The SFFaudio Podcast #865 – READALONG: A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson

The SFFaudio Podcast #865 – Jesse, Tony De Simone, and Maissa Bessada talk about A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson

Talked about on today’s show:
the last Deep Space Nine novel, Armin Shimmerman co-wrote The 34th Rule, The Laertian Gamble, Robert Sheckley, John Gregory Betancourt, Kristine Kathryn Rush, Esther Friesner, performing Quark, pinches his nose, Maissa will like this book, so right, very actoryly, an actor prepares sort of thing, how do I get into my role?, diary entries, apparently yeah, that’s the story, elements, scenes that are from the show, the way it is told, moments, backstory is the bulk of the book, after the show’s over, deep into season 7, destruction of Cardassia, his mother, Neela, episodes with her?, the housekeeper, months ago, coming, he’s the whole show, the focus of the show, steals the spotlight, great screen presence, how he got his start as a movie star?, Jeffrey Combs, Re-Animator, H.P. Lovecraft 80s movies, Brunt, Lower Decks, alternate universe Garak, delete it, there’s no such thing as a prequel to a prequel, getting the plans, what’s gonna happen next, a prequel to a prequel, fuck you with the spoilers, when the movie Alien 3 was gonna come out, walk straight into the middle of the theater, a terrible movie, fragility statements, you’re on a boat, your gonna get seasick, don’t worry about it, you can’t help them by hiding information, popular to ‘ship Garak and Bashir, neither characters are gay, Bashir is intrigued by Garak, very lonely, what’s canon, he writes Garak as bisexual, one line, the guy that he murdered later, everybody finds him attractive, palindrome, set to marry, if you were really lovers, you would have, hurt by that, happy to be close to people, that’s not really it, made lonely, closed off society, a very good deep dive on a weird society, Deep Space Nine, if it is a metaphor what is it a metaphor for?, Cardassians, TNG, Ensign Ro, in the build up of those worlds, a 1984 planet, the Obsidian Order, the occupation of Bajor, israelis occupying palestine, the occupation of Ireland by England, not a perfect match 1 to 1 for anything, all those circular conversation, all true but all lies, he built it into this backstory, his father is not his father, that girl is not his lover but she is, he’s his uncle, not just being cucked, he does love him, a man who’s raising you, the shipping thing is at its worst, at its most parodic in all the mirror universe episode, just Ezri, kissed on and kissing Kira, a lesbian in the alternate universe, Ferengi Zek, to ‘ship people, have sex with Jadzia, like a cartoon universe, not terrible trek show, more of that, in the original Trek too, episodes written by fans, The Empath, torture Spock and McCoy, interesting, but terrible, what’s going on really, not some idea they’re exploring, pick your favourite episode of Deep Space Nine, a clone of himself and he doesn’t know it, a ripoff of a great Philip K. Dick story, a sad one, Molly falls into a time hole, a ripoff of Iceman (1984), Rom bunts, declare victory, what it is actually is philosophy, pastime, recapitulation, working together as a group, so many things going on in that episode, a way to defeat the vulcans, what a great episode, kicks him off the team, doing life wrong, the heart of the show, he looks like a loser, thinks he’s cute, awkward dumb and smart, Ferengi kids, what Garak thinks about baseball, wrestling and boxing, team games, basketball and baseball, incomprehensibly inane, sent to boarding school, very similar to what the Spartans did to their children, denied enough food, denied safety, thrive or die, loses an eye, happy to have, time with their mothers, learn the war arts, have to steal, caught stealing food, learn to be resourceful and tricky, graduation, surrounding a Sparta, Helots, secretly murder, told from the Athenian point of view, apprenticeship, this class of people, the elites, the sons of the nobility, famous boarding schools, Sandhurst, rule parts of the world, John Buchan, many many such cases, abusive and fucked up and weird system, kills a bunch of Romulans, false flag, In The Pale Moonlight, the machinations behind it, evil vs. necessary, used to create that character, forced his teammate to kill himself, trained and brought up, little pet, kidnapped from its family in the desert, “Meela”, contradicts the fact, learns to blend in and disappear, essentially a chameleon, a gecko, his skin can’t change colour, the background for it, trolls, they’re more like frogs, always raining on Ferenganar, round mud huts, the Wayoun character, Odo, an uplifted species, ape-like, squirrels, living on nuts and berries, give them a gift, turned into slaves, a built in false-consciousness built into your genetic code, a little bit of blue on the spoon, did they evolve from reptiles?, possibly also bajorans, it doesn’t have to be he literally is a reptile, being reptilian, be so mean and torturey, they’re just like us, Quark is praying, a slip of latinum in the ear of the divine treasury guy, bribes the god with the coin and sneaks in with a mask later and steals it back, dark and mysterious, a great backstory that allows it, Kira’s backstory, her spiritual religion prophet stuff, all there already, the most mysterious character has the most fitting backstory, written in first person, best written, better written than most books, the actor was using this stuff to help tell the story, the sympathetic character, awful things, a real theater person, one other way of thinking about this is a one man play, 12 hours long, impressive, indulgent, paid all the receipts, his Odo is pretty good, Dabo girl trying to kill him, does Kira fine, we’re getting it from his POV, backstory is enough, is this a science fiction novel?, no it is not, a one man show set in a science fiction universe, “science fiction wallpaper”, no exploration of technologies, the wire, that episode is about it, a character focused story, a really good book, a really good exploration of how you come up with a character that’s interesting, make it fit the facts, working backwards, he had those things, how, why, referring back to the show, nicely woven, stitched up, the wholecloth of this book, where Garak is introduced, the only Cardassian on the station, nobody knows, why is he acting that way?, in continual use, he could handle the isolation and the hate, that signature smile, evil smile, hiding his feelings, pain becomes pleasure, he’s floating, a really good thing to add in, always has to reflect back of what’s on the show, a disjointment there, Sisko has sex with Jadzia, taints their relationship, lusting after Jadzia, Quark, Worf, Bashir, Kira’s after her, when she dies, Ezri is terrific, a really good character, more of a counsellor than Deanna Troi ever was, remember Barkley?, a mix of really good science fiction ideas, social ideas, what does it mean to forgive your enemies, silly episodes, Sisko thinks he’s a science fiction writer in the 1950s, the canonical stuff, what’s going on with Jake Sisko, or Nog, what a great arc Nog has, the best Star Trek show, one of the most interesting characters is Garak, Andrew Robinson, the main badguy in the first Dirty Harry movie, Clint Eastwood needs to kill him, typecast, Hellraiser movie, psycho-killer, he’s just a stage actor who likes meaty roles, tried out for Odo, Rene Auberjonois, the biggest and most interesting acting role for almost any actor, the expanded the role, interesting character, because of what he did with it, this doofus, the Rom and Leeta episode, he’s a cartoon, tries to get Vic Fontaine to take him as his opening act, making it all fit together, tailoring it, what do you do on a show like that?, build sets, sew costumes, put on a lot of makeup, can’t I be a human this episode, guest stars not wearing their makeup, interactive with the material, prescriptive, a premise, a weak one, Bashir falls with the weak boned girl, flying planet, never comes up again, she’s in a wheelchair, let’s put a blind person on the bridge, doesn’t come up that much, let’s do something a little interesting, what do they need a tailor for, bartender, replicator, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, gardener, tending the memorials, he loves his country, Family (TNG episode), after the famous Locutus of Borg, vineyard, post traumatic stress, fall down in the mud, get back to the show next week, such a rich world, soft science fiction, it is not about technology, it is about society, David Ogden Steirs is an elderly scientist, make their star better, handwavium, a program where the kill everybody after a certain age, break with his society?, not accepting euthanasia, a thing that comes up as an idea, shell shock, another name for it, drink yourself to death, awareness of this concept, the soft sciences, where is the idea in here?, there really isn’t one, what Paul called this, spaceships on the wall, robots, non-science fiction novels by Philip K. Dick, the principal is a real bitch, he just can’t say the word robot, he’s trying to understand why people are so weird, quite a personality, robot taxi drivers, please don’t stiff me on this fare, one of the weird things about Star Trek, robots, the Doctor or Vic Fontaine, sentient ais, where are you drawing the distinction, a very specific tradition, slavery, a story about slavery, replicas, sewer cleaners, not usually the best episodes, Voyager, 7 of 9, being freed, that kid she frees from the borg, you are put into a cult, the bad cardassian, is this Gul Dukat, his father died, a Pah Wraith cult on Empok Nor, obsessively sexing after Kira, kidnapped by her childhood priest, current teams plan, are you serious, this meeting will end in 15 minutes, defaults at 1, premium features, a pay system, that’s why they wanted to switch us, transistor fm, something built into Brave, short ones, a popup, distracting, something interesting, listen in 7 months to find out what it was, not happy with this system, Brave Browser, like Netscape?, Chrome, Safari, they don’t have any money like Microsoft and Google, its built in naturally, blocks up every pop-ups, no cookies, no ads, on your phone, make your life a lot better, wonderful, a system like skype, until fuckin today, a scene, going along, her childhood priest shows up on the station, spiritual development, faith and prophets, a lady on the station who’s gonna give birth to a baby, half-Gul Dukat, a miracle, tries to murder her, suicide pills, the one for him, is that a science fiction episode?, what’s going on with that, is it a miracle, a weird kind of science fiction, language as a technology, learn rhetorical and argumentation, what an ad homenim is, logical fallacies, tools to escape problems we create with language, what good writing looks like, in essay writing right now, people are using Chat GPT for the homework and their fiction novels, really good at grammar, dangling modifiers, makes writing pablum, designed to fill pages, instead of 6 words its 48, like we’re required with at work, a repository for this shit, when we go to Quark’s bar, the experience, who’s comin’ out of the holosuites, interact with people, Sisko’s dad, what’s the purpose of running that restaurant, paying customers, is it possible to have purpose without just gaining money, a journalist, get his stuff published, he lives with his dad, he would like to have some purpose, supportive of all that stuff we did get out of Garak, addicted to this tasp, Larry Niven wire, video games, you fix up an old car, the cleaning and the finding only takes seconds, 13 seconds, accomplishment, a fake car, maybe it feels real, science fiction ideas hidden in the show, how is it such a good book?, how much the worldbuilding felt real, a lived in culture and society, science fiction setting, felt real, that cartoon, its memberberries, make jokes, it is the salt vampire, over the top, are there any science fiction ideas explored in it, the characters, feels like a real lived in place, relatable stuff, do I relate to Garak, related to Boymler, that’s me, empathy for him, understand his backstory, a Jesse problem, why is this thing suck, why is this think good, the Obi Wan show, Andor’s amazing, really solid, emotional change, a reflection on reality, this is a colour revolution, post-Soviet States, to establish western style liberal democracies, Tienanmen Square, what is it exactly?, is that happening because people don’t like their system, no it isn’t happening without foreign involvement, there was a big long backstory to it, snipers were shooting at people, something bigger than it was going to be, killing people who are protesting, a functionary in the intelligence bureau, she’s good at her job, I see local corruption, become a couple, eventually he is put into position to become a spy, the best kind of revolt is one you are in charge of, stealing weapons from themselves, that’s a real phenomena, Putin is Hitler is very simple, sophisticated information, it doesn’t hurt the same way, brutally repressed, particular flag, it’s not Christianity, just good, technological stuff, historical stuff, analogous about Stalin robbing banks to fund the revolution, mostly Star Wars, cool guy with a dog friend, they get medals, they do Dambusters, a frequent argument, technically more fantasy than science fiction, because space, because aliens, split the difference, space fantasy, getting caught up in the argument, why should I invest my time in this thing, we like Garak, kinda remember them as sort of crappy, TNG ones, they were early, Picard wasn’t Picard yet, Riker wasn’t Riker yet, Data becomes a very rich character, Worf has a long career, a bad dad, didn’t even have the beard yet, didn’t have a brother who was a twin of him yet, so character based, this is good, but not science fiction, most recent attempt, a Star Trek Discovery novel, Suru, the tall alien played by Doug Jones, half the book, before the beginning of Discovery, Captain Georgiou, less interesting, it is written after, it can’t contradict anything, putting all the pieces together and filling in, James Swallow, 12 hours is too long, getting it finished in time, rushing at the end, not a bad book at all, The Tower Treasure, the Hardy Boys, the revised version, who the Hardy Boys were, a glimpse of an idea, what was the purpose, a big phenomena, let’s understand what it is, the books as a thing, why were they big?, a show with Cora, Mistress Of Mellyn, an early one, castle, nice dress, great hair, one of the windows is lit, gothic romance, a possibility, a secret there, a rich family, rich and handsome, he has a secret, life-threatening, almost never, gothics appear to have super-natural elements, traditional gothic, he’s Donald Trump, old man Jenkins, you were the tourist guide, understand adventure books, explore that, Nancy Drew, a good book, what made it good?, refining our system, a Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, What Mad Universe, The Star Mouse, pairing with a Sheckley, a non-musical version, just voice, Warm by Robert Sheckley, The Sweeper Of Loray, he can be absolutely terrific, Mindswap, fairly like a Douglas Adams novel, The Screaming Mimi, shouted out in that Lawrence Block book, Egypt, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, vampire best friend, really gaslighty, suck the blood out of everybody, really isolated, Green Tea, a monkey, a ghost monkey, A Midsummers Night’s Dream, favourite, a good one, fairy couple, the mechanicals, end of May, some rehearsals, one show in a park, midnight in the middle of summer, dusk, somewhere in July, The Nameless City, alligator people, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. by Jack London, 4 hours 30 minutes, finished by someone else, finished by Robert Fish, a society of evil ruthless killers, more than it seems, embroiled in a struggle, ethical lunatics, a year long journey, espionage, there’s a movie as well, Jack London stan, how can you live your life, To Build A Fire, White Fang, The Call Of The Wild, he dies and the dog lives, poor you, he’s old, the biggest thoughts, Cardassian society, parallels in reality, they really pressure their citizens to cover up all their emotions and hide their true selves, an anti-emotional society, frightened of intimacy, is our society becoming more like that, way less disciplined, not a lot of room fore leisure, he likes poetry, a poet he likes, you’re not supposed to share yourself with other people, people running society, more individuals as opposed to a societal phenomena, the opposite problem, more like the 1950s, the model is something like Nineteen Eighty Four, The Giver by Lois Lowry, the influence of girls, girls have a lot more power than they did, a book told from a dude’s pov, not flamboyant, not gay at all, 2 or 3 women really shaped him, chronologically, they got together after, that childhood trauma, distant from his mom, made him open up and then cut him off, better prepared for the Bajoran lady, open to them, more information about Garak, this book doesn’t lend itself to subversive reading, Bashir is a funny character, a pussyhound, the friend of O’Brien, best friends, the saddest relationship on Deep Space Nine, meme of O’Brien’s wife, no Miles I’m doing this, playing in the holodeck with his friend, Garak doesn’t have lunch with Bashir anymore, spy on the holodeck episode, Bashir shot him, he made a point of talking about that episode, the actress playing Ezri Dax, the old character, looks like she’s 6, Garak needs to keep cracking the codes, he can’t, keeps having panic attacks, seems to fix him for a minute, the spy codes, really what’s underneath it all, helping to kill his own people, really nice layering, the bumbling way Ezri seems to work, tell you a story about myself, in this other story something that will help you, here’s a story, hardwired for stories, dogs and cats wish they could, skills, a twitter video of dogs communicating, things are poisoned, almost a story, really fun, break all your legs, Cinnamon Sam has been listening, a tabby point Siamese, years ago, caught by accident, Coleman, cats don’t know how to spell, Lexy Lou, cranky, joints are painful, not running around like you wanna be, fairly young, cat traps, not indoor outdoor cats, a stray, that’s the problem, worry so much, dangers out there, getting emotional, a real bad snowstorm, no snowstorms in the summer, cars and other animals and other people, pillow, get Brave going, Brave will make your life a lot better, proper episodes, October 2024, two random songs, Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-Precious Stones by Samuel Delaney, David Agranoff, Alice In Wonderland, expanded on things and made changes, Through the Looking-Glass, Libsyn, a big job, we did The Tempest, Forbidden Planet, like an episode of Star Trek, Julie Taymor film adaptation, the gender swap makes no sense, the main character is a wizard, gave up his dukedom to his brother, a rowboat and a bunch of books, the daughter has never seen a man before, Miranda, Caliban is male, never gonna use this for podcasts again, lame ass service, Brave for Mac?, it makes no sense, what’s the purpose of a gender swap?, wanted Helen Mirren in the movie, Lady MacBeth, the Derek Jarmin version, Prospero’s Books, very artsy, you have to cut out a bunch of stuff, so much comedy in his stuff, the one with Iago, Othello, Julius Caesar, his last play, The Taming Of The Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, “the induction”, basically a drunk bum, coming back from a hunt, pretend he’s just woken up from a coma, call him by my name, won’t that be funny?, the play proper is the thing they put on for him as a show, a framing device, MacBeth or Hamlet, act in a suspicious way, the whole thing is farce, a world within a world, what’s going on In The Taming Of The Shrew, that way she’ll marry me, I hate you, what I’m hearing is you love me, becomes tamed, bitter from previous treatment, spite everybody, nobody can marry Bianca, couple who wanna get married, superfun, super funny, Shakespeare’s the best, the other playwrights of his period, Richard III, overlay WWI on it, but for what purpose, the Kenneth Branagh version, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet with Mel Gibson, edgier movies, Romeo + Juliet, cut out a lot of Shakespeare to do it that way, no sets, classrooms, a headache, at home, Franco Zeffirelli version, just reading the text is the best version, the score, a filmscore composer, create more textures, big themes, house music, Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), Hans Zimmer, hypnotic, Danny Elfman scores, John Carpenter, Mr Jim Moon and his Hypnogoria podcast, not on twitter anymore, his own synth, original music, music, it is rare, dialogue over music, it doesn’t usually work, mix it just right, distracting, that’s why people do it, because it is distracting, bad sound quality hidden by music, music over dialogue on tv shows, the music will have lyrics over the conversation, fuck off, make a snap decision, not investing any of my time in this, the signs, a good movie experience, you’re paying your $20 for everything in life, one of the greatest writers from the United States ever vs. something new maybe written with ai, a good amount of science fiction short stories, rival invisible men, the transparent route, the camouflage route, a tennis match back and forth, he bought that idea from a friend, he can turn it into something amazing, a science fiction course, undergraduate time, The Science Fiction Research Association anthology, university of Charleston, Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, The Machine Stops, [Scott Miller], PDF Page, really consistent, 3 times a week, used to be a newscaster, retired to Costa Rica, records all day long, Don Congdon and Associates, they’re not interested in reality, they’re interested in making money, automated, they don’t have actual people because that would cost money, host your own stuff if you don’t want to be deleted, difficulty with YouTube copyright for posting their own music, products put on there, when you go to YouTube, Tubi, google TV, ad free youtube, adds enrage Jesse, nobody else seems to care, used to them and desensitized, become enraged, find a way, tune them out, into the background, two things, youtube only cares whether their ads are put on their service, the advertiser really wants you to pay attention, suggestive and adult content, just as bad or worse in the ads, boobs or something, sexual content, Saberspark, animation, mobile games, happens a lot, set up systems to deal with people complauning, the removal of the headphone jack, the removal of the dislike count, me at a restaurant feeding you food, anything from the menu, break into the kitchen and see, don’t be involved in a system that disrespect you or is trying to fuck you, theoretically a student, getting involved, passed away, Phil Fox from Myrtle Beach, a very creative person, make the time to have the thing, then you’ll have it, how does it help him, coffee for this kid, see you on twitter.

