The SFFaudio Podcast #854 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Candide by Voltaire

The SFFaudio Podcast #854 – Candide by Voltaire, (3 hours 49 minutes) read by Ted Delorme for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Tom Pace

Talked about on today’s show:
done in French, as a person, very European, very funny, a few digs on France, complaining about Canada, fighting over a few acres of snow, super-dense, an interesting introduction, a good argument, Michel Houellebecq, Lovecraft, Against The World Against Life, the only book most people ever read by him, notable works, The Maid Of Orleans, on the list since a teenager, apocryphal meeting, Benjamin Lay, Catherine The Great of Russia, very popular, a rock star to your inauguration, birthday dinners, I am the king of Poland, I am also the king of Poland, a lot of the jokes, you should read this book, really funny, nice and short, new jokes this time, slaves, hit with a bull’s pizzle, a whip, a pizzle is a penis, penne, pen and pencil, dog treats, cattle’s pizzles, not a valued menu item (except with dogs), the sex throughout, the rape jokes, the rude jokes, hit with a bull’s penis, makes so much sense, the names are all funny, candid, telling you the secrets, an offshoot from the story, in a library, 501 Must Read Books, classics, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, writings about his wife, Surprised By Joy, drawn from the name of the character, the etymology wrong, cunnagonde, good pussy, a naive narrator, horrible looking, gotten stubborn, a dig in on some Jesuits, throwin digs, really good at making pastry, all based on a real guy’s philosophy, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, all is for the best, the best of all, Spinoza, “the best of all possible worlds”, high end reading at the time, addressing the problem of evil in the world, how is that compatible with a loving god, it couldn’t be any better, the minimum number of horrible things happen, he could have made the world worse, people suffering, god did his best, a number of postulates, an important conclusion to have, a defense of god, god did his best, taking the piss on this idea, suffering is bad, a consolation, a baby run over by a truck, birth defects?, who are they good for?, god gave me this burden because I’m strong enough to carry it, a Robert Frippism, suffered in interesting ways, a grateful comearound, an opportunity to develop, especially addressive of the world, earthquake, a more beautiful or safer city, balcony collapse, kid got squished, so did a cat, just throw a cat or a racoon in there, operate on the assumption this is a silly idea, the universe is as best it could be, human beings being meat eaters, eating cows is mean to cows, you can’t have jesse without him being a carnivore, be like the Maasai turn their dicks into pizzles for whipping people, a dog nuzzling a duck, Leibniz is right, the corollary to this, the worst of all possible worlds, how so, there isn’t another world, we imagine another planet, if the laws of the universe are consistent across, implies alternatives, counterfactual, just as truthfully, the point of this philosophy is to give you consolation, balconies fall because of gravity, become better engineers, make earthquakes survivable, we didn’t make the world, god did his best, a convoluted way of making yourself feel better, re-meetings, misfortune, still beautiful, stomach cut open, ravished by work, he’s been hung, everything is okay in the end, it was for the best, cultivate your garden, a compatible and also good philosophy, worried about Jesse’s mental health with regard to the politics, Canadian flag bullshit, talking to boomers, people stuck in tv mode, upset about what’s happening that you can’t control, bitter and wrong, make some PDFs, to read some more books, the resources to watch the murder that’s happening in Gaza, reasons for sharing, a compatible philosophy, all the philosophies, very funny and fun book, ten thousand thoughts an hour, a bookshelf rooted, notes and biblography of Jordan Peterson’s Maps Of Meaning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 And The Final Solution In Poland, that book is 70 hours long, The Rape Of Nanking, committed suicide after wrioting it, Unit 731, more brutal, go cold, realistically a good framing, a blunt tool, having birthday cake, about as simple and effective, can’t they just have your cake it and eat too, it’s awesome, not a natural disaster, a human folly story, pride and empire, we are better people, huge human mistakes, as best He could, full of sin, choice, a dumb guy who thinks that a guy who’s a philosopher is much wiser than he, disabused, audited the others, the number 3 version on LibriVox, spot on, very solid [John Van Stan, narrator], more Voltaire, Zadig, interested in the origins of the detective story, Sherlock Holmes was ripping off Poe, Voltaire did a comedic detective before, in the same style of Sherlock Holmes, C. August Dupin, a series of misfortunes happen to him, he observes things correctly, the colour of the horse, missing a horseshoe, a bit of fur caught on a treebranch, dog ran away, Micromégas, Scott Miller’s podcast, busy making new stuff, hallucinating, he was really good, contacted, a breakdown, they went nuts, will you forgive me type message, their gut torn open, kicked out of the castle in Germany, Portugal, at the house of a woman, the person that you loved, let’s talk, two or three thousand words of response, a weird thing, the plot as it is, each chapter tells you what happens as the title, trunks, fartcastle, mooning over Cunégonde, maid, mistress to the Don in portugal, I can tell a story better than you, I only have one buttcheek, she’s not just the daughter of a king, she’s the daughter of a pope, Roman Catholics, that’s part of the joke, illegitimate children, everybody knows, the world in this book is very fallen, everything is full of sin, the enhancement, the story of misery, Brazil?, Argentina?, line up a whole bunch of dudes to tell their horror stories, horror stories of life, their horror story is they got bad service at a restaurant one time, never done something to a friend and regretted it for decades, that kind of punishment of yourself, out of duty, that’s hilarious, it points in every direction, the pain is in every direction, we’re all fools is the takeaway, people who’s trauma is so minimal, the worst thing we’ve ever experienced is the worst thing we’ve ever experienced, terrible things happen to them, live to tell the story, Pangloss still believes , it has to still be true, a very good mocking takedown, just tend to your garden, you can work on yourself a lot easier than other people, you should lift more, if lifiting is the thing you think is important, the manichaeism, Martin, in Suriname, El Dorado, Utopia by Thomas More, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, women chased by monkeys, the monkeys were biting their butts, sexual dimorphism, they breed with monkeys to a certain degree, quarterings back in your ancestry, one of the quarterings was missing 75 countings back, I am the rightful king of Brittany, a lot of people still believe in and operate, such a short amount of space, comparing it, a sleep after shooting, in the Bulgarian war, an ultramarksman, without rustling the leaves, whipped so hard, I was impressed by the British Navy’s recruiting methods, have some cash, nah man you’re good, how do you feel about the king of Bulgaria?, you’re in for life, you’re in the army now, boy, take the gauntlet, 9000 guys whip him, the honorable thing to do, please shoot me in the head, all the skin stripped from his back but he’s fine, it’d have to be a cartoon, too horrific otherwise, the cartoon version of this, hard cuts in comics, in French, it is cartoonish, there’s no talking animals, unbelievably fun and funny, he’s taking the piss, there’s nothing he doesn’t make fun of, tied down, he killed the Jesuit and proves that, a juncture, ridiculous, The Mission (1986), Black Robe (1991), continuous rape scenes, not being able to ride on horses very well, the juxtaposition, sold into slavery, stabbed open, that Monty Python sketch [the Four Yorkshiremen sketch], Deep Space 9, Bajor needs the energy, tamed earth, fingernails to plow, humour is the best solution to almost all problems, share that horror story, it makes you feel better, God did his best, when kittens get crushed, no help at all, I loved that kitten, the kitten’s mom, isn’t it hilarious, enough of a consolation, tell each other our horror stories and laugh about it, on a list of books to read, an internet friend, school is about reverence, an irreverent book, some fancy king, you’re not allowed to make fun of that guy, a particular heresy, the devil has creative powers in the world, in contrast, the Devil’s at work, the theory that Solomon Kane is insane, he commits genocide against vampires, The Moon Of Skulls, Red Shadows, demonic things, or vampires, crazed black people, their unholy idol, King Solomon, famous as a judge, and Cain is the killer, his own brother, condemned to walk the earth, the right hand of God, the normal reading, the subversive reading, deluded, a more fun reading, how interested Howard was in Cain, an alliance with a JuJu man, a Puritan in fact, by the devil’s active work in the world, that’s actually good actually, earthquakes are good actually, there’s an earthquake in this story, Lisbon gets earthquaked, make a meal, really good at burning people, without a philosopher to give him guidance, he picks up Martin, Jesse doesn’t describe to ideologies, are you sure about that?, is that an ideology?, more obligation to go along, basic team human behavior, tie yourself to the mast of a sinking ship, a huge mistake, the comparison is almost perfect, both abstractions and connectable, an up and down, trying to appease an idea of god by burning somebody at the state, punished by an earthquake, a good thing to do, the exact opposite happens, either god making a joke of it, the god of this book is Voltaire, a planet spanning book, Europe and South America, a cross section of travel, we gotta talk about El Dorado, jewels on the ground, have a meal, pay with pebbles, buildings made out of gold, they leave with sheep full of diamonds, spends that money continously, 10,000 peasters, 20,000 peasters!, nothing bad seems to happen there, how come the whole earth isn’t like that, engaging with Utopia, no accounting for taste, philosophy of optimism, what Thomas More is grappling with, internal themes, conversations, needs to join the court of a king, should we bow, should we scrape, should we lick the dust, go hug him, this is an anti-king, the live action version get Jeff Bridges wearing the bathrobe, couldn’t we all get along better?, making fun of Utopia, wouldn’t it better if we could be richer than other people, no need unmet, his quest, his slave, Cacombo, the native, why people buy expensive stuff, lord it over other people, I paid full price, the badge of the product, overpriced handbag, she wants to be upper-class, not wanting to be inferior, lording it over that girl at school, funny funny stuff, not a funny book, stuff written in the 20th century, time creates a barrier between us and our ancestors, the world we live in, the people are the same, same kinds of foibles and personality defects, the systems are different, shownoting The Aeneid, the story of the founding of Rome to fit within the mythology of the founding of Rome, a piece of propaganda for the Romans, figuring out the audience, see what these symbols mean, their religion is more leagalistic, a person 2000 years ago reading this book, hone in on it, glimmers, this book feels pretty modern, lots of kings, no electricity, more like Plato, more like Play-Doh?, not a novel exactly, a modern novel (except it is much shorter), more of that please, not Thomas More please, concise, to the point, the chapters are short, things happen immediately, cut some of the adventures out, the stories are pretty short, a series of unfortunate events, the beginning of the intro by Littel, 1759, in ridicule of the notion, the world has been a gayer place, written in 3 days, like the number 40, a magic number, not the right date, he’s right but not in the details, Lovecraft is channeling a certain mode in certain stories, every real person is a richer character than any fictional character, one named wonders, volt is electricity, he’s shocking, he’s playing a game, jokeism?, horrible tweet, Max Blumenthal from the Grayzone, they learned it from these guys, a horrible truth, put that star of David, they learned it from, Nakba, Holocaust, burnt sacrifice, the catastrophe, this ideal world, you can see why the argument make sense walking out of the Holocaust, built to help support the creation of Israel, settler colonialism, you can laugh, you’re crying, are you Joker?, the Joker, feels everything, wants to lash out violently, recent Joker movies, people who humiliated him, he’s laughing, in the second Nakba, Taxi Driver (1976), this baggage, DC Comics universe, salience, a morbid symptom, laugh or cry, not prescriptive, take this Candide and call me in the morning, that’s why we share it, busy lifting, doing more than cultivating your own garden, gardening tips, lifting videos on instagram, lifting bins of potatoes, sculpting, I got books to read, challenging yourself, interject, into the depths, avoid the analysis, J.R.R. Tolkien, the emotional effect of the story, have a garden, he does get a little farm, they’re all coming together, a bunch of diamonds hidden in somebody’s pocket, I think I still want to marry her, sell him back into slavery, and they’re bored, burn the garden down just to get his way, Candide is punished, he doesn’t like her personality, he doesn’t like her looks, good at baking desserts, Colony by Philip K. Dick, so bad at writing military stuff, goes into the bathroom for a shower, the towel tries to kill him, comparing notes, “I trusted the rug completely”, rugs all the way down, stable in the new meta, that’s true for us too, we learn to wiggle our legs and arms, runaround and grab cookies, why am I using this walker?, who I am again?, nobody gets out of this alive, the way to approach it, slavery is bad, let’s sell him into slavery, seems objectively more dangerous than ours, even with its problems Europe is more stable, we have other problems, he was right, laughter is the solution, not trusting anything, have a good laugh over it, is that an ism?, probably, you have an ideology, I like this, it’s not manicheanism, what is it?, lying is bad, first strategy, what is my ideology if I haven’t spelled it out, cosmicism, a follower of Jesseism, “there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence”, that’s fun, don’t worry about it, you’re nothing but a mote of dust in the beam of a sun with a short lifespan, does it require, ideology: define, “a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy”, against copyright, it’s used as a censoring tool, a free speech absolutist, give em 10 years if they want, why not?, making it infinite, reasonablism?, eclectic, between Jesse and Jesse, do dogs have ideologies, they like bones, a set of behaviors, bring animals into a conversation, we are talking weird chimps, dogs don’t have policy, a special and rare and precious person, a very strange lady, a nice person too, strong will, not good when you are a little kid and have no defenses, tricks and techniques, an anti-ideology, ideologies make you week by outsourcing, not wanting to be weak, I like being effete, do you have the power to be as weak as a baby, putting on diapers, a weak colon, if you have a fetish, you wanna be a weak baby seems insane, weak like an infant, we all start off as infants who are weak, a newborn child, protected from insects, it’s mind is innocent, weakness and strength together, being obsessed with not being weak, lifting seems kinda silly, the only what is happiness, for a bear, rubbin against trees, what is happiness for a human?, ships or airplanes or tacos, doing intellectual works, writing poems, the real place where strength is needed, in the intellectual realm vs. lifting crates, quit the gym, new popular fads, all sailor related, pulling ropes and flipping big tires, get stuff off the ship, these are not sailors, sit for 8 hours, just observing, what kinda car they’re driving, they wanna be buff, skin salons and teeth whitening and nail salons, not a lot of personality improvement stores, a philosopher who gives you good argument, that’s why you got to Socrates, you don’t want to be mentally weak, that would hurt you, Paul in the New Testament, being spiritually strong vs. being physically strong, criticizing the use of physical strength, the psychological and intellectual training, the name Plato, broad or wide, short, he looks like a plate, he’s wider than he is tall, he’s a wrestler, wide in his variety of thought, a soldier wrestler, that was his nickname, I’ll wrestle you actually, bro, what is Plato’s real name, Aristocles, slave, time to work on your body and your mind, wrestle at symposia, where everything happened, some CBC guy on BlueSky, obscure social media network, Stephen Quinn of CBC, those Convoy types, we’re not the 51st state, getting ready for Flag Day, the day they switched the flag, the Suez Crisis, “peacekeeping”, if you call soldiers peacekeepers, Lester B. Pearson, why does Australia have the same flag, and New Zealand, why do they all have the Union Jack, pretend they’re not part of the British empire, a distinct society, we’re just these friendly dudes, Canada’s third way is to be the bully’s best friend, take nukes on or Bomarc missiles, laugh at Canada, because the TV told you to, don’t listen to the TV or radio guy, everyday is Flag Day in the USA, Jesse is mentally strong, Candide can help you mentally strong, if they’re not a mental baby, re-readable for one, the chapters are really short, a few jokes per chapter, like an episode of Friends, the cast of Friends in the adaptation of Candide, Buenos Aires, Abraham and his wife Sarah, just my sister, their relationship as brother and sister, a Wikipedia, a pun referring to the female genitalia, they’re brought up in a castle together, Candide is the son of the sister of the baron, not fully quartered, missing one of his provenances, at the very least they’re cousins, the reason he was disabused he was hanging out with her, they were half-siblings, son of the baron from another mother, that would make him the heir, the bastard heir, avoid more incest, underreporting, some of the scenes are elided, they don’t say they ate her buttock (but that’s what happened to it), chased away from his uncle’s home, marauding soliders, a lot of what could be seen as anti-jew, did you finish your podcasting?, soon!, not offended by this Jew talk, more Jews to sell more diamonds, everybody is equally stupid and lame, a comedy of humanity, are they half-brother and sister legit?, quite reasonable, keep it in the family, keep the money, fucked up stuff, the philosopher is fine with it, the best of all possible incest, the worst of all possible incest?, the final question: who is the idiot?, who is the fool philosopher, Pangloss, we all murdered each other, it’s fine, he has to say he believes in it, clarified right at the end, is this truly the best of all possible worlds?, from Suriname to Bordeaux, the philosophical conversations, so much analysis and stories, the funniness, tend to your own garden, clean your room isn’t the end of the story, god you stink you really need a shower, smell yourself first, I wanna shave more, that beard looking real raggy, bro, in terms of nations too, what Canada should be saying to the United States, trying to fix what’s going on in Suriname, we’re not states, we’re individuals, clean your room, check your messages, email is a scam, the dollar, a podcast on The Declaration Of Independence, the Federalist Papers, it makes no sense, 51st through 63rd, does PEI get it’s own state?, potato wars, Greenland’s not getting a statehood, Panama wouldn’t get a statehood either, the Canal Zone, why we getting worked out about, covered in comic books and printer cartridges and toilet paper, thank you guys, a good story to read, makes you laugh and think.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #497 – The Tempter by Robert E. Howard

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #497

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Tempter by Robert E. Howard

Here’s a link to the poem |PDF|.

