Tag: robots

The SFFaudio Podcast #782 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: A Present For Pat by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #782 – A Present For Pat by Philip K. Dick, read by Tommy Patrick Ryan. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (39 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, Jonathan Weichsel, and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
a god from Ganymede, fictional relations, actual relations, an amazing performance, laughing so many times, best audiobook, Elmore Leonard, the Clark Ashton Smith, a fun story, the most recent one, equipment setup, craft, the voices, good point, 1954, 2017, Evan got it, how funny it was, quivering breasts twice, such a great writer, what’s wrong with it, starts amazingly, could’ve turned into a novel, flawed, or a secret story inside of it, extravaganza, author bio, Edgar Allan Poe, The Angel Of The Odd: A Extravaganza, you gotta stop drinking, a vision of an angel, of a god, beyond earth, a keg and a bunch of empty drinking containers, It was a chilly november afternoon, dyspeptic, some apologies for dessert, Glover’s Leonidas, Wilkie’s Epigoniad, Lamartine’s Pilgrimage, Barlow’s Columbiad, and Griswold’s Curiosities, another alchol, newspaper, dogs lost, wives and apprentices runaway, without understanding a syllable, the tone of this story, setsup a normal situation, god in the box, flourish after flourish, other Philip K. Dick stories of the period, Out In The Garden, in comes a friend, a frog, a pillar of granite, the son of the Sun god, a fantasy in a certain sense, robots, a trip to Ganymede, a naturalistic explanation of religion, not just aliens, Dave Duncan’s Great Game novels, magic power and strength, he’d be a god there, transportation, a higher realm than ours, Kal-El of Krypton aka Superman, a quick fantasy reason why this person is powerful, it’s cool, the rest of the narrative, is there a message here, cut it off a little earlier, the first time a terran has ever been exploited, about engaging with capitalism, there’s so much going on in it, it becomes a fantasy, Beyond Lies The Wub, the same hidden premise, lands on Mars, buys a Wub, the captain wants to eat it, the wub had some superpower, transfers consciousness, that’s why I convinced the natives to sell me, go to Earth, little toy solider for sale, the little toy soldier wanted to be purchased, exactly the same setup, that night at the dinner table he brought it out, my god what is it?, with her sharp nails, her bosom rising and falling, he lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall, a real old cuckoo clock, wholesale, Well, what’s the matter, man gives a wife a gift, very domestic scenes, the best robot cabbie scene, Now Wait For Last Year, the apotheosis, the gold standard, we have much bigger problems, fired and melted down into other robots, the god contest, Jonathan figured that out, Lovecraft parody, tentacles, bigendered, wings, Rick And Morty, gonzo style, gods don’t exist that’s not scientific, if you’re a god how did you come into existence?, snappy dialogue, why of all persons, very pulpy, really good narration, felt like Dick playing around with classic philosophy, that Philosophy 101 stuff, self-taught all the way, what books he read, in his letters, here’s how to write weird fiction, he read everything, Chu-Bu And Sheemish by Lord Dunsany, 1911, thus he was magnified, thus they worshiped Chu-Bu, there is also Sheemish, a modern idol, furious, the situation called for miracles, limited miracle range, so equally match, a game between two gods, the underplot, start a metal business, he broke the rules, he’s a cop, alien comes to earth chasing a criminal [The Hidden (1987)], niggling problem, who’s the badguy in this story, why does there have to be a badguy?, if you read it right, it’s supposed to be capitalism, the Nardok, the biggest industry going, robot cops, like a Cinderella story, why metal?, head of big evil business, 1950s America, something you mine, the boss is mad that the friend is turned into a frog, why metal, a position of power on Earth, work as some schlub, why do I need to work, a powerful character from another world, the same principle, the power to transmute the elements, a quotidian way, Jesse’s opinion, treated as a freak, turned himself into a boss, a shimmy and a wink to the husband and wife, he creates out of nothing a medal, here’s gold, gold has been devalued, how about platinum, some undercooked critique, something about mining being the standard, Heinlein farms the moon, it was huge, still huge, plastics, oil, the steel industry, Truman almost seized control of U.S. Steel, Reardon Metal, where the money is, compensating our Philip K. Dick figure, Eric Blake, of course, hence Terence’s comment, peters out into a silly scene, so good in so many ways, its automation, the police can be robots, hanging around on the dole, the key to automation and robotics, blacklist you on the inner system, a punishment, a toad, an important member of his corporation, if you’re a god, consider Jesse, it does operate on this logic, overwhelmed very quickly, he tells his wife he has a god, at practically no cost, you mean its an idol, this is genuine diety, a warranty or something, straight-facing it, you have to arouse it, a fantasy set in a science fiction setting, funny situation, when the friend comes over, I’m dubious of this being a god, they’re omnipotent, I’ve heard reports about Terra, the way people respond, there’s a god on the table, put up a shield, avatars for institutions of hegemonic capital at the time, same kind of humour, wife and boss, he’s a toad, incredible, you’re playing a joke, produce Thomas, that’s comedic writing, having a job is hilarious, one of these six minds, six room bungalow, recall Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Odysseus’ purpose, the robot has read Ibsen, tragic playwright, orchestral soundtrack, the Looney Tunes cartoons, anybody in the fifties, the button molder comes for Peer Gynt, wishywashy, melts them down, preying on the robot’s mind, Beyond The Door, trying to make a philosophical point, not just filling pages, obsessive, it’s really good, the funniest one, literal laughing out loud like a maniac, there’s so much there, who is this guy?, Bradshaw was southern, inherent comedy, foreshadowing, Philip K. Dick being funny, fires the guy, if Jonathan were boss, writing by the seat of his pants, doesn’t know that he’s a god yet, glossed that in, on the search for this other god, Philip K. Dick can’t help himself, hermaphroditic, doesn’t even use it’s mouth?, another description of her quivering bosom, no one else writes that, another words that comes up in here, Pat stood rigid, Roog, aliens or garbage men, oh that was the paperboy, any experience about other people’s experience, women’s bosoms quiver and people who are scared turn rigid, weird brain, anything more deep to this?, The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft, Lovecraft is smarter than this, lesser stories, not able to read it right, with the metals, that might be the key to it, how’s he gonna replace our Eric Blake character?, what does the friend do?, Thomas Matson, the front door chimed, the door stated, a beanpole body, that’s my god, bursting into hilarity, a Ganymedean weather deity, with a warranty, that’s illegal, similar to Human Is, you’re not the way you used to be, you’re nice, body is occupied, Deep Space Nine, Pah-wraith, wormhole aliens, the thing that makes him a god, very powerful, the people on Ganymede worship him, he control the weather, a plot hole, paving that plothole, his explanation, still skeptical, turns him into a toad, straight out of Bros. Grimm, really amazing, very anti-capitalism, doesn’t engage with as much later, deeper than it really is, very frothy, a burlesque, political messages, capitalism bad, metal bad, Souvenir, a guy who’s on another planet, the web of the planet, control behavior, forbidden, a clay pot, overriding totalitarian conformity, it does change things, atomic canons lined up around the house, a revolution, a god from another dimension, has to go off, a conceptual a politic and an economic revolution, The Turning Wheel, Faith Of Our Fathers, the kicker of that story, domestic cuteness, Jennings, you are next and charge, evidence has departed, seems somewhat silly anyhow, the most powerful corporate head in the solar system, Galactic Pot-Healer, Dwight L. Glimmung, art, we are going to labour in a way to escape labour, beauty and recreate beauty, the evil Glimmung, dark Glimmung, The Cosmic Puppets, urban space, communing, a big theme, a little bit of commuting, a plane to Ganymede, two taxis, he has to work, comes back with a gift to make her happy, robots are replacing the husbands, he will engage with, this is a setup for that it almost feels like, the problem in that book, a crappy job because no work, spends his day on twitter filling time, an offer to work on a real project, gets a girlfriend, creating new things, ends with kind of a joke, uplifting, it requires the extradimensional being, there’s something valuable in religion, Rosicurian style organization, engage with this stuff, really good job, making Tommy blush, take it to