News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
Reading, Short And Deep #561
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Balloon Tree by Edward Page Mitchell
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story |PDF|.
The Old Portait was first published in The [New York] Sun, Sunday, February 25, 1883, page 2
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Jesse and Scott talk about Spacemen Lost by George O. Smith
Talked about on today’s show:
aka Lost In Space, the same book, Virgil Finlay art, our heroine in a space-bathing suit, castaways, survivors, our third George O. Smith, a drug in it, go save my girlfriend, plot points, set in the future, alien race, Hellflower, Highways In Hiding, hard to love, the ending, in a Simakian way, maybe we just be friends, the Iranians rowing towards your aircraft carrier, join with us, the ending, vegon sari, bunch of humans, an aside, by the way these are aliens, a very silly trick, Heinlein and others, tools of science fiction, flatcat, Spock’s pet, it has fangs, a chihuahua with a unicorn head, six inch fangs, pet celot, a fat teddy bear, the idea is the problem, what do we know about George O. Smith’s background, write what you know, “space can”, an L. Ron Hubbard story, he was a sailor, a coast guard guy?, what is the central idea of this story, a ship lost in a storm, lifeboats adrift, the currents of the sea distributing them like a shot of a shotgun, abandoning a ship, the boats don’t clump together, a lot of this book is arguments about how to do the search, why no radar, detector, not very interesting, a short story?, less notable, not the writing, the idea, search and rescue operations, what Hellflower is about, makes women weak in the knees, two diseases, the same disease, telepathy, the underground railroad, the Decepticons from Transformers, the league of Evil Mutants from The X-Men, a silly idea that kids have, a guy who could turn into a car, what if among us there are people who were persecuted, if they were better, more responsibility, so Slan as opposed, robots in disguise as trucks and cars and jukeboxes, almost four hours, over sooner, stretching the idea out, why do we spend any time in the space can?, yappin, all gonna suicide, euthanize each other, if we didn’t know them, the idea is inferior for fiction, been on a search and rescue operation, doesn’t make for a great story, forgiving, we could have been reading a Clifford D. Simak, Wizard Of Oz and Philosophy, science fiction encyclopedia, 1911 – 1981, in Astounding, QRM-Interplanetary, his more famous endeavor, forward trojan position in the orbit of Venus, if he was born in 1911, too young for WWI, a little old for WWII, publishing in the 40s, training, that’s in this book, how to fix the problem vs the theoretical stuff, training people learning function, gunsmithing vs. field repair, is it a good idea?, hero captain, space jokey, industrialist, for no good reason, I get $100 an hour, incentive to keep your people alive, a ticking clock in reverse, a Rockerfeller of whatever, a futile action, way more time or no time at all, they’re not beetles, basically dudes, you can teach us about romantic love, something you can pickup, spacemonkey, a bad episode of Star Trek, space salmon, fatal misteps, the way it is put together, a team searching, new tech ship, we can do radar, new technology does come in, why did any of that happen, engine problem, a setup to show how a search and rescue operation in space would be done, a great Star Trek episode, we would care about the characters, industrialist asshole, self-confident, the commodore is accommodating, The Galileo Seven, will they won’t they find the ship, another mission, deliver some medicine or whatever it is, the rational Mr Spock, none of that happened in our story here, got detected, at the last possible moment, take their pills, the first introduction of the Romulans, these ideas can work if you’ve got the right scenario, the right setup, searching, he gets zapped at over the speed of light, the parallax of the stars, observations, a proactive character, surly, once he’s out on the mission, a character who does stuff and takes positions, feelings, well done there, an excellent point, much tighter, these things that he’s interested in, little things that are excellent, a reality, when you connect these three things together, understanding what all the pieces do, go in to the under-hold to start peddling, exercise, not compelling, largely on the planet, Scotty is not decisive, he’s responsive, what should be done, you don’t care a shit, a decent grave, we have to be logical about this, losing the crew, a brief reading, keep those people under discipline, responsive to orders, what he could do, we need the phasers to fight these giants, there is a little bit of memorable plot, the aliens are attacking Pearl Harbour sort of thing, arm up, participate in the defense of that, the commadore trying to get his girl back, The Horror Of Fang Rock, isolated 19th century lighthouse rock, three sets of characters on this island and rock, viewpoint character, lighthouse keepers, three survivors from a ship, an industrialist, communicate with London to make a trade, the secretary (the girl), to screw other people, a guy with some honor and training, the alien is killing off characters one by one, a detective story, they don’t interact until the very end, this story can work, its setup so they can’t be proactive, communicate my name, use the exercise bike to move the ship, you don’t know how big space is, bro, closer to her fiance, the admiral, if you want to be promoted, following orders [beyond the letter], the conflict, call off the search, he disobeys orders, does he get the girl at the end?, we don’t know, problems with this book, not super-fixable, they’re fundamental, I spent all this time constructing, we’re not going to remember this book at all in six-months, the best of his space operas, Wesley Long, Nomad, the book cover looked good, he Venus Equilateral stories, works by George O. Smith, LibriVox has been having problems, blue screens of death, Amateur In Chancery, scientists do science in space, beautiful Astounding cover for Nomad, Alien, aliens working machines, a human in a spacesuit coming in a crack in the spaceship, December 1944, over three issues, a short novel, how to spell George, Operation Interstellar, the sniff test, an Ace Double it should be fun, realtime communication across space, Z-Wave technology, that doesn’t sound great to me, telepathy, Time For The Stars, telepathic twins, the earth rate, the space rate, he marries his grand-niece, a cool bunch of stuff, why they have dead-zones, it works even though it is imperfect, other ideas underground, are they homo-superior or a disease, some guy inventing a technology that doesn’t exist, turn back to our old friend Clifford Simak, the crew abandons the ship, taken to the future, time barge, where the losses went, disappeared on a sea-voyage, a lot of mountains, go hiking and disappear, search and rescue crews who just exist, wilderness and a place where people can go missing, elderly Chinese man got lost in the woods, the right search algorithms, rural France, the water in which I swim, mountainous area, dense pine forest, for skiing, make an injury, The Headless Valley (1958), a part of the Nahanni River in NWT, turning up without their heads, a head eating monster?, a volcanic spring, tropical all year round, wild and strange country full of mosquitos, 16mm film, feature length, they took a lot of film, only him and his wife, he’ll die, it’s just that wild, a cave occupied by humans, inherently interesting to the people involved in it, some of the drama in this story, a search cone, where they jumped out of hyperspace, the theoretical reality, decelerated out of hyperspace, drifting in a cone, doing my best to like it, they way he constructed it, not much is happening, what repetition there was was not needed, the search continues, one of the remarkable things in here, to wash herself, her futuristic clothing that dries instantly, nylon, I love nylon, silk stockings, the future: it’s coming, City by Simak, take those story by story, one of the stories is public domain, Heritage Of Stars, Highway Of Eternity, the tail end of his career, sign me up, trying to sell Alex on, The Cosmic Courtship by Julian Hawthorne, The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison, a Ballantine Adult Fantasy, a 15 hour