Tag: Seabury Quinn

The SFFaudio Podcast #867 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Thing On The Roof by Robert E. Howard and The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft

The SFFaudio Podcast #867 – The Thing On The Roof by Robert E. Howard (26 minutes) read by Connor Kaye (for Eldritch Archives) AND The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft (28 minutes) read by Scott Carpenter for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both (beginning at 54 minutes). Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
2 stories, both about 28 minutes to read aloud, something related to the meta-text, Unspeakable Cults, The Noseless Horror, set in England, why is it set in England, big old creepy houses, British guys, one of the stories today, set in England for no apparent reason, something about this plot, the only time H.P. Lovecraft tried to do Howard: The Quest Of Iranon, Lovecraft heavily influenced by Robert E. Howard, Lovecraft wasn’t interested, he wasn’t commercial, Howard wanted to be a full time writer, have that as your job, died at 30, Cowboy Stories, Action Stories, it’d be good to have some beans, that successful commercial voice, Lovecraft wouldn’t have accepted the editorship of Weird Tales, this is the same plot essentially, a different storytelling technique, The Hound, two lovecraftian characters, an evil art dungeon, Manly Wade Wellman?, [Hounds of Tindalos by Frank Belknap Long], black curtains, very exaggeratory, similar in tone to The Mask Of The Red Death, the plot, an amulet in a graveyard in the Netherlands, the monster in the grave comes and kills him, published twice in Weird Tales, The Fire Of Ashurbanipal, how Howard does buddy buddy, he’s Afghan in Arabia, Howard doing Howard, him doing Lovecraft, point to, teaching students how to write, Character Language Allusion Imagery and Message, nameless like the city, almost no backstory, with the Howard, British jerk, rude to his frenemies, rude to his servants, booklover archaeologist, more academic, a Fall Of The House Of Usher situation, we understand them both, the Lovecraftian scholar, he insulted me years ago, offering an apology, I’ve cleared my name on my own, runs off to South America, three month quest, the Doctor Strange movie, the warnings come after the spell, one is more homebodyish, I want treasure, Belloq and Indiana Jones, rivals, H.G. Wells and Jack London, muscular and fast, the Golden Goblin edition, riddled with typos and odd woodcuts, a parody of Lovecraft at that point, very different from other eldritch tomes, grimoires, less than 100 years old, some dude just wrote this, I studied all the weird forgotten cults then I was brutally murdered, found murdered, assembled, slit his own throat with a razor, The Black Stone is a real story, good painted cover, a purple velvet background, Robert E. Howard’s stories inspired by Lovecraft, these are really fun and interesting, basically the same length, the Lovecraft is much slower, a lot more dreamlike, artificial distinction, his dreamland stories and his cthulhu mythos stories, a guy who goes into the desert, crawls into a cave, horrible spelunking videos, head down in a spot, really horrible, in the darkness and suddenly there’s light, how detailed those murals are, conveyed all that information, he’s got timestamps, how does he convey that?, this incredible detail, a little credulous, depictions of funeral rights, a terrible accident or a war, these guys are immortal, That which is not dead, a lot of poetry in both of these, the text for The Nameless City, loose cable, the poet Justin Geoffrey, smashing babies against the Black Stone, Iram, the city of the Pillars, Sheba by Jack Higgins, a sucker for lost desert cities, lost cities are real, one in Turkey, ones in South America, ones in North America, the deep time of the Earth, an aryan mummy, of a higher race than the native indians, racial stuff, Atlanteans, they’re crocodile/alligator people, a previous species on the Earth, something very important, talking about Atlantis a lot, everything is old, no matter when you pick, all you have to do to push that number back is go out and look, not Mormons in space, the deep history of humans on the earth, there wasn’t always just stone age people, men think about the Roman Empire everyday, some of them are thinking about deep history, some scholar writing a book somewhere, Egypt is very obviously an older civilization, Honduras, Guatemala, got the wrong book, Heinrich Schliemann, cable broken again, not quite as good, finding these things, finding some ancient city in Honduras, didn’t find the inner chamber, how The Hound works, a batwinged creature, maybe that has happened many times, the