science fiction – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #664 – READALONG: The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #664 – Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, and Will Emmons talk about The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein

talked about on today’s show:
1952, Tramp Space Ship, Boys’ Life, October November December, Farmer In The Sky, Space Family Stone, London, travel is conducive to reading, New English Library, the band?, so turgid, corny, when Grama Hazel almost died, why is my throat constricting, some good sentiment in there, this book is really corny, the scourge of the spaceways, at the bottom of the toxic lake, the Houdini trick, the twins needed their moment, it’s good for kids, they’re Fergengi, Heinlein kills off female characters, Hazel Stone is in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, one of the founders of the Luna republic, the Martians, how many eyes does a flatcat have?, do they have three eyes?, Lowell gets to see a Martian, Red Planet, Evan really enjoyed this book, such a 50s traditional kind of story of entrepreneurship, radical gender politics, women in families, the most significant member of the family, the leaders of the family, who gets the least screentime, does medical stuff, it doesn’t star the twins, Meade doesn’t get that much attention, a democratic family, the politics of the family, collective decision making, the entrepreneurial side, trying to make a buck selling bikes, selling the scripts, the profits were the friends they made along the way, this is how its sold, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-60 by Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, union busting in the 1950, Creating The Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations And Corporate Imagery In American Big Business by Roland Marchand, themes, somebody gets sick, Lowell gets “space sick”, groundhogs again, the step-sister in Farmer In The Sky, governments being inefficient and hyperefficient, for the good of the family, the regulation, a trade deficit, mostly its about family, get some money to buy some comics?, their hobby is the free enterprise system, a frost-free rebreathers, they’re geniuses, that’s me, a genius with a functional family, very yes dear, prospecting for uranium, the most sit-commy book, very quippy and dialoguey, they don’t really kill people off in sitcoms, except for Roseanne, a Planet Of The Apes reference, The Connors, Dan Connor had died but they brought him back to life, when they reboot this series in another 35 years, this book doesn’t invite pot-stirring, not very good science fiction, constant propaganda: math, free enterprise, and the family, making fun of Flash Gordon and planetary adventure, space opera, oh what a concept you have Robert Heinlein, Trouble With Tribbles, Will’s correct assessment, the history’s not that important, they cheated on their history test, just take more math, they’re audibly wrong, everybody in this family needs to know math, play chess on a scooter while facing death, Jesse’s not great at math, the planet Lucifer, is English tutoring more lucrative than math tutoring?, basic coin arithmetic, setting aside the propaganda, if you don’t have a family you die, earned not just assumed, a race with the Soviets, boy scouts need engineering degrees, Sputnik’s fear, anticipating and driving it, we’re mammals, or we’re dead, like Will’s porch kittens, snakes don’t have families, not as experimental as The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, everybody can write the TV show, the mentality of my audience, the relationship between tribbles and flatcats, Klingons and fake Klingons, more tribbles or whatever, David Gerrold, I stole it from Ellis Parker Butler’s Pigs Is Pigs, the officiousness of bureaucrats, the pet rate and not the livestock rate, 14,000 guinea pigs, Heinlein stole so much from this, is their TV show a radio show? no, they do a radio drama when advertizing the flatcats, Maissa loved it, a Galactic Overlord?!, who put the note their collection of bicycles?, can Lowell even write?, who’s Edith?, where are the children dear?, the heroic moment in the epidemic, Hazel maneuvers her son into things, the lowest IQ, very 1950s, to write a book, hear from him on civic matters, is this taken from Heinlein’s real life?, you weren’t dying dear, he loses his facemask in the shower, is this Heinlein?, Heinlein had trouble breathing, he had consumption, tuberculosis, a Larry Niven story, “The Return of William Proxmire“, Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, mathematical dumps, writing hard SF you need to do the math, they