Tag: Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #893 – READALONG: Congo by Michael Crichton

Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Congo by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1980, watch the movie?, skimmed through it, segments, the etext, a giant works cited, the audiobook from 1980, people who mess with books, 4 versions of Congo, an abridged version, commercial cassettes, the book for the blind version, stuff at the beginning, we know you’re blind, a regular person, we’re gonna give you everything, the chapter names, the appendices, Mr Michael Crichton is a bit tricky, a faker, a hoaxer, Eaters Of The Dead, checking my footnotes, I made it up, hoax yourself, the Egypt one, Sheba, a lost world sort of book, the John Lange books, The Venom Business, a snake catcher, Scientific American articles, hanging out with his old friends, what’s bad about it, everybody in the book is venomous, they’re toxic, they’ll poison you, more of a bookstore and docks guy, toxic rich people, familial stuff, the people they knew, an extraordinary person, well researched, world traveller, thoughtful, good writer, the way this book was made, it was gonna be a movie, a movie maker, book writer, he created ER and wrote the pilot episode, 15 seasons, a book we should do, The Great Train Robbery, great movie, starred Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, fun and funny movie, a modern version of King Solomon’s Mines, the great white hunter role, this book is a book, when it came time to make the movie, Jurassic Park blew everybody’s brains out, we have the right!, when it came out, I don’t hate it, it is not a good movie, a flick, forgettable, the fake gorillas, fairly well done, CGI today, couldn’t do hair yet, Bruce Campbell, a small role, Ernie Hudson brings a charm, the highlight of the movie, his accent almost makes it better, keeps it mostly, I’m your great white hunter, movie is fairly accurate to the book, the differences, Amy stay with the gorillas at the end of the movie, less than six foot tall woman, gender flipped, Michael Crichton’s the woman, engaged, have the diamond thrown away, so boring in the is movie, just there to be eaten, an assistant, Tim Curry, nothing like him is in the book, a weird accent, the same accent in Red Alert III, the premiere of alternate steampunk Russia, trying to be a comedy and also be Jurassic Park, play it for humour, married to Kathleen Kennedy, a power couple, if it is based on the book, he’s great, Looker (1981), MK Ultra, people lose time, Zoolander (2001), real stuff, his pattern, his big breakout novel as him was Andromeda Strain, his version of The War Of The Worlds, very clinically vs. a personal narrative, Frankenstein, The Terminal Man, Elon Musk’s brain chip, tin foil cap, the creation of a new being, aiming in that direction, this book is King Solomon’s Mines, references H. Rider Haggard, an after action report, psuedorealism, it’s a solid, Eaters Of The Dead, he leans into the tech, the most dated part of the story, enough metal in the earth, up the megabytes a bit, he tags it in 1979, slightly in the future and perfect cloning technology and rotary phones, a good read, pitch an idea, in 1991, please make this into a movie for us, 20th Century fox, asked James Cameron to do it, there are scenes in this book, badly paralleled in the film, basically the plot of Aliens (1986), a rescue mission, the smart gun scene, the greys are attacking, maybe deleted from the main Aliens movie, another way to get in, they’re smart, as smart as a monkey, Conan and Thak go on an adventure, the grey gorillas as a Conan reference, very smart and psychotic, excited about talking monkeys, popular science, history and archaeology and old books, world travel, high tech computers, at the end of the book, let’s bug out, the volcano, shaped charges, the hippo attack, not have Ross be at fault, her psych profile, the female lead has to be perfect, the final scene, the hot air balloon, she hands the male Amy tickler, so forgettable, could you throw this away for me?, the laser, blowing up a satellite wasn’t enough, we need this emotional catharsis, we need to have the guy have something to do, they made the corporation be the bad guy, life insurance policy, in and out alive, take no more risks, they’re not slave drivers, very charitable to the mineral exploration unit, a Hollywood thing, you can’t get nuance in film, lay it out for the reader, this character is heroic and this character is a coward, puts the diamond in the laser, setting greys on fire, brutal compared to what’s in the book, some sympathy, the clapping on the head, the rock paddles, Michael Crichton is way better than Hollywood, even the jungle looks fake, second unit out to Africa, Costa Rica, the Zinge city was okay, if they had done it in the sixties it would be a really nice matte painting, ruin, a lost city in the modern day, plausible, the gemstones are gone, industrial diamonds are still there, a cool driver for the plot, explain, backstory why his idea about computers needing these things for WWIII, his focus on the importance of tech, satellite communication and analysis, repurpose it for translating, a lot more work, it all comes down to the real stuff with Koko the gorilla, in the text, 10-15% of the book is just that, up to speed on what they’re doing, the night goggle, what kind of growth, a lot of this in Brazil, lost ruins everywhere, all these mounds, this used to be a cultivated land, some sort of civilization, the idea of a lost world, the Hyborian Age, Archeron, Younger Dryas, Queen Of Sheba a real lady, cities in Africa long ago, a Robert E. Howard or H. Rider Haggard style story up to date, racial memories, a theory come back with MK Monarch, they’re designation, mind kontrol, people trying to make wind up assassins, we seem to have a lot of, genetic memory of where to go and what to do, generational trauma, the CIA and DARPA spent a lot of money, remote viewing, based on reality, a guy had violent seizures, put a chip in him, detect an oncoming seizure, Mengele style experiments, not from the killer’s POV, control his kills, this has racial memory, they had what Amy had done to them, I like tickles, become an attack dog, control these slaves, prevent people from stealing, this goes back to Thak, taken away from his parents, weren’t much of tools and clothes, under the control of a local billionaire, sympathy for the grey apes and the regular apes, Amy?, Munroe is fun, the competent one, so much action, the war starts, jump out of the airplane, river rafting, the Michael Crichton website, he went after, he was a mountain climber, a scuba diver, a real adventurer, a funny scene, when the hippopotamuses attack, the trainer/tickler, he looks over at the female form of our heroine, a moment later he sees the sweat on her back, that desire passes, Travels by Michael Crichton, selected part of his life, guru training stuff in the desert, drinking too much, hanging out with movie stars, went to Belize with his sister, almost died down there, wasn’t dead, an immediate desire to have sex, that was really fucked up, I resisted, basing your writing but on your noticing of your interests and then projecting, he overplays that, the excuse to get the lost city of Zinge, looking around the area, Dian Fossey, as it happens Sigourney Weaver, Laura Linney is a housekeeper, blast these aliens with the laser beam, put them on the endangered species list, Love Actually (2003), brittle smile, Delroy Lindo, the guy from Oz, Crichton loves the side characters, delve into the Kikuyus, time spent figuring out what Amy is thinking, we only get her words, a power glove, speak and spell, Amy Love Tickles, kind a goofy, this book being a science fiction book, a Canadian author, [Peter Watts’s Blindsight], this is there place, these invaders come in, walk around the place that’s our, a microscopic colonialism, this far and no farther, stone clappers and our culture of skull crushing, they’re meat eaters, they also killed gorillas, a weird half-civilization that stood apart, co-developed, once they got up to speed with language, they develop a culture, got a visit from Robin Williams, she’s still in the zoo, I want to be a mother, I wanna be a mom, they gave her a kitten, another one, treating these creatures equally, wish fulfillment, everybody gets happy, doing monkey things, we’re taking over your expedition, runs out of money conveniently, closer to the book somehow, more like Aliens and Terminator, fragile smile, Linda Hamilton, a soft girl a hard woman, Cameron does girls well, one of his wives, the lady who made No Escape (1994), Ray Liotta, just gang war, very b movie, the greatest b movie every, Deep Rising (1998), Wes Studi is amazing, The Last Of The Mohicans (1992), so evil, motivated, very specific revenge, nephew loves it, Dance With Wolves (1990), you don’t need 7 movies to be a champion, the epicness, the way it is done, the story proper is fine, why are people shitting on him, who wants to hang out with rich assholes, the weirdest Michael Crichton book, of an age, volunteering in the library, teen service hour, the new one was Airframe, the plane goes haywire, lands successfully, something went really wrong, the TSA investigation of what happened, basically Boeing, dueling conspiracies, a fascinating book, aircraft incident investigation, the pilot let his son come into the cabin, that’s the end of the book, it seems to not fit the pattern of the books prior, on the other hand, a mix of real life interests and a literary version of that, Zero Cool [Grave Descend], a tropical island, what is going on here?, Michael Crichton is his books, deep dive, we see these airplane disasters, every couple of years, Gander, Newfoundland, coming back from Suez, supposedly doing peacekeeping, Lockerbie, Scotland, the ideas are better, Binary, a tv movie, an assassination of republican presidential candidate, some hacking going on, mind modelling, think like the killer, Manhunter (1986), Michael Mann, going on airplanes with liquids, make a bomb, he’s come up with an interesting idea, Easy Go, getting in behind character, The Andromeda Strain, a crying baby, we don’t care, old man with a stomach problem, very busy saving the world, the Artilleryman, round up some women and go underground, what kills the aliens, the common cold, a twist, fat actor, used to be thin, kid dies in airplane accident, still producing, monkey hybrid book?, State Of Fear, the one about climate change isn’t real, after he died, he completely wrote that, Pirate Latitudes, Micro, Dragon Teeth, posthumous publication completed by James Patterson, a Shadow novel, a modern take on The Shadow, The Phantom (1996), Billy Zane, I want to do a Spirit movie, the 2nd RoboCop movie, Frank Miller, perfect enough as it is, Rising Sun, a little horror of the Japanese, that period, RoboCop 3, a samurai robot, Black Rain (1989), Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, they kill his partner, when James Bond goes to Japan, some Japanese version of Michael Douglas, yakuza, Crocodile Dundee, fish out of water, a Neuromancer for Apple, hard to adapt, the plot of Neuromancer, living in freezers in orbit, grubby, war in Russia, ai just wants to be free, putting a team together, heist itself out, the mindwashed special forces guy, the Turing police, clearly terrifying, rogue ai, we’re blowing everything up, our viewpoint character, Case, the guy who wrote Vampires, John Steakley, Armor, both main characters are named John Crow, I have a limited set of skills, over emphisise Molly Millions, strong female characters, her backstory, instagram whore, an onlyfans worker, giving herself claws, be an ninja, razor blades in my fingers, Case is in her body, gives Case a thrill, full of sparks, cohesive plot, the opening line etcetera, what they do with the sky, gonna be blue, grey, omit that scene, kind of the problem, what colour is the sky, even referencing television, the cold war stuff, an alternate history, Cold War II, which one would it be?, Pirate Latitudes, Dragon Teeth, Sphere, The Abyss, except for the aliens, Timeline, Paul Walker, rock and role jousting, Heath Ledger, blonde white boys, his version of The Time Machine, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Connie Willis books, she always won the Hugo award, a professor, studying a certain period of time, The Domesday Book, way to long, WWII, the Blitz, bellringers in the blitz, very much a girl, girl book, King Of Attolia Megan Whalen Turner, good to make babies with?, middle age Greece if Christianity never happened, some Italian kingdoms, France exists in some flavour, weird mix of Byzantines and Persians, flintlock weapons, the old pantheons, fantasy world, late medieval Greece, the Invaders, some version of Rome, functionally, very little of magic, freaks characters out, the guy with his hand cut off, a really clever guy, constantly underestimating this guy, how did he manage to make himself king, cut his hand off, married to a Zenobia who cut his hand off, Elizabeth I, in charge, the cold queen, well written, all about the same length, is that a bad book, if you don’t enjoy it is a bad book, he crossed the border one time and the border police beat the shit out of him, convicted of assault, reprimanded or something, give people lip, keep him in detention, really good and spark and very hard to follow, Greg Bear books, Superstring?, amazing short stories, difficult to understand, Darwin’s Children, Foundation novels, Blood Music, a grey goo problem, plasma based, his writing is hard to follow, he explains what’s going on, a hard to follow Larry Niven, an interesting phenomena of science, The Wind From A Burning Woman, so different from each other, walking cities, kill the earth, it’s hard, hard ideas, hard science fiction, wild, not tame, not controlled, they know what they mean but they didn’t write that, making things clear, your awesome idea, intentional desire to struggle with the text, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man Of The Crowd, playing chess with a guy who’s better than me, The Gold Bug, one of the few ones with black characters, an actual bug that’s gold, ciphers in there, a treasure hunt sort of thing, A Tale Of The Ragged Mountains, the M. Valdemar story, hypnotism, M blank, stories set in the future, they tend to be humorous, many Poes to still be investigated, School For Virgins, Timeline sometime, Black Cannan.