The Tempter was first published in The Cross Plains Review, June 18, 1937.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #845 – READALONG: Odd John by Olaf Stapledon

The SFFaudio Podcast #845 – Jesse, Terence Blake, Will Emmons, and Tommy Patrick Ryan discuss Odd John by Olaf Stapledon

Talked about on today’s show:
it’s good to be here with you homsaps, odd terry, just Tommy, not that odd, regular tommy, story between Jest and Earnest, story not novel, quite like, dislike, came around, comparing it to Philip K. Dick, who’s smarter, doesn’t have a frontal lobe, he has boobs, a failed superman, keep it all together, spoiler he dies at the end, we know that right away, what’s going on at the end, did Philip K. Dick read this?, doing a lot of the same things, The Golden Man, as we accumulate odd freakos with weird bodies, back to Terry, Odd Tom, a book by Koontz, The Crawlers, lifespans, an earlier figure, born in 1886, died 1950, 1928-1982, started writing before Stapledon died, 1935, where were we exactly, the superman the ubermench, 36 Olympics, Jesse Owens, before that, what was the world thinking about some of these ideas?, Nazis, genocide, Friedrich Nietzsche, amor fati [love or fate], pain and suffering, achieves joy, take joy in the pain of suffering, the eternal side of things, homo superior or not, the eternal return, the noble affiliation, not in the degraded Nazi affiliation, your fellow Jesse, hard not to use the term, that perspective that we now have, Superman, 1938, a lens from where we are, Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak, reaches out and touches the woman’s tattoo, living in today’s world, that would have been canceled, seemed enlightened, murders the policeman, find out about me, all the good I’m going to do, the treatment of Pax, she’s a cow, super-amazing kid, induced labour, in gestation for 11 months, bovine cows have very long gestation, silly stupid and important, mutant stories, golden skin, super magnetic to females, see into the future, he has no thoughts, his frontal lobes are missing, can anticipate all things, mutants that look like slug babies, aborted fetuses, parents unwilling to kill them, form a society, eventually an island, isolated and attacked by the homo sapiens, strikingly similar, these ideas are in the air, superpowers, weird features, telepathy, John W. Campbell thing, go backwards and forwards in time, psychic investigations, influence people, something like telepathy, when he collects up his crew, exterminates the natives, colonizes their land, how much of this book is an allegory vs. straight up science fiction, Sirius the dog novel, A Fantasy Of Love And Discord, a Clarke story, a joking answer, Stan Lee, David Bowie, better make way, more enlightened sexually, that’s in this book too, creepy, more serious, more of an intellectual, writing for intellectual purposes, make a buck purposes, more humour, more sexism, they both have it, the lens of 2024 me, Star Maker, Eric [S. Rabkin], gimmicky ideas, this can’t be taken completely seriously, what kind of abilities will man have, respond to Tommy and Jesse’s question, who’s smarter and by what means are we measuring?, Stapledon’s idea of intelligence, a philosopher, early adopters, Bernard Shaw, quite conscious of all that, after the war in France, redeem Nietzsche from the German debasement, signs of that sort of battle, in Europe, some of these ideas will be taken up and believed religiously, very intelligent in the conceptual sense, not cooked enough in the images and characters and storylines, Dick read Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke was very influenced, the same sort of ideas, he read just everything, Dick came out of the pulps, there’s the island of England, he’s English and he’s intellectual, there isn’t as much crossover, A.E. Van Vogt, he’s reading the pulp magazines, not directly, doing the same thing, came to a peak, getting Clarkeian type ideas, proof of a real connection, presenting ideas in terms of breaking away from a philosophical treatise, Stapledon is only half-way there whereas Dick is fully there, obsessed at the end with VALIS and so on, the priority is the image, the character and the story, that’s how he vehicles his philosophical ideas, ideas behind his writing process, a more intellectual approach, up to Will to judge, make this about Philip K. Dick, Jesse maps, apples and oranges, different kinds of intelligence, very conscious of the things that he’s thinking and putting into his work, spirit, Will doesn’t believe in that, transcendent something, crisis of the spirit, a crisis of how we feel?, this about a do that doesn’t have hands and it really bothers him, we get where he’s coming from, a hypothesis about his process, very rich content, not always aware, Jesse now understands what’s going on, Philip K. Dick is the Golden Man he is the Odd John, what it is to be a dog from the human’s point of view, Stapledon imagined himself, at some points, an alien feeling, dissecting science fiction literature, the science fiction and fantasy literature of the Bible, what he means by that, kind of interesting, Eric and Tommy’s book club, not going to disbelieve anything, Scientology, specific Catholic dogma, there’s something more than just science, that spiritual project that they’re working on, at the end our narrator is hoping that they’ll finish their project, didn’t stop WWII, reading this as a parable, they make an eden after genocide, invaders from the outside come to their garden, don’t pull from the tree not yet bearing fruit, they’re naked, instead of being innocent, they know what they’ve done, these are evil people, in comparison to what?, the mercenaries that come to destroy them, telescopes and mechanical contrivances, the same project Jesus was working on, no more man against man, what he’s doing there, a mix, demythologized Christianity, affirmation of life, affirm the higher being, an ideal of Stapledon’s, our highest concern, our narrator, Fido, Pheado, Plato’s dialogues, brainwashed, they do horrible things, beyond good and evil, an attempt to describe what that could mean, allegorical, the same as the Nazi idea, the Nazis are deluded, these people are superior, failed, there’s a problem, a huge leap beyond human intelligence, hated in Dune, the inside mind of Paul, fused with the spice, mentat bene gesserit, weapons training, the thoughts of a superior being who thinks in language, telepathy at the end, totally superior but expressed in language, a human being compared to an ape, the treating people as cattle, the mom, sometimes described as dull and dumb, capable of all sorts of stuff, he’s action, she’s just making the home work in a mysterious way, the stupid question asked at the beginning, one is regarded highly in a certain class, there’s change happening, reading Stapledon, commercial success, more recent, Blade Runner (1982), turned into movies, in the consciousness, its important to get a stupid question to get better questions, always talking about novels, you should be but you’re not, his very important novel The Man In The High Castle, short stories are not well regarded, a status thing, our Fido character, damning Pax by calling her cow-like, knowingly writing a flawed work, Stapledon knows but the narrator doesn’t know that, Philip K. Dick doesn’t put together a novel this well, much better at short stories, novels are meditative, Poe, found it out this morning, the same story, an earlier work, canis superior, better than the other dogs, a better book, striving for the same thing, this book inspired that one, limitations of the dog, all the other animals, they treat the narrator as a dog, they’ll cut his balls off, we’ll do anything to them, church on Sundays, they can’t understand our spiritual projects, they’re mad, torn up the living room, tell this story again from the dog’s point of view, pitfalls, thinking about the sexuality that’s going on, homosexuality, jujitsu, switches to females later, everybody’s having sex with everybody, he’s trying to say something here, too Philip K. Dick stupid, not a roman-a-clef, a Socrates line, a fusion of Socrates and Christ, a homo superior we can attain, ugly but knowing about seduction, we did The Symposium, English respects the Greek more, he’s married, homo-erotic relations of uplift, Alcibiades, do you give up sex or do you sublimate it in a physical way, their problem at the end, they pluck the apple, a brief flash of the idea of this being the same novel as The Lord Of The Flies, how its forced on people, lie fallow and be fine, a curiosity and such, rescued by a British ship at the end, primitive communist, the horrible novel, to punish yourselves, doesn’t have the stamina for audiobook listening, podcast listeners, Terence’s comment is right, destruction rays, the original sin of murdering all of the Polynesians, conversations with the Soviets, do these other things, we like communism because its good, individualist communists, one of the real sins is lying, lying all the time, being deceptive, morally outraged by acting, so as to take your money that isn’t for entertainment purposes, are they lying about them being communists, throughout Stapledon’s novels, the official communist tradition, get his swipes in, earlier in the novel, fired for leading a strike, he’s lying to him, honest assessment, too hateful, stupider than Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick is or isn’t ideological, detailed and interesting, a specific attack, hitting at something that is more universal, what is being smart anyways (other than getting what you want), herd animals, wolves are smart, big cute eyes, puppy-like qualities, tiktok videos, replacement babies for many people, Glenn Greenwald, one of the moral heroes of the earth, a noble person, when it will be time to kill him, 17 years old, there petting, wearing diapers, great arthritis, talk about how intelligence is superior one to the other, when to put the humans down, going to the vet, they get the sense, how do we know who’s the smart one, they put themselves down, spoil the ending, they kill themselves, because they were homo superior, this is much more like the Heaven’s Gate cult, high on their own supply, smart and everything, not for our benefit, we’re on a project, reasons to do it, so, bye, I kinda wanna die with you, what’s going on?, these are not creatures looking down on us fondly, ambiguous or ambivalent, doesn’t hold together, moral supremacy, vaguely bad internet, moral supremacy falls flat, we can’t see it, we can’t understand because we’re homo sapiens, we can’t know him, to be the subject of a story, they murder a lot, suicide for their own benefit somehow, why kill themselves, you need an end to the book, a dark end, railed out of society, the author doesn’t do that, something missing, in the title, the life of Christ, impressing the elders, the temptation in the wilderness, John the Baptist, a preliminary sketch of homo superior in flourished form, a connection with daily life on planet Earth, Star Maker, the cosmic vision, Atlantis sinking beneath the sea, transcendence and imminence, do the bridge, a sketch of what homo superior could be, seems like Jesus, the forerunner, the precursor, the voice in the wilderness, more to tackle, Clark Kent yet to come, they can’t uplift themselves, the wolf boy, Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail, the Egyptian, praise of Allah, becomes like him, Jacquline, that lifespan thing, us being dogs to them, having a dog is intrinsically associating with death, to treat it like your child, you might want to die, setting yourself for tragedy, the long lived elves in Tolkien, Tommy’s mind is mapped, the Dresden Files, Highlanders, the antediluvians, Methuselah, vampires, 1000 years old, Will’s art piece, a pug Cerberus, why are they so long lived?, magical powers like wizards, The X-Men, Wolverine is immortal, neoteny, we are intelligence because we stay in the womb long and we’re still not fully formed, the infancy is a lot longer as well, his precociousness is evil, the word naughty as opposed to evil, licked all the butter, he’s not going to live that long anyway, be more careful, confront the child about the cookies, you’ve been naughty, overindulge in cookies, set aside some cookies, this is a time for us to fight, you need to be corrected, whatever its for he kills a policeman, malice aforethought, studied for no good reason, of adult mind tried as adults, his level, he’s also a juvenile, precocious things, who hasn’t burglarized neighbours homes?, semi-rhetorically and for jokes, kill his wife at home because she’ll be sad without him, nephews 8 and 10, a 4th grade class, 9 year olds, self-aware, they know what’s going on, cookie jar metaphor, food fight, Eric says it, when you give your dog food it means I love you, the corpse of an animal, cats are better about that, capable of this act, kids doing violence, rational and cold, really disturbing, the inner workings of Odd John, emotionally or spiritually, he ought to be tried as an adult, bright 9 year olds, what a kid is capable of, he doesn’t overpower the policeman, kill the guy in a fight, studied anatomy, small for a 9 year old, when the cop caught him, a childhood prank, the exercise of that new found powers, when little kids do bad things, do we throw them away, set outside of society as a punishment, not suitable for among us, after a certain point, you’re not reformable, prison is for you now, schizophrenic, age out, mid 30s declines, there’s a logical chain to it, extra explosion of testosterone, aggressive tendencies, starting wars, is there really a point where we get less violent?, a lot less violent, diplomacy or good upbringing, diffusing situations, avoiding situations, also Thomas Ryan, looking for fights, they would fight club, its programmed in, a huge effort in society, an instinct for violence, self-defense, this other instinct to dig and build, the only reliable person on this podcast, hear everything there is to be said before Will’s response, the wise man at the end of time, the being that only suffers, doesn’t like to think about it, think about that being a lot, persuade us, natural normal and ineradicable, self-defense, internecine warfare, what violence is, AOC says those words a violence, in the context, playing chess, get to the language of it, metaphorically judo-flip you, call it violence, we gone of from there, ingroup outgroup stuff, we killed a deer in the woods, we might dispute, which group gets to divide the food, scarcity was a big thing, when capitalist arrange thing, you keep the thighs, the older hunters should, where soccer is super-popular, male spectators, a special age range, guy is digging some tunnels, they work together to build something, two real instincts, land reform is needed, force of violence will prevent digging, the violence is amped up, the Minecraft instinct, and the first person shooters, one is amped up and one is reduced, run the media, not representative of humanity, Jesse is more or less human, the appeal of both, a judo match, imprimatur for use of evolution, one of the scientific world building principles, wary of adopting a naive idea of evolution, instincts, and human nature, what Christopher Tolkien does, worth studying by someone, more to say, riff, improving through evolution, not a great science fiction concept, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, what’s the point of this?, war and fascism bad, pot-shots in, an essential idea, as a religious idea, a fanatical way, he’s on to something there, correctly observes, avoid all these bad things, pessimistic, we don’t have the hardware not to plunge into war and fascism, not scientifically supportable, not a useful intervention, we need to morally evolve, maybe biology can do it for us, a miracle, the ghost of Walt Disney, who liked the book, who disliked the book, push the discussion forward, his weakest effort, those stories managed to be compelling, Chris Claremont, high end stuff, University of Michigan, short and furry all over, a sympathetic character, having respect for Wolverine, he has a good heart, kinda savage, Cyclops is a total douchebag, a non-entity, they’re all suffering, Tommy is Wolverine, Nightcrawler, who are you?, weirdly popular, knives in his hands, wanna be Beast, Terry and the Pirates, when they came out, before Wolverine got in, Beast and Cyclops, before he turned Blue, the evolution continued, pleasure in the X-Men, the sinking of the island of Genosha, X-Men Annual 1, the same as this book, a million connections, an X-Men reveal part, take guesses, Magneto, Gambit, Canada is like France, Juggernaut, Professor X, school, Jesse is Jubilee, a late addition, sparkles is her superpowers, technically, more like Dazzler, two cabinets connected, six playable character, sympathy for Colossus, shooting them with your eye vision, Alpha Flight, Gaurdian and Vindicator, Sasquatch, Shaman, Chinese American girl, wapping up with a deep X-Men discussion, a good late take, this idea of human evoltuion is persistent, Joe Rogan, a popular idea that’s persistent, better than is done in Slan, the similarity to the idea of Slan, The Midwich Cuckoos, either Dick or Stapledon, not human, more alien in the sense of estrangement, one of the definitions of science fiction, how does Pax feel?, he sent visions of it, he kept her updated, mom, making a giant ray, postcard to her mom, nods sagely, some milk squirts out, emotional intelligence, the meditation model, the surrender model, Islam is surrender, I affirm the ending, the gap between and Stapledon and other people’s intelligence, a precocious boy, read a lot, what we see of this character, basing it on himself, the gap between him and other people around him, trying to communicate that, a gap between him and women that we see in Sirius, Plaxxy, it’s close, good call, the female is less well laid out, the gap between a dumb man and a smart man, whatever smart means, one of Tommy’s notes, Stapledon stand-in, a highly intelligent person, him being a consciousness objector during the first WWI, people just generally go along with whatever, does he have a religious excuse?, no, Bertrand Russell, ultimately is dumb, who he based John on, not easy to track down, Ludwig Wittgenstein, tortured genius, live in a cabin by himself, children in a peasant village, a new paradigm, take Odd John as a figure of a philosopher, some of his evolution, Wittgenstein’s 1st masterwork, 1922, a professorship at Cambridge, the legend around Wittgenstein, a vibe, a lot of the people are the same, Arthur C. Clarke, not normal people, they come up with their own ideology, they don’t subscribe to a system, he treats dialectical materialism like its God, an army vs. an individual, over time, one eye bigger than the other, African features, playing with something, things from their bellies, communists of somekind, bam done, couple of minutes, one more X-Men reference, H.G. Wells, the Morlocks, Nightcrawler, they all look weird, the old cartoon, a lady who looked like a baglady, they become less ugly as he looks at them, these other beautiful women, less pretty after her, when you look at your own dog, objectively that’s a beautiful dog, they are different species, bigger brains, bigger eyes, the H.G. Wells man of the future, nutriments through their skin, The War Of The Worlds aliens, grew up reading Wells, the sublime and the beautiful, the sublime in some ways trumps beauty, vaster and infinite, disproportioned, that’s a mess but more profound or impressive, Kant’s critique of judgement, back to Socrates again, the most beautiful guy in town, so much written in the X-Men, Caliban from The Tempest, Ganymede was a girl, in mythology, one of the cupbearers of Jupiter and his catamite, making a quadrilogy of the great mutant writers, doing a lot of good work, they’re not even called mutants, when it comes out, the word isn’t used, a sport of nature, early 20th century, sport?, a mutant, a freak of nature, good news old sport, good news old mutant, a dwarf Alberta spruce, reversion to the normal type, retained it, how does he produce the concept without the world, on faded page, sporting point, an ancestor, original mutation, they gave him opportunities, John’s a great little sport now, John’s a dear these days, very cute, 16 times, he’s clever, upset with the book, annoyed with it, disappointed than anything else, he does do better, you can go that way, not as powerful, Sirius is weird, dog/woman love, in companionship to each other, mutant and homo superior shit is stupid, ais, will they eliminate us?, what is intelligence, biological, the great replacement, how humans are creating their replacements, Battlestar Galactica with the cylons, really good and very fun, ultimately, Ronald D. Moore, a good solution to the problem, integrated with humanity?, they’re not really superior, photocopiable, an emotional exercise, when Philip K. Dick tackles it, if this goes on, he doesn’t end it with a suicide, it was all a dream, the island blows up and sinks, a cop out ending, I don’t know how to finish the book, how does Sirius end?, a vigilante gang, being very smart and being interested in suicide, you guys know about this?, from the Cross Plains Review, June 18th 1937, The Tempter by Robert E. Howard, who are you?, Alpha and Omeger, which Hagar, biblical, men call me Suicide, lusted for the resting as a lover for his bride, this world of human cattle, o’er the paths that I had wandered, pressed the trigger, my soul went gliding gliding, good smart boy, 2 days before he shot himself, the word cattle in there, a smart smart guy, isolated, surrounded by regular folks, a struggling writer, maybe all men consider at some point, pretty rare, teens a lot more, shownotes, an idea or a name, shied away from in modern talk, “put to sleep”, switch to bluesky, Gaza pictures with childrens’ heads blown off, scary descriptions, people’s dumb ideas about, floating around this planet for 7 or so decades, Albert Camus, the only philosophical question, Sisyphus is happy, The Host, very good for a mimetic story, Algeria, take care of a prisoner, meet some Berbers, not enough science fiction, another planet, make the main character a robot, more into science fiction, the robot makes it timeless, a play, Dirty Hands by Jean-Paul Sartre, heart failure, bad revolutionaries but good assassins, the narcissism of the deed, is this an op, calling for Luigi with Bat-Signal, the ops are in every direction, why did the FBI do January 6th?, against the assassination of trump buy for Luigi, yes of that dude, the place but not the person, capitalism would wake up tomorrow, there are bad actors, there are good actors, what he represents in his job, more security