Robert A. Heinlein – Page 7

The SFFaudio Podcast #704 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #704 – The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin; read by John Stratton

This unabridged reading of the story (1 hours 2 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, Jesse’s been wrong about it for years and years, an important story (but not very well written), correct the record, well written but long, very effective, everybody who dislikes The Cold Equations can fight Jesse, Weird Science, May-June, no. 13, 1952, A Weighty Decision by Wally Wood, different enough, the whip hand of John W. Campbell, ghoulish and silly and fun, existential quite smooth, The Cold Calculations by Aimee Ogden, dealing with a different idea, a criticism of the premises, John W. Campbell, once upon a time, had to die, fudging the numbers, the Trolley Problem, why couldn’t there be a third track, not really the point, face the moral calculus, designed to illicit a very specific thing, an idea about reality, long, not that clunky, quite beautiful in places, simple, interesting psychology, a cold story, fiddling with the opening, some dude, it’s a girl, an artifact, silly, if you get pancreatic cancer you’re dead, wish fulfillment, kissed and made better, the pain of life, a lot of people don’t want to be disabused, Santa Claus is real, god will save us, Campbell’s trainee, the numbers are fudged, Capitalist Realism, there is no alternative, Barton is an employee, a quasi-merchant marine, the worldbuilding, not making enough money, the brother’s remittances, shielded from the truth, replacing the kitten, a metaphor for the whole story, trying to shield her from pain, we shield each other from the pain of reality, we’re all going to die, science fiction can do something interesting, more silly, comicy, the medicine, it is a trolley problem, even if it was plagiarized, follow through on you’re fucking idea, don’t tap out, the stupid E.E. Doc Smith, you can’t invent your way out of the laws of fucking physics, daylight bombing raids, the engineering is bad, the reality is correct, thin margins, on the commute, a non-insignificant number, all the EDS shuttles without stowaways are not stories, Stowaway (2021), accidental stowaway, out the airlock, there is no on purpose, nobody is to blame, maybe the sign should have said “you will fucking die”, don’t walk away from that, a beancounter on earth, blame capitalism, the ship can land after all, flip some tables, Mark Fisher, revolution is the alternative, is that really true?, Tom Godwin is wholly responsible, Jack London’s To Build A Fire, Yukon stories, Star Trek V, Star Trek II is a Cold Equations, because katras, euthanasia, a remedy for modern Star Trek, The Wisdom Of The Trail, soft lazy fucks, the white man’s logic, an estimation vs. a calculation, a different moral overlay, a guy who didn’t obey a sign, do not go there, the dog has more wisdom than the man, instinct vs. plan, what it means to disobey a sign, a sign as a piece of wisdom, the fine is the cost of her life, the X Minus One adaptation, a dumb adult, young and therefore innocent, it isn’t “fair”, having the medicine enhances, the reason its a white girl in the story, we as 1950s astounding readers, the kitten is innocent, changing it to a dude, flipping the genders, an adult man vs. a girl Barton, to hit us in the feels to make us understand, if it’s Hitler in the basement, not as many will walk away, the Azov battalion will walk away, both Bushes, eternal?, a sin eater, a more meta-story, a thought experiment, The Good Place, Stalin or any other evil person, a challenge to us to do better, threw in orgies for Evan, drugs, that’s fine, imagine the place that you want, Hitler’s in the closet on the EDS ship, it’s cold in here,

[THE QUICK EQUATION by Jesse

I was not alone.

There was nothing to indicate the fact but the white hand of the tiny gauge on the board before me. The control room was empty cept for me; there was no sound other than the murmur of the drives—but the white hand had moved.

It had been on zero when the EDS launched; now, an hour later, it had crept up. There was something in the supply closet across the room, some kind of a body that radiated heat.

It could be but one kind of a body—a living, human body.

I let my eyes rest on the narrow white door of the closet. There, just inside, another man lived and breathed.

I unholstered my blaster and stood up, facing the door. Maybe it was just a girl, I thought, just some dumb girl who couldn’t read warning signs. That would be bad.

“Come out!” My command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drives.

I thought I could hear a whisper of a furtive movement inside the closet, then nothing.

I visualized the stowaway cowering closer into one corner, suddenly worried by the possible consequences of his stowing away.

“I said out!”

I heard the stowaway move to obey, and I waited with my eyes alert on the door, my hand on the trigger of the blaster.

The door opened and the stowaway stepped through it, smiling. “In Ordnung—ich gebe auf. Was jetzt?”

It was Hitler.

I put him out the airlock.

There was a slight waver of the ship as the air gushed from the lock, a vibration to the wall as though something had bumped the outer door in passing; then there was nothing and the ship was dropping true and steady again.

I shoved the red lever back to close the door on the empty air lock and turned away, to walk to the pilot’s chair with the light steps of a man just doing his duty.

Putting my feet up on the console I thought about those guys on Woden – they sure will be happy to have that vaccine, I thought. I could hear their voices now. And won’t they be surprised to hear about what I did with the stowaway.

THE END]

nice imagery, symbology, a puppet show adapation, a theatrical stage production, the movie and TV adaptations, The Twilight Zone adaptation, hits the points, about an hour vs. 20 minutes, this story is important and also its good, it’s not the physics, the engineering, made lean, disposable, an emergency, an escape pod, objections, a Socratic style dialogue, you’ve fucked it up, you’re gonna think about this, you’re gonna think about that, The Nothing Equation, James Patrick Kelly, responses, an uncomfortable place, a lot of people are unwilling to accept the answer, reject the framing, three dudes, essentially a fridging story, she’s definitely cold, Astounding readers, probably 1950s white men, arranged, sacrificing a young female character for man pain, yup, screwed up (by our current standards), no story can stand that test (being all things to all people at all times), fitting into that sort of tradition, Barton hurts, the brother hurts, Green Lantern’s girlfriend, series (add drama) vs. one and done, laughed out of the room or vilified, what if the one person is your mother, Gwendy’s Button Box by Richard Chizmar and Stephen King, a little girl, workers, an adult man, a 17 year old male, a six year old boy kid, it’s not supposed to be palatable, gender studies and science fiction, Paul is unqualified, we don’t want this story to exist, the reason for trying to undo the story, rejecting the premise to reject the conclusion, who is this for, people who claim to be astounding readers, engineers, it’d be good to have redundant systems, Apollo 13, a cold equation scenario, fuel vs. air, saving three dudes in space, kludging together, failures of imagination (not failures of empathy), empathy informs engineering, the challenger disaster, the o rings, the magic words, poor engineering, a gender response, an engineering response, Gary Westfahl, is he an authority, Cory Doctorow, why do we have these terrible trolleys, why are people tied to the trolley track, its too late to complain about the engineering, this engineering is terrible, margins are thin on the frontier, [had it been lampshaded by the narrator], an excuse, Cory Doctorow, capitalism sucks and then he pulls the lever, it doesn’t deliver the solution, frames, the fucked up nature of the premise, Elon Musk could save us, the technocrats will save us, the profound moral consequences of the world we’ve build up, we all live in Omelas, somehow you benefit from that, the rules of the game, a lot of people are cool with this, their goodness to their own children, quite beautiful, a beautifully written (and simple) story, A Few Good Men (1992), we’re the thin blue line, minimize the whipping at kids in basements, to make you look at the horrible thing you’re willing to live with, puppies, we got yoga, a completely different kind of attack on reality, N.K. Jemisin’s response, diversity and equality utopia, a liberal response, instead of walking away you stay and reform it, you denounce Raytheon, the twitter one by Olav Rokne, nominated, cougars are in, the solution’s in voting, the one about Worldcon, everybody’s choice, taking the piss on people, Facebook says its fine to call for the death of Russians, pointed at Chengdu, File 770 and other forums, their baby in their basement, centers of discussion, silly, that’s going to be nominated for a Hugo, best related work, Natalie Luhrs’ George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Evan’s tweets should be the priority, for worse, I love science fiction: I’m going to read all the Hugo award winners, Luke Burrage reading the Hugos and the Nebulas, not the cream of the crop, its my turn, we love her, David Brin’s bad Hugo winning book, taking turns, conservatives, liberals, Hugo nominators can be very…, Seanan McGuire’s fan base rewards her work, ecosystems, regardless of the merits, an electorate nominating and voting, the Oscar winners, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), snowballing and logrolling, the ones who walk away from the Hugos (walked into the dealer’s room), The Moon Moth by Jack Vance, less and less strahk these days, leftover momentum, momentum, the big game in town, clashing ecosystems, the whole puppy drama, just trying to right the ship?, the nutty nuggets, Brad Torgeson, The Ones Who Don’t Walk Away by Sean Vivier, analog daily science fiction, plotting violence, if only to end the torture of innocence, it has to be a joke, see that mop over in the corner? it’s watching you, I am good person, vote for Democrats, we have top men working on this, violating some of the premises, when AOC was down in Texas and mourning over the fence, a choice satire (or reality), the mixed results, everything on Goodreads is 3.8, we can’t have a rating system, mechanisms other than just writing, ratings break your brain, the incentives screw up the rating systems, we end up arguing over tiny percentage points, PC Gamer, Gary Whitta, Rogue One, The Book Of Eli (2010), debates about points, whether you’re wearing the badge or not, anti-thinking, why writing great reviews is so important, an attack on liberal values, there is a civic element to it, fleeing the country is always an option in a story like that, Paul would like to live in New Zealand, a settler colonial state, more paradise, their kid has two buckets, Maori writers, Born Of Man And Woman by Richard Matheson, That Only A Mother by Judith Merrill, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, told from the creature’s point of view, a nudie pic, what a pretty person looks like, a super powerful story, July 1950, horror, monsters, cats, basement, first person POV, diary format, child protagonist, 1996 one had a sexual element, added a bargaining scene, an uncredited adaptation, wrist bracelet thing, she gives the bracelet to Barton, burns, more depth and pathos, the fire is connected to the bracelet, fire rubies, what some writer did, Ursula K. Le Guin talks about the cost, the point of writing is to cause the effect you want it to have, a question rather than a delivery, an idea story, The Cold Equations is a door shut, why does it work so well, she starts in a closet, the white hand, she goes back into a closet, shot off into outer space, the writing is poetic, the sentimentality is through the roof, I will come to you on the wind, an object going ahead, that’s her, very close to the emotions, officious, this horrible bureaucracy, horrible capitalism realism, becoming sex workers outside of Omelas, under capitalism we have to be separated, jobs demand you do this, your economy demands you do this, if you don’t really scrutinize your government, your security depends on us being murderers and torturers, no more complaints about The Cold Equations being a story with bad engineering, Jesse killed everybody, a conceit that you need in a visual story, infodump, it would make a great stage play, that simple set, K.J. Parker’s How To Rule And Empire And Get Away With It, The Prisoner Of Zenda, Double Star, the power of stories, a professional liar, Herman Melville, Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City, no magic, Academic Exercises, finding hope in modern stuff, somebody has to winnow, the judgement of time and history, the market demands things Jesse is not willing to accept from the market, George R.R. Martin, the judgement of history, Robert Silverberg on a Writers Of The Future podcast, a juried award, reading the stories blind, an honesty, John W. Campbell (and a lot of people don’t like him), positing with authors, helping write engaging stories, hinted at, the universe is the ultimate judge of everything, the judgement of history so far, when Campbell gets it wrong (Scientology, overpopulation, telepathy), why still talking about The Cold Equations, a great idea story, barely an orgy on the EDS, why wasnt there room for three hookers on this ship?, Mars has got women, a Ferengi Harry Mudd delivering to miners on Stowaway

THE PROFITABLE EQUATION by Jesse

“I was not alone. Aboard the EPS were me, Magda, Ruth, and Eve, three hu-man fee-males I was transporting to a wealthy human mining colony on a planet named Ophiuchus III.