heart, an amazing job, Elmore Leonard, cowboys no comedy, not a girl in sight, comedy, Peer Gynt a comedy?, Ibsen didn’t have a sense of humour, The Doll’s House, the dialogue heaviness, a latent strength, dialogue light, good feedback, find Tommy’s narrative voice, terrific voices, female voices, helping to recognize, is there any Philip K. Dick that doesn’t have a lot of dialogue?, dialogue heavy and description light, A Surface Raid, a good exercise, another version of a story, crowded out, unnecessarily restrictive, there’s a rule, who’s the god of the podcast, there’s a reason the rules exist, made mistakes, podcasts that repeat themselves are doing themselves a disservice, doing your best for every single one, sometimes you fail, new perspectives, Dracula, The Jewel of Seven Stars is a better book, The Lair Of The White Worm, a very Jonathan movie, dying of syphilis, hallucinating a lot, the book as a whole doesn’t fit together very well, extremely racist, excised in a clumsy way, this guy who’s going crazy and losing his mind, keys on kitestrings, the main antagonist of the story, hilarious reading, it’s insane, does not make a lot of sense, if you’re Guy De Maupassant, Prize Ship, a tiny man with a bow and arrow, a war story, time travel, Gulliver’s Travels, size change, Prominent Author, naturalistic explanations of religion, jump points, tax, a trade federation, somewhere else in time, perfectly legal, 38 minutes, Holy Quarrel, Little Black Box, To Be A Blobel, Pay For The Printer, Mold Of Yancy, Time Pawn, Dr. Futurity, this language is beautiful, silver fish, oh nice, a prose stylist, funny ideas man, 60s stuff’s all out, Shell Game, Psi-Man Heal My Child, thinking with good human logic, go through the list of fraud you did, nobody checks into, hosting your files, 100% bulletproof, to make a distinction, where the material is copyrighted, for academic discussion, for the purpose of the podcast and discussion, most people are not very bold, any evil corporation, suck my dick, fuck you, I’m going to expose you for the fraud you are, it used to be the case, people would claim, Alfred Bester, here’s how I know, you have to be able to make that case, pirate all day long, up forever, The Hypnoglyph, Gutenberg is agree with Jesse now, we can feel fairly confident, that’s what LibriVox goes by, The Unreconstructed M, assassination thing, The Penultimate Truth, such a fixup novel, collect physical evidence to solve crime, Whosit!, physical evidence, blood type, hair colour, a frame job, he tends to fuckup novels, good ideas in there, as a whole it doesn’t hang very well, an early story, The Gun, attacked by the weapons system, Star Trek: The Next Generation, much more simple here, the solution is different, September 1952, The Little Movement, never explained, a fantasy, toy robots trying to take over the world, didn’t stop the Toy Story franchise, Stephen King, Small Soldiers (1988), making Philip K. Dick stories like crazy, quite far, most of them are pretty bad, Total Recall (1990), three breasts, a Philip K. Dick touch, a good understanding of the material, Paycheck, the Ben Affleck movie, a lot to record still, The Chromium Fence, a character on the fence about body modification, The Father Thing, Jon’s World, Roog, The Slave Race, The Handy Puddle, The First Presentation, Knight Fight, The Black Arts, Adjustment Team, dead friend Gregg Margarite, turned the dog into a black man, dogs fall asleep, to make the plot happen, romance and a senator for some reason, Shell Game has a lot going on, mental defectives, mental illness, any novels we missed, similar authors, Alfred Bester, Gordon Van Gelder, The Push Of A Finger, I’ll Never Celebrate New Years Again, The Die Hard, everyone is transgender, alien parade, old man upset reality is changing around them, we used to hate those fuckin communists, Ms. Found In A Champagne Bottle, Fondly Fahrenheit [is PUBLIC DOMAIN], a funny case, he gave his literary estate to his bartender, he had no kids, a really weird book, another collection, who am gonna go to court with?, Isaac Asimov, later in his life he was honored with some award, drunk, a rap session on youtube, editor for a magazine, Manhattan, travel writing, essays, history of future travel, J. Francis McComas, mentor, Tommy’s choice, Colorado Springs, real human narrators, Evan is wonderful to listen to, nobody’s read in a thousand years, Cirsova magazine, good accounting, kindle unlimited was the worst, audiobooks are not much better and they cost a lot of money, a monopoly, Findaway books, Scott Miller’s Lost Sci-Fi, podcast feed, a new science fiction story every day, he’s making money, can an author make a lot of money?, long tail, downloads from 10 years ago, more audience than CNN gets, for the long haul, 2,000 years, 10,000 years in the future, good game and get healthy, about a gun, The Defenders, leadies, Second Variety, The Terminator (1984), Cost Of Living, Jonathan’s new podcast is in the end of this podcast, podbean, Streamyard, sounds convenient, broadcast live, an impromptu reading, a Reading, Short And Deep style show, if you don’t give them the audio up front, two nights dreaming about this story, Richard K. Philips, Rick Deckard, Rick Dick Deckard, its not a game show, appreciation, record then present, boring for the show, the live element doesn’t make it better necessarily, Reading Short Deep is more popular, SFFaudio Podcast is a better show, a time limit, we didn’t need to go this long for today’s show, more work to put the show together, figuring out how long a story you should read, making your participants sit through the whole reading, read it again live during the show, disadvantages, sometimes hard, sometimes too easy, Jesse is blabby, a talker, unelected pirate captain, the quartermaster, the bits about capitalism, more recent shows, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a Camus story, full of typos, Canadian public domain, as an existentialist, its not in that story, interesting ending, science fiction does it better, fantasy does it better, guys with swords, understand it as a fantasy, mythology, The Stranger, Franz Kafka, Michel Houellebecq, fun and gonzo, somebody’s racist, laws against hate speech, left France for Ireland, Kubrick left the US, guilty until proven innocent, Justin Trudeau was calling the truckers racist, throwing around charges of racism, France is taken over by Islamism, becomes a paradise, Whatever is a ripoff of the stranger, The Elementary Particles, Atomized, a hardcore book, dead to many, another Mark Fisher book, still dead, Capitalist Realism, like David Graber, K-Punk, W. Scott Poole’s Dark Carnival, The Fifth Child by Doris Lessig, really into traditional values, two children is fine, middle class, the fifth child is messed up, let him die, he likes messed up, ancient aliens novel, Shikasta, reflections on formerly being a communist, defected from the communism?, invasion of Hungary, great job, The Golden Notebook, her basic argument, understanding how the world works, what you really need to do is organizing hospitals, politics in fiction, the one thing people have a visceral reaction to, those people exist, a bad audience, escaping reality through fiction, that’s why they’re in that, reality is important to engage with, Vaush, debate bro, how to find your way into how to be in the world when things are so fucked up, looking at the history, hammer and sickle in the bio, interested in the ideas, necessary for a certain generation of people, the circumstance they were under, a weird lady, won every literary prize, still alive, Christopher Hitchens, cheering on the Iraq War, chum around with the wrong people, high on your own supply, bubbled into systems, trying to find the truth, comfortable and old, George W. Bush, the Ba’athists were more communist than Bush, anti-authoritarian logic, 9-11 broke their brains, is there one that isn’t broken brained?, Richard Dawkins, triggered, Daniel Dennett, doing mythicism, Christ myth, Robert M. Price, kicked out of the cool kids club, a really learned scholar on the bible, interesting stories, dumb versions, a lot of people pressuring you to conform to a certain kind of Christianity, it’s lost its compelling force, as a kid you’re subject to social pressure, Carl Sagan, the new atheists emerged, there’s no reason to have that vitriol, hating on the muslims, as non-threatend people, you’re unholy, what’s that mean?, Campus Crusade For Christ, no friends, sending pretty girls, your Christianity is not good enough, Generation V, pressure tactics, not needed, the basic premise, same thing all the way through, passes an hour, you can’t use two hands to count the number of The Walking Dead shows, Darryl goes to France, crossbow guy, I’m out, probably no good, somebody good they’re ripping of, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, ripoff the good things, Vincent Price, slapping Chris Rock in the face, open handed, he got out of touch, having your wife cuck you on a podcast, apology video, completely contrived, written by AI, goes to chat-GPT, very important for Jesse, every single one of those people, Pierre Poilievre, finally, this is why you don’t need to pay attention to these people, killed more Jews and Russians and Poles