have sliderules, they don’t have a computer on their ship, the ship is scrap, gyros on a scooter, mechanical computers, when Jesse’s car breaks down, the boys save their grandma and little brother was math, mass and math go together, this book is super quotable, wherever their is power and mass to manipulate Man can live, Elon Musk is right we could live on Mars, we have those things free on Earth, the worm in the slime, we are the worm that crawled out of the slime, grew hands and started grabbing stuff, grabbin’ slide rules, headed to Titan, Meemaw wants to see the rings of Saturn, to the other planets, its cold out there, Titan has methane seas, is Paul right?, Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, the Mars trilogy, becoming more skeptical as time goes on, we could lay the keel for the Starship Enterprise right now, and have it in orbit, the replicators and the transporters don’t work, the shuttle would just clang around in the shuttle bay, Charley’s feet are his hands, we thought Hazel was gonna get married, Heinlein subverted the trope, more Evan complaints, very fun, the state got in the way, Hazel’s convincing speech, the twins are in jail again, surprised at the regulations, creating drama, put all your capital into bikes, Mars is under development, they almost go to Venus, Mars as a newly independent nation, generate tourism, what makes something a luxury good, when we get to the Asteroid Belt, the Moon, Mars and in transit, the Asteroid Belt is libertarian, Murder on Maris is a civil matter, Heinlein logic, spacing people, Heinlein plays it both ways, when he gets out the belt, an enlightened 1950s guy, beaten with a belt, corporal punishment in Chinese schools, little emperor, domestic violence, divorced women in China is about affairs?, the generations before were disciplined by teachers, paddled in school, I really want to hit your kid, it definitely changes your mood, playful and insulty vs. fearful, affective, education, International Correspondence School courses, a boat trip to Toba Inlet, distance education courses, so far away from the mainstream, singing him to sleep, contralto, a wonderful family experience, Dealer Dan, The Hungarian, the government surplus yard, war materiel, pickup an old Beaufighter, coming out of a real situation, WWII surplus DC3s etc., surplus corvettes, travel the seven seas, a rich person’s dream, no sense they are ultrawealthy, the cash flow problem, this funny show they don’t really respect, the worst juvenile, where’s the big science fiction concept?, that we could do this at all, surplus Elon Musk rockets, obviously bullshit (but not for everyone), we don’t see any class in this book, just people and the state, this judge is able to recognize Hazel, who populates the state, regulations they’ve invented for themselves, utopian, they’re never going to make any money, the libertarian commune, everybody’s broke, who settled the Moon?, the settlers of the Moon were prisoners (equally low), the Russian and American revolutions combined, more wuffie, what happened to the Mars people, an adorable little moment, heading for Mars, looking back at the Moon and the Earth, a lovely little Science Fiction moment, a great book to read while traveling, the big lie they tell about Heinlein: he’s not readable, a made up complaint, Our Opinions Are Correct, is Jesse is milking that?, writers talking to other writers, just read the modern stuff, was Clarke a pedophile?, racist, Paul says nobody needs to read Heinlein today, how to live your life in the asteroid belt, he really has ideas, Evan has a math minor, you don’t have to read either, the need to read, Edgar Allan Poe did just fine without reading Heinlein, stealing from Rudyard Kipling, why mine the past?, steal from the ancients, steal from Pollux and Castor, identical or fraternal?, both red heads, they took each other’s tests, which audiobook, Tom Weiner narrated a Philip K. Dick novels, buying a jalopy, space jalopies, Full Cast Audio, Heinlein doesn’t use much attribution anyway, almost nothing was abridged, one actors playing both twins, that would be so fun, exactly what the space family Stone does, table reading, Tom Weiner’s a good narrator, Pollux had cracking voice, another Heinlein juvenile, Time Enough For The Sky, Time Of The Twins, identical twins, telepathy, its not science but its an idea, Heinlein created the ideal family that he never head, wearing guns around (subverted), a pez dispenser, the competent doctor, the competent man who’s dumber than everybody else, the four kids he never had, he really, really, really wanted to be a dad, in my day I got whipped with a belt, you’re going to have to live