Congo by Michael Crichton

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #891 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Lost Continent by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

The SFFaudio Podcast #891 – The Lost Continent by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne (9 hours 11 minutes) read by Alan Winterrowd and Mark Nelson for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion are Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and David J. West

Talked about on today’s show:
1900, the book public domain, one of the narrators abandoned it, it’s up on LibriVox, the last 5 chapters are by a different guy, Mark Nelson is a good narrator, an off day, suddenly became a different guy, the first narrator, in Virgin Planet, quay, not kway, it’s key, grandma was an english teacher, a big Q up there, interesting, people love this book, a great D&D campaign book, an amazing campaign setting, it wasn’t awful, describe this book to someone, not nearly as fun as it sounds, Goddess Of Atvatabar, way more fun, invade the inner earth, do colonialism, listings, here’s the art, more priests, castles in the air, imagination, you can just conjure, vr world, look there’s some cookies on a plate, fades away, all sorts of interesting stuff, the magic is more science, The Hunt For Red October catterpillar drive, atlantean technology, the victorian sensibilites, how many things he brought into it, it was serialized over six months, some revisions for the book publication, you can’t really smooth it out, another meeting with that priest, walking around the hallways, Lin Carter’s forward, something with a little more punch, the dinosaurs and the tech, the pulpy aspect, about that introduction, the Ballantine cover, the checkerboard at the base, a masonic book?, a really short foreward, other atlantean books, de Camp would have really enjoyed it, Clark Ashton Smith, not allowed to be, not involved, an excommunicable offense, recruited, not a joiner, part of a structure, in their recruitment, you have to believe in god, in the normal way, other gods as well, trying to expand?, aprons and such, is there any evidence in the book, at the base, if you go to London, the City Of London, checkerboard things, a youtuber who walks around London, hiding in plain sight, on the Metropolitan police, the tartan of the guy who brought it in, based on his career, that important in the UK, amazing skill, a long boat trip, a lot of power, buddy buddy, a conspiracy hidden in plain sight, the construction of atlanis, a giant pyramid, apparently not, Dean Ellis, got his remit by reading the book or being told what to paint, would have noticed, some amount of ancient lost knowledge, a Masonically influenced story, he destroys the evil at the end of the book, what’s in the ark, the secrets, the evil empress, immortality?, etc., this knowledge is lost, all the other cults, Rosicrucian, thoughts have wings, do you ever think you were an ancient god, maybe I was, Atlantis, cool man, the framing device, the occasional cave tiger fight, the very long and drawn out, some swineherd’s daughter raised above her station, sword and sandal lady, more like Zenobia in Hour Of The Dragon, pure of heart, the girls in this book, mess up the pronunciation, the twin sister, she feels like a chekov’s gun that never goes up, the chessboard pattern, the characters are very maneuvered, lots of pawns, an image from When Worlds Collide, the space ark, an ark in this book, the cover of one of the sons of Krypton, the story of Superman is basically that of Moses, put in the basket and sent down the river and becomes good, helps people, he’s a superguy, a big honking novel from the 1930s, Balmer and Wylie, as you would expect, coming from the bible, the earth is gonna get hit by a rogue planet, to save the people, a machine gun setup, trying to get on the ark, 2012 (2009), really good, great disaster movie bandwagon, the destruction of the world, earthquakes and lava, just barely manages to get through, this is a comedy, supposed to be laughing, took the remit, Star Trek, like every other show, Paradise, high ratings, the president’s been assassinated, underground bunker in Colorado, regular drama, Fallout, Silo, a spaceship, a generation ship, they’re in a bunker, an old Doctor Who episode, colonizing old Earth, a repeated theme and idea, a mechanistic book, priests being moved around, is this supposed to be that, we are above the fray, in a brotherhood, C.J. Cutliffe Hyne was aware of Masons, the first episode on Battlestar Galactica, is he a mason? 33, could be, numerology, the meanings of numbers, 42, 69, six seven, 69 Barrow Street by Lawrence Block, good for jokes, our hero, kinda stiff, sometimes he has a beard, they wrote him as this great hero uninterested in women, what is the point of writing this character, have you not learned to woo yet, if Conan was suddenly thrust into this book, you need to fulfill this role, Black Colossus, much more concise too, not the worst, Ben-Hur, a slow pace, 5 hour book maximum, to warrant all of the text, forbidden magic, the island sinks, the priests sink it, the negative culmination, she’s the key to unlocking why Atlantis sinks, what went wrong exactly?, upset with the priests, he’s a priest guy, they worship the sun?, Zeus?, not a random name, that stuff is not worked out, the high gods, references to a pantheon, 9 years in the jungle, stuff happens, why does the girl have a twin sister?, torn between the two, 2 identical women, a box to check, did nothing with it, more degeneracy, not a lot of showing it, the queen is psychotic and evil, the whole country became this degenerate, struck down for their arrogance, pushing in this degenerate direction, very casual slavery, enslaving all these Europeans, some kind of hubris, the sailors, an entourage, parading on her elephant, kill em all or whatever, out to see, such a hardscrabble life, take all his stuff, stab anybody, a viewpoint, these people are contemptible, way before the ark stuff, justifying the drastic action that happens, it didn’t feel new, our hero is very formal, when Hamlet comes back from school, investigate this and figure it out, I’m not gonna marry you just yet, mechanically placed, the game being played drags it out, and yet … cave tiger!, brontosauruses were recently discovered, a mixed audience, Pearson’s, interested in science, wireless telegraphy, astrophotography, ballooning, hero indian guys in Indian, a mixed general magazine, serialized novels in the 1890s, Sherlock Holmes novels, that thing holds up, tighter, basically forgotten, John Buchaneque thrillers, lots of interesting setups and no amazing gelling, a traditional gothic, kicks Sherlock Holmes out of the story, it can hold together, Agatha Christie was popular for a reason, Deucalion, son of Prometheus, he calls it out in the prologue, the introduction, the same trick used in William Hope Hodgson’s The House On The Borderlands, awesome setup, our two guys, lifting rocks to get his workout, Canary Islands, not a normal place to be, Canary Islands is connected with the Atlantis myth, boom we’re in the Yucatan, pyramids out there, colonies of Atlantis, weird hairy neanderthals, can I get some of that, every continent on the planet has pyramids, the one pyramid in Antarctica is probably just a mountain, Peru, St. Louis, a very stable structure, a very recognizable structure, really old, a tower is gonna disappear, many such great wonders, wandering around the pyramid, stabbing behind the curtain, a monkey in a cape, you never know, oh yeah it is a victorian novel, he’s not one of the famous names, cold sleep with our girl, her hair gets long, is she gonna come out of this okay?, a sleeping beauty, awesomely connected to anything, if it had been a surprise, 9 years go by, complaints, having read too many novels, enthusiastic, a good introduction, his own fiction writing, weird thread, some teacher of creative writing, I want to be a novelist, they can’t anybody, I don’t read novels, that never happened kind of events, that’s being ableist, I’m a novelist because I want to run a television show, comics being made to be Netflixes, not a good comics, a visual connection, a Robert E. Howard or a Westlake, Cowboys And Aliens, Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, a storyboard, the audience is for the execs, Men In Black, more like the comics, how many sequels?, soft reboot, the images that stick, old Galaxy covers, a robot body, a showcase of tropes, fun things to see, playoff against the comedy, there’s something wrong with books today, a New York Times utube short, the edits, mass market paperbacks have died, very sad news, the substance of the piece, here’s Stephen King, sold the paperback for Carrie, $400k, that changed her mood, it was largely novels, the cheap paperback, that media, that medium, the physical size of that format, Tolkien wrote a book, 6 books, 3 volumes, 1 novel, James M. Cain paperback, the Ballantine ones, thinner than the thick of your thumb, that format is connected to the thickness of the paper, portability, games is the premiere medium, tiktok, mindless short form brain rot, movies position of primacy, short stories, little tiny markets for it, Clark Ashton Smith, A Vintage From Atlantis, maybe the book would be better if it had a map, random encounters, might be pterodactyls, rocs, corrupt empire, before the continent sinks, overthrow the empress, fail and try to escape, he didn’t set anything interesting there, this early in the game, bringing in the dinosaurs, the megafauna, touching on the witchqueen, older movies, not unvaluable, a good book not a great book, The Seed Bearers by Steve Valentine Timlett, murdering people left and right, occult matters, not that occult, how it touched on how the society as a whole, the ark is loaded with stuff, fan fiction, he’s British, very likely, more extreme on the violence and the sex, the cover descriptor, Atlantis, leg clinging a lady, exploded and split in half, new books in, grabbing this, tells you what’s going on, trilogy, the other two, take place much later, with Picts, Bran Mak Morn, the Taliesin series, weird elvish wizards, Stephen R. Lawhead, Minoan bull dancing, the pictish beast, the tin islands, water horse, hippopotamus, the unknown animal in all the carvings, pictish beast and regular horse together, very boneless, fossils, game name, PictishBeastTheories, the Loch Ness monster, longer neck, Kentucky cryptid, crypto-zoology, no online much, every animal, the mammoths, aggressive hunters, big herbivores, just put cave in front of it, do you find them in caves, a standin for dire, this island is kind of a death world, huge knowledge base, giant pyramids, superrich, rich farmland?, stable civilization, constantly being eaten by fish and flying birds, Deathworld by Harry Harrison, Jason dinAlt, erratic psionic abilities, everything is deadly, neurotoxic venom, planetary romance, drop the hero on the planet, cross the landscape and survive, not get eaten by the empress and what have you, Soylent Green (1973), Make Room, Make Room, a funny writer, find you something good, People Of The Black Coast, better to pair it with something, fun, light, thin, giant crabs, aviatrix, her personal aircraft, Miracle Science And Fantasy Stories, the brothers Dold, illustrations, the blind one, the author and editor of it died, Douglas, in Russia during the revolution, 1917 revolution, scroll threw the illustrations, very Dungeons & Dragons, anubis sort of god, in the temple, crocodile faced worshipers, page 59, the dead-alive face of Orne, they were turning him into a mummy, a guy with an ax choppin, holding a gun looking in, giant crocodile god, very much out a module, hidden group, the scans in the scans group, the PDFs are up, overhead map, page 29, The Valley Of Sin, grand canyon, mummy chamber, sealed door, sluice gates, this is the adventure you were waiting for, make you a mummy against your will, more weird menace, more shudder pulp, they’re all fun, but they’re pretty uneven, amazingly good, pretty good, the cat girl, the sins of the cat girl, not even a cat girl, the other animal she’s pretending to be, the concepts drag you in, an evil cult under the basement of this house, a followup tweet, novelists whop don’t read novels, write the screenplay you want to write, they only ever talk about novels, his short stories are much more coherent, they’re not meditative on a particular idea, more fun, the length is the reason stories suck, going to long, too many pieces to keep track up, make a girl go to sleep for nine years, suddenly we’re really rockin, Howard has an agenda, he has opinions about things, I’m angry about that subject, hated everything else done in that same vein, David and Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Gor book, the concept of Gor, bring samurais, bring mongols, make them all fight, I submit I’m just a woman, by book 3, liked the cover, suckers for covers, a sucker for interiors, the part they always show in the auction, beautiful Dold art, reading Weird Tales without having the art hurts your interest, The Uncharted Isle, a monkey man story, if only for the art, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, they’re not famous if they’re new, Fantastic Novels, great interior art, makes you want to read it, it has this, giant snake throne?, warrior with a spear and a shield, volcanoes, got the drama built right into it, if only it were that good, needed a Kull, are the gods real?, what is the purpose of a city, Kull introspecting a lot, it needed more, a placeholder for other things, the Malazan books, H. Rider Haggard and She, weird superqueen, degeneracy and evil, sort of abstract, she had the whole society backing that up, baboon buddy, even the servants, personalities, I am destined to be your lover, the Victorian aesthetic, feast your eyes, Brides For The Beast by Wayne Rogers, a mystery terror novel (28 pages) and it has a monkey, “A lust-mad scientist whispered secrets concerning her lover’s birth—to Minna Talbot while a mad thing, whose origin was unknown, brought terror to that mountain wilderness…”, a grisly experiment with a great ape, each chapter has a name, foul clutches, hate feeds, it’s gonna be rough, a guaranteed good story, an unguaranteed and probably not so good, see if it is worthy, the promise of the editorial introduction, he’s your brother, experiments with a great ape, maybe they mind swapped, we don’t have, historically they didn’t sell super well, more commonly known, how many Railroad Fiction magazine, G-8 and his squadron, all the love magazines, a Ranch Romance, we are narrowed by the Munsey Magazines, how a big a shadow, The Shadow and The Spider, a lot of fun, series, one and dones, maybe your a monkeyman and have to burn yourself, how much you love Brides For The Beast, eat breakfast, Wayne Rogers, author of Substitute Corpses.