than the regular SS, here’s the proof, they’re all bad, were you not listening to what the description was?, expected to clap, that’s the instinct, you’re supposed to stand up, fascistic everybody get on board the insane train, why you have to fight against it, conform and make friends, aren’t willing to be ostracized at all, homeschooling, fascist camps of forced imprisonment, not giving the prison guards any information, getting rid of public school, done away with, like residential school, so many, good hanging out, a new Orrie Hitt?, Mating Center, a Lovecraft coming, a sequel, barely this year, October 1st today, they all have pretty good titles, Trailer Tramp, Red Letter Media, these writers seem awesome, Grace Hartley may sound human, Cabin Fever by Orrie Hitt, not that titillating, these new covers, Shabby Street, Strange Longing, Torrid Wench, The Sucker, he played with Marie and made a business of Ruth, literary onlyfans, full movies, Rotten To The Core, that devastating novel, Love Thief, a woman on the loose, the pig farm girl, the shattering novel of a nymphomaniac, Pleasure Ground, Untamed Last, Panda Bear Passion, one heavy breast, she squirmed, she twisted against him, a pit of savage pleading, hurt me with it please, please Frank, he couldn’t respond as a male, exciting reading for men, like bees and honey women and money, helpless animals, Corale, pretty Kitty, Untamed Lust, worried about the animals, his penis doesn’t work properly, unnamed chapters, inappropriate content, Dirt Farm, he’s got a torn shirt, he likes the farm ones, a peasant girl from Iceland, one about slavery, wild sounding, everybody getting dysentery sex scene doesn’t sound great, much more wholesome, wholesome sleaze, sleep schedule is messed up, drugs, watched all of Justified, eight episodes, Boyd Crowder, the guy with the bad knees or no legs, eastern Kentucky, double oh sex, Rod Grey, To Russia With L.U.S.T., tries to penetrate, fucks everything, Tower Books, who is Rod Grey?, Gardner F. Fox, not a very good writer, good ideas, pants writing, filler, overly wordy descriptions, The Hot Mahatma, decent writing in sleaze, it has a honeybear, cat with the fake limp, dogs too, <strong>Quest On Io by Robert Moore Williams, Leigh Brackett, Technovelgy.com, “blaster” “Blastor”, a Weird Tales author, When The Green Star Waned by Nictzin Dyalhis, Robert A. Heinlein, he’s really good at this, robot taxi, Solar Lottery, sir or madam, electric cat, I’m feeling sorry for a fictional robot, robot cat and robot dog, a very useful website, you can tell by the layout, can you help me do my homework?, who created the site?, Bill Christensen, since 1995, water brain fountain, War Veteran, bullshit tech, second class, super-thrilling, five days a week, fun and instructive, wrote a great story, The Basket by Jesse, Margaret St. Clair is doing good work, write for 7 minutes, based on an image, an amazing story, little boy with a basket with a rabbit, a big red hat, 327 words, his father’s red hat, bosom, continued to caress, suddenly a brown movement occurred, he hadn’t seen the snake again, words over again, the hat, the hat hold his head, it used to hold his dad, everybody’s dead, life is precious and easily destroyed, a squirrel that ate a bad nut, this one thumb’s up, you don’t need a whole novel, how could it not be amazing?, it’s in Planet Stories, animal sidekick, Ewoks suck, there’s too many of them, individual Wicket, name any other Wicket, are there any other named Ewoks?, notable Ewoks, Chief Chirpa, Nippet, the witch of Endor, do you like Rando?, The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda is trying to convince us to fund Ukraine, Chewbacca’s cool, get me a better combination, Andor was pretty good, whatever Baby Yoda’s name is, a Holiday Special, they can’t put the money down, show hole, consistently good, his religion is stupid to me, COVID is the way, Mr. T’s tweet, dinners at SFFH events, eat through a mask, Charles Ardai, typewriter repair place, on my way to get my COVID booster, age, an old person who can’t take in new information, driving my Bentley wearing my mask, upgraded to business class for my flight to Hungary, what shoes you put on, something to think about, perfectly reasonable people, didn’t read enough The Angel Of The Odd, I’m not going to stop drinking, probably did end up killing him, not a good theory, somebody had liquored him up and made him vote multiple times, the lifting of his elbow, that Poe Museum guy, Richmond, Virginia, West Virginia, driving up hill the whole time, very mountainous, trains and stuff, Bryan Alexander’s always taking trains, a trainhead, the partitioned for Korea, how they partitioned Germany, Soviets are like, can you leave please?, hey we don’t like this repressive dictator, let’s massacre thousands of you, that sounds really bad, Chinese are like, acting like assholes, liberated the entire peninsula, who’s the badguy here?, they never talk about it, North Korea’s the aggressor, defend the democratic rights of South Korea, 13 hours, not worth taking the train, easier to fly, they’re not their for long, a smart TV, an Apple tv and a Roku, Firestick, sideload, ad-free streaming service, interaction requests, product placement, it’s like it’s never there, customize youtube a lot, skip selfpromotion, and it has the downvote button visible again, oh, this is garbage, some German lady who used to be a physicist, why capitalism is good actually, I am just an influencer, her apology: I don’t really know what I’m talking about, couldn’t stop laughing, very post-modern?, troll each other in the edits, fat guys from Michigan?, Maissa got into the Picard ones, they’re just bad writers, why is Picard an android now?, wanted a death scene, to become a youtube enjoyer, normal TV bad, the Hulu bundle, Tablo, a unique product, works with SALT, ad supported, Tubi’s ads aren’t that bad, TVs are not browsers, TVs are not desktop computers, news, sports, reality TV, The Golden Bachelor, older supermodels, to keep up with the modern audience, no writers to strike, cheap programming, no actors to strike, all written and all acted, the extent to which older people care a lot less, put it all out there, getting a second chance at love, Our Time, so grandma’s house now goes into the hands of another old person who’s not related, reverse mortgage, reading it the way kids would, a golden bachelorette, didn’t win his hand, these are all unsuccessful, Kimmy Kimmel’s aunt, living in Costa Rica, climate is very interesting, nice all year, a local wife, record thousands of audiobooks, make some coffee, a highlight of my day, little pleasure, shaker song: Simple Gifts, months or years ahead, one day I’ll put on some socks, grinding the beans, getting the cups ready, cinnamon, hold off on the cinnamon, the whole ritual, it goes away, it’s sick, so cheap, relatively safe, a paradoxical effect, sleepfest, very easy to please, feral cats, four or five raccoons, in the sunroom, wreak havoc, they have hands, a bungee cord, like horrible animals, a little skunk, don’t touch the skunk, a vector of rabies, the mink, murdered some chickens, they like killing, a predator, I can kill it all, egg-laying slaves, puritan work ethic, if the floor is vacuumed, its just fluff, dust, more chickens, get heifers and breed them, stuff to do everyday, there’s always something to do, plays her Wordle, it was very big, felt fine, like the word of god, PEACE, still wordling, sodoku, math version of Wordle, Mastermind, restage the scene, Break The Hidden Code, a supervillain or something, impressed by how much money he’s risking, what you do when you don’t have the internet, girls can only watch the Mastermind at work, Indian lady behind, white man with a big collar, all leaning the same way, the table is always really shiny, what does it mean?, Bondeseuqe, Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978), Tommy Lee Jones, Black Moon Rising (1986), a special car, street punk, adopted, a car thief ring in Los Angeles, a burglar who works for the FBI, Faye Dunaway, rival mentat, Odo, Raul Julia, a photographer in New York, models recreating murder scenes, she’s clairvoyant, she’s seeing the murders as they happen, so many suspects, reason to murder, her bodyguard, her agent, gone on to richer people, in terms of music, very stylish, very high budget, Irvin Kirshner, Robocop 2, Empire Strikes Back, when he was a very good writer, didn’t really give a fuck, happy to take money, Escape From L.A. is a terrible movie, doing the first movie again, comes across as lame, weird politics, awesome politics, changed it to immigration, Christianity/fascism, you gotta go see Hershey, Her/She, Pam Grier used to be a man, voice of a man, it’s a way to go, why did you do this?, they offered me a lot of money, kinda sad, poops on his legacy, he’s like a brand, using his name to make money, an ad for Japanese cola, Alfred Hitchcock comic or magazine, written better, says yes to everything, you should have died younger, it would have been better if you had died and we would have hoped that you would live, getting tired of being asked the question, even the music sucks, don’t let your legacy go that way, Will, leave them wanting more, might do Skull-Face, Ill Met in Lankhmar.