book, the ship metaphor, Saturday, books with the word Highway in the title, The Highwaymen, Planet Of Adventure by Jack Vance, a 4 book series, one big book, Star Trek guy on a space shuttle, their ship is torpedoed, some aliens that look like humans sorta, execute one of the two main character, Paul and Adam, fix his spaceshuttle and go back to Earth, a series of misfortunes, each of them have associated humans that are on their team, The Moon Moth, mostly a series of different cultures, in the plotting, the Starship series by Mike Resnick, a captain rebels against his orders and becomes a space pirate, they’re bad people, each book is a different problem, all of the adventure happens on one big planet, the author doesn’t employ hard SF, the solution to problems, quite personable, enjoyed ever book, one big book, 20 hours is normal, easy and enjoyable, a guy who likes science fiction ideas, cultural ideas, he goes underground, propagandized the humans to keep them sexually immature, drugs in their food, seems kinda relevant today, we’re actually the same species, birthed out of their brain, if you’re a really good loyal servant, mystery cults, Christianity is the opposite of a mystery cult, everybody gets to go to heaven in the end, the moslem religion is not a mystery cult, read and find out what happened, if there was a theme to it: mystery cult bad, hiding the truth, alchemy vs. science, publish and reproduce, get the decoder ring, science is about knowing, cultural techniques, drugs, bafflement, switcheroo, that’s bad, he’s not trying to revolutionize the system all at once, do good, a compelling throughline, property of the wank, the DirDir and the Pnume, the four alien groups, slightly bigger than Earth planet, free on Audible, make use of, a long but good book, The Name Of The Rose by Umberto Eco, we could do a show on that, good so far, 75 pages, Foucault’s Pendulum, early on in the Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast days, The Island Of The Day Before, learn Italian, have some vino, Numero Zero, what’s it about, conspiracy theories, secret societies, nice, good, segments, satirical, esoteric references, it needed an index, demonstrate the Earth’s rotation, Eco rejects, apart from the title, another subtle literary joke, a 17th century historical search for the secret of longitude, references to previous novels, a crucial plot point, first right of refusal, the test audience for that, a pretty difficult part of Catholic history, the boat rocking back and forth, the type of novel that it is, some profound stuff, full of ideas, lot of action movies, crying movies, a seven minute story, get mad at the story, Tea For Two by Joan Mosby, designed to be readable for little kids, if it was a ghost story, ghost sisters, the nicest street in the ghost town, if everybody’s ghosts, what would have happened if the ghost gun had gone off, more participatory, 3 random cards, The Apparel Peril by Jesse, The End, murder ghost or robot, make jokes while writing stories, British America, Northwest American Territories, South Canada, North Colorado, North Idaho, North North Dakota, American Ocean, it’s all ours, basically American territory now, so funny, so juvenile, he’s always been twelve.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Jesse and Misha Burnett talk about The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark
Talked about on today’s show:
happy birthday, Westlake/Stark, so good, Indianapolis, a guy named Stan Deavers, not an officer, in the airforce, upstate New York, flee the scene, at the end, Handy McKay, Presque Isle, Maine, legally inadvisable, the mode you need to be in to get to the thing, a burned out lodge, drawing on his stuff, early 60s late 50s, Korean War era, a volunteer or a conscript, it’s the saluting civil service, writing what he knows, a snowtop, does that on purpose, getting introduced to crime, crime writing, stealing money, roll in the dough, there’s always complications, some hook for this book, the varieties of evil, all different kinds of badguys, Parker on the beach, the machine, he’s got a code, it doesn’t follow the law it follows his laws, Claire, an opportunistic infection, nice way of puttin women, she doesn’t want to know about it, very succinctly put in the first few pages, she doesn’t want to know, the old guy getting out of prison, the broken man, got what it takes, willing to think about it, his ex-wife, she’s got my kid, she’s shacked up with another guy and I’m friends with him, the weak link, the wife, a type, through her psychiatry, working out why she’d married this guy, why she’d left him, takes over the story for a while, he is his own criminal, manipulative, perfectly good reasons for everything he does, second wife, mistress, using his patients as his crew, how subtly Westlake brought across the idea, the questions he asks, how are they planning on getting away, hesitant, meaning exactly the opposite, The President’s Analyst (1967), James Coburn, he’s gonna be the thing that fucks up the score, book 2 chapter 1, she’s not allowed to look at him, characterization, after this novel, that’s bad, she has to talk, how come Parker doesn’t know, a huge fucking problem, a problem throughout, criminals want to talk, tell sex stories and crime stories, tell the same stories, they have to talk, Parker doesn’t have to talk, to solve problems, from his end, she’s falling apart, to get her through, cut loose now that he’s got a sense of power, going home to kill his dad, a theme in here, the last lines of the book, and the casino after, turns her into a wildcat in bed, she doesn’t spend that money at the casino, that idea of risk and insurance, we gotta try to wear belts and suspenders, live our lives, we live at the hotel, Parker goes out for a swim, only asks the questions that are need, the phrase “self contained”, too talkative, garrulous, a mention of Salsa, a fun character, a good reliable guy, until they’re tested, a Parker wikipedia, Trent Reynolds’ The Violent World Of Parker, Westlake’s love of theatre, casting, varieties of evil, the man who was before, a revenge book, changes his identity, his face doesn’t matter, one of the characters had heard about Parker, a little list of characters, all the other Parker names for the Parker movies, that’s pure Westlake, Lynch, Charles Willis, it’s the money man, a dentist?, a mortuary guy, takes the elevator up, driving his big car he feels young, that perfect Westlake psychology, very hardboiled, talk about killing the kid, he can’t help but be funny, Porter, Walker, Archer, something like that, very clever, tippin his hand, writing it for himself, doesn’t even use his name, maybe the character lacks definition, Jason Statham, the Mel Gibson, a pre-reminder of the John Wick movies, a film that captured the hardboiled, Parker making a joke, the way he punctuates his chapters, a different angle, the most memorable villain, his own amateur antics going wrong, a master manipulator, throat cut by his patient, Westlake giving us some opinions, here are my politics, what makes Parker the character we’re interested in so interesting is his massive competence, a lady at a hotel, an ex-madam, runs her mouth all the time and drinks the coffee, these are genuine types, science fiction, thinking about Stanley G. Weinbaum all day, Kim Campbell, cosmic clearance, all the NATO papers, an executive summary, what actions to take or not take, the theoretical framework, how the reins of power work, personalities, maintenance, how universities actually operate, things are not done in committee meetings, they’re formalized, nothing ever happens in the committee meeting, the announcement of what’s already been decided, graft, ass-covering, rewarding your friends, a crime book, they look a lot harder, as long as everybody publicly liked that cop, suddenly the investigation doesn’t get any funding, things get lost, how do you live in the world?, The Sandbaggers, low budget spy-show, James Bond as a reality, agents are disposable, a patriot for some reason, you do think the soviets are bad, make Britain great again, a WWI fighter pilot [Harry Day], laws and regulations are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men, how fast they’re driving, conform yourself, a hedge against risk, driving is very dangerous, are you willing to get a self-driving car, your capability, a program outside of your own hands, a very good driver, a very careful driver, the problem happening in