with what you’ve done, how could anybody dislike this book?, too corny, old fashioned, its not hip, Heinlein was not a hipster, endearing corniness, this book is for me!, as a piece of history, not a good read for kids today, Rick Riordan, 40 years after the book came out, Nancy Drew, if a kid wants to read, missing the LGBTQ representation, barely any sex in this book at all, a lot of sex in this book (amongst the flatcats), Meade is going to find a husband, you’re husband high now, free will vs. determinism, free will is a golden thread running through the frozen matrix of fixed events, Predestination (2014), “All You Zombies”, mate with yourself and give birth to yourself, the concept is amazing, incest, are they just splitting off?, tribble sex may be initiated by petting, parasites, pretty funny stuff, no knock, corn is good, a nice spot in the solar system, Between Planets, a lot of connections to other Heinlein novels and stories, Evan needs to do a podcast on all of Heinlein, the most American Science Fiction writer, except no excuses, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, The Number Of The Beast, the Robert E. Howard letters to and from H.P. Lovecraft, the later Lovecraft revisions, the Star Trek Sex Book, what offends Evan, the sheer fucking hubris of Picard, Red Letter Media, make robot Picard gay, robot gay vs. regular gay, being from Milwaukee, Star Trek: Discovery, what Picard could have been…, Star Trek: Enterprise season 3 they’re in the Expanse, a Bing Crosby – Bob Hope movie, a cultural exchange with aliens, a thumb drive, future science fiction Star Trek world has no copyright, Dixon Hill, no culture in the 2100s, Buck Rogers in the 25th century, future music is just disco, two draw upon and make it deep, Nick And The Glimmung -> Galactic Pot-Healer, Heinlein’s future history, series as marketing rather than customer based demand, Fast And Furious 9, a lot of Fast And Furious lore, Will is being the devil, can’t a book just be a book, Luke Burrage, the Mission Impossible series, or the Marvel series, to make you repurchase something you’ve repurchased before, Transformers is dribble, well done dribble, every Marvel movie ends with a fight on a train, elevator -> bus -> train, The Fast And The Furious (2001) is a rip off of Point Break (1991), surfers vs. car thieves, dodge a juvenile, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, swinging sessions, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Farnham’s Freehold, On The Beach, Swiss Family Robinson, angry or excited, blacks enslaving whites, uppity whites gets castrated, Evan’s excited now, controversial, the provenance, Charles Stross, a privileged white male from California, an anti-racist novel only a Klansman would love, I appreciated what Heinlein was trying, the modern Conan comics make Jesse upset, they heard Conan was a pirate so they put gunports on his pirate ship, making Belit’s crew not black, they’re fearful of being racist, Robert E. Howard was not fearful of being racist, you hire a racism consultant to read your book, sensitivity readers, selling you racial indulgences, how many of the characters were coloured, the Icelandic guy, the Ferengis showing their true feelings for their fellow Ferengi humans, Heinlein doesn’t ignore it, reading it again, Stross’ read on what Heinlein is, Heinlein’s appointment to Annapolis through a senator, privileged discourse, a meager property owner, this is a challenging book, 320 pages, a marital rape scene, why is it the way it is, why is it in there?, Red Planet is a little lighter, a cartoon adaptation, the Heinlein martians, the Fox Kids X-Men cartoon, science advisor, inside the house everybody’s a nudist, what is Heinlein’s masterpiece, The Moon Is The Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, him or her, the computer’s great, Manny’s missing a manual hand, French Revolution hats (phrygian caps), Marianne wears one, super-goofy, Stranger In A Strange Land, Evan’s return to Taiwan, Paul represents the reader’s perspective, Paul reads all of the modern books, being torn in half by the political discourse, reviewing, Revival by Stephen King, yummy, The Wonderful Adventures Of Phra The Phoenician by Edwin Lester Arnold, Gulliver Of Mars, A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, icebergs full of dead people, Arabian Nights, a magic carpet, the comics, headless squirrel, family values (teaching your offspring to dismember squirrels), why Earth is Hell, pain and death, we’ll be as moral as Mars, no pain on the Moon, that cute little puppy has 9 dead siblings, that cute cat killed and decapitated that cute squirrel, not a luxury for a suckling pig.

