a public school, I suffered with all you plebs, Pete Buttigieg, the psychological impact of not going to school, South Park pandemic special, psychological damage for *not* going to school?, watching YouTube videos, there’s a Philip K. Dick novel, The Long Walk was a depressing grind, there is no liberation, this is a liberation book, electroshock therapy, psilocybin, megadoses, parental expectation, what they think education is, what education actually is, memorization, maybe there’s a better way, use is the better way, start using those vocab, silly at the beginning, problems in the world you would like to communicate, we won’t like the ranking, it gets in students heads too, inured to education, but I don’t want to spoil it for you, becoming institutionalized, that mental illness thing, if he can’t break the system then what he did was horrible, did the prison guards have it coming?, getting up at 5am, the kids are overworked, they don’t have a life outside of school, that’s bad, we should all be in jail for child abuse, in a few hundred years, those overseers were as much to blame, strong union in British Columbia, criticize the curriculum, English 10, Shakespeare’s amazing, fill in the blanks, essays, online schooling, more common, self-paced, a list of books you need to read and reflect on in your writing, which character said this?, guess what the writer of the exam said was the right answer, get a stack of book, you’re gonna dig this book, not interested in reading at all, everybody has to be a novel reader, the problem with grading, art history in-class analysis, cultural, thematic, evaluation, judging a slug on how well it climbs trees, who can climb trees best, he chooses the math teacher, you have to have a certain level of math, math is really important and really interesting, if you’re a sailor, if you’re an engineer, a contractor, a cashier, quadratic equations, whose ever used Euclid, prove angles on a triangle, its interesting, let’s keep this idea and system alive, I’m for this thing, you don’t have to be an expert on Ancient Egypt, what school should be is a buffet, they can pursue it at a higher institution, in high school science we dissect animals, prepared slides, not literally science, pushing the boundaries of what we know, experimentalized, that’s not what you’re doing that’s not your job, Jesse teaches essay writing, the essay format was very popular in the 16 to 18th centuries, essay writing in first grade, did King do a disservice to humanity by self-banning this book, as a school shooter book, group therapy, he’s a horrible person, he uses foul language, Red Letter Media’s review of The Friday The Thirteenth sequels, should we ban slasher films?, slasher films are awesome, the close observer, other King books are so much worse, Apt Pupil is way worse, the new right, neo-nazis, a Nazi who got away, worse characters, he’s a popular writer, quoting Wikipedia, the Virginia Tech shooter, Cain Rose Up, Guns, the preface to Blaze, does it save lives?, the Columbine high-school massacre, Columbine by Dave Cullen, Bowling For Columbine (2002), what they always do in the media, Doom causes school shootings, blaming Dungeons & Dragons, Tom Hanks becoming mentally ill by playing D&D, Evan’s pastor, C.S. Lewis is okay, you shouldn’t do this: Jesus, another institution, sexual repression, the concerns of people’s reputations, what the truth is, all sorts of stuff, I’m not a devil worshiper surprisingly, what actually happened, folie à deux, Klebold and Harris, warning signs, the police fucked it up real good, school lockdowns, lockdown is not a good idea, a kind of mania for control, punishment, unquestionable policies, playing with guns, buying guns, making explosives, hate for people, extreme hate for people, the reason she was killed, are you a christian, she said yes, how the United States works, what Colorado was, Mork And Mindy was set in Boulder, a big Air Force state, military education, Robert A. Heinlein near Cheyenne, this mountain central state, a new western frontier, a batman movie shooting, a different kind of state, religion, school, military, set beliefs, you don’t fit into those, resentment can build up, boys are good at killing people because they have hands, machetes, it’s one way to go, its kind of like cancer, if you have enough cells you’re going to get it, Richard Bachman’s book are not the key to the school shootings, understandable, that person who he was, he was very angry, he was full of horror at reality, he reserves his anger for Trump now, this viewpoint character is most like the author, not the book Jesse was expecting, Pinter-like, its never gonna be a TV movie, getting out graduating and telling the truth, everybody masturbates, I’m a virgin, a good read, an interesting read, you shouldn’t skip rage, teenage sexuality, the one hold out, he’s a mirror to the narrator, male vs. female sexuality, there’s so much moralism about sexuality in King’s early work, alcoholism, drugs, Doctor Sleep, Revival, recovery narrative, monogamy, The Stand, 99.9% of Americans die, good wins out, THIS IS MY WOMAN, moralistic about monogamy, he’s taking what he likes from the institution, this is literally the problem, raging against the institutions all around him, The Running Man is such an awesome critique of American capitalism, Christian moralizing is not for me, some religious leader didn’t like the way the institution was running things, a lack of long term vision, seems like a nice guy, the killings, should I do a show on this?, Jesse was worried, Jesse shouldn’t worry, other problems that he’s ignoring, he has a legitimate grievance, make it about veganism, crazy people, TV shows, leaders on television, not so subtle hints, legacy of horror, changing the reality violently, an incident in a fictional character’s life, the loyal friend who is going to come visit him, getting some truth out and making people feel better, we all pee, she doesn’t pee or poo, you can’t admit to something like that, could have happened in a church, going postal, workplace shooting, interesting book, fits so smoothly into Stephen King’s other works, literally defying King, a 2012 Guardian review, asked Stephen King, what cowed media we have, fucking terrible journalism, its very impressive, 1966, good job Stephen King.

Signet - Rage by Richard Bachman

Signet - Rage by Richard Bachman

New English Library - Rage by Richard Bachman

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