A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #862 – READALONG: Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #862 – Jesse and Will Emmons talk about Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Imagination, December 1953, copyright renewed, pirate your way, other stories, Rog Philips, Evan Hunter, Hal Annas, Salvatore Albert Lombino, The Last Spin by Ed McBain, initiation ritual, default, for Philip K. Dick, strong relationship with, rewarding, most adult relationship, Robert E. Howard fanboy, Conan fanboy, colour your relationship, a grown man’s passion, Robert E. Howard’s prose, unfiltered, infinitely rewarding, science and fantasy, which is it?, a trick question, a story of imagination, reasons for thinking it’s fantasy, references the bible, not a good criteria, what’s so funny about it, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, no implanted memories, who is Edward Billings?, intentional ambiguous, the agency for whom Edward Billings works, could be right, The Rapture (1991), David Duchovyn and Mimi Rogers, the rapture happens, being swingers, the rapture is real, hard to explain, not science fiction probably, the way Philip K. Dick did it here, Christian adjacent, evangelicalism, millinerian thing, popular in the 90s, weird Christian novels, some kind of subgenre here, fantastic, involve the supernatural, god’s agency in the world, peices of media, in an earnest way, a Dickian way, bristle, they ought, The Builder, building something in his garage, the guy’s two sons, build that thing, sickmyduck.narod.ru, a great person in Russia, 1954

“What makes it run, then? I don’t see any sails. What kind of motor is in it? Steam?”

