Tag: robots

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

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

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

Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #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 #856 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Exploration Team by Murray Leinster AND The Velvet Glove by Harry Harrison

The SFFaudio Podcast #856 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Exploration Team by Murray Leinster, read by Ben Tucker (1 hour 40 minutes), AND The Velvet Glove by Harry Harrison, read by Gregg Margarite (44 minutes), both for LibriVox. The discussion of both with Jesse, Will Emmons begins at 2 hours 25 minutes.

Talked about on today’s show:
2 hours, Ben-Hur, Bill The Galactic Hero, Space Tug, tugboat in space, maritime stuff, zygote, developing in a womb for 38 years, Damien by Hermann Hesse, a bird has to break out of an egg, Ray Bradbury, most accessible of his books, The Glass Bead Game, what’s the cover look like, not a lot of spaceships and dragons, a bird, a flock of birds, a sun with a face in it, Æpyornis Island, accidental father, becomes aggressive, it is very good, H.G. Wells, continuously mean characters, not every piece of science fiction is equally good, better written vs. better ideas, a value judgement, The Velvet Glove, 1 to 2 ideas, much better in terms of ideas, robot underclass, almost like reality as it is, the robot meets a blackman, how many people were lynched in 1956 just for, if you have this book burn it, Scott Miller’s audiobook Robot Strike by Harry Harrison, the better of Asimov, joining this federal agency, The Stainless Steel Rat, first person perspective, pushed in to working for a benevolent law enforcement agency, subversiveness, the craft is a little weak, a me problem, taking his legs off, robot body parts, a strong craftsman, a little repetitive at points, he invented a world, really good science fiction for a bit, I likes bears, the eagle, the setup, the plot is ok, the resolution is fine, mutated bears, a value judgement, galactic manifest destiny, the problem with the robots, we become the servants to robots, how the two stories interact, the background, very minimal, minimal goals, wouldn’t it be cool if you had bears who were your friends?, swat her baby bear, many times, bears communicate with their fellow bears by swatting, how momma cats take care of their baby cats, make them run away, we’re lovin it, that’s the only thing going on in the story, needs to arrest him, illegally colonizing, keeps confessing to crimes, never a real threat in the story, we just lie a little bit on the forms, how we’re gonna classify you in the end, trick readers, trick John W. Campbell, a buncha bears, cool names, why wouldn’t I like this, goddamn big, goddamn small, a very goddamn big eagle, Sitka Charlie, Sourdough Pete, Nugget, Huygens, a tier down from Newton, kinda cool, famous dutch scientist, a hidden story in it, a hidden truth, what is inside of this story?, we have been entrained, entertainment isn’t enough, it’s terrible because it doesn’t do anything, you should read my novel it has power armour, the power armour is the main character, the guy inside, and the power armour has been dead for 16 years, and the power armour is corresponding with his wife, ‘I’m gonna be home soon’, can a man come home if he can’t actually take off his armour?, donkeys are not food, friends not food, food and friend, dogs not so much, mmm donkey milk, wouldn’t be cool to have a bear for a friend, barely science fiction, that’s the problem with it, science fiction adventure writing, dismissing something, wanna be friend, cool to be friends with Scott Miller and a donkey, Man-Hunting Robot by James Rosenquest, dining hall full of skeletons, chased by this robot, like The Running Man, joining the galactic police, galaxy’s most famous criminal forced to join the cops, subverting rather than joining, Ben Tucker’s good, very little to talk about it, fold in, see the hidden story within it, we turn our attention back to The Velvet Glove, Mississippi Burning (1988), Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, nice feds, mistrustive of institutions, gritty realism, didn’t look good anymore, a complaint through the grapevine, no teeth, no job, clean clothes, shoes that don’t look terrible, goes down that direction, when the robot gets kidnapped, plot shit, Robot Grapes Of Wrath, Brian Aldiss, the iron fist in the velvet glove, Napoleon, the Iron Hand of Mars, their standard is a literal iron hand, the iron fist in the velvet glove in the flaxen gauntlet, literally iron hands, from the POV of a robot, a way better than an Asimov story in general, the first law in the 92nd chip, kicks ass, the job interview, all downhill from there, the opening, editor of Fantastic Universe, the poor man’s F&SF, they don’t have the money, robots who don’t know their place, New York was a bad town for Robots, John Vennex, so excellent, he would have his leg off in a jiffy, old dead friend, Gregg Margarite, he fixes his leg, the light goes off, the comic strip from the newspaper, infrared light, an Asimov robot story but told from a much better pov, 1st person Asimov?, The Naked Sun, a sense of humour, smooth and easy, totally ripped off for Futurama, rusty on his face when he doesn’t drink too much, Robot Arms, a standing space, playing with the idea, New New York, a story with a story inside of it, robots are never about robots, they should be now, they’re about the division of labour, bro, robots get religion, the way that Philip K. Dick is much more exploratory, working joes with chips in their heads, the bomb and that boring stuff, a drunk guy there, almost hard to follow, down with the truck driver, black man being harassed for being too uppity, put on a livewire, he has instant recall, perfect senses, see things in the dark, a superman treated as an underclass, corpulent man, bumping in, saved by his employer/owner, right after the robot liberation from slavery, this might be a sequel to the robot