A Present For Pat by Philip K. Dick

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The SFFaudio Podcast #773 – READALONG: Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg

The SFFaudio PodcastJesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Sailing to Byzantium by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
a very accurate copy of Terence, go by Jonathan, Asimov’s, February 1985, Silverberg has a problem, his skills, he loves literature, doesn’t know much about science, loves history, children, all of his stories are about marriage basically, not every story is a marriage story, I think my dog knows aliens, that doesn’t involve relationships, an inversion of Passengers, The Roller Coaster by Alfred Bester is more Passengers than Passengers, Jesse’s focus and primary point of interest is ideas, cuz I’m a dude, gender stereotype this, as far as Jesse is concerned, once upon a time, came to understand and appreciate, still immature, pleasure and value, idea first and foremost, when characters are pushed, the high point of the book, that he is an android, Jonathan is smarter than Jesse apparently, the known simulacra won’t obey him, did you command it?, that’s good, the other hint, I remember New York, that’s because he’s Robert Silverberg, Dark City (1998), programmed that way, rented on Laserdisc, Director’s Cut, too crazy to be released in cinemas, narration in the beginning, inferior product, Charlez Philips, Yankees, hot dog, presumed this was another in the tradition of C.M. Kornbluth’s The Marching Morons, William Morris, the revelation, internal thinking, what he’s thinking about what this guy’s saying, the opening description is repeated three times, it’s beautiful, description of the dawn in Alexandria, the writing is beautiful, the concept is solid, The City In The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, what the plot is, guy has girlfriend, guy loses girlfriend, guy searches for girlfriend, the writing… so good, perfect length, I read a piece of literature and I have something to say about it, Downward To The Earth, Heart Of Darkness, the Yates poem, responding to the poem, his one trick, he’s a guy who loves literature and science fiction, knows a lot about ancient cities, Gilgamesh The King, Silverberg is really good, Up The Line, a tourist book, tourism, The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding, the novel not the singer, a Tom Jones of timetravel, not trying to hide it, hey I’m doing this thing, The Secret Sharer, I read this amazing thing let me respond, very solidly, William Coon, I got an iPhone with GPS, childless, there’s no children in this world, there’s no adults in the world, our main character is the adult, go for characters, Paul try to defend her, she’s an Eloi, there’s mostly all Eloi, a little more conciousness, the robots are the Morlocks, you can’t be here, the unpaid proletariat of the society, money is meaningless, who is actually fixing these robots, other robots, this doesn’t need any addition, a very small idea, deconstruct it as well as a scientificly plausible future, a new person for the city, a guy from the 1960s who wakes up in 2023 and finds out his phone has GPS, how a post scarcity economy becomes a society of spectacle, where we had Mark Twain on, Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another, Innocents Abroad is about the invention of tourism, modern tourism, nice and stable, Americans going to Europe, travelogues, vacations vs. tourism, you build things for the tourists, Paris needs the Eiffel Tower, everything becomes insubstantial, you need to see the centaur grazing, tourism is a negative, taking the tour vs. living somewhere, some ad man, the Seven Wonders of the World, sex tourism, let’s go get some slaves, tourism is about the middle class, getting lots of bums in seats, tourist facilities, at the airport to take you to a hotel, the hotels haven’t been invented yet, Evan is in Thailand, a vacation destination vs. tourism, their whole lives are vacations, the only thing that dies in this world is the cities, Rome is the Eternal City, Paris, see the thing that Hitler and Hemingway looked at, a touchpoint on a checklist, the particular theme, the actual plot, we broke up a little bit, we’re back together, a very cynical take on what immortal people are like, they’re very shallow, juxtapose it, Ian Bank’s Culture novels, self-actualized, we’re in China, the emperor sitting on his throne waving his hand being fanned, impossibly drunk, wakes up having sex, conspired, he’s being raped by her, here’s my problem with the scene, emotional consequences, oh well that happened to me, they haven’t programmed him to have, pre-neanderthals, sexy cave woman sidles up to sexy cave man, people are people, people are not even people, a robot with personhood, glands and hormones and emotional reactions, he’s a primitive, coasts along, acculturation, like an Eloi, a strange lack in the programming, violent, goes with the flow, his love is real, he’s a robot that can be programmed to be drunk, cultural expectations, he’s just a very 20th century man, the hidden robots, this place is closed, it’s not a place anymore, his creator, mobile tourist attractions, his future, New Chicago era, don’t you know you’re a robot dude?, I’ve been bewitched, what you’re saying is witchcraft, imagine if Philip Jose Farmer wrote this book, more sex, Tarzan lives 10,000 years ago and lives all of time, historical character to spend time with, Elizabeth and Drake and them, what am I gonna do with my life, just a guy living in a world, his girlfriend’s run away from him, they’re indistinguishable, one is worried about getting old, he’s just riding that, the call to action is the girl leaving him, the catalyst, he doesn’t know he is, he doesn’t know he has that problem, the plot requires him to have a problem, what is his solution?, you become immortal like me and become a robot, just a way of ending the book, the plot is not important to this story, Downward To The Earth, Congo planet, say sorry to the elephants, the elephants sometimes get violent, checking in on people he used to know, meditating on a good book, the poem, 3 minutes, 4 stanzas, Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yates, on reading Silverberg’s novella length discussion of this poem…, making it the setting for this poem, a secular heaven, where the movie and the book got it from, the ending of the novella doesn’t go far enough, they should have gone to Byzantium to find the planners and become planners again, you need imagination and curiosity to recreate all these ancient cities, that is what would absolutely happen, a very modest tired science fiction story, Mockingbird by Walter Tevis, sad and meditative world, illiteracy is the center of the book, it should be a satire, university professorships and everybody is illiterate, if this goes on…, doing drugs all the time and experiencing a new media, a couple of people who don’t fit, live near the zoo, the journey to find the truth of their world, you need to go into the tunnels and find the planners, a big computer program, an explanation will be a letdown, the way Arthur C. Clarke gets out of it, everybody’s an artist and an art critic, very chaste, how did these people predict the future so accurately, go to other planets, only one city now, in the same universe, this could be a period of The Forever War, Forever Peace, Forever Free, struck to close to home, connected with people long enough your brain changes, it did not work for Paul, very unrealistic, a priori, connecting to and using drones, the drones thing is very solid, his solution to peace, about the peace thing, any plan to achieve world peace is going to be a nightmare, mind-control, manipulation, Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman, he didn’t write as much as Silverberg, inactive, confusing somebody, Camouflage, Buying Time, Work Done For Hire, makes them horny for each other, this sounds good, won the nebula, they like the fancy writing, reward each other for fancy writing, has a little bit of fancy writing, you’re a guy and you wake up in the future and everybody’s gay, it’s the 70s, he’s the pervert, I’m the only heterosexual man in the universe, why it’s a good book, different from Heinlein, an answer, a riposte, an echo, with a different brain doing the work, we have started on reading half of Tor Doubles, Gene Wolfe, that’s a problem, hit Jesse with the “it’s a problem” stick, that’s a problem for this podcast, there are too many books to do, best decisions Jesse’s life, a great formula, Seven American Nights by Gene Wolfe, is the writer reliable?, a 19th century story, a Norman Spinrad story, visit the fallen New York, the Brooklyn Bridge, a big stack of Tor Doubles, A Meeting With Medusa, mature Arthur C. Clarke, Nightwings, Greg Bear’s Hardfought, went off the rails, no be like H.P. Lovecraft die of cancer from eating beans, Eye For Eye by Orson Scott Card, no, Hawksbill Station, Color Of Neanderthal Eyes by James Tiptree Jr. and Michael Bishop, the ideal podcast, in some cases, he’s not likely to give permission, refuse to do a book by someone who is so anti-queer, his religion is bullshit, he can have it, Salvation Army bucket, a 19th century spinoff of the temperance movement, they really are an army, charity thing only now, rope people in with their homeless shelters, where they indoctrinate you, when Orson Scott Card dies will it be okay?, Ender’s Game and other things, a cigarette pack that says cancer kills, as a part of the canon, weird and distorted people, Nancy Kress, find traces, they way Heidegger was a Nazi, resistance from Heidegger scholars, finding ways to prune that list, Pugnacious Peacemaker by Harry Turtledove, a sequel, The Saliva Tree by Brian Aldiss, The Wheels Of If by L. Sprague De Camp, Saddam Hussein’s fantasy novels, required reading in Iraqi schools, rushing to finish his latest book, very passionate author, Bill Clinton’s espionage thrillers, two branches we can go down, somebody did this, back to Silverberg, see something, tweet it at me, very good but not super controversial book, visiting over the shoulder, Asgard, so impressed with Silverberg, you’re clearly not an ancient astronaut guy, Hindu nationalists, very weird western dudes, Born With The Dead, French language SFFaudio, a collection, soon to be a motion picture, The Silent Invaders, A Time Of Changes, that’s the thing with the pronouns, obscene I, coming to a consensus, a famous one, a first contact one, Thorns, tourism but not ancient, all around the universe, super-depressing, Kurt Vonnegut, life is meaningless, Vonnegut is funny, Thorns is not funny, a depressed version of Vonnegut, it’s Liggoti, I cried with Born With The Dead at the end, saddening or depressing, aliens disfigured him, a recluse, people look at him weird, donating 100 of her eggs, she’s got 100 babies she’ll never see, Mark Zuckerberg, emotional vampire, across known space, inability to form a real relationship, Letters From Atlantis, mind in other people sort of thing, ancient Atlantis, it has Silverberg’s strengths, A Hero Of The Empire, a Roma Eterna story, a Paul book, the consensus I’m hearing, worried about being depressed, this pronoun is forbidden, a powerful mind altering drug, a message of liberation, a cult favourite, 1971, October 22, some troll was in my schedule, Scott is listed there, maybe Scott was trolling, The Weirwoods by Thomas Burnett Swann, a fantasy book, semi-erotic fantasy novels, Tolkien’s level, cool looking ace cover, bear with an eyepatch, time of the Etruscans, Cirsova submission, sexually explicit, pornography on this podcast, imagine Piers Anthony was a serious author, how these prompts work, the female characters show the most growth, male water sprite is kidnapped, an actor who is travelling through, go to my girl in the waterworld, oh are you a virgin?, what no maybe I don’t know, have you been to an orgy, I’m horny now, you’ll be horny later, 5 hours, thank you, very enjoyable book, I like the short, more depth to it, more going on, different ideas, characters, concepts, weird aquatic animals, a safari vs. tourism, spend time with the natives, Thorns is like a space-cruise, Up The Line, from a poem?, pretty obscure, Up The Line by Robert Silverberg, Paul Boehmer, a time courier, a lusty Greek, a sex book, uber eats guy, goofballs goofing off, the Time Patrol, labour stuff, sex with my ancestor, I’m gonna go make myself, I’m gonna become rich, a weird attitude, you can’t break the rules, they’re managers, serialized in Amazing, has good art, a sex comedy, Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), very deep, as a man, a feature or a bug, definitely one or the other, straightfaced is weird, commentary on the 1980s, also our world, people create avatars for themselves, playing with real people and NPCs, Skyrim with AI companions, go kill that big bear over there, says something snarky, people are normally playing against NPC with scripted conversations, NPC companions helping you to kill other NPCs, barely real, scene fillers, one of the amazing things, follow that person, see where they’re going, where reality takes us, business and agenda, I’m going and buying the thing I was told to buy, I’m wearing my mask, make the dog poop, buy a newspaper, early 20s in New York, ticket scalper, rich people buy $1000 Broadway tickets, a concierge at a hotel, people walking by, Grand Theft Auto, The Truman Show (1998), functions there, the same people going back and