hoofed thing comes and retrieves it many times, keep closing the door, the comic book adaptation, reading it this time, did you hear something?, a hoof on the roof, it’s Santa Claus!, an ox or a horse in the bushes, the final line of the story, an enormous, hoof, slimy, high pitched, a tentacle, jelly like bulk, Robert E. Howard didn’t quite make it clear, the Marvel comic book adaptation, a little frog hopping ahead of him, a separate from from the one he’s using as the key, crystal frog, a toad which hopped ahead of him, they show it, big splash page, jumping out the window to return to Honduras, interpret, a bad translation, they weren’t worshiping a frog, some god that lives forever, the mummy was its priest, the key was carved to look like a toad, a crystal toad, locked in the inner chamber is this other thing, call it toadish, an alien up there, a moon calf, carving it up like veal, try translating kimchi into english, sauerkraut, you’re gonna get something, getting it second hand, hears some horrible stuff, sees the wreckage, foul unspeakable slime, crushed and flattened, they lumber in the night, colossal wings, the meter and the rhyme, very sing-songy, alluding to something, written for this story, Justin Geoffrey is Robert E. Howard, layers and layers of literary stuff, the distancing technique, there is no medium between us and the narrator, we start right there, I’m right there, protruding uncannily, an ill made grave, as I cower in my bed, hiding under the sheets, elbows and noses, a shallow grave, this Howard thing, different segments of his poetry, The Children Of The Night, tread not where stony deserts hold, very Nameless City, why was he doing that?, is he like Tussman searching for this place?, it feels very dreamlike, there’s no evidence for it being a dream, in a style that’s dreamy, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, the city of Ib, the Nile, a confluence there, the striking change, in the darkness, suddenly he thinks he sees a light, the worlds that he sees described, they are always in light to, always light underground, promised this underground place, The Mound by Zealia Bishop (and H.P. Lovecraft), a collaboration, a mesa in Oklahoma, a headless ghost, dystopian nightmare of centaurs, a Spanish explorer, a nested scroll of what his experience was, slavery biotech, under the earth civilization, bio-tech, attached to opium drips, Xthula Of The Dusk aka The Slithering Shadow, something Howard is all about, even crocodile civilizations, down with these reptile people, some societal and environmental problems, why it is hidden from us, poetry injections, amazingly steep, Thomas More, a reservoir of darkness, moon drugs, the jetty sides as smooth as glass, the seas of death, how’s that supposed to comfort you?, what the mad poet said, couplet, comedic attraction, let’s do this, everyone warned me it was a terrible idea, my skin is coming off, sucked down into, the last 3 paragraphs, the grim brooding desert gods, what abaddon guided me back to life, monstrous colossal, when one cannot sleep, cacodaemoniacal, articulate form, the grave, strangely tongued fiends, the luminous aether of the abyss, a nightmare horde, the crawling reptiles of the Nameless City, the ghoul peopled blackness, great brazen door, how are we getting this story, hinting that he got out?, Lord Dunsany, a club story, pioneered that with a character named Jorkens, Fletcher Pratt, Gavagan’s Bar, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, invited Jorkens over for lunch, chased by a lion, went into a cave, how did you escape?, freak out and wreck the place, a silly joke story, the end of The Outsider, the tomb, the castle, over the landscape, the moat now a garden, why is everybody freaking out, the doorway is a mirror, I’m the monster!, now I ride the nightwinds with the ghouls, huh?, where’s the end of the story, the great brazen door, brass that’s been heated and colour distorted, Ex Oblivione, hates his life and wants to live in his dreams, in his dreams he finds a gate in a wall, how to find the key, taking more opium, get the door open, all of light, he finds himself dissolved, going to the realm of the Forms, until the time I’m placed in another vessel, the pre-heaven, reincarnation involves pain and annoyance, a low door, became dead, are we there with him?, a first person recounting of an event, he wrote it on a roll of toilet paper, Ms. Found In A Copper Cylinder, a ghoul peopled blackness, hail the rising sun, satisfied buy why?, balancing these two stories, love vs. like, prefer Thing, Howard more than Lovecraft, a sucker for the Nameless Cults, better with language, evokes so much, workaday, rushed through it, trying to sell it, the