strike, a loose sequel, the plot is crap, accurate, compelling stuff, hardup itinerant robots, what is this freedom, wishes he was owned, Harrison really had something here, financial incentive, he’s good at characterization, Asimov’s not good at, silly, a promise of more, he’s reading the book, back in the same situation, the closet in his room, please destroy this card after reading, any Tuesday at 5pm, a perfect memory, playing with the idea that he is a man, a superman, undercut by restrictions that Asimov has put on him, Harry Harrison has adopted, the society that he’s in, a forgettable Asimov story with characterization, should have been a classic for the ages, mass meeting, go on strike, one of the laws of robotics, any order that a human or robot gives you, shut down New York City, a whole lotta violence, human on human violence, the Robot Equality Act, drunk woman orders, a bottle of liquor, he couldn’t say no, Deathworld is good, The Stainless steel Rat, Slippery Jim DiGriz, in a fun world, light hearted, Soylent Green (1973), Make Room, Make Room, emotionally moving, The Senator’s Daughter by Edward Page Mitchell, Bill Christensen from Technovelgy, The Man Without A Body, Star Trek transporter through telephone wires, The New York Sun, 1879, 13 pages of text by transcription, Chapter 1, The Small Gold Box, 1937, Daniel Webster Wanli, eating a toilet, a rather elaborate toilet, googledocs, readalong, something Jesse complains about, walk up to a mirror, so funny, so bad, C.S. Forester novel, a first novel problem, you never have H.G. Wells doing that, in the glass he beheld, a perfect oval, short upper lip, he’s Fu-Manchu, dancing pumps, a pure Mongolian ancestry, this story is super-anti racist, but uses all the racist language, so interesting, profusion over the neck and shoulders, nickerboker breeches, intelligent good sense, an easy grace, the voice of his friend, how are we off for time, getting late, curtains, strode in, the Honorable member, prepared to conquer tonight, these frivolities, blush, infernally cold, it is snowing hard in New York, traveling at supersonic speeds, awesome, dressed hilariously, what a dandy, thermal electrode, waltz creditably, a sphere of shining platinum, that feels good, the scarlet bows, what would your constituents say?, th mainstay of the hope of the Extreme Left, knee ribbons, at a fashionable Harlem hop, the Bette Noir, this is very good, raillery, noiseless rollers, wickerbasket, the tech is great, so silly, can’t help but love it, the Contemporary News?, the Interminable Intelligencer, the organ of his own party, the wealth the beauty, unprecedented luster, stately wife, ex-President, sinecure, how funny the contrast here, set in 1937, bitter political animosity, just complaining about his now wearing a suit, Zelensky, guy who wears shorts, John Fetterman, slouch-ass clothes, when Netanyahu came to congress, the Israeli lobby probably paid for the suit, General Kwong, the defeated Mongol Vegetarian Candidate, the Chinese ambassador, strongly marked Asiatic features, the Chinese ambassador is probably a woman, this isn’t a homophobia story, little details, the Battle of Cheyenne, hoodlum fighter, equality of his racist, anti-racist in its racism, a Jesse definition, it could be a correct one, 1879, Chinese Exclusion Act, the ferment, far distant future, 60 years in the future, that’s a newspaper but in a constant flood, this is the tech used from stocks, a stock ticker, wired telegraphy, it’s amazing, what the hell is going on?, the toilets of the ladies are charming, the peacock feather train, give me a dinner, eaten nothing for 15 days, genuine science fiction, oh good, it’s not a small room, it is not hyperbole, the Mongol Vegetarian party, oval in form, a number of grey pastilles, candy, hardly larger than peas, thus do I satisfy mine hunger, vile and degrading, outraging the very laws of nature, the small gold box, with eager gaze, as if involuntary, Schneke, Senator Newton, no small sensation, regarding him earnestly, affected indifference, I think my dear boy, proceed to the capital, totally loveable, as being twitter, constant firehouse of information, ticker at the bottom of cable of news, description of the inauguration, so far, he’s a white guy who likes a chinese guy, very charming, this style of writing, this style of science fiction, owe it to Bill Christensen, science fiction tropes, interested in the origins, she’s an archaeologist, an aztec mummy, comes to life, never dead, suspended animation, I have no soul, come with me and we’ll suspended forever, sounds good, H. Rider Haggard energy, adventure and romance, funny intentionally, also science fiction, disarming you with humour, subversive all over the place, the ball at the capital, a brilliant throng, the rotunda of the capital, delectation, wall of flowers, D.C., not dingy, set in the future, worth noting, temporary interior dome, concavity, oppressive shower of fragrance, a single jet of water, flooding the room with light, as the light of the Moon, gave utterance to the notes, the vibrant tip of his baton, light and blurry and difficult, a contemporary conductor, live music delivered across the ocean, blocking the rotunda’s concavity, nice smell and music, the tech here, gave utterance to the note, so futuristic, for 1879, hydrolecrtic fountain, scientifiction, met and mingled, seized and led of captive, scarcely noticing, exchanging bows, accosted by General Kwong, the campaign of 1936, a repeat, he really wants you to know and note it, the Democrat/Republicans and the Mongol Vegetarians, February of 1937, a Chinesey accent, the senate chamber, retraced his steps, the other extremity of the capital, been there, done his research, all this walking around, the music of a waltz, several hundred couples, apparently an Italian, relinquished her waist, this story is great, holding out her hand, thank you Miss Newton, you may retire Francesco, I shall not need you again, bowed respectfully, this Italian guy, dismissed him like he’s a servant, wasp white ethnic divide, she’s in love with a chinese dude, looking