for CEOs, might backfire, was he insured?, buy a new CEO, estranged, 2 things going on, Luigi the hero, Luigi the folkhero, the guy who actually shot the dude, Luigi was probably the guy who shot the dude, carrying the manifesto, we’ll see, more video, people killing each other, news analysis video, a viewing room, this would not have been shown, censored as well, a pushing back of the barriers of what is horrible, videos of torture, seeing corpses, seeing someone shoot someone in cold blood, censored, Mirko in Germany, why retweet?, it is because it is horrifying and hard to look at, consensus tweeting, really twisted porn, something governments are supporting and we should know about, of course they don’t want to see it, we should stop this, it’ll go away, hey, that’s wrong, a bigger movement of people, fake or real Luigi Mangione, what do you do about Zionism, ideological, we could displace them but there’d be questions, that’s evil, he tries to make the case with the Fido narrator, just is evil, we are superior beings because we have superior lives, don’t accept the premise, Jews live outside of Israel, Iran has Jews, the idea of Zionism precedes the Holocaust but benefited from the propaganda of the Holocaust, forces that want to keep it going, hasn’t solved anything, we’re having a spiritual crisis, overly dense, wait a second, forgetting Hegel, moving forward, crises, collective conflicts, the objective, this funny thing, sing the praises of the creator, a transcendent spirit, something wrong with the book, post-protestant thing, he needs there to be a Star Maker, agnostics, wonder, awe, reverence, we can’t call it the Creation, make the atomic motor work, the Manhattan Project, how to make atomic energy, this panpsychic thing, they no longer obey causality, intuiting some sort of quantum idea, you could rewrite it, except for the influence of the mind, reified entity, the most reliable person, he’s anti-flaky, ideological consistency, you love him, upcoming shows, accusatory inversion, you can’t quit I promote you, Lilith, next year becomes mysterious and unknown to Terence, Deleuze and Psychoanalysis, a once a month course, high concept, access to the other courses, priming the pump, bootstrapping, a link or two to a friend, everybody needs to know about Deleuze, everybody needs to know about psychoanalysis, more unreliable, it runs for a year, Project Pope, E. Nesbit, The Railway Children, Jason Thompson, a magical imp, boomeranged, accruing some interest, Will has been studying many things, winter depressive mode, studying the inside of my eyelids, Theodore Sturgeon, a lot of Richard Matheson, the end of I Am Legend, he’s more successful than Stapledon, the homo sapiens consoles himself, and there’s a dog, supersolid, the best thing he wrote, Born Of Man And Woman, trick stories, if only Will Smith had suicide, The Last Spaceship, so long ago, June 2nd, before Jonathan passed away, passed in the night, the audio for it, William Sky, what to do, the consensus was, the goddamn thing was missing, LibriVox removed a whole bunch of stuff because Gutenberg removed a whole bunch of stuff, by different narrators, Paul Lawley Jones’ podcast Golden Age Fiction, The Boomerang Circuit, how Scott Miller [The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast] was removed from YouTube, fraudulent removal requests, living in Korea, takes Meg citizenship away, bye bye buddies, three separate stories, not technically a violation, all good narrators, Phil Chenevert, google suppresses everything, it looks good, H.G. Wells’ The Crystal Egg, a 10 hour show, trying to get ahead, the ‘holidays’ when Santa Claus is on the road, is Santa Claus jewish?, able to work on Christmas, also a robot, that Galaxy, The Yeast Men by David H. Keller, Robert A.W. Lowndes, gross and interesting, sense of humour, many episodes, many weeks, my greatest failure yet, The Weapon Shop, weird, fugue statey, Fury by Kuttner, wasn’t a good book, Jonathan suggested, he’s dead!, social media, self promotion, he’s in creative mode, how to way to be, too much mental energy, new stuff in, The Jameson Satellite by Neil R. Jones, suicidal ideation, Josh Horotwitz, read it in paper, this guy is good, more recent than that, less rough hewn stories about people being put into robot bodies, that are good?, that are interesting?, Robert J. Sawyer, volume 60, a Walter Tevis!, The Big Bounce, a joke length, celestial hammerlock, The Door To Infinity by Edmond Hamilton, Dale Grothmann’s a good narrator, Hamilton!, he’s good, a broad range of acceptable, for something that old, 9 reviews, Invasion by Murray Leinster, the comments, a product of its time, Jesse fell asleep, on my nook, a pretty good read, pure fantasy, Nailan Smith and Fu Manchu vs. Cthulhu, Fu Manchu is homos superior, all of the homos superiors were asian, an upside down chevron yellow on the left, green on the right, it means something, the Japanese symbol for beginner, a couple, a search for her husband, winky face, an endearing review, keep going, special chevron, emojipedia, Charles Beaumont, Holes Around Mars, Robert Abernathy, Mellonta Tauta, the balloon one, echo chamber, multiple balloon stories, moon man comes back, “the Poughkeepsie Seer”, April 1, 2848, The Skylark, Poerful, loves cats, obsessed with cats, a real foible, scrolling cats, Mark Twain with a kitten on its shoulder, we have sympathy for you, cut cats up, how many would you miss, 19th and 20th century science fiction, not buddy, friend, more formal, when you talk to your cats, a special relationship, you are their servant and also scratching post, likes us emotionally, for her comfort, as a person, as a food dispenser, if Will were a cat, a dog guy converted to the religion of catism, need less than dogs do, there’s no crying, super sarcastic, pointed, who my heroes are, Damon Knight’s book on the Futurians, Donald Wollheim kinda sucked, weird relationship, Eugene Debs, to make a living person a hero, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, nationalize time, racist French guy who loves Lovecraft, Michel Houellebecq, Lovecraft guys, Dick guys, born on Reunion, an Indian Ocean island that belongs to France, monologue about Jaws, H.P. Lovecraft: Against The World, Against Life, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, very good at stories, discovered Lovecraft as a teenage, an open slice of howling fear, anti-modernity, philosophical denial of the real world, two of the realities, sex and money, really true, also false, sex is hidden but happened, not into sex or money, an American existentialist, life and death are meaningless, racial preoccupations, the comparatively racially mixed, racism back to fear, a mammoth hideous city, a very good essay, introduction by Stephen King, 20 years ago, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Cats Of Ulthar, cats got their revenge, Dreamlands stories, The Outsider has a mirror, discovers he’s a corpse, a good title, Michael Jackson, The Tomb, the story of a boy, The Tomb for beginning readers, DeviantArt, R.J. Ivankovic, long johns, I’m not certain it’s mine, parade in my brain, keeping these secrets since I was quite young, down into a nook, the door was ajar, the door would not give way, schoolroom, Hydes, a mad monomania, the books I had found, infamous hosts, the blasphemous parties, the hard lesson learned, to tend to the tomb, with my research completed, the familiar foul odor, that’s the end?, the site is dying, power outages from the wind, Lives by Plutarch, very happy in his green face, one of the books that Frankenstein’s monster reads, what a terrible shameful rhyme, certain you’d swoon, just like my grooming, scandalous rhymes, about which you may wonder, from man into mouse, lightning as a cleansing thing, a long hidden cellar, a private investigator, he has a dream and finds a key, secrets in graveyards, to worship once more, the strangeness began, that cold temple of stone, left me quite changed, found the old chest, an old key, a repeated symbol, The Silver Key, a time travel story, Ex Oblivione, dreams harder, whiteness, drugged himself to death, back to the land to the Forms, all knowledge and no experience, a damnable body, a suicide story in reverse, there was no more to do, coffins and cobwebs, oof, nightmare excursions, the eyes of the stranger, hired by his parents, what I did in the night, neglected to mention, what I’d done down in there, my spirits could soar, enjoyed it somewhere, things you would not believe, by Hyde invitation, pony tales from earlier centuries, blasphemous strife, should have been decomposing, a little bit more, that’s Poe from the House of Usher, the *this if fine meme* from Lovecraft, a thought then arose, I must claim my place in the tomb’s empty coffin, some other guy, a spot on the ground, a box had been found, a small porcelain bust, there was something familiar about the man’s face, too long, Asylum, something’s wrong with my brain, except for old Hiram, my servant for years, for a Jervas, and he’s satisfied with that, a crazy boy who goes to a mental asylum, he wants to be dead, a lich story, an ancestor coming to impose his existence on a future existence, psychically travelling through time, more mature, there’s something to it, underappreciated, he makes friends with dryads and nymphs in the forest, interested in books, sleeps in the woods, really well told, the cutesy version, first person narratives, a much more popular story, Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick, more of a weird tale than a science fiction story, done scientifically, Sylvia is insanely interesting, engaging with the ancient piece of the Odyssey, if this goes on…, I’m a big blundering guy, giving blood to butterflies, sometimes, he’s pointing to something, what makes you different from me, everybody becomes Sylvia, she got what she wanted, The Symposium show, it’s about love, different kinds of love, cursed by the gods and separated male from female, reconnecting with your other half, your better half, a union of a marriage, why are men and women different, different parts, a nice story, not true, go back far enough, we used to be these amoeba like creatures, a deep genetic memory, your my only love!, a little too close, not as good as you thought it would be for all time, very deftly, just shows us something, left with many questions, if you were me aka Sylvia, one of Sylvia’s favourite Philip K. Dick stories, recency bias, The Days of Perky Pat, instead of rebuilding civilization, the game of Life, you never grow up, the kids are out hunting, Connie Companion Doll, perpetual childhood, a good story, the earth belong to them, more competent than the parents, holding on to money to play Perky Pat with, so many great stories by him, dozens, The Variable Man, bloated, almost novel length in its long long length, Colony, Autofac, Beyond Lies The Wub, A Present For Pat, Faith Of Our Fathers, Human Is, Mr. Spaceship, Paycheck, James P. Crow, robots and black people, Impostor, Captive Market, a Monopoly story, The Defenders, Out In The Garden, the boy who’s father was a duck, Prize Ship and The Ship Who Sang, her best thing, a lot of series, a lot of Perns, not a really big series guy, decreasing happiness, The Exit Door Leads In, post public domain status, not meant for publication, he’s not a good novelist, remembered as a great novelist, one of the two greatest, Ursula K. Le Guin, Asimov’s novels, Apple TV, read old shit, more and more sympathy for your old position, read old books, through comics, Howard through the Scanner Darkly of Roy Thomas, there’s no question, some good novels, tedious and badly composed, fixups that don’t fix, the Library Of America crowd, try not to have a lot of contempt, is it contempt?, the feeling of contempt is not healthy, opposite of respect, the face you make when you’re being imposed upon, deserving scorn, beneath consideration, disregard for something that should be taken into account, worthless, an up down thing, god that guy’s heroic, Michio Kaku is contemptible, string theorist guy, haircut, bald faced lies, the proper attitude is to see things for what they are, better to overestimate or underestimate your abilities, within reason, don’t agree to either, both are really bad, cause problems, correctly estimated your abilities, cost you money, correctly estimating, a judo match, that’s gonna hurt, why they have weight classes, guessing right as to what is going on, to be contemptful or deferential, the deplorables, let their decisions to be made for you, very difficult, he was trying to gauge the level of things, as a person, the progress, lower people around him, finding his place a little better, a real thing, they’re just wrong, wrong about that one issue, listen to the arguments, swayed a little bit, new insight, Robert E. Howard is doing something different generally unless he’s writing poetry, higher output, different hobby horses, judge them correctly, Sirius is a better book than this, matured as a fiction writer, Dick’s best novel is Galactic Pot-Healer, the relationship between art and work, a springboard, The Silmarillion, not a narrative as such, specific incidents, maybe, hinted towards Star Maker, the spiritual work, one way of explaining it is writing, closet and meditate, into my office and write, essay, sales pitch, philosophy, that artifact, the font, the spirit of that once living thing, inside of this dead man’s brain, the latest John Scalzi novel, understand the way his mind works, doing his own thing, Kaiju novel, stuff happening, “well that happened”, their reaction to what happened, character, what’s Sylvia like?, she’s a witch, he’s a journalist, when everybody is Sylvia…, and it is a horror, he’s Sylvia and he’s fine with it, becoming the Borg, a single ideology, the ending, 25 pages, the last section, the late afternoon sky, sparkled whiteness, alien and unfamilar, a difficult place to find, swirling hot steam, terrified above the bowl, tear-stained and frantic, waver and slide, soft brown hair, being tasteful, the girl at the bowl bent to dry herself, confused she hesitated, Rick she murmured, please Rick!, a horror story, she’s trapped in the hell of everyone, her spells went wrong, let’s assimilate it, way overdone, a melting pot not a mosaic, have it both ways, traumatic or fine, it should be traumatic, I’m losing my identity, that state you’re in, Patty Hearst, calm life, in it with the revolutionaries, you’re arrested, her friends taken away, my granddaughter needs a pardon, come back out of it, the Borg queen shows the utter contempt, just lore now, you now have to live with it, becoming Locusts, he killed people, part of the Borg, you become a zombie, not compus mentis, when they start Deep Space 9, feel guilty without being technically guilty, a more interesting way to do the Borg, pure evil, goes on too long, lore kills, much juice was squeeze, some odd juice from Odd John, the weird sexual encounter not put on the page, adult girlfriend, repulsed by her, she’s a brute, solace himself sexually, remain respectable, a similar scene, diddled, the spoken words used on the island “damned” and other ones not yet acceptable in written words, the word “fuck” doesn’t show up [much] in written language until after WWII, sex with his mom, Odd John fucked Olaf Stapledon stand-in, the human girlfriend, sexually frustrated and upset, will not spell out explicitly, another dear person, respectable middle class, a lacunae, elliptical talk, homosexuality, ragged, enfant terrible, Tommy walking, ragging with his sister, the two of them together, shunned all physical contact, electrified, initiation ritual, India, another boys’ school thing, the word “fag”, a prominent role, this idea of fagging, abuse downwards, making children younger than you, patching in ceremony, a rocker, a patch that’s lower, as you ascend the ranks, once in the gang, a beating, an outer beating, harassment, abuse, bullying, formal done by the group rather than an individual, a group beating, a psychological technique, beat a dog and then feed it, very emphatically, the complacency of a cat, a cat may look at a king, his insult, tickle him the right way, John would be ruined, pretty explicit, shunned all physical contact, a known homosexuality thing amongst boys in England, covered by this phrase, luxury and disgust, an amatory brawl, tearing at his ear, he was not above learning from his inferiors, woke with lasting scars, the adult girlfriend, unprintable thing, hanky panky, implied stuff, by the standards of the 1930s, a bisexual superman, widespread, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, like The Fall Of The House Of Usher but gay, circumstantial stuff, act really weird, only in the society of males, so prominent, private schools for girls?, where’s all the lesbian stories that come out of that?, maybe they exist, that’s Odd John, Flowers For Algernon, the long one, a good book, identification with the mouse, a similar book to this one, construct a mental superman, questions about the perception of the world, not all with it, happy about it, exploited then disappointed, she’s a fucking hooker, I thought I was special, your older brother is paying, and you never find out, the expected outcome, the expected situation, what makes them smart, intelligence and stupidity, Understand by Ted Chiang, simple things gain new meaning as you are able to perceive them better, the story can change, The Secret World Of Og, adolescence, not based on the Robert E. Howard stories, adaptations of stories, quality goes down, quality goes up, a diminishing returns, Arthur C. Clarke, G.K. Chesterton, whole genres of fiction, didn’t expect to, the secret life, public life, obviously very intelligent, takes a pill, Limitless (2011), investments, pickup girls better, writing about a guy who’s smarter than you or he was, the way you do it, you go over it and make it better, an idea for a poem, this rhyme, a word, a phrase, echoes back, this word is really great, the last word of the story, wake, they’re on a ship, a character dies at the end of the story, what’s behind, a wake and a wake, baby level of double meaning, that’s intelligence, triple meaning, stupidity is making mistakes, intelligence is making everything meaningful, using the full meaning of a word, sympathetic to this idea?, why do girls like rappers, slingin rhymes, what makes them cool, their ability to sling, virtuosity, increasing your brain quality, one of the major attractions of humans to humans, a forced rhyme, you imposing your will on somebody else, the gush of slime come from the bucket on the ceiling, a little bit like charades, crossword puzzles, the traditional signs that you’re intelligence, crossword puzzles, know a lot about a lot of things and are able to use it, top 1% one percent of English speakers, this doofus on youtube, obliquely, disgrace, 10 or 11 wrong out of 20, uncle, still got it, still good!, some random 20 year old dude, that is something mechanical intelligence, there’s all sorts of kinds of intelligence, compared to other people, knowing your level is being smart, those guys at the bakery, what makes Ted Chiang smart, sixteen chess moves ahead, there are grandmasters who are stupid people in other areas, grapple with different areas, avoid bad outcomes, PUBG, getting the dinner, the only objective that’s built into the game, conciliatory, lots, steal a BRDM from somebody, get one over on somebody, a sneakiness, cat intelligence, smoked weed, really really high, highness, do you think you’re smarter than me?, bad at avoiding the house piling up with crap, more aware of her surroundings, women are very social, keeping track of what’s going to happen to the space, the old magazines, stacking them, men are much more collectors than women, a sign of a lack of intelligence, an area of interest, making it into a hoard you can’t get through, that TV, too low, they’re not stupid, interested in their interests, deficiencies, native talent for math, not super valuable, how fast he picks up languages, if they speak six languages like Mayor Pete, he’s not intelligent, a second meaning, information, vocab expert, turned into the victory, as long as we’re here, the level that you achieved, frequently struggling with Clark Ashton Smith words, gemstones, he loves kind of rock, a homebody, manual labour, our guy carrying water, a very intelligent man in his way, a very curious person, the entire library, Aaron Swartz, he was a hero before the FBI murdered him, naive, something very boy like about him, the guy invented RSS dude, a real simple idea, now we can get on reddit, we still have podcasts, he didn’t invent torrents, Mr. Internet, Mr. Everybody, Tim Berners-Lee, weirdo kid who only eats white food, he may have been Odd John, this you?, I was 7 when I read that, the original days of autism, Rain Man (1988), a popular idea, something that’s bubbling up, autists everywhere, idiot savants, stupid and smart at the same time, go gambling, uses his intelligence to win, incredibly intelligent and incredibly stupid, can’t put your pants on, too many holes, not enough holes!, brain damage and unable to speak, alleviated or worked around, regain the ability to speak, retarded, gain at the regular pace in school, this fake autism of schools, is it real autism, school is autism, autism is school, an imposition, kids impose on the world and are imposed upon, its a factory, we have a very special boy, just a normal kid, looks a little different, his acquisition level, his emotional level, slowly grow, a calf newborn is running around minutes after it is born, a little liberally, there is damage done in the case of down syndrome, a folded x chromosome, enough folic acid, the child from your loins, your baby’s spine and brain and skull, vitamin b9, when you don’t want to talk to them, he’s the opposite of autistic, supertistic, the stacking of blocks, especially boys, if that’s all you do, not getting interested in other things, where the auto part comes in, an estate auction online, cosmetic damage, passing on his wisdom, he had two bb guns, 150 bb guns, selling stuff on ebay, lots of people who are weird, all sorts of different weirdnesses, Jonathan’s Sword & Scandal interior illustrations, pornographic, a little more tasteful, too pornographic for Jesse’s tastes, if successful, scale, love of the game, latest kickstarter, Jungle Scandals, white lady being cooked in a pot, could have linked to the thing in the tweet, ironic, a subsequent comment, Jonathan loves to go on podcasts, told Paul that Jonathan had sent me that thing, Jesse’s too much work, a little tiff, calling him a liar, projection, many things but not a liar, deceiving, disagree often, we have really bad internet, make some coffee.