forth, very educational, a weird form of nature, being inside of somebody’s spleen, catch on fire, speaking of firetrucks, is Will still covered in cats?, dog is having seizures, an intercranial disease, it was joyous, cheeseburger for my dog please, not permanent, new cats coming in all the time, covered in its own feces, it was like that, what does this have to do with making money for capitalism?, acquiring capital, conceivably, put em up on some website, record it, God Save the Mark by Donald E. Westlake, should be fun, very relationship oriented, more than year, he’s gotta educate people, nun’s business, she’s good, she’s got some meanness in her, all about the kindness, Jason Thompson was tweeting about cruelty, honesty is something you need in your life, cruel and not honest, cruel and honest, at least with words, ideas are potentially cruel, The Screwfly Solution isn’t an indictment of men, subject fleshy creatures, let’s all play nice, when Paul says “no, Jesse”, is the pope raping children by not shutting down his empire?, pedophile priests are a thing, we should be suspicious, do I look fat in this dress?, no, you look fat in every dress, cruel truths coming out of fiction, does that help answer your question, it’s important, is The Colorado Kid a western?, set in Maine, a Hard Case Crime book, illustrations, real bad man, such a shitlib, occasionally make a mistake, when the drugs went the talent went, the Trump derangement drug, much better as a cruel mean drunk, The Running Man is so good, reading for meanness, Lord Tyger, Philip Jose Farmer, Tarzan Alive, A Feast Unknown, 150 pages-ish, short Stephen King with a great cover and interior illustrations, a concept, Mr. Mercedes, Cell, he does characters really really well, really good book, on a lot of things, not substanial in the way science fiction can be, his fantasy is his own construction, peripherally crime book, crime books are good, Lawrence Block, Raymond Chandler, formula, Jim Thompson, cruel guy, The Killer Inside Me, The Grifters, Westlake wrote the script, a great movie and great book, harrowing, the paperback on the spinner wrack, gut punch on page one, waiting for your bus, getting off the bus, you finish it that night, character driven literature, crime is an interesting situation, how can I get the police involved, the police are a new invention, they’re a bad thing, why Breaking Bad is very interesting, empire building, the wife is there to say what you’re doing is wrong, that was always inherent with that show, what were the bad things he’s doing, killing people is bad, he has cancer, disrespected, no health care, accepted his buyout, wealthy billionaire, a man’s dignity, it’s not about Walter White or Heisenberg, that ain’t what Star Trek is, what Star Trek really is, fuckin terrible, crime is the philosophy of how to be, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain, a little bit of outside of society, chess pieces, the criminal mind, moral dilemma, I’m going to lower myself, he knows that he’s doing wrong, he’s the weakest character, Jesse Pinkman is a much stronger character, he’s just a dumb guy, yo, he thinks of himself as very high, he’s brought low, he destroys the things that he loves he says, the show is trying to moralize at the end, he has to be brought low and feel bad about what he’s done, Better Call Saul, all the characters are strong, a better show because it doesn’t have the wife and kids aspect, to setup the fall, Jimmy McGill, at sea on his own, stupid and lucky vs. smart and unlucky, really interesting American stories, Double Indemnity, so greasy, he never did anything nice to me, I guess I’ve got to kill him, they betray each other, super-short, makes you love reading, a good movie, Fred McMurray and a lady with a wig, Edward G. Robinson, Mildred Pierce, so good, very successful, Jim Thompson, a Greek tragedy, they also cut each other up with knifes, his writing is bloody, turn the page and cut your arm, movies that went underground, This World The The Fireworks, Billy Zane and Gina Gershon are lovers and brother and sister, Flowers In The Attic, a funny stream of pro-incest propaganda, ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore aka ‘Tis Pitty Shee’s A Whoore, forbidden love, go with your heart, okay enough, daughter, suitor, dorks, if I can’t have you sister, nobody can, not as flowery as Shakespeare, has sex with his sister, pulls her heart out with a dagger, a huge monologue with a beating heart, and on that note Terence leaves, Farnham’s Freehold, Pirates Of Venus, subsequently shownoting in, Ill Met In Lankhmar, add Scott to the conversation, it’s X now, Elon pictures, Twitter building with an X on top, very Christian, a sideways cross, Brave New World, he wants twitter to be like We Chat, Space X etc., the hub of their social credit system, editing up a whole other podcast, might be too fresh, John Buchan wrote The Thirty-Nine Step, spy fiction, weird fiction, Algernon Blackwood, a very competent upperclass guy, later Governor General of Canada, his weird fiction is pretty cool, how’s Connor doing these days, since he went to Germany, pretty active for an inactive guy, lost his twitter account for a while, Moon Of Skulls, already confused, The Warriors, plus movie, the original version of the movie, re-edited, 7 hours, 19 minutes, a lot of books we want to read, how do I winnow the books I can read, read more books, consider leaving twitter, there are many options, Facebook groups to join, being controlled by evil giant corporations, how they get you trapped, same story, going to Burger King, never read Donald E. Westlake, he’s also known as Richard Stark, puttin’ you down, fancy spellings, he won an Oscar for that, he wrote a script for a James Bond movie, a fifth of Hard Case Crime in the early days were Westlakes, a real life coup, comedy and crime books, Brothers Keepers, Somebody Owes Me Money, Anarchaos, also about insurance, Lee Marvin, Mel Gibson, love his series, so good, Might Sons Of Hercules anthology, communists vs. conservatives, can we agree on that, throw each other out of helicopters, the bad takes, full of bad takes, get into tea about, the showing up for the podcast, Mirko (the German guy), @MrLovecraft, I was browsing through our messages down to 2016, mostly take pictures of random stuff, a bowlful of tools, I know what he smells like, I need to sniff it everyday, his whole cowboy hat collection, archives, complete access, archive.org, the secret, mostly all the time, look for pulps, only processed stuff on the PDF page, so much good writing in one magazine from April of 1899, Guy De Maupassant, Maurice Level, a successor to Maupassant, weird mean stories, the first translations into English, horrible syphilis, The String aka A Piece Of String, string collection, the cops come by, did you steal a wallet, somebody saw you, and yet you refuse to explain, dropped it into my other pants, too embarrassing, The Necklace aka The Diamond Necklace, Bel Ami, dissatisfied with her life, she could’ve married much higher, the governor’s ball, kinda like Cinderella, saving up money to buy a gun, trying to save money, you have that friend, you’re brilliant, the event goes swimmingly, she’s lost the necklace, they retrace their steps, what are we gonna do, mortgage and borrow and replace it, 20 years go by, just finally paid off the debt, scrub maid, looking elderly now, so proud, cost me all these years of work, walk away bleeding from the page, he’s just so mean, a social climber, corruption in the third French republic, why don’t you just become a reporter?, that’s okay it doesn’t matter, get a good wife to do the writing, love triangles, meanspirited, a really good portrait, impressionism or naturalism, what’s right in front of us right now, rejected, jotting down descriptions of people, it can be very powerful, a Fyodor Dostoevsky novel, one of the vampire guys, Uma Thurman, so good, in school, Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini, no Westlake, no Sabatini, pirate books, Captain Blood, a contemporary of Johnston McCulley, huge in their day, lasting influence, a lot of Stephen King is loving Westlake, TV writers, to survive after you die, to champion in, Lovecraft, Kafka, C.L. Moore, her second husband, Philip K. Dick is trying to suppress, Charles Burnett Swan, why is he unknown now?, a little dirty, a little embarrassed, their are no heirs, his publishers, Space Viking, Little Fuzzy, Omnilingual, very off, posting more, pulp collection, Alan Muller, The Skull, Black Priestess Of Varda, The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, the secret is Will’s been in hiding in South America, not knowing what to say, come up with a brilliant thesis that everybody hates, she’s secretly transgender, everybody accepts this, double novel sucker, remaindered, Tor business, I might read half of it, Ace Doubles, just in case, Ace Doubles, there’s no time, The Sioux Spaceman, And Then Town Took Off, Conquest Of The Space Sea, insane cover, reading glasses, go back far enough in Luke Burrage’s podcast, audiobooks, what are those?, only does audiobooks, almost exclusively audiobooks, washing dishes, scrubs toilet, how can you not want to do it all the time, slow reading, a DAW Yellow Spine, to be sitting and staring at a piece of paper, I’m done, Riders Of The Purple Sage, Zane Grey, gonna be sparky, a weird writer, antiquated, everybody’s having all these emotions, the phenomenally successful author, the Ohio Valley, violent opposition, turbulent, Lewis Wetzel, Girdy Bros., seems a little long, more cattle rustlers, Tales Of The Lonely Trails, Elmore Leonard, good but not deep, dialogue is so good, Out Of Sight, the other Batman who lives on Lake Como, Clooney/Lopez, a TV show, Karen Sisco, a test story, Justified, expand the idea and keep the character, colour splashing, the same recipe, Quentin Tarantino championed Elmore Leonard, nothing else is an adaptation, Robert Forster and Pam Grier, revisiting with Sam Jackson, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci is not in Heat, Rum Punch, set in Florida, Florida books, shallower and deeper, more style, Get Shorty, it’s fine, more of his own thing, Florida writers, Carl Hiaasen, cat lady books for men, character descriptions, superficial writing for rich people, their character description is their bank statements, Mario Puzo, Fool’s Die, big sprawling book about a guy and his story, I am the master of magic, a tour de force of writing, Grover Gardner, Grover’s voice is much like this, Paul hates it, don’t let self-doubt hold you back, thesis optional, see you in cyberspace, a ghost writing gig, a really big one, famous celebrity?, chat GPT, people don’t understand what a writer does, done their research for them, in 7 months, do it!, nobody listens, she died a long time ago, research for her historical screenplay, large famous Hollywood family, it’s Sunset Blvd. (1950), she was a hasbeen, Griffith Park pit bull, two writing assistants, lying bed and dictating to her, writers are very disposable, it’s a set of skills, mercenaries, there’s art, technical skill, ask questions, answer questions, fill places, plumbers, it needs to be plumb, a lot of writing is going to change, you can’t replace Westlake with chat GPT, entry level positions, assistants and help backing them up, people coming in, hide their assistants, George R.R. Martin has six assistants at at time, Elmore Leonard had one, sometimes writer dry up, Silverberg, a burning problem, Lawrence Block’s newsletter, he’d retire and come back from a vacation with another novel, they flow out of him, those people are pretty rare, a mental illness, a compulsion to write, a letter to CBS about Burt Lancaster as Moses, grad students he wants to fuck, Roger Zelazny, Ursula Le Guin, paranoid navel gazing, hypergraphia, a brain thing that’s happening, I need to understand, I need to question, Rosicrucian organization, you can’t read that all day long, people’s brains are different, Tishomingo Blues, Piers Anthony, so dirty, very entertaining, not great, A Spell For Chameleon, there will never be a movie, sad, leering, misogyny is fundamentally integrated, Paul won’t like it, she changes according to the phases of the Moon, full/beautiful/dumb, new/hideous/smart, all theses are fun, some theses are better than others, the lady who invented wifi they always say, smart beautiful woman, Hedy Lamarr, weird sex jokes, Satyr, female centaur, centauress, reaches over grabs her boobs, she gets angry and embarrassed, boob armour?, kids enjoy sex stories, girls are gross, girls are boring, you wanna play with dolls, jumps on motorbikes, weird period, why they were popular, Robert Lynn Asprin, paranoid, Christian parents, he wasn’t allowed to be the DM anymore, not allowed to watch The Simpsons anymore, people were a little looser, the end of free range kids, H.R. Pufnstuf, Jim Henson, 17 seasons, sidewalk sale, a guy singing, Uncle Floyd, an old soul, old stuff, L.A. for ten years, Marilyn Monroe, an empty movie theater?, a library?, 1 screen movie theater, new-fangled building, arcology?, they all have movie theaters, all the new buildings have movie theaters, Jesse is very out of touch, news to Jesse, a big screen TV size, home theaters, laserdisc, bigscreen TV, people make fun of Jonathan, a tiny tiny gym, gyms are standard, everybody is elderly, an amenity for elderly people, your dog’s already been pooped, Scarlett Johansson is a Russian spy, ballet and sex, Red Sparrow (2018), Joker (2019), the old people loved that.