forward to it, glided off together, slap, thanked her with a smile, competent professional partner, sit dismally around the walls, a shade of annoyance, forgive me if I have wounded you, there’s a story by Jerome K. Jerome, The Dancing Partner, novel notes, a good horror story, blood and dancing, a dancing machine for girls, what a blessing, unfinished, a call back to the time in which the story is published, hire our own guys to dance with us, not just progressive in racial terms, also in gender terms, absolutely insane, what he’s laying down, the next one is unfinished, he knows it, a feather’s weight, in society, in her father’s laundry, sampan, don’t you love this, as you well know, Jim, first spacecraft to land on mars, these Tesla batteries, reflecting while they’re dancing, not going to be a popular science fiction story, it’s amazing, an anonymous story, just content, my mom was doing your family’s laundry, isolated rural peasant, Yangtze, Deep Space 9, literally think, a lot like Gene Roddenberry, really strange, neat futuristic stuff, the tech, progressive gets a lot of negative material, that means he’s a shit, people being inferior is wrong, poppa?, tiresome speech against the vegetables, manifest embarrassment, trembling in my happiness, a conservative among the conservatives, this must have an end, an equivocal position, on one bold move, a charming blush, you beloved little puritan, honky, he’s insulting her, a congregationalist, as they passed out of the hall of representatives, she’s racist, I may need your counsel before morning, Massachusetts sweetheart, a screen of palmettos, asked him for food, bit his underlip, heaped with delicate viands, obtain refreshment, I’m going to ask you for a final proof of your affection, a wing of a fowl, a plate of fruit, I’m a vegan, the theory of your party, the political topic of the day, there isn’t a vegan party, demagogy, an absurd and sophistical theory, the radicalism of the rabble, capitalization, political right?, moral right, abstract morality, an upheaval, science and abstract Right, the march of time, his flaming eyes, she could not hide, his manly bearing, long hair don’t care, a beautiful toilet, a dandy, knickerbockers, a cartoon of this, every animal, most insignificant mollusc, children of the common Evolution, the great family, the Australian bushman, the ox, levels to this shit, so heady, is not the butchery of the murder, fratricide?, cannibalism, in the habit of long ages, Benjamin Lay, the nadir for vegetarianism, Hitler, a rise the 60s, whole foods, we forgot this was a big thing, making an argument that only science fiction can make, very progressive, modern shitty racism theory, that description of his body, he has little feet, so crazy, would you elevate them to suffrage, the baboon?, at least not at the present, the right to vote, the ox, the chicken, the baboon, sentence in isolation, hilarious, mind continuously blown, for the sake of a meal, how evolution works, we got there first, the pinnacle of being an organism, where uplift comes from, The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, those are noble sentiments, the adverbs for everything, he said with a smile and a bit of sadness, they will carry the country of 1940, Mongol-Vegetarian party, a fusion between a pro-Asian party and the vegetarian party, the Mongol Free Love party, I admire your earnestness, even so much as a chicken wing, women didn’t have the vote, almost like a checklist of progressive ideas and tech, with your words still in my ears, a little fruit, the great mass of our party, this story is getting better and better, the laggards up to our line, calmly await ultimate results, how can we escape, the tree, the plant, event the fungus, who can say where vegetable life ends, to uproot a potato, to pluck a grape, to outrage consanguinity, the vocab of the author and the character, a duty to refrain from vegetable food, all living things are born free, is not that a beautiful thought, Canadian humour pop bands, [Arrogant Worms – Carrot Juice is Murder], must we starve to death, what a sentence, the small gold box, her white hand, it will satisfy her hunger, morsel, even if it were poison, nourishment, tasteless, 18 to 25 days, entire 76th congress, more than 20 years, handwavium, nice infodump, proximate principles, fibrin, albumen, by the old plan, muscular tissues of the ox, encumbered, back to the toilet, in the ideal form of food no ladies have to poop, no useless irrelevant matter, the German chemists, the fountainhead of nature, now shall the evils of gluttony, brother vegetables, now shall all this be, the lips I love, stockings have flowers, this man is so elaborate, funny looking, at this point in the story, he’s making fun of vegetarians, how can he be anti-racist and making fun of vegetarians, two things at once, too sophisticated, The Ball At The Capital, pills that are food, Mr. Wallsingham Brown, that Italian dancer, following you like a hound, her Mongolian lover, there shall be no scene, what’s his business, the wingman, racist against the Mongolian, inner party, a rich kid, he’s not from old old money, his parents had a laundry, Pennsylvania Avenue, the bowels of the earth, luxuriously upholstered, to Boston, a pneumatic tube, the New York subway system, the final chapter, The Frozen Bride, 1904, London Underground, 1863, Paris, he doesn’t invent things out of wholecloth, The Man Without A Body, why not physical objects, wired lines, everything in this story makes sense, even that is correct, u can live like that for a long time, still peeing, toxins removed,having some fun, reading it with a straight face, like The Coming Race, we don’t wanna kill animals and eat their flesh, a nice tree, as soon as you say: don’t eat fruit, look at me, a flashing neon sign, come eat me!, kale, cabbage, vegetables don’t want to be eaten, fruits want to be eating, “want”, evolved to be eaten, extend voting rights to apples, too parodic, people might twig to the fact, the suffrage of the succotash, the Narragansett word, before Lovecraft said I’m a native, The Dunwich