Elwood bit his lip. Strangely, he had never thought of that part. There was no motor in it, no motor at all. There were no sails, no boiler. He had put no engine into it, no turbines, no fuel. Nothing. It was a wood hull, an immense box, and that was all. He had never thought of what would make it go, never in all the time he and Toddy had worked on it.

Suddenly a torrent of despair descended over him. There was no engine, nothing. It was not a boat, it was only a great mass of wood and tar and nails. It would never go, never never leave the yard. Liz was right: he was like some animal going out into the yard at night, to fight and kill in the darkness, to struggle dimly, without sight or understanding, equally blind, equally pathetic.

What had he built it for? He did not know. Where was it going? He did not know that either. What would make it run? How would he get it out of the yard? What was it all for, to build without understanding, darkly, like a creature in the night?

Toddy had worked alongside him, the whole time. Why had he worked? Did he know? Did the boy know what the boat was for, why they were building? Toddy had never asked because he trusted his father to know.

But he did not know. He, the father, he did not know either, and soon it would be done, finished, ready. And then what? Soon Toddy would lay down his paint brush, cover the last can of paint, put away the nails, the scraps of wood, hang the saw and hammer up in the garage again. And then he would ask, ask the question he had never asked before but which must come finally.

And he could not answer him.

Elwood stood, staring up at it, the great hulk they had built, struggling to understand. Why had he worked? What was it all for? When would he know? Would he ever know? For an endless time he stood there, staring up.

It was not until the first great black drops of rain began to splash about him that he understood.