While I was calculating my profits, minus what I would render up to Damon Brool and the Grand Nagus, I had noticed a little white hand on the tiny gauge on the board before me.

The control room was, like I said, empty – except for myself, Magda, Ruth, and Eve.

There was no sound other than the murmur of the drives, and the batting of their long eyelashes—but still that little white hand had moved.

It had been on zero when the EPS had launched from the D’Kora-class ship Krookta – where I’d purchased the shuttle and filled it with just enough fuel to reach Ophiuchus III; but, an hour later, with the Krookta warped away that white hand had crept up, like an Andorian pickpocket.

There had been something in the supply closet across the room, some kind of a body that had radiated heat.

It could be but one kind of a body, I knew – a living body.

I let my eyes rest on the narrow white door of the closet.

There, just inside, another humanoid lived and breathed.

I unspooled my whip, stood up and faced that white door.

‘Come out!’ My command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drives and the sudden pearl clutching of Magda, Ruth, and Eve.

I thought I could hear a whisper of a furtive movement from inside the closet, then nothing.

Nothing. Exactly what my profits would come to if I didn’t get whoever was in there out that closet and off of my EPS!

‘Out, I say!’ I said again.

I heard the stowaway move to obey, and I waited with my eyes alert on the door, one hand on my belt purse, the other clutching the whip.

The door opened and the stowaway stepped through it, she was cowering.

‘I give up,’ she said.

It was a Bajoran female, immodestly dressed from head to foot in thoroughly concealing yet ragged clothing.

She was obviously an escaped slave, probably from Terrok Nor.

I listened to her cry and plead and tell her unprofitable narrative.

Cracking the whip I told her to tell faster. I’d heard much the like before, she wanted to see her brother, capitalism sucks, and so I cracked the whip again, waved it all away, and considered.

Then I asked her a serious question: She had a choice, I told her: life on a remote mining planet with four wealthy hu-man husbands or a quick and utterly unprofitable death in the cold void of space.

She chose wisely, cousin.

Indeed. Oh yes, indeed.

Magda and Ruth are giving me oo-mox as I speak.

I’ve set the EPS autopilot to land on Ophiuchus III.

There’s not enough fuel for this Emergency Profits Ship to land land five hu-man-oids safely so that’s why I am sending you this message, cousin.

I’m sending you the contract details – now.

There.

In mere moments I will be stepping into airlock.

Eve will pull this red lever here and flush me out into space.

The hu-man males on Ophiuchus III were willing to pay an extraordinary price in gold pressed latinum – and for one more female, ooooh cousin.

This means even after your fee, what we kick up stairs to Sector Damon Brool, and even after the Grand Nagus gets his cut, this will be, or rather will have been, my most profitable enterprise ever.”

THE END

the Ferengi can make profits, a chapter for the sex book, Wallace Shawn, I sacrificed myself, the profits are unimaginable, Evan’s Grand Nagus Rom series, reforming Ferengi society, Ferengi liberals, Ferengi , because Leeta is in it, they would just ruin it, file off the serial numbers, The Orville, the side by side Discovery and The Orville, vegan Pizza vs. regular human pizza, vegan shoes, he knew they were poor because they had vegan leather, that Moon Knight show, he’s Egyptian, The Cats Of Ulthar, a long show for a short story, The Tempest, The Weird And The Eerie, Capitalist Realism, Starship Mutiny, The Last Of The Masters, dudes in robes, these people have been cut-off, Colony, cedar tree forests, utopia planet, what Le Guin was doing, Dick is more oblique or unconscious, Souvenir, Williamson’s World, larping different civilization, Dick well, Larry Niven love, they’re both females wearing clothes, Paul is self-loathing, not trolling, in German it’s silent, first names only, a Thai or Vietnamese name, referring to people occasionally, raw war footage, Black Amazon Of Mars, she’s got an axe, a tomb sweeping vacation, Allen Anderson, black tentacles, big axe, Eric John Stark, The Long Tomorrow, C.L. Moore, she smiled and let the wine cup fall, The Doings Of Vigorous Daunt, a billionaire that goes around the world punching people, like Russell Crowe, N.K. Jemison must be smart, a Warren supporter, anti-Bernie, she’s a shitlib, the afrofuturist aesthetic and ideas, unreadable, Out Of The Aeons by Hazel Heald and H.P. Lovecraft, The Man Of Stone, The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy, I snuggled up the corpse and it turned a little rotty, Dan Carlin didn’t know what a quadroon or an octoroon was, clearly he doesn’t watch Archer.

he Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Freas

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Freas

he Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Freas

A WEIGHTY DECISION by Wally Wood page 8

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Jesse

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The SFFaudio Podcast #700 – READALONG: The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #700 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein.