Sailing To Byzantium by Robert Silverberg - art by Hisaki Yasuda

Sailing To Byzantium by Robert Silverberg

TOR DOUBLE - Sailing To Byzantium by Robert Silverberg

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The SFFaudio Podcast #770 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Progeny by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #770 – Progeny by Philip K. Dick, read by Mike Vendetti. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (45 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Mike Vendetti, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
IF Worlds Of Science Fiction, November 1954, we’re bringing it back, Worlds Of Science Fiction, IF, it’s IFfy, the tagline, a tier below, a tier above, James L. Quinn, early in IF’s run, 3rd year, Evan Lampe’s podcast, the Philip K. Dick review website, John Taylor Gatto State Controlled Consciousness, schools created to create utopian visions, close to Philip K. Dick’s perspective, the story about the autistic kid, not really autistic, a nurture story, the thesis of the story, raised by robots, kids in it is very unusual in actual science fiction, 9 at the end, Theodore Sturgeon, a good handful, Tony And The Beetles, The Father Thing, comes up every time, something that happened to Philip K. Dick, the hospital, the mental institution, typing on his keyboard, you know what we need is more science fiction stories about kids adopted by robots, Nanny, menacing, how menacing this story is, body horror, sweat and smells of the body, the aftermath of the meeting with the father, The Last Of The Masters, hairy sweaty man, girls boobs, almost connect that to AI, newspaper article through AI, a Promethean moment, Ed is left out of it, he doesn’t participate, channeling Eric Rabkin, the robot doctor, a sandwich, in fairy tales, a science fictional fairy tale, sharing food means you love that person, the squirrel accepts his food, Pete’s doctor/boss/trainer, I’ll eat at the cafeteria, pop the question: will you come and be my son, I don’t like to buy in the diner they skin you, six hundred employees, this is menacing, sentences that go unfinished, training to become a bio-chemist, a messiah for the robots, a go-between, what does the smell of his father remind him of, laboratory animals, a contemptible smell, I can’t place it, just like when he was a baby, Dr. Bish, the automatic heating system clicked on for the night, the smell as the experimental animals, the promising young boy, the boy smiled, awkward and humane, a secret private smile of complete understanding, evil emotions, you’re son’s deformed!, my god, what does it mean?, what about that first wife, a secret that he’s telling us over and over again, a secret Philip K. Dick child?, a waveshot of his head, talking about himself?, sociologically going on, there’s no manual telling you what to do, Dr. Spock, let the kid cry themself to sleep, the worst thing anybody’s ever done to Americans, ADD, needs a lobotomy, icepick lobotomy, one of the Kennedy children became a vegetable, you have to trust the doctor, towards that, that exchange, did he try and pick up the child, a circumcision or something, feel the weight of the child in his arms, sanitary, antiseptic, oedipal complex, and today, sex studies from the 50s, Kinsey studies, living back there, oh my god I’m a homosexual, I had no idea, lies and wishfulfilment, sweeps the nation as a fad, weird instiutional problems, you’ll be happier when you join the institution and follow the rules, Dick likes twists and layering of twists, a systematic distortion, growing up with the robots and imbibing their ideology, all the paperwork, the consent forms, what does see mean exactly?, the laws, math, age, why I was 19, sneaking into the rocket facilities, I was twice your age when this happens, more tired and sweating and balding than he was before, didn’t have a kid at this point, Beyond The Door, a wife cheating on her husband with a cuckoo clock and a boyfriend, whose Pete?, Mrs. Peters, this name, Ed Loyce, Ed Doyle, figures in his life, Pete might be him, the father became extremely busy, coming back, here I am I’m your dad, his dad lived in DC, a serious character flaw, when he’s 18, comes back on the delivery day, expects to have a say, he doesn’t get that, writing to his mom, boarding school, mom, send my pills, non-nervous pills, full of anxieties, nervous breakdown in high school, he takes their answers seriously, is that really true?, he writes about it, the robot is an institution, institutions replace parents, the doctor is not a human, fleshy cover over its arms, two robot taxi drivers, a strapping late model robot, they’re replacing Ed, the doctor adopts the child, talking about himself, these amazing psychological conditions, this unfeeling monster, the child didn’t need to be touched, these things are in the air, 1928, the abortion truck story, children hiding in thornbushes, The Crawlers, The Pre-Persons, the father agrees to go into the abortion truck with him, maths, 1974, the ability to master algebra was the test for having a soul, animal soul, authority says this, what happens if that’s true?, the neuroses that I have, served by robots in a cafeteria, being raised in a boarding school, mandated to join this army, a really bad consequence, keeping the baby with you at all times, Jesse is very talky, primarily about institutions, how institutions sell themselves, what was best for the kid, she trusted the institutions, being inhuman by not wanting to bring the baby to her breast and smell it, she’s not sad about it, I was chatting with the doctor, she’s smoking, people aren’t sad sending their kid off to public school, the entire ideology of the system, a sexual thing, smoking with the doctor, fantasy sex with the doctor, the post coital cigarette, a cuckolding going on, push psychoanalysis a tiny little bit, the biological becomes an institutional complex, 1986, your kid has ADD, your kid needs amphetamines, there’s a biological thing, the calf comes out of the cow, literally happening, how much culture and institutions erode, she is a monster because of it, we’re all monsters, a more primitive part, Dr. Bish what is this weird white liquid running out of my breasts?, he’s an idiot, what a moron, the internet is full of misinformation, an institute, Los Angeles Central Hospital, late for the birth, infodump, we don’t touch our son, when do we get him?, the waveform says he’s going there, another institution, once he’s fully grown up, his brain is no longer plastic, when he’s an adult, molded into what the institute wants, the mom is out of the picture, they’re divorced, Ed Doyle’s alternative, the frontier theme that Evan so rightly picked up on, no squirrels, Pete’s dad’s job is the plumbing, his only job is to supply the sperm, Star Trek, high end jobs, build and maintain those ships and those systems, in the end you still need infantry, pushed away his wife, away all the time on the frontier, a traveling salesman, as a result Janet leaves him, something really important, the gendered nature of labour saving technology, Philip Dick doesn’t get this, Evan’s Philip K. Dick readthrough, hostile to washing machines, microwave, refrigerator, who raises kids?, mostly womens work, the bullshit of raising kids, making the lunch everyday, stroll in from alpha centauri, the wife is making the rational choice, shitwork, Dick really has this problem, after a certain point in the story, son come with me, this is going to be our business, there’s a lot of things that need doing out there, out beyond Prox, nature, self-fulfillment, won’t even accept his sandwich, extrovert with the nerdy kid son, eat hamburgers, sitting at home, making plans to destroy humanity, make them less smelly and more docile, Sales Pitch, commuting through space, replacing body parts, have your colon replaced with a plastic tube, no more sweatglands, make everything antiseptic, just make sure that children are clean at all times, the runny nose, he needs to go on a boat and learn the ropes, the mom’s instinct and the dad’s instinct, when the answer is the institution they’re both wrong, giving up a lot of power to the institutions, Mildred Clingerman story, an automated kitchen, about 7 Ray Bradbury stories, Catharine Beecher, bastion of their power, use science and knowledge and education to rationalize the domestic sphere, a viewpoint, a little glowing breast, spray on glowing, she’s glowing because she just gave birth, baby needs milk, not enough baby formula, baby formula is bad for kids, you could use a breast pump, giant reliance on artificial milk, convenient, maybe its because you’re at work, factory or office or school raising other people’s children, bad marriage, the menace is unstated, maybe the Oedipus complex is worth it, not just corporations, government regulated facility at the very least, public private partnership, a legal person, not a caring person, not capable of caring, that’s what his waveform says, he’s going to be a rocket jockey, the son doesn’t even understand the question, he smiles, you think desire has anything to do with it, the robots and the man all have emotions, maybe he’s not the best boss, as close to lying he gets, designed to be sympathetic towards Ed, propaganday, why do we trust this institution, a photo of his plastic brain, bio-chemistry, they’re going to fuck around with humans, the alternative is the queen living West Texas planet, emphasizing the cleanness, unpolluted, smoking, drinks a brandy-frappe, what’s best of the child, she’s been reading all the books, Gayelord Hauser for nutrition, parenting books, how they sell of these things to parents, no shopping, no clubs, no social life, the optimistic part of the story, Earth is going to Hell, Dick was an optimist, Hello, Doc!, the event has happened, a top-level robot, it had fooled him, Dr. Bish appeared plump and well-fed, is the robot married, diamond-tie clasp, simulated manicured nails, a pinstriped shirt, white collar vs. blue collar, just the baby daddy, rushed in from the airport, have you seen a squirrel before?, leaned on one way, we can’t trust this, trusting it is the bad thing, we agreed to this, they were intimate at some point, to determine the gender of the child, he’s only gone six months, natural sex, a lady with boobs so he fell in love with her, she’s a monster because she trusts the institutions, yes I am, H.P. Lovecraft, that amazing transformation thing, regular successful businessman, not hairy, the robots becoming too human, Isaac Asimov’s Let’s Get Together, a critical mass of robots, Herbert Goldstone’s Virtuoso, learns to play the piano, music is supposed to be hard, somethings shouldn’t be automated, AI art, two robot taxi drivers are acting like robots, literally human beings who are obeying instructions, turning them into robotic people, ROTC, failed the first day, twirl your rifles, get a haircut, his robot stories are so different, fixed it, could have easily been a chapter in The Humanoids by Jack Williamson, serialized vs. novel, earth vs. an alien planet, expanded novel version is really good, an answer to any objection, a really important concept, any word you don’t know the meaning of your are subject, bleeding under your dura, doctor I know exactly how we fix this, subjecting ourselves to their ideologies, sometimes that’s a good thing, look both ways before you cross the street, a hard concept to get across, when we read these stories, wow that’s really powerful, but why?, escape valve, the place we can run off to, frontiers exist, a perceived option, go west young man, where do Americans run off to?, Taiwan, to Vietnam, not an option, Miss Columbia, propaganda, plant a flag, government giving you an outlet, free real estate, shaped politics for most of American history, pick up your stakes and go, everyone moved to Saskatchewan for free land, then everyone moved to Vancouver for jobs, the dust-bowl, the dirty 30s, 3 million people were displaced, we don’t have the language to describe it, people moving out of California to Texas or Florida, internal movement, region