Nanny, do you understand, as a child, prized possesion, Hannah Barbara time travel bible story cartoon, archeologist on Noah’s ark, child culture, fun animals, the time that god killed everyone, a rainbow, how primitive culture stories are similar to each other, the stories of the vikings, natives in north america, Raven plays a role in both, spirits that run things, Eric S. Rabkin, a dragon, a hero has to slay, making his bed for 10 years, the saga of the Volsungs, particular spin, specific spot, shave away the descriptors, the kinds of stories, people are the same all over, tapped into this stuff that no one else is, no one else is like him, what is this story about?, about the Fall and how it happens, the inevitability of the Fall, who is Edward Billings, a mandate from God, an alien?, he is God, people he needs to report to, he knows everything he’s got a book, the CIA World Fact Book, how big the army is, how much literacy there is, briefing people, the good purpose, a crisis over there, eat the kool-aid, quite useful, square km of wheat in the Ukraine, the proximate creator of this set of little people, Tommy and everyone else on the Earth, Earth B is us, Earth C is gonna be the fairy people, squeaks and stuff, A is the angels, some of them got away, they did things, so funny, so silly in so many respects, back up this theory, what kind of genre it is, Edward Billing’s space, kids spying on a man in their house, the upstairs rented, kid from the neighbourhood, sneak in, to get some dirt, the garden, his eye to the crack, the moment of creation in Genesis, shapes forms, beyond the wall, an immense old fashioned desk, it’s been 7 days, his vest pocket, the great watch, naked and bleak, elderly bird, then he put his glasses on again, expert fingers, reared up before him, the typewriter, the ominous booming, insistent beat, him typing, the sound echoed hollowly, Prominent Author, dark and littered, in heaps, charts, charps!, astronomy, signs of the zodiac, chemical bottles, a stuffed bird, grey and drooping, greek and hebrew dictionaries, a bone letter opener, a wizard’s lair, laboratory, very alchemist room, flypaper, gas heater, a magic lantern, able to identify that, heaps, an image from his youth, The Father Thing, Scott Miller narrated recently, a horror story about a father being replaced by an alien, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, a place of importance, a pool of sticky water, dried butterflies, the huge old man, gosh!, working on his report, if it is all metaphor, it has to be, Philip K. Dick rationalizing the events of the bible and extrapolating on them, putting them in their proper context, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the radio drama, the Earth is destroyed, the mice were the laboratory technicians, the dolphins, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, a series of rug pulling outs, ok now what?, let’s go to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, hanging out with cave people on the new Earth, Sunday school, could this all be the explanation, we’re never going to know, the questions we have are wrong, two bad words to describe what is going on here, an Ark in his garage, that rain’s going to continue, only he got the message from God to build that Ark, a little bad boy, does this amazing thing, you can’t just take them from me, I have free will, race C, the little people, a very Philip K. Dick thing too, marbles, that was how it was, he’s accessed this memory, kinda like pool, you win, he wins completely, he has the spark of god in his thumb, what we would call God, we’ve made a mistake, we think of him as that guy, so powerful in our lives, the Garden he’s making on his deck, office/laboratory/room, bucket full of dirt, spark glass into red hot fragments, he’s tired, Tommy carries the bucket, these little people, their new earth, our Earth is their Earth, just the garden in the Garden of Eden, just that it be there, a myth symbol, making out his report, they had escaped, they had gone, his repetition, that’s what happened, they enjoyed playing games with this kid, he taught them, he prepared them for this, going back to Heaven, dazed from the shock, Project C was already, beyond control, the contamination had spread to C, immobile, silent, thoughtful, happened before twice before, each project would carry the discontent to the end, the evasion of the plan, slowly he opened it, they would all be equal, equal failures, they had clothes on, little suits of clothing, the same trick, he’s trying to solve these questions, what if this is true?, turn it into a cycle, resolving the mystery, religious visions, a guy who could have used that for evil and start a cult, he uses it to explore, how could this be?, is that a science fiction story?, not really, is it a fantasy story?, maybe, just for conversation, genre conversation, a set of rules or something, what stories do, useful to talk about, this doesn’t fit the criteria, there’s not consequences of technology, chemical, words, the questions that the boy asks of the man, where are they?, yes and also not, god is everywhere, you can’t find him under the table, is he down by the corner store?, three kids are bored, curious about this old man rooming in their house, is he a communist?, doesn’t have a beard so he can’t be a spy, the parents, you won’t have any dinner, a snake?, in the garden, Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God, much more explicitly a science fiction story, whatever institution he is a representative of, looks like a bird, a bird in the Noah story, is God a bird?, does that make Tommy the Devil, talking snake, the fairy people, isn’t Tommy also Prometheus?, he’s a thief, for a good purpose, he’s freeing these people, did he also save us?, an implanted memory, he once had a healing rod, the aliens who gave it to him, you saved our spaceship, be the hero of mankind, superpowers, project my mind out into the solar system, the messiah complex, Damien G. Walter, I am the prophet, let me tell you about the Mythos, the fate the Angels had happen to them, fairies out in the world, like Conan Doyle, cigar box, is this a great story?, interesting, a nice little retelling of the fall with a little extrapolation, the character work, they’re his, a very boy thing, the guppies that you found, you’ve read great stories, definitely likeable, at least as high as The Builder, more exiting things here and there, delighted by Philip K. Dick, terrific, better than Prominent Author, a joke, a meditation, page 105, that?, what’s in there?, they?, the things, the bugs, the netting, if you’re interested, a weird man, right before this, has to be able to run in case the old man is like a molester or something, twisted the netting loose, eyes wide, you can see what they are, whistled softly, “I thought maybe they were.”, little tiny men, not exactly, his rickety chair, a pipe, not exactly men, gaze down into the frame, tiny huts, they gazed up at him, tiny pink creatures, naked, that’s why they were pink, look at their heads, go get the glass from the desk, the technology, now tell me what you see, arms, legs, some were women, their heads., what’s the matter, a philip k dickism, they’re queer, they’re not queer, there’s nothing wrong with them, deep in silent thought, did you make them, squiggle missing word, they were lent to me, the trial group, very new, sell one of them, they were not quite men, ending in knobs, similar to men, except for the antennae, Mars, Venus, a hard question to answer, the question has no meaning, that is awesome, what’s the report for?, the thing you’re doing, how long?, that can’t be answered either, your questions are wrong, kid, getting near the end, he’s 11, what are you going to do with it, my superiors, are they here in town, yes and now, maybe someday you’ll…, by writing a fiction story?, it’s about us, I looked at it, about the Earth, you’re not from here are you, outside, the solar system, I can tell I have ways, what is it for?, Billings considered a long time, that depends on those, how Project C works, each project is planned carefully, “factors”, these guys are ents, new arrangement of the cognitive faculties, greater flexibility, lose in libido energy, individual experience, less stereotype thinking, a recipe for what’s wrong with humans, almost no dependence on innate drives, more adaptable, we don’t love as much or hate as much, they don’t breed like rabbits, they’re more Vulcany than us, Philip K. Dick being an autodidact, suspicious of the herd, situation control, Tommy was lost?, dim in my mind, wings, too much self dependence, pride and honour, atomized antagonistic factions, finished smoking, our first attempt at high level organisms, certain of success, group orientation process, the critique of this story that’s coming out, people are too herdy, subject to group learning rather than individual experience, greater supervision, what did the second kind look like?, this bird like man, associated with the wings, looking at God is a mistake, harrowing, you don’t want to look at me, cmon’ God, can I?, Moses gets a gander, the face of God, fractured away, self determined groups, instrumental in influencing, should have the exterminated, you’re Project B, final disposition, out of jurisdiction, the Vogons, no longer functional, 9 little people, not an Adam and Even, numerology, a reason for the 9, not just 2, a breeding population, suffer genetic damage, not equal male and female, they’re queer, can swap, a plan was dawning, rigid, rigidity, Roog, the garbage men are aliens, or a dog getting upset at a garbage truck, going?, I have to go, goodbye, you will, why does the old man want to see him again?, doesn’t seemed to have hoped, ruminate for himself, lonely?, to describe God as lonely is funny, why did humans create robots, they’re lonely, paperbag full of bottlecaps, bright yellow, pennants, groupthink, a team of people you don’t know, hockey jerseys, Evan likes baseball, playing baseball, a distinguishment, shirts and skins, which guy to check, on you team, uniforms for that, make it your team, stolen valour, reasons, William Faulkner really wanted to be in the airforce, Canadian Air Force, added a u to his name, wear his Canadian Air Force uniform around town, the main reason, cowards who wanted to have the benefits, a Lebron James jersey, cosplay, seeing yourself as, distinguish themselves, Marines are first in last out, esprit de corps, middle class energy, what the pennants are, Philip K. Dick is not a normal boy, the big dresser and mirror, brush and comb, they wanted to break off a tine, pictures of baseball players, a paperbag of bottlecaps, why he stole the people, the small radio with it’s cracked plastic cabinet, the broken magic lantern, his dad’s cigars, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, I’ll trade ya, Titus Groan, teen girl, leaves and rocks, annoys her maid, a fantasy but not really, most popular blogpost ever, a big chonky thing, 21 hours, very easy to be a Tolkien fan, hard to be a Titus Groan fan, feel seen, understand it, Tolkien explainers, cite their sources, media related, a movie, bizarre choice, true of Dune, therefore crying, a castle, one swordfight, a guy climbing the side of a castle, 2nd most popular blogpost, audience captured, small audience, narrowcasting, reviewing magazines that nobody wants to hear about, the typical paragraph thread, what was funny about it, how to search for it, tweetable, etexts, some of them are really hard, Chuck Wendig one, locked down, about that ip thing, archive.org sharing content, pro ip activist, bumped to a landing, stubby trucks, scoops, what the hell is a jitney, something to do with the nickel, unlicensed taxis, Lovecraft’s goes on for 5 tweets, The Alchemist, Robert E. Howard, from his perch, caught his sworddbelt, grinned his thanks back to her, Edgar Allan Poe, replenished my goblet, story about a guy who drinks himself into a pile of bottles talking to him, the Jack London one, Kipling, Sitka Charley, ye have again forgotten, the poor devil’s bliss, so awesome, he has the Indians speaking in King James, like Thor, effete, carry this woman into the Yukon, happy are gonna die, haven’t taken on the white man’s morality yet, typical John Scalzi paragraph, peanut butter toast, a peanuty smear, Hera, friggin, the mission critical world of parking garages, William Gibson paragraph, high sharp cheekbones, slavic faces, the reek, swaying train, a frozen park, a different kinda writing, Elmore Leonard, wee wee, the doggies not the ladies, he likes that, colloquial, stylized, Voltaire paragraph, Zadig answered, quite right replied the eunuch, you have seen her then, Herman Melville, Turkey, Nippers, other respects, a temperate young man, his vintner, brandylike disposition, potations, as if the table were a perverse, superfluous, Bartleby The Scrivener, Ursula K. Le Guin, until shot off, Chevek thought, assuming the latter, a pleasant tickling blast of warm air, small blue spots, Uras?, so groomed, ready for a contrast, typical Chuck Wendig paragraph, finding a toilet seat warm, he might find it pleasant, posteriors, seat of pleasure, worshipped by pink lips and tongue, salad, sandwiches, calypgian, rumination, like a mime wiping away expression, typical Robert Sheckley, reptilian race out near the center of the galaxy, Ian Fleming, a lot of combs today, you’re a good girl goodnight, must look my best on the scaffold, Ernest Hemingway, now things were done, he had made his camp, a good place to camp, now he was hungry, Papa Hemingway, a good place, same style of writing, there’s art to it, repeating in a way, not thinking about licking women’s asses, the last one, Donald E. Westlake, in a vocational high school?, air conditioning repair, The Axe, all those people are writers, in the same language, around the same era, the past is always with us, am I crazier or is the writing getting shittier?, maybe Ted Chiang will come back from his retirement, this concern that chat gpt will take over people’s writing, John De La Roz thread, pretend that Paul is a bad person, ai everything, time spent reading ai text is very long, need an ai to read the ai books, indie author guys, part of their hustle, being a crypto bro, political position, selling twitter or whatever, they can be wrong, delete would be better than what we have now, people who don’t make any ip want no ip, the regulations inhibit, under copyright, his children are elderly, copyright office, post office, patent office, least worst, everyone has access to whatever they want, illegal, hypocrites, audible.com, hard to extract yourself once you’re in, an Amazon ebook guy, ebooking compared to audiobooking, hard to know, used to be the case, doesn’t give your time back, not his best, for what it is doing it is excellent, good story, Donald Westlake, interested in the post, you can pick up any random pulp novel, you have to learn these things, digest vs. pulp, bedsheet, slick, early issues are huge, digest size at the end, more pulp size, hardboiled and noir, dieselpunk and steampunk, not cyber, solar panels on his hat, speaking from the position of any random author, Richard Prather, Gold Medal books, paperbacks, Westlake’s published in there, not a random author, a Jesse biased list, biased negatively, bias against, sequels after sequels, essential reading, throw on a Margaret St. Clair?, two topics of conversation, the only science fiction they’ll read, excited about an author, tend not to read the short stories, poetry, Shirley Jackson, her novel and her short story, 2 novels, unfinished, Dick it’s always novels, more people to be his champion, during his lifetime, rediscover Robert Sheckley, a Deep Space 9 novel written by Sheckley, tie-in novels, 12 hours, a commitment, 2 things in its favour, read by the author, apparently he really wrote it, if a man like that actor had success in life it was Garak, spoon on his forehead, Garak being gay, outside of Julian Bashir, he’s a spy, with a female, half-cardassian half-bajoran, tailor is kinda gay?, well groomed, at least 10 years ago, about the new shows, Maissa as a suggestion, written in the form of a letter to Bashir, after the show is over, inquiring about my health, a 12 hour letter, quite fun, high hopes, stretch out from the conventional stuff, can’t do Philip K. Dick every week, a good character on the show, a Worf novel, got the jist, his son’s return, a son from TNG, I don’t like you, he’s a man now, kind of a geek, he’s from Earth, making fun of him on the spaceship, Worf’s arc, the writer saying we didn’t really think this through, get rid of him, you’re a disappointment, fuck you, dad!, telling stories about the ship’s mascot, the swordbearer, he’s the flower girl, Evan got it right, the Klingons can be best explained as cosplayers, be more like goats and hit each other, where they explain it, virus or something, Memory Beta, Memory Alpha, Enterprise is not good, their culture is made up, a product of their history and what they choose to believe, it’s not genetically built in, get a jumpsuit, armour, spine armour, batleth, Batman’s sword, batleth?, Khaless’ batleth, student is here, time for coffee, on the twitter.

Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #859 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The SFFaudio Podcast #859 – The Eternal Savage by Edgar Rice Burroughs, (7 hours 7 minutes) read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Will Emmons