The Rolling Stones art by Steele Savage

FULL CAST AUDIO - The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein

BLACKSTONE AUDIO - The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein - read by Tom Weiner

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Reading, Short And Deep #309 – Meem by Margaret St. Clair

Reading, Short And Deep #309

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Meem by Margaret St. Clair

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Meem was first published in Planet Stories, Fall 1950

Podcast feed https://sffaudio.herokuapp.com/rsd/rss

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Reading, Short and Deep Podcast #309 - Meem by Margaret St. Clair [ 0:32:15 | 31 MB ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

Reading, Short And Deep #307 – To See Ourselves by Robert F. Young

Reading, Short And Deep #307

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss To See Ourselves by Robert F. Young

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

To See Ourselves was first published in Science Fiction Stories, #2, 1954

Podcast feed https://sffaudio.herokuapp.com/rsd/rss

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Reading, Short and Deep Podcast #307 - To See Ourselves by Robert F. Young [ 0:33:35 | 33 MB ] Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

The SFFaudio Podcast #657 – READALONG: The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #657 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, Evan Lampe and Will Emmons talk about The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson, Philip K. Dick’s font is HUGE and Ray Nelson’s is tiny, very Philip K. Dick, tidied up a lot by Ray Nelson, a device full of microcircuitry, miniaturization, Philip K. Dick’s various flying cars, an ionocraft, even more seedy and disrepair than the first, a shabby little used interior, not apart of the fleet, I’ll convey you to the neegparts, are you safe to ride in?, I do what I like, it’s legal for a class 1 homeostatic mechanism to own a tom, many alarming creaks and clankings, a very Philip K. Dick paragraph, I mean I sort of smell bag, I smell like cat wee, insecure machinery, a robot owns a human being, stupid and hilarious, one of his more competent novels, where the Tennessee thing came from, Blacks and Indians, pretty interesting, not a great book, a prelude, we’re in the takeover, time jump, pre-invasion, Dr. Bloodmoney, supposed to be a sequel to The Man In The High Castle, the Japanese were replaced by the Ganymedians, made Paul uncomfortable, it is what Paul signed up for, Philip K. Dick is not racist, Ray Nelson is not racist, the USA in 1965 was pretty racist, superior and resentful of them, physically beautiful, Counter-Clock World, Our Friends from Frolix 8, why didn’t Evan do this for his podcast?, psychology and psychiatry, YUP is the opposite of NOPE, gender transitions, pronoun stuff, gender transition, oppressor class, what are the NeegParts? Negro Partisans, why Tennessee?, the great mixup, all Black people and Indians in East Tennessee now, Colorado, the neutral zone, the Appalachian Mountains are a wild place, secret agents, the narrators, the audiobook, 2012, Gregg Margarite, Eight O’Clock In The Morning, aftershow talk, Jen Murtha and Steven Davis, dual narrator audiobooks, Jen Murtha does all of the non-dialogue and Steven Davis does everything else, Jesse has no friend in South Africa, Jesse ended up liking it quite a bit, Jen Murtha is laughing a lot, a charming amateur production, having fun doing this, this book hasn’t been published in a long time, no copyright information, 5 and a half hours, chaypter won, a school project?, a pretty good book, the top half of Philip K. Dick novels, Marissa’s favourite version of Philip K. Dick, minimal breasts, obsessed with the one woman in the novel, Percy X, one of them kills her without her dying, kills her with a bust of Sigmund Freud, touch fingertips, the strength of non-sexual touch, vocal jazz thing, a beautiful scene, where Paul Rivers reflects on his sexuality and identity as a man, really sensitive, the men are all horny Philip K. Dick, their descriptions of what a woman is like, the huddling together moment, the individual vs. the gestalt, Galactic Pot-Healer, individuals and identity, A Maze Of Death, a collective experience, obvious in retrospect Percy X is Malcolm X, Perseus?, the occupation is so weird, comedy, petty villainy, the vidphone rang, psychedelic research, always thinking about the United Nations, I’m a sick man, a character who doesn’t want to get out of bed, a device that may be able to stop the invasion of the earth, functionary psychiatry character, they’re all in a crazyhouse together, almost like The Zap Gun, a parody of itself, I’m fulfilling a contract, they took some acid and started messing around, a fairly polished piece, Philip K. Dick is very sloppy, the passages and the ideas, the plot is stupid, some Philip K. Dick short stories are beautiful others are mechanistic, Now Wait For Last Year, Time Out Of Joint, Philip K. Dick isn’t very good at novels, beautiful gems of polished awesomeness, the models of planes, authenticity, replicas and fakes, Nelson forcing Philip K. Dick to explain something (how telepathy works), a theory of human consciousness, a quasi-scientific explanation, bottom half books, here’s the situation: I’ve got all these phrases, technobabble, the psychiatric element, the concept of the Nowhere girl, super-detached, the best girl ever because she doesn’t care about anything, that’s how he sees