in this, State Controlled Consciousness, every utopian movement, Sunday school, propitiate your ideology, Dr. 2G-Y Bish, bishop, kids put into religious orders, designed to break up the family, outsourced to religion, keeping doctrine, interesting idea, not very many characters, Janet, Ed, a big jump, takes him out into the country, Los Angeles, go back to the city, a general experience, Evan’s generation, the first generation to go to college, those Thanksgivings, those times back are a little weird, at least four or five years to orient back to the working class culture, academic sorts, we gotta get this fence fixed, inspiring and interesting stuff, intellectual stimulation, trying to communicate that, it doesn’t translate very well, rebalance how you talk to people, most people don’t read books, unless youre constantly building up, Jack Williamson, Gilles Deleuze, cows, chickens, horse, chicken business, cow business, the second dimension, initiated into a more bourgeois culture, the double gap, so rich, fairly obscure Philip K. Dick story, following the 9 years, Paul sings the classics, Cat’s in the cradle and the cradle’s on fire?, kill his father and marry his mother, it doesn’t come from the Greeks, Sigmund Freud, is it true?, not exactly, recapitulate the relationships you are trained in, animals training other animals, interacting with other humans, any of the seven times I’ve tried, maybe that’s not true, a structure, he likes older women, where is the libido?, the attitude of Doctor Bish, looking at Peter the baby with a look that was greedy, in Anti-Oedipus, the bureaucrat caresses the forms, Anti-Oedipus by Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, bottom of page 71, creasing the edges with his nail, plugged his desire into rules and regulations and forms, go to the police, see if there’s a detective on duty, it gives them something to do, he’s not like Mr. Spock, sinister and evil and aloof, like Data, Data had curiosity, satire, embodiment of authority, an evil twin (Lore), psychoanalyze Star Trek, the Lore Data stuff, gave him a twitch, Lore made Data have a twitch, there’s a twitch here, a libidinal twitch, different educational institutions, Hampshire College, Fordham University, unstructured to structured Jesuit university, post-modern to classicist language, a whole different language, small economically depressed town where half the stores are closed, an aversion, they were hit with books at school, lame TV too, a reality TV show was cool, marriage counselor reality TV show, what is it on cable?, therapy, if that was L.A., a level beneath, an aversion to reading books, the struggle, Peter Camenzind by Herman Hesse, goes back home, his rural town was better, a spiritual transformation, stained with sweat, page 74, he brought out his pipe and tobacco, a big sulfur match, murmured, this is a good pipe, 25 years ago, do the math, only about twice as old as you, a WWI veteran, WWII guy, at a certain point in life every man starts smoking a pipe, filling and lighting a pipe, old fashioned stuff, that ritual, sucking on a pipe, casting smoke out of their nose, a little bit interested, lost in his reverie, if he was a little more skillful they could’ve connected, he had the right instinct, what makes it a tragedy, when dads fuck off, there’s a problem, wife, institution, capitalism, we could work together, how long it is, almost nothing happens, a walk, a hospital scene, episodes over 9 years, backfill, infodumping, 3 scenes, permission, fill out these forms, the ride in the car and the walk, the last scene, off with Doctor Bish and Peter, the key to Peter’s reactions, emotional, that’s interesting that you think we can connect, oof, anthropological look at the father from the son’s POV, distancing, broken sentence, when you will…, quite right, the backstory talking, bumming around town, outside school rightly, sneaking into the rocket launching yards, hopped over to Mars, a hasher, Ganymede was all sewed up tight, space freighter, worked his way out to Proxima, workaway, I found what I wanted, swelling with pride, little retail and service place, everybody needs a plumber, a good job, the best blue collar job, the pay is very good, when the water starts flooding you need a plumber, building communities, he sounds very free, like a rolling stone, not an appealing life to someone who’s a part of the institution, she doesn’t leave the earth, she likes being under the system, you could go off, there’s fear involved, there’s the comfort of the institution, institutions can’t love you, fill out your forms, ivy coloured walls, drifters, cafeterias, you have money, an efficiency you don’t get at home, living in China, didn’t eat dinner, new job, cafeteria lunch, where do you wanna eat?, doesn’t the food just kind of appear?, where to eat and what to make, drops from your mind really quick, elementary schools in France?, fancy lunches?, 20 years in a highshcool, 2 hours or longer to come back home, sandwich, all sorts of good things in it, presence of the outside inside the institution, “I’m not reduced to the institution, I have my sandwich”, taco Tuesday, people get excited about the rotation, a crazy thing, homemade food, ketchup classified as a vegetable, school lunches program, the healthy food pyramid we just made up, at the top is a greedy corporation, like am institutionalized restaurant, weird hot things, hot lunch and cold lunch, 2 cafeterias in the same school, Cold Lunch Paul, bologna sandwiches, hot lunch for free, against the rules, a person who hasn’t been completely institutionalized, get you hooked on the hot lunch, back to bologna sandwiches, like the place, baloney, 70 liters of chili, more efficiency, the prices start creeping up, adulterating the materials that go into the pot, corruption, let’s have a daycare, a hired person, paying money vs. taking turns, we can lower the quality of the care here, just not loved, all in this little 46 minute story, chat GPT, it can do my homework, I can fire everybody, charge subscriptions, hire somebody to do this, you still hire dishwashers for restaurants, an open version of chat GPT, answer emails from other robots, an efficiency there, students are into chat GPT, grunt garbage work, pedagogical value of repetition, they’d much rather cheat, painting class, if they’re into it they’ll do it, most students don’t want to be essayists, kids doing their homework, punishment, if you get low grades you need more attention from the government forms, chat GPT can be really educational, dialogue with it a lot, The Three-Body Problem, Chinese TV series of 30 episodes, suggestions and prompts, analysis, no that’s not what I want, good ideas, some creativity sparks, Rossignol, better and better, The Ash Grove, makes you cry if you let it, makes children emotional, as a corrective, analyze Philip K. Dick’s story, Progeny, a search engine that’s weak, that’s not enough, you have to work for 20-30 minutes, write some John Adams Thomas Jefferson boy love romance, oh yes you’re right, you overestimate, most teachers can’t even get the assignment clear, make sure you have a period at the end of all your sentences, formatting problems, what this is perfect for, autobiography or memoir, just answer the question, a sophisticated text prediction, good grammar, less important for students, the facts don’t matter that much, formatting is really important, this is a lie, how they get good grades, cheating the system, a good solution to a bad problem, easier for the prisoners, abolish the prisons, new ways to punish students, make other kids do their homework, what chat GPT’s revolution, read this paragraph and reorder them, take out things you don’t like, living in an affluent area, I’m a governess, there’s a scary man, young Tommy is very bright, essay about thermodynamics, describing some of Jesse’s job, same advantage that rich people’s job, it doesn’t help them, how to understand great poetry, a bunch of assignments that are due, parents hire a ghostwriter to right a novel, ivy league school, Rebecca Black’s song Friday, I like sitting in the front seat sometime, super-well produced, something to make their kid feel like a superstar, chat GPT same advantage as the rich kids, we’re pretty conclusive, Pirates Of Venus, north shore of Minnesota, overseas, NSA work, top secret, Evan Lampe is gonna step up, Farnham’s Freehold, 12th – 23rd, Sailing To Byzantium by Robert Silverberg, solved, feeds and resources, podcast schedule, the music under it, crazy, a youtube thing, people don’t know, people discover that audiobooks because of youtube, excited for them, any sign of a ghost is excitement, it’s youtube vs. books, Arthur C. Clarke, past The Colorado Kid, Alex from Pulpcovers was censored, an appeal, after careful review…, sooo careful, a lady might not have any pants on, jealous losers on twitter, White Trash, HOE REPAIR, just exposure, what Jesse likes about Jonathan (he’s read a whole bunch of books Jesse hasn’t read), the guy from Switzerland who had nice handwriting, an autobiography of a character’s soul, a German genre, fake autobiography, Bohemian Europe in the 1890s, talking to farmers, dude, common for some people, fake and phony and putting on airs about intelligent they are, literary circles, don’t read anything past 10 years ago, Scalzi has replaced Heinlein, they say they believe that, keep current, you don’t have time to read both, most of everything was crap, harder to determine today, hasn’t withstood the test of time yet, debating how to pronounce Weichsel in 100 years, first hit rap group, recorded their songs here, hit song, fun catchy song, walking around the town, they saw the sign, that’s it, 50 years from now, this town has not accomplished achievement, absolutely amazing, on the ferry, CTV News, CNN for Canada, tell Americans, the shitty Justin Trudeau government, an extra bunch of money to poors, they want to get reelected, full blown Social Credit, a tax rebate, 19.8% commercial space empty, 50% is much more common in a small town, all for the sake of posterity, chat GPT teachers marking chat GPT homework, dead town, it’s just awful, hang out at the bus stop, hang out at the convenience story, kipple from Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, all the non-losers have left for the off-world, the world of the book, same world as Progeny, everybody is replaced by robots, squirrels are dying, institutional pollution, fill the ocean, thesis proven, same setting, same ideas, not literally true, working the same mine, working the same ideas, Nick And The Glimmung, Galactic Pot-Healer, a stepping stone to get to that other idea, androids, robots, three weeks from now, a really good one, Sheba by Jack Higgins, in response to people not liking Dial Of Destiny, the legendary temple of Sheba, put me down, Indiana Jones tanking is kinda bullshit, poor box office, in what period of time, one of the most expensive movies ever made, we didn’t need the first one either, we wanted it, now we don’t want them so much, two versions of The Warriors (1979), available as an audiobook, an excuse to watch it, comic book inserts, less real and gritty, Ship Of Ishtar by A. Merritt, work to do, editing this anthology, for secret operations, bunch of authors, substack, cool public domain stuff, Moon Tomb, the moon and death, Misha Burnett needs to promote better, some salty interesting points on twitter, great cover art, he’s problematic, jealous?, when you get famous enough people become jealous, Poe was a third rate writer, why did they say that?, because its true?, shit all over Lovecraft, lob a grenade and leave and close the door behind them, Edgar Allan Poe, who’s a better poet from the United States?, start making your list now, Annabelle Lee is popular and it’s good, The Song Of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain’s parody of The Raven, Bugs Bunny, controversial, that’s Heinlein in extremis, alcoholic mother and the lawyer father, bridge party, people are not asking for an adaption, see everybody explode, skinny dipping, the young black kid, see you on twitter.