Talked about on today’s show:
Eternal Lover, Eternal Savage, one of the Barney of something books, the second half Sweetheart Primeval, Barney Custer of Beatrice, a weird publication history, 1915, August 1915, The Mad King, separated, connected, The Mad King, Alex (pulpcovers), also a Tarzan book, written in 1914, Tarzan to come, Lord Greystoke, he’s in the book, the host for Barney and his sister Victoria, doesn’t say anything, an impression of what he would have said, in the room earlier, contractually obligated, I’ll stand there but, a weird stand-in, an easter egg, no strong reason for it to be there, also a book I wrote, you are aware of, Burroughsiana, a weird thing, stuff to think about, Nu is different than Tarzan, a red herring, multi-media universe, all the crossovers, the Burroughs Estate, the Pellucidar series, his own Alan Moore thing, League of Extraordinary Burroughsians, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., re-issue in an Ace-Double style with Cave Girl on the other side, big series, a mistake, make a lot of money doing it, he was good at doing that, part of a series but not really, stands-alone kind of, more prominent in, Nu Nu, Nu fitz Nu, having a mating on the nu moon, gotta get your cycles started to pump out some babies, baby, what’s going on with this book, legit confused, what’s going on, all explained in the end, what we actually have here, two books here, one isn’t fully realized, the narrative about Nu’s journey to the 20th century, cut-short, what happens at the very very end of this book, new timeline, last 4 paragraphs, a sudden halt, nothing more to be seen, crumbling skeleton, stone tipped spear, stone knife, stone axe, look!, feeble flame, the grinning skull of a great cat, 18inch curved fangs, Oo!, for his Natul for me, a really good ending, okay, more than 25 by Burroughs, he pointed out something, feel it, feel kinda dumb, they’re always the goddamn same, meet cute, girl gets kidnapped, happens twice in this book, in every Burroughs, really into kidnapping, the reason he’s into that, a big booklength book, he needs to fill pages, a science fiction story, an adventure story, the Encino Man, a white nigger?, not more that 17 times, he’s called that, this means that everybody around him is racist, not real dependable, when all the servants fled, a laybout asshole, using the n-word, what is lie?, so good, really fun, interrogates the story of what we hear about racist, more racist, Robert E. Howard, The Last White Man, bad on a number of levels, the manly exemplar, Barney is a good brother, Lord Greystoke is a nice host, Nu son of Nu, an innocent abroad, a super-muscular man like Tarzan used to be, incredibly muscular, intense, contrasted and compared, they never wrestle, he puts on Lord Greystoke’s clothes, a little too small for him, a direct comparison, take it a little bit deeper, Solomon Kane, the white savage, what he’s like, white savage vs. Tarzan, in this life, acculturated to the stone age, a ranch in Nebraska, it becomes a comedy after a certain point, learns horse-breaking, another kidnapping, a comedy, a Savage who becomes civilized, he was an English Lord, he learned to read, inherent, is even homo sapiens, bit the guy’s neck out, direct message, state tv in Sweden SVT, here are the first swedes, they’re all black, kind of a point, why are all the cavemen white?, what period is this set, he’s from the Niocene, the only thing that comes up is this book, eras, Pleistocene, smilodon and pterodactyls, a tiger in Africa, no homework, very pure for that reason, is this science fiction?, a conversation on twitter, he’s an unfrozen caveman, frozen in a cave somehow, I’m worried about earthquakes, mice and earthquakes, our guy gets trapped with the head of a smilodon, by suspended animation, Heinlein trick in The Door Into Summer, the gases that came in and froze him, a very popular one, 19th century novels, News From Nowhere, Just Imagine (1930), The Marching Morons, wakes up in the future, a Stanley Weinbaum novel, a ranch in Africa, this is my destiny, shot in the head, learns languages, kidnapped by the arabs, arabs and white slavery, super-not Christian, compared to Howard, here’s how I’d have Christ do it, angry about being nailed to a cross, nailing them to a cross!, cave man monogamy, vs. the arabs, sold into a harem, for a sultan, interestingly contrasted, why it is not science fiction, a new kidnapping scenario, yoink!, the girl’s gone, this other girl, infanticide really bad, suicide, stabs herself and jumps off a cliff, used to sudden death, reading any more Burroughs, he does it well, not edified by any of this, because it is old, modelling his mind, got it now, more cavemany, hadn’t figured out grammar yet, moved to Spain, attempt to prove the unprovable about human nature, you and I today, made of wholecloth, no substance to it, a multi-decade mission to get inside the mind of Edgar Rice Burroughs, really against rape, the baby will be uglier, the boat people, hunters are noble, cowskins, they make their caves, seems suspicious to me, superior technology, the whims of nature, what we are supposed to conclude, chivalrous, kidnapped his girlfriend from the past, unfrozen caveman I love you, the man of my dreams, dogs on his side, let’s go after unfrozen now escaped cave man, tear out his throat, cut back to her waking up from a 3 minute coma, made a new timeline, trapped in a cave, the worst thing that can ever possibly happen, transmigration to a past life, Phra The Phoenician, She, all a dream, see the skeleton of a guy, our love from past ages, you didn’t hallucinate the first half of the book, hallucinate the last half of the book, work for hire, where you’re messing up, Victoria goes back to the Niocene, retain her 20th century consciousness more, she’s not herself, flashes she was just in the 20th century, that would make the book awesome, he’s the fish in his water again, how to re-integrate it at the end, the upshot of the new timeline, the previous timeline, suspended animation, not able to meet your soulmate, no genetic connection, Deep Space 9, the Tribbles episode, Bashir and O’Brien are in the elevator, you’re new here, are you a doctor, giving him the wink, gloms on to her name, his great grandmother, otherwise he won’t exist, Time Rider (1982), Edward Page Mitchell, The Clock That Went Backward, the soul transference, Nu always looks like a caveman, same body, barrettes and lipstick and earrings not made of bones, messier hair, bikini made of fur, speak the same language of monkeys, his theory of past lives and the eternal lover, all of Poe, The Raven, is their love so great that it transcends time, Somewhere In Time (1980), they never have sex, except in the fake timeline, maybe had sex with him in her past?, hit on the head, past life remembrance, die in an earthquake, he really didn’t think this through, not a theory of past lives, this is not science fiction, undercooked fantasy, adventure fiction, a terrible genre, Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), why?, The High Road To China (1983), the answer is it has the supernatural stuff on top of the period setting, god literally exists and doesn’t like Nazis, the power of the contents of the Ark of the Covenant, don’t apply the ritual properly, not supposed to look at god, he went to Sunday school, what the Nazis want, other adventure stories, ancient Egypt, the power of god in this bucket, a burned hand, do the same thing, it’s got everything, same with Star Wars (1977), Luke Burrage argued it was science fiction, new technology was the Death Star, Star Destroyers and Death Stars, sabers are curved, all undercooked, all works for a child, this all works if you wanna pass some time and have some fun, sad story, it could be, rewrite it for him, cohere a little better, talking to the monkeys, me I’m friends of the monkeys, all the other Tarzan, in some respects, the species that raises Tarzan, not gorillas, talks to lions, Elephants, mean things, vocab is low, elephants are very sophisticated, more Mars books, the surgery one The Mastermind Of Mars, medical science fiction, medical adventure, Conan with his shirt off, standing on a pile of bones, not what the stories are like, one narrow aspect of it, Burroughs construction of these stories, strawman characters, a long tradition, Heinlein doing it, if we have good ideas, if you don’t have good ideas, ambiguous characters, helps Nu get out of bondage, I’m going to kill this baby, should I kill this baby, I wanna kill this baby, ladies driving their kid into the lake, minimize this, invest a lot in our offspring, 18 years, when your parents are no longer involved, kids were getting married and getting jobs at much younger ages, childhood is forever, that is odd, something to look at, be done with the child after 5 seconds, he can just fuck off, the baby literally will die without the mom, cats and dogs, lick up the poop, we have hands, we’re more like birds, or bears or elk, all about the nuclear family, how clams work, the dad is like a donor, goes to get shot, sport, food, most hunters are eating their meat these days, he hunts for food, the head is so he can marry her, in the father’s eyes, in her eyes, her behavior is pretty weird, not fleshed out, Victoria Custer, Nah-tool, this cave man is too horny, not that interesting, Victoria is an adult, how old are these characters?, 100,000 and 16 years old, not a cave-boy, much funnier, a pretty good movie, cave man comedies, lends itself to comedy, the concept, plot points, cave man pocket, 3 rocks to by an Arizona iced tea, why do people like it?, it hasn’t changed in price, its not from Arizona, it’s from New York, Arizona looking, the owner’s wife, a special half ice-tea half lemonade, Arnold Palmer, made it up, licensed him, a little bitterness, something mixed with lemonade, a shandy, if you’re into poison, it was okay, a podcaster recording them, what Burroughs was up to, Under The Moons Of Mars, Argosy and All-Story, a better rot writer, massive life experience, running around writing kidnapping plots, kiss each other, the women have eggs on Mars, the best setting to make the argument, so not science fiction, rockets were a thought in people’s heads, he didn’t have a rocket do it, the Martians in The War Of The Worlds, shot out of a cannon, space travel, chose not to do that, more novel, 4 arm green aliens, red indians that are not indians, colour interested, white apes, there’s stuff there, refreshing to talk to Jesse about Burroughs, deep in their guts, as a child, as an adult, Pirates Of Venus, a kidnapping plot with airships, tunnels, horsemen on the Moon, The Moon Maid, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, hefty intellectual, a comedy, a business man, giant history of humankind and everything, the original serialzed version in a magazine style on the newsstands, hot chocolate on the back, the formation of the Earth, up to Caesar, not interested in it, not writing the same kind of stuff, war correspondent during WWII, Damien Walter podcast, Feral Historian, The Dispossessed, with Evan, killed him and buried him, keep his bones in a cave, all those we’ve lost, when you read H.G. Wells, even when he’s not writing actual science fiction, not trying to ingratiate, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, a slice of H.G. Wells, him doing Jules Verne, on a spectrum where authors are, where Larry Niven is, The Cold Equations, floppy saggy science fiction, he’s juggling but they’re not hard batons, they’re bags full of sand, his stuff is weightier, communism bad, China is bad, a book which engages with ideas, conked on the head, dream books back to back, Robert E. Howard would have been on Instagram and lifting, suicidal ideation, posted videos of himself punching a side of beef, center of attention, businessman, cozying up to Trump sort of thing, spiritual affinity, real estate developers, sea to lake, orange man neutral, what his retreat is named, looks like it is in Florida, mystique, his grandson, Burroughs believed that all of the stories he wrote were ultimately true, that’s Heinlein too, gets that way at the end, mostly known