guy telling the story is fairly sane, the guy is gone, crazier more elevated language, it’s almost like The Nameless City isn’t a story, an episode of The Twilight Zone, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, a narrative from a perspective, this is all an analogy for our world, more of a Howard thing than a Lovecraft thing, The Slithering Shadow, the lady plugged into the opium, she’s watching youtube, she’s watching twitch, checked out, stagnating and dead, present asleep, it’s not like The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, almost more of a straight horror story, one of the endings of Re-Animator, they don’t like it, a dream fully detailed out, and then I was trapped there forever, we wake up out of the story, Robert E. Howard is way more explicable and copyable, much more like a spell we go under, very dream like, what can we learn from them, learn about these places, always underground, the conquistadors missed this, natives to torture to death, the more Heinrich Schliemann approach, the Temple of Doom, keep reading the book, bro, he wants treasure, he’s genuinely interested, our guy in The Nameless City, a compulsion, he has a camel, he has some tools, he came here, lived only in myth, the explanation is zero, a potion to save his life as a disease, a character with a personality, the swooning in Robert E. Howard stories, forget about character completely, C.L.A.I.M., real poets and fake poets, the language is just amazing, like a magic spell, each sentence builds the spell, visualize what’s going on, what is the message, read the whole book, don’t go messing in old tombs, a good thing has all of this, just dealing in tropes, the pictures, when you read a poem by Howard, sense data, just look at the titles, stories full of imagery, the colour of Belit’s skin, what the dragon looks like in Red Nails, he’s largely imagery, apparently it’s great, Jabberwocky, about nothing, means nothing, vorpal sword, the sound is really important, sentence patterns, the sounds of things, names, Tussmann, a funny name for an Englishman, Herr Tussmann, makes sense, he’s bad because he’s a German, evil because he’s French, the plot, that was fun, how he cast this magic spell, mesmerized by whatever it is, almost more like poetry itself, a Clark Ashton Smithy spell, story count, bang out stories in a week or two, each of these guys, all really into poetry, they don’t get money for that, got no money, just good will, why you doin it?, they loved poetry, people talking about writing on twitter, using ai to crank out, not for the love of the game, build my brand, that fundamental love of poetry, they don’t read enough, not absorbing this text for the love of the text, I played World Of Warcraft, muscle mommy, Orc City thing, that’s something, doing this wrong, his stories to his poetry, Clark Ashton Smith second tier down, better at poetry maybe, both of these are very good, they work together really well, reading them back to back, done differently, you can see Robert E. Howard put in some work, probably took a week, a lifetime of dream-journaling, one is a story and the other is something else, Howard trying to do something a little Lovecrafty, written a decade, Lovecraft doing Lovecraft, something off about this, this is him making fun of Gothics, the pirate one, The Black Stranger, Black Vulmea’s Vengeance, the people copying Howard, I got an axe to grind, Howard doing an Agatha Christie, Howard is a great writer, so commercial, front of the mind, what are they buying, do we want adventure stories?, boxing stories, whatevers selling this month, I’ll tell you whatever story you want vs. I can’t be any other way than I am, Strange Tales, Argosy, Farnsworth Wright, The Sowers Of The Thunder, get paid $40 for it, one of his best?, is that true, top half?, not top 10, he wrote a lot, and he’s really good at it, Tevis Clyde Smith, a shorter and better story, stocked up, real literature, that sounds like a guy who’s proud of himself, July August 1931, 5 years of writing, he got better as he went along, Tamarlane as a fit subject for Oriental Stories, the best story by far that I ever wrote, judge by any standard, seemed to erudite for the general reader, correctly estimating his audience, the Seabury Quinn lovers, my audience won’t like it, too thin, also etc., no attempt at plot, usual stereotype, he could have had the story for nothing, just to see it in print, mid to late August, to Lovecraft, a berth there, yarns, thin plot and light action, formerly rejected it, in the final letter, March 1932, the roof business and the sowers stuff, quite a few praises, get it into The Souk, The Eyrie, better than everything previous?, late Robert E. Howard, Solomon Kane