The Lost Continent by C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #890 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Rogues In The House by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #890 – Rogues In The House by Robert E. Howard (53 minutes) read by Alex (Pulpcovers), followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion are Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
with a little bit of relish, how little dialogue Conan gets, interesting about it, the first 2 chapters, a little exchange about chapter length, what chapters are for, Agatha Christie novels, chapter titles, help tell the story, earliest being read to experience, An Unexpected Part, Tolkien was a master of chapter titles, “spoiler” vs. anticipation, little fake rhyme, One Fled One Dead One Sleeping In A Golden Bed, the fled is Conan, the red priest, the sleeping in a golden bed, what about poor Thak?, dead, bled out, maybe this is too soon, reflecting on what the story is really about?, set in a city state, we never get the name, nationalists and patriots, funnily, some response about the Reacher series, Conan with a pension and patriotism, 3 main dudes, accessory figures including the girl, clearly so much backstory to this, the Dark Horse comic, all issues, so many issues, the Gunderman, long betrayal, she gets a name, why she’s mad at Conan, all implied, you don’t really need it, ends up in prison, kills her new boyfriend, naked in a cesspit, a mirror, why is she doing that?, working for this fence, the main badguy is a priest to the king, knows everybody’s secrets, his house is full of tech, the last Conan we did, The Tower Of The Elephant, a guarded house, a dog, lions, black lotus, gray lotus, loved his lotuses, a servant master relationship, alien from space, space elephant, acolyte betrayed him, stapled him to a couch, a monkey turned on his master, he knows how to do it, he’s basically a man!, he’s learned his lessons so well, roles are reversed, slightly reversed and twisted, housebreaker, steal the jewel, explicitly hired to kill the guy, I would like to loot the house, too much patriotism and nationalism, the “maze”, full of shit, literal shit, unnamed into the story, some satisfaction out of that, she’s a hooker, a woman of loose morals, sleep her way to whatever she needs, a hard world, kills the most recent guy, he’s mad, threatens her with the knife, Thak does the same thing, Nabonidus, Murillo, stab him, eat em, let em go, a blood rage about his life, monkey man doesn’t talk much, kinda like a maze, now watching through mirrors, hidden cameras, double mirrors, the acid vats, explain your disappearence, this is just like an Epstein story, the acid he ordered in the emails, a puppeteer, a cutout, many theories, cutouts in use, social media people, influencers, bounties, this number of likes and views, streamers and whatever, certain messages, hashtags, the only purpose for hashtags is to punctuate jokes, #BrassBra, get things trending, read good stories, #KetchupAndMustardGetup, wearing both red and yellow, a person your using as a tool, pawns are not important, you can sacrifice your queen, trap the other person, cutouts are pawns, to protect you, explicitly discussed in the story, took Thak from his people when he was a cub, they’re gonna be men in 100,000 years, we’re Thak, Thak is a man, a worthy opponent, typing skills, very interesting, as a shadow of Nabonidus, why people buy dogs, mostly for protection and alarm system, hard to train, expensive, a little thing you keep in your purse, why he’s rebelling, so to with Murillo, a nobleman, chopped off his ear, do what I say or knuckle under, he’s evil because he’s enforcing his will on other people, how’s this different, stealing honestly, he’s assassinating honourably, a debate with himself, he uncuffed me, the honourable thing to do, the moral framing for the story, keep control of the city, famously unnamed, Jenna comes from Roy Thomas, the Marvel version, on page 7, Arnold Schwarzenneger holding up a lady, I put two inches on my muscles, Conan The Destroyer sort of has the Thak scene, The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune, one of the better post-Conan sword sorcery movies, Krull, good things in it, some of the action is quite good, the tone is wrong, a guy on twitter doesn’t like the first Conan movie, a distillation of the ideology of many of the stories, a scene from Rogues And The House, enjoying the riches after stealing from the tower, the guards come in and arrest him, I need you to kill a man, or get my daughter back, we’re free, he has this abiding ulterior motive, revenge, childhood trauma, after his resurrection, bodily dead, in other Conan stories, The Phoenix On The Sword, we’re patriots we love our country, usurped the proper throne from the proper heir, 19th century French, Ataturk, so sketched, Mirror For Princes, the mirror is for the reader, always, Red Nails, crossing the jungle, I like you girl, I’m busy, suddenly dragon, will say things that make them seem naive, Delcardes’ Cat, a talking cat, I’m not Murillo, I’m Conan, over his shoulder in his thoughts, he doesn’t say much, not be distanced from his POV, make judgements, why do people like the Conan stories?, he just says I’ve had enough of this city, you mentioned a horse, curious to see, before I walked the road Nabonidus walked this night, aware of death, the different between a childlike love of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the point of a story like this, shit happens, why is Thak dead and Conan alive?, he survived the thing that should be unsurvivable, caught up with the nationalist shit and this patriotic shit, a personal propaganda, hmm, yes, I agree, the story works as a whole, literally the sewer of the house, there’s a mirror there, we’re invited to think of Thak, trynna trick people, or take the mantle, become the master of the house, a rebellion against being a cutout, a servant pet, not a tame tiger, fuck you I’m a man, they don’t have fire, the most interesting character in the story, picked up and used as a quasi servant, slave/pet, an experiment, can I teach this thing to do my bidding, the word shadow, one of his favourite words, he learned what I taught him, at once body guard and servant, being partly a man, semibrain, bestial ambition, I see myself in Thak, one of the only characters?, it’s a real fight, this guy could kill Conan, he’s got gorilla strength, all the humans he fights, he brains a guy, knocked his skull open, not even a speed bump, portrayed as a rogue, a corrupt nobleman, invited to see him as honest, Robert E. Howard inviting us to admire Conan, big muscles, also canny, knocked himself out on the way because he was drunk, took him to jail, police, terrible writing and drawing, ship with gunports, am I stupid?, a reference photo, hidden off the coast, the sails are up, sloppiness, Robert E. Howard liked it, praise from Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft, only did two drafts, no notes, makin money, told a good story, it is fun, the mode that people don’t seem to understand, Robert E. Howard has grievances, a personal animus against city hall, or religion, how anti-religious is this story?, in contradistinction to Reacher season 3, a former cop, military cop, wanders from town to town, on the side of good, an old grievance against some guy, running a new thing, basically killing people randomly, in there working in the shadows of law enforcement willy-nilly, just murders people, it fits with the Conan mentality, Conan is not a part of the state, in the war of all against Conan will do fine, a fantasy in the way that Howard isn’t, Howard is more cynically realistic, what anchors his morality, his own sense of honour, barbarism vs. civilization, corrupt thieves, makes his way through it, rights the ship, a very interesting mirror, a monkey who thinks he’s a man, wants to be greater than he is?, we are the monkey men, Conan is comparable to Thak, superstrong, wasn’t quite tweaked up a enough, long story short, to prep for Congo by Michael Crichton, good story and very well read, the one where he takes over a pirate ship, Pool Of The Black Ones, is there pillars in that one?, Iron Shadows In The Moonlight, Queen Of The Black Coast, they’re not designed to be distinct, in this issue, new Conan story, buy the issue, all stories new, reprinted a few Lovecrafts, recording this, the ear party, rich nobleman, rich nobleman, British accent, he’s going to sound American, a John Wayne voice, what Robert E. Howard’s voice, Clark Ashton Smith’s voice, hick Californian?, top stories, the themes are really good, Conan is more invested in that story, puts on the costume, that was a weird Tuesday, he fell under her spell, this is my favourite novel, other mirrors that reflect you better, what am I missing?, this book The Lost Continent, a tentative plan to do a double, The Adventure Of The Cardboard Box, famous titles, human ear!, authors tired of their characters, The Seven Dials Mystery, Jeeves and Wooster, annoyed at writing Poirot stories, hated Sherlock Holmes, read my White Company, by Grabthar’s Hammer!, her first novel, a hot topic at the time, Belgian refugees, poor Belgium, Russians bad, poor Ukraine, why they took the the out of the Ukraine, Ukraine means borderlands, the steppe before you get to the Russian steppe, right in the Conan stories, the Border Kingdoms, we’re being manipulated at all points at all times, he’s so cynical, loves his mom, somethin going on there, maybe he’s a little mad with the hooker he hooked up with, it becomes literary fiction, this is fun, we as English speakers should be free to translate things into English, Mumbai, Bombay, Peking, Beijing, Constantinople, Istanbul, youre being manipulated, Rome, Roma, Munich, Munchen, English names, countries outside of Europe, Germany vs. Deutchland, very top down, a bottom up guy, listen to what the people on the street are saying, fuck the queen, fuck the king, you can’t tell me what to do I’m going to follow my own code, if you acceede, the word empathy is used all the time, what the fuck is an empath?, fuck your feelings, feelings are not important, principles are important, being just is important, sorry kid you can’t have potato?, you can’t have another ice cream, this is a book you don’t break the spine, crack the spine, horrifying, what are you doing, you don’t deserve books, from a scarcity point of view, this is a thing you should respect, pages start falling, tear it limb from limb, that issue of Rogue, you get used to it, it does feel wrong, cut this child apart, maybe this is wrong, to help other children, it was duplicated a million times, they’re relatively rare, a fun mag, the scanning group, yelled at, a moderator, the majority of the things being scanned are from people’s collections, Alexander Tuesday, he must have had a huge collection, Science Fiction Age, Starlog, Realms Of Fantasy, 1977, the Star Wars issue, from Trish [E. Matson], a kid who doesn’t understand this has value to humanity, take it all the way to the dump, literal treasure that needs to be shared, so lucky now, forces, the yahoo group was destroyed, treasured in place, you learn so much, how that thing looked in place, people change things, they don’t negro or nigger, when Agatha Christie, Ten Little Niggers, Ten Little Indians, the gauls, etext being so manipulable, out of a newspaper, a turn of phrase, and abbreviation, in that Poe story, D___, the name of the hotel or whatever, audio is one step removed from the text, a good story from Manhunt, On The Sidewalk Bleeding by Ed McBain, the girl show up, acting differently, they’d swapped the names, write a paper about what’s going on in the story, went to the Manhunt issue, it wasn’t a later revision the author had done, somebody had fucked it up, scanning is the ultimate way of preserving, the bottom of one leaf was cut-off, cloning text letter by letter, a Lawrence Block book, maybe an original paper copy, etext, take a scan that already exists, wraps on different screens, legit typos, 50s sci-fi paperbacks, this is clearly a typo, a weird alternate spelling?, really obvious typos, half-asses way of doing it, original book version, transcribing it anyway, corrections in square brackets, put up both, PDFs print, format for printing, not the ideal, the plain old etext that gutenberg.org does, replicate the font, lose the illustrations, gutenberg Australia, different methods, keep doing your best, audiobook, preferred format, when people are not faithful to the text, the poor blind people who don’t get to experience how racist things were, that Amy Tan story, Shirley Temple, a star from the 30s, “sauciness”, popu-music stars, age 12 boobs, what do you think about breast implants, Shirley Temple is not a sex symbol, Little Orphan Annie, musicals, delighted by this little singing girl, nightmare life, get some trauma out of that, a monkey with a cape and a hoddie, taken from his parents, his culture!, I’d be ragin too, some Cimmerian kills him, annoyed by this story, too much intrigue, a good clean monkey to fight, a girl who won’t betray me the instant I leave the room, it’s a book, wife got really mad, slip her some mp3 files, uncensored from the 30s, Kings In The Night, etexts of The Sex War and World Without Men, pathogenic books, purple lips, fun ideas, the year 7000, discover a frozen man, flashback to the 50s, a new kind of birth control, the weirdly manipulative woman, sexually assaults him, the 2020s, a reporter in London, a Children Of Men sort of thing, enforced breeding, the government comes after him, the Concorde, many such cases, and his name will be Adam, protect this weird little boy, instincts, no real resolution, ai controlled, all the women are lesbians because they’re brainwashed, Mr. Adam by Pat Frank, a sex-comedy, very prudish, atmospheric nuclear test, 9 months later, what happened?, no fertile men anymore, saved by lead poisoning, this guy is still fertile, all the women have to have sex with this man, a program to best use his sperm, he’s not actually being used, jockeying for who’s going to be in charge, a joke about the arms race, nuclear weapons, we’ve got a sperm gap, you’re going to have access to Mr. Adam, the Chinese have one too, how stupid the government, pre-the Cold War, but not much, no on-screen sex at all, using a man as a tool, we’re going to sterilize Mr. Adam, I’d like to spend some time with my wife, the cover from Britain, a certain kind of book, theoretically they find him sexy, fun book.