as a novelist, The Pursuit Of The Pankera, honky, chonky, The Number Of The Beast, diary entries, Hilda Corners, the Barsoom novels, very Heinleinian thing to do, n-dimensional space, intimate tango, a space machine, alternate dimensions, 666, a googleplex or more of parallel universes, Oz, literary places, quasi-public domain literary places, a beleif that’s in your head even if it is only transitory, our worlds, unlike myna birds and cave sloths, an autists, a creed, never learned to talk, talking a vow of autism, a real world, people with autism, folksy, take the article off, persons of the semitic creed, we construct our worlds out of words, some penetration, very unusual, add it to your vocabulary, use it with your friend Will, learn vocab words, if you don’t control the vocab words they control you, you need to know, the manifold is broken, a barrier between the universe, find out what lies are, Lord Greystoke, I have red hair, a theory of mind thing, what the white n-word was, so pure hearted, so stupid, tablemanners and forks, language acquisition, standard Burroughs, what the plot of Robert Sheckley’s Deep Space 9 novel was, supportable, cute, knew what was up, savviness, working for Sears, The Efficiency Expert, the George R.R. Martin problem, Tarzan stories, getting conked on the head element, Tarzan And The Jewels Of Opar, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, convert you to spiritualism, believing in fairies, it would be cool if it was real, what’s going on with Musk and Mars, aspergersist, normal cognition, hard to interact with, modelling Musks mind, he really wants to go to Mars, get humans out of the one basket we’re in, poor excuse, imprinted on science fiction early, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, even if covered in diamonds, the real issue, really cool, cave diving, tour caves, climb Mount Everest, a goal like any other, living on the top of Mount Everest, like Walter White at the end of Breaking Bad, he wanted to be a success, billionaire owner, to prove that, huge mistake, powerful people brain damage, an atrophy thing, deferring to you, three Chicken Dinners in a row, showing tremendous skill, keep ego in check, other things, dude, you aint that great, become disconnected from reality, like a Hollywood celebrity, rock diva, externalize that, would you overestimate or underestimate your abilities, a trick question, I can do things I can’t do, preventing you from doing things you can do, I can lift that, I can’t lift that, ability to lift things, don’t ask for help, a good self-assessment, surgery on my own back even with a lot of mirrors, what if I do it wrong, standing by with a hose, we’re on the airplane, the pilots are dead, fly a plane, they work the same way, more engines, the radio is more difficult than the airplane, helicopter, a motorcycle accelerator, your yaw, the back and forth oscillation, compelling reason, when the engine goes, autorotation, falling at a slower rate, not a parachute, the airbrake, fixed wing aircraft, gliding, as long as you have altitude you have forward momentum, weather, your fine, land on the ocean, flying lessons, working for companies, a rich man’s ambition, to get the license, any kinda school, wealthy eye-doctors, military teaches it, working for a military, asking for permission, ride a bike, swim, drive a car, another thing to learn, very close to new flying car phenomena, mountain home, battery powered, to save weight, ultralight aircraft, make airplanes, under a certain weight, fixed propellers, [Pivotal Blackfly], they don’t swivel, a drone that you’re sitting in, high end dentists, drones as the way into flying cars, Jetson One, a license to ride a bicycle, nobody has a license to bicycle, insurance law, insurance is free money, scooters, mopeds, skirt the insurance laws, electric bicycles, not a helluva lot, electric motorcycle, torque for days, limiters, [electric unicycle], hoverboards, dangerously fast, in 2025, drone license, no seat, Segway, when motorcycles were went they first came out, chariot racing with motorcycles as the horses, Ben-Hurley Davidson, scared of skateboard, faster than walking, rollerskates, a commuter, the scrapheap of coolness, skiing, fun, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, horseback riding, the way you got places, Marissa’s Instagram, she and her man, cross country skiing with her dog, recreation, enjoying nature, downhill and cross country, ski and then shoot, slogging your way across territory, super dangerous but fun, recreation vs. necessity, rich dentist’s recreation, horses on the interstate, nothing drawn by animals, area Amish, everything is hamster, the default, cats were cool, hundreds?, negotiation, respects her feelings, runaway with a boyfriend, smilodon boyfriend, Amazon box, the lifestyle, the behavior continues, not a good solution, semi-domesticated, do better than the dogs, competing for prey, feral life, lose an eye, depth perception, your claws and your teeth, no birth certificate, breaking up the family, she had children, unrelated cats, fixed later, we know better than them is what we’re saying, we’re fixing them, ova-hystorectimy, Millions Of Cats by Wanda Gág, a very old Will and a very old Meg, so very lonely, smoking a pipe, goes on a walk, page 10, that’s a lot of cats, cats and kittens everywhere, all black and white, a fuzzy grey kitten, way down in the corner, too lovely to leave, black and very beautiful, one riding on his head, too many cats, the cats get to fighting, eat eachother to death until there’s no cats left, eaten each other all up, one little frightened kitten, dear little kitty, just a very homely little cat, nobody bothered about me, soft and shiny, plenty of milk, the most beautiful cat in the world, not one is a the pretty as this one, The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft, H. Warner Munn, about 20 photos, The Lurking Fear, Catskills, remote northern place, interesting, definitely funny, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a guy who doesn’t know he’s a member of the community, oh and I have heterochromia too, why the mole people didn’t eat him, one eye was blue the other was brown, wrestled with it, this is brilliant, super amazing, really good at mood, he’s one of them, go visit these backwoods people, takes his friend with him, lying in the same bed, the shadow on the chimney, a description of his friend, straight out of The Rats In The Walls, a guy who eats his friend, very muscly, he’s meaty, he’s bringing his family food from the outside, cannibal nutrition, really dig it, Wayne June’s audiobooks, The Thing At The Doorstep, one of his best, the movie, Suitable Flesh (2023), Re-Animator (1985), I like horror after-all, a pure comedy but a horror, army of dead that come and get him, he totally nailed it, a comedy magazine, Home Brew, almost like a zine, during prohibition, the joke is a nod and wink, The Haunter Of The Dark, the church steeple, vibing on it, Providence geography, a mythos story, the scan of Home Brew, the serialization, a peek of what it looked like, piquant gossip, illustrated by Clark Ashton Smith, the trees, penises and vaginas everywhere, how fucked up the scan is, undistorting it, Rhineheart Kleiner smoking a pipe, a complete scan of this, later publications, a secret about Wayne June now that he’s dead, not a fan of At The Mountains Of Madness, deep in his cups, strange hieroglyphics, the narrator is not a Lovecraft character, Scott Miller is going to put out The Call Of Cthulhu, its the one everyone is focused on, all his themes, art, artists, cosmic time, cosmic space, madness, almost the main thing, cares a lot about art and artists, he’s all about the art, The Music Of Erich Zann, The Outsider, “dreamlands” story?, The White Ship, Celephais, Ex Oblivione, reskinned name, Dark Worlds Of H.P. Lovecraft: Volume 5, The Shambler From The Stars by Robert Bloch, mythos or dreamlands, winks and nods, August Derleth fucked things around, big series, take the story individually, not a businessman, he was the opposite of a businessman, conservative guys, near the end, different directions, vital active businessman, trying to be pure, not commercial at all, a poet from the 17th century, amateur journalist, he’s a blogger who wouldn’t put ads on his blog, in the kitchen, Voluminous: The Letters Of H.P. Lovecraft, props, artifacts, a library card, postage stamps, a map, printed collectibles, German expressionism, The Call Of Cthulhu (2005), brain jar, The Whisperer In Darkness, 100 year old idea, that’s what you put on your t-shirt, good last name, change your jar water, they read the letter, that was edifying, a little liberal?, very worried about racism and stuff like that, so prevalent, his personality, dry and comical, funny opinions about things, holding court with his friends, couldabin fun, like spending time with that guy, Margaret St. Clair, my homie, Burroughs, see him at a party, I like his books, Burroughs wouldn’t like me, don’t want to worship Tarzan, Tarzan doesn’t want you to worship him, recruiting blah blah blah, when Hemingway is liberating Paris, his old haunts and liberate them and drink there, they go into the Ritz, please leave the Thompson at the door, go liberate another part of Paris, 16+, the one where Jake Sisko is now 18, war correspondent, Klingons are attacking some colony, an ambulance driver during WWII, Ernest Hemingway, Bobby Derie, Clark Ashton Smith and Margaret St. Clair’s correspondence, after Sir Richard Burton, 1001 Nights, the Lovecraft statement, Smith is largely responsible for liches, the names of his stories, collected fantasies, Empire Of The Necronmancers, Skull-Face, Scarlet Tears, cliche, undead things, the old meaning, in fantasy fiction, The Lord Of The Rings, the barrows in the barrow downs, “wights” – the barrow man, a ghost or a zombie, living dead bodies, something Jesse thinks about a lot, author estates, liches get stitches, Ambrose Bierce, puts you under a spell, who am I now?, that bullet ridden lich in the madhouse, a deeply weird story, the visualization, drive out to the countryside, go down some steps, the movie adaptation, kind of adaptations by Jacen Burrows and Alan Moore, a naked gold woman, a pillar, that elm arched darkness, the glub glub, real sad story, the Pit of Shoggoths, the way Alan Moore does it everything is sexual, a repressed homosexual, now he’s Irish, reinterprets all the stories, recapitulates the stories using one character, Robert Black, all these experience, he gets raped, very Alan Moore, a rape sequence, a man is raped by another man who’s a woman, another adventure, so mean to poor Lovecraft, not interested in women, anti-Burroughsian, not interested in the chase at all, her dad, a good surprise twist, hate Jesse if you don’t like it, a Will accent, from the makers of Re-Animator and From Beyond, Dennis Paoli, get bodies, just to collect bodies, comic and scary and great music, very stylish, winds you up great acting, one of the best movies of the 80s, Indiana Jones first movie, The Thing (1982), Big Trouble In Little China (1986), Escape From New York (1981), see my twitter feed for a long list, a student coming, another Bores story, so lucky he doesn’t even known, In Santiago there was once a dean, a good one 3 pages long, we need a Jesse out there, kinda high level?, is it science fiction?, The Library Of Babel doesn’t fit with Planet Stories, contains both, Jack London, all these dudes, the meeting between Borges and Burroughs, where Burroughs books would be found in the library, I’m blind, an honorarium, the official library of Argentina, the American canon has fucked up, missing the point of reading, not giving him the Nobel prize, do they throw in, The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, realism sort of stuff, guy comes back from WWI, sad ideas, a couple in a canoe, they’re gonna break up, realism literary fiction, he’s really good at it, unnecessary whipping scenes, a monster in the basement, a guy nailed to a cross, back to back, break it up, Mark Twain, Brian Lumley, The House Of Cthulhu, 80s sword and sorcery, favourite Californians, same.