his wives, the more drugged out and detached they are the more fun they were to hang out with, he wanted the gestalt, female partners, relationships, the aloof woman, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, Eye In The Sky (the Bevatron book), a 1989 copy, lacking the gravity and conviction, this Mekkus character is basically a head, wormlike aliens, Dune by Frank Herbert, mostly a head, Dan Dare Pilot Of The Future, the Mekon, turning pages with their tongues, Deus Irae, Tibor McMasters, one of the people you’d see in the asylum, a flotation tank, become a nothing, political stuff, a WIK, a wormkisser, a musicologist, overt resistance to the worms, characterization is unusually weak for Dick, the Hellmachine that distorts reality, all the themes floating around, the experience on the battlefield, Robert E. Lee, the Black Freedom movement, the Vietnam War, the Peace movement, the Civil War, maybe everything kind of exists but we aren’t paying attention to it, a theme from modern fantasy, a little ironic?, a lot of sex in there too, tiny lesbians pulling out people’s facial hair, delusions of grandeur, the old confederate money factory, a fantasy of the old south, another money scene, what’s on the money, historical figures of science and literature, Euros are like that, the Queen and the Prime Ministers and randos to represent science, Franklin and Hamilton, nobody has confidence in these people, appropriate for 2021, maybe 2022 will prove something different, free floating Philip K. Dick parts, he did LSD twice, Ray Nelson was always trying to get Dick going, therapy, psilocybin, mechanically driven drug scenes, large or medium doses, there is no Ganymedian occupation of Tennessee, as a metaphor it doesn’t make any sense, looking at SF as a criticism of society, science fiction is about analyzing today, Ganymedians are Philip K. Dick unable to finish this book and Ray Nelson is Percy X, an idea in mind, what is authenticity mean, finding authenticity, meaning and work, identity and empathy, what’s this book about?, psychiatry is a big theme, psychiatrists trying to control everything, the only free people in the world are up in the hills, sinister, a heavy scene, he beats a robot to death, another Philip K. Dickism: Abraham Lincoln, Robots are not robots, they’re people, an inability to empathize with others, this is boring, Paul Rivers kills Percy X, the free person is killed by the psychiatrist, not many benevolent psychiatrists, We Can Build You, Vulcan’s Hammer, mental asylum planets, distrustful of psychiatrists, Radio Free Albemuth, A. Lincoln Simulacrum, Philip K. Dick’s bathroom tiles, the Dickheads Podcast talks about Divorcepedia, we’re getting two people’s psychology, in that headspace anymore, not so resentful and angry anymore, it isn’t one person’s idea, amazing scenes, California, Tennessee as a myth symbol, very Confederate, Orange County, the San Francisco Bay Area, a backward part of the country?, mostly set in space, in their plush pleasure palaces, people camping in the woods, a bit of Norway, everybody is speaking Norwegian, seeing the password through their eyes, Dick had his wife institutionalized, in a housefire, an important impact on your life, the commitment scene is just like an interlude, mostly dialogue, I wanna be able to commune with another person for reals, fuck it let’s blow up the planet!, what would be the point, becoming interested in the novelties of American culture, getting rooked, a fake tchotchke, Nelson’s first novel, 1963, the inspiration for They Live (1988), We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, We Can Build You (wholesale), responsible, “Mistakes were made.”, somebody made the decision, a guy who wants to be the king, a funny self-sabotage scene, I should be in charge because I’m a clown, Emperor Norton, President Breslin, The Crack In Space, the TV news clown, Tucker Carlson, game show hosts, anyone can be president if he can be president, make him king anyways, I’m a useless clown, I’m a racist slob vote for me, I’m a simple guy, I’m this intellectual who’s better than you, A Face In The Crowd (1957), a very American story, Arkansas, “I’m so exhausted”, “I’m a sick man”, we’re going to set you up, man, they’re in every part of the novel doing something sinister, yeah I smashed her head in but it doesn’t matter, make you feel horrified, the skinning people was pretty nasty, Blacks are called Bucks, Toms are Uncle Toms (sellouts), its all tuck, how good it would feel to roll around on the pelt, these are weird thoughts, he’s the bad guy (kind of), cartoon horror, we don’t need to take this too seriously, the hotel room is great?, you trying to escape from this place?, Ubik, Richard K. Morgan’s Jimmi Hendrix hotel (Edgar Allan Poe in the TV version), idea filled, a literature of ideas, that may be changing, the ideas in here are not potent, more like a regular genre, when people think science fiction fiction today (what Netflix produces), here’s a premise, Three Body Problem, Allan Quatermain, Eric Brighteyes, Vikings are dumb, Paul says we’re done, Evan’s Philip K. Dick podcasts needs addenda, losing track of everything, The Simulacrum, his 1960s books are really well packed, his 70s and 80s books, not as busy, quickfire character changes, very not modern, modern books are technically better, are they as idea packed?, adventure and revenge, trying to be a Norse story, an author’s voice, he’s the dumb blond doing what the witch tells him to, Allan’s Wife, not a good novel to learn real facts about Zulu people, kinda short, main themes.