Rogues In The House

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #884 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Valley Of Spiders by H.G. Wells and Valley Of The Lost by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #884 – The Valley Of Spiders by H.G. Wells (24 minutes) read by Robert Dickson for LibriVox and Valley Of The Lost by Robert E. Howard (41 minutes) read by Tommy Patrick Ryan, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
other Jim Brill stories, The Mound, set in Texas, the same character in both?, a southern accent, a cowboy, valleys and spiders, other stories with valleys and spiders, a novel by Samuel Delany, listening to him talk about it, gay garbagemen who open a pornographic movie theater, later on they become handymen for a lesbian colony, asking around the robots, fetches reviews, the spiders are metaphorical, dude, spiders and spiderwomen go together, the female creature, a gender flipped vampire, brides of Dracula, Carmilla, LEGO minifigs, Medusa, the Spider Woman, Tiger Girl, a story here, 10 minutes to read aloud, connect these 2 stories, The White Death by Don Mark Lemon, he was an American, Virginia, South America, Mexican guide, in Tarantula Valley?, is it a pestilence of some kind, a snake?, no senor, poisonous gases, banditi?, half savage as he was, queer, policy, treble it, American gold, stack a mortgage, a Catholic, meet the White Death, superstitious, well armed, Winchester, the infernal poet, a diseased poet, with one by his side, sylvan charm, two burros, snake, buzzards, a half-wild burro, somehow, the man fools around the ear of a friend, such quick tracks, three dirty streaks of light, strangest of all, the witness of his own eyes, collections of bones, a open air cosmopolitian graveyard, the cat tribe, a cow, skeleton of a man, the prey of a month or so, a second collection, bleaching in the sun, the third day, what manner of thing it was, a great panther of some kind?, a huge snake?, then he struck gold, down the river in search of game, the latest feeding ground of the Thing, a cool million, try to bag something, proceed to watch, a huge collection of boulders, scratch her sweetheart’s name in the dirt, her name, his own name, more like spades than the human heart, his brains were tangled, 6X3 is 18, squatted upon the pile of rock, he couldn’t do other than watch, not the slightest noise, a gigantic spider, large as a full grown tiger, why, talking or thinking, the light that came out of the eyes, deprived him as the power of motion, the long white hair, intense heat, the 30 foot spring, maudlin lips, “mother”, flashed before his soul, the face had the mouth of his sweetheart, laugh foolishly like a baby, flaccid and flabby, through the hot air, horrible fangs, now I lay me down to sleep, he’s amazing right?, intense little story, a giant snake, massively oversized, the two covers, Forgotten Fantasy, guy on a horse and spider, 1966, Magazine Of Horror, guy on a horse and a giant spider, barely got any spiders in it, a spider cover, super-science fictiony, familiar, The Noseless Horror, another one, werewolf in Louisiana, the mummy one, the dude who went to Mongolia, it is kinda awesome, the number of things that Robert E. Howard does in that story, stack up, a laser beam, a tv movie in the 1970s, The Stone Tape, Nigel Kneale, audio recording company, they bought a castle, the resonance of this chamber, recording people’s experiences in the actual stone, tape doesn’t exist when Robert E. Howard was writing this, television is legit, Electrical Experimenter, recipes for making your own television, mechanical television, amazing and terrible, cathode ray tubes make it viable, so much science fiction ideas, transforming into Genghis Khan, give my wife as a gift to the mongols, jammed together in 10 pages, the Philip K. Dick and the Anne McCaffrey, Alex is fine, in spanish the vowels always make the same sound, unless dipthong, British Columbia goldrushes, reading along, it was good, the better one, of the three, the Wells had a certain ambiance to it, the gaunt man, the silver bridled man, Chinese accent, an Austrian, Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was fine, the Robert E. Howard, the aftermath, they’re escape, the disintegration ray, still happening, still talking, nothing useful, so much stuff that happens, the D&D escape from the castle, more like Gamma World, it’s not a weird western, it’s science fiction with a cowboy, a revolver?, acp 1911, he’s a cowboy, draw really fast, a cowboy in Mongolia, adapted into a Conan The Barbarian Annual drawn by Gil Kane, a whole battle sequence, Hyrkanians, a mission from Nemedia (not Texas), whenever lifting from the descriptions of the actual story it is good, to fill out the length there’s a circle around twice, Afghanistan, where the evil super-science lives, Genghis Kahn’s tomb, off-limits, sounds found, a forbidden plateau of leng, pretty small, not super important, giant spider, he did a monkey man, runs off screen, save it for the show, a great loneliness of tableland, a woman who has fled with one of the native servants, muted, mestizo, metis, mixed people, a summary of the story with characters, where are you getting the character names from, in the actual text, desciptions and pronouns, “the man”, “lord”, courser companions, waxed mustache, half-breed tracker, poet-like?, explicitly triggered, the insight about ai, Our Opinions Are Correct, people who don’t think like Jesse, science fiction related, on bluesky, almost enough said, don’t get tricked, WWII, Tolkien would hate that, he abhors allegory, Gandalf is kinda like Churchill, if Tolkien denies it later, “so done with Lovecraft”, an interview with Alec Nevalla Lee, Buckminster Fuller, the boss of his community, editor of weird tales, gross and disgusting, pejorative stuff, ugly red hair, the ugly part, good or bad, the argument describing it as good or bad, the one we weren’t supposed to do, awesome, the most interesting and difficult, pursing, mestizo, mixed race, started questioning about the H.G. Wells story, combing it for facts, not explicitly, not Africa, a little too much happening, where is the spanish?, half-breed, silver bride, Argentina, hint, Latin America, a tracker, west, commands a whole city, they have swords, Winchesters, why this story is so weird, medieval armor, a Norman helmet, why it is so interesting, what are all 3 of these stories about?, they’re all about going into unknown places, before we lose this thread, just waking up for Wells, picturing Eastern, New England, England, West Virginia, escaped woman, Appalachian weird, Deliverance (1972), not explicitly wrong, a hallucination, or interpretation, the Howard is pretty good and very fun, fun to read, compelling, what was going to happen, 25 minutes, the Howard dragged at the end, superfluous, paid by the word, rough draft, submitted, rejected, couple of weeks tweaking it, an afternoon pass, an incredibly confused history, stories published later, mistook this story for another story, The Lost Valley As Iskander, Afghanistan, crunchable media, submitted to Strange Tales, announced in the last issue and then never published, profiting by it now, multiple magazines, a story by Jack London, no supernatural element, what kinda story this is, War by Jack London, guys on horses at war at an unknown place at an unknown time, comb through it, the only indication of where it is, apples grow all over, a temperate zone, a deciduous forest, winters and summers, the point of that story, people in combat are on two teams, there’s no context clues, that’s deliberate, trying to read it as South America, make it super generic, so as to create and effect, sorted soon, the mistiness, the effect he was going for, it could be anywhere, what they’re skin tone was, are they white men, pictured as white, the kinda jerks they are chasing down this woman, whatever the deal was, white men tend to be the kind that control other people, happening subconsciously, there is one point, these white men, incredibly present, names and locations, kinds of trees, white is pointed out, the lord is shitting on white horses, the back end of the story, damned white horses, what is the final line of the story and why is that?, as he rode he picked his way, many dead spiders on the ground, feasted guilty on there fellows, in the Conan adaptation, their time had passed, a winding sheet ready, a nautical term, where we get ghosts from, could do him little evil, flicked with his belt, dismount and trample them with his boots, spiders he muttered, I will spin a web, a very weird ending for this story, 3 guys go looking for a half-caste girl, towards colonialism, the target of this story, the class system, there’s three guys, two a servants, questions the leader, the back end of this story, I’m better than you, I’m also a coward, what makes you better?, what defeats the one guy in his pursuit is nature, white men?, white spiders, what does he mean by this, deliberately so, spins a web and waits, figure out a way to trap her, why valleys and spiders go together, a place that’s protected, an attic is full of spiderwebs because their webs will last, maybe the Robert E. Howard one is the one that doesn’t fit, most of the setup for the story, The Last Valley (1971) with Michael Caine, our wizard, he’s a scientist, a chain blocking the entrance, a roadblock, get zapped, electricity explained, he’s a wizard, quite terrible, elktro, I’m out, one of these stories is not like the other, there’s more than one, a bunch, in both, what could it be in the valley of the tarantuala?, Shelob, Ungoliant, Tolkien’s spiders the valley of shadows, the valley of nightmare, a valley in the first age, consumes herself, birthed out some children, regular spiders, a sign of his genius, the disintegration ray, point it like this, press this button, you will be our king, followed the instructions, Princess Leia on that gun shooting Genghis Kahn, a 6th or 7th level spell, press a button and have things turn to dust, Thanos-like, snap the fingers, genius yadda yadda, hot Chinese dancing girl and nobody wants her, I got a girl back home, he didn’t care for Chinese women, very hot, languorous view of her body, not gonna look too long, a White Stripes song, pretty good looking for a girl, that would have been weird at the time, Skull-Face, our hero goes after the Chinese girl, Egyptian or something?, dark haired foreign chick, the scary race shit, I’m fine with being Genghis Kahn, the most interesting part of the story, meditating Genghis Kahn’s chamber with a rock from outer space, what we see in The Grisly Horror, the werewolf story, from Tibet, Black Hound Of Death, to get the guy who got away, Texas to Mongolia, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, mutating, building man-creatures, degenerating people, the finale in the trailer, almost Big Trouble In Little China, that can’t be right, Buckaroo Banzai, fun for the whole family, the climactic fight sequence, what do you need him for?, he is the sidekick, point of view character, go to Chinatown, as a non-chinese person, almond cookies, the viewpoint, Jim Brill, Steve Brill?, Conan is reused, also a Conan story set in England?, a Bran Mac Morn story, why the Wells story is so interesting, stripping away things, The Valley Of The Blind, genetically blind, he thinks he can see things, acts like an asshole, the two hot things under his brow, very symbolics, the colour of these spiders is white, did the girl get away?, how did she get through, a day ahead of them, the spider wind might have missed her, some native knowledge here, a burrow in both, Don Mark Lemon, so delightful, now I lay me down to sleep, he turns into a baby, killing everyone and everything in the valley, two donkeys, talks to his donkey, that’s odd, maybe I should get my rifle, it’s beautiful I think, Wells is trying to make a point, different kinds of assholes, hubristic assholes, the little man, we’re both cowards, why are you my lord?, the amount of text devoted to it, where the Howard puts action they ave this conversation, both made of the same material, write you into this story, it isn’t really about spiders is it?, is this a science fiction story, giant monsters, nailed it on the Wells, his bridle is silver, two minutes later he abandons him, a wealth distribution thing, he’s trying to make it universal, that half-breed could be anywhere, people realizing this is an asshole, there is no justice, in the Howard there is justice, get konked on the head, Kim Stanley Robinson, great ideas, almost no plot, full of good ideas, what happens and what’s the point, besides entertainment, body horror, turning Japanese, moral horror, what’s it all about, gettin paid, more in the Wells, prefer the narrator did the Howard, British accent, these white men, deleted the word white, does it change the story at all, absolutely not about racism, defy his racial purity, half-caste, let’s look at the actions, colonialism has happened, as a modern thing, that guy who thinks he’s better than me, just fun adventure, inventive and fun, didn’t trust the natives, beautiful fun, he doesn’t pick up the rifle, the anti-Robert E. Howard, our mad scientist, he’s not a hero, what is the white death, a giant tarantula that’s white, mesmerism, 4 giant piles of bones, imma keep looking for gold, dialogue back and forth, really happy, back in Virginia, leaps 30 feet, white hopping death, funnier, The Black Cat, where Jack London was first published, the art is always cats, mushrooms growing, a piquancy, this magazine has a flavour, The Mansion Of Forgetfulness, very Edgar Allan Poe inspired, lost their girl, sits u in a chair, a purple ray makes you forget, he lost his girl at sea, you don’t remember me, meeting again for the first time, the Poe character names, science fiction before Amazing Stories, Howard is a much better entertainer, a pointed stab at people, something beautiful about the simpleness, spoilers is a 21st century invention, Luke Skywalker stabs the guy, podcasting and stuff like that, editor of old Weird Tolds, C.C. Senf spoiled the H.P. Lovecraft, they read that story because it sounds good, every H.P. Lovecraft story starts: yes it is true i sent 6 bullets through the head of my friend, but trust me, bro, you’re going to love this story!, go back to Nemedia, sex with her along the way, that’s not Jim Brill, the honorable guy, clearly in love with this guy’s wife, less honourable, in the middle of nowhere, for honour, if he were not so honourable, makes Tommy’s skin crawl, she was pretty, who is the hero?, we know, Jim Brill’s story Jim Brill is, in the Wells there’s no heroes, man is against man, what is the point of The White Death, well written, he sees in the face of his mother his girl’s lips, he turns into a baby, the white nape, going through the list, featuring the White Death, camping for the next three weeks, Lozo, how did he know not to go there, do not mention my name, I don’t know, anybody who goes there doesn’t come back, a very short story, some white thing, this white thing took them, a little gem, a little placer gold, playfully written, bent toward Robert E. Howard, the most enjoyable story to read, a complete story, not making the same kind of point, a little horror story, pretentions of literary fictionness, dreamland with no details, class and cowardice, what does that mean?, feels like a rough draft, which would be a good movie, a Twilight Zone that’s terrible, a great cartoon, not getting the comedy out of it, rewriting, so many good movie things, more work to do, rewrite a lot of things, she’d be there with him, Temple Of Doom, Willie Scott stuff, absolutely tolerable, not the actress’ fault, we’ve done the three now, as expertly read by Alex,short to the point, extra stuff, the Wells is in the middle, the most relevant, the most important, what is Robert E. Howard’s point? buy this magazine, entertainment value, social commentary, the one they give you at school, at least it is short, Reading, Short And Deep, another precursor to Weird Tales, funny little story, I love living in this house with you, goes to the hardware store for a hammock, follows a butterfly, comes back, can you get me a hammock?, three times, she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, she’s a spider-woman, his eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark, glue covered cords, a thing that had two luminous eyes set in a woman’s face, what is the point of this stupid story, making nests and trapping men, that’s really funny, is it sexist?, I’m in favour of it if it makes me laugh, keep seeing the signs, talking donkeys, it’s a cartoon, reading it on the page, random capitalization, name brand, where nothing is capitalized in the Wells, taking away all allusion, a giant tarantula that eats everybody, a tiger sized tarantula, explicitly set in Mexico, it’s South America, the Mexican was Catholic, Mexicans can travel to South America, I don’t speak Mexican, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, cross the border into Norway, these are our Norwegian hats, Spanish in Latin America vs. Argentina vs. Spain, my name is Thomas, s into a th, they really shuh, swallowing a potato, Australians, Kiwis, Britain, French Guiana, Mayor Pete, in Peru, people from France, working at a hostel, he knew Englsh, you speak so fast, your accent was weird, is it easier for you to understand me, the Pepe Le Pew accent, laughable, we are speaking French now, German accents = speaking German, you’ve got the accent, an impression of someone speaking Spanish, what was that word, the current Pope is an American, right after Tommy became Catholic, a new Pokemon, multiclassing, do yoga and sing in Sanskrit, when he speak Italian now, the Pope’s Italian is easy to understand for Americans, The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, a wizard guy, drunken destitute British nobleman wandering around Africa, Eaton, Sandhurst!, mission from the German government, man do I love the Kaiser, still a nobleman right?, found a diamond mine, getting into British politics, car sound, bolted down, packing in, Clifford Simak, The Ablest Man In The World by Edward Page Mitchell, cyborg short story, unscrew the top of head, public domain Asimovs, The Man That Was Used Up by Edgar Allan Poe, 1839, no electronics, 19th century cyborgs, replacing body parts, lots of French, A Tale Of The Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign, all his body parts are artificial, the brain, compare and contrast, Sunfire by Francis Stevens, from Weird Tales, no previous experience, just did it, couple hours, read stories around with the kid, Treasure Island, before people started this let’s read on our ebooks, people read aloud, snitches and snatches about Poe and Dickens, I read this aloud to my wife and now she’s mad, everyone should do it, why not Mona, Sweet Slow Death, Grifter’s Game, hooks her on heroine, 145 pages.