Roy Krenkel - The Eternal Savage

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #852 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Hate Disease by Murray Leinster and The Rat Racket by David H. Keller

The SFFaudio Podcast #852 – The Hate Disease by Murray Leinster (2 hours 1 minute) read by Gregg Margarite and The Rat Racket by David H. Keller (35 minutes) read by Robert Griffin. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons and Terence Blake.

Talked about on today’s show:
Terry’s back!, The Hate Disease by Murray Leinster and The Rat Racket by David H. Keller, longer than it needs to be, judge the two stories, science fiction, crappy science fiction, neither was terrible, as you should, a paradox, looks like what Terry considers to be the formula for science fiction, take an idea and literalize it, physicalize it, resymbolize at the end to draw a moral, The Pied Piper Of Hamelin, a mob or racketing technique, psychological phenomena, Gaia striking back, very similar, one comes across as a science fiction story, in Weird Tales, weird fiction, Keller is more of a science fiction guy, Amazing Stories, 1931, the fantasy domain, the very last sentence, all he wanted to do was get rid of the rats, he’s a cat!, whenever I talk about it my voice becomes squeaky, the science fiction mode, the setting, contemporary setting, menace to society, non-Anglo Saxon force, urban science fantasy, genius for hitting at vital spots, in the context of Scott Miller’s recording, racketeering, if you look at it closely, doesn’t seem to, The Minions Of Midas by Jack London, bought the premise from Sinclair Lewis, perhaps they’re all the same premise, outside threatening force threatens capitalists, letters slipped to a local billionaire, those who are sending the messages, kill some unrelated person, find some blacksmith, until he pays the money, we never meet The Minions Of Midas, this is necessary in this period of time, a certain amount of capital, require $20 million dollars, redistribute the wealth, resolves itself, he’s tackling essentially the same problem, racketeering was a real thing, the technology is cities and telegrams and being anonymous, email is incredibly anonymous, never not monitored, free email accounts, a cybercafe, a burner yahoo email, telegrams vs. emails, Jack London’s point is much more amazing, what if that Pied Piper story was real, takes a long time in their setup, we like Murgatroyd and coffee, the mystery that’s going on, a little boring, it doesn’t need to be that long, the setup at the end is pretty stupid, the comeuppance, James Bond, A View To A Kill, the son of genetic engineering, blow up silicon valley, microchip company’s profits, falls out of the sky, the Med Ship story, a problem of the week story, symbolically it’s very interesting, the doctor running the planet, the chief minister of the planet, Dr Lett, a bloodletting, just let it happen, he deserves a presidential pardon, the solution, getting some woodsmoke in their lungs, sounds stupid, maybe this is a lot smarter, the ecosystem setup, no reliable native life forms, humans expanding forever, Malthusianism, we can expand forever into infinite galaxies, rats have been known to do that, Malthus, rats and rabbits multiplying past endurance, other molecules, don’t feel ripped off, not a make work project, the Amish, they’re farmy, cheap farmland, a story about Mennonites, met Mennonites, a bigger diaspora of them, all about vertical integration, repairable by themselves, they can fix carts, a religious prohibition, don’t buy phones from Apple, an interesting sentence, Hutterite children, protected from asthma, an associated citation, more in contact with farm animals as a child, associated theories, being too sterile, handwashing using alcohol with perfume, hand sanitizer, more likely to get warts, other problems, dry skin, a similar contention with lip balm, lip balm scientists, balm is medicine for skin, how The Hate Disease solved the mystery it setup up, a powerful idea for the time, checks and balances on the molecular level, they’re in Overdrive, an alien pet, drinking coffee, outlandish space opera drinking tea (in modern science fiction), same symbolic register, cozy and homey, into electricity so much, a gas fireplace, some apartments do not come with fake fireplace and an actual fire, heat register, underfloor heating, cold in the winter, fire is the solution, rural Kentucky, a country merchant, if you were a farmer, hang out around the pot-bellied stove, decorum, have to be a gentleman, farm animals and fire, American science fiction, a parochial literature, born and died in Virginia, went for a drive, last summer, be near farm animals, a petting zoo, not intensely popular, recreation for young people, a “carnival”, a rollercoaster, thrill rides, you really do want to pet a donkey, confined to cats and dogs and maybe a parakeet, you wanna hang out around cattle, and sheep, donkeys are cool, kept donkeys, spending time with the donkeys, different personalities and capabilities and interests, playing some game on his laptop, can I go feed the chickens?, something that people want to do, more and more disconnected by technological improvements, a deprivation, concentration of capital, the park vs. the woods, they’re bears in their, chaotic neutral bears, brown bears, grizzly bears, Central Park in New York, managed wildlife, swimming to an island, you’ve had the experience of getting a leech on your leg, water and air, everything else is imported, they forget to import the really important things, safteyism, hygienic, technological, Tallien, talion, Gaia, the planet fights back, a character from history, Jean Talion, the Reign of Terror, don’t communicate with the other, waiting for Dr. Fauci, some special med guy, a special injection, ground up worms, the toxin, a good mediation, The Strain, good aspects, this is Dracula, other vampires, derivative, The Walking Dead, the fear of infection, misleading as a title, they hate normal people, because they’re not like them, for eating worms, once you adopt a certain code of behavior for yourself, if you become vegan, the spreading of it, Terry was one for a while, a vegetarian, many years, more than 7 years, don’t violently attack you, carnivores, something so contemptible within yourself, being the only one, an evil act, you’re in the Israeli army, you gotta make him do it too, otherwise, go back to normal functioning, you can’t live with yourself, one variant, Wilhelm Reich, crazy follower of Freud, spread like a plague, jumped the shark, freudo-marxist, bodyarmour, emotional plague, quite useful, funny, the thing that’s so bad, people eat weird gross, fermented shark, durian, we eat with out brain, our taste is reworked by our brain, nobody likes coffee on their first sip, thinking of Will as the little monkey guy, more subject to cute, Will is much cuter, subject to cute, interacting with a cat, you build up a tolerance to their cuteness, a smellaphoto, coffee beans soaked in urine, contemporary reference, modelling Will, parts of Jesse in parts of Will, medical doctor on a spaceship with his space monkey, aping the behaviors, that’s fun, a Margaret St. Clair story, Meem, the two transmissions, a false story about what’s happening, some clues, the chase sequence, fine, grid operator, becoming, considering killing himself, Murray Leinster in the role, Murgatroyd saves the day, playing with the gun, the wooden floorboards of the spaceship, breaks up a wooden chair, the health systems, they’re both cured, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, pisses on the palace, burns their city down to save the people, thank me later, casualties of this fire, for the good, a trolley problem ignored, presumably the houses have safety systems, ruined record collections, space insurance for their space houses burning down, an old fashioned science fiction story, 1963, in Analog, pretty good, what do we think about Doctor Keller?, mixed reviews, its idea is small and the story is big, show the problem growing, the solution is not satisfactory, thoughroughly impressed by The Hate Disease, be dirty to be healthy, this other direction, male vs. female, there’s no girls in The Hate Disease, the opposite of feminist, so called typical male qualities, the little boy falls down, the dad says walk it off, the mom says oh dearie, I hate girls!, kisses it better, you rest up now, autobiography, when a bitch gives birth, licks the puppies clean, make the puppies poo and pee, not sort of normal dinner table conversation, facts, covered in filth, as a mother, the same is true of your grandma, what Jesse’s doing at your grandma’s house, attentive to dirt on skin, the cleanliness and making things sterile is a good instinct, the rub some dirt on it, it can go too far, the meeting of the two genders, they were effeminate, like Jurassic Park, nature found a way, an effeminate man, a little bit of a reach, maps to Jesse brain, females don’t exist in the future or the 1930s, The Last Woman by Thomas S. Gardner, mankind has evolved beyond the need for women, 1932, growing people in a factory, they accidentally make a woman, the reverse of this, very silly, the execution is very silly, from Wonder Stories, a silly time in science fiction, the Campbell Era, Kuttner and Del Rey, The Cranberries song, blessed by not being cursed by music, a good feel of The Cranberries, contemporary-ish, how those Irish go, a nice fruit, more Murray Leinster, The Mad Planet, The Last Spaceship, just read the first part, The Disciplinary Circuit, his best girl, earlier, lots of Leinsters, he had a long career, newspaperman, Will F. Jenkins, Snappy Stories, Breezy Stories, Argosy, romance under a woman’s name, a writing machine, 1896-1975, First Contact, Exploration Team, best novelette, Ben Tucker, a very good narrator, a fixup, The Med Service, 19.5 hours, a whole sequence of stories, Sand Dune, relatively short, not too long, Harry Harrison, Deathworld, a fun premise, an American in the UK, our old friend, 1957-2012, Phil Chenevert still alive living in Florida, a professional gambler with psionic skills, heavy gravity, a hostile splinter group, a planetary story, not a comedy, pretty twisted, Bill The Galactic Hero, Planet Of The Damned, Dis was harsh, they might have been human once, kill! kill everything!, Brion Brandd, a bewildered hero, The Repairman, The Stainless Steel Rat, Jesse doubles, Men Into Space, the premise, a bear and an eagle, a spitting cobra, sphex, Sitka Pete, Sourdough Charlie, they’re all bears, trained giant eagle, that’s enough, back to the Harries, Arm Of The Law, a new police recruit in a box, a prototype robot cop, The K-Factor, has man really changed?, peace, but at what cost?, a joke story, The Velvet Glove, Fantastic Universe, the robot equality act, an allusion, the iron fist in the velvet glove, good dead dude, same crew as today, what’s doing in Terence’s course, rethinking everything, Deluzze and Lacan: Lack, Punch, Diamond Punch, Excess, rethink thinks, aimpunch, i computer games, playing with guns, a kickback, a recoilless rifle has less recoil, the mechanics of your body, a shoulder stock, a kickup, your aim gets worse, a logical operator, a lozenge, <>, a v lying down, the or sign in logic, and over the or, is greater than, is smaller than, diversion thinking to solve a problem, converge again on the other side, how to compare two authors, diamond punching each other, something to progress in thought, so fucking better, a different idea, the patrician is the all-powerful protector of society, society creates its own gravedigger, the guys being blackmailed kill themselves, Goliah, directed disintegration, those responsible, in a tower shooting Mark Cuban, you are such a great man with your billions, that will really hurt you, Luigi Mangione is the exception, Jack London’s last novel, The Assassination Bureau Limited, Sinclair Lewis ideas, living narrator friends, generally public domain, shitty online learning