the driver’s seat, over the transmission, managing and assessing risk at all time, unacceptable, driving to conditions, in the rain, driving at night, anything perceived as blackness, the fog was incredibly thick, Illinois, Silent Hill, people barrelling past, all manner of idiocy, they’re out there, you can’t assume they’re going to do the smart thing, zen philosophy, why is it a bad idea to go to a psychiatrist, these aren’t tools that you use, too much uric acid, chemical imbalance, maybe you don’t want to just submit, where all this was leading, what’s enjoyable about the Parker novels, we get to feel superior, we get to see these situations, that’s just what I would do, the hyper-competent guy who’s got everything thought out and all together, we can aim at it, competency is the attraction, guessing right, walking the street, what’s going to happen, a problem on the horizon for them, guessing wrong guessing right, modelling somebody’s mind, distracted, bump into things, sleep hygiene, people making bad choices, sometimes surprised, a wise choice, we’re playing a game when reading these books, reading Agatha Christie, like Poirot, formulas to figure it out, puzzles, why science fiction and mysteries are compatible, Westlake as Stark sets up billiard balls on the table, this is not going to lead to anything good, how these good books work, those rules that Stan Deavers needs to learn, to show all the possible things that can go wrong, the mirror image of these books is the Dortmunder, they lose two-thirds of the money, three killed at the hand-off, had everything gone right, go to hide the vehicle, and the money’s gone, not answered in the book, would Parker have given him some catch, Parker would have killed him, stringing-him-along, put up a front, you did good, the one ironclad rule of the Parker novels: if you try to screw Parker you die, he’s gonna kill her too, a person not holding it together, French in The Rare Coin Score, that’s it, when team-members?, people a part of the score still their money, loyal to the people you assemble, pickup style basketball heisting, he gets tested a couple of times, off the guy, off the wife, off the kid, dark humour, what the rules are, 100% up front, where this job might need to go, Fusco, got the money, maybe you go to prison sometimes, you live on the run, down in Puerto Rico, those later books, Ask The Parrot, playing with the titles, very dry, dry jokes, the assessment of the girl of Parker to the psychiatrist, he wouldn’t care about her either, exactly right, she’s surprisingly insightful, I don’t think he’s evil, why is she even in the book, the connection between Fusco and Deavers, disagreements, such a funny tableau, sitting around the table mad at the doctor, tray in his room later, poor assessment, not seeing the psychiatrist would be a problem, a patsy he can use, a little in control, finally control, shooting people, plausible psychological portraits, finding them benign or able to hold their shit together, these people are resources I need to get my job done, stealing more money, the stealing of the money, the money is just an excuse for the job, there’s always a little bit of mistrust when somebody does need the money, he goes to visit his ex-wife, a salesman, selling encyclopedias door to door, Bank Shot, The Hot Rock, another chance to get for this emerald, Kengle didn’t know, a bunch of books, food freezers, are you free for a job, hell yes!, you’re using your skills, fix problems, returning back to homebase, assessing the problem, fixing it, and returning, out of the mentality of needing money, ice cream or having another pony or whatever, will you be happy, hap being luck, happiness is the exercise of vital powers through lines of excellence in a life affording them scope, was he happy?, a grouchy old bastard, it wasn’t just fucking and eating, engineers like to make problems, mechanics like to fix problems, a happy river, a shipwright, an ancient Greek king comes to you, they’re all hollow, show off to the other kings, building beautiful ships, teach those skills to someone else, since we all live in this 1967 American society, it’s all a fucking scam, it isn’t about the cruelty, what is necessary to get that thing done, almost like a reverse murder mystery, how to get away with the crime and why, a lot of per-assessment, the uniforms, the band-van, letterhead, nobody gets killed on the actual heist, some risk we didn’t assess properly, go wrong in a way that makes it a book, him looking over the job and deciding whether they meet his exacting standards, Breakout, Slayground, all the post-heist stuff, so many books in the series, definitely one of the better ones, an idea book, not all ideas are equally good, half-way through an idea story, I got a contract to fill, locked inside an amusement park, sounds really cool, kinda not enough there to keep a whole book going, back to Dortmunder, The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution, The Road To Ruin, Drowned Hopes, Bad News, Get Real, read by William Dufris, the voice of Bob the Builder, a tv producer…, what!?, the pay is good, what a crazy book, a private enterprise, money in his pockets, let’s do that, where the title comes from, bizarre, such a period guy, hints here and there, Dortmunder is getting older, when the new books start coming out, Chevvys, Pontiacs, the era is so different, the Rat Pack guys, Frank Sinatra, the internet is not even possibly a thing yet, bizarre man, Levine, cops, deliberately avoided, Lawrence Block’s Evan Tanner, super-hero premise, The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep, freelance James Bond for revolutions, the revolutionary spirit, the people must be free, a silly premise, sex-adventures, well-written, likes to travel, goes to some place, writes a book, can you write us a new one, Tanner On Ice, he was cryogenically frozen, woken up and decanted and not have aged, such a ridiculous problem, they were willing to publish the whole book series, not quite up to the snuff of your random Westlake novel, Westlake has a ton of short stories, The Letter by Donald E. Westlake, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, August 1965, bear with me, pretty good right?, massive preoccupation, The Risk Profession, A Murder In Hollywood by Donald E. Westlake, an insurance investigator, a very good murder mystery set in the 1970s, a new book, John Lange pseudonym, Stark’s more consistent.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Jesse and J. Daniel Sawyer talk about The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein
Talked about on today’s show:
A Comedy Of Manners, walking the earth, a goodbye to everybody, 14 hours into the 16 hour audiobook, throwing it across the room, the abridged version, read by Robert Vaughn, amazing as a voice actor, The Man From Uncle, maybe that’s not true, the George Wilson narration, Tom Weiner narration, the 1999 cassette version, how difficult it was to get audiobooks back in the day, why everybody is very frustrated with him and his later books, All You Zombies with a lot more pages, promising to be a murder mystery, on page 7, murdered at the table, very unusual for Gwen, lie doggo, why thank you my dear, a treasure beyond price, if I plotted a story, in its classic form, aka the rest of the novel, aka this chapter, right at the end of the book, eight times, so annoying, page 387, anyone who would kill a baby kitten, I despise you, they might be back, Gay Deceiver, my bean gun was exhausted, I explored her handbag, even into battle, the tardis, 12 chocolate bars, 8 in the clip one in the chamber, four darts were still in it, Heinlein!, so frustrating, jerking his readers around, a smart guy, why science fiction is so incestuous, the answer is it should be, it is necessary for good writing, all the different timelines, reconciling his timelines, the future history, a grand unified theory of Heinlein, Podkayne, Variable Star, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, other stuff, Guy De Maupassant, George O. Smith novels, super reliable, always gives you Heinlein, a John Sladek parody of Heinlein [Engineer To The Gods – in Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1972], ai versions of people, sample writing, didn’t think about very much back then, more than once, the problem of this book, repetition of scenes, as big and sprawling as it is, a great roadtrip book, a series of short stories in between, wait thirty words, same