The Valley Of Spiders by H.G. Wells

Valley Of The Lost - ad in Strange Tales

Valley Of The Lost by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #880 – READALONG: Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Cora Buhlert talk about Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized November 1972 – January 1973, over three issues, almost everything by him, a Simak kick, Shaun Standfast has been ill, six months on pause, meet him in the cemetery and talk to him about it from above his grave, books in tweets, a disappointment, we didn’t read the same book, 22, old people books, Way Station, there’s no conflict in here, very brief, to spite Jesse’s theory, mad at the captain, annoyed, visit the boss who runs Earth, they don’t really do anything about it, wolves, two giant tanks, a bomb thrown, I’m mad at these ghosts, one of his road trip books, A Choice Of Gods, Goblin Reservation, shouted out in this book, End Of Nothing, Project Pope, he had that in mind, set in the same universe, a planet called Prairie, every book is the same: Wizard Of Oz, also in Astounding, Fishhook was the big bad organization, The Fisherman, Time Is The Simplest Thing, all of these are science fiction, random time travel by ghost, robot wolves, other things, witches flying on brooms, doing massive hard SF explanations, yet it contains a lot, telepathy, the whole idea that earth is turned into a cemetery, return to earth to be buried, not that far fetched, immigrants, Turkish passport to be buried in Turkey, return to the Earth, Germany used to be a lot bigger, conscious memories, trade in homeland soil, Transylvania, how the ghosts work, who is the census-taker, what is the census-taker?, a lurker, a hider, a scurrier, collecting things, anachronic, Marvel’s Watcher, an alien, the reader in Marvel comics, looking at the comics, a famous potter, a masterpiece, made for some great man of the time, perhaps for the census taker, 1963, predates, offer a thesis, City, Census, meditates on it, a thinker, very thoughtful, not fully cooked, he’s an immortal, a time traveler, he wouldn’t know us yet, the method of time travel, ghosts can do it, until a technology is invented, it always existed, why that would annoy somebody, you have to have come to this place now, what the future is like, unsatisfying also completely satisfying, what happens in the book is random walk, when he started this book, just fine as usual, is this guy Lazarus?, his feet are floating, he doesn’t eat very much or very often, if he is a biblical character, a hidden Christianity inside this book, never overt, Simak exploration, a list of Catholic authors, not a practicing Christian, thinking about it, a projection, shades, giant temple museum, the vase they found in the house earlier, the guy behind the desk is a ghost, a ghost into a body of a robot through technology, very Simak, uninterested in anything except the journey, travel to another planet, unicorns are real, just to have those experiences, three wolves, robot hero, Elmer, after a certain point, great robots, lawnmower robot named Clifford, of all the many 1930s stories, a lawmowerbot, annoys the protagonist, 1944, unable to predict the outcome of WWII, in hibernation, a little bit of this in it, Over The River And Through The Woods, a great short story writers, fix-up, a journey across country, a magical portal, so many good ones, parents find out a nuclear war is coming, the missiles are on their way, grandma and grandpa, time travel to the past, its got that pastoral loveliness, the conflict while present theoretically, The Black Hound Of Death and an H.G. Wells story, breaking bone, blood and gore, horrible and awesome, if Simak did that story, I’m not the worst guy, throw a bomb later, a really friendly dog, Robert E. Howard lied dogs, he liked them to be fierce, Simak’s ideal dog, a golden retriever, about the same age, what would happen, mostly westerns, the Sword and Sorcery revival, still be publishing, a writing machine, the gentle pastoral community, what is this book?, qualities you love, a marker of him, doing science fiction but not leaving behind the fantastical, stranger things in heaven and earth, quoting Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Planet, a kindness that permeates, Bradbury loves the small town, walking overland, going down to the river, the other monster that’s in here, the ghouls, dig up graves, to get the metal, treasure boxes, not Lovecraftian ghouls, the corruption that is in the corporation, the corruption in the graveyard, the earth is a giant cemetery, a particular direction, Dune, desert planet, mostly just Arrakis, Tattooine, Hoth, jungle planet, Endor, Naboo, redwoodplanet, Philip Jose Farmer book, grass planet, Trantor, a cemetery world, a necropolis, rows and monuments but no occupants, I like alliteration, evocative stuff just within it, what people were like, girls and boys on dates would go for walks in the cemetery, the girl needs to snuggle up close, let’s think about death, I’d like to spend some time with you before we die, meet cute, an artist?, ai art, how prescient, ai assistant, a composition, the human needs to be part of it, people who are dismissive of ai art as slop, talking with Eric S. Rabkin, a little bit coughy, you passed the test, it was ai, fuck off, don’t send me your robot poetry, no soul there, youtube channels, human beings who really like Star Trek, make little skits with those actors with those voice, a little back and forth and around, the writing is not written by ai, the compositor, face swap, do impersonations better, wild crazy things, immediately infuriated, obvious to anybody, one of the themes in this book, given enough time robots are more human than human, care about art, I was born on earth, put together on earth, new Frankenstein (2025) movie, why did he make these changes, at the bed, we’re not supposed to like our Frankenstein creator character, that idea of a created thing creating new things, he was the guy who build one of the tanks, Joe and Ivan, waiting for Ivan to show up, Russia, peace prize to NATO, he’s doing great work in this book, in the right mode, very meditative, everything will be humane, the two headed corpse, a little horror show, travelling across a planet, some place, the girl starts turning into a mummy, in the basement there’s a fishtank viewer sort of thing, a general, a robot, a hero guy, and a girl, go through a portal and all of these things happen, the ai essay writer, A Choice Of Gods, same year, 1972, that could be any book, Special Deliverance, 1982, The Visitors, the same thing every time, a college professor, a giant blue cube, a role playing game scenario, a tavern, where are we, let’s go for a walk, something in the woods, everything that happens doesn’t happen with an overarching plot in mind written by the author, writing by the seat of your pants, humanness, coziness, a spritely love of life and existence, the first issue of Analog, the scene with the two tanks facing each other, two war machines, it’s symbolic, so powerful, two tiny little humans, a male and a female, don’t run away, you tell it much better than I, keep going, we can help you, the first human that’s ever listened to them, the people who live on earth today, 10,000 years after WWIII, very very American view of immigration, destroyed and irradiated earth, the adventurous ones, the younger sons, they already got theirs jack, women looking for husbands, the bars at the harbour, hung out with the sailors, had to go to the USA, hop a ship to go to America, undercut in the book, his visit with the drinking, the guys who run the squaredance, not much mutated, homey old fashioned moonshine, who wants to dwell on that, corruption throughout these organizations, a theme, teleprojection, astral projection machines, using that technology in a corrupt way, coherently plotted, in terms of structure, godly related, Christianly related, a mess, superstition coming back, the evil corporation, the nasty behind all the events that happen, rightly skeptical, dancin and sharin alcohol, we’re nice people, a bomb-throwing, this other corrupting thing making us do this, reading Simak over time, all the reasons for being cynical but chooses not to go that direction, city government in the first City story, see it more and more, over and over, corrupt organizations, prevailing against, Simak isn’t cynical, he was a newspaperman, this makes you cynical, engaged with what’s going on everyday, talk to the cop, the real dope, you can’t write that, you know what’s going on, get cynical real fast, drinking, not my problem, cashing my paycheck, a method somehow to exist and not lose hope, I go for a walk with my girl and my dog, enjoy the seasons, enjoy the river, the Ohio River, rivers are important, still there and still flowing, a symbol for time, and eternity, recurring themes, war, nuclear bombs became obsolete, no center to hit, survived, these war machines arriving at the scene and not having anything to do because it was over, meeting each other and becoming friends, being standoffish, fascinating, the same message, thoughtful consideration, black stones come down and eat trees, thoughtfulness, Cynthia, our girl, Fletcher, somebody put up a youtube video of Chapter 18 of this book, an interesting scene, flashforward into the past, the house, the pots and pans, vomits, a love story, facing death and horror, what will happen?, will you love me?, the build up for the whole book, he wants to dance with her, she looks pretty, of course I’ll love you, the only female character in the book, the same everytime, in Shakespeare’s Planet, a tattoo on her breast, sometimes women have tattoos and they need love too, what a guy this Simak guy, dead since the late 80s, a guy is still alive, witnessing his thought, what kinda artist is this Fletcher, his compositor is a typewriter, a mobile typewriter with six legs named Bronco, back in time to Alden, both from Alden, not an Iain M. Banks style galaxy, laze about, swapping genders, commerce going on, being skinned, another Simak book hidden within this book, exploiting people for money, gets a tip about a funeral home, you need that really expensive coffin, you could become cynical because there’s profit to be made, deaths cost went up significantly, buy up the grave again, 3000 euros, extorting you, trash the grave, grandma and grandpa’s bones on the trash, scatter ashes, violates the dignity, special rules for the corporations, mandatory like death, the background for Cemetery, the cemetery is full of corruption, get it, a robot clipping lawns beside a headstone, the image from the captain, unload, unloading coffins, build the coffins on other planets, a wooden coffin, bursts out Elmer, doing the Frankenstein thing, stronger than a man, bigger than a man, you’re going to ride me, the most accurate cover, the original serialized Analog cover, the tank in the background, the moon telling us where we are, walking with Edgar