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in F&SF, October and December 1956, hardcover 1957, set in 1970s, set in 2000/2001, the cat and the door, isn’t the door supposed to dilate?, Heinlein In Dimension by Alexei Panshin, The Pleasant Profession Of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn, lucky for Paul, Paul didn’t like it, just the cat parts?, time paradox, time loop, Trish hated it, a cardinal rule, #SIFTP, analysis, horrible indeed, recounting Trish’s shame, supposed to like the main character, Pete rules, Danny boy, pacing, not a struggle to finish, Evan should read all of Heinlein, Evan dug the stuff about domestic labour, a key feature of the conversation about feminism and technology, Philip K. Dick was a technophobe, Nanny, domestic labour devices, the robot’s trying to have sex with your wife, the washing machine, washing day, any liberation from work is good (especially drudgery), still sexism, 1950s America, Evan loved the cat stuff, a love-story about a man and his cat, Pete’s inner life, this little opener, the famous ones, researching, listeners appreciate, other podcasts on Heinlein, even people who hate Heinlein reference him all the time, Our Opinions Are Correct, By His Bootstraps, “All You Zombies”, similar plot, less romance, less something, all about the time loop, even tighter, a long short story, good, fun, and funny, similar structural stuff, a bullshit paper on time travel, loops ensue, Dictor, he a bad man, he also main character, did Heinlein invent time loops or merely perfect them?, finding Heinlein icky, bootstrap paradox, 19th century, outside of science fiction, economics, politics, such a pervasive misunderstanding, something obviously impossible to do, whadontchu do the impossible?, stupid people collecting phrases, the icky factor, engaged with vs. shit all over, squicky?, “grooming”, the stand in for Heinlein (Dan Davis), unfair, overstating, Heinlein still wrote it, he’s pushing her away, “Yes Ricky, that’s what I want”, over-reading, kids as sex objects, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Hazel, The Rolling Stones, no talking about the show before the show starts, the stand-in for Heinlein is someone else, the nudist is Heinlein, the Japanese Netflix movie, not that bad if you can attune yourself to Japanese aesthetics, “a door you should not go through”, fine, it did the story, the femme fatale, reducing the ickyness, just pining, did what it had to do, it didn’t dwell on the fun stuff, haircuts, stock stuff, women’s labour is not in the movie at all, the world that Heinlein builds up, am I supposed to like the character?, he’s a drunk, he wants to make his tech repairable, right to repair, a bigger issue today than 30 years ago, you’re not supposed to open your own hood, Jesse’s ancient car, other personality qualities, being resentful, being oblivious (for the plot), kinda dumb in some areas, an idiot ball, trusting Miles and Belle, the passion to dive into your work, being his own boss, don’t let other people tell you how to do your job, selling stories, the same scene over and over and over again, “dicker”, sticker, ultimatum, instead of haggling, saying the unstated, the other guy always collapses, a weakness in Heinlein, his second plan, that trick sucks and Jesse hates, it doesn’t work in reality, try and do it today bud, Heinlein has to be an Android guy now, one of the many annoying things Heinlein does, his worlds are constructed by him, there’s always another guy across the street, you have to move to another town, Sears is gone now, all to common situations, helping the businesses stay honest, gas stations, gas prices are always in alignment with each other, working together, a supply issue, independent gas stations, corporate owned, concessions at a movie theatre, booktowns, a wedding district, negotiation logic, interpersonal connections, “how dare you, sir, interrupt my nudist making out session with my wife, I’m going to go nuclear”, in that case we’re best friends, autistic, an all or nothing approach, padding, a mode that he gets into, inane identical conversations, after your 50th Heinlein novel, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, more evidence Heinlein was always telling you what books to read, he loves Rudyard Kipling, Jesse doesn’t read for character, the world is fantastic, so much going on, France has a king now, Canada ate England, the six weeks nuclear war, the capital is now in Denver, the amount of worldbuilding, nullified by the Japanese movie, 3 years from now, robots that look like people everywhere, iPhone didn’t take over in 2 years, these guys don’t care about the thing Jesse cares about, a Japanese audience, he’s the Time Bride in this situation, zero age difference, schoolgirls in sailor uniforms, oh yeah and we have to have a cat, asking questions and angry about stuff, a robot Pete?, a very bad replacement for the nudists, it made it cute, where did that come from, you’re always late, Dan, bad bad writing, I serve you for five days, have conversations to explain plot, reverse engineer that robot, another convention, avoiding a paradox, the reason, all the podcasts in existence, we’ve done the most on anything (by Heinlein), everybody does Starship Troopers, a number have done The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, a couple have done By His Bootstraps, some have done “All You Zombies”, the movie is not the story, that story is pretty simple, essentially the same, a Heinlein booster, a white nationalist?, learning to drive, there was a door, why is this not a book that sticks in the memory?, so lower on the tier scale, less racist that Farnham’s Freehold, awesome plot work, it feels slight, sentimental works, otherwise slight, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, avoiding that one, a cat is in it, there are cats in it but it isn’t a cat book, flatcats, he loves cats, Pixel, a character Jesse liked, the nudist was funny, nuding it up, do better in 2022?, let the women talk about the women for a little while, little girls have inappropriate crushes, an excuse by pedophiles, go play with somebody your own age, see a psychiatrist, here’s a candy cane, peer appropriate relationship, hypersleep, still wants to marry the same guy, don’t wake me up, she’d rather not exist if she’s not going to be with him, ten years of living without him, he’s not a jerk, oblivious, focused on his work, he can write female characters strong and self sufficent and have brains, a manipulating self-center bitch, a response book, previous time travel books, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, When The Sleeper Awakes, the future utopia sometime in the 20th century, the richest man in the world, his light bulb being on, Red Dwarf, engaging with a long tradition, two methods of time travel, shunted out of the plot, a plot device, the cold sleep, a great novel, neglected great writers, Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, a wife who wants to have her husband killed, Walter Neff, while somebody is sleeping, he didn’t jump he was pushed, killing off Dan B. Davis, the Hays Code, slim volumes, so digestible, the motivating plot, the way the book is structured, it starts with a loop, 11 doors in Connecticut, drafting or drinking, back in time, his decision, running around to get the plot happening, Back To The Future 2, he sees himself on stage playing guitar and Chuck Berry phone call, how Heinlein’s a good writer, the car had gone missing, Jesse knew what happened to the car, a mystery, red herrings to distract us from the little clues, chef’s kiss, time travel, not loved when so well done, he invents the Roomba, so many touches, Hired Girl, the hired girl, he can see them in their starkers, as god made them, all confection and lies, assets, competent, the hired girl took over, what’s so interesting about this book, technology at its core, plot vs. tech, the Japanese movie in relief, plasma battery subplot, Heinlein’s saying the opposite, everything’s off the rack, philosophy of engineering, on point, in railroad times you build railroads, loop de loop rollercoaster, the character having interaction with himself, nothing more beautiful than that, “you’re stupid”, I said., arrested for barracking, that zombie drug, sentenced to being zombies, zombie workers killed by its owner, working the implications of the tech, Heinlein at his best, really exploring, he loved Colorado, overrun, expropriated for government use, Los Angeles is a port, he’s not half-assing it, he likes, nudity, Colorado, cats, California, self inserting his own bio, the whole bit with the cars, producing to give people jobs, we’re doing it, cheese caves, in the Japanese adaptation, 32 year old car, you need to be rich to own an old car, to support the Japanese car industry, more iron to make more cars, the domestic market, the Japanese market, immigration, its hard to assimilate, racist or whatever, something they’ve thought a lot about since WWII, how to keep the economy good, a stable economy, trashing five year old cars, Australia is full of Japanese cars, Canada too, right hand drive, insure it at a higher rate, where Heinlein goes the extra step, the fit and finish, no gauges, satire, milk subsidies, a license to have a milk farm, where the government cheese comes from, more cows producing, distortion effects, pop vs. soda, pop is a verb not a noun, Wisconsin is pop country, corn syrup, sugar is cheaper in Canada, corn syrup is cheaper in the states, social commentary, a continuation, his futurism is really good, technology has massive impacts on our lives, real science fiction, useful technology, the right side of this question, make women and men’s lives easier, his own life, tricked out with interesting tech ideas, labour saving, the history of the dishwasher, scrub dishes all day, Jesse is a monster, not a smart dishwasher, I have to pay my servants, after WWII, dishwashers had existed since 1850 but they get hot in 1950, Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sister, A Treatise On Domestic Economy For The Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School, our bastion of power, efficiency expert, scientific management, fordism, talking about the domestic sphere seriously, expanding their own freedom, the natural place for women, sounds scary when you say it, if you’re going to continue the species, off on the hunt, Jesse literally cannot suckle babies, hormone shots, we don’t even have the baby being gestated in side the woman, Lois McMaster Bujold, uterine replicators, Podkayne Of Mars did it first, Bujold does Heinlein better than Heinlein, the domestic labour saving devices, Jesse’s not allowed in his mom’s kitchen, her space to dominate, a room in the house for men, cohabitation rooms, smoking rooms, Trish seething in the background, liberate women from this using tech, drive across or rocket across, Jesse has been talking a long time, Drafting Dan was for himself and for men and women, his inventions were for everybody, Hired Girl helping women, saving household labour, the domestic sphere idea, a woman’s domain, restricting choices is a bad thing for human rights, through husband or father, how people or women thought of it in the 19th century, antebellum reform movements, newspapers, social movements, protests, writing governments, pushing for laws, anti-prostitution, temperance, the anti-slavery movement, women’s anti-slavery societies, it degrades the family, making women sinners, informally not legally married, separate spheres idea, women didn’t have property if they were married, the Temperance Society of Philadelphia, write articles, give speeches, push for laws, a historical rabbit hole, something else that is going to annoy Jesse, the plot is a chef’s kiss, the time machine plot was unnecessary, a wonderful feeling, Riki becoming a brilliant engineer herself, wow she grew up and started the Aladdin rival company, Dan went back in time and did everything else, the challenge, Trish had her female empowerment plot taken away from her, a good thing about that movie, irrelevant