Horror, bushmen and indians, radical, more radical, undercooked intellectually, doesn’t complete sentence, a short hard laugh, the lower branch, his colleague, the lower house, the upper house, the lower branch of humanity, senators vs. congressmen, Bernie Sanders calls it the House Of Lords, waist of the young Chinaman, because I love him, long afterword, after the story material, Los Angeles apartment, not good craft, that mirror stuff, it is funny, foolish child, profit in the least, sinister operations, deceives himself, won’t even say his name, emotional control, he’s so important, very patrician, as an honorable man, honorable marriage, with a sneer, a prophet, an apostle of Vegetable Rights, let him seek a cactus in marriage, wanton insult, loves his emdashes does Edward Page Mitchell, such is due him, I go with him, a lawyer, the Suspended Animation Act, surely you would not, inhuman, outrageous enactment, for a quarter of a century, Wanli swoons, he swooned, he’s womanly with that long hair, flowery socks, firmly set teeth, another kick in the balls, I will read the text, the ritual of this marriage, female person, maid or widow under the age of 30 years, registered consent, null and void, such parents or guardians, really interesting, marriage is controlled by the states, why is he writing about this?, writing for money, Margaret St. Clair, participate, Harry Harrison, Murray Leinster, other kinds of fiction, western, crime, romance, fill pages, make content, get content, he’s thought about, he’s a Walsingham Brown, laws against that, set it in the future, the punishment for offending is being frozen, since the 18th century, animals that hibernate, 1801, speak for people, for space travel, a gimmick to get somebody into the future, The Jameson Satellite, the first Heinlein novel, For Us, the Living, an evil story, The Marching Morons, not a Good story, an Evil story, the history of refrigeration, Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft, when his wife left him, crappy boarding house, the slattern who runs the place, boils weird cabbages, an old Spanish man, a zombie, using air conditioning, refrigeration vs. ice boxes, battery powered stuff, first electronic refrigeration, ice truck deliveries, 1913, the idea, the concept exists before it is marketed, freeze people, such a strange turn in the story, the new world struggling to be born, what does it mean?, the cruel sin of the fathers, we must part, as if to dismiss, a bugaboo, 4am, arguing for 2 hours, as cold and self-possessed, frozen, he has frozen me already with his frigid heart, the 27th amendment, according to his pleasure, a means to procure divorce, not superlegal, freeze yourself, a right to put yourself on pause, government paid for?, pause yourself, so as to avoid paying alimony?, get out of your marriage, by going into the future, by waiting for her to die, how did this come up, invents freezing, that’s immoral, 27th seems high, shorten the time between elections, WWII or previous, change the salaries of congress members, Nancy Pelosi is $180 [$240] millionaire, the clergyman, the Refuge, the cloister, soliloquy, his life probabilities, the vital bureau of Washington, Lifeline by Robert A. Heinlein, the insurance companies murder him, cute, claim your bride, another Heinlein one, The Door Into Summer, child bride, frozen husbansicle, age up to “husband high”, tall enough to get married, Wyoming Knot, pale cheeks, womanish rhinelanders, very emotional, dissuade the caucasian, he’s got the tissue ready, fresh rosy, prematurely aged, sallow, flacid, a skeleton, a ghost of her former self, absolute suspension would be death, they gnaw and prey upon, the last and most perfect argument that can be addressed, what if you get ugly?, for my poor beauty I care very little, the little gold box, swallowed it’s entire contents, valances today, she swallows the whole bottle of pills, my duty is with you, the joy of awakening, you have a great and noble order to perform, I think your duty is plain, you’re important, outlive my dad, voting rights to cabbages and carrots, not to fruit, once the chickens get ready, David Brin, in the gray dawn, Cambridgeport, a mockery of grief, grave and silent, tearless eyes, sobbing, cried out all his tears, the congealing chamber, icy embrace, does it have a plot?, does it cohere?, withered husky, is it a good story, no, is it a great story yes, timeline, twenty minutes, typesetting, that tracks, a better science fiction than the other two, it’s great science fiction, completely nuts, gonzo, a real gem, his website has been around forever, based on his references, however long the internet has been around, the text is on gutenberg australia but it is not a reliable text, chronicle.gov, capitalizations and corrections, why is there no Jewish Narnia, what about…, a Jewish fantasist, this is not a fantasy writer anybody has heard of, not in the mainstream, even Tolkien and Lewis, Olaf Stapledon, and H.G. Wells, not submitting to Astounding, they fit, copying Wells, some New York Review Of Books, obscure, the idea holds, secondary world fantasy, a lot of Mormons doing it, the secondary world, totally off the radar of mainstream science fiction, died in 1927, born in 1852, an earlier science fiction writer, The Clock That Went Backwards, 1881, the plot of Back To The Future (1985), a Dutch starvation siege, instead of Doc Brown, Delorean time machine, the progenitor of the whole family, like Time Rider (1982), an excellent science fiction movie, it’s tight, gold to be mined, Tachypomp, Back From The Bourn, The Soul Spectroscope, The Exchanging Of Their Souls, The Extraordinary Wedding, Or War With Monaco, sounds good, The Balloon Tree, 1886, The New York Sun, letter column, handin around, way more disposable, done that day, save a newspaper longer than a day, on a ship, becomes toilet paper, with Weird Tales you can stack em up, participatory, magazines are more collectable, in comes the collecting thing, fill your bins, two stories in the official podcast, almost awesome, enriched, tell Meg about that, tell her the fun parts, bride