is before this, Kull precedes Conan, the last recurring character, El Borak, James Allison, Kull is 29, Steve Costigan, 29 and 30, everything is 29 and 30 for him, ludicrous how much he wrote, he wrote so much good stuff, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, The Tomb, when you see Tussmann do you say that’s me!, as a character, so obsessed with this, two lines and then runs off, who does that?, an insane life, skull caved in by a hoof, decaying estate, there’s no explanation, he wants the treasure, doesn’t care about his own reputation or name, the backstory is really interesting, having to had to defend himself, so random attack, the Nameless Cults thing, the fake book as a concept, the weird pirate editions of the books, making fun of Lovecraft, buy the Del Rey not the Lancers, so expurgated, allusion is a major factor, an Aesop’s Fable, no reference to Dambusters, no reference to Akira Kurosawa, the couplet that explains what the moral of it is, one and done and we’re done, the more layer of enfolding, a reminder about a story by Poe, The Oval Portrait, almost is all frame, a guy in Italy, just wounded, breaks them into a castle, food on the table still steaming, the wick is still smoking, they find the castle abandoned, turret bedroom, bandits in the original, surrounded in this round room with paintings, armorial trophies, beside him on the pillow is a book that tells you all about the paintings, a build up for the internal story, a painter who painted a woman to death, drawing the spirit out of her body and putting it in her into the canvas, sets up and ends, why lately abandoned, a rich deep interesting story about art, he talks about being wounded, Tussmann’s eyes blazed, shot in the foot, how did that happen?, sealed up chamber, the opposite of our unnamed narrator, purely by chance, a similar sort of setup, it just so happen, it’s a meta-story, the framing making the layering more interesting, no framing at all, comes to us somehow, storytelling, start as far as possible into the story, cut out all the build up, start with action, Basil Exposition come out to explain some plot point, Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves, you have to roll with it, not like Blade III, a tv show out of it, at no point does it slow down for the audience, buckle in, why it doesn’t resonate with a lot of people, Robert E. Howard is very good at knowing what the audience wants, force of nature vs. innate skill and temperament for it, doing it for money, Re-Animator and Lurking Fear, let’s get Hour Of The Dragon scheduled, going to the beach again, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, not on for Hombre by Elmore Leonard, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. by Jack London, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, nominated for a Nebula, really short stories, The Horses Of Lir, a little later, a movie.

The Thing On The Roof by Robert E. Howard - art by M.S. Corley

The Thing On The Roof by Robert E. Howard

The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft

The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #864 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: In The Abyss by H.G. Wells and Black Hound Of Death by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #864 – In The Abyss by H.G. Wells (33 minutes) read by James Dixon for LibriVox AND Black Hound Of Death by Robert E. Howard (56 minutes) read by Ben Tucker, both for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, Cora Buhlert, and Alex (pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
1897?, 1936, posthumusly, 1896, proto-Lovecraft, both of these stories are science fiction, would you object?, the point of either of them?, half-gadget story, chanting, science fiction elements, not the thing that’s going on, functionally horror stories, what happens at the end, our boy is killed, deep sea monsters, he’s down there living with them now, white surface god of the merpeople, an angel, brough evidence the source for all the goodies that fall, you can’t weld underwater very easily, fire, bring the equipment from above, when Lovecraft has his deep ones, crowns and stuff, treasure from the same source, the village of Innsmouth, immortality, a horror, I’m one of them, impure bloodline, the people I passed over on the Mayflower, so excited to go down again, we have to wonder, The Time Traveler at the end of The Time Machine, explorers, still things to discover, vanish again to explore some more, stick to their room, yithians exploring, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, a bathysphere spaceship that goes up instead of down, plant the flag and punch natives, he can’t get out, not even a hint, drink