to the plot, a better reinterpretation, given how all the female characters were written, intelligent women who do things, too early, without that loop, the loop at the beginning, an alcoholic suddenly, to fix the problem, to get revenge, he’s doing a figure skating thing, that the loop happens, who is Heinlein?, could there have been parallel existences?, Pete died, she grew up, if I did see my name in the paper, it could never have happened that way, the very existence of that line of print, excluded not possibles, a supernatural engineer, the supernatural entity is Heinlein, a beautiful technical execution, why is that scene necessary?, because he was a nudist, an intertime travel love story, Time Bride Isaac Asimov’s November 1983, Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, Trish is going to love this story, engaging with the minor aspect of the story, many exceptions, spouses in the reverse case, not societialy appropriate, if Edgar Allan Poe had, getting married in Korea, school and study up, more free now, the western standard, the average age, a lot less marriage as well, not some inexplicable quirk, women don’t have to get married to support themselves, older men would have more of it (money), marry off your daughters, women make their own money, marriage is obsolete, as societies developed, incomes are equal, the only reason marriage exists is to control women, traditionally, easy binding contracts, trying to buy a house on your own, marriage contracts for two years, the Islamic world, Shia, Sunni, merchants, a contractual thing, business routes, renewing your drivers license or your car, about insurance, why are insurance companies invovled, The Year Of The Jackpot, related to marriage, 26 working years, make all the right bets, Lifeline, murdered by insurance companies, Time Enough For Love, something Heinlein is thinking about, it fits with the idea, on a track that can’t be changed, a fixed track, that sentimentalness of it, his cat likes him, the reason it is all worth it, now wife and kid, 30 years down the road you can’t have your cat, just have your cats out for the summer, Lockstep by Karl Schroeder, the march of civilization, Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold, investments, can you control and manipulate the world, the bad guys in Neuromancer, Technovelgy [Bill Christensen], technologies in books, Drafting Dan, CAD, Eager Beaver, Flexible Frank, Hired Girl Robot, Radioactive Coding for Checks, Robotic Hand, Waldo, Stasis (Cold Sleep, Hibernation), Thorsen Memory Tube, Computer component that allows a machine to learn through experience. Universal Checkbook, the ATM, Window-Willie, boob tube, a pulp image, glass recycling, transaction fees, the debit card, you can’t believe how expensive it is to clean windows, he invents a lot of the tech in the story, two kinds of science fiction going on at once, the effect of technology on society, a time travel story, Idiocracy (2006), C.M. Kornbluth, the premise for Futurama, a forward going time machine, Flight To Forever by Poul Anderson, the desire to go back, time travel paradoxes, similar to this, Bender’s Big Score, after the first cancellation, Lars is Fry, going back in time, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data, Star Trek: Voyager, The Orville, billions of years old, Marvin in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, if this is the worst of Heinlein…, is he in the same facility as himself, a lockbox with 16 different keys and locks, leave a letter with a lawyer, Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, time travel role playing games, fade away, Back To The Future (1985), puzzles for the writer and the reader, an intellectual exercise, have the rest of the book blank, the last short story Heinlein ever wrote, a trilogy, a series, Time Enough For Love, The Long Arm Of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven, cold sleepers, harvest their organs, corpsicles, The Crack In Space by Philip K. Dick, A World Out Of Time, Rammer, hard SF, and noir, a very turgid book, Evan is struggling with, a grade 12 honors seminar, “Science Fiction And Social Issues”, Vulcan’s Hammer, Doctor Futurity, bye Trish!, Solar Lottery, a whole year, five times a week, Alfred Bester, The Roller Coaster, Passengers by Robert Silverberg, it’s certainly something, to palate cleans you, a lot of paranoid men worried their robots are fucking their wives, they’re all so good, the older version of The Time Machine movie, Somewhere In Time (1980), Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, reverse time bride, not fairly icky to Jesse, Paul found it icky, Maissa thought it had icky aspects, alternate future, he’s wrong everywhere but also dead on in many ways, not because Heinlein loves pervin on the girls, I’m robin the cradle, people age, you get old, Pete dying, Riki aging and seeing the cat again is a super-positive thing, seeing your childhood pet again, preserving their pets just for summers, the whole metaphor is very poetic, necessary, somebody can age faster than someone else, have a bigger baldspot, make him oblivious, if he had to serve a jail sentence or something, prison romance, a reality for a lot of kids, a good ideas movie, The Tomorrow War (2021) with Chris Pratt, Edge Of Tomorrow (2014), you stand with Ukraine, they’re recruiting right now, oh, I’m too old, put up or shut up, family drama, if you really want to explore the idea of time travel, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, the wording of it threw it into Creepyville, stop doing that, written in 13 days, the cat initiated it, not another word, bye Paul, the step of actually recording is important, cannot remember it at all, John Buchan’s The Watcher At The Threshold, a dog cart ride, there’s no hunting, they talk about going hunting, the structure of the story, super-deep and super-good, running around town, Evan needs to do the whole run of Heinlein, Civil War, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Evan is becoming a boomer, he stopped a war, sacrificed his presidency , it makes Evan squee, his great great grandson founded Raytheon, when we are not living under martial law, another novel?, The Hill Of Dreams, Weird Friction, Will wants to do The Sea-Wolf, a lot of hate on twitter, Civ 6, video game logic, he knows Civilization, the headline, Putin Gains Rights To Bases In Donetsk According To Something, the headline buried the lede, implying that Reuters in cahoots with Pfizer, cahoots going on, amongst those cahooters, triggered by stuff, Heinlein wants to be a woman, literal hate, contextualize this stuff, Heinlein is progressive on gender issues, when you look at the 19th century, the progressive position, I think this is a scam, this is a scam, look at and improve student papers, stretching to find things to fix, finding more fake problems, operating in bad faith, control the narrative lest people get the wrong ideas, thinking Fauci is a saint, a holiday in Taiwan, a brutal massacre is now a holiday, Peace Day, remember the horrible past, the dumbest meme I’ve ever made, Putin Rasputin, twitter takes on Ukraine, thanks for your quote tweet asshole, grapple with ideas, it could be seen as mean, people think Evan is mean, emojis, reacting people’s dismissals of old writers, borne of and reflecting worthy new ideas, we don’t have read old books any more, reading Moby-Dick, joking with Connor [Kaye], scoffing at the idea of sensitivity readers, stirring shit just for fun, someone reading over your work, ask a scientist to read your thing, the writer who did the article on sensitivity reader, find and replace, disfigure, somebody is going to be hurt by it, continent sometimes means China in Taiwan, if you’re pro-independence, Columbus discovered China, the China of North America, sensitivity is reading, you can be hurt by words in a book, Chinese lesbians want to fuck their mothers, annoyed, having their feelings hurt, seeing their pain mocked, inner city gangsters, what kind of thoughts do they think, Harlan Ellison wrote juvenile delinquent novels, helping a student write a werewolf story, being in the wilderness, bringing your own experience to the table, if you need to have a gang in your story, writers do hire researchers, Elmore Leonard had a professional researcher, Tishimingo Blues, farb, civil war underwear, a dialogue point, a setting for a crime story, professional divers, the reason Jack London works as a writer, fish police, Yukon, homeless, Korea, boxing, Hemingway, the laptop class, the people who COVID was an inconvenience for, being a professional writer pays nothing, the sensitivity reading pays really well, it sounds mean but is it a lie?, only if you are totally ignorant, insensitive people, is gypsy salami racist?, Thinner is super-racist, Stephen King, is it racist or just a trope, King didn’t even write this, cancel Bachman don’t cancel King, is Bachman a shitlib?, dark but sensible takes, some colleagues are idiots, Putin’s two hour speech, trying to remake the Soviet Union, a pro-Russia guy?, Russia and the Soviet Union are different, why do people have opinions about things they know nothing about, there’s no dissent, Russiagate was bullshit, how did we get here?, being badass, arming civilians, Molotov cocktails, good 20th century vibes, not one step back, there’d be irony in that, if you’re looking for irony Stalin is steel, yellow and blue flags, smoke a cigarette to them, Ghost Of Kyiv, Colonel Tomb, Vietnam, a legend, war propaganda, legendary, like a fake name, Colonel Tomb laughs from his ghostly lair, sniper women, Battle Of Sevastapol, Miss Pavlichenko, Woody Guthrie, Russian soldiers on Tinder, a fifteen minute break, all that catfishing, people get triggered, they don’t deserve their country, Taiwan wont roll over, an sensitivity reader changed Conan Role Playing Game 1st and 2nd editions, mysterious is like inscrutable, ancient is less descriptive, the mail man came vs. the mail carrier came, a doctoress, an aviatrix, mailman vs. mail-carrier, unintended consequences, writing out the caste system, it’s ancient India, role players want to play whatever you want, a black skinned paladin in medieval Europe, Pathfinder, martial arts changed to unarmed, Bruce Lee and kung fu, unarmed combat, making the game more of a board game, a Crom eating barbarian, swordfighting and boxing, copy and replace less badly but for what purpose, that’s just a stereotype, paying attention the writing, mud huts becomes stone buildings, mud is bad, civilized folks don’t live in mud huts, they have to upgrade their buildings, mud is othering, some people live in mud huts, modern homes are “rammed earth” not mud, euphemism treadmill stuff, a generational change, when talking to outsiders, first nations, Squamish, the word is always changing but changing from top down, policers of society, black vs. African American, white south africans who fled South Africa, race vs. ethnicity, both are real in a cultural sense, a black hispanic, coloured, Arab African, Barack Obama, when Joe Rogan got called out again for a nigger video compilation, words that are taboo, do you want to be a whipped dog or use your independence of thought and information coming in currently, bowing to authority vs. being independent of mind, Mark Twain doesn’t need a sensitivity reader for The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, a profoundly anti-racist book, replacing nigger with robot, Robot Jim, a science fiction story, the gender flipping project, when Conina slays Thoth Amona, your premise is wrong, being offended isn’t being physical hurt, you don’t have the authority to speak about this, you don’t gave the right identity for it, adding questioning, adding bi to their bio as a proof against attack of being white, Evan has seen this documentary, who’s the oppressor here?, maybe she has a skill I’m not great at, The Fable Of The Bees, the worst thing you can do with your money is save it, there’s nothing to buy, travel, going to America every year, The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen.