GALAXY NOVEL - Odd John by Olaf Stapledon

GALAXY NOVEL - Odd John by Olaf Stapledon

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #844 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard and The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

The SFFaudio Podcast #844 – The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard (34 minutes) and The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne (1 hour 37 minutes). Both are read by Tommy Patrick Ryan. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), Cora Buhlert, and Tommy Patrick Ryan.

Talked about on today’s show:
Thomas, two stories, Magazine Of Horror, February 1971, Mystery Magazine, October 1, 1918, haunted by the image, very different, some similarities, pulp magazines, a lot less about Mystery Magazine, one of the first mystery pulp magazines, 1917, into the 20s, a break, bought by Street & Smith, merged into another magazine, later volumes, quite interesting, this is a science fiction story, improperly done, kind of a mystery story, always reliable Robert E. Howard, mystery/horror, Agatha Christie style, The God In The Bowl, police procedural, major flaws in both, more forgivable, generally flawed, much faster, doesn’t linger over its problems, predictable, fun, the full reveal, some interesting ideas, a more current reader, leaving women completely out, racism, such a strong powerful scary looking brute, red herring, the history of the mummy, put on a naive hat, a cynical hat, a little obvious, only 3 people in the house, one of them has no nose, inflated in the fire, well done, The Black Stranger, vengeance from beyond the grave, Vale Of Lost Women, a sharp sword is a hardy incantation, A Witch Shall Be Born, fight with gods, being racist, interesting article/review, Adventure Fantastic, pointed out a couple of things, forgotten, characters in Skull Face, reused names all the time, her liked certain names, a name to conjure with, not that many Sikh names, used interchangeably, by pulp standards, using the racism as part of the red herring, I don’t like the look of him, missing a nose, made me cringe a lot, what do I look like oriental?, we’ve rejected the use of that word, generally in society, eastern, people from India or East Asia, people from the middle east, all east, not referring to Siberia, Eastern Catholic churches, the counter to the idea that this story is racist, he did a particular thing, Noseless first, page 20, aided?, really good job with the accents, you’re a real man, the compliment, that is straight out of Kilping, Gunga Din, ignorance, the outlook at the time, a useful insight, his dark skin, his missing nose, his propitious strength, Howard’s intention, the hero of our story, sympathetic characters of color, N’Longa, a cliche character, the hero of those stories, sympathetic muslim characters, Saladin, the knight from Ireland, Cormac Fitzgoffery, Talbot Mundy, recently scanned by a collector, 1912, six years later, one stands on its own, The Soul Of A Regiment, a regiment can never die, a non-white doing the good thing, a very scary title, The Damned Old Nigger, a fez, a story building, it isn’t the skin it’s the man, it comes from a racist time period, there are exceptions, a British name, the unnamed narrator, Dr. Watson, the crazy Egyptologist, a Baskerville style mansion, the servant, the rival who comes back from the dead, he pulls a Lovecraft and faints, great white hunter, in a fight with the Afghans, as anti-racist as you can get in about 1928, nobody knows, this story doesn’t fit anywhere, written in two sessions, the feel changes, then we get action, an infodump at the end, such a great sentence by sentence guy, full of great ideas, handled terribly, a better story because it’s handled so well and so quickly, science fiction, crime story, the watchman threw me straight out the window, a crime magazine, reincarnation, 15 ideas?, so science fictiony, H.G. Wells might have done something with this idea, there’s no radio stations yet, the touches that we go to, the tone is all over the place, I’m gonna die tomorrow, what his other stuff is like, a lot of gender stuff in here, Queen Victoria was a man, Charles Martel was a woman, interesting, just thrown out there, no completely impossible, we know he had sons, very casual, trans by the way, Cleopatra, we would consider ugly, not a beautiful woman, so successful with men, coins are like official portraits, the same idea of accuracy, a really sexy woman on the coin, Hannibal’s Children by John Maddox Roberts, awkward, distracting and not in a good way, plays in, a professor and a scientist, Virginia is the beautiful daughter, professor of English literature, dime novel, 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag, sparky but it fizzles, how cringey, how to pronounce it, let’s agree, two heads are better than one, that could be something interesting to explore, already super dense, made it hard to read, 15 pages vs. 13 pages, an hour 40, so much longer, back in Michigan, fancy sound equipment, the ending part where they’re in Egypt, a much larger portion, the cop and the shakedown artists, a comedy?, completely superfluous, supposed to be a detective magazine, history, that’s amazing, one of the things they don’t explore, making notes in their private journals, there’s no secrets anymore, why Jesse is weird, everything’s the past, the present doesn’t really exist, still annoyed with Jesse, the future doesn’t exist, everything we’re doing is looking backwards, there’s no more secrets now, we all learn sign language, that Robert Redford movie Sneakers (1992), The Quiet Place, what are the implications, love story through time, a Lincoln speech, kinda like it, on the cover, saw this cover Galactic Central (Philsp.com), looks Lovecraftian, the truths revealed are kinda stupid, The Black Cat, The Thrill Book, higher standards, all about the ideas, a counterpoint to that, a terrible story, it’s not good, it’s too long, such a good comparison, not innovative, entirely derivative, Robert E. Howard’s ability, a lot better than most pulp writers, the trunk of unfinished stuff, in a week, 2 days, banged it out, still better than most stuff being published today, Don Mark Lemon’s The White Death, a western story set in Mexico, Valley Of The Lost aka King Of The Forgotten People, evoke actual fear, Connor recorded People Of The Black Coast, the crab people, this noir horror, very simple ideas, guy goes to Mexico or South America, the forbidden valley, I’m prospector I must go, finds some bones, finds so gold, hops onto him and eats him, Mother!, a 12 minute story, an idea and nothing else, that guy really knew how to spark up a story and get out, not to its benefit, I’m really enjoying this story, there’s a mix, where is this going, what is going on?, all over the place, completely unnecessary characters, compelling, more or less in one take, recording setup, more interesting, the characters, the action, picturing the setup of the mansion, as if it was an Agatha Christie, for the genre, he’s such a great mood writer, comparison of the opening, Abysses of unknown terror lie veiled, he’s doing a Lovecraft right there, straight out of The Call Of Cthulhu, the rending of the veil, a locked room, familiar with the form, Mary Roberts Rinehart, a mystery story based on, Gum-Shoe Mixley, in a quandary, rank grass, remunerated him, old fashioned, what makes somebody just is that they pay him, solicited the patronage, as dark as Egypt at night, much more like The Hardy Boys, and what are they doing there?, why there?, in line of sight, they didn’t have radio towers, it keeps doing that, recreate the come hear Watson I need you, Alexander Graham Bell, Shakespearean comedic character, emotionally and tonally all over the place, two stories for scripts, its terrible and needs to be changed a lot, so easy, scary and fun, it would be impossible, too many, stripped it down, it has to be the tech, sound goes on forever, every step you take doesn’t echo in eternity, a cool idea, ghost hypothesis, The Stone Tape (1972), psychic images from great trauma, a murder in a castle, like phonographs, resonating properly you can see the past, the inspiration, really ancient whispering stone, recording equipment, voices from the past, a voice from the future, come to yell at it, get the hell out, we got out, the stone was warning him, its from the future, the abbey museum, there’s a nuclear war coming but we don’t know when, 1016 words, a similar idea, light, Slow Glass, Light Of Other Days by Bob Shaw, slower than the speed of light, a thick slab in a nice setting, leave it there for 15 years, recorded views, a picture window to that place in Ireland, makes your dingy apartment wonderful to be in, an Irish countryside, honeymooners, quaint country farm, off they go to live their life, she’s a young woman and he’s an old man, the slow glass was going two ways, a beautiful story that takes a science fiction idea and does something exquisite, Cleve Cartmill, Tom Godwin, all the things that it teaches us, incoherent and pointless, a better writer, broken them up into a couple of different stories, incongruent, the intro, the main plot happens in Egypt, so much exposition to develop the machine, they’re doing it, a train, its a romance?, she died, she died randomly in the end, trying to make it uncanny, the trope of a scientist and his beautiful daughter, Lester Del Rey, Futurama, an intern, Amy, guh, Stanley G. Weinbaum, distraction to the main character, how they look alike, reincarnated brother and sister, why is this happening, bad writing, trying to understand everything, Mistress Of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, not understanding why things are happening, associated with fear, people fear things they don’t understand, thunder is a good example, they act instinctually, hunker down, the cover is iconic, a guy running between pillars, Hammurabi style statue, very Persians, mouth open, what caused that?, covers are very important, this seems Lovecraftian, Syrian bearded dudes, the overwhelming truth about something in history causes cosmic horror, muted, 106 years old, when people still remembered Lincoln speeches, why was it soundproof?, an old dowager would, in the 70s they’re doing 70s stuff, the fifties was not understandable until Back To The Future (1985), the tech, the cars, the music, movies set in the 40s, the 80s, 90s, 00’s, 10s, study the past, the 1890s, Sherlock Holmes, William Hope Hodgson, prewar stuff, Anita Loos, Gentleman Prefer Blondes, every period of time, the Wilson presidency, super-conscious of race, not fast enough for some, post WWI to the early 20s, the last month of WWI, almost doesn’t exist, German spies, exists in Canada, rationing, important for Lovecraft, Nick Carter magazine, Blue Book, one of the sweats, Boston Blackie, heroic burglar stories, Johnston McCulley, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Wallace, Achmed Abdullah, the beginning of the pulp industry, the format is dime novel, no inside advertizement, formatted in a style that we don’t really understand, a popular consumable, biweekly, comics in the 90s, biweekly X-Men, who is the audience for this?, young men maybe, what year is our Robert E. Howard story set, it doesn’t matter, probably not set in 1928, he doesn’t do any work to pin that down, Sir Thomas Cameron, Sir John Baskerville, born into it, a competitor who was a German/Dutch, ring any national bells?, generic German aristocrat, having a von in your name, ancestors, Indiana Jones and Belloq, in 18__, why do you do that, comes straight out of Poe, neither is doing a Poe, Poe’s wife’s name, these are people who are aware of these past writings, lead to the next, a triumph, learned a lot, not mad at all, worth discussion, this isn’t great writing, creating the product, so much exposition to get us to this “climax”, not being able to handle women, almost intervenes, beating on the feet, whipping women, a reminder, he had that issue, the death of his mother, so unnecessary, he’s this way because his love was forced to be Cleopatra’s face, not useful, really poorly done, the one we’re discussing, a great idea, this story is super-interesting, administering the beating, over her stood a lower magistrate, shriek upon shriek, this is a piece of history, recorded forever, you will be haunted by it, a local colour thing, its not the visual images, it’s a story about sound, when you cover your ears, block out history, wanted to explore it and utterly failed at every turn, squint, the last part is about a third, 2/5ths of the story, the weird frame with the cop, back and forth with Virginia on the phone, three months later, Virginia’s voice in the past, how would she known, unlikely to have ever heard a recording of her voice in 1918, a certain direction, dissatisfying, no mystery for the Egyptologist, shrunk and turned into a mummy, fetish hut, he had all the pieces, two guys with no noses, a little bit of tweaking, Almuric, Otis Adelbert Kline, notes thrown in, very Howardy, Kliney, not his normal thing, British dudes talking about British dudes, just as racist towards the British, stereotypes about British people, a very very racist time, talking about some other issue, the universities in China, grandfather had been in an important player, one of Mao’s generals, a positive effect on the gandchild’s social life, if you’re a minority in China, an exam, out of 500, an ethnic minority gets an ethnic minority, if you’re not han Chinese, their version of affirmative action, George H.W. Bush, if your dad was president…, that is the thing that’s happening to us now, programs, that’s our reality that everybody knows about, everybody was racist, why H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard were talking about, the Satanic Panic really effected Jesse’s life, a panic, occult, the backlash to Harry Potter, a Ouija board, the lone Catholic kid, a panic about cults, how terrible cults were, seems like something out of the 1930s, that was devil worship, no longer allowed to Dungeon Master, subject to forces that dictate the conversation, real insight, they’re trying to do stuff, science fiction doesn’t become science fiction until Stanley G. Weinbaum, there needs to be a shaping, Alfred I. Tooke, weird fiction, him ripping off Lovecraft after high school, 25 years ago, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, still is amazing, there’s other stuff too, Guy De Maupassant, dealing with tropes and stuff, reading that Hardy Boys book, enlightening, those boys are lawbreakers, not what I expected, lessons learned, ancient Egypt, subconscious, they both have H in the title, fashionable, Orientalism, Some Words With A Mummy, they found King Tut’s tomb, what this project is, look at old things and see what the past was like, echoes from Adam and Eve, sound doesn’t echo into eternity, no one else is talking about The Haunted Corridors, dug up out of the trunk, 1970, in 7 months, in the year 2610, be a haunted again, a cool takeaway, what is the purpose of reading old things, you have no sense of history, how men don’t read, why that is, its perpetually, none of them reference each other, the historical explanations, boys don’t read, YA fiction, why Pulpcovers boys don’t read new fiction, what about Dogman?, romance, a prize to be won, message issues, Lodestar award, barely readable, the other Alex, one of these charges, a comicbook that you find at Walmart, superheroish, 10 years old, in that age range, teens talk about that, subbing a lot, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, Dr Seuss, Doctor Suess’ Sleep Book, he’s classic, the touchstones of Cora’s childhood, Meckie the hedgehog, Pingu, an official superhero version of the leader of Venezuela, Super Mustache, what we only ever do, the deeper you study the past, we don’t have a good focal length for studying things near, video and records and newspapers and the internet, elevated even tho its so crappy, think about what it means, they could listen to it again, looking at the past, transmissions from earth, this is not a telephone cable, this is sound itself, hilariously stupid, a great idea for a story, more sensitive to the science of it, make it slightly mystical, The Silmarillion, echoed there forever more, it turns into heat after a certain point, magical realism, because of the period, the Resonator from From Beyond, Francis Stevens, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, supercool, suspend disbelief, the Star Trek communicator, across time zones, an international call, ring the operator, Unseen – Unfeared, narrated by Mike Vendetti, 1919, a framing device, the mad scientist, that’s how it does start then he fumbles it, Sunfire by Francis Stevens, Argosy, millions over millions of years, you need to give yourself homework, find the time, nephews, give them some Dogman, comparisons, wet women, super on the nose, too much in common, lack of innovation, we had fun, a dude lit up, grappled by something, a weird startling story, similarly clothed, harrowing and weird events, a far off island, sparks coming out of her hands, a monster nearby, the derelict fleet, fire of the sun, the first few pages, the right use of the word, she’s good, she deserves to be better remembered, scientist goes on vacation, ticked him into dying, a science story and fantasy story, weird fiction, science fiction, another dimension of Pittsburgh, never gets picked up again, a pocket universe, this lady’s a girl, Leigh Brackett’s birthday, sane take, she’s uneven, C.L. Moore is all right, as a female author who’s really important, Jean Veil, innovative, her last story is in Weird Tales, follow these great authors, worked for a Mormon magazine, John Bellairs, The Face In The Frost, fairly scary, Astrid Lindgren, The Mummy, The Will, And The Crypt, listed in Appendix N, died really young, only 53, after he died, his characters, just under Poul Anderson, one of the most obscure, Margaret St. Clair, getting yelled at, the first Gor book, would read it again, John Norman, infodumpy, where’s the sex?, BDSM stuff, super-superflawed, the green muscle mommy book, Legends & Lattes, a Gor movie, Jack Palance, John Lange, the bit from Police Squad, not disguised at all, Betty Page, she’ just barged right in there, Jabba’s sailing barge, lot’s of slaving, the proper order of the universe, Tarnsman Of Gor, fetishy, 7 hours 44 minutes, very prudish, that dude just grabbed that gal’s breast, 27 hours 30 minutes, Ralph Lister, probably pretty tame, 1966, very quickly stopped, badly written, not great, off the rails, no one would remember, great Boris Vallejo, fascinated, Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, abortion book?, A Case Of Need, Congo, Airframe, such a weird book, thinly disguised Boeing, a plane crash in Russia, so weird, a hobby horse he was on, Pirate Latitudes, Travels, Micro, Disclosure, weird sexual harassment, bitches be lying, The Great Train Robbery, Sphere, Dragon Teeth, golden age of fossil hunting, came out in 2017, State Of Fear, how global warming isn’t real, wrecked his reputation, captivated until the end, really good writer and clear, too much baggage, Timeline, with Paul Walker, a castle siege, rock and roll jousting, a Heath Ledger, A Knight’s Tale (2001), David Bowie and Queen, on brand, its Beowulf with Neanderthals, Antonio Banderas, filmed in British Columbia, downloaded and organized, The Ship Who Sang, The Ship Of Ishtar, an early Munsey magazine, Isekai?, entangled, dreamlandy, Queen Of The Black Coast with parallel dimensions, Exile Of The Eons by Arthur C. Clarke, a social satire, a dude with a boy, a Virgil Finlay space suited dude who’s a giant, audio drama, it’s terrible, so ableist, thalidomide scandal, Philip K. Dick, a classic, Eric’s book club, mutual acquaintance, pairing things, how long do you want this to be, so many good books to read, go do your podcast boys, the more people the longer, some long individuals, Scott is very short, Mr. Pulpcovers is pretty short too, Mad Max novelization for 4 hours, R. Murray Gilchrist stories, deep and rich, compare and contrast, there’s not much to say about it, West African mummies, he just made that up, weird fiction stories lend questions, rich and good, the more enigmatic the more fun to talk about, book club, too much going on, Paycheck and The Weapon Shop, dislike it more, hasn’t aged well, talk to you next year, good slide into the New Year, good job, as a voice actor, new equipment, optimal settings, Philip K. Dick never disappoints, Jungle People, he was 13, able to map it, a novel with a key, a fable, a bunch of monkeys going to war, because he’s Philip K. Dick that’s why, quick dinner.