getting frozen, totally science fiction, not like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Lucian of Samosata, doesn’t scream SCIENCE FICTION at you, the closest competitor Fitz-James O’Brien, weird fiction, in a proper sense, Jules Verne, it depends on the story, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, From The Earth To Moon, a play for comedy, Stephen Leacock, The New Food, pills as food, a secret story inside of it, Jesse’s thesis, every podcast on two science fiction stories has two science fiction stories inside of it, Professor Plum, all the essential nutritive elements, ordinary article of diet, drawbacks as well, the smiling family, plentiously laid, the radiant mother, the Christmas dinner, resting on a poker chip, lifted the thimble, this is great, an agonized cry from the mother, Gustavus Adolphus, the unthinking child, give him water, a dull rumbling sound, exploded into fragments, a lingering smile, 13 Christmas dinners, exploding baby, a happy baby, The Retroactive Existence Of Mr. Juggins, make a proper handle, a sapling, sharpen up the axe, fix the grindstone, making wooden legs, a carpenter’s bench, never came back, metafiction, really fun, no name for a baby, an allusion to a real person who exploded on a battlefield, it by a cannonball, a good think in the background, LibriVox, The Tachypomp, read by Ben Tucker, The Devil’s Funeral, The Crystal Man, Back From That Bourne, An Extraordinary Wedding, 70 young men, a math story, for whom the limbs of heavenly bodies, spectacular stage?, Polyp University, two weeks where the story is about marriage, a lot of marriage going around, a show on food, throughout science fiction, superfood to animals, he becomes a giant, giant chickens, giant cows, go with The Tachypomp, a picture of a yeti, bigfoot smoking a pipe, a body cleaning product, pharmacy section, wearing a suit, a smoking jacket, pocket, he’s pretty cute, product design, looking at shelves, where the true art is, Coffin Crisp, Coffee Crisp, during Halloween, I love this, make this my desktop, Smarties, Mars bars with bats, the gimmick, almost all art related, Gaza is being holocausted video, a fake meat Margaret St. Clair story, a fake meat factory, 3 shill magazines, the sounds in the vats, tourmaster, made of the meat, fleshy monster, to be cut up to be served, a cute little story that addresses Mr. Wanli’s concerns, she’s great, funny and horrible at the same time, is it terrorism, video slaughterhouses, what a wonder, The Green Queen, bad novel great book, a Margaret’s St. Clair’s Magazine, Asimov is good, series sellout, a Philip K. Dick magazine, the UBIK end, have to be based on her stories, domestic weird science fiction, earthbound, stuff set in space, go back in time and marry her, finds the lady, Somewhere In Time, she renewed too much, Return Engagement, old reliable Ben Tucker, 28 minutes, pair it with another, voles with laser beams on their heads, very Margaret St. Clair, The Gardener, a creepy kind of space horror story, chops down a sacred tree, totemic guardian of the tree, she likes plants a lot, a trans story, she is telling her story, she’s mentally ill, her old wife, she murders that person, I paid for your operation, be in my alien zoo, she murders her old identity, published in nice editions, there’s no audiobook, Mike Vendetti, fantasy by her, they just stopped making books, someone has to create content, series, power armour book, an army of self promoting indie authors, Jonathan’s second Scandals funded, two good looking covers, pretty extreme art inside, made a deal with the devil, the John De La Roz crew, friendly with each other online, taking a stand against Paul based on nothing, Ben-Hur next week, very relevant for the creation of Israel, Americans who support Zionism, people have ideas, it wasn’t all sexual blackmail, Christian zionism, Lew Wallace and the movies, the 1959 movie, sword and sandal movies, Jewish characters are prominently presented, he plays Moses, The Ten Commandments, Charlton Heston playing Jews, just don’t hate on us, we want you in Israel, Exodus (1960), Paul Newman, set in 1948, all the teams coming together, a piece of propaganda saying Israel good, not a lot about the Nakba, what’s the lesson here, he does a lot of work to make Jews good people, very powerful looking film, insane aspect ratio, horses getting crushed, people in the stands watching the show, sets look amazing, the 2016 one, the CGI is quite good, point of view cam, bad dialogue, he goes to Rome, the Circus Maximus, chariot race, Palmyra, done in a minute, Jews are really good people, we really support Israel, the Zionist political movement, Camp David Accords wrong, it’s fuckin nuts, Balfour Declaration, the Rothschild family, Napoleon, mostly secular, ethnic Jews, Millenarian, a book for Christians about Judaism, very well written, the method of storytelling, second person plural, we follow them, first person plural, our attention is drawn to, an experimental thing, this book was bigger than Harriet Beecher Stowe, super-Christian in a good way, probably prompted, a Union Civil War general, Cynical-C blog, Robert Ingersoll, miracles are bullshit, train ride, gotta do my own research, produced Ben-Hur, the story of his beliefs, one of the few books blessed by a Pope, back when people read, pulp style, at least in higher circles, the American frontier, money, books used to be expensive, buying a book was no joke, books are all free, the physical object, I can’t afford that book, access to books, very accessible, they’re all cheap, Costco stopped selling books, we don’t make money on this shit, Amazon’s going to stop selling physical books in 2027 (except maybe as gimmick books), buying books as trophies, too expensive, too heavy, too big, you’re not a library bro, hardcover small press, tradepaperback, pocketsize have been banned (by the system), Hard Case Crime, the old fashioned pocket size mass market, had to go along with it, where’s your distribution for those, weird no longer mass market, extended height for no good reason, sit out more prominently, thank you sir.