classes, a movie adaptation from 1969, Scott Miller, Winged Blackmail, uses pigeons, a very interesting magazine called The Lever, an early car magazine, are cars going to go away, in favour to airplanes?, a famous motorist, early popular cars were steam cars, a lever for acceleration, we salute you, it’s snowing here, no snow tires, need the cream, coffee with cream is better, so manly, in the female, Hungarian history, so virile, hairy chest, big throbbing penis, look out! he’s on the warpath!, seemingly health, 2nd place, just how awesome Jesse is, a very interesting phenomenon, almost tantric, playing with a rando, “hot drop”, getting kills is the way you get killed, “third partied”, sound is very important in the game, kitted up for the final endgame, wait, wait, wait, 1917, come in at the end and win, Norman Finkelstein at Waterloo, a boring speaker, Ed Broadbent, a very boring man, very powerful, very clear, cesspits of reactionary Zionism, holocaust being weaponized to commit atrocities in Palestine, the girl who was crying was German, nazis still like the nazis, Germany’s third genocide, Ukraine, radical takes on science fiction, singularly focused, he’s turned himself into a weapon, breeding beagles, not interested in the taste of food, Mao probably enjoyed some food, revolutionary peoples like spicy food, testing themselves against the elements, wind bathing, very boyish, the Long March, teenagers, a weird thing to think about, an army of teenagers across China, The West Wing is the founding myth of 50% of the electorate, a fantasy, he’s got weird attitudes, great understanding of American history, super-fantasy, people who vote, spoke to a specific generation cohort, up to young boomers, right in the pointing, not right in the details, the most interesting propaganda show, Landman, Taylor Sheridan, he was in Veronica Mars, actor to producer show writer, this one is for the oil companies, why oils is reality, why wind is not gonna work, it’s all true, but there’s no counterarguments, kinda refreshing, competently delivered, a Paramount show, oil extraction, Billy Bob Thornton, 24 was a huge show, the last gasp of regular broadcast television, Lost has no purpose, in sympatico with the Bush torture program, weapons of mass destruction, the plot every year, Keifer Sutherland was torturing people, they all were bad, he ends up being right, invading countries, directed inner, a domestic terror operative, a large effect on people, even the music was soothing, we can imagine this was what it was actually like, Bernie and Warren were really good people, President Bartlett, if you look at it objectively, the party system, when the whigs got replaced, no traction, MAGA Republicanism, Gavin Newsom, East Palestine, an unrecoverable position, they do cheat, a bipartisan president, it was a Democrat show, best friends with people who hate them, they got to Epstein island together, their kids are best friends with each other, a team against you, Will Rogers, It’s a big club and you’re not in it, George Carlin, just telling facts, they use that club to beat you, Elon Musk, what’s Jesse’s favourite country?, El Salvador, prison labour program, percentage of population in El Salvador in prison, 1659, a little less than 2%, comparable, zero crime now, is there zero crime in El Salvador (rounding down), a pretty famous crime, is El Salvador safer than Canada now?, economy is still stuck, among the world’s most popular reader, just give the prisoners bitcoin, commissary work, scrip, rumblings about Egypt getting grumpy, billions for the Suez, Mexico and Nicaragua taking about their own canals, pony up some big cash, empty houses, they are very interested in capitol improvement, China’s version of Blackrock would be state owned, control their economy, trashing Canada in the dms, an afterthought, living in my province as I do, cut it up, those are just jokes and positions for pushing people around, people would be grumpy, ICBC, just for cars, could be expanded to home insurance, the profit that it makes is funneled back into the province, crown corporations, periodical reforms, scandals that happen, almost like a working democratic system, the Maritimes, the interprovincial trade thing, Seattle is much closer than Calgary, Detroit and Windsor, cities that aren’t are very tiny, Edmonton, Alberta map, seems so cold, the mountains on the edge of town, how are you people living this way?, all these Koreans, and Chinese, Indians, Canadian national identity (a series of mistakes agreed upon), Bloc Quebecois, they’re not thinking about Quebec at all, a new racism, Puerto Ricans, doing their own thing, a little piece of Europe that has nothing to do with American interest, Mexico City feels like a European city, how old is Mexico City?, 1325, 1521, a very old city, Tijuana, Kentucky was founded in 1792, Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati, in the shadows of the cities, raise cattle, some car manufacturing, shrinking economies, you’re gonna move, the metro Vancouver area, a river valley, Richmond, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, 4am commute, an hour’s drive, Burnaby, a Dutch family, Coqutilam, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, William Pitt prime minsters, really rural areas, Harrison Hotsprings, Surrey, all the streets are grid oriented, bad luck, a Sikh population, Abbotsford, the Waverly author’s home, Point Roberts, a city called Hope, the first Rambo movie, technically in the pre-Nazi youth, the cub scouts version of the Nazi youth, we had political disagreements, his mom and his dad, an adopted much older brother, maybe a lack of virility, the wild guy, learned to stop drinking, 7th Victim by Robert Sheckley, a whole series of novels, got big in Italy, a big deal in Europe, people appreciated him, even in Russia, a big star over there, Tenth Victim, Victim World, Victim Prime, tempted into reading that, things happening, add more characters, they kill each other, a standalone would be good, The Journey Of Joenes, we did well, we’re doing it, how many uncles did you have, paternal married, unmarried, invested in ostriches, craze in the 1990s, giant eggs!, they have dark meat, who wants to eat it?, why don’t they just eat cows, chicken or beef, there are other options, not a lot of elephant, ethical concerns, people eat dogs, best use of dogs, reproduce with tastier meat, stored calories, for knitting sweaters, Cowichan sweaters, made of real dog, they get fluffy in the winter, something to knit with, fabric arts, huge among woman, a sword collection, swords are cool, not that practical, ideal for slashing, no slashing today, do LEGO, girl dens are not called dens, fabric arts, girls like to do it, Will feels Jesse is drunk on his own lack of profundity, a double whammy, refine the idea, what is really going on, why do girls like tapestry making, or dressmaking, preferably something with a guy getting his head cut off, a piece of fabric that she made, your rented bungalow castle, half duplex, what is a bungalow, a house with a deck, gables, surrounded by wide veranda, never been to Asia, to Japan, came back with some youths, still hard at work, studied in India, Malawi, the harshest place, corpses in the street, hardcore, too intense a country, Finland is probably the opposite of India, rotted fish for dinner, mild on twitter, a worldcon in Finland, Paul loves travelling to those things, 2026 L.A., share a room, a posse that you’re with, Steen and Scott, the Bradbury Building, modern art museum [the Guggenheim], go to the dealer’s room, vernacular architecture, shotgun house, why is Bagshot Row called Bagshot Row?, the other hobbits who were also robbers, bagshot ones came back with empty bags, unless you’re bird hunting, buckshot is deer shot right?, it’s not doeshot, by having them not be alive, female if preferred for meat, get the antlers, the complete set, hang it up, waste material, horn decoration, not valuable, deer bones, treat it like a trophy, a huge rack, a bragging thing, get fish mounted, stupid in their mancave, almost always dudes, a girl will go fishing, a mom will be doing fabric arts, raising a farm, always wanted to have animals, animals all the time, 400 animals, dogs and cats and fish and birds, suspicious of these birds, so many fucking birds, noisy, they tend to be the personality of a 3 year old, jealous, shy or stressed, chewin on the walls, messy, parrots eat food like the floor is the jungle that needs to be seeded, too inefficient, not the animal for you, snakes are chill, give em food once a month, go back to dormancy, literally are cool, reptiles not having emotions, crocodile relationship, not good at expressing their emotions, axolotl salamander, permasmile, cat doors, a small dog, a donkey, find one to adopt, foster an adult dog, trained out of the hard part, surrogate babies, how that’s not good, furbabies, a child that never grows up, motherly all day long, a very funny animal, an Australian cattle dog, meg is ready, she’s ovulating for a dog, not ovulating for a donkey, ride a donkey, you shouldn’t, donkeys don’t like to be ridden, gets really excited, the traditional donkey noises, like camels, pissed off and mad, joyful, relatable, interesting animals, feeding them, grass and hay and veggies, hey is pretty cheap, a series of sheds, the cow palace, you probably get a truck, not hauling donkeys, much bigger than dogs, much smaller than horses, they’re mostly tall and leggy, just pure muscle, a giant grapefruit, ripped with muscle, powerful ears, that’s how muscular they are, no tannery on the Island, all that good material goes to waste, fairly thick with snow, enough, Nissan, pretty good snowfall, worse or better, snowed in, deliver newspapers at 5am, painful, no broken skulls, not a job anymore, adults do it, delivered newspapers as boys in the 1950s and 1960s, pizza delivery guy, Snowcrash, the hero protagonist of this story, a concession stand, Snack Shack (2024), comedies of the 1990s?, a troubled privileged kid, Pineapple Express (2008), Superbad (2007), no sex at all, set in 1991, Bob’s Burgers, Archer, a parody of Eastern Promises (2007), where Aragorn is a Russian guy, A Netflix version of Minions Of Midas, so lovin Jack London, smart, right politics, classifying his stories, hobo stories, he knows about that, Hobo And The Fairy, The Iron Heel, interesting in theory and boring in practice, Bryan Alexander, a whole bunch of lectures, a revolutionary talking to a bunch of dentists or bourgeois, rich people who have dinner parties, a mechanic who gets paid better and more respect, a fucking horrible job, you’re in people’s mouths all day, Jenny and Bryan Alexander, dangerous being on this show, if you listen to Jesse you get to survive, a new anthology, very supportive of her on BlueSky, Year’s Best Eco Fiction, very Marissa energy, Coastal New Weird, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Star Trek Minus Context, that’s Bob of Bob’s Burgers, all the other actors on Archer, what the actor look like, Jessica Walter, Arrested Development, comedian character actors, Aisha Taylor, books to consider, a bibliography, stories I read when writing this story, mashup, Caesar’s Children, Plurotopia, Mizora: A Prophecy by Mary E. Bradley Lane, Ignatius Donnelly, Erewhon by Samuel Butler, we wait, people get excited on a big project and don’t finish it, pee and coffee, Bath & Body Works, soap and candles, take care.

The Hate Disease by Murray Leinster

The Rat Racket by David H. Keller

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #481 – What A Man Believes by Robert Sheckley

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #481

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss What A Man Believes by Robert Sheckley

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

What A Man Believes was first published in Fantastic, November-December 1953 .

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

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