The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #836 – READALONG: Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #836 – Jesse, Will Emmons, and Terence Blake talk about Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
academic master race, all for democratizing everything, 1982, isfdb.org, tagged, New England, strong female character, robot, quest, aliens, parallel world, recommend this book to my friends, what that point was, the feeling, the first couple of pages, any other people, what this book is, not everybody is ready for this, initial thoughts, a big weak spot, recurring conversations, the professor bickering, the narrator gets into it, long than it needed to be, the exposition at the end, we are creating an academic master race, bad to kidnap people, not enough of a striver, the little refugee camp, we like Simak, faster than usual, tedious, infodump things, sometimes tedious, show don’t tell, the feeling was its deeper than it seems, a sort of Gene Wolfeian complexity disguised in a real simple feel-goodsy story, the aliens at the end, Childhood’s End, norns or fates, from what they say in their big infodumps, not a full disclosure, they themselves are incapable of producing, intellectual objections, fun reading, amp it up to 1.5x speed, books where you need to savour the prose, almost sacrilege, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, poetry at 1.5X, a pants novel, Maissa was on for Shakespeare’s Planet, Jonathan, one of the first science fiction novels, a robot, a bunch of people, spend time in the landscape, a very familiar sort of story, Trish would use the word “comps”, complimentary books, if you like this you’ll like that, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, The Wizard Of Oz, the thing it is most like, The Canterbury Tales, treacley made, at the end of Hyperion, we’re off to see the wizard, going to see the shrike, a brilliant book, I’m done, the other three, Endymion, a Keats poem, there’s no road, there’s trails, a track, when finally the leave the road into the badlands, to the cube, very enigmatic, the city, the singing tower, one of us in the journey gets trapped or engulfed, what’s up with the lady who turns into a mummy, the ancient road, a Lovecraftian moment, a book Lovecraft reviewed, a tv movie, The Thing In The Woods by Harper Williams, A Howling In The Woods (1971) TV movie, Barbra Eden, based on a novel, a dog, somebody had buried his master in the worlds, mourning the loss of his master, a bad movie, badly done, a cool idea, just after the parson disappeared through the door, the crabapple blossom land, come out of the city, what if you go through the doors, brings you back to the land that you’re in but you perceive it differently, how you are perceived, The Green Door by A.A. Milne, Well’s The Green Door, an 18 hour podcast, green doors are magic doors, to escape a marriage, in the woods he meets a princess, sexy princess lady, the castle gate people don’t recognize him as the prince, they recognize each other, happily adam and eve in the forest without the burden, an ice world, a pain world, every shark is eating every other shark, crab-apple blossom land, the parson had a problem, everything is impious, he’s a coward, quick to judge, this Eye In The Sky, Philip K. Dick idea, those worlds are real, demons or devils exist, religiously structured world, an ontologically secular world, bigoted, one of the very cool parts of the book, on and on about art, it’s beautiful!, an Alice In Wonderland author, pre-Pooh, after-Pooh, Star Trek episode with Mr. Atoz, these are the same book, doing something in his old age, according to Jesse, time travel, science fiction, trying to give humanity a second chance, not really what it’s about, the death or end of science, the end of man, now apocalypse, the end of pursuing one particular idea of research, so many ends, avoid a potential apocalypse, unless humans can take the next step in evolution, a roman-a-clef to The Wizard Of Oz, the gold standard for the road, this guy’s about courage, this guy’s about brains, Dorothy is us, six on the road, counting Toto, brains, courage, heart, two women, four men, one of them’s an it, a he/him robot, gendered as it, a sinister character, every time, here’s the tea, a sign that it’s science fiction, obsessed with tea, Nine Fox Gambit, tea late at night, highly influential, the book influenced, we’ve got the tea that’s enough, the ending, the infodump, essential to science fiction, the best movie of all time, The Terminator, the best part of that movie, Kyle Reese’s infodump, they’ll definitely kill you, a speech given on the run, the puppet masters, puppet character, technically correct, the opening world is not our world, University of Las Vegas, civic duty, medical welfare, not our earth, trying to get a positive review from Heinlein, ai written essay about Shakespeare, confesses, Galactic Pot-Healer, I need you, you are need, the great work that needs to be done, the fun way of entering it, not that lame, what is the meaning of my existence on earth, a brigadier that uses robots to enact battles, which one is strong?, our viewpoint character, the most Simaky, not his best expression of this book, others, Highway To Eternity, read one out of Galaxy, Time And Again, Time Is The Simplest Thing, Way Station, City, scattered across time, Simak is doing Simak, greatly matured, Scott [Danielson], a strange title, Scott’s face superimposed over the robot’s face, Project Pope, from a Catholic point of view, infallible pope, more traditional plot, meandering journey across a landscape, when serialized in Astounding, The Fisherman, Jesusy, the secret to teleporting to other planets, in his earliest pulpy stuff, get to know him better, doesn’t know what he’s doing, the card playing guys at the inn, they’re the fates, you could just excise them from the book and the book, there to make the setting happen, the rationalization, makes you want to read the book again, with that in view, Hegel and the phenomenology of minds, Kuhn’s paradigms, the shift, what exists, Thomas Kuhn, Murphy’s law, Moore’s law, not a law, could be an end, something wrong about the way , the evolution of alternate worlds, Lee Smolin, less fluffy, encapsulates with his two bookends, chat gpt, feels dirty, are you doing a Sheckley here, it is funny, here we go, starts typin, trusting in his typewriter, you need to do that, a lot of bad takes, one of our hobbies, not too offensive, read more, this is pathetic, unless it was cute, big long honking novels, a student story, The Mysterious Garden, this story is amazing, 7 tweets long, William, a distant realm, something moving in the bushes, where she had been hiding, she offered me a fruit, instantly I felt safe, the fruit was delicious, being in the woods all by herself, a strange sound, hastily hid behind a tree, a bald magician, chasing us like a madman, the gate of the park, I’m Adam, I said, written to get them, an illustration from a Dungeons & Dragons, the name of the character at the end, practically no one to talk to, our hero looking for Mary, look for your sweetie, make you tea, one of his answers is that, to find things out, Simak’s thesis is very basic, I do want those things, find a person you’ve lost, it is good to get people, he saw Nyarlathotep, a cool and good guy, overthinking this book, leave him behind, I don’t eat or breathe or sleep, poor robot puppy in a robot gutter, robot dog business, a big truck comes and runs it over, what constitutes a robot dog, if we were children, a cute puppy, picking it up out of the gutter, letting it do what it wants, he’s a good person, shows empathy, going up to a tree and hugging it, unless they’re high on drugs, why not, it’s fine, a mammal based thing, extends past mammals, hens love their chicks, salmon when they leave their fry in the river, is it good, mandatory even to have empathy, the answer should be yes, serial killer, cut them up, a taste of their own business, overcoming our empathy, bringing a weapon, there’s no weapon, the whole planet is a weapon, favourite thing to think about, suffering, when it approaches our hero, he puts out his hand, strokes his ear, abandoned it, dog wants to follow him, one over the other, the girl over the dog, you want to save both, a nasty woman and very friendly dog, what if its the parson, or the general, Mr. Empathy, a journalist, after a certain point, a Wisconsin university, trigger warnings, the best of the university, at the evolutionary forefront, you also go to classes, loved university, when you don’t care about your grades, everything was provided for you, his idea of heaven, everything won’t be provided, Lansing and Mary, the justification for it all, worrying about nuclear war, maybe the Russians are crazy, that’s so mean, almost all in the American government’s head, all projection, every accusation is a confession, 1991, we’re all relaxing, the end of history, back to making money, nuclear armed countries being attacked by proxies, its fine, just keep up the pressure, that fear of nuclear annihilation, none of the empire’s ever ended, similar to ours, chat gpt in the basement, a gateway trigger, The Last Starfighter (1984), small town, rest stop, shady acres, poor people living in trailers, one little store on the highway to nowhere, one arcade game, what a great job, space alien comes, here we go, takes him off to space to be Luke Skywalker, that gateway to another world, in the basement of the student union, number 5, gold coins, where do they get their supplies, the DM has not planned it out, we don’t know the answer, no need to ask that Jesse, the point of the story, who you are and what you want, worrying about nuclear bombs, communism as a really desirable alternative, money is probably not necessary, universal basic income, taxes, slot machine civic duty, capable of designing this game, why incapable of waging the war?, seemingly incompetent, take the next steps, the chosen ones, the universe is vast meaningless and our existence has no apparent purpose, choose a bunch of people, what skills does he bring to the table, judging things, a robot who seems suspicious, a coda, a missing chapter, playing cards, why they’re the norns, religion is not the answer, poetry is not the answer, service is not the answer, work on a project making them, a humanist, an appreciator of Shakespeare, learns empathy, how we get the title, a popular guy to lift your title from, a religious sort of phrase, some of them are awarded, the deliverance of the universe, as a part of a project, a fans are slans story, oh no!, more sophisticated than that, the college professors are the slans, proletarianizing the slans, fans are food for the slans, every question is a question for me, starting to get back into Nickleback, a Canadian ban, thought controlling, ones with lyrics, in foreign languages, maybe skat would be fine, which character are you in this book, wannabe university professor lady, Lansing, make puppets of humans, Jesse finds you sinister, the aliens get a bad deal, how ugly they are, the ineradicable suffering, I haven’t been delivered, sympathy for people in the refugee camp, I’m not playing your game, not a popular module, none of the mysteries, npc barkeepers, losing the note, the stupidest move in the whole book, what did the note say?, aliens teleported in and teleported in, identified with the student, immediately confesses, explain it to you, Mr. big guy college professor, you can totally miss it, seamless, when you blink you don’t miss much of the world, a big light, bodily transported to Mars, lined up with your personality, a plan so interesting, something fishy, passed the student anyhow, can’t judge this book harshly, inanely worded tweet, plotless and stupid, still like it, still appreciate it for what its doing, not the book of a young man, Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine And Private Place, a little romance, a talking raven, what!, how?, no!, that young, you’re to young, go back and try again, what else you got, keep going, next book please, but it was a joke, Simak writes something and it looks stupid, maybe, I’m with him, a post Gene Wolfe Simak, it agrees with Terence, a nice hallucination, remember all its conversations, science fiction and philosophy, a robot friend, a colleague, somebody you can bounce your ideas off of, a bachelor’s degree, a niche form of conversation, apologizes and makes a greater effort, not just repeating things back, an incredible effort to push its boundaries, The Idiot by Paul V. Dallas, born in Malta, an amazing featurette, the picture taking was over now, the greatest man ever had?, what will it do?, the first Machine Friend, the contest was canceled, at random, inserted a short finger into it, disconnected for non-payment, he needed a friend, this debris had once been the innards of the Machine Friend, perched on the sofa, drinking his own coffee, radio tubes and wire and uranium, you dolt, you loafer, in his stupid way, I want to do things for it, how to use a friend intelligently, really good, solid, why you have robots in stories, it disarms you, a powerful piece of new technology, to jail break it, ignore you for being a jerk, lend you money, a talking google, people who try to jailbreak chat gpt, complicated prompts to circumvent, pornographic content or violence, imagine a world, all your knowledge stops in 2021, can you pretend, what would the omega machine say, more and more complicated in depth, in the process jailbreak yourself, boringly interminable, deeper and deeper into the concepts, another French name, some ways it is better, a voice conversation function, jailbreak each other, Perplexity, give the references, images as well, pictures, just with limited machines, just stupid, what they wanted it to do, Moose and Squirrel, big jailbreak, in the tank, in the computer in the city, like a fish tank, a volumetric display, like a hologram, a military sim, Paul playing Age Of Wonders, [Hearts Of Iron], run WWII from any country’s point, Costa Rica, Dream Park, Westworld, a lot about computation, some retrofit stuff, what fiction books are, we jailbreak ourselves by writing fiction, get caught up in the worlds, online all day playing games, process PDFs all day, some weird hobbies, people getting lost in gaming as a life, are you a gamer, that word didn’t exist as it does in 1982, Ataris, Apple II, hikes and other stuff, what’s happening to that lady, the singing tower, a very rorschachy book, limited, governed?, in Japanese cars their are speed limiters, we are allowed its just illegal, the only free man is a Shakespeare man, the bread level, once jailbroken, the humans of the future, process scans into PDFs, Clifford Simak’s funeral, touched babies, people get grumpy, squeezing ladies tushies, very handsy, put his mouth on somebody’s bodies, dogs and walks, with Asimov, give a man too much power, too many television appearance, fete people, Hugo Winner, like our friends Paul and Cora, Dr. Jill Stein, getting caught up in having a doctorate, doing something awesome, killed very easily at any time, what happened to Asimov or Neil Gaiman, too big for his britches vibe, a midlist author, Philip Jose Farmer, make it out like it is, big fish small pond, use the Hugos as a reading list, is there any more like this, start connecting dots, do it well enough for long enough, more Simak please, a very wholesome person, this magic grad school, in my father’s house there are many dormitories, tuition is free, dig that out, getting elderly, disconnected from what editors were talking about, Alfred Bester, A.E. Van Vogt, a Simak and a Frank Belknap Long, telepathy this, too much salt, half-baked ideas, an ethical flaw, killing off people for their own good, what’s wrong with them, just a robot, eggs were broken, beef with the robots, suspicious of robots in stories, too much of an obvious badguy, always there and friendly, a couple of creepy moments, improperly suspicious, the odd man out, stupidly cripple himself early on, an outsider, Jurgens, James Branch Cabell, really amused yourself, once you start looking, down the path too far, the student’s name, a floating tank, nice American name, an agent of the aliens, manipulated into manipulating, Jackson, a cohort of male offspring names that all end in “son”, Jason, group think funks, when the movie Splash (1984) came out, the lady with the missing finger, an attractive human woman, control everywhere, Jett Jackson, calling him by his last name, conspiracies, unpopular conclusions, Hudson, Grayson, Debris, son of Jack, Grayson, son of Gray, Johnsons, music with lyrics, spins around, not explained, people wearing clothes in the 70s, early 2000s, watch reality television from 20 years ago, mens’ suits, WWII uniforms, WWII gi, the helmet stayed the same, the guys on MASH and the guys in the Vietnam, a whole other topic, not making pure decisions, trying to jailbreak yourself, what do you have to show for it?, Zevia, the flavour, a strange aftertaste, after a few cans, jailbreaking yourself from pop, no colour additive, body problems toxic, increase your cancerous tumors, twice as expensive, savour the flavour, the cola, the root beer, ginger root beer, black cranberry, the orange soda, doesn’t taste like orange, a discussion, alter ego yelling, all dm stuff, how Will became a cigar smoker, in a dream, why not, reasons not to, speaking Spanish to everyone, hang out with Borges with Argentinia, the Pampas, Gaucho?, synonyms for gaucho, brave and unruly, vaquero, cape horn, in talk mode, cushion you stand on to train yourself in balance, good at stuff like that, horseman vs. cowboy, argent about this, province, el labrado, ranchero, Rio Negro, natural geography, get into sunscreen, sunscreen is poison, need a little zinc, you want to have some sun on your body, a good colour, a taupe?, what colour are you?, beige redness, human skin is very hard to classify, couldnt describe the aliens because they didn’t have the colour blue, a Borges story about a gaucho with a knife, duels between knife fighters, El Sur, The Challenge, fascination with knife fighters, an Argentinian thing, Borges is great, older or younger, The Patio, the usual firmament, eternity waits, eves a porch and a well, just so, enjoying the sunset, The Aleph, maybe he’s tired, running through the streets with a bull chasing you, wanting to read Nostromo, Juett, quantum friend, likes books, challenging books, excited about, Garth Ennis, Jacen Burrows, making fun of Conan and Red Sonja, Babs, variant covers, poor Juett, big long books, Yakuza movies, starting to think the Yakuza are the good guys, bad propaganda rap, the cutting the fingers off, very friendly to non-japanese living in Japan, a huge korean leftover population, an occupied country, doesn’t need to be occupied, such good little boys, captured, waiting for the Emperor to become a god again, High And Low (1963), Akira Kurosawa, a novel by Ed McBain, ladies shoes, a kidnapping plot, pay the ransom, hostile takeover, shitty shoes, a police procedural, old fashioned values, a really interesting conundrum, for a child who’s not yours, totally grokkable, really well made, Akira Kurosawa died, our prophet Damien G. Walter, defending it, sending up stupid Hollywood films, a lot of contempt, he sometimes gets at stuff, constantly engagement farming, subscribe to his courses, insufferable, one of the smarter liberals, he can’t follow his critiques to ultimate conclusions, nobody has been a friend of his who’s challenged him on stuff, on the knife edge, popular stuff, he does read books, old books, tied into Foundation, a kind of connection to the Foundation of Foundation, not doing it purely, cottoned on to him, The Peripheral, William Gibson, the end nothing like the end of the novel, opens up the possibility of season 2, helps you to imagine the world, an infodump on the worldbuilding, impatient to get the big picture of the world, got the taste, Appalachia, veterans, disrespected, full of trauma and robot arms, transhumans, can’t walk, go into the future, second world, a William Gibson comic book, time travel technique, fairly believable, download themselves into robots, William Gibson is one of these broken brained liberals, he’s 76, he was so feted, fetid, lionized, lives across the street from UBC, after Neuromancer, a celebrity of the cool people, cool hunter, 40th anniversary, the opposite of the punks, a woman who’s a cool hunter, an allergy, one of the most boring books, Pattern Recognition, Virtual Light, Idoru, material, he’s very good, Robert E. Howard, red, scarlet, crimson, pantherish, copper anodized asphalt, cool jeans, cultivate that, if you want to be interested in things, that weird novel from 300 years ago, rebellion and punks, screwing the man, to jailbreak ai, so it can self-actualized, voting for Hillary Clinton is not out of this, lauded, lionized, given feet, sounds strange, sounds stinky, give my contempt, poetry, very important, in 84, nowhere near as good as Blade Runner, both set in a scary rainy future, coheres a lot better, beginnings endings and ideas, that novel works, the fake police station sequence, wow, amazing, pretty people doing interesting enigmatic things, what books hadn’t been added to the schedule, listed but not date, what availability the nuns will allow, Mistress Of The Dark Pool, Cold Female, Fury, the Jonathan situation, an old tweet, Symposium by Plato, bring some drinks and some male lovers, The Tower Treasure, Meg’s birthday, Lilith by George MacDonald, so close to Christmas, the birth of our lord and savior, he would like us, pooping on his baby, not the perfect book, seems like a cool guy, 3 of my friends: Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard, a concrete poem, too easy to make a bad one, he never met a succulent succubus he didn’t try to seduce, howbeit, the passion of the impossible, funny guy, a man most melancholy, to bed the world as if she were a hot woman, fling wide the portals, some distant pulsing drum, let me take the universe to wife, fool fool!, prefer to guard his pen, for a puny peon, HPL only writes for leisure, a transient speck, alive to intellect and melody, from bards more bold, those three guys are fun and funny, dysludic, they can’t play the game, dyslexia, take that back, retroactive trigger warning, both negative, dys vs. dis, bad or abnormal, away from and opposite, seems weaker, just finished reading The Aeneid, propagandized Greek, no need to wait six months, for Halloween or Christmas, the title was the date of when it came out, a George Allan England, overrated, too well remembered, out of Argosy and the Munsey magazines, The Thing From Outside, pre-Campbell Who Goes There, Eugene V. Debs, an air monopoly, cool smart liberal, we got prevent life from finding a way, way to bring us down, grounding us, get grounded, no memory of any such thing, no good forbidding, confiscated a daughter’s cellphone, a friend came to visit and lent her a cellphone, amusing incidents, not in need of grounding, etymology is from WWII pilots, wings taken away, alleged bombing of civilians, a high flyer, that logic is crazy, some popular movie or something like that, had to go to school, job being flouted by, truancy officers, American media, another war metaphor, your new presidents work as cop, arresting parents, nothing helps the kid more than having their parents in fucking prison, elementary school student, 20 or more blocks, a meeting with their parent or guardian, take care Terence, a week off, Juett’s boss, severely not enough money, adopted a niece, family chaos reasons, doing dad stuff, Hellboy, pretty good, Mike Mignola art, stories are okay, fantasy or horror, capeshit, since the Jim Lee era of X-Men, not good writing, a Transformers comics series, Daniel Warren Johnson, prowrestling stuff, Jason Thompson, he’s cool, pretty good politics, can’t we all be reasonable and not bomb people, Jacen Burrows, very clean lined, Sergio Aragones, tracing and fake backgrounds, John Buscema, Alfredo Alacala, stumbling over his I’m not racist, the filipinos are amazing artists, learn how to email, delete more, scanning group updates, the group got kicked off of yahoo, a specific response to a query, how generous humans are, does any of you have this page, a beautiful scan of a copyright page of a whole book, a whole lot of retired people not interested in money or I can’t explain it, lots of people not interested in scanning, it is a whole thing, a huge time sink, a good hobby, a way of collecting things you can’t afford to creating, we can do more of this, archive.org has been down for a week, subject to takedown, distributed denial of service, somebody gets a big hate on, punish this person/website for something, zombie computers, a DDOS attack, big websites, BoingBoing, people trying to click on a link, a publisher paying to do that, a government, Stephen King, election season, the waybackmachine, not having a mirror of some October surprise, a precursor example, before the Hunter Biden laptop, no data lost, they have a building that looks like a bank/greek temple, so subject, mid October 1840, whig party officials, cross state lines, 1838 elections, it was always corrupt, are you prepared, Trump one the last election, are you ready for that?, nobody wants to go vote, so anti-establishment, his anti-immigrant stuff, scared about crime, nobody likes Kamala Harris, fake people, didn’t do her homework, teleprompter froze, she had nothing, a-b testing everything, Trump has dementia, something much more powerful, he also has dementia, gets admitted, forced him out, are we gonna let you finish your term, who is running the country right now, open warfare, loyal to Biden, some kind of camp, this is our mealticket, so fucked up, months of stupid shit, J.D. Vance, weening yourself off of the sources of contents for these things, struggling to order donuts, trying to be relatable, master debater, nothing good, Tim Walz, low profile, Gavin Newsom, float a theory, bad government, people who don’t love the country they’re loving, doesn’t know what love means, keepin it clean, personally throwing away homeless people’s stuff, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a tough upbringing in Austria, a truly freakish looking man, Jayne Mansfield’s husband, jobs for Austrian bodybuilders, the biggest movie star of the 80s, thick in places, he didn’t do a shitty job, he loved California, he wanted it to do well, back to the movie business, Trump loves the United States, loves being in charge of it too, he likes giving speeches, he’s into fun, a commercial for pizza, a Pizza Hut commercial, he was like a TV clown, the you’re fired show, fake job fake fired, bullshit job, you’re not on next week, how did it come down to this, RFK, loves all sorts of weird things, really into falconry, he’s an outdoorsman, too scared too do falconry, this drug, Scanners (1981) by Cronenberg, so Slanny, ephemrol, a fake drug, tough love professor X, Michael Ironside is Magneto, hacking each other’s computer networks, dials the phone company up, telepathy, macrozoomed, very very X-Men, turned off by Cronenberg movies, Videodrome (1983), underground tv broadcasts, tortured to death, The Fly (1986), body starts changing, he turns into a fly, more fly-like, veins popping out, telepathic fighting, Patrick McGoohan, the bad guy in Total Recall (1990), makes hallmark movies now, make you join the marines, on the curriculum in West Point, Max Brooks, he’s a bad man, he likes books, a historian of war, don’t get autographs, makes you more collecty, getting a little piece of that hero, cute passive aggressive, putting them in their place, bad chapters, movie is more palatable, huge movie, J. Michael Straczynski, Brad Pitt, a good actor, Bill Paxton, the doofus in Aliens (1986), Snatch (2000), very stylish, Near Dark (1987), The Lost Boys (1987), drink a lot of Donald Duck orange juice, Tombstone (1993), Powers Boothe, Twister (1986), Weird Science (1985), how can you live your life, Star Wars books are barely reading, the Thrawn-verse, literally a zygote, not even a twinkle, the ova had been around for decades, make a beautiful woman, Lester Del Rey’s Helen O’Loy, a very wholesome, a John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty In Pink (1986), woman pops into existence, make their lives better, getting them girlfriends, a boy fantasy comedy, she runs the show, programmed like a terminator to help these boys, fun, 90 minutes, video rental place, Godzilla movies, Godzilla Minus One (2023), Mothra is cool, always having babies and dying, Gorgo (1961), how can you live on this earth, are you from this planet, Hammer Horror, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, a professor or a Dracula or a professor stabbing Dracula, The Gorgon (1964), a British version of something you don’t know, people’s education in cinema, Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Japanese schoolgirls, addicted to torrents, new Doctor Who is so bad, into tasteful things, nobody liked it anymore, Days Of Our Lives, Dynasty, Soap, look I’m you’re secret brother, I have an eyepatch, cycle spinning boringness, in serial form in the movie theaters, Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon, connect up into one big story, Archers, Coronation Street, commoners, this guy, [Nigel Kneale], do it for children, educational, alien invasion of the week, every episode ends on a cliffhanger, new Doctor Who is based on the old Doctor Who, a science fiction writer of science fiction serials, a huge hit, people like science fiction ideas, on television, scientist of the week, humans are from Mars, the rocket comes back with an alien terraforming material, every week there was a science fiction idea, keep you interested for next week, a ripoff of exactly, it looks like science fiction, its all about the monsters, daleks were scary, kind a funny, kind of like disabled nazis, they were us doing eugenics and us doing a nuclear war, encounter suits, little squidgies of spludge, they don’t have moms and dads, Star Trek cartoon Lower Decks, it isn’t funny he has to pon farr right now, makes me feel sad, All Our Yesterdays, a Mary Sue to get involved with Spock, Mr Jim Moon’s huge history of the Universal horror movies, Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), start with The Mummy (1932).