voice, different kind of book, incestuous, almost all dialogue, Jubal Harshaw, Stranger In A Strange Land, six other guys, the promise of the book, we were tricked into reading the whole thing, Golden Rule, dystopia/utopia, a very good look at what the Moon looks like, slang terms, they’re culture, time corps, time patrol stuff, a book that bootstraps itself into existence, Bill is the pet for the first three quarters of the book, the Twain line, the villainous nature of the thing, the bullies from the juveniles, the old Heinlein we know, most annoying, doesn’t quite work on its own, in terms of narrative structure, philosophical ideas, snap into focus, The Number Of The Beast, New English Library, spans the front and back cover, The Pursuit of the Pankera, a particular set of glasses, a grimoire, the same character, later in the timeline, the Burroughs family and the Long family, the opposing team is the Time Lords, an anagram of Heinlein’s name, the big bad in this book, the meta, it’s on page 7, the Galactic Overlord, retiring him, By His Bootstraps vs. All You Zombies, solipsism, mispronounced by the narrator, Heinlein teaching, Heinlein haters, you do need to read Heinlein, politics outside of your native bubble, grew to hate Heinlein, they teach Starship Troopers, if they taught Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, good values, very fruitful, the one everybody wants to respond to, weird things, dirty old man Heinlein, dirty young man, dirty middle aged, they don’t edit like they used to, the bestseller’s list, the sexual revolution of the 1920s, Alexei Panshin’s hit-piece, a conservative fuddy-duddy, going off in the woods with your boyscout master, going to Yale, becoming an officer, if you read a Heinlein book long enough you’ll find a transgender character, Mike and Michelle, so much sex and gender stuff, a gay sex scene, all water brothers, a fuckton of sex, never does explicit sex, doesn’t describe the anatomy, an icicle, discuss sexuality frankly, Valentine Michael Smith doesn’t see it, part of that book, the POV character engages, relax and enjoy it, wakes up in bed with Galahad, David Gerrold, male homosexuality is spiritually inferior, very gay, people hating on Heinlein, the Our Opinions Are Correct pair, model minds, anti-Heinlein, what you find, alive on twitter today, might have a trans-flag in his bio, you can’t perfectly model a man’s mind, being associated with group, Quebec by reputation, don’t salute the king, not hurting other people, what does hurting other people mean?, shame or bullying, he’s dead, he cannot fight back, no children to get offended, some advocate there, you might be wrong about what you’re saying, what’s so cool about Heinlein, read his texts, a man who thought all sorts of things, changed his mind, appreciate it differently, I like kittens too, the pitons of the claws of the kittens, not being as tight a novel as it could be, a book worth reading and worth revisiting, vast and sprawling, really excellent, running around on Luna, describing, fresh-looking or red-headed, too many characters, that incestuous ouroboros thing going on, Fritz Leiber’s snakes vs. spiders, Poul Anderson, Asimov, Back To The Future (1985), the closed box paradox, the moral education of Marty McFly, the worldview destruction of Richard, interesting parallelism, cruise ship, a resort version of Babylon 5, Universe, Common Sense, of value, some of the Heinlein greatness, very frustrating, hard science fiction, predestination, freewill, masculine and feminine, community and isolation, he’s teaching himself about how to be a human being, playing with those themes, a different take that builds on each other, the deep alienation endemic to the human condition, a plaything of fate, not having agency, finding peace in the face of a hostile universe, the supposed smart people who run the world, Ray Kurzweil, Robert J. Sawyer, consciousness uploading, rejuvenation, he’s the least interesting Heinlein character, his avatar, Jubal Harshaw, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Murder At The A.B.A. analogs for real people, Darius Dust, a really angry short guy, Harlan Ellison, modelling a real person, he loves Dejah Thoris, Rudyard Kipling, new poem by Rudyard Kipling, fifth Blue Yeti, fiddle with it, the thickness, 16 hours is small by today’s novels, 9000 words an hour, a lot of Michael Crichton, the editors and the marketers, 1985/1986, book club editions, ebooks are big, audiobooks are huge, asking for longer, the economics of publishing, the typesetting costs, optimize the price, an every changing recipe, what do people actually want to read, about the same length, a tight narrative, Mike and Manny and Wyo and Prof, using Marxist tactics, Heinlein defies the categorization of the simplistic, happily cancel for any slights, dressing up as a Japanese lady, a black main character, white hair, how many times does that happen in the juveniles, Tunnel In The Sky, Starship Troopers, Rocketship Galileo, okay bro, okay Heinlein, whatever Heinlein, I’ll allow it Heinlein, how many books aren’t referenced, Pete is not Pixel, the same idea, the same cat, Glory Road, Castor and Pollox, sold themselves into slavery, having too much fun, too self-referential, an experience we’ve never had before, the bad relations with the management, a cruise ship in space, for the shareholders, the fresh new stuff, get Mike back online, natural sequels, Requiem is a sequel to The Man Who Sold The Moon, the spacesuit stuff in here, he cares about how spacesuits react to vacuum, the Philadelphia Naval Yard, a couple of black and white photos, where was he prior to WWII, Leslyn was a scriptdoctor, Destination Moon (1950), George Pal, alcoholic psychosis, Colorado, altitude sickness, a driving book, settling in Santa Cruz, world tour, one world government, H.G. Wells, we’re here now, nationalist, anarchist, pragmatic compromises, writings ruined by selling out to becoming scriptdoctors, Joe Eszterhas, Basic Instinct is not a high minded thing, crappy genre, sex-thriller, James M. Cain, name a book The Postman Always Rings Twice, brutal psychology, borderline personality disorder, appreciated it, being a writer, the model for the style of this novel, wrote confessionals under pseudonyms, he had to have done that, girl sex books, Forest Ackerman’s dead, work for hire, the materials were probably not renewed anway, textual analysis, pretty easy to tell Heinlein, the great secret of the pulp era, comfortable living, true confessionals, pseudonyms, the number of titles that Westlake and Block and Silverberg wrote, dozens for each of them, Michael Crichton novels, adventure novels, a rich kid, the residency, structurally impossible, the setting of Golden Rule is excellent, a reminder of how engineering based science fiction Heinlein is, orbital mechanics, was their Volvo sabotaged?, Nil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, insanely readable, the throw it across the room book, compelled to play at the casino, contrary to initial expectations, a break, For Us, The Living, read between 13 and 22, 2006, Variable Star, a collaboration, he had a podcast, his wife died, Bowen Island, a residential island, the Travis McGee books, thrift store, 20 of them, John D. MacDonald, god that guy could write, he did science fiction, the same way Westlake, throw science fiction across the room, they’re one true love, Heinlein tried to get into mystery, They Do It With Mirrors, an ideas guy, a genre other than science fiction, I’m metafiction now, I’m god, that’s the problem and why it is funny, super quotable, floatin around, the good ones to pull, Notebooks Of Lazarus, *Women And Cats Will Do What They Do*, an a to z quote, a little research, give up on your account, prole feed, algorithm bait, not here for the processed pablum, quite subtle, wrapped in this murder mystery at the beginning, the epigraphs, violence never solved anything – Genghis Kahn, what he’s aiming for, a meditation on hypocrisy, If This Goes On, the entire edifice of western civilization, older and wiser, approach death, Saki, he is one of those people who would enormously improved by death, a gay deceiver, The Story-Teller, a confirmed bachelor, an aunt and nephews and nieces, doesn’t know the answers to anything, “don’t”, “why”, a gentleman’s garden, the kids have questions, he takes the story and inverts it, “horribly good”, introduces a wolf, cowering in a bush, she gets eaten, Saki you’ve done it