Allan Poe through the graveyard, the beauty that is lost, a great book, in the experience, a great walk in the autumn, loves retriveing sticks, you’re not allowed to drink it, a perfect book for this time of year, the prefect November book, A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, there’s nothing forced, ghosts are in graveyards, he’s not doing an homage, journey through the woods, to these great living monuments of death, a german edition, loved cemeteries, stroller through the cemetery, and churches, old graveyard, headstones, nice old cemetery, immigrants, former Yugoslavia, a liberal cemetery, bury me in a traditional conservative cemetery, disco lights, only grey headstones, only red granite, biological grandmother, step-grandmother, super regimented cemetery, praying hands by Albrecht Durer, bathroom wall, violated some kind of cemetery rule, Cora wanted to be buried at sea, interesting graves, poetry of the dead people engraved in the stone, a cargo ship engraved, a captain, graves with chinese letters, old ones, big tombs, locally famous people, in the graveyard, what percentage of these Simak novels have you read?, plenty, 27 novels, Comsimc Engineers, Empire, Ring Around The Sun, Time Is The Simplest Thing, They Walked Like Men, All Flesh Is Grass, Why Call Them Back From Heaven, The Werewolf Reservation, Out Of Their Minds, Destiny Doll, A Choice Of Gods, Our Children’s Children, Enchanted Pilgrimage, Shakespeare’s Planet, weird introduction to science fiction, A Heritage Of Stars, Mastadonia, The Fellowship Of The Talisman, The Visitors, Project Pope, Where Evil Dwells, Highway Of Eternity, read 11, newspaperman, heroic newspaperman, smoking is pipe and smiling, the covers are getting shittier and shittier, new ebook editions, 7 volumes of short stories, to read things back to back, the highlights, what makes them big?, recurring themes, one a month, as you see him develop, some authors shy away from doing that, Stephen King, you can’t help it, any good story is really about the author’s experience, stories set in ancient greece, ancient middle east, they read 1,001 Nights, in those experience they got a reverence for this, Clarke Ashton Smith story, wrote that story twice, never been out of California, east asia, jungly, desserty, elephants are awesome, abused circus elephants, Coney Island, tried to hang an elephant, big media stories, a circus that came to town, blown away by the size and the grace and the weirdness of that thing, The Tower Of The Elphant, what do these three guys have in common, sword and sorcery inventor, all about necromancers, that was their fantasy, they are writing in a tradition, the Thief Of Baghdad, Ali Baba, it allows you to create your own, the decline in Arabian fantasies, you really have read good stuff, fell out of fashion, they’ll tell you it’s racist, sexist, read the old good stuff, a book from 2008, terrible old books, 1968, they usually weren’t good books, teaching children Goethe, german rapper, Shakespeare, figuring out what that is, everything old is bad, everything new is good, colonialist, middle eastern set stories, H. Rider Haggard, stories about the crusades, the little triggers, take that little piece out, all those smoothing stones, the episode of Star Trek called The Apple, snake temple, another hippie in space, zap the temple with the phasers to kill the snake, these people are stuck, not be guided by the snake, it couldn’t be made today, too simple and good, let’s have a heist, fuck off I don’t want to see your heist, the last heist you needed to ever watch was Ronin (1998), for the fun chase, what’s in the box, we need never have a heist ever again, wait 1000 years, a gang of criminals have stolen a priceless artifact, stole a crown or something, plaguing Berlin, there’s no George Clooney here, any great art should be replicable, here’s a movie for Scott and Julie with no singing and dancing, Kill (2023), commuter on there, thugee style criminals, conflict between two families, clubs and knives, thieves, at the 40 minute mark, a blood splash, commandos from the Indian Army, the ice train movie, Snowpiercer (2013), a linear journey, Steven Seagal, Under Siege 2 (1995), every Marvel movie ends in a train fight, when is this singing and dancing going to end, some crown in the Louvre, melt down that crown, ketchup or mustard, air cover, the words themselves, the text within, font size, the kind of font it is, Simak lives in this book, he’s still alive, giving life to his ghosts, this is great art, barely doing what it says on the tin, mature works from a thoughtful guy, four days of prep time for Christmas eve, a Saturday, a liberal Christmas market, the costs were too high, 2026 is coming, month away, when did that happen?, time is the simplest quick thing, shopping in December, getting into Bremen, days to look forward to, ruminate on short stories, church stuff on Mondays, read it with your bare hands, illustrations, George MacDonald omnibus, 1858, Lilith, super-sick on that one, novella length, grokipedia, a rival for wikipedia, a bias towards evil, look at a president, CIA guys are allowed to make edits, the Phantastes entry, quotes Cora Buhlert, hoovers up everything, what all the scrapers do, weird contradictions, they all do this, the Clifford Simak one, Wisconsin, a slightly more controversial figure, war in Ukraine, gatekeepers, no person involved, banned sources, approved sources, consistently wrong, Armenia, Azerbaijan, fairly useful, consult grok, as good and all the features, asking specific questions, are there any repair places nearby, a search engines, ai art sucks, ai music that’s incredible, take 50 cents song in a soulful 1960s style, just changing font, I like Garamond, you like Arial, that’s not art, harder than transferring font, in the next five years, a household telepresence robot, stocking shelves in stores with telepresence robots, this ai art thing is mostly garbage at this point, that’s normal, losing jobs, the sabot, buggy whip manufacturers, do you really want to say you can’t replace human jobs with robot jobs, why these jobs?, translators cost money, a selfish argument, a selfless argument, birth certificate translation, people with use chat gpt in their job, sexually harasser, automated car tower stuff, Florida California, both have Disneys, putting valets out of work, a word for a job that doesn’t exist, an assistant, whenever the parking is inconvenient, weird service jobs, bag boy, a grocery packing robot, confronted with technology, it has to be bigger, everything’s about me all the time, nice gas station attendant, artist is a great job, ususally it is some scam, Guillermo Del Toro, the terrible book covers, painted covers, vaguely photoshop, a trend that goes way before the ai, a decision by individuals, I’m in this for money, a guy who makes boutique cars, I love cars, he’s gonna sell it or the country crashes, there were editors who used to love science fiction, I’m not gonna read ai books, the spelling or the font, Booker and Pulitzer prizes, what the grokepedia and the wikipedia matters, does the Hugo make it better, he had 17 hairs on his chin, the human will triumph over the automated system, The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov, we like him giving a toast, David Gerrold, Poul Anderson, The Book Of Skulls, Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg, The Dispossessed, gentle and loving vs. rough, Vietnam, Pacific Northwest, Avatar (2009), anarchist communist moon to capitalist planet, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The Lathe Of Heaven, the saint of science fiction, Margaret Atwood also a saint (but not of science fiction), Octavia Butler, someone’s entrance into science fiction, bloody Star Wars (1977), against opposition, one of many, weird saint floating above it all, just annoying, Bloodchild, fandom, focused on the wrong things, Francis Stevens is great writer, Simak is a white man?, American?, I hate those!, Clarke will last a little longer, the sad truth is all media, stop focusing on the book, trick the book publishers into trying to sell some books, conglomerates, vertical integration, they’re the gutter, they don’t even make novelizations anymore, desperate writers, Alan Dean Foster, Kevin J. Anderson, Predator (1987), too young, login to Disney plus, Piers Anthony, novelization of Star Trek: Next Generation tv series, Encounter At Farpoint, Doctor Who novelizations, people running things are incredibly stupid, tie-in-novels for Murder, She Wrote, Star Trek Animated Series re-imagined, kinda Star Trek, almost looks right, unsettling, Data and Picard and Worf, casual friday, uses the actor’s voice, fairly there, far in the future, technically possible, new episode of actual Star Trek, Deanna Troi having a conversation with Barkley she never had, under the radar at the moment, new seasons of Star Trek, they don’t want the competition, the real problem, we have more clamping than freedom, all the Gaza holocaust videos were deleted, everything gets clamped down, old money extracting and extracting, preventing magazine shops from opening up, can’t afford to live, can’t afford to rent shops, business ideas, nail studios, donair shops, barber shops, exploit their family to work for cheap or free, immigrant businesses, ruining our city centers, the high rents are ruining our city centers, everybody needs to eat on occasion, very difficult to get lunch anywhere, lots of restaurants no longer open for lunch, donair over McDonalds, food made by humans not by robots, tourist trap restaurant, automatic kitchen, robot movies, robots in movies, I Am Mother (2019), the five kinds of sandwiches, doesn’t care about you as much as your mom does, you eat the sandwich, hopefully it was made with love, no flies fell in it, no staples got in your tuna sandwich, is that love?, no, hire someone, make you sandwiches, none of those are love, all the rest is various degrees of commercialism, he’s writing for himself, we can trust him, no problems selling his work in his late period, he’s very very good, it’s full of love, no ai filler, he has to put the girl on the table naked because he’s trying to get the cover, what this book is about, except for the german one, the first issue of Analog, what grok knows, Frank Frazetta, just give me the gist, runs off and draws himself and his wife and giant snake, more passion than love, still a kind of love, wowing, new full cast Harry Potter, Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, a tv series, would have loved it at 10 or 12, a nerdy shop, half the stuff is Harry Potter, sweepstakes, put a yoda on it, Too Much by Donald E. Westlake, a Tamil version, The Twin (1984), the American one from 1995, doesn’t have twins, this book is so fuckin awesome, light comedy, a bit of an asshole but you love him, jaw dropped to the floor, Westlake’s so good at it, that little hidden hobby horse, insurance, it bothers him, funny little guy, lovely talking to you.

Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #876 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard and The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros by Clark Ashton Smith

The SFFaudio Podcast #876 – The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard (1 hour 23 minutes) read by Mike Vendetti and The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros by Clark Ashton Smith (31 minutes) read by Tommy Patrick Ryan, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Cora Buhlert.

talked about on today’s show:
Smith’s 1931, 1933, paired, Weird Tales authors, big 3, big 4, thieves stealing things from places, things not going according to plan, a tweet, art from both, who thiefed it better, Howard, had read the Smith before, 25 years now, maybe more, a few other things too, badgering about Conan, really good, over the last 4 years, sword and sorcery, really liked it, good introduction to Conan, a good story, with one caveat, no girls in it at all, more interesting character, Red Nails, People Of the Black Circle, Queen Of The Black Coast, old fashioned language, perfectly harmless Conan stories, stray racism, stray anti-shemitism, pro-cimmerianism, trying to cancel Astrid Lindgren, Pipi Longstocking, great children’s book, the audience for that Star Trek babies show, isn’t quite what you were expecting, of these two stories, which one is the science fiction story, literally an alien, stapled to a couch for 300 years, other planets, not surprised, if he was less Cimmerian he would question his sanity, the tones are very different, a pair of thieves into a forbidden building, one of them dies, with no great jewel, a horror story, a cosmic horror story, Tsathoggua, an inklings situation, an Inkling situation, Seabury Quinn is the big fourth, correspondence, Robert Barlow, Frank Belknap Long, H.G. Wells was in Weird Tales, Tennessee Williams, the people on the cover, Clarke would be one of the big 4 of something else, takes the cover, doesn’t have scantily clad women, Galactic Journey, Margaret Brundage covers, got quite grumpy, naked woman on the cover, strategically placed, less than 5%, scantily clad ladies, all academics, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Texas, California, Rhode Island and New York, except to go to Mexico, and New Orleans, re-qualification, San Fransisco, using the mail, reading each other’s stories, corresponding, not exactly an inklings situation, C.S. Lewis, writing for money, elderly and sick parents, stuff in the 1950s, a pulp story, chapters, the whole last chapter of the book is a nice delicious infodump, the fight in the bar, what kind of men are men, Gundermen, a city of thieves, Yara is a thief as well, a pot bellied Nemedian, Taurus, Poland maybe?, Zamora, Turkey?, Hyrkania, Russia, Ukraine, an analogous, the tower, our guy who’s bragging, to teach women stealing, a Kothian, hooked nosed shemite forger, he wants to sell a particular woman to a shemite, a slave of another race, he stalked her and got her, a big story about bragging and what being a man is, why has no one broken into the tower, the conflict, Howard doesn’t do this, semi-unconsciously, getting into a fight with Lovecraft about what’s going on, civilization vs. barbarism, Howard is massively affected by this, a completely corrupt city, carry swords openly, a beef, the only killing Conan does of a human, a Nemedian who’s already on the job, inaccessible towers, with winged people, pre-cataclysmic land, lions, tries to betray Conan, Conan figures it out using Sherlock Holmes style techniques, what eventually is not a pay-off, escape the city with a bag of gold, what do we come away with?, he doesn’t walk out with a gem, some insight into Conan, a mercy-killing, compassionate, Yag-Kosha, torturing him, blind, drugged stupor, he helps Yag-Kosha, a man of a certain thing, The Ten Commandments, very biblical, Solomon Kane, old testament characters, physically gets the Staff of Solomon, this proof of God’s power, A Song Out Of Midian, Mt. Sanai, Christianity, civilized long settled people, intricate and complex, formulas and rituals, simple and understanable, Crom was their chief, gloomy savage god, gave man courage at birth, kill his enemies, literally engaging, the perfect god for atheists, The Vale Of Lost Women, lovecraftian monsters, from the outer dark, essentially miracles, fights the god, that is victory, man can fight a god, he isn’t writing this because he’s trying to make a philosophical point, he can’t help but put his stuff in there, a minor debate in Conan The Barbarian (1982), a haze of bewilderment, all touched in the head, low tolerance, ideas about life, I live, I love, I slay, I am content, sits around and listens to philosophers a lot, how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, shaking your head, up their own navel, religion students, teachers of religious education, translated 500 different times, what’s going on, which is the better story and why, the Conan story, very enjoyable, a mythic depth to it, it’s cosmic, a Lovecraft feeling, came to earth in China, Ganesha, this is what I need you to do, take my heart out, squeeze the blood on this gem, ancient ancient stuff, in The Odyssey, Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides, instructions, strums the guitar strings, biblical and beyond biblical, from the depth of the human consciousness, differing philosophies, read both before, deeper, more mythical, a great story, funny, what happened was, got on the internet, excited to meet other people, an early forum, Scott Lynch, The Lies Of Locke Lamora, KGB Bar, Asimov stories, rude, that’s true, way to stupid, a collection, appreciate it more, the executioner, dark but hilarious, some guy who was a jerk, ultimately you are on team Conan, an incredibly important story, rogue thieves story, definitely important, Boston Blackie, Dunsany, the first one in fantasy, the template for Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, we like the Conan more, the different philosophies, engagement with the world as it is, having that idea, rug pulled, The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune, a much gander aspect, race and borders and stuff, how to be in the world, except for the story and the experience, we come out of the story with a greater awe, comes out with a missing hand, meets a monster, a genuine monster, into a circle, the same temple, things in particular, 3rd person, the author giving his opinions, that’s a mistake, all sorts of clever, early in Conan’s career, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, the names of the characters, he treats his characters very disposably, usually keep the main character, background characters always change, Turuz Oomphalious, Tommy [Patrick Ryan], what kinda accident, sounds like a real name, both of these are jokes, less than zero, omphalos, navel, also a circle, they’re thieves, thieving to be luxurious, fur bikini, enjoying the thievery, that drunkenness, decadence, a repeated motif, loves describing the colours of the materials, the materials themselves, the sensual experience, literally lost his hand, writing with his sinister hand, the story as it is, the tale of everything, the shrine of the god, the jungle taken suburbs, hyperborean rulers, one giant sentence, what kind of guy, violet juice, rubric, on strong vellum, made of the skin of the mastodon, some lying legend, a warning letter, the colour of the ink, he is an aesthete, pleasure seeking, touched in the head, a response, a little more like Taurus, he enjoys the spoils of his takings, the king of thieves, too much rich food, drunken burglary, own everything nice, The Hound, they steal art, they make art, their art is horrible, hounded to death, go in to steal something, round and round, lives to tell the story, his lesson was not learned at all, why we love reading Clark Ashton Smith, Conan’s motive, a very good question, the whole point of Conan, the viewpoint character, we want to be him and we want to have this experience, they’re doomed, the characters don’t survive, the luxuriant growth, as you approach it, snakes, other animals, and bats, a doom, walking towards their doom, they’re fools, Conan is Robert E. Howard wrestling with the world, people would come at Jesse with religious stuff, figure out what’s going on, how do you defend against their arguments, comes in cynical but open, asks his questions, a famous line in this story, that’ Heinlein line, armed society is a polite society, from outside the city, the Karen mentality, grateful and thankful, the thing we hate in ourselves, we need to be a certain way, in the end he comes away with a broader experience of the world, that is the payment, a young Conan, newish to civilization, very curious, an atheist, he’s anti-religion, a religious region, books about theology, he’s doing his own research, he’s arguing with them, A Witch Shall Be Born, crucified and survives, a betrayal story, every movie, even the Solomon Kane movie, he’s a philosopher, he’s wrestling with something, it’s not always Conan but it is always Robert E. Howard, women shouldn’t trick you into wanting them and then take your money, his takeaway, what if everything’s fake?, literally wrestling with things, Xuthal Of The Dusk, The Slithering Shadow, responding to gothic fiction, rejecting it, how to avoid becoming weak, he came to earth, a rebellion on their planet, jungles of China, the names are not great, his apprentice, oversteps, builds the tower, a story of betrayal, I have to stand on my own two feet, own bootstraps, ultimately we know what happened to Howard, don’t do that, pay his bills, caregiver for his mother, a double funeral, his father, slow to pay, trapped in this house, his girlfriend had gone off to college, is she really dying this time, he wanted to kill himself, the excuse, untenable, let’s be careful, a long life, he drank a lot, got married late in life, stepchildren, he did his art, he cultivated his garden, this amazing vocabulary, very strange for thieves, the stand-in for these characters, trying to make art, the putative author of the story, it’s navel gazing, he knows what he’s doing here, sensual pleasure, the problem of existence, existential philosophers in the form of sword and sorcery stories, steals to survive, jewels he kept, find yourself a husband, crazy socialists, civilized lands, next to warehouses full of grain, cuthroat capitalism, super loyal to his friends, young thief, mercenary, pirate, he’s everything, the man in full, 16-mid40s, a mistake to think about how Conan is, what is this character come away with, a sense of awe, wow, how are we supposed to feel about this mercy killing, honourable and terrible, Robert E. Howard’s position, frontier guy, dogs and horse being shot, too injured to continue living, a hypocrisy there, one of the pacific island wars, head blown open, what do we do?, the cameras are here, of course you’re going to shoot him, everything that happens is horrible, you sorta need to have a reason external to you, what it has to be is anti-dogma, thou shalt not kill (thy self), he’s trying to do good in the world, harms all of us, his friends are all sad, not gonna make you happy, a choice between these two stories, we are told to reject the story by Satampa Zieros, that’s why it can’t be compared, much tighter and more complete story in terms of unity of effect, what Poe would be talking about, it nullifies itself, it tells us to reject it, there are immense possibilities, first fighting dinosaurs, a nested dug in on itself society, the