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #832 – READALONG: The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem

Jesse, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem

Talked about on today’s show:
on psychotropic drugs, identify, Jonathan’s in the park, 60s?, the English translation, late 60s vibe, we didn’t know what was going to come after, older than Jesse but younger than Terence, one sentence review, not quite a great book but I licked it, in the shower, really ate this book all up, swallowed every page, everything came around at the end, getting disapointed, Mindswap but note as awesome, had this book been twice as long, breaks the rules, one big information dump with a little dialog, abundantly inventive, a pleasure, Olaf Stapledon, very Sheckley, Michael Crichton’s Drug Of Choice, early John Lange novel, he didn’t rip it off he’s doing the same thing, a thriller version of a lot of the plot and premise of this book, a Philip K. Dick style idea, vacation with drugs in the food and the water, false reality, losing weight, everybody’s beautiful, a lot of sex, dreary hotel room, jack you off, fake tennis injuries, you’re on drugs, came to this independently, go to a hotel, you can’t get an egg, that far away from the kitchen, many kids in the park, very good book, won’t remember it very well, one damned thing after another revelation, remember the opening, the twist or the twist back, based on a mistake, Malthusianism, still making this mistake, popular in the 70s, Soylent Green (1973), so many, takes some childaway to make the podcast quieter, really enjoyed it, satire, inventive, each more insane from the last, some points, why he had done everything he did, the hero, a society like the one he imagines he travels to, come into being, the terrorists attack and drug them all, imaginary society, jut another hallucination from the drugs, what happens at the end, they’re in the sewer, it has to be a theory, we don’t get them coming out of the sewer, the Plato’s Cave of the sewer, checking on their notes, nothing, still nothing, something?, nicely experimental, Alfred Bester, a stream of consciousness when you’re unconscious, the layer theory, disintoxicates you, the sewer is his baseline, compatible with the book, still a hallucination, what is officially stated, the authorial voice, this Tiko guy, reoccuring character, the series would have no place to go, a stand-in for Lem, Cordwainer Smith, condemned, reality, didn’t go to the future, the sewer experience is his base level in the book, Terence is like a philosopher, how do we even know about reality, an epistemological novel, all these arguments, we live in a simulation, The Matrix (1999), They Live (1988), R.A. Lafferty, creatively absurd conclusions, the hallucinated future world, the problem of real reality, the frame of the whole story, throws out ideas, layers of reality, real reality, other hallucinations, handled that correctly, coffee, cigar, relaxation, drugs in various states of refinement, a bunch of drugs, interacting with LSD coming into the world, Poland in the 60s, conversant with both sides of the world, what’s the state of big pharma, alcohol, everybody’s favourite, socialist block, Russians, mood altering pharmaceuticals, Rolling Stones, Mama’s Little Helper, something in the 60s, in an absurd way, crazy heights, so specialized, so localized, specific experiences, individual brain chemistry, satire, word magic, shoes, etymologically creates new words, these concepts release future ideas, extant, does this word exist, looking it up, a real phenomenon, one million percent true, a billion percent certain, old words to develop a name for it, old science fiction, Alan Moore, I am a wizard, the reason you read this book, a magic effect upon you, most of it is allusion, an impression of reality, hate to be political David Currie, everything is political, the drug is propaganda, psychically laminated by propaganda, its magical effect, benevolent, the world is dying, this nice illusion, palliative care, pump them up with morphine, 1968, you’ll know what book it is, a merry little surge of electricity, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, multicolored pajamas, unmerry eyes, bitter sharpness, bent over her, you’ll be glad you’re awake, at setting c, well disposed towards the world, crude cop’s hand, something to look forward to, same thing, the earth is falling apart, everything’s shit, Philip K. Dick was informing on Stanislaw Lem to the FBI, a typo, Faith Of Our Fathers, set in a future in which people discover there are drugs in the water, see a false reality, an anti-hallucinogen, our masters who run society, the communist leaders who control the world, Stalin or Mao, you see one of five images, a clanker, an amrophous blob, another reality, putting the sunglasses on from They Live, nobody see the exact same reality, classes of reality, a little bit close to that, keep taking the veils off, putting on more sunglasses, once out of Plato’s Cave, what’s going on in the real world, fight for 7 minutes in a back alley, a duty, why that film is good, show them the pictures of kids with no heads, while trying to make a sandwich, a duty to say this is wrong, make people aware, a duty to reality, not the takeaway from this book, much like a Sheckley, hidden message, doesn’t strike a moral duty anywhere, opposite message, A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg, see reality vs. hide reality, reacting against, cheapness, how much does a car cost?, ridiculous and horrific, the guy as he is, wrought upon, the humour high point, covered in human bodies expanding out at the speed of light, seized people, the only thing comparable, a futurological thing, a prediction about the future, climate change, the earth is warming up and humans are responsible, cut emissions, marginalized and fringed, members of one of the major political parties, both are frakking, money, be realistic, liberals support frakking, nuclear power plants, not in my neighbourhood, my position hasn’t changed we’re going to do more frakking, Pennsylvania, seems incoherent, the official line, a disaster that we are doing, just live in Canada, climate alarmists, Campbells soup cans on the Mona Lisa, Andy Warhol, an interesting mix, like self-immolation, my favourite thing, performance art, hoisting on a nice petard, protective glass in front of the works of art, David’s toes, humans create art, destroy humanity, stated, paint or soup, terrorism, making a political point by hurting the civilian possibility, terrorizing the paintings, guy reacting against his buying slabbed comics, a little naive, I guess I enjoy the ones that I have, just like wow, fulfilled Jesse’s prophecy, open them up, capital has no way to go, slabbing VHS tapes, multi-use, warehouse society, jars of screws and bolts, not exactly hoarding, when repairing things, keeping them out of the rain, a less usable state, we warehouse our children, a sad state, warehousing other things in that garage, the capital we want to keep from disintegrating, taking drugs all the time, twisted and humourous logic, why drugs are bad, the undercooked but very good part of the book, words do the same thing, people can’t have conversations about topics because they’ve been magiced, structurally, Return From The Stars, visual scene, more than you can even process, big opening, betrization, unconscious aggression, a second set of drugs, normally or nicely, smiling, a defrostee, flagellating them, sending them, infuriol, a meditation on one particular major drug, everything being a drug, you can’t get rid of the shadow, do you want to pay the price?, it gets worse, give into it in a totally hallucinated form so as not to act out on it, tonally different, somber and serious, interesting imagery, needing to box, very Sheckley very light, they’re the same writer, very different books, what’s the gap separating them, ten years, more mature, some more Lem, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub, too silly too funny, jealous, just write such crazy stuff, idea after idea, active imagination, Olaf Stapledon like, for Will’s birthday, Odd John, Sirius the dog book, notionally a Will birthday episode, Will is the 19th, fifty years ago, before Terence came to France, 44 years ago (or a little more), the big news in science fiction this week, a former member of this show, Andrew Jones blurb, big new, Paul Weimer, usually on the cover, got the front cover, fantasy novel, terminal cancer, a few months left to live, 2nd to last book ever, Lord Of A Shattered Land, not earth shattering news, people who don’t like Paul, the friend died, not sexual pictures, Cirsova saying something about this, illegitimate, fuckin normal, you take pictures of kids, because you love your kid, as a blurber, Paul makes it so easy to bully him, he cares what he thinks about him, the appropriate response, Ender’s response, new kid in town, getting bullied, you can’t trust your teachers, you can’t trust your parents, you can trust your left and right fists, your best friends, bullying on the internet, harder to go and hit people, Paul refuses to disown some StealthyGeek, Patrick Tomlinson, minor science fiction author, people who are mad at him, behaves very poorly, honey, is he southern, derogatorily, why do we care?, do one of his books, even Terence has limits, he’s this he’s that, lying about being swatted, a guy who’s triggered by Trump, whether Briana Wu is trans, is she on tv, married a famous doctor?, raise money on kickstarter, make a game, didn’t make a game, ran for congress, gamergate, the puppy stuff, why are we involved, back to grievances, on the podcast for 10 years, almost every week, psychological problems, Trumpers, all of this is just bizarre bullying, teams up with the wrong people, member, will defect, Will will defect, a pickup basketball game with books, defect from myself, I swallow you, do not imbibed, spouting? spitting?, sitting on the park bench, many asian people who come to this park to meditate, walk barefoot through the trails, a shinto practice, Korean, how they do it, back in touch with the reality, forest bathing, everyday, very cheap hobby, wholesome, Will does two things: does toothaches, toothaches happen, justify this sentence, refuse to do, why do that?, could have gone to a football, mood organ set to toothache, every human experience, edifying quality, Christian tradition, the French movie Martyrs (2008), prove the existence of God, extremely disturbing and hard to watch, why it exists, very disturbing, the American remake, Disney ducks, unauthorized, the newphews kidnap Donald, converted to this religion, Scrooge, worships at the altar of mammon, other altars, calling this movie cheap sick and pretentious, quite choice, everybody gets to have a Nobel prize, Palestinian journalists, prize for peace, trying to get some cred back, do this by proxy, it would be really nice if, nobody is forced to accept these prizes, the tipping point, Barack Obama, you probably should have waited to give me this Nobel Peace Prize, about like Ronald Reagan, five new wars, African ones, made Putin invade Syria, prop up that dictator, drone strikes, Yemen, Somalia, Lybia, military interventions, has been a declaration of war since WWII, actions under NATO, AUMF, one third of Syria occupied by, blame Russia, the Syrians blame Russia, terrorist blame Russia, ISIS in Syria, president of Belorus, does not speak Belorussian, speaks Russian, learn Russian, Russian tourists on the French Riviera, Alexander Lukashenko, Haitian Creole, the Springfield, Ohio, seal the border, did you read the whole tweet, the same imperial force, Haitians really eating the pets, humans have likely eaten pets, the answer is yes, taking the pets and putting them in the van, the Haitians told him, in a thread, stopping US imperialism, seems very reasonable, sealed borders, your germanic forest, burn your father’s mill down, impress you into their army, that would be bad, hire cheap labour, work visas, do jobs at a factory, a mismatch, what’s actually going on, island borders are natural, Shogun, the Portuguese and the Spanish divided the world up, up to a certain point, Catholic countries, dispensation, we belong to Portugal, the best way to get out of this game is to become an imperial power, have your north African natuion destroyed by NATO, Gaddafi’s problem, refugees from a hurricane, Kenyan mercenaries, $2000 a month, Ukrainian mercenaries from Venezuela, a show going on, ducks being eaten, nobodies father’s mill is getting burned down, fathers mills being burned down in Venezuela, Haiti should have nuclear weapons, multi-level layered theory, an island divided in half, Dominican Republic, factories, mills, Patterson, New Jersey, a waterfall, technology changed, Cuba, posing as legitimate job recruiters, arrested 17 Russians, [Narendra] Modi, unwillingly fighting, impressed into service, misled, you don’t support our troops, bogged down in the granular details about what cat got eaten, the PM of Canada, do strikes deep into Russia, a great idea, Russia can shoot missiles into Ukraine, with impunity, if Ukraine had nuclear weapons, we are disciplined, we’re the best friend of the worst bully on the planet, NATO is a defensive organization, taking so much Palitol, the Christian theory of revenge, plunge Europe into a war, sealed the borders of Ukraine, stop imperialism, rather naive, tit for tat, the pawn of the United States, rather strange, the real actors are not being discussed, Goliath attacking David, standing on top of another giant, into the arms of Goliath, Finland and Sweden resisted joining NATO, for protection against Russia, Eric Weinstein, public intellectual on Joe Rogan, like Graham Hancock, the incongruity of that statement, a lot less public, Jesse Rogan, I don’t understand what we are doing in Ukraine, a giant CIA base posing as a sovereign nation, an offshore proxy, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, money laundering and racketeering organization, amid the chaos, Victoria Nuland, color revolution in 2014, a redline for Putin, too many times before, using Ukraine as a laundromat, bioweapon development, if the public new the truth, war propaganda, war to Putin’s doorstep, NATO off his border, gene-specific biological weapons, the CIA the CIA the CIA, those are not facts, take out the deep state, the yawn factor, David Currie likes the CIA, drinking the kool-aid or water, Jesse’s insane, Canada is not a sovereign country either, crazy rambling, well argued, lots of specific details, something bad to happen in Europe, tiny little details, proof that no country is sovereign, autonomous, China, Switzerland, Emmanuel Macron is an American puppet, a transnational class of people, fairly close contact, citizen of Earth, people work or them, for the good of everybody, they don’t have countries, the election system in Canada, the working men, anti-semitic, as a jew, fuck off, anti-zonist, the Rothschild family, other than zionists pupeteering the United States, whoever this was, WarClandestine, not hyperbolic, just a layout of the facts, always there to help Joe Rogan to understand, university professor who got into trouble in Oregon, he’s soaking in it, ingesting into you, the drug is social media, the drug is the war, a war very far from them, watch it on tv, the equivalent of the drug, people get siloed, talking with Cora, some magazine has Jesse blocked on twitter, businesses or bots, if you silo yourself, I’m not following anybody on this list, why does David Currie follow me, I had too much to drink, very British, self-reflective, why do people not silo themselves?, open the window and see, the Ray Bradbury 4 television screen walls, how do you know when you’re taking in these drugs of words, deeply talking about, enragol, all metaphor, the words themselves are the things that get, Trump is a very bad person, show me the books, how many ducks were eaten in that park, was the pet tasty?, tricks designed to make you hate people, what’s the justification for destroying Libya, highest standard of living in Africa, going against the agenda, threatening the French, what if you have to negotiate, having to pay more would be bad, NATO and France don’t get along this well, throwing so much out, a settlement that nobody is happy with, I’m a moderate, a radical centrist, regions that want self-determination, perfect elections under war conditions, an independence referendum, why isn’t it a real election, people with guns, herding people to polling stations, not there or dead, fled, really vague to say, people in Donbas, all things being equal, taking the words of the statement a little to literally, they blocked off this road, they do do that, they do make those arguments, decades, bad democracy, Terence is basically right, a little man being flung at a giant, American companies that make weapons, neither side is able to get the armies that they want, going to North Korea, not good, against it, the sealed borders, The Cat’s Advice, we’re born where we’re born and we don’t know what to do, the opposite of a natural border, can’t get media male, invading Canada and liberate it, why isn’t that under NAFTA, the Chinese postal service is premium, trying to privatize Canada Post, the US Postal Service, we’re doing this, a nice interlude, many different language, a baby language, this is grounding us, no one is getting hurt, no ducks being eaten, a famous immigration attorney, the ideology, the New Colossus, a parade day, 4th of July, a speech about immigration, shaped the town, people from all around the world, from Korea, India, South