again, The Interlopers, generations long battle for this land, mighty cold under here, best of friends, their wolves, god’s cruel joke, a funny god, a good bit of fun, it’s good in the sense that it’s good fun, a great read, not a good novel, frustrating, there’s so much in it, the fez, the hat, the shriners, the freemasons, what they are, what they were, he knew a little bit more about what’s going on, pot-bellied and balding, less sinister than could be presented, worth having sex with, a different creed, a fraternal organization, the science fiction future, 2188?, Hazel, Space Family Stone, The Rolling Stones, colonel, doctor, senator, could be another Thorby, a quasi-villaian, why is Tree-San a character, a bonsai tree gets more lines than Bill does, living in the hallways of this dystopia, a kill mission, never resolved, I’m not sure I can believe in a god, Thomas Paine, the internal cultic workings, hermeticism, sun-worship, a way to get your corruption under control and move up the ladder, benign and sinister, a Hells Angel rather than a Freemason, you become part of the system, The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Sean Connery and Michael Caine, a first contact story, stealing a Shriner’s hat, a secret society that’s out in the open, a Masonic hall, a Hells Angels clubhouse, benevolencey drives, landscape terrorism, do their lawns, anarchists of free-association, the officials who operate outside of that, don’t know how to use to apostrophes properly, when you do you have to abide by the rules, what’s his get along to go along, he has no agenda other than working through the ideas, super-fuckin waste, probably the last time that got assassinated, doing something noble?, things that Heinlein gets wrong, drugs, an armoured car heist sort of book, before the show, not super-long, a paperback, marketing to paperback, the library system, the content of the book, astounded to learn, scribner’s juveniles were all hardcovers, illustrations, Nancy Drew or Tom Swift, Starman Jones, The Star Beast, Time For The Stars, Waldo And Magic Inc., when we lose materials it’s a loss, psychology is real easy to understand, what the words actually say in the book, a Jack Finney story called The Love Letter, time-travel romance, Somewhere In Time, a love body to nobody, another hidden drawer!, Jack Finney wasn’t writing in the 1990s, 1882, 1994, they just updated it, you can’t fuck around with people’s words, he was gay enough as it was, don’t delete anything, easy to understand the importance of the primary text, it was okay, influenced by Heinlein, you can respond without lying about it, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, Orson Scott Card, conventional, cutesyer, disturb the world he comes from, a frisson, the internet, the forums, the most sparky, helps tell the story of the world in a really interesting way, Ender’s Shadow, not a sequel guy, his worst are also excellent and better than most, more pure of heart, less incestuous, necessary for the form, might as well allow it, the late 1940s, writing mythology, ancient myth, archetypes, origins and generations and whatnot, thematic weight, explicitly on the exandry hunt, from far away, okay you go girl, all fun and fine, “other better writers”, male on male gay sex, what age is appropriate, ‘husband height’, leaps around, ‘husband high’, how people get reproduced, the very idea is disgusting to most people, Amish Planet, the pneumatic amish internet, when kids were getting married, in the Ozarks, the last holdout of child marriage, a subject of scandal, a social crusade on the part of WASPy culture, Jerry Lee Lewis’ shenanigans, not old enough to vote you can’t have children, fuck you on your on-high, Edgar Allan Poe seemed to really love his 13 year old cousin/wife, her death killed him, a perpetual alcoholic delirium, John Wilkes Booth was a freemason actor time traveler, John Allan, a lot of anti-Masonic stuff going on, might have been killed by the masons, a prominent critic, lawsuits with people, at least two stories where it’s very clear, one of the Masons, very chummy fellows, it was like a war in the 1840s, they ran the whole show, a potent political force, the nature of secret societies, the populist instinct, The Cask Of Amontillado, the guy he kills is a Mason, bricks him up in the wall, set in Italy, really choice, the whole thing is a confession, a deathbed confession, Montressor, my treasure, the villain of the piece, Fortunado, lucky, his family motto, why does this story exist?, they are not just for us, a political treatise, discover of something, The Raven, he is denying its, what bird does, it’s a psychopath, get out my fuckin door, surely she’s up in heaven waiting for me, negative answer, it’s only stock-and-store, an awesome piece, The Philosophy Of Composition, not show the bird, presented to us so young, on The Simpsons, freshman English, Annabel Lee, A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner, a nested narrative, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, contraposes that beauty, radiant maiden, my bride, kids, it’s not consummated until its consummated, always a maiden and always dead, an eternal theme, immortality is worse than love and death, a mighty theme, he’s back again, a man confronting god, this giant sea creature, homosexuality, married to Queequeg, squeezing out a lot of juice, the interactions of the themes, as an intellectual exercise, works the theme out, a happier cable, The House Of The Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a nice old lady, you can mash it up, cheap and fast, you can share it, the restricted market where it was hidden, The House Of The Seven Anne Of Green Gables, an occult cookbook, the empty, Tennyson, an investigator named Charlene Dexter Ward, a great narrator, Very Bad Deaths, John Dortmundery style, the chronology, the seeds of the different novels, early in the juvenile era, girls of a certain age, Hadrian’s Flight, The Wolf Of Venus, Secrets Of The Heinlein Juveniles, mildly dyslexic, if it is dense enough, The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft, excitement and joy, they don’t trust, a Borges non-fiction, his poetry’s not very good, his anti-Masonic story, Death And Compass, reviewing King Kong when it was in the theatres, he wrote a Lovecraft story, Heinlein stops reading after a certain point, stopped reviewing publicly, the subtitle of the book, where the book goes wrong, Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, killing is more of a hobby with me, long talks between meals and sex, six Heinleins all in the room, in most Heinlein, bathos and pathos, Pixel dies off-screen, the bit right after they break up in Hong Kong Luna, Walker Evans, a secret society, it has no meaning, it’d be like not knowing who Marilyn Monroe was, the most iconic photographs of the Depressions, he lives with a poor family, having sex with the wife, there is no Walker Evan, a message, a code to remind me of a debt, one of the mighty themes of this book, the setup is so good you need to have it paid off, it’s a closed circle, looking at your old photos of you in previous decades, living in the 1930s, carrying his own tools, Drinkwater, Saskatchewan, J. Daniel (Jim Gifford), A Reader’s Companion, The Heinlein Society, Mr. Pulpcovers website, a little New York Times blip, wrap it up, almost Heinlein length, excited, Heinlein and he met, a champion, he’s still great, Rah, Rah, R. A. H.!, a Canadian liberal, American draft dodger liberal.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Highways In Hiding by George O. Smith
Talked about on today’s show:
Space Plague, the Spanish title: Caminos Occultos, 1956, 1955 for the serialization, a 70s vibe, the previous book was more 50s, the way the space drive worked, a road book, a plague from space?, no space, pick from the following writers, Floyd C. Gale, Sam Moskowitz, Sturgeon, which do you like, let’s here from Sturgeon, Adventure Science Fiction, November 1957, type and time, buy it instead of food, selling you on, revised paperback, the field needs more of this by George!, a review of Two Sought Adventure, the shortest review, another?, Analog, July 1968, E.E. Doc Smith, both scientists, interplanetary communication, telepathy and dirty work, so John W. Campbelly, Satellite, February 1957, resident review, Gnome Press, the electronic laboratory, the pace and high level of interest, one of the years best fantasy books of the year, pretty positive, the first Hugo awards, it’s a science fiction novel, a lot of it was fantastic, Floy C. Gale’s five star shelf, lie Bester in The Demolished Man, an ESPer, a car pile-up, a perceptive such as he, his fiance has disappeared from the car without a trace, a tickling memory, something wrong with the highway signs, tangled of morass of paths, Mekstrom’s Disease, you’ll go for this, hardboiled dialogue, all positive reviews so far, from Infinity, Damon Knight, the yearest dumbest sounding title, an underground organization, from Maine to California, the fleur-de-lis, disarmingly cheerful and vigorous, the only known carrier, pretend she was never there, woman-hunt, hypnotized from, Rhine institute, a telepathy or clairvoyant, surprising firmness, psionic dead stop, neologism, #you dirty slob#, Heinlein’s worst, the virtues of first rate science fiction, a lot less superficial than it used to be, to stand there and watch the eyes of a woman, poignant touches, cheerful bloopers, the law of least reaction, piracy and pillage, in the realm of grammar, a tin-ear, science fiction is literature, I hope that whomever he was, Astounding, 1956, P. Schuyler Miller, Van Vogtian melodrama, a rattling good yarn, incurable fatal, they disappear, an ingenious network, much action, rapid juggling, out before the deadline, Anthony Boucher, easily Smith’s best book to date, wild melodrama, seeking to control a mysterious disease, indestructible supermen, plot contrivance, unflaggingly excitingly, rich in typographical errors, what do you think Goodreads has to say?, a 3.68, slightly above the average, full of misogyny, the bad guys are woman haters, really interesting, the ESP, a road trip, Venus Equilateral, in Astounding in the 1940s, a rocky relationship with John W. Campbell, a Scott guy, an electronics guy, tons of parallels between this and Hellflower, a road book with lots of cars, not as good as Westlake, the venn diagram, people who write in a plain way, super-effective, exactly the same set up as the last one, before the book started, a space accident, she wasn’t there in the first place, tapped to be a secret spy, go undercover, he thought he did it himself, exactly the same plot, different baddies, intriguing, a space accident later in the book, the girl crashes the car, the art for the original serial, April, May and June 1955 issues of Imagination, a woman stepping out of a completely wrecked car, a 227 page PDF, introducing the author, create loyalty to the magazine by making the authors real, William Hamling, cluttering up science fiction magazines, 100,000 words per year, I write science fiction because…, 20 years in the electronics field, oatmeal box, a radio set of my own build, atoms were still indivisible, Mt. Wilson, distant galaxies, “island universes”, Pluto was confirmed and named, astronomy and celestial mechanics, liberally peppered, honest fact and bafflegab, a technical background, just excluded almost every modern science fiction writer, a traffic ticket for jaywalking in Cincinnati, fell heir to a typewriter, magazines pay money for printable material, writing yarns that I like to read, 3 subsequent replacements for item 1, melodramatic, a hotel detective, everybody is gaslighting him, one of the most damning indictments, a stuff happening book?, the gaps and the ESP and all that, two different groups with solutions from a disease, different motivations for wanting to keep it secret, make it for the elites vs. give it to everybody, almost a Simak idea underneath, sees evil in the world, going for a walk with your best girl and your dog, my girlfriend is a liar, overall pretty good, not just stuff happening, not a comics guy, totally X-Men, mostly action things, clairvoyance and remote viewing, on the bullshit wagon, ESP things, maybe there’s something to some of this, fucking testing this forever, the dead areas thing is never explained, natural depleted mana zones, the Niven method, The Magic Goes Away, a wasteland of telepathic ability, not reproducible, the dead area kind of explains that, underexplained, scratchin my chin at the end, the Rhine institute, making everybody telepaths and espers, the heroes, Professor X, the gene, a cross or a helix, recruited to help humanity in a secret way, the League Of Evil Mutants, are we the baddies?, lead by Gandalf (Magneto), in the concentration camps as a Jew, on a mission to let any of his people be controlled or killed by the government, not on the government side, what to do in a post-mutant society, what this book is about, the medicalized rhine society, doctorates of telepathy and physiognomy, all of them have superpowers, Cyclops, shoot light out of his eyes, they get pounded on all day, Wolverine, hardened skin, nearly indestructible bodies, this strain coming out of Analog, call from his mom, his father had died in the night, a twitter thread, an essay by Mark Twain, Mental Telegraphy, a letter came to him, travelling with his lawyer, held the letter up to his head like that Johnny Carson bit, it is kinda uncanny, if you squint a little bit, really well explained, driving down the highway, radio and microwave radar, listing to something happening elsewhere, almost like telepathy, to see through things, what an MRI or x-rays, knowledge and speculative thoughts, if those were in human bodies, make it longer, that happens some more, another one by George O. Smith, much like Simak, shares that space with Simak, in the Fishhook book, Time Is The Simplest Thing, so many gimmies at the beginning of this book, I bought it, he sold it, some of his books are like a kitchen sink, feels like thinking through, feeling your way, ends quite abruptly, why the book exists, a common technique in writing, a space, a page break, capitalization of the first word, doesn’t show up well in audio, the coda without saying coda, inoculating the families of the victims, we’re still underground for two reasons, unless you have trouble, Steve Junior, further plans, what makes the book even better, stop at the gas station to fill up, cleaning the windshield, at the spinner rack near the checkout, this makes it an underground book, written for the underground, what’s this book really about, about the underground railway, they look like us but they’re not like us, it isn’t about racism, it’s about moral intention, the question of race, how do you tell if someone is good or bad, perceive them with your esper skill, they’re intention is good, team elite or team bottom up, the tension between the two, this figure within the movement, us reading it and saying I’m inspired, these groups have merged, defeating the baddie at the center, reorientation, Babylon 5, Brad Dourif, [Passing Through Gethsemane], entirely demolished, built up from a blank, he suffered demolition, did our hero get manipulated to do everything in the book, hypnogaged?, sniffing out the highways in hiding, the whole world becomes maybe, there stories line up, a solipsism, the girl was against him, what do you do with that, not quite on the level of The Demolished Man, this might have been a science fiction classic that everybody talks about, these three concepts, there comes to be a character who is both telepath and esper, one of the best movies ever to come out of Hollywood that’s an original science fiction idea…, Rogue One, The Book Of Eli (2010), Gary Whitta, he’s not blind because he sees the world as god sees it, or as Daredevil sees it, the best literary exploration of this, innovative things, following the letter, a piece of his girl’s cloth, he goes and sits by the mailbox, Apple airtag, a psychic airtag, a book in your desk drawer about me, not this, Van Vogtish, every 2000 words change everything, he does spark, long enough to do the thing, quite beautiful to explore, things blossom in conversation, this big Simak read, books that don’t use action plots, making the girls more girly, his thinking voice, his writing voice, she [Jessica Martin] had to do all the girls, if she [Jessica Martin] could have been a male narrator, a very excellent narration, miscalculated, Spacemen Lost aka Lost In Space, the alien spaceships were watching and waiting, The Fourth “R”, an electromechanical educator, a stuff happening book!, extraordinary intelligence, Operation Interstellar, those who don’t want him to succeed, Three Skeleton Key, in the Atlantic, waiting for rescue, covered in rats, the rats took over the ship, they ate the crew, this tall tale, swarm all over the lighthouse trying to get in, a really good radio drama, waves of rats, taking over their little island, thousands of them, the same appeal as all the zombie stories, they’ve taken over, a horror story, Leiningen Versus The Ants by Carl Stephenson, I am German I will stop it, the story of a siege, escaped from a prison, Papillion (1973), like Playboy without the nudes, Esquire, catering to the same class, high class rich middle class set in the 1930s, Fred Greenhalgh, Suspense and Escape, radio drama can do things that nothing else can do, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, J. Daniel Sawyer, his name came up, got to his website, auto-didactic, talking about Heinlein stuff on twitter, For Us, The Living by Robert A. Heinlein, the plot barely exists, get out of the house, now they go to San Fransisco, a crush on, in the future you can like more than one girl.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Jesse and J. Daniel Sawyer talk about Time For The Stars by Robert A. Heinlein