The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson - art by VINCENT DI FATE

URANIA - The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson

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The SFFaudio Podcast #657 - READALONG: The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson [ 3:01:17 | 127.41 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The SFFaudio Podcast #656 – READALONG: To Live Forever by Jack Vance

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #656 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about To Live Forever by Jack Vance

Talked about on today’s show:
the Evan, the Lampe, just the one name?, get into someone else’s body, 1957, Paul’s suggestion, why did we settle on this one?, 1956, Planet Of Adventure, The Star King, Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson, the magic use that’s not religious magic use, the Dying Earth, set in the USA?, the counties, Malthusian crisis, Soylent Green, Stand On Zanzibar, consumers vs. producers, exploitation, the bosses take it all, Make Room Make Room, “The Conscience Of The King”, Star Trek, the (birth control) pill, Paul Erlich, the Green Revolution, Japan, cohorts, The Mote In God’s Eye, we’re worried we’re rabbits and then we’re worried we’re pandas, a real news story, perverse incentives, perverse understanding of reality, not worrying about their old age, a social safety net, fertility rates, standard of living, baby factories, birth control shots, (in)fertility in Zimbabwe, Harry Harrison, Robert Bloch, repression and expansion, the age of chaos, The Crack In Space by Philip K. Dick, finding the frontier, escaping a limited population, really this is all artificial, a retitling as Clarges, serious problems, spinning up a society, really into masks, The Moon Moth, masked societies, a good metaphor, Borges is all about the labyrinth, a murder mystery, a lot going on in a short book, the core exploration of the psychology, the five strata, gleigs?, brood, wedge, errant, amaranth, a false reality, the last city, the whole planet is available, why are they overpopulated, Glade?, he’s set it up wrong, a false premise, fashion, the conservatism of societies, dystopia, Billennium, The Space Merchants, the idea of slope, a free enterprise system, the Star Enterprise, “Critical Care” (episode of Star Trek: Voyager), the hypospray, The Shadow, a medical patented object, oil injection accidents, needle shots, medical stuff, psychiatry, Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, the hospital, the carnival, an analogy for our world, an elite class, extra good education at Yale vs. the poors, nobody is living forever, empathizing with a clone of themselves, empathize with humanity as a whole, something of a classic, win or overturn the system, overtake or knock over, the Demon Princes novels, revenge, Gavin Waylock, The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, disrupting society by taking the rules really seriously, the actuarium, the accounting system, an unsustainable system, life extension by medical care, the allocator, slope and wedge, emergency care for people at the bottom, John Hopkins for those at the top, tooth implants, hairplugs, if this was a Brave New World story, John Savage, the outcast society as a threat, the carnival is the safety valve, another Star Trek episode, The Purge, carousel in Logan’s Run, lives of decadence, the assassins, the same world, the Sandman is the assassin, an exploration of a dystopia coded as a utopia, when Jesse goes to a job, what gives slope?, a group of elites who give their kids money and jobs, Hunter Biden, does he actually have slope?, or is the system rigged?, how many papers he’s written, a group of people doing their job perfectly, if you’re looking for corruption that’s where it is, kind of like capitalism, Monopoly, capitalism defenders (rising tide lifts all boats), a gripe with planned economies, slightly conservative, not pro-communism, he’s making his own world, he’s not talking about us, what deserves slope, a talented accordion player won’t give you slope (Weird Al Yankovic), Evan’s not earning slope, Michio Kaku, a string theorist, popular science futurism, a way to make money, string theory is not science (because it is not testable), drilling down its bullshit, he’s just absolutely wrong, does he get slope?, did this guy have slope?, we are told innovation is always happening, great tech, the reactions, the witherers and the weirds, Jesse’s seen them on twitter, herbivore men in Japan, I never saw him I hate that guy, just playing games, I got my waifu pillow, Magnus Panvidya is a witherer, a famous boogaloo boi, a national security threat, ironic proud boys, no ideology, we don’t like the way things are, our goal, are you communists?, what unites us is objecting to the system, imagine future capitalism, ports, what are the ports for?, they don’t have anything, what makes you a witherer and not a weird, I put on an ironic voice, getting paid poorly, just trying to live in a world they never made, recreated our reality, the beatniks, science fiction fans, cosplayers, Jesse is not trying to get external slope, the vision of history looking back, PHDs, degrees of difficulty, ladder climbing, on the rowing machine on the stationary bike, an 1980s movie, Bright Lights, Big City (1988), the insane asylum, symptom, maybe I’ll be an assassin, not reflective of actual progress, not curing patients, treatment coefficient, social credit in China vs. Social Credit in Canada (and what Heinlein was talking about), debts are more brutal in China, business loans, Conrad Black aka Lord Black of Black Harbour, he’s rich so his criminality doesn’t matter, Lavoisier and Hooke and Einstein and Huxley, definitely earned slope, literally cloning