Freas - The Door Into Summer

PAN - The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

Frank Kelly Freas - THE DOOR INTO SUMMER

Imagine Yourself Shanghaied Into The 21st Century!

SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

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The SFFaudio Podcast #698 – READALONG: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #698 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Talked about on today’s show:
1974, a subtitle, knowing a ton about this book, you know all about the , its finally time to read The Dispossessed, book review journals, Moby-Dick, Oliver Twist, Jane Austen, media-property, because science fiction is more academicy, pretensions, taking that to heart, my credentials!, the gatekeeping of credentials, later printings, an ambiguous utopia, an ambiguous heterotopia, two societies, two worlds, idealized in certain ways and the we see its flaws, an inverted travel narrative, the square society, to learn about ourselves, Neils Klim’s Adventure Under Ground, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, John Savage, interleaving of the past with the present, a very novel thing, a hard start, protesting, a terrific book, a perfect book?, the audio drama, it is the book, the propertiless society, propertarian, go to the non-hotel, we don’t have wallets here, we have so many plot points we have to hit, a companion piece to the novel, too difficult, Classics Illustrated comics, bare boobs, a four colour version of the book, deplorable listeners, Will loves this book, read it at age 3!, something metaphysical about Ursula K. Le Guin’s politics, get right with the world to understand the physics, the insurrection, simultaneity theory, bleeding to death, poignant, the ambassador from Earth, we’ve ruined everything on Earth, this terrible moon, this terrible planet, one fucking tree, Will had read the book before, reading this novel the first time, all the bare breasted ladies, the pet otter, taken by the title, there’s some people and they had their land taken away from them, the phrases “being possessed” and “being dispossessed”, everybody has hair, her braids, propertarian, rope, everybody would cut their hair, for the common good, jewelry, no hair, everything is owned and defended, how can you have your labour stolen if you don’t have labour, the near rape scene, a terrible scene, an awful scene, a great scene, alluring naked women, a Monica Lewinsky situation, a fuge state, his metaphysical shakras were not aligned right, drunk, the demon rum, drunk me, a growing up book, a shirt that they were, that is not my hand, that is the hand that I use, Le Guin was right, nobody had written a utopia set in an anarchist society, gangster society, it gets destroyed, it would be invaded, a communist authoritarian state, how the Soviet military worked, ranks, license and requirements, team people, chain of authority going up, MPs, political officer, commissars, The Hunt For Red October, the Defense of Moscow, how pirate systems work, signing the articles, making your mark, operating under laws, customs, violating customs, Robert A. Heinlein, the academic stuff, academic politics, sucking up, conceding power to the powerful, the most authoritarian figure, I’m among equals, deceived by that feeling of equality, making a contribution, volunteering for more field labour, Fidel and Che, out in the fields reaping, wuffie, respect, currency of a certain kind, refusing all work, not full participants, lazy bums, back to the land movement in the 70s, communes, work pretty hard to make food show up, subsistence farming, The Whole Earth Catalog, a chicken that lays an egg, other benefits, giving you something to do, heat and light and food, were they living on Urras, water and potash, making clothes happen, Pacific Edge, The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson, bombed back, on the edge, Soylent Green and Silent Running, drought, all used up, going authoritarian, nearly involuntary, grand gesture, simultaneity, the only wall, sitting on the wall, a boundary, a symbolic wall, openness, the deserty environment, rooms, basements, gaudy crap, prosperity, no lies detected in that drunken rant, what we have to do, becoming accepted, the science committee, not one bad actor, a drift towards authoritarianism, celebrating Christmas, the Tyranny of Structurelessness, Jo Freeman, anarcho-feminist, the loudest most passionate voices, inevitable acknowledged, the equalest person, running this podcast, if you don’t like it, you can go make your own podcasts, it doesn’t hurt the original organization, you all have to listen to me, Trish would need to shape up or ship out, consider the listener, you need a better microphone, the loudest voice in the room, its in the language, prophylactics, what’s the alternative?, back to structure?, she’s really good, a critique of anarchism by people not in the movement, Mikhail Bakunin, the dentist authority, the smoothest words, rhetorical skill is not necessarily being right, the playwright in the book, committed to an insane asylum, separated from his loved ones, separating families, dormitories, school is prison and torture, are they on Annares?, public enemy number one, more egalitarian, all to Le Guin’s benefit, she reeealy thought it through, this is what SF is, this is really Science Fiction, it ain’t about physics, what other criticism, they don’t have cell phones and the web, we live in a post-scarcity economy if not for the rent-seeking fucks, back to education, you’re to smart for this class, you’re egoizing, hurtful, the teacher is in authority, this should be two different classes with two different levels, the teacher’s fault, go find somewhere else to be, school would be much less of a prison if teachers could do this, you can’t do that, engaging with the material, totally shut down, sympathy for the prison guards, nobody was getting the joke, thought experiment/joke, Xeno’s paradox, challenging the teacher’s authority, a top-down mechanism, the older people run things, a gerontocracy, ossified, The Doomed City by Bros. Strugatsky, forced to change jobs, 150 years, evolution or change, anarchy is hard to sustain, we evolved from hierarchical animals, drifting towards social structures of power, Murray Bookchin, The Ecology Of Freedom, a lion eating a gazelle, the “king of the beasts”, a “communist collective”, the “queen bee”, the first to become vulnerable and useless, the council of elders, authority outside of nature, we are the most wise, the first witch doctors, you’re just a young little idiot, there’s truth there, to learn skills, starting a fire, knowing how to skin an animal, the bigger the class the harder it gets, firing students, being fired by students, your knowledge gives you authority, the heirarchy is not imposed, participating in the hierarchy, destructive of the hierarchy, institutions, the survival is the proof that they know better, not the everyday, attack ships on fire of the shoulder of Orion?, he’s only four years old, seasons, time to move the camp, it happened in my childhood, the playwright [again], struggling to make a critique of his own society, when people walk out of the theatre, he can’t get another idea, it drives him insane, there is no escape, the miners who lived on Annares before, give up the hair, we need to take one of your kidneys, utilitarianism to the extreme, but…, they give him vaccines, I don’t want that, accedes, its almost like the rape scene, its my body don’t put things in it I don’t want to get in, vaccines for college?, medical records, living on top of people, community college, get these three, small pox, I died of smallpox shortly thereafter Paul, the devastation I wrought, always goes back to that title, they stickem, roommate, not allowed to live there, your space, you want women, blondes, brunettes, light skinned, dark skinned, we gottem all, women as possessions, burning his clothes, clothes for him, people gonna move, get rid of stuff everyday, bookshelves full of books, that one dollar scan place, the books own you Paul, they give you pleasure, a physical tactile pleasure, having them ways upon your soul, sad and relief, so threatening, you will be dispossessed of those things that possess you, people had stuff taken away from them, not embrace possession, rejecting the concept of property, dispossessed the miners, all the stories that could be told, that she put those people in there, a powerful concept that is far to little explored in SF, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, pre-sex cuddling at the party, the one thing that will get you a separate room, alone time (with somebody else), eating a banquet in front of hungry people, fairness not prudishness, as you dig down you got back in time, Evan has too many books, homes of different sizes, longhouses, skulls of your ancestors are the title deed to that property, small dwellings, big structures, fuck rooms, you didn’t have family, public houses, the anthropological record and the creation of family, abolishing marriage and the family, the reason for marriage is property, paternity certainty, an institution that insures that, the bloody sheet, marriage is a creepy thing, women are possessed when they have babies inside them, wow!, really powerful stuff, she gets men pretty good, Lathe Of Heaven is pretty good, The Left Hand Of Darkness, stuff happening that’s important on every page, the prison stuff, such a resonant image, they’re doing it to themselves, the Stanford [Prison] Experiment, maybe it works, engage with these terms, when gin came into English society, the temperance movement, got a hold of people’s brains, we’re not fully in control of our decision making, “problematic” means very little, a jiu jitsu counter move, I have no defense to ‘you’re egoizing’, the only guy on the planet who knows the manly art of boxing [Almuric], we need this for ideas, ideas invade your brain and control your thinking, advertising, what songs are, memes that control us, Kirk’s nodding to McCoy, one or twice a day, why this book is so good, what societies are, you can’t live by your own, in a relationship to a society, an attractive hellscape, trying to engage with the poors, relationships we have to deal with, a generalized social contract with everybody, what determines what we do, social pressures, and social ideologies, when that sign comes down, most people shouldn’t be that worried, too much work, we have to be fully engaged with the things happening all around us, a traffic radio station, truckers blocking local access to the United States, this is a sign, something’s going to change, obey and be obedient, a whipped dog, not a fan of being owned, they don’t have enough stuff, the dust is too strong, is it the privation or the no borders, their planet is their country, Red Plenty, The People’s Republic Of Walmart, post-scarcity anarchism, Trekonomics, Four Futures, scarcity and equality axes, visions of anarchy, one from Hain, is he gonna get stoned when he gets there?, a good way to end the book, people who want to fight those people, a two sided riot, another internal critique, killed, the committee of public safety, a seed crystal, the only location is a the wall, the only border on the planet, a leading and abusive question, what influence did this book get from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, prisoners, lapping over rules, what is going to be done, what happens when someone rapes someone else, they just space the guy, pirates are terrific, a constitution for every voyage, we are forced to signed articles in the state in which we are born, driver’s license, worshiping the queen, not singing the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, how great their lower classes are, the heart and soul, I don’t give a fuck about them, WWI, WWII, the truckers, plebes, plebs, a libertarian novel, a society of custom, There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, getting past the idea of earning their lunch, Ursula Le Guin is very different than Heinlein, ideologically open vs. ideologically closed, an axe to grind, he’s going to teach us, exploring vs. lecturing, philosophy, open discussion, the ranting guy in the public square vs. let me tell you about this weird journey I took, commune time, rewriting this story, people dissatisfied with their neoliberal hellscape, why the indians are always dispossessed, keep enacting copyright laws, you say you want global vaccination but you keep your patents, intellectual property is central to this book, he wants to make it public domain, my vaunted position, where power can be wielded, wielded for the betterment of the few, also I want to give away this thing, the good anarchist leaves the anarchist society for anarchist reasons, stolen credit, in actual post-scarcity copyright, A Scandal In Bohemia by Me, attribution, Bros. Grimm, the guys who get the credit, by some person or persons in society, Soviet copyrights, the guy who invented Tetris, Mr. Kalashnikov, Einstein gets credit millennia later, the names done by computer, I named you, you’re “the Zygote” now Will, words have consequences, a good show on it right now, big books can work out, padding, 382 pages vs. 341 pages, should we do it, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein’s very pushy, he’s got theories coming out of ying yang, an analogue for the American Revolution, Artemis by Andy Weir, Paul’s an old, The Door Into Summer, air your grievances, the politics of reality, protecting wealth, I thought better of you, monarchy, social Darwinism has its opposer in mutual aid, I fuck you and everybody’s better off, says the tongue, engaging with conservatives of the small c kind, cutting off blood supply to your left arm, a lazy arm, we ignore him we take his truck away, costing our whole society, listening to the pain, an idea in opposition to social Darwinism, force, power and its tool violence, the averted eye, a serious problem, the ally, the ambassador from Earth, the old cities, the bones and bricks, once the plates are subducted, the Sargasso Sea, lost ship, a 19th century maritime junkyard, the problem of plastic, a beautiful passage, along with the great ideas, a night blooming flower, only one darkness, Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake, a guy visiting an anarchist world and looking for trouble, a culture that is propagandistic, a founder a founding document, the country with 5 military bases Djibouti, its hell, when the food starts to go, violent accidents, a lot of danger, the food train, half-rations, a really beautiful passage at the end of chapter 6, lying in bed just talking, ideas and affection, their kid is great, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Odo, justice, the collective is the Borg, consensus, a small elite, the female changeling, they all have genders, us for us stupid TV watchers, a bunch of amoebas, they got Jesse, they understood Jesse’s biases, O D O, sample, Bajoran is a made up language, when they need to have a need for a new episode, super-jealous, hurrmp, René Auberjonois, populate instead of fuck, we copulate together, sex isn’t dirty and blasphemy doesn’t exist, beauty, green and verdant, Downpour.com, support your local library, how am I gonna share my files if they have DRM?, a worldbuilding thing, the invention of the Ansible, The Word For World Is Forest, she gave it away, she gave it to Orson Scott Card to use, she’s not propertarian about it, pirate the book, the Hanish cycle is not a cycle, its set in a universe, marketing department, no planet in the sky, a photo of Death Valley or something, the cover of the first edition, Rembrandt, in his fancy clothes, he has hair, rolled out of the show, spicy takes, how shitty Urass feels, go to the plays, get hot dogs, AP Human Geography, ranking of democracies, triggering Evan, they don’t have a media environment, Thu, they don’t believe in democracy, defining democracy as people having control of their lives, free garbage media, “seed papers”, media censorship, its our society, Annares is a commune in the desert, a kid’s book, Schooled by Gordon Korman, hippie kid goes to the city, weird resonances, those granola cruncher people, what they wanted to do, parallel books, a very slight book for little kids, a good sci-fi that focuses on education.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