Talked about on today’s show:
Time For The Twins by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Raistlin and Caramon, twin boys, one becomes a wizard and the other becomes a muscleman, lawful evil and lawful good, wow, this is really cool, illustrations!, you don’t get that anymore, there’s a checklist, who wrote this book?, he marries his grand niece, Time Enough For Love, The Door Into Summer, the young girl is grooming the older man, her plan works out, Heinlein’s relationship with Ginny, he wrote it on her honeymoon, I’m a cradle robber, the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, already descending into alcoholic psychosis, Leslyn went so far around the bend, back together, ran away and got married, honeymooned at a hunting cabin in Colorado, he’s looking for the door into summer, wrote the whole book in a week, an older bitter woman, write what you know, Dan Davis, Ricky, Riki-Tiki-Tavi, Heinlein was definitely Kipling pilled, Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, Thomlinson, The Gods Of The Copybook Maxims, M.I., mobile infantry, he’s a book guy, how engineering and invention works, a house robot, Bill Christensen, the robot that doesn’t work properly, MG, the Lucas Electrical Systems, as all the boomers are dying, they don’t make the parts anymore, the prince of darkness, they chose positive for the ground, prior art, six months to a year, much better, Toyota MR2, the literary allusions in this book, A Picture Of Dorian Gray, walks in and sees his twin brother there, the Long Range Foundation, the Howard Families Foundation, The Long Now Foundation, something people don’t actually believe but is very true, the world’s richest man, his inspirations are more Heinleiny, Peter Thiel is all Tolkien, Palmer Lucky, seed round, Grok, massive impacts, the right hands at the right age, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, [the Bobbsey Twins], to argue with Heinlein, a statement, all wars are wars of population conflict, Malthus, that hasn’t ever been the case, in a starvation setting, you could argue it into that, make breathing room, living space, super-taboo at the moment, Isaac Asimov, Make Room Make Room, Harry Harrison, Hitler’s not even quoting Hitler, the conventional wisdom, 1860 – 1945, world tour, The Star Beast, a proto-fascist in an H.G. Wells sense, social credit, an evangelical tract, the educated class, material uplift, level cultures, administer world resource, very WASPy, very socialist, down in the trenches, the cultures are so different, anarchist bent, government can solve problems, Friday, a character invent a technology and not patent it, The Number Of The Beast, if it is a novel, 20 year window, a reasonable length of time, who owns the Statermeyer syndicate books now?, estates as liches, Dr Suess’ estate, Agatha Christie’s estate, Tolkien, how crappy the control, there’s competition to be faithful, there’s competition for art, the ones from the official estate, riddled with typos, cost $1500, get another stack, kickstart it, there are other juvenile science fiction novels, written some of them, the imitators, the competitors, the critical mass, year after year for twelve years, Dal Tigmar book, an Alan E. Nourse novel, first space voyage, alien buddy, its good, Heinlein wants you angry at him, how Heinlein doesn’t really have villains, the replacement captain, acting unwisely, shakes his hand, maybe you should go to school too, is this anyone’s favourite, most similar to Starman Jones, Finnish people in space, the breeding program, Citizen Of The Galaxy, Sisu, space gypsies, land monsters, centaurs or hippogriffs, move alongs, all the books are similar, a propaganda of the learning, the love of science, investigation, engineering, culture, overtly propagandistic, the math, reading the classics, Shakespeare, Heinlein’s imitators, autodidactic, the cultural canon, Hadrian’s Flight, The Wolf Of Venus, the broad base, the deep base, Mormon culture, Orson Scott Card, might be even stronger than Heinlein’s following, different eras, hit harder in the 1980s, new books comin out, the depth and the breadth, star rankings, compare books to each other, a competent writer, trying to build a book, squeeze out a really interesting book out of Farmer In The Sky, the conflict between the company and the colonists, can that book be greater than it is, probably the worst juveniles, the smallest idea, the twin paradox, school curricula, Have Spacesuit, very relatable idea, homeschooling parents, which one do I start my kids with?, Treasure Island, trial before the gods, a really interesting relationship with loving but distant parents, abusive parents, orphan, Tom turns into an abusive parent, Patricia, controlling abusive person, the book you give to an abusive home, Red Planet, a gun culture, an abusive school system, Star Beast, Between Planets, get rich quick scheme, controlling land, starving people out, real life stuff, space and on other planets, families, let’s do something about it, while listening to it, he’s the worst, most unpleasant, he’s not a bad boy, he’s weak and manipulative and self pitying, unsympathetic characters, this kid’s diaries, he’s a kid, he grows up by the end, what a little shit he is, he’s being a little self-pitying, the psychology of his brother, raging narcissist and a sociopath, precocious, the action is quite limited, the rescue of people, feels shorter, Rocket Ship Galileo, it’s plot is much butter, a Tom Swift book with Heinlein flavouring, more deft with what he was doing, very slick, I’m gonna stay, pulls the rug out, all your work was for nothing, that sometimes happens, Space Cadet, these huge initiation rites, just qualifying them for adulthood, the first chapter of the next journey, facing the bully, give up his dog, the transition out of juveniles, more of this too, I’m a real girl now, I’m gonna have a baby, space hooker makes good, Mata Hari, more manipulated, more annoyed, The Puppet Master, your sister who’s not you sister, don’t look at her with your penis out, cool book man, let’s have so more arguments sir, it isn’t Mary Sue wish fulfillment thing, he likes to piss his audience off, on multiple levels, the top level argument, an element of satire, when you reread some of those scenes, isn’t that the power of being a smart reader, now can dismiss them, first contact, my ability to fight back, the checkboxes, always in there, transgenderism, he goes to the ship’s psychologist, just thing of me as Doctor Whateverhernameis, with his pets, the subject of the book, the secret of the book, we’re all stuck in our own heads as well, the problem of solipsism, self satire in “All You Zombies”, the only thing that happens is the story, more humorous, a really smart guy, a Philip K. Dick story Foster, You’re Dead, you nailed, by just talking about it, most of his short stories are solid, several of his novels are crap, the rest are interesting, the latest bomb shelter, subscribe to the new bomb shelter, during the COVID thing, maybe I can stay in the school bomb shelter, the fear of a child, nailing something very specific, Tony And The Beetles, the relationship of India to Britain during the time Gandhi, you’re my friend!, reading the newspaper 1944, bonus points, free writing materials, the Japs, victory gardens, The Man In The High Castle, the Japanese could invade at any time, that’s how you get that powerful amazing stuff, judge it based on what it is, a pastiche of Kim, some Conan