themselves, what we all should say, Robert J. Sawyer, in just a few years we’re going to have the bio-medical technology will prevent us from ever dying, live forever as a robot, we are all mortal creatures and will die, a non-infinite supply of life, this system is bullshit, live well during the time you have, go off into the wilderness, back to the land movements, a lot of people stayed, carnival is a vacation, Jesse doesn’t take vacations, the literary interpretations of carnival, Mikhail Bakhtin, carnival theory, the Venetian Masquerade, putting the mask on, performative transgressivism, the Masonic Lodges, costume, the fez, the apron, all cultures have this, the setup and the interest of the book, a tension that leads to the climax, 2,000 amaranth get elevated, Bonfire Of The Vanities, when Captain Picard puts on his speedos, that is his carnival, everyone wants to wear the uniform, Troi and Barkley, when Captain Janeway is on the holodeck with her holographic boyfriend, recreation, on vacation on an actual planet vs. cosplaying on the holodeck, Risan sex workers, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, clothes making you a different person, the lab coat makes you a scientist, you become the Star Trek Communist, a shining suit of armor, putting on a personality, why people change their names, a new identity, the Douggie Fresh story, more of the sacraments, jealousy is a sin, a legitimate response by children, choosing your own name, Miami Vice, interacting with our identity, a Superman costume, changing your gender, your haircut, these are all weirds, upturn reality vs. a response to a reality I don’t like, one is not personal, Gavin Waylock (Warlock), Gulliver Of Mars, amaranth is unfading, why did he do it?, she recognized him for what he was, his reading on her, very clever, playfulness, I went to the carnival to blow off some steam, the sex worker recognized me now I have to destroy her, he was hiding as a carnival barker, playing possum, going to party, hey guy do you want to party?, a euphemism, revelry masking escape, maybe all Vance is like this?, we don’t see his thoughts, the way he did it, not a Jesse book, not a book of ideas, a lot of fun, the weird economy, no offense, a fancy dinner book vs. a popcorn book, Sin Hellcat was fun, The Stainless Steel Rat, a slippery space con man, SF stuff, on the edge, set on Earth, Robert Jordan epics, secondary world fantasy, getting what the author is spinning up, no criticism of our reality, Tolkien is not about our world, a criticism of war and industrialization, he’s working on his own shit, an elaborate backstory, a mild mannered Hobbit, a tapestry, the class system, Mister Frodo, a mimicing, let’s get out of our world, such a complex system mirrors our society, bringing democracy to the world, people who can’t afford housing get tattoos, he’s not doing us, really fun and interesting, the world is amazing, too big of a world, he loved to world build, a generation starship, geography, the Lyonesse novels, a decadent society?, a barbarian invasion, what Lovecraft would do, Robert E. Howard would have a lot to say, a thesis, everything is decadent is a Vancianism, not sustainable, a catalyst, scholars in Finland or whatever, a bunch of references to the Dying Earth books, the Baktinian lens, this desire to put on masks, to be equal (if just pretend), a safety valve, the Zelazny title, Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon, you don’t own your own body any more, ultra capitalist future, people at the bottom who never apply for brood, only 20 years, the incentive is not that great, our Jacinth, a martin is an animal, she has most of my memories, Glarks!, if not on the tenure track, its publish or perish (literally perish), Bryan Alexander, looking at the future of post-secondary education, the future is very grim, queen sacrifice, we exist in a system where if you’re an adjunct professor you get paid minimum with a title, a bluechek and no pay, automatically suggested for followers, the system is not what it once was, prominent counterexamples, Harvard’s infinite money supply, people at the back of the (academic train): “c’mon run you can make it”, the student loan boost was another scam, these losers?, sitting around after getting their PHD and drinking beer in their house, we need a historian, thirty years down the road, a whole stint in Ghana, hiring the college guys, draft dodgers from the 70s still working the university mines, we lost a lot by whatever we did to fuck up the universities, a Bryan question, not all administration, money has been shifted towards administration, the factory workers not getting paid, well meaning but useless, more instruction and books, a good library and good professors, top 50 or top 100 schools, this doesn’t tell you much, who makes these assessments, they just look at the ranking, go to a warm university, instruction will always suffer, put your lectures on YouTube, tier 1 sports, corporatization of universities, you paid a fucking lot of money to be exposed to Schopenhauer, going into massive debt, university was basically free, jobs were plentiful and paid well, a house and a car, somewhere between 1900 and 1979 they made universities a priority and everybody got an education, a dying clown show, more like carnies, the most innovative technologies, the House of Truth, the Hall Of Revelation, kill frogs, try to steal rings from people, we never got to see inside the one he was shilling for, the House of Life, really good with names and words, the flavour, wordplay, how people rank books, one of those great old paperbacks from the 50s 60s and 80s, wow that was really interesting, dogs vs. gems, his third novel, how many stars out of the the entire galaxy?, 1 star taken off because no kissing.