Exploration Team by Murray Leinster

The Velvet Glove by Harry Harrison

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #847 – READALONG: Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #847 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
a miraculous healing, Jesse got sick, kind of amazing, packed with ideas, some of it was like a fever dream, 5-6 days, similar to a lot of Simak, together, separately, Way Station, not like this, really late, 1981, Special Deliverance, Where The Evil Dwells, Highway Of Eternity, the kitchen sink is in this one, 2024/2025, the main idea is this ai, kind of Foundation-like, Vatican 17, pattern their project after the Catholic church, alive and well on Earth and elsewhere, monks, chopping the wood, not about Catholicism, or is it?, a pope’s infallibility, misunderstood a lot, if we can feed this ai nothing but true information…, all the data, truly infallible, transporter system, become a trilobite in the past, a packet of information, this little treasure of information, that truth, constantly collecting with the expectation the result will be an infallible “pope”, the one true religion, just Truth (and a source of that), in today’s world, almost prescient, we have our ai, the information that it has, ask chatGPT a question, pretty good at math, funny at math, you’re right, you are right in saying that, it’s ingratiating, how many months until I am 80 years old, how did you frame, 18 minus 9, about the pope, how does it handle a question that’s not some factual thing, is Pope Francis a good pope?, it’s answer was good, vary widely, 2023, how does it give an answer to that, what is good, people think this, it doesn’t really have opinions, Simak doesn’t write ai, even his robots are people, all over the place, distracted, the cardinal, pour scotch on his chin, he’s a cool guy, sure he doesn’t have to eat or sleep, non-human aliens and they’re human too, the diamond dust guy, the little sparkle who goes in your eye, watcher/sleeper, the whisperer, a lot like Ariel from The Tempest, there is no master here, wants to be friends, the unifying thing, nice and rural, nice views of mountains, walks through the forest, I don’t know what I’m doing with my life, lady with a scar on her face, no one can ever love me, I can love you, started the website [SFFaudio], robot, spaceship, artificial intelligence, robots are separate from those things, robot vacuum, clean the floor, do the dishes, grok the twitter ai, does it actually know anything, the answer is no, It Wouldn’t Work Because… by Jesse, three synonyms vain, finds a statue of his emissary, hears a beautiful voice, here’s some wine, the woman accepted the first of the king’s proposal, the missing card, king, comb, snake, they can usually guess who the woman is, its medusa, all the beautiful women are snooty, lonely, a nice parable in itself, who the woman was, the woman is medusa, given that she is medusa, she has snakes for hair, spoon-feed it to get the right answer, how the term ai has changed, chat gpt is a good search engine, and google is a bad search engine now, a really concise way, using the Catholic church as a model, an article by Ted Chiang, fiction writing, the person writing it is making 10,000 choices, a prompt, it has to fill in, take an average of the choices that other writers have made, really bland, style mimicry, interesting, that’s exactly what the ai in this is doing, emulate humanity’s way, what Vatican 17 is, if you feed it nothing but truth you’re going to get an infallible answers, what is truth?, created by humans, running into contradictory things, even if not consciously, style mimicry ourselves up a new Clifford Simak novel, in a fever, Ploppy went plop plop, other worlds, the math world, equation world, similar to a bunch of novels by Simak, Shakespeare’s Planet, the first science fiction novel Jesse ever read, science fantasy stuff, A Wrinkle In Time, fantasy, a weird book, stuck there waiting for Godot, Gutshot, The End of Nothing, looking for Heaven, a spiritual hopefulness, hopefully Heaven, that’s cool, he’s very interesting, technically it isn’t a very good science fiction novel because there’s hardly any science, where’s the science?, magical collecting, go be a trilobite for a minute, an exploration, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, the equations there try and save him, a very philosophical novel, Ted Chiang isn’t rambling, concise, this is a tour of the countryside over a weekend, not exactly elegiac, written by a mature man, Peter S. Beagle, bullshit!, A Fine And Private Place, Two Hearts, a novella, sitting there holding his Hugo, a poem on Reading, Short And Deep, a little joke poem, we gotta get it on, lives in a tomb, friends with ghosts, delusional homeless man in New York, a widow, a little romance, closely associated with a talking crow or raven, in this book, visit other dimensions rather than other planets, equation world, the Platonic ideal, the realm of the forms, the Realm of the Forms, Plato’s idea, we don’t learn anything we only remember, knowledge without existence, brought out into a woman’s body, in the process of being born you have a mental wipe, you forgot