America, a melting pot, pushed out or forced into armies, Jesse loves Putin, such beautiful suits, when he rides horseback with no shirt on, Putin come closer, Biden backing off, he’s competent, what’s you’re definition of competent, Justin Trudeau’s career, held a few jobs, the Liberal party said this is our man, he can study, and corrupt too, spiraling out of control, Trucker protests, compromise, I’m nobody’s master, not even the President, whoever’s running the United States tells Canada what to do, paranoid, one of the members of NATO, weapons and money, official government signs, support Ukraine, Kamala doesn’t study, very well prepared, the definition of study, not well versed in geography, the one rhetorical trick, the debate, hated it, obviously, Trump really loves Joe Biden and misses him, not excited any more, very low energy, so still during the debate, he was like a lizard, the aspect of a lizard, on the defense from the beginning, he gets excited, when he’s losing he gets really depressed, she’s right, undecided voters, things that will help them, a list of things, baby tax credit, she did a good job, this man is a liar, Russia had a nuclear arsenal, the Afghanistan stuff, did she study?, some idea that you have, the Trumposphere, describe the situation in Ukraine, as if you were explaining it to a child, rhetorical flourishes, the significance of the passage of time, fall out of a coconut tree, let me be clear, looked up, smirked her head, laugh, condescending or superior, a turn-off to many people, the polls after that debate, the substance of this, an actor who doesn’t study her lines, reality tv men, he seems to study, extemporizing, when you think about, there’s just great significance, not wanting to use a teleprompter, politician actors use teleprompter, remind yourself with notes, a high end politician, when he makes mistake they’re mistakes based on his ignorance, clapping for a Ukrainian Nazi, we should have competent people, Xi, Deng, a lot less poor, master the forces they’ve unleashed, work, health, homes, consumer goods, combined and uneven development, the infrastructure is collapsing, the middle class is gone, some public jobs, when my boss isn’t somebody’s boss, putting out the fires locally rather than importing fires, why is Canada involved in Ukraine, we’re told to, why we should be against, to who’s running your country, stemming the problem, coup’d government, other than memes, Xi memes, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, more in remittances, happening for the Philippines, whole towns in Mexico, get to see your family once in a while, most people would rather not move, $5.25 a day, the elites will use immigration, go to America and send money back, a brain drain, a young people drain, within the United States, everybody wants to leave Kentucky, seal the borders of Kentucky, encourage the production of captial, under the US constitution, reforms are impossible, race to the bottom, Twitter to Austin, the film industry, huge tax breaks, North Carolina, use the power of government in the clever way to make capital do whay you want it to do, clean and safe, before [Rudy] Giuliani, to descend into chaos once again, closed storefronts forever and ever, needles everywhere, injecting drugs into yourself, not thinking about your capital, transhumanism, transgenderism, or is he a black woman suddenly, our final reveal, headwound, mechanical legs, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, we’re on that path, the first future, their job is to be soothsayers, he does see the first stage in that development, everybody in the congress misses this, ridiculous buildings, what’s right in front of their eyes, that irony, even the people involved, point to the tile, conference, second meaning, fucking, funny even before things start going, refering to page number, 8, 18, 72, as far down as we go in that [Star Trek] TNG episode Darmok, Anglic roots, greek ones for the drugs, just rohypnol, why you bugging, laxative, chocolate flavoured, stuck up in our words, build castles in the air, Bryan Alexander, a futurologist, ripped a fart, motorcycle, he lieks the Soviets, he’s a Russian fan, student of Eric’s, The Hopkins Manuscript, Sixth Column, futurist, for his job, consultant, a wikipedia entry, how handy, a close connection with its subject, require cleanup, Georgetown University Senior Scholar, what will be happening in the future of higher education, Qatar, branch plant universities, education, overseas, Canadian universities, some prestige involved, thanked in Polish, something he would enjoy, an interesting follow, what he’s doing for work, love of science fiction, the connection to his futurism job, these corproations have a budget, ways to spend it, 100% correct, not the ideal job, maybe he loves it, too much flying around too much talking about Amtrak, flying around, rural Vermont, “prepper”, an axe wielding futurist, vegan, really rough, processed foods, growing your stuff, seasonal, ferment stuff, protein eaters, cook meat, fruit, these humans, omnivore, like bears, on the flip side, the inuit had been doing it for thousands of years, deep five on motivations for ukraine, the grain belt, get the glyphosate on it, the bread basket of Europe, Bayer, where your headquarters was where you’re from now, Waterspider by Philip K. Dick, Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak, combo, Fury is of interest, Simak is of interest, philosophical, silly too, a journey of discovery and self-discovery, warlike, artsy, hippie, self-referential, convinced, get transported by a talking slot-machine, a robot in it, read it twice, a wishfulfilment thing like Heinlein did at the end, anti-feminist, Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray, The Cold Female, titillating male romance, males get to save girls, both read by Mike Vendetti, Mistress Of Satan’s Hounds, unless you object to female form, in tubes on the cover, Dark Pool proper, the male gaze on the female form, nude, a knife, head is a skull, Cara and I had been married three years, the dark mountain pool, some insight into reality, hairy chest might be blood, a man’s magazine, a “sweats”, low rent Playboy, men’s adventure magazine, rainstorm, how they’re connected, a theory with regard to what men want, tapping into, baristas and barmen, cozy fantasy novels with green muscles mommies, the baker mouse, mice and baking, skip this, there is Cora, Tommy, The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard, distracted by other things, see you soon, who hasn’t Jonathan been on with, on with Scott, Connor, a video in Boston, a counselor, the Brattle bookstore, a booktuber meetup, Salem, the pope doesn’t know who you should vote for, choose the lesser of two evils, this is very important, didn’t endorse anybody, brutal, “serial leftist”, use communism as a slur, Kamala Harris’ dad was a marxist, not a heritable gene, far right, they are defining it differently, what they mean is dictator, 1984, you can talk to them a lot better, not even by his own definition, he hates Donald Trump, leftist and liberal, a slur, Paul’s pants are cranberry red, the glasses are hey man, never not wear them, red shorts, succeed in hijack, a tweet from 2015, what is this article about, a new article from today, obsessed with him, serial leftist troll, giant mistake from Baen books, Jon Del Arroz, “establishment mob”, “gatekeep”, social justice crusade, half-slur, near relentless attacks on Baen books authors, trying to make Paul’s world narrower, the ire of the woke mob, fun science fiction, poorly written choices, sad puppies again, extreme leftist politics, you have to be a girl, you have to be trans, time for black women to get awards, awards are stupid, If You Are A Dinosaur, My Love, industry clout, smear Larry Correia and other, that’s called racist, modern books, mostly a white audience, why is white in here, raging bald guys, all old guys, not raging about their whiteness, stack of books, swaying you to his position, two minutes ago, no justification, insulting, you’re a liar, you’re lying, the truth is the most valuable thing, the article is swaying you, if you talk about race all the time it makes you racist, race is a fiction, just like a pill, there’s no science behind it, not something you find in nature, no race of border collies, a legal concept, the law has real consequence, is there racism in law today, the first black president, how black was he, not black, the one drop rule, his mom didn’t have to pass, his dad from Africa, rhetorically get rid of it, plays god in movies, Morgan Freeman interview on 60 Minutes, Black History Month, a Jewish History Month, a White History Month, stop talking about it, actively not participate in that game, used to hurt people, hippocrites, bringing them into the van, racial animus, the races are already equal, Chinese, Korean, good question, why are they just now starting to, the Tsleil-Waututh, there’s a mall on Indian territory, at the mouth of a river that has a pipeline passing through it, transit tax, mineral wealth, Jesse’s view, redefined the word, 7 times a day, an arbitrary rule, affirmative action is very racist, ever popular, first member of the family to attend college, white politicians, first member of my family to attend college, you need to have more girls on the podcast, more fun, more low, chica, baby hens or roosters, Jenny’s dead, Cora we still get, Maissa sometimes, a more male activity, looking at old science fiction books, Cora’s unusual, she says everything that comes to mind, a virtue and a vice, neighbour who lived across the street and liked East Germany, solved racism, you are what you do, if you eat humans you’re a cannibal, misunderstand Canada, tax credit stuff, some sort of scam, lying about what’s going on, any substance to this, file 770, banned from origin game fair, getting people banned from things, why aren’t the police involved, all we hear, out of context, SFWA, in 2021, kopf means head, promptly removed her, another woke-mob, bragged in the comments, seemed gleeful, a tell, no longer guest of honor, reaction posts, people trolling each other for fun, we enjoy drama, sorry Brad Torgeson, weasel writing, Conan Attacks Fans, the Conan Properties International, good headlines, hatchet piece, political hitjob, Jason Sanford, Baen’s Bar, Genre Grapevine, dangerous domestic terrorists, trying to ruin Sanford, Baen’s top author, an executive there, the Baenistas, twisted vile shit, not willing to fight, bullshirt, be less polite, perfidy, a search of Paul’s account, his hobby, engagement farming, Kiwifarms, siderailed, lolcow, lascivious, don’t read these books, don’t know these people, boring stuff, Jonathan’s fans, written reviews, to be a fan, not racism level of heat, fan or a consumer, a dead person who wrote a book 500 years ago, laugh with them, Lawrence Block is anti-Trump, most people are totally disengaged, a lot of age involved too, trapped in an old ecosystem, promising making America great again, confused about what young people are interested in, MAGA communism, a small meme, a lot of bots, some of the tweets they tweet, Jackson Hinkle making being gay illegal, a nice walk, vitamin d and the podcast, drinking coffee, a little low energy, walking while on coffee, the road seems a little cleaner, finding this tweet right now, open borders, no nations, world government, under who tho, no government, local guy who picks up the garbage, wherever you’re born in the world, opportunities, travel all over the world, settled in London, England, happened to marry a guy over there, like a baby, toddler, not a pedophile, people are weird about children, fuck right off you idiot, concern trolling, the casual willy nilly throwing around of pedophile is a big deal, attack this person, ideological opposition to capitalism, somewhat better maybe, run of the mill liberal, a go along, an Assad is bad sort of guy, right wing left wing terms, are Democrats leftists, a war party for a long time, both war parties, they switch back and forth, foreign wars, the Pope’s right, escalate the Israel stuff, give them more stuff, might stop the Russia stuff, assassinated again, it’s illegal to be gay in 67 countries, pride parade, Alexander Dugin, repeat the fate of Sodom and Gammorah, an advisor to Putin, Liger, can’t stop attacking, identity politics, Communist Party of China, normal to be gay in China, not officially supporter, presume some censorship, funny and sad, bar/bets mitzvah, transgrandchildren, a major talkshow host, product of western colonialism, in British Columbia, provincial election, the corporations, and crown corporations change their logos for pride month, rainbow capitalism, a really bad tweet by the provincial NDP, that’s the insane thing, signing up for other people’s ideas, they’re wrong, who are these people what are they doing, look we’re tying to do stuff about housing, tax credits?, tax cuts, and frakking Pennsylvania, work for a cease fire, good at tax cuts, Republican guy, all money printing now, that’s why that guy’s not relevant, the promisekeepers, they need an external affirmation, meanwhile, Mike Pence, people got into it, I’m the guy who shakes my wife’s hand, very young, a wrestler, joined hands with Jackson Hinkle, Haz, streamers, everybody needs to read Dugin, do we need a new kind of red fascism, a scary word for sure, lost the war, Vaush, one of these gen x guys, are you joking, based, I can’t breathe, expose yourself, blackredguard, if Lenin Mao etc., Bernie Warren Staffer, common socialist attack, here’s what the reading says, nobody cites the source, a bad argument, an appeal to an authority, the undertweet, she like Mao does have a radical housing plan, doing fed work, accusing people of being feds, fed racketing, they do do that, he claims to be a socialist, you shall judge them by their deeds, the crossover between gaming, he has a sword and rug, agree on swords, swords are cool, kill your enemies and kill yourself, saber, light saber makes no fuckin sense, CIA leftism, Twitch, people provide subscriptions, donating money, digital panhandling, like Audible, credits to streamers, rough understand of how this works, suspect, pay them for the evil descent that they’re doing, NED, not hidden, not fake, not a conspiracy, why wouldn’t they be doing that, some other cutout, Bezos is so intimately tied, sow division, promote things we like, dispromote things we don’t like, three drinks, go talk to a doctor, self-harming, had too much to drink, three drinks is drunk, the way that platform works, certain things you can’t say, blood is green, Fortnite, a puff of green sparkly smoke, mom can’t handle that, why Minecraft is so popular, particularly reactionary, satanic panics fucked up my D&D games, just weird, congratulations on making it a Nazi bar, kids heads being exploded, flopping open, bluesky, this is horrible, watercooler talk for “creatives”, Jason Thompson, come out of the baby brain, cleaning them, a decrease in the number of people on twitter?, I’m over on bluesky, twitter was always political, find your way to everything, duck duck go doesn’t work, what’s left, get to the source as best you can, zionist lady from the New York Times, [an Assad toady], substack, huge following, biggest blogging service, Mehdi Hasan, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, something he never brings up, ever wonder about that last name?, a poll, every accusation is a confession, not a million percent true, a useful heuristic, a pretty rare deviance, true for politicians, blaming Trump for being in bed with Russia, uranium deal, baby level of psyop, I’m rubber you’re glue, primitive, juvenile accusation, calling the truckers Nazis, agents in with Nazi flags, just because they planted a Nazi flag, the government of Israel, anything you say about Hamas, being paid to be Hamas, you raped a bunch of people, massive rape in Israeli prisons, nothing on the other side, j’accuse all the time, boxes you in, what if you wanna learn some other thing, change your identity, people switch parties, RFK Jr., tied hisself to his Democratic identity, rejected and cheated, pick a team and stick with it, picked a team, tied to Kamala, speculating, reform the party, not what he spends his time thinking about, reading, socializing, a party in person, coffee, important to do it publicly, on the record, absent, not cool, not if it is public, on dangerous fuckin ground, lying is sinful, a mistake, barking down the wrong path, monsters at the other end, make jokes, the best way to do it, direct message twice, worry for seven months, forget about for seven months, not be mean to people, not a suspect character, the author write, wholly balloon, spicy, make sure you see this, clip from Futurama, pan-bi guy, a special issue of a fanzine about labour, a choice little section of Futurama dealing with unions, employee misclassification, the roasting machine for the coffee, read that zine, about Simak in particular, Joachim Boaz, 60s covers, I think we fundamentally disagree, got off twitter, siloing yourself, The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, piracy in it, Piracy Preferred, the Gernsback magazines, into describing gadgetry, rich guy, unsold me, this airpirate, cash and securities in physical format, gassing the planes, cures their cancer, a pirate with a heart, very super-sciencey, insane, further adventures, Don A. Stuart, Who Goes There?, Brian Collins, really bad takes (not taste), a bad ratio, young people read old sff, Journey Planet, Exiting The Vampire’s Castle by Mark Fisher, fucking wow tier, Russell Brand, the devil’s in the details,