SF Masterworks - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Anarres and Urras

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The SFFaudio Podcast #694 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #694 – The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard – read by Elroi Shelley. This is a complete and unabridged reading of novel (15 hours 25 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Will Emmons, Connor Kaye, and Cora Buhlert talk about The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

Talked about on today’s show:
1903/4, set during the third crusade, Saladin and the Assassins, The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle, Haggard was proud, kind of a Haggard guy, this sounds awesome, the famous ones, King Solomon’s Mines, She, Elroi Shelly, what kind of accent does she have?, Arabic, superstormtrooper, a Spanish documentary called Otto Skorzeny, Alemania (Spanish for Germany), Italian, 11th century accent, November 23, 2021, a shield with a skull on it!, Robert E. Howard’s Hawks Of Outremer, did Howard read this?, it is mentioned in the book, a black shield with a white skull, Rosamund’s dad, they’re not Irish, the mythology around Saladin, he’s so mean, all is forgiven, more of a villain in this book, frees with his own money, only a few people become slaves, Templars beheaded, don’t like the Hospitalers either, a huge list of books in Howard’s library, weird erotica, the tone is different, the battles are awesome, Haggard always has great battles, Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, counting shots scenes, movements of armies, a little less kissing, a really good book, the other brother, they both get to marry the girl!, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Abduction From The Seraglio, another Robert E. Howard story, The Shadow Of The Vulture, Red Sonja, taken to a harem, loves singing about executing people, quite famous, our hero Saladin, the best PR in the west ever, an eastern potentate, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, an artifact of the period it was written, a contemporary review, a really fun read, interesting, great women characters, the rug pulled out from under me, boys’ school style, chivalry and public school ethos are indistinguishable, fair play old chap, so innocent, the christian religion isn’t the motivating factor, an inter-familiar dispute, sister/cousin, when God gives Saladin three repeated dreams, rose of the world, a very Christian book that loves Islam, 5 million Muslims in Germany, the Howard crusader stories, interested in Islam, the whole Arabian Knights thing, kind of a Theosophist, all the religions were good, different facets of the same jewel, She is an Arab, the beautiful illustrations, Chapter 23, Haggard went on a trip to Syria, the impetus for this book, a band of knights, two knights on a personal mission, more like tourists than crusaders, our side is justice, Saint Rosamund, some of the homework that he did, page 631, this chapter is so metal, to these I say, score face and bosom, made loathsome to the sight of man, the brides of Heaven, the swords of furious and savage men, the Faith, St. Clair at Acre, 1291, A Winter Pilgrimage by H. Rider Haggard, this book is so…, these people are getting way to worked up their religions, that’s what Heinlein would do, too hard core, flagellation, gang raped by roman legionaries, medieval snuff porn, a beautiful painting of woman being brutally tortured, a guy on a stick, of some particular imam, in the end you will get what you deserve, what he did wasn’t very nice, trauma by inference, waking up in cold sweats, you have to bow and scrape, you ate some of my salt, that much fun, Robin Hood, slave characters, Saxon-Norman etymology stuff, King John, the father of the modern historical novel, Outlander, the mooning over the girls, nice to the Jews, antisemitism, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, a Russian countess, what people think Lovecraft was like, I hate poor people, French people, a city named after Sir Walter Scott’s house: Abbotsford, the fake chivalry code of the Southern USA comes from Sir Walter Scott, a phenomenon in the early 19th century, a book highly influenced by Ivanhoe, 1819, writing about ancestors, Virginia Woolf and modernists couldn’t stand Sir Walter Scott, anything past 10 years ago obviously has no value, we don’t need Jane Austen because we have Bridget Jones’ Diary, the classic chivalry story, 1920, a throwback to classic novels, Don Quixote, a parody of classic chivalry, The Song Of Roland, language issues, stories of heroic knights, drew on older legends and stories, Robin Hood is an old legend, early Hollywood Robin Hood is straight out of Ivanhoe, returning crusaders, a little bit tight-fisted, he wants you to say these are people and they can live in England with us, literal slave collars, accidental pun, Cobra Kai, shocking, Connor is six, dwelling on backstory, dishonorable knights, not having a dad, kidnapping women, disrespecting my family, a cross-worshiper!, almost biblical, violence at school, teenagers beating up kids, learn karate to defend yourself, the 70s kung-fu phenomena, white kids want to be a Chinese guy, the whole world has passed by the Karate Kid, consistency with real truths about what families are like, many mirrorings, one’s like a Saxon one’s more Norman, a broken family united by respect and love, an outside uncle, a broken family in the religion over there, the backstory of the assassins, Shia and Sunni, Iran is the bad guy even though they had nothing to do with 9/11, Ismaili, a breakaway family, People Of The Black Circle by Robert E. Howard, what’s going on in Tibet?, briefly touched on drugged visions, Masouda is such a great character you want her to have a spin-off show, role of a lifetime, super-mysterious, horrible ending, all for love, he kept pulling the rug out from under us, all set to work out, a happy ending, not much character development, Masouda had a lot, when we find things out, she’s a widow, the inn will run itself, this book was for us to me her, too long to read, she’s our guide, very masterfully written, the two fathers, two muslim brother enemies, Flame and Smoke are the two other best character is the book [and horses], Rosamund and Masouda are mirrors, half-Frank, she’s a fallen princess, the opposite constellation, a French countess mother, Masouda is a tragic Rosamund, her boyfriend has to go live with monks, really effective, making things rich and deep, why William Wilson is such a great story, where there’s smoke there’s fire, the brethren, stylized language, it creates the atmosphere, how you sell your movie, “Extreme Prejudice”, “Collateral Damage”, a euphemism, anticipates, she’s sent off to a nunnery, she’s marrying god!, sent off to become a priest, he didn’t write this by the seat of his pants, good writing, become a priest or a monk, too concerned with dreams, a higher purpose, so well put together, the opposite of the pre-show, squee moments, scenes, harry potter, train scene, quidditch scene, the horses know something, this is my dude, opposite of snarky, not a snark in it, very sincere, Cassell’s Magazine, December 1903, he doesn’t tease us, serialized without cliffhangers, better than the more modern style of serialization, a lot of little stories, anticipating, feeling like it is just about to end, it could end at any point, the final illustration, it was Godwin’s face, “spoiler”, that ending is supposed to be a surprise, when Masouda died, a tragedy, so fucking dark, he touched her head and it rolls away, the Robert E. Howard scene, he commands armies, there’s no supernatural extras to this story, Howard is more hyperbolic, an opening scene for a Robert E. Howard story, selling this as a script, the ultimate reveal, people would be angry at this movie, so fantastic, devastating, foreshadowed, you will meet her in the end, more recently, Game Of Thrones, any character can die at any time, this story set it up fantastically, she’s too good of a character, a heart of gold, she’s saving the brothers, she’s driving the plot, coming up with all the plans and disguises, the perfect anti-payoff, once she died, everyone is going to die, Godwin can’t live, this is how the end of the story is going to go, Rosamund is going to die as well, St. Rosamund, embedding humor into the structure of the story, see it in reflection, abruptly ended, and I’ll let you live, 16 hours, oh my god, so shocking, so satisfying and relieving, it made you want to laugh, catharsis, Saladin got you too, the Italian opera ending, everybody dies, Hamlet, an everybody dies story, happy, it makes me smile (not squee), the best kind, the good kind of squee, it earns its squee, if both brother got to marry the sister (literally), a fantasy setting, very historical, how much of this is real, actually real?, family members of famous people, Nada The Lily, the secret son of Shaka Zulu, another book like this, Haggard on utube, a very early film of Haggard at his home, silent, how wealthy he became from his good writings, she hated She, really long and almost all journey, a lot happening structurally, dock in Cyprus, a hostage situation, and a reverse hostage situation, this book kept derailing Jesse’s expectations, a crusades book but not a crusade, strange inter-relations, Arabic, subtlety, going a little easy on it, it could be shorter, the changes of point of view, abutted scenes, the opening, almost every thread connects, almost perfectly composed, mid-H. Rider Haggard, the eighth H. Rider Haggard for Will, the guy who’s most responsible for squeecore, -doom core, South America?, The Heart Of The World, a secret Mayan civilization, as a prose stylist, what makes the English language work, not writing like a normal person, intentionally antiquated, main literary influces: The King James Bible, the old testament, more action here (than in She), Zulus talking in the thou form, a pack of ghost wolves, The People Of the Mist, classic lost race fantasy, Cora is nocturnal, Treasure Island, “Oh, Connor me lad”, a big project, Jim in the inn, this is a Heinlein juvenile written before Heinlein, its squeecore!, I’ve become what I hate!, it resembles Citizen Of The Galaxy (a retelling of Kim), Robert Louis Stevenson is an interesting person, very unhealthy, adopts an older woman’s son, goes and dies in Samoa, Connor would be keen, a good pirate story, the way the book was written, the Lovecraft – Sonia Green marriage, you’re going to eat right now, you’re going to breathe right now, draw me an island, a writing prompt to bring them closer together, a relationship book, the first manuscript for Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde was burned, Travels With A Donkey, some Random series book or a Treasure fucking Island, great material for a biopic, Jim and John Silver, save it for the podcast, Treasure PlanetTreasure Island and The Hobbit, the nicest aunt in East Germany, illustrated Huckleberry Finn, upgrade mic and headset, bone conduction, The Doom That Came To Sarnath by H.P. Lovecraft, The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake, Almuric by Robert E. Howard, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Doomed City by The Strugatsky Bros. (Boris and Arkadii), “get the communist!”, you can’t get Eric, good luck bud, trolling vs. invitation, The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein, The Sea-Wolf by Jack London, a February of novels, shorter than Hour Of The Dragon, reading Donald E. Westlake, nephew novels, addictive, we win all the fun characterization, he’s like a treasure, why science fiction sucks: he can’t get paid, it was science fiction’s loss, really funny, a lot of people want to have written, the craft, he wants it to be awesome, joke poems, Waterhouse’s Circe, why are there flowers all over the floor, attraction and danger, the stories are super-rich, when you write a story based on a picture you’re decoding the picture, encoding a picture in a person’s brain, transfer our brain thought into another person’s brain thought, telepathy, no difference between intention and reception, “Mountain Dew”, something to skip, “you think you’re going to do The Dispossessed without me?”, an anarchist planet, anarchist moon, Poul Anderson, People Of The Black Circle, Sunday BBQ winter or summer, woke scold, a Robert E. Howard kick, Galactic Journey, Will needs to logoff, popping ps, 40 degree heat, thunderstorms, a sworn interpreter, Germany classics, Karl May, a convicted conman, O. Henry, living happily ever after on the prairie, your old Alberta home, a recording booth, a Neumann microphone, Shure dynamic mic, imported musical instruments, luxury goods, RØDE microphones, rood, what is a chapman, the drugged wine, Chapman’s ice cream, the chap part is cheap, the cheap man, Mercedes Benz is a luxury brand in Canada, car industries, Blue microphones, the microphone boom, shockmounts, research the fuck out of it, semaphore eyebrows, German TV adaptation of The Sea-Wolf, Cora comes from a family of sailors, The Red One, hunting moths with a shotgun, the house of a headhunter, Das Millionenspiel, a War Of The Worlds situation, The Running Man and The Prize Of Peril, furious Sheckley, one of the best things German TV ever did, The Running Man by Stephen King, hunting humans, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, The Hounds Of Zaroff, late night horror, King Kong (1933), The Most Dangerous Meme, Predator (1987), Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, basically its Hitler, John Buchan, Rogue Justice, 1939 – 1982, your audience may have been born and died in the meantime, Dr. Mabuse by Norbert Jacques, propaganda and lies and misinformation about copyright, Babylon Berlin, Metropolis by Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang, VPN, Jorge Luis Borges, basically all the Conan stories are public domain, dictionary, Valley Of The Lost aka King Of The Forgotten People by Robert E. Howard, the eyestrain thing, a giant crab!, way more than Solomon Kane, historicals, Dark Agnes, Shadow Of The Vulture, People Of The Black Circle, Almuric, Revival by Stephen King, The Troop by Nick Cutter, The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes, not a big Heinlein fan?, how dare you, Isaac Asimov, see the weaknesses, good short stories, Arthur C. Clarke, the Foundation stories, The Goddess Of Atvatabar by William R. Bradshaw, a whole continent down there, Klim’s Journey Under The Ground by Ludvig Holberg, patterns, The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft, H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Challenger, cheap classics, import prices, Citizen Of The Galaxy, a month of pocket money, Saladin, disintegrating, Valentina by Fern Michaels, import bookstore, bodice rippers, Angélique by Anne Golon, highlanders, a romanticized version of the Vietnam War, a solid fantasy book, a great story, so filmic, American style, BBC’s The Tourist, TV American style, Doctor Who, really important, something squeecore, just broken.