everything you knew in the land of the forms, I remember what a chair is, a good question for grok, how many legs does a chair have to have, a chair doesn’t take one shape, is a chaise long a chair, all the qualities of all the chairs, we know it when we see it, we know what the good is, we knew the good, when we see the good in the world we recognize it as Good, truth is the good, pretty compelling, explains a lot, a bullshit story, why people like math too much, how many meters of sand, model the world using math, at this speed and angle, we really like that, that doesn’t solve a lot of the problems we have, I have three bad choices, all three are going to be embarrassing, go to something else like principal, always don’t lie, when your people made us robots, certain faculties, appreciation of beauty, noisy dogs, Special Deliverance, his student was using a coin operated ai machine, ends up in another dimension or place, what is that about?, a cube and a puzzle, a woman who gets entranced by a single tower, she’s withered away, all symbolic, an existential novel, philosophy, quite nice, the community is fairly nice, the weird guardian alien, the old ones, indigenous species, missing entwives, a little Lovecraftian about them, sensing organs, a way to go, almost to be another Foundation, withstand the fall of the Empire, edge of the galaxy, the way the book starts off, stowaway, the first officer, a one way trip, the way to read this, it is for life, the captain was kind of a racist dude, knee deep I am in alien scum, his rat crew, The Huddling Place, Sean Standfast (YouTube), Cemetery World, huddle watch, we humans need to stick together, 7 times in this novel, Time Is The Simplest Thing aka The Fisherman, a run down rustbelt United States, Mexico, a similar program, more aggressive and more dominant, astral travelers, ideas and technologies, the equivalent of Walmart, a rise in psychic powers, a conflicted United States not in control of itself, teenage witches sky-riding their brooms, this agency called Fishhook, they hook on to some idea, spiritual growth, a search of enlightenment, the message of this book, the countryside is quite nice, some filling stew, a stew scene, how’s the stew, it’s filling, eight of his novels, search for ultimate truth, there is such a truth that exists, on the road there, here we are on the road, the norm is restored and they can continue searching, is it worthwhile or not, we can do this in a pleasant way and keep moving forward, filling stew, well made, beautiful mountains, really there, beauty is part of it, all ye need to know, if truth is beauty, an ugly truth should be nonsensical, a hard truth, a hard beauty, how he got away with this, he kept putting them out, Analog, November 1982, very positive, strongly by all means, he’s saying it’s good, an old friend, a sense of immense friendliness, constant concerns with rural settings, life, being, a certain perplexitiy in the face of reality, a pastoral writer, a folksy writer, the day to day, writes of hobbits, not men, themes are cosmic, bad manners, rurality, pastoral, cosmic, laid back flesh and blood, friendly in a neighborly way, how can we cancel this guy?, conflict in fiction, it has to exist, Simak exists, it defines on how you define conflict, a harsh word, I want some toast and mom says no, a fight over toast, man against man, man vs. nature, busy work, keep them busy, a horrible story, why kindergarten exists, its from the Prussians of course, it’s in the name, in order to make your troops obedient you have to get them young, take them away from their parents and indoctrinate them, pre-k, how did cave men manage so well without these busy work contests, scolded with marks, he’s on a kind of quest for some enlightenment while being friendly, a newspaper guy, how the news is generated, there’s not a lot of news in it, what kind he was, what they choose to shine a light on, where the bias really is, Stanislaw Lem, One Human Minute, a fake review of that book, we’d never ever had that, him and Borges, you can’t ever have the whole story, you can’t have every story told, the facts you just presented are false, laid up in a fever, when mom’s watching the news, as a farmer the weather is very important, spellcheckers are built in now, contradictory claims in the same presentation, even when it is a cogent story (no self contradictory patients), they didn’t understand what the point of the story was, Dan Carlin, how do you even know, it depends on what you watch, what the truth is, what the news is, cable news, this thing happened, Steve the expert that we found, that could be terrorists, there were terrorists and they did the thing, conjecture over what it might mean, they don’t have any wisdom, is there a source of information, one thing we can do is wait ten years, then twenty years, after 75 years, the facts that were being spun, was the Maine an inside job?, in the harbour of Cuba, the kickoff for the Spanish American war, a newspaper chain in the United States, remember the Maine!, to start a war, it doesn’t matter, if we found a conspiracy of a guy, a series of still photographs of a guy planting a bomb, not a torpedo attack, the media ginned