DAW BOOKS - To Live Forever by Jack Vance

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The SFFaudio Podcast #656 - READALONG: To Live Forever by Jack Vance [ 2:32:52 | 107.24 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The SFFaudio Podcast #649 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Ideal by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #649 – The Ideal by Stanley G. Weinbaum; read by Gregg Margarite. This is an unabridged reading of the story (37 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Tony De Simone

Talked about on today’s show:
Star Trek Wars podcast, Tony’s pick, Pygmallion’s Spectacles, Weinbaum, Gregg Margarite, thematic resonances, interestingly similar, three Professor Van Manderpootz, big lib goggles, a little dated, male female relations, of its time, a strong male gaze, in the context of this story, he uses his gaze to create the ideal woman, an absolute cad, out for girls, not empathetic, defeated by reading the story, the girl puts her face in the oven, her male ideal, the uncle in Pygmallion’s Spectacles, Albert Ludwig, another European scientist type, inflated ego and opinion, Gregg had great taste in Science Fiction, like Wayne June, reads like a robot, straight narration vs. performance narration, Mark Twain, treating it like a serious hobby, Acoustic Pulp (Gregg Margarite’s blog listing his recordings), a really great idea man, a tradition, Philip K. Dick has a Van Manderpootz style character, scolded and cajoled, Doc Brown from Back To The Future, Doc Labyrinth, The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford, from this tradition, a fine and upstanding tradition, philosophical stuff, the middle one, Worlds Of If, Dixon Wells, how things might have happened differently, the Mirror Universe, the subjunctivisor, stand alone but in sequence, the perfect woman, she married the pilot, how the male gaze is done by the female, the secretary through the eyes of the janitor, you notice it is fun, its incredibly deep, a magazine named after, What IF…, If This Goes On…, projecting into the future, from 2014-2015, the great stock market crash of 2009, a lot of smoking, incredible output, the perfect, John Rawls veil of ignorance, a good happy and non painful life, its ridiculous, three new particles, really early technobabble (in service), Plato and The Republic, we all want justice, what is justice?, doing right to your friends and doing harm to your enemies, to be virtuous in all actions, where learning comes from, our reality is a shittier version of the perfect, the trauma of childbirth gave you amnesia, learning is actually remembering, what makes a chair a chair is we know it from the ideal of the chair, why we recognize things, instinctual fears, the perfect house, Poe wrote a whole essay about the perfect room, psychons, that hairstyle is more attractive, big hair and shoulder pads, Miami Vice, generated by the things exposed to in youth, active in advertizing from 25 years ago, Somewhere In Time (1980), Jack Finney is sooo nostalgic, Midnight In Paris (2011), nostalgia as a receding window, Ray Bradbury is sooo nostalgic, an idealization of a perfect time in the past, Halloween, he lives there, he dwells there, a place where he was, how he was, only if you believe in this idea of the perfect, an exploration and a ridiculing of the perfect, anything after 1899 was uninteresting, movies from the 1970s vs. stories from the 1970s, the perfect girl, her costume, cuirasses are back in fashion, body armor and shorts, standard from 1930s magazines, Return Of The Jedi, Leia’s costume is 1930s brass braziers, a male Jabba gaze, long sensuous hair tentacles, what makes Star Wars work so well is its coming out and a harkening back, the serials and the pulps, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, wearing swords and cuirasses, flying vehicles and Ming the Merciless, an inconsequential comedy piece, there is this perfect woman out there for me, a new reality, very subtle, an examination of the phenomenon and a dismissal of it, an element of Van Manderpootz, he tells us he’s smart, his wiseness is not as high as his smartness, taking the robot apart, his plan went afoul, the cover of Wonder Stories, its in the story (just not the focus), they idealized it, a guy sticking his head into a cannon, people with TV heads, robosaurus, if he had built it it would have been a disaster, the ideal predator for an urban jungle, the tradition going back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the message of Frankenstein is if you’re going to have kids don’t abandon them, embracing the and, the most discussed one, 1. there are some things man was not meant to know!, 2. playing God is wrong, connected to making babies, God is making babies, creating Hell on Earth, instead of living peacefully in heaven forever, adaptations (the movies), hubris, show off his intelligence, of that ilk, driven to defeat death, a creature that is immortal, the creature punishes him, if you get a dog don’t abuse it, rejected by society, our hero is a little bit too ditzy, he’s not committed (even to showing up on time), so distraught he starts showing up to work on time, oh I know that girl, her second husband (she’s had seven), an object of massive desire, brilliant as he is, he makes a good uncle, the relationship between Doc Brown and Marty McFly, the circular loop, it doesn’t make sense to look at as a Heinleinian loop, Predestination (2014) and All You Zombies, the avuncular uncle, Doc I need more power, the same comedic relationship, getting in bed with the Libyans, the same story a different phenomenon, public domain heroes, John R. Peirce’s The Higher Things, Harry Harrison, romances, I I Dixon Wells, Heloise And Alebard, from the medieval time period, a missed opportunity, a very Star Trek thing to do: Newton, Hawking, Tpau of Vulcan, the iceberg approach, A Pale Light In The Black by K.B. Wagers, the only music is Star Trek is jazz, classical, and Klingon opera, Dixon Hill, the ideal romance, Marty McFly isn’t that interested in science, Sophie Wenzel Ellis, tragic romances, the real answer, Creatures Of The Light by Sophie Wenzel Ellis, a eugenicist, pile on pile on pile on pile on, extra stuff at the beginning, Aucassin and Nicolette, auggh gasoline!, fixed eyes or fixed cameras, phone camera AI, categorizing and tagging, blinders and a mirror, what does this heterosexual young man see?, dating dancers, what other people thought was the perfect woman, nothing about her brain, Weinbaum is very wise, it feels so easy but it is super deep, Dawn Of Flame, a plague in the 2020s, The Black Flame, Kentucky, Black Margo, conquering the world for good, as very poignant piece vs. clinical and cute, wise, wistful, our naive hero, he’s literally teaching us, he taught so many people what science fiction could be, read more Weinbaum, he wrote a lot for a guy who didn’t live very long, Ray Bradbury is genuine and enthusiastic, love and reverence for poetry and prose, the least political writer, cars and trains, The Pedestrian, Fahrenheit 451 seems very political, book burning vs. the danger of television, a magic way to get to Mars, never learned to live (living in Los Angeles) is pretty weird, The Small Assassin, the image of a homicidal baby, Pet Semetary by Stephen King, revealing truths, making the wisdom go down very easy, a jerk vs. a ditz, he could literally destroy the planet, killing machines, the robot is probably named after Isaac Newton, a Jew, Ray Bradbury’s obsessions are kind of what people wanted, that small town vibe, a nice way of thinking of reality, Disney’s Up is too nostalgic for Jesse, noir fiction, hard SF, hard boiled, well written and easy to take in, A Martian Odyssey, a Star Trek bridge crew, each alien is different, silicon based lifeforms, how a bird would think, H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds, they’re comprehensible, based in threes, vampires, what would happen to people as we evolved, taking in your food through your skin, grey aliens.