like scenes in it, Citizen Of The Galaxy, a story about slavery, he discovers he’s a slave at every level, opts for the slavery, why are time travel stories so full of incest, a Robert Silverberg incest time travel novel, there better that way, Chekhov’s Gun, a thematic purpose, your inhabiting your own heritage, connecting with that bodily, good writing, everybody loves Back To The Future (1985), Timerider: The Adventure Of Lyle Swann (1982), the avuncular mad scientist, Marty McFly and Doc Brown, the reader, the viewpoint for this exciting idea, surrogate father, saving his own father, even more necessary than a present father, uncles being there, a series of surrogate uncles, mentors, Tremors (1990), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985), he’s his own grandpa, Edward Page Mitchell, The New York Sun, time travel, the invisible man, faster than light travel, a cyborg story, a robot with human skin, a Star Trek style transporter, The Balloon Tree, contact with a god, The Soul Spectroscope, Edgar Allan Poe, Washington Irving, The Senator’s Daughter, cryonics, veganism before vegans were invented, they’re gonna take pills, a war with China, all comedy, humorous, The Clock That Went Backwards, cars haven’t been invented yet, knickerbocker roots, a clone of their aunt, the Tardis Doctor from Doctor Who, 1 page of the newspaper, Weird Tales, a good science fiction story doesn’t have to have knowledge of Heinlein, a really good mind behind the linotype, documentary, this is behind almost everything, kitchen sized typewriters, Predestination (2014), The Door Into Summer (2021), an extra step to the loop, I missed you terribly, it brings out the fundamental tension, individualism vs. duty to society, isolated from himself, it’s hard to make novels into good movies, Project Hail Mary (2026), when an author does a good joke, Grace is the only one left, the reason you read poetry, triples the meaning, $45, a dragon on the cover, does it really need to be that big?, the Dune books, book 4 is the best of the series, the first 6, potboilers, The White Plague, Hellstrom’s Hive, The Jesus Incident, poetry, all the stuff that Campbell likes, telepathy shit, The Demolished Man, Alf Bester, the Psi Corp, Highways In Hiding by George O. Smith, Dimension X, X-Minus One, Clifford D. Simak, Shawn Standfast, Shakespeare’s Planet, late Simak novels, Wizard Of Oz style narrative, put them on the road, see where it goes, Ring Around The Sun, free houses and free cars, The Fisherman, three different ways, small town newspaper, he has to write it, what’s really going on in this company, what is the effect of the Vietnam War when a whole bunch of people go away, he doesn’t really do villains, mobs exist, witch-hunts, a part of human nature but we can all live together, the mid-west, Simak’s books get better, he feels more free, all good, all slightly different, a robot, a girl, what it means, a wizard of Oz for adults, men who’ve lost there wives, university professors who’ve had to grade students, crowdfunding, his later books, kinda weird, a crowdfunding goal, studying late period, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, The Number Of The Beast, rewriting The Divine Comedy, the last chapter of each book, facing down the devil (Robert Heinlein), anagrams of Robert Heinlein, a description of heaven, describing Tertius, the Enochian books, a whole bunch of layers open up, Heil aka Successful Operation, Assignment In Eternity, as by Lyle Monroe, Ray Bradbury’s not paying anybody, he wrote short stories, The Man Who Travelled In Elephants, parts of Tenderfoot In Space, Satellite Scout, Nothing Every Happens On The Moon, a diligent renewer, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Draco’s Tavern, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Lord Dunsany, not actually a good novelist, I’m old now I’ll take the money, medical bills, a financial scramble, apparently Silverberg did really good and nobody knows how, how dare you, he’s indispensable, a few clunkers, doing things nobody else can do, profoundly impactful, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys, cleanup when you have a picnic, be charitable, hearth and home, let’s pretend to be the Black Hand, the time of coming into your masculinity, the heroism of the individual, inspired and changed the world, a few of his non-juveniles are profoundly impactful, the wealthiest man in the world, D.D. Harriman, Musk in his rockets, he hasn’t been up in one, the other rocket boys, influencers, he read a book when he was kid, he ain’t faking that part, how genius works, the general aspects of intelligence, cognitive psychology, the higher levels, the flavour, he has hobbies and interests that aren’t just cash, sleeping on a cot for three months, the accumulation of money, making cool shit, sideways imported, Dan Davis, Ted Chiang’s Understand, feted vs fetid, William Gibson, author voice, a very flat dry voice, even more easily parodiable, John Steakly, he likes the sound and the feel of the word in his mouth, Neil Gaiman, a big ponderous book, Douglas Adams, an amazing short story writer, Seeing Ear Theatre, giving people what they want, short story and fairy tale tradition, mostly what he does, he redoes it and does it nicely, Charly (1968), Flowers For Algernon, you keep combing it, how do you write somebody smarter than you, Brainwave by Poul Anderson, they understand words and concepts, a dutch shepherd, they’re real smart, elephants, ponderous, it’s built into them, mountaintop hideaway, naked in shoes with a gun, an appendage to humanity, what we’ve been doing with herds, co-evolved symbiotes, cats, the feed store cat, they know their business, they assign themselves jobs, humans are boss here, local crows work with the local eagles, scares the crows off the property, a whole ecosystem, 200 times in the last two years, he’s always got a pet, a cat guy, a comedy of manners, Oscar Wilde, Pixel, Schrodinger’s Cat, an embodiment of quantum uncertainty, a really good cover, Robert Vaughn, Tom Weiner, McDonald’s is an Irish restaurant that serves German food, what have the google brothers done for us lately?, investing in life extension, space travel companies, spacesuits and life support systems, expose of the early 2000s tech culture, institutions vs. individuals, the wives, philanthropy arms, got snowed, the NGOs, the global censorship complex, feel very betrayed about it, sorry about that, it rhymes with the westcoast, 10am pacific, Skype, they lost so much money on it, a blight on humanity, satellite internet, except Skype, long distance, that company collapsed, a technological or engineering thing, some Russians, some Iranians, total light pollution, monopoly locally, he literally teaches you stuff, this is the book that got me into physics, he did it twice, the hyperspace, necessary for the McGuffin of the book, it’s his gimmie, one big gimmie, what’s the plot of Ringworld?, the theme is sex, sex comedies, a very funny guy, the main character is Niven, J.C., The Day The Earth Stood Still, J. Michael Straczynski, healed by Lorien, Harlan Ellison’s contribution, he had a vision, the 1989 strike line, Walter Koenig, kept him motivated, financial problems, A View From The Gallery, their lower decks episode, Peter David, Londo’s wives, one of the best villains ever on television, a tragic hero, nobody actors given Shakeperean roles, Lady Galadriel, he’s a lizard man, the story was done so well, if you just take the audio from episodes of Babylon 5, you don’t need the special effects, his first sales, Alien Worlds, his politics and his attitudes, the media he’s in, very independently minded, brittle personalities, Jeremiah, a lot of shitty stupid people who get in the way of shit, written by the same guy, interested in the same things, likeable male protagonist alone by himself, the great secret, in love with good stories, Lin Carter is not a good writer except when he’s writing about things that he loves, this Robert E. Howard really knows what he’s doing, David G. Hartwell, resentment is poison you take to kill someone else, call balls and strikes, it winnows away the problems and attracts other stuff, mediocre or worse, a joy when you find good stuff, good stuff that you don’t like, tried to like anime, it’s the writing that sucks not the drawing, how many good comic book writers, no new Garth Ennis, Alan Moore, Charlton horror comics, rip off good stuff, we made it happen.
Posted by Jesse Willis