up a war and the U.S. government wanted a war, got them a lot of possessions, now we’re an empire, feeds into this book, easier to arrive at the truth, nobody is arguing about who shot Garfield, video of Kennedy being shot, before that video came out, the Zapruder film came out in the 80s, Geraldo Rivera, what are we unsure about?, we don’t have a zoom in on the face of the sniper, it contradicts the official story, proves the government was lying in the report, standard operating procedure, its not there as a public service, reinforcing a point, liberals in the United States, Murdoch, curse him in their secular way, curse Murdoch and the evil work that he’s done, the way people hate Elon Musk, everything’s like that, who’s the owner of MSNBC, nobody knows, they got agendas, the agenda makes the spin and the focus, reading the paper lately, the end of Biden’s term, Biden’s dementia was kept a secret, it wasn’t a secret, not officially, showing the opposite, “cheap fakes”, who’s claiming what the facts are, the guy measuring the rainfall, Dan Carlin gets away with it because he sticks with old stuff, he was doing Common Sense, Hardcore History, always slow and long, 4 to 6 months, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, they’re fine, a fascinating book, a culmination of a career, a lot of good books, Shaun D. Standfast, City, Waystation, All Flesh Is Grass, Stephen King, Under The Dome, Out Of Their Minds, Enchanted Pilgrimage, Choice Of Gods, Terence and Maissa, The Werewolf Principle, Destiny Doll, like a Star Trek episode, like a roll playing game, there’s no plan, what is your purpose in life, a pretty interesting thing, they’re model version of ourselves, a portal fantasy, instantiated in a new character, strength 1, health 7, charisma 99 to your parents, 18 years later, confront the world, many are slain, the secret of the planet, everyone’s curious, The Goblin Reservation, Empire, Time And Again, Ring Around The Sun, The Trouble With Tycho, Why Call Them Back From Heaven, Our Children’s Children, 1976, A Heritage Of Stars, Mastadonia, The Visitors, as you well know Scott, people don’t like short fiction, they love novels, 350 page novels, tolerate an 11 hour novel, seeing things when I close my eyes, patterns, images, I’m hallucinating, there’s no audio, not hearing things, going across my eyeballs, not eating a lot, two plates of bacon and eggs, couldn’t finish the steak, all that being said, all these amazing images, the images are such that you see in some weird painters, I see it dude, claiming, little puppy’s down here, that’s his mom, next week, The Magic City by E. Nesbit, parents in Florida, spending the weekend, sun in the winter, there might be one of Empire, a Galaxy short novel, one way to go, a substantial meal, George R.R. Martin’s bookstore: Beastly Books, special editions, rare stuff, Gene Wolfe short story collection, A Storm Of Swords, what are we to make of this series will never complete, he’s almost done, 1400 pages, I will never be finished, fake news!, an update on his blog, keeps pluggin away, one more after that, Simak better, his very earliest stuff, go back to the middle, very sophisticated, it had a resignation to it, sixth novel, a fixup, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, short but dense, what he’s bad at, what he’s good at, loading up the atmosphere, you fool, check out Clark Ashton Smith, there’s an evil wizard and he hates people, very simple stuff, Dunsany has got depth to him, he also plays in the shallow area, Fritz Leiber, great stylist, smooth and fun, the current state of the cat, sound asleep, next to a hot printer, at least it’s a Brother, bro, Eaters Of The Dead, a big Michael Crichton kick, about a year ago, very cute, a little xmas bowtie, Santa Fe, the Iron Giant, the costume beside him, tv show or movie, very familiar, a lot of stuff his wife didn’t want in the house, just open a bookstore, keeps it stocked, Brandon Sanderson is opening a massive bookstore, a homebase to sell, the production of special editors, needs a warehouse, vertically integrated, right next to Evermore, a fantasy amusement park, not quite awesome, a fantasy village, little quests, talk to actors, RPG but live action, very enjoyable, how it ran and everything, it’s really nice, somebody bought it, I am not that foolish, I am not a park for you amusement, being sick sucks, thank you so much, get better.

Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #485 – In His Image by Bryce Walton

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #485

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss In His Image by Bryce Walton

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

In His Image was first published in Planet Stories, Winter 1948.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #482 – Perfect Marriage by George H. Smith

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #482

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Perfect Marriage by George H. Smith

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

Perfect Marriage was first published in Science Fiction Stories, January 1959.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!