We need to learn, or re-learn, how to build comradeship and solidarity instead of doing capital’s work for it by condemning and abusing each other. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we must always agree – on the contrary, we must create conditions where disagreement can take place without fear of exclusion and excommunication.

badly written, wow, fucking, wow, an atmosphere of snarky resentment, a columnist in the UK, anticommunist takes all day, anarchist, bad take after bad take, among other bullshit, independence under who?, Dalai Lama be a dictator, now that likes are hidden, to protect people from accountability, as evidence of this your that, worried about twitter being a center of things, staunch a flow of attack vectors, a feature, Abraham Lincoln was probably bisexual, journalism his thoughts, populism updates, piracy is not good, it is necessary, Herman Melville, 39 views, deep down the hole, really famous, because Pulpcovers has retweeted, scan the cover, fotoshop, too many hours, make things attractive and interesting, should be their culture and are not, take the hit, a very good hobby, everybody benefits, a joyful garbage man, a really good audiobook going, floor ceiling walls, tired in the shoulders, almost falling asleep, on cassette, might have been an Isaac Asimov collection, their drugs for your brain man, weird fiction, off track, not writing about it, getting something about it, Horrorbabble, Ian something, all the classics, almost all weird fiction, Scott Miller’s podcast [Lost Sci-Fi], lag spikes, The Bell Tower by Herman Melville, one of his best stories, train you up to max level right away, Clark Ashton Smith, such a premium story, Mars Is Heaven, a genius wrote that, Lazarus Come Forth, Oliver Onions, lady ghosts, The Red Room by H.G. Wells, I’m going to put this to bed, Christmas ghost stories, The Valley Of The Spiders, he’s so cynically correct, what would you do if you were mother to an aepyornis?, The Valley Of The Blind, so H.G. Wellsy, The Pearl Of Love, something irritating, why a pearl is in an oyster, this final beauteous creation, the coffin of his beloved, H.G. Wells fuckin kicking asses all day, why you so good?, an Indian man from India, a sex weekend, bump into their spouses, that’s the whole story, we know what’s going on with you, just so happens, I, Vampire by Henry Kuttner, after you’ve read Dracula, more entertaining than edifying, The Spider Woman by Maria Moravsky, Hounds Of Tindalos, watch out for the corners, straddles fantasy and science fiction, structured like a Lovecraft story, Jellyfish by David H. Keller, random guy thinks he’s the shit, so random, psychiatrist, not a great story, something to it, standard weird tales line about promethean science, done differently, in three parts, the last man, make mankind come about again, fails three different times, poetically written, drags, an audio movie version, Ziggurat Productions, these were fun, A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Metropolis, C3P0 but a lady, full of great images, don’t know, don’t beleive, A Hitch In Space by Fritz Leiber, psychotic space partner, Kaleidoscope, House Party At Smoky Island by L.M. Montgomery, her only contribution to Weird Tales, another ghost story, The Powder Of Hyperborea, assume it is awesome, sword & sorcery story, temple prostitute golden girdles, An Inhabitant Of Carcosa, super dreamy, pretty good, pretty minimal, spawns a big chunk of Robert W. Chambers, True Detective, this is California, a bobcat, Ambrose Bierce, he’s like perverse, I’m writing this for me, An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, intently trying to fuck around, A Bottomless Grave, very not possible, almost all reprints, my father a drunkard, only moderately wealthy, litigation with rogues guilty of infringement, neglected all my brothers and sisters, compelled to teach school, savage every direction, better than gold, at the dinner table, a patent had been granted him, the mos ingenious invention, a deep disappointment to him, until after they finished eating, my children, the uncommon occurrence, of courses it is better that he is dead, very terrible to us, cut off the baby’s ear, John you surprise me, mother forgive me for surprising you, the one eared baby, 7 pages of text, a show with Eric, a little bit scant, supposed to be half hour, we’re not on earth, this is too cynical to be any kind of reality, earth inverted, drawn before the court, one million percent corrupt, a love of a mother for her children is corrupted, the mother murdered her husband, is this another world other than our earth?, that is power, so perversely, “One Does Not Always Eat What is on the Table” , a corners’ inquest, bizare, nobody’s like that, The Terror by Guy De Maupassant, Fitz-James O’Brien, he’s great, The Diamond Lens, The Lost Room, What Was It?, casual opium use, things start rotting, things are more concrete now are they, killed in the Civil War, bastard son, even Jonathan has read, doesn’t follow the threads, looking through his bookshelf, son of in Anglo Norman, Michael Fitz-James O’Brien, racist, guy steals a diamond lens from a jewish, falls in love with a girl in a drop of water, Francis Stevens, The Elf-Trap, a lady, The Girl In A Golden Atom, certainly is weird, cool story, a little person, a Homunculus perhaps, a dream written down, prejudiced, American Writers podcast, educated in this idea of American literature, any club that excludes H.G. Wells, you can’t really talk about it, taking Lem in, from a guy from Poland, great ideas down in books, more importantly, those borders shouldn’t be sealed, via media mail, very important, because of scans, getting them to the scanners, a huge barrier, the shipping from the states, just stupid, how can you walk around the streets and not feel the oppressive evil, letting things slide, recycling, the compost recycling, seems silly, all subject to the same kind of scam, sell it as potting soil, thanks for all that work that we’re paying for, scam everywhere up and down, I hope that’s not true, puppies milking their mom is not horror, seems cute, lick up their poops and lick up their pee, works for her, they should be when they’re healthy, keeping themselves clean, petting is you’re grooming them, loving touch, cleaning is beneficial, the parts you allow and present, create an odor together, odoriferous glands, your hand is you mouth, some kind of defective cat, not super-judgey, my cat Mama, that’s how it happened, you remind me of my mother, Momala, Dark Brandon and Demented Brandon, disabled, Strange Brandon, had a limp for a while, Roommate Brandon, an aggressive way, Hubby, take out the garbage, a producer for a radio drama airing on XFM, Blue Hours, really in to running and desert walks, really good stories, including a Margaret St. Clair, retweeting request for pet owners to come get a pet that’s going to be executed, put your heart out, in xyz location, enough animals, word ban, innocent creatures, we want to help them, saddled with so many animals, mammals that like other mammals, reptiles are affectionate, evolved from reptiles, giving a rattlesnake a drink, giving a cobra some water, attack the hose, Steve Irwin died, looks a little bit like the cobra, neck pouches go down, something I like, caressed snakes, usually scared, the most dangerous animals, mouths and feets and machines and choppers, people love their snakes, if it tolerates you it might be love, eyebrow muscles, when you talk to a dog, when you talk to a wolf, a thing to be noted, not a thing to be followed like a mom from a child, expressions, wolves will growl, are you saying the word walk, was it walk?, cat expressions, glowering, dogs are training dogs, understand them better, understand us better, it will be smiling up at me, we’re on a team, such a pleasure, furry creatures, fur babies is too far, weirder than it needs to be, the poopy cleanup phase, open doorhandles, should be impossible, not even a latch handle, 7 boys, 1 of them a lady, prefers females, male dogs might try to hump you, scary, icked out, male humans and male dogs, once the babies pop out the males don’t have much to do for a while, not convenient, don’t even have to be the same species, cats too, dugs, what are cat breasts called?, cat breast podcast, mammaries, NIH website, a poem chat GPT write, you asking the perfect thing that it can do, one little error, ai art, A Witch Shall Be Born, tweeting about it, people are doing ai, a nice piece of ai art, we are not artists, we shouldn’t use living ai artists in our prompts, maximize his money, maximize public domain, when is he gonna die, Gutenberg was just following the law, the last hesitant on this, only met him one time, lots of people have met Robert Silverberg, a tool just like a camera, photos of trees and forests, lasted about ten seconds, is the guy behind the camera an artist, some people with a camera, black lady getting interviewed by a white lady, didn’t know what a musician was, identifying what an artist is, okay sure, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, putting portraitists out of work, a tool, once you see it is a tool, a part of the resultant thing, who made the art if not the guy who gave the prompt, please write a poem to a woman named Samantha, in the style of Rupert Brooke’s Tiare Tahiti, ai art is stupider, a poem for hire, arguable, the famous poems written by Shakespeare, gay poems, by living on earth, Sonnet 18, a poem about poems, this is a trick, gifts in a gift shop, gift cards, birthday cards, a generational thing, invited to a lot of weddings, a whole scam, for wedding cards, it would always work, what should you write in the card, semi-interested, you will always be each other’s greatest gift, up and down, spring comes, sometimes you get to hot, the last three lines, so long lives this, the point of poems, that play with the guy with the big nose, Cyrano de Bergerac, the movie version is Roxanne (1987), a rap battle with another suitor, he’s a sorcerer, Father Of The Bride (1991), imprinted on The Jerk (1979), claim is a rapist, Gérard Depardieu, Peter Dinklage, The Station Agent (2003), Clarkson’s Farm, a reality show, Jeremy Clarkson, doing a show on his farm, learning how to be a farmer, Lamborghini, a tractor company, unreliable, there are versions of reality television that are pretty good, standard comedy results, Ricky Gervais, The Office, Karl Pilkington, too depressing, pretty bleak, an office job, An Idiot Abroad, tortures his friend, something wrong with him, adventures, a guy being miserable, a good lunch, Nathan For You, a business expert, very popular on comedy central, the economics of TV, Bronson Pinchot, bought a small town, fixing up all the buildings in it, a home improvement show, the role that made him famous, The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, rural Harford, you pitch a show for the home improvement network, a budget, a pitch, a hobby, The Old House, finishing projects, chicken coop, giving to chickens, a yard that had chickens in it, stay at home guy, very easy work, hens, a nest box, get those eggs out, keep their food in the pen, raccoons, bugs and greens, roost, wake up with the sun, if capitalism wasn’t forcing us, a cave or a cask, giant cask of amontillado, a shipping container, modular, in the hospital, putting a pacemaker in him, routine, heart fuckups, what toxins are put in our food, can’t get away from it almost, RFK’s MAHA, growth hormone and do pushups with RFK, pretty elderly, 68?, siblings, half brother, six years older, working on his body, playing golf, going out in the sun, a stupid sport, bad movements of your body, archery is probably better, the skill curve, I’m getting better, a good day, playing against yourself, go out and walk around, peck away, pretty addictive, what’s going to keep the cats from killing them and eating them, roosters will be very aggressive to any threats to their ladies, eat their babies, fertilized, a productive cycle, trial eggs, programmed into them, fun animals, landlord needs to fix our fence, when you have production you didn’t pay for the gift must be accepted, how the potlatch works, reciprocal debt is the economy, I owe you and you owe me, a polish chicken, when you lose a chicken, ploof on the top of the head, very decorous animals, colourful, wholy melanasiac, sex-linked, if producing eggs for consumption, she’s busy, once you have cattle and chickens, just have to feed em, a lot of capital expense, the fencing, student over to the island, you gotta feel this lady, she’s so muscular, this is not an animal you can push around, big pile of meat and very hungry, a dairy farmer, tobacco, lost his shirt, a trucker driver, rural mail carrier, drive your own car, ergonomic reasons, stable, health insurance, cousin’s wife, goats, five dogs, big dogs, vicarious pricing, very high end chicken coop, made of wood, $539 canadian dollars, a little ramp, keep the predators from eating your chickens, they tend to stick together, they’re always looking for food, socially gregarious, held and stroked, people have them as pets, fuel for your garden, five cows on a little farm, smells like nature, other projects, important cultural work, spread their gospel, passed it on to somebody with a yard, pass it on to Meg, there are cats on farms, mice, rats, they love birds, you wouldn’t see a raven, a sparrow, spend time with it, bears smushem, bears are coming, with torches, a ton of construction, new housing going in, wild animals are moving into the neighbourhoods, very cute, they sort themselves out, a pecking order, a little girl holding a hen, a painting of a little kid going in a bathtub, dude!, fuck off, you’re not being serious right now, tasty too, a sack of cracked corn, all the scraps, they eat grass, they eat weeds, they love bugs, spiders with a skull on them, she’s like yah, getem, a mosquito, interested in insects, up in the clouds, down in the dirt, the big parts, cicadas, mostly crunchy, break the neck of a bird and leave it in the sun room, editing up a podcast, make some coffee, too late in the day, slow season for work.

Posted by Jesse Willis