sun’s bright, how different they are when they’re really quite similar, why do Sherlock Holmes stories work for us so well, crusaders stories?, why do we like his writing so much, of they’re not stupid ideas, so distinctive and iconic, even though he’s great, he’s always going to be third tier of these guys, his ambition, tend my garden, make things beautiful, the colour of the wine, all surface, all pleasure, older than Robert E. Howard’s, at least one word he made up, abroad already in the half light, the poisonous looking fruits, malign attention, he is a thesaurus, adamantine, pecuniary depletion, it means purple, his vocab is better than everybody’s, he literally didn’t forget his words, come away with vocab words, Hyperborea, a place of his, greek for far north, Averoine, Poseidonis, Zothique, Ziccarth, he get’s a second story, absolutely isn’t, a pretty weird one, The Sword Of Welleran, The Theft Of The Thirty-Nine Girldes, chastity belts, elephant revenge, 1,001 Nights, The Black Diamonds, two kids grow up in Baghdad, always meals, has them have lunch, he’s playing with himself, his own version to 1,001 Nights, his imagination is running wild, Spider-Man or RoboCop or Peacemaker, Abdul Al Hazred, towel on his head, cosplaying, pretending to be a pirate, spears, he had a lot to live for, he would have been wealthy, H. Beam Piper, lived into the 1980s, he’s funny too, the humour is in the boxing stories, Breckenridge Elkins, the only book is on LibriVox, a mountain man, he’s so strong, exaggerated fun stories, Sailor Steve Costigan, not a bright guy at all, an amateur boxer, there was a demand for boxing, railroad stories, Action Stories, Fight Stories, a better market, more Howard, space em out, $0.99, they’re all the same, they’re all good, when Lovecraft reviewed the Clark Ashton Smith story, very Dunsany-like, The House Of The Sphinx, we come into a middle of a scene, there’s something out in the woods, a 1 page story, the house is falling apart, what is he doing in this story, a bookstore, in the lobby was a sphinx, Egyptian sphinx, designed to prompt you to figure it out, being very playful, to be playful, the connection, comes away different, enjoys the names and enjoys the joke, the luxuriance, it’s soapstone, wealthy aristocrat, no electricity, not selling to the same magazines, the author and their art, Michael Crichton, a literary connection, Travels, The Andromeda Strain, dedicated to Arthur Conan Doyle, engagement with literature from before you, Atlantis, Lemuria, trying to engage with the ancient, out of the bible, out of other stuff, mediocre writing that comes and goes, engaging with tropes, the save the cat formula, enemies to lovers, really popular, modern writers, they’re not engaging, they liked Firefly, you don’t have to read this old stuff, they draw on everything they’ve read, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Greek classics, took Latin, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, religious education classes, same five parts of the bible, quite annoyed, don’t ask questions, it should be, pulp authors, literature, mythology, religion, made teenage Cora go to religious education, Jezebel, transliteration issue, stole a bible, they’re designed to be stolen, here’s a question, walking around to hotels, leave a copy of the Robert E. Howard’s stories, an amenity, if you look at his manuscripts, backs of hotel paper, paper is expensive, designed to be stolen, hotel shampoo, the sheets on the bed, towels, pocketed stuff, everybody is a Clark Ashton Smith character, not going to happen, whoever the Gideons are, public book shelves, compare the translation, crime novels, little free libraries, in demand, other books were still there, crime novels, two crime stories, Midsommer Murders, NCIS, speaking of crime, reading Howard as a teen, how dare he kill that Brythunian, read a western, everybody is out to kill everybody, some piece of media, horribly immoral, they’re stealing as they go through the countryside, everybody in the city is a thief, when Conan steals, people who can afford it, poor farmer, from wealthy people, terrible people who have deserved it, human trafficker, deserves is not the way of Jesus, violent American trash, complete nonsense, a transgressive thing to do, Conan, Rambo, and Rocky, fifty years old at the time, sympathy, Nancy Kress’ Beggars In Space, reject it, what is being promulgated is evil, doesn’t happen very often, not connecting, a visceral this is evil, Slan is kinda evil for the same reasons, put sympathy in the wrong place, I am better than you, evil stories, on a podcast about it, refuse to watch shows, the death penalty, never watching this show again, 24, torture, a terrorist somewhere, children committing murder, Adolescents, radicalized, ahistorical, age control of the internet, see weird things online, atheist can’t have evil, how are you defining evil, god as the source of morality, dragging this out, important, as written in the move, not really a commandment, you have to, pre-the Israelites, virtuous pagans, a graven image, the KJV, some are uncontroversial, describes the Ark of the Covenant, of heavenly things, strange gods before me, take the name of the lord god in vain, remember the sabbath day, the same one, days of the week, the next one, honour they father and mother, respectful unless disrespectful, thou shalt not kill, armies kill, just war theory, you shalt not murder, when he gets married, thou shalt not steal, rob from the rich and give to yourself, Robin Hood, apparently not, the way they get out from under Pharaoh, fine get out of here, curse on the first born, lambs’ blood, we all know what steal is, when Blackrock does it, the number one, don’t lie about what people did, thy neighbour’s house, thy neighbour’s wife, set up these stones, the turn the other cheek stuff, old testament times, Jesus himself was asked, he didn’t say all of them, love god and love each other, a condensation, ordering your life where god is first, from that ordering of your life, this turmoil, this chaos, this idiocy, evil, makes the rest of it less important, in the proper ordering of things, willing the good of another person, jealousy fades away, good for you but also good, that’s a bad idea, causes strife, people living together well, in-groups, monotheistic and abrahamic religions, Hindu or Buddhist, pretty universal rules for living together well, Edward Page Mitchell, the best early science fiction writer, a fantasy, a Bangsian fantasy?, the rapture, a scene in it, pile up all the gold that they have, the heavens shakes, the roof comes off of the world, lit on fire, Moses is up on Mt. Sinai, down in the valley beneath, a golden calf to worship, revelry, Moses comes down and he’s really mad, throws the tablets at the golden calf, it zaps, elide it, got the tablets back, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, is that the same gold?, if it is, it is more interesting that way, a whole lot of different stuff to explain the story, 30 years of Moses’ life is absent, putting it all together we have to do a lot of inference, it’s immutable but very mutable, Edward G. Robinson, that’d be good right?, the Judas of the group, motivated by gold, we fell enriched, but we literally get nothing, we should raise money, nothing on tv, they pull open the drawer, a faith in the book, a faith in the word, the word remains, something fun about that, a notch deeper than that, Jesus is the word, bored in hotel rooms, single rooms, parents’ magazines, parents’ books, micromanaging commandments, when and how to have sex with what, giggle giggle, indulge Jesse, semi-interesting story, this one church has the Ark of the Covenant in there, exposed, maybe it is radioactive, we did our own raiders of the lost ark, [iodine] fight the radiation, how much does that effect us, translate it, we decode it, thous shalt not own a Tesla, surprising!, draw human blood, older fragments being found, the Gospels, the older fragments match, controversial content, what books included, what books aren’t, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Christians have got something cool over there, an argument or a possibility that is always out there, the oldest existing, when a new translation comes out, Hebrew or Greek, as accurate as possible, interpretation, different readings of passage, better not to have the tablets, imagine we have no doubt that it’s the actual tablets, that’s impossible, what’s really true is the story, as a film, Moses is put in the river by his mom, the prophecy for Oedipus, very similar, the ending is the Israelites leave Egypt, not a destiny doom thing, by the power of God, why is that so central to the idea, the parting of the red sea, a series of coincidence, read this as mythological, the Greek response to reality, the innovation that makes it powerful, Lewis’ conversion to Christianity, Tolkien had a part of that, these stories are mythological, this is the myth that’s true, the more interesting reading of it, these are not supposed to be read as actual events, scrutinizing the videotape, scripture only, the genesis story as literal, these stories were orally told through time, the details are not long there, the important points are hit, wowed the audience, Bros. Grimm stories, relating actual events?, yes, anything older than Abraham, the story of Noah, a cool movie to see, this is what it says, Noah (2014), a spiritual aspect to them, god helping you through tribulation, the historical aspect, the story they told themselves, Egyptian records, historical characters are in there, black Americans in slavery, the story of the Israelites being freed is a big deal, a deep thrumming, a Jenny (Colvin) word, either or both, Augustine goes through Genesis, meanings, in the year 300, these days aren’t literal, the number 40, a poetic word, a lot, many, not the conventional way, to sophisticated for how stupid we are today, important to understand what was being written and to whom, lamb of god, meant something specifically to the people of the time, we don’t have the symbolism, if we understood the symbolism, the story would make more sense, a cat on a rooftop in the Hansel and Gretel, very specifically a bird, broken by modern interpretation, Cinderella, a corruption to turn it into princesses, the original Grimms, the original grizzly versions, obsession with stone babies, cautionary tales for young women, why doesn’t the wolf eat the girl in the forest, and her lunch, he get’s into the grandma’s bed, what was the woodman doing there?, retold for a modern audience, very artificial sounding, Bros. Grimm: Demon Hunters, young women, nurses and nannies, aimed at girls and young women, The Iliad, Yul Brenner, Moses, his accent, The Magnificent Seven, Westworld, while he’s sitting on the throne, Priam from ancient Greece comes in, the King of Troy, we can get a timeline, Hollywood edition, smart and educated, a strange film, Cecil B. DeMille, a narrator throughout, and then this happened, Charlton Heston’s hair, an easter egg for us, Trojan War, the Jews are doing this over there, Midian, how would he know about that, very cool, much more interesting and public domain version of the MCU, terrible language, The Fantastic Four movie, Mythopoeia by J.R.R. Tolkien, fun as heck, when next are we three meeting again?, the links are there, science fiction and science fiction, hiking, full on the weekends, if not then, then, spread em out, did we ever do anything by C.L. Moore, we did a big show on it, Stefan Rudnicki, Skyboat let us use one, bye.

Posted by Jesse Willis