Cassell And Company - The Brethren

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

CASSELL dust jacket The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

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The SFFaudio Podcast #691 – READALONG: Tunnel In The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #691 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Trish E. Matson talk about Tunnel In The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein.

Talked about on today’s show:
1955, Steele Savage, Rod standing in a doorway, a leg tattoo, a Farnham’s Freehold tattoo, refreshing, the gender dynamics, problems, is there anything anybody could complain about, the ending, an unsatisfying ending, Rod also was unsatisfied, the pre-ending, Captain Rod, what things can we cancel about this novel, the Amazons was pretty fun, lady soldiers, AND instead of but, gender sterotypes, get married and have babies, no!, the vote, the lost boys and girls, Heinlein couldn’t give her a single vote?, she didn’t even vote for himself, Rod didn’t vote for himself, a painting of equality, she showed herself as stronger at every turn, whole chapters from her diary’s POV, Rod’s sister, square dancing, monopolizing the conversation, the pioneer spirit, privileging x chromosomes over y chromosomes, strong and self assured, everybody wanted to get married, his last day as mayor, he’s a teenager, a junior in High School, oblivious to crushes, warding them off (especially Carolyn), the audiobook was terrific, Full Cast Audio, the actress playing Jack was a girl, borderline, “he” was smaller, a very girl thing, going off to have a cry together, a dude thing would be bro-ing eachother to death, this Zulu lady is very squaredancey, global culture, a Filipino from South America is from early 20th century Missouri, two different covers, the revised cover, Heinlein explicitly stated Rod was black, the god _____, going to some other planet, Time Enough For Love, really abbreviated ending, finished his schooling, Carolyn is busy doing Amazon stuff, some sort of pony, not explicitly black, a dispute as to who’s in charge, Jock McGowan, cholo means mixed race, a specific tribe of African black, the injuries he received (that are many), the realpolitik of trying to sell the novel, bringing us to the place he wants us to go, admiring Heinlein’s sneaking in, he’s got an agenda: anti-racist, a working theory, we’re just wrong, Andre Norton had to write as a man, maybe she had done her research, C.L. Moore had to her identity not her gender, in that era, why we call him H.P. Lovecraft, Zealia Bishop, selling to an audience that’s kids, what the kid is actually like, Podkayne Of Mars, Poddy is a girl, cancellation happens today for similar reasons, the lack of religion is very interesting, made up religion, a Koran a Book of Mormon, an army chaplain, spiritual services, ecumenical, agenda driven, reacting to the culture and the times he grew up in, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, secular, a secularized faith, small d democratized faith, let’s not be racist, a correct prediction of moving away from organized religion, Julie Davis was brought up by atheists and now runs a catholic podcast with Scott Danielson, waxing and waning, writing in the margins, building our world alongside it, the Talmud, comments and interpretation, a literate society, a lot going on in this little book, society is not society unless it is literate, you don’t have society without writing, papyrus, is it Jim is a Quaker?, Society of Friends, we wait until the spirit moves us, a really big problem with this book, i’m supposed to hate Grant (the first mayor), what is man’s greatest invention?, “government”, barfing up, what this book is about, boys get stranded through a stargate, it’s a portal Paul, the plot is a backdrop for essays on government, you have to cook your juveniles first, long pig is also mentioned, Heinlein themes, a responses to Lord Of The Flies, another stranding, Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games, in dialogue with this, government, teaming, philosophy of PUBG, there can be only one, what’s happening?, the game didn’t tell you what the rules were or how to play it, a blue wall, if you win you get a chicken dinner?, how we are in the world, people who think they know how to play the game, game friends, different strategies and brains, the most popular game in the world for a few months, a clone of PUBG, what makes this game really interesting, a lot of Civilization, the same game but different every time, different people’s strategies, playing a meta-game with their own brain chemistry, hot-drops, I wanna get kills, the points aren’t the game, a survival simulator, avoiding getting killed, the point of this game is the point of that terrible novel is Lord Of The Flies, an awful message, Heinlein is saying no in this book, Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, a war of all against all, submit to a king, jaw jawing all the time, war war, Winston Churchill, false dichotomy, Churchill wanted a war, rationing until the 1960s, war was inevitable, a war government, he was in WWI, he wanted war, its ironic, a war with the Boers, if you look around the room, a series of governments who made it happen, this book is arguing with that, a light introduction, mass hysteria style psychology, why Heinlein is arguing with Lord Of The Flies, civilization and square dancing, making a mono-culture, how to incorporate, sweet medicine, his ideological goals, TV Tropes, savagery and barbarism, The Coral Island, if everything is a rebuttal, this is a conversation, William Golding took it far, a toxic British boys school, invested in the pecking order, boy and girl scouts, generalizing from limited experience, a savage system with a veneer of civilization, wanting to engage with Heinlein’s novel, seeing this dialogue take shape, the framing is never focused on, their being sent away from a nuclear war, the fucking up of the planet, so important to understanding the book, what are the themes, the teachers never focus on how they got there, who said what in chapter what, this book [Tunnel In The Sky] is for children, 1857, because there’s kids in it, you walk out of that book thinking: I guess we’re all fucked, a skeptical and careful read, we have leaders who say stuff like “jaw jaw is better than war war”, that setups, the endless soviets, committee meetings, mandate, mandatory, your stuff has been requisitioned, not the dilating of the gate, a war of all against all, not all on SERE training, Maissa’s favourite German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, Little Dieter Wants To Fly, the Vietnam War, Christian Bale, Rescue Dawn (2006), why does Rod get immediately attacked?, its a metaphor, why the relationship with Jack is so important, the knife scene, falling into a couple later?, an aromantic relationship, he thinks he’s a dude, he’s chaste, oblivious, until I’m not mayor anymore, given the circumstances, when we’re back in Jerusalem, transferring governorship, 16 years old, still treated as a child, gone under two years, a planet with no birth control, a morality in the background, save it for your marriage, the missionaries got married, missionary positioning, a Mormon point of view, their culture is more explicit than the rest of American culture, these are the restrictions we put on ourselves, we don’t have perfect access to our own minds, a really good book, the ending, tremendously unsatisfying, abandoned the work they had done in establishing the colony (except for Rod!), improving the land, to be kids again, blood and sweat and tears, a sharper conflict point, unreal, Doctor Matson, married to his sister, the situation the reader is in, knowing how people’s psychology works…, go around the room, have you ever…, something happens that your’e not party to, a whiplash jetlag effect, people talk themselves into all sorts of stuff, a better doctor, camping is not for Jesse, compromises, glamping = glamorous camping, this other extreme, sleeping in a tree with a flimsy net, its a homeless simulator, we can make all sorts of explanations to ourselves, a way to end the book, what do you want to do today?, a malted, then another malted and a hot shower, tobacco and coffee, can you imagine not having coffee again for the rest of your life?, Jesse’s godfather, the back-to-the land movement, I’m not going to do this anymore, he’s the only one, he’s the mayor who was left behind, a hospital nearby, a vehicle to take you to the hospital, your 4000 square foot greenhouse, 5 years til we get bread, coffee is grown in Asia and south America and Africa, a guy who made a toaster, [The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites], Carl Sagan, to bake a pie you must first invent the universe, our blacksmith, few strawmen, a portal back to earth, why does Heinlein hate reporters and the media, tabloid journalists exist and are bad?, Heinlein ran for office, a lot of what goes on in the reportage of politics, party politics, ingroups and outgroups and cliques, Rod’s leadership skills, likeable, principles, thoughtful, sidelined by committees, a YA novel, who is right?, the giant migration, right for the wrong reason, how much he complains, the constitution was the important thing, he’s wrong, you might better have a society without a majorly written constitution, the pirate articles, Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010), the signing of the articles when you don’t have paper, join or get cast off, abiding by the articles, designed to prevent the ship being sunk, smoke on the upper deck, no drinking when on watch, very reasonable, and then oddly specific, no boys or women on the ship, the captain is elected for combat, downloading the pirate rules, the list of the pirate codes, they downloaded their brain, all the ships had captains and quartermasters, shares, always more pay for positions of responsibility, getting into beefs, how does this come about, anybody want to do this, an invitation, what’s the best way to get to that end goal,
Blakes 7, why did you change course, who leads on this ship?, you lead you don’t command, Grant vs. Rod, getting to the ultimate goal, humans cooperating, when Rod gets mad at Carolyn, against a plan that was established, not making a clean kill, avoiding getting killed, all different kinds of strategies, I wanna be lazy about this, not doing the thing that’s necessary to do, the randos on the internet, diarrhea, a trigger, not a guy who reads a lot of books, discoveries about the realities of the world, smokes marijuana all day long, smoking bowls, how do we all get along, a bit naive in a lot of places, a common culture around the world, disenfranchising young people, the geriatric elite, children don’t get a vote, listen to the kids or not, at what point does the sailor get a vote, an age, their voice should be heard (rather than dismissed), our sailing ship planet Earth, the leadership is very very bad, we don’t want any youngsters, the median age for congress is 61, Strom Thurman was 100, Nancy Pelosi is 80, Sinema does the curtsy, she even forgot her own kid, new eden, because the metaphor, a little bit related, median vs. average, at what point are you a kid, a threshold moment, reasons to go back, take off the adulthood hat, putting it wrongly, they’re all under him, the burden of the responsibility, In Achilles His Tent, sulking, the classical reference, The Marching Hordes, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, The Yellow Peril, a long line of Chinese, Heinlein debunks this, the premise for the book, overpopulation, emigration didn’t solve population pressures, a safety valve, The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the Irish Famine, reasons for emigration, political problems caused by governments, Australia is populated with prisoners because there was a repressive government in the U.K., export “our problems”, slatterns, deplorablize people, internally, freedom of movement, the Oregon, Hollywood is an escape from New Jersey, Thomas Edison had corrupted the courts, Heinlein is not addressing that in this book, putting people in stasis, blacks were being put into freezers, if Evan were here, some other people who are overpopulating, limiting births, sterilization, cultural practices, boys and girls schools separate prevents births, icky overpopulation problems, pollution, is this the best way of doing everything, C02, airplanes put out a lot more carbon than your car, rolling coal, defiant response to scorn, gas restrictions (rationing), 30 liters maximum, how much you can afford, your Starbucks cup, this book doesn’t engage wholly with that, forced emigration, the Chinese were forced out of Australia, the Chinese made a sea in the middle of Australia, early 18940s Heinlein, Yellow Peril’s back baby!, Sixth Column, The Fifth Way, Through The Tunnel, Savage, nasty, brutish, and short, The Nova, what caused the gate problem, it didn’t register, clever writing, a coincidence until it isn’t, I Think He’s Dead, I Should Have Baked A Cake, Fish Or Cut Bait, A Joyful Omen, I So Move, The Beach Of Bones, how the migrations go, the caves nearby full of bird brained people houses, an indigenous intelligent culture, birds make houses, wattle material, bees make colonies, Jesse’s putting on his Evan hat, what people are they displacing, colonization without a native population, maybe it’s Africa, why he wasn’t sure, his clinging to logic (or what he claimed was logic), sophistry, not wanting to accept, you can’t be a mayor without a community, character building, looking for a way out, the final straw, brother in law/teacher, just for drama, It Won’t Work Rod, Unkillable, Civilization, The Endless Road, a very optimistic view of a dystopian future, a little optimistic, an altar for the devil, The Wicker Man done with children, “lunchtime!”, we can get fucked up in our heads, witches, you shouldn’t be allowed hospital care, Paul agrees with vaccine mandates, those on the edges, everybody has to go to the meeting in an inaccessible location, you should have got on the committee!, the Mary Robinette Kowal apology [for the Raytheon], you shouldn’t have fired the sensitivity readers, you couldn’t have fixed this with another committee, the more eyes you have, make everything public, an awareness question, they have a lot of money to generate positive buzz, Facebook is Meta now, bad publicity, why did he change his name, Paul Bernardo, a big company, the Nazis are a big party, the Hitler Youth was mandatory, mandate means mandatory, exceptions for Quakers, vaccine injuries, Pelosi and Fauci at the beginning, something changed, we were told different, we were not privy to those conversations, they do terrible stuff in your name and your consent, this book is very subtle, emigration, immigration, they’re party song, incorporating factions, Grant was a pretty good leader, I gotta fire that guy and replace him with Rod, more satisfying, almost half the group would have supported Rod, the vote of no confidence, community building, Grant was trying, a straw man to knock down, working with an imperfect leader to bring about better solutions, a good example, your leader doesn’t have to be right, standing on principle, what to do when you’ve got dissent, the sergeant at arms has a mace, the Queen’s rod for hitting people, a shooting in parliament [2014], the January 6th [2021] thing, pretty subtle, page 136, all the crackpots are votes for Waxy, save it Waxy, twigs for Grant, leaves for Carol, did you vote for yourself?, dog take it!, typical politician behavior, a do nothing person, sometimes that’s what your want from the government, King Log, Wheels Of If by L. Sprague de Camp, Boston, Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin, solving being in the wrong body through politics, a meeting of the inner sanctum, Inner Sanctum mysteries, the secret, The Star Chamber (1983), Michael Douglas, Hal Holbrook, Yaphet Kotto, where the real justice is done, a reality in England 15th – 17th century, when Julian Assange is extradited, hidden evidence, an executive committee, bad government, disenfranchised, there to be an enigma, keep your enemies closer, litmus and purity tests, are you corrupt or are you not corrupt?, Crystal Light, all talk, just wanted power, scared of the smart youngsters, Pelosi from 20 or 30 years ago she sounds like AOC, the Squad don’t take money from corporation, they talk a good game, Justin [Trudeau] will give you a nice apology, we know his true character, you miss these things, the buzz (what the people are saying and what the government is saying), putting words into people’s ears works, organic chatter, a lot of people are saying, advertising is that, really interesting ideas, science fiction of the soft (political science), a standing desk, Anthony Boucher’s review from February 1956, far superior in writing and thinking, an adult serial, advanced survival, SURVIVE OR ELSE, he spoiled the book, a splendid Zulu girl, best woman to date, Andre Norton is Heinlein’s chief and almost sole competitor, Star Guard, a sheer adventure story, stobor, Rite Of Passage by Alexi Panshin, in dialogue, Rod, a wand or staff as a symbol of office, a gavel, giant rod of power, it’s not Rodney, under the current, waxy or crackpot, the eugenicist, scientific breeding, Dr. Strangelove (1964), David Sirota, 2012 (2009), a consensus, we needed to have one female on the ballot, Grant, we want more candidates and we want a girl, it was politik, divides the vote, I’m doing this for you people.

HARDCOVER - Tunnel In The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

Tunnel In The Sky - Steele Savage

Tunnel In The Sky- Darrell K. Sweet

FULL CAST AUDIO - Tunnel In The Sky - Cover B

FULL CAST AUDIO - Tunnel In The Sky - Cover A

Scribner - Tunnel In The Sky

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The SFFaudio Podcast #689 – READALONG: The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #689 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Trish E. Matson discuss The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