Progeny by Philip K. Dick

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The SFFaudio Podcast #766 – READALONG: Invitation To The Game by Monica Hughes

The SFFaudio PodcastJesse, Paul Weimer, and Trish E. Matson talk about Invitation To The Game by Monica Hughes

Talked about on today’s show:
1990 or soon after, culled it, the audiobook, the only audiobook of Hughes’ stuff, a book for the blind, 35 books for young people, Earthdark, Crisis On Conshelf Ten, The Keeper Of The Isis Light, pummel Paul, one of those states Paul’s in, not absolutely perfect?, didn’t quite gel for Paul, slightly undercooked, the main character narrator or the author?, the society, not well thought out by the government, left with that impression, not allowed to do that, the best and the brightest, except for one, rigging the tests, terrible employment conditions, fodder for being invited to the game, environmental catastrophe, robots saved humanity, robots are taking our jobs!, rigging, the psychiatrist and the farmer, definitely governmental action, badly thought out elements, just stupid to send off people without tools at all, no fire implements, a lot of people out to be dying, boots and overalls, a crazy method of colonization, chip their own flints, they were given the knowledge and their massively awesome bodies and they were given each other, physical fitness, all these skills, knowledge and skills, the do survive, is it realistic?, grad school, basic premise, basic plot, basic sketch of a story, no more detail than absolutely necessary and good SF, and that’s it, perfectly competent SF, exactly what she’s trying to do, it’s by Heinlein, Tunnel In The Sky, Alexi Panshin’s Rite Of Passage, super complementary to that, are we actually on earth, identical reasoning?, this sky doesn’t seem familiar, there’s no Moon, it rained most of the time, Planet Of The Apes (1968), kvetching, it took you this long, they had a Heinleinian style conversation, not in a VR simulation, emotional scenes, we’re doing all this extra work, it doesn’t matter because they’re not coming out of it, we’re running out of time, the last words of the book are the first words of the book, we’re her descendants!, she did a great job, Andre Norton gets a lot of attention, Monica Hughes is way better, much better sketched, I wanna like her stuff, a big reputation, years of publication, first book was in her 50s, she was a WREN, Bletchley Park, seems like a pretty smart lady, emigrated to Alberta, Zimbabwe, publishing like mad, Canada’s finest writer of science fiction for children, Robert J. Sawyer is crying, Canada’s only full time science fiction writer, retired by the time she started writing, hit after hit, that’s really cool, hopeful someone is gonna make audiobooks out of these, very basic SF, good introduction material, children living on their own and having to make do, Robinson Crusoe, more than just that, Tom Sawyer, The Black Stallion, Island Of The Blue Dolphins, all the stuff set on Earth, interesting sociological stuff, lack of sympathy employed people had for the unemployed, resonant and modern, she doesn’t tell us how to think about that, the people who go the jobs were the worst students, a minor role in an automated luxury society, descending scores, when you’re doing your assignments for your marks, what is my goal?, this is how you would approach this problem, hit a certain number, getting good marks in school is not a sign you’re going to be a better doctor or manager, an engineer or an architect, getting a great job, scrounge, learn to make their own food, their home into a castle, they teach eachother how to do karate and run marathons, keep eachother safe, who is to say?, my evil plan, who or what the government is, we assume it is, the top layer of government, we don’t know anything about it, a ground level view, a very interesting modern dystopia, the poor and unemployed, seems to be that way, separated from parents and families and each other, 15 minute cities, vaccine passports, a rebellion against the suburban sprawl, Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s Bell Riots episode, Past Tense, Jesse will hear not bad words about it, 2017 podcast discussing this book, Teen Creeps podcast, jobs in Burbank, read old book they would have read in their teens, talking about work, too much of a sketch, unrealistic dialogue, not knowing the motivations, why did they hate it?, gets you to the thoughts where you’re wondering about things, feature not bug, which is worse: you go to a massage parlour and are offered a happy ending, going on craigslist and cheating on your wife, watercooler talk to distract yourself because you hate your work, these despised people, isn’t able to work, scrounging everyday, saving their money, learning to cook bad food, avoiding the thought police, I’ve read this 50 times, seems excessive, you need more books in your life, it is a good book, a comfort read, competence porn, within the context of…, Harry Potter of competence porn of thing people can’t be competent at, you’re special harry versus rejects, a bit sulky about it, you guys ruined it for me, family farm, desperation, sympathy for Benta, the rejects of the rejects, vast conspiracy somehow to get us into the game, twice rejected, rebellion against the robots, the double left behind, that setting is awesome, set 300 years in the future, that’s a great thing, open and thinking about it, could be Colorado, could be Edmonton, farmland somewhere nearby, bus, universality, some of the appeal of the book, Jesse went to that school, purposefully not enough markers, available for anyone to identify with the characters, awe and interest, oh Heinlein I hate you moments, conclusions about, isolated as a community, all the kids will bond together as a family, hanky panky, sex?, how old are they? are they high school graduates?, a little older a little younger, crime boss was 22, he could be a lot older than he looked, at least 10 years old, late teens, nobody starts up any relationship, an unrequited crush, then she gets Philip, immediately pregnant, that pent-up, a little old fashioned, unrealistic to the nature of kids, as a children’s writer, not wanting to deal with romance, a teen soap opera, maybe it’s a Christian book, marriage ceremonies, that’s in Heinlein though, if this book was written today, farm friend, pair bond, what happens when you get on another planet, exact numbers, two teams of 10, so toxic, nothing remaining of itself, society has gone so wrong, send young people off, that seems high, people all over the planet, survivor bias, some of them died when they got sick, pregnancy, a medic, childbirth equipment, actual improvements in civilized countries, reducing childbirth and childhood mortality, had the book been sketched slightly more…, it’s not that they had questions, it’s that they didn’t like that there were questions, this is the opposite, barely enough material to cover the topic it is handling, not even 5 hours, the Heinlein is longer, this whole other level, accidentally didn’t get picked up, Heinlein pulls the rug out, now we’re coming back in force!, triple rugs pulling out, vaguely: pollution bad, don’t cook beside the cesspit, the first step of not polluting everything, you got the ashes, animal fat for nutrition, not even animal husbandrying, a great ending, being good at computer gaming, survival genre, Minecraft, NZ based comedy troupe, Viva La Dirt League, game sketches, poof you appear on a beach, EPIC NPC MAN, scanty armour, tankies and healers, 3 sticks and a stone and now you have a hand-axe, crafting games, Valheim, Survival Logic, The Long Dark, how long you can survive, the VR game, Dream Park is more like Westworld, you dress up, injured in the simulator, the transition between the artificial and the other planet is slippy, no Philip K. Dick style moment, Jesse was still thinking, a book that works with this, Tad Williams’ Otherland, 24/7 in the tanks, City Of Golden Shadows, a million onehundred thousand words, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, the same setup as Avatar, were their consciousnesses inside of drone robots, Trish’s assumption, makes sense, hey what’s that shit on your hair?, I with the feather pen, and there was this shitty gel on my head, that’s the situation we’re all in, we can pull out at any time, put a bookmark in it, those other peoples were wrong, so good, just enough, a nice simple meal precisely cook, no exotic tang, a great introduction to science fiction, the BEST BOOK EVER, other Monica Hughes books exist, go argue with Heinlein for a while, other books exist, Paul’s notes, eXistenZ (1999),

“Cronenberg: Here, put this in your mouth.

Me: I’m not sure I want to do that.

Cronenberg: It’ll make me feel good though.”

I feel violated, you’re going to like being violated, you do make some interesting idea movies, a Larry Niven story, What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers?, a creative mind, so good at karate, karate is important, specifically karate, bluefurs, anything you do to this book to add anything makes it longer, more romance, a predator, no matter what you do it would make it longer, the B.A. biology degree in Paul, book 2 in the series explains there was a killer robot, a bulldozer with Earth’s Thought Police on it, wearing the skulls of the native peoples around, Stephen Baxter’s Proxima, because convicts, Swiss Family Robinson, Lord Of The Flies, all of those answers make the book longer, the scenario, No Escape (1994) Ray Liotta, Lance Henrickson, Kevin Dillon and Ernie Hudson, set in 2022, half-Mad Max half-I will not have my will dominated, The Penal Colony by Richard Hurley, an action movie with no girls, Gale Anne Hurd, it’s a B movie, a prison movie, threw in a couple of girls, The Prisoner as Mad Max with a Waterworld vibe, a lost classic, Ray Liotta in a science fiction movie, any other links?, “comps”, a good book for YA, quibbles, some interesting things to think about, I’m on my deathbed what book should I read Trish?”, “I’m a slow reader!”, a long review exegesis of Time Enough For Love, doubled the length, Paul had to restrain himself, it was a trauma, a sweat lodge you had to sweaty, such a sweaty essay, raised a daughter to adulthood, pioneering trip by themselves, major problems with this whole scenario, voluntary colonists, obsessed with incest, boink and marry, those are your two choice on your deathbed: Time Enough For Love or Invitation To The Game, lets play some pinochle, 5 hour class, taken this off, got yourself some rest, grandma you’ve been sitting in this chair all day, Jesse! stop podcasting!, when not resting, need a good rest.

Invitation To The Game by Monica Hughes

Invitation To The Game by Monica Hughes

Invitation To The Game by Monica Hughes

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #404 – Virtuoso by Herbert Goldstone

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #404

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Virtuoso by Herbert Goldstone

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Virtuoso was first published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1953

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Reading, Short And Deep #386 – The Ultimate One by John D. MacDonald

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #386

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Ultimate One by John D. MacDonald

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

This story was first published in Super Science Stories, March 1950.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!