Talked about on today’s show:
we’re all taking the black pill today, The Day Of The Triffids, Chrysalids, Margaret Atwood, she’s on the stamps now, first president of Canada, just birthed a new monarch, stealing from Barbados, very John Wyndham, cozy catastrophe, Brian Aldiss, the John Carpenter movie, John Carpenter’s The Village Of The Damned, In The Mouth Of Madness, more sinister, surprised and pleased, the 1960 movie and the BBC audio drama, all the homework, the sequel movie, its in the public imagination, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, this book is very very dark, nicely mannered, really dark, escape to New Zealand, where they are accepted, the main character doesn’t blow himself, darker than how it ends on the page, most of the book, pods, every recorded place, the implication, we’ll be back, you’re going to kill us, picking up on the hints, what people get wrong, they make a big deal about the hands being cold on the initial night, zapped, fiddling with their hands, a symptom, based on both, it was cold, worst John Carpenter movie ever, Ghost Of Mars, Vampires, a good bad movie, Kirstie Alley was terrible, she looks nervous, Christopher Reeve is mostly just tall, David being different, not hive mind across genders, an excuse to get a kid away, Virginia Madsen, maybe goodness can survive, you need to feel suffering and loss in order to be a good person, dwelling in the graveyard, “the one who’s made for me”, they don’t gestate inside of themselves, probes, the aliens were not human shaped, the actual aliens, breaking the rules, Seanan McGuire, an ambush predator, Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim, Sarah Selby, very much X-Men, derivative of the period of mutants, New Mutants, the origin of this novel, The Golden Man by Philip K. Dick, sparkly skin, weird hair, xenogenesis, parthenogenesis, not marketed as Science Fiction, hard SF, how to setup societies, a very talky book, how to believe things, what to act on, mass hysteria, clipping a kid, the current real problem in society of doctors not believing women and people of color, swallowing it in little bits and pieces, we’re the ones eating that barley sugar, set in the 1990s, abortion is available on demand, home abortions, taking very hot baths, hanging themselves, Roe V. Wade, $6000 a month, you can abort with us, an on purpose death, pickle it, an alien, handled very badly, deftly handled, all euphemism, have a nice cup of tea, cuckolded, this book cuckolds women as well as men, the Zeleby nose, experimenting with this idea, a dog version of an alien in Alien 3 (1992), asking and answering questions, was it an alien spaceship that landed in the middle of the town, a deliberate landing, remote villages, on different dates, one ship on a mission, time taken between the needles, the kids don’t lie, refusing to answer, the behavior of cuckoo birds, sibling eggs, you’re just genes, your instinct is to kick the other eggs out of the nest, you mature faster, you’re meaner, you’re more aggressive, the sympathetic mother POV, mothers (and sometimes fathers) must be doting, you must live as the jungle does, sugar coating it, trying to tell us something about ourselves, it is not an allegory, our relationship to our children and each other and how we interact with the world around us, the cows start giving birth to strange looking cows, cows and dogs, we think of ourselves as top cow, we do that to dogs and cows all the time, we treat them the way aliens are treating us, this book is very old, women of child bearing age are implanted, a 17 year old, as young as 9, British nutrition in the 1950s, get the right pickles, girl power!, dreams: keep your baby, how are they going to handle it?, why won’t they do twelve year olds, perfectly accurate biology would be too toxic, some people think we couldn’t handle it, we don’t like thinking about it, guy shotguns himself after shotgunning a kid in the head, 1950s people vs. 2022 people, what about all the women who are women who weren’t born women, a trans man with a uterus, they won’t touch it in the show, there’s a difference between scientific accuracy and being an asshole, biology trumping everything, we need more sugar or it will be rejected, its medicine, facing facts as they are vs. believing what they want, the big lie and the big truth, COVID, The Death Of Grass by John Christopher, over in China something bad is happening, rust on wheat and rye, the stuff that keeps the topsoil from disappearing, a planetary catastrophe, hoarding, a veneer, a busy body, amped up, starvation, the safe zone, turning on a group that is outside of us, when the Russians nuke their small town, atomic cannons, Starship Troopers, Ogre, Ogle, the grange, like Hermione Granger, time to pay up, the Lord owns your land, the bailiff, the Lord hall, the kids move into the Lord’s hall, the serfs are denied movement off of the land, an accidental metaphor, the narrator is talking about his wife, because it was my birthday, John Wyndham is the main character, everything is soft, pleasant, lobster and chablis as Wheelers, Ustinov’s latest extravaganza, enjoyed the bathrooms, fascination with other people’s plumbing, why did they have to zap the birds, whatever living thing, which one of theses looks like its in charge?, speculation, this is God, can we disprove it?, a lab test, divine punishment, barrenness vs. fecundity, the greater god: the God of the universe, H.G. Wells, I’m doing an H.G. Wells story, colonialism coming back to bite you in the ass, what we do to the Earth, nature finds a way, Jurassic Park, stupid humans find a way to fuck themselves, we can fuck ourselves, an infodump philosophy dump, mother nature being misnamed, a book about infanticide, Charles Stross, Nyarlathotep, a nanny for supes, Now We Are Nine, Christopher Robin, emphasizing the two hive minds, chapter titles, No Entry To Midwich, All Quiet, Midwich Revisited, Midwich Comes To Terms, Matters Arising, Interview With A Child, Impasse, Ultimatum, Zeleby Of Macedon, all of the Spartans, Leonidas, assassinated by whom, who will rid me of my awful husband, what happens in this chapter, he kills himself, a suicide bombing, the right an proper thing to do, right?, by the standards of homo sapiens, I want humans to win, a primitive matter, will you agree to be superseded?, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, one collective Adam and one collective Eve, what’s the appropriate action?, you can’t take the law into your own hands?, a stiff police officer, playing an interesting game, an alien invasion story that’s an examination of the humans, the primitives, esquimaux, Monlogia, Russia, the iron curtain, sleeping with demons, a second crop to come?, in Australia they all mysterious died, a dingo virus?, why they didn’t put all their eggs in one basket, they lay their eggs wherever there is a willing basket, words, Midwich, wich = a bundle of thread (a nest?) or an old English settlement, all of them were midwich, little nests, are they keeping track, this is how we do it, droppin their spores, fire and forget, lay and forget, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, something going on the 1950s, The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein, communism?, collective individuality, collectivism, trends in science fiction, we talk about stuff, fleeing the cities, jamming the highways, in Washington, DC, meanwhile in Kentucky…, 1930s science fiction, Stanley G. Weinbaum, will this book have the international aspect?, what does that do to the story?, this is a resource for exploitation, not because they’re humans in need of money, resources to exploit, getting the birth rate up, soldiers, armies, the children’s desks, mini office desks, lots of good framing by Carpenter, the house from Halloween, recycled from The Fog, the house looks like a cuckoo clock, zoom in and pull back, popping out like a cuckoo clock, the audio of a cuckoo, the word cuckoo, it isn’t a crazy bird, perfectly natural, a gaslighting bird, the baby doesn’t say I’m one of you, the behavior that is not learned (its genetic), “crazy”, “insane” as a legal term, crazy means “don’t understand”, very efficient, cruel, women are supposed to act a certain way, time to kill, time to take whatever pill, he did the right thing for the survival of the (human) species, an alternative, this is Ceti Alpha Five, genetic better humans, cruelty is as old as life, barley coloured, a bullseye, the sequel movie, set around the same period, Children Of The Damned (1964), the aunt, just a blonde, the audio drama was excellent, they forgot about the first movie, a UN guy giving intelligence tests in Britain, unmarried prostitute, go get killed in a tunnel, respective London embassies, the barn or the grange, a church, a dog they can command, to harness the power of these kids, use these kids as cold war weapons, more sympathetic in the second movie, varied skin and hair colours, batch two they blend in better now, can’t we all get along, leave us alone but bring us food, a screwdriver, a metaphor for tools, a knife is good for stabbing and cutting, knife technology implies knife fights, using people as tools is immoral, countries using people as population for their offices, to service the capitalism, blackpilling, they don’t teach field-hand skills, typing?, teaching about the Aegean, some island somewhere, if nations use people as tools that’s wrong, that’s why the cuckoo people are bad, using us the same way we use animals, the cuckoo people are to blame (but the kids aren’t), you can’t easily kill the kids, we’re here to be killed, why are you here?, we don’t know, why are any of us here?, the second movie was solid, as a reflection, a little unrealistic, a counterbalance, behind the Iron Curtain, left with a lot of questions, the new Doctor Who episode, fashioning the Doctor’s companions into weapons, shaping people to do things, is it right?, an amoral alien with alien ideals, space hobo, The Littlest Hobo, Patrick Troughton, the show has evolved, the second movie is a reaction to the first, that’s their reaction to this idea, the sign of a really good book, an abandoned sequel, she definitely knows about science fiction, Chrysalids is (was) assigned in school in Canada, Chocky, The Trouble With Lichen, slow down the aging process, Quirks And Quarks, The Outward Urge, The Kraken Wakes, Stowaway To Mars, off-earth, Tyrant And Slave Girl On Planet Venus, Wonder Stories, the sucess Wydham had in the UK, zilcho reputation in short stories, the market, the town he moved to, thought out the plot of his next book, what kind of a setting for a story would this be, writers are very strange people, Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block, writers who only do writing for their job, tapped into the psychology of 1950s Britain, why did that happen?, destroyed industry and commerce, I thought they won WWII, a devastating peace, used themselves up winning the war, really good aircraft industries, what point are you trying to make here, Jesse?, what happened to the Empire?, Australians were mailing care packages to England in the 1950s, paying back some loans, the war had to be fought, Hitler was a bad guy?, how did it get started in the first place, the Treaty of Versailles, prideful assholes , there’s always a connection, benign censorship, when we do the censorship its benign, about power relations, you are just a thing to be manipulated, objects vs. subjects, no birth control is not allowed, the House of Lords?, oh its cute, he’s leading up to that ending, means to ends, a glancing reference to the Dionne quintuplets, the dirty newspapers, don’t embarrass the government, Wyndham thought about a lot of things, it isn’t about entertainment, super-cozy, it feels mainstream, a pyrotechnic ending, Stephen Fry does English women so well, a wonderful narrator to listen to, Jim Dale, a delightful reader, a Homer for our times, a poet from 10,000 BC, a very literate fellow, super-fresh audiobook, the SKY tv adaptation [then forthcoming], a known name, hosting TV and radio shows, [here’s Jesse’s scan of the paperback], scanning difficulties, make your own version of John Wyndham’s the Midwich Cuckoos, The Twilight Zone, It’s A Good Life, Jerome Bixby, its a good thing you took mommy’s mouth, that’s a good thing, Wandavision, 1953, something in the water, it was injected into them, Philip K. Dick, Jerome Bixby, John Wyndham, Robert A. Heinlein, cosmic rays have come into our brains, world events, Jack Finney, it wasn’t a bad review, Eric S. Rabkin, YouTube video viewer counts vs. like counts vs. comments, almost nobody comments on anything, Gresham’s Law, comments, 70 emails an hour, boner increaser is where the money is, so you don’t have a lot of cuckoos in your nest, cuckoos and cuckolding, Beyond The Door by Philip K. Dick, super-short, he gives her a cuckoo clock, why was everybody in the 1950s into cuckoo-clocks?, why did your grandparents have cuckoo clocks?, fuck those British guys, 2 seater sports cars, cultural output, 60s British TV and movies, the British Invasion, Hammer Horror, Doctor Who, shot on video tape, high class acting and really good writing, supported by the British tax-payer, medical coverage, marmite and vegimite, is it vegan?, Veganism, guess what decade Veganism started in, 1944 in England, making a virtue of a necessity, a vegetarian movement, movements, seedlings, 25 founding members, a newsletter, the official vegetarian zine, and cheese or eggs, fish, a section just for them, the first three letters and the last three letters veganism, sanivore, what veganism is, does anybody know these amazing facts?, a fascinating history, people are starting weird cults and organization and religions, trampled on seedling, big giant unweildly organization, fruitful and bountiful, sometimes religious, a reaction against farming practice, physical culture magazines, modeling the perfect body, the perfect woman, the perfect dude, body sculpting, going to the gym is a spiritual belief, look pretty, eugenics, percolating in the background, take the black pill, read the Wikipedia entry pill, following the links through, how to look at reality, bringing it back somehow, Michael Pare’s character, I’m driving so don’t distract me so I’ll crash, I’ll quit smoking when you decide to get pregnant, helium, a big smoking pile of smoke (he broke his word), what you put in your body, females feeling what males could feel like, Prometheus (2012), cuckolded as a species, the woman’s instinct and the men’s instinct, you did wonderfully, I feel like I’ve done something wrong by telling them to keep their babies, Angela’s speech, well written, thoughtful, weird science fiction pulpy short stories, Arthur C. Clarke prose, cosy literate, something different about the British mid-1950s science fiction, Brian Aldiss, who are the damned?, a terrible title, how damned shows up a lot, swearing in the title, Fuck The Movie, biblical, The Midwich Cuckoos is not a good movie title, a children’s movie about little birdies, the British book industry, Children Of The Damned is even more confusing, damned to live on the Earth, a podcast listener, two dinosaurs are looking at the fireball, what do you suppose that is Steven? nice!, life causes more suffering than happiness, we are born to be cowards and cling to live, we lack the crucial choice, thank you for the stimulating conversation, radically alter the climate, wanna get some lunch, sure, Paul would not have worried, is it dark tho?, a reflection of reality that we have, Existential Comics #423, a webcomic, something even darker, goes back in time to the womb and he kills himself, a Quantum Leap suicide, The Butterfly Effect (2004) extended director’s cut guy, Ashton Kutcher, Journeyman, trying to reboot Firefly, how long did it take Star Trek to get a reboot, Wesley’s shirt and haircut was 1980s, cut things in, is there a pill list?, this is what people do instead of having decent lives, incels, fatalism, a fun conversation about nihilism, the hardest to swallow red pill, depraves you, comedic, Kevin, the blue pill implies the existence of the red pill, a narrative process of creation, its all alright, Maissaville, a nice surprise, not very blackpillish, a really nice tweet, hybridmind, you can’t have parthenogenesis, Jesus was secretly a chick, clones so we don’t have to happen, centrifuge, clone army, monocultures are vulnerable to diseases, just backstory, old profitable books from the 50s, Smithsonian.

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

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