the potion, if this window opens, unscrewed, Silurians or Sea-Devils from Doctor Who, deep sea, not blob-fish people, people shaped, houses with no ceilings, the tone is different, a comedy piece, anti-comedy, put up a cheer, doesn’t really go anywhere, the repeated line anywhere, like butter spread on bread, supopsed to object more, tonally not, make the argument, the explanation for what happens in Black Hound Of Death, Mongolia, the Erlik worshipping sect, great at plastic surgery, they gave us all their science, secretly dribbled out, wrapped in a revenge story, other shudder pulp stories, Cat-Woman, set in Quebec, that one’s even science, mailed away for some gladular, the importance of hormones, maybe we can make a werewolf, not contagious right, Garfield, set in modern days, what makes it so shudder pulpy, or weird menacey, prototypical weird menace stories, weird tales pioneered that, trying to get the cover, naked girl tied to a table, Margaret Brundage, a parallel universe Margaret Brundage cover that would have been amazing, Seabury Quinn, a naked lady standing over a grave and a kitten, Sin House, good cover, elements that are super-interesting, is this an actual state, Louisiana, or Arkansas?, there’s a river, the negros call it Egypt, New York city, definitely not in New York City, Texas, pine forests, weird relationship to forests, so freaked out they have to write horror stories, pine trees, the soils become acidic, woodcutting, big plantations, hiking with 1000 year old oak trees, the image of the old growth forest, the first line of the story, Egyptian darkness., unseen things lurking in the blackness, slinking figures, prowl beyond the edge of normal life, not here for no reason, some such thoughts flitted vaguely, deep pineland, dares invade in the night, densely timbered river country, obscurely racial reason, main bad guy is Adam Grimm, Bros. Grim, the bible too, in Exodus, the Jews wanna flee the pharaoh, mark their doors with lambs’ blood, the mezuza, 3 nights there’s darkness, occupied by ex-slaves, one white man living in this forest, honorable white man, save his fellow white man, a little like a Solomon Kane story, treats all races equally, an escaped prisoner, killed a sherriff’s deputy?, forget to mention, a black man killed by this black man, a trustee, a killer of all men, a particular mission of revenge, you can’t write a Robert E. Howard story without a collection of grindstones you need to grind, barbarism vs. civilization, hiding in the forest, betrayed a white man, got a letter with a photo of his face, the girl is only there because we need a girl, look good while naked on the cover, a threat in the forest, more obviously manly, another strong image, a black man with his ear ripped off, same thing happens to our guy in another fight, my superior boxing science, beat each other to a pulp, a thing that happens for real, Evander Holyfield, Tyson did the biting, one ear had been torn from his head, gigantic beast had ripped it out with his fangs, mangled ears of boxers, that’s from being punched a lot, traditionally you don’t bite, a meal, a shotgun, the second ear, a wild beast, Tope Braxton, as bull apes fight, knee driven to groin, gouging, the pistols on the ground, aware of only one desire, to kill with naked hands, a motionless mass of bloody flesh and splintered bone, iron talons, bruised the bone beneath, a solid ache, three thews, sluiced from an ear that was ripped loose from my head, the choking until his hands meet, bloody scenes, the goriest, a Frank Frazetta illustration, Shadows Of Zamboula, the strangler, violent and detailed, they’re comedies, Steve Costigan ones, primal, the racial dynamic, a throwback for black people, this other dynamic, physically changed by semimagical methods that are all scientific, Erlik is their god, Himalayas, a Turkic god, People Of The Black Circle, two white explorers, chivalric hero, a dutch door, beneath the bottom of the door, the holes of the two barrels, because of the framing, this is a story set in a forest at night, unending, two kinds of darkness, the darkness of the barrels of the gun leveled at him, white characters and black characters, peeping, a lady on the table naked, twelve times, there’s no blessing, god please, the blood of the lamb on the door, how did he construct this story?, revenge, weird menace story, what things you need to include, plausibly, can’t be magical, a girl take her shirt off, that was implied, Dime Mystery, Spicy Mystery, posthumously, never intended for Weird Tales, 1932/3/4, crime magazines, Dime Mystery, Weird Terror Tales, Horror Stories, straight mystery was older, when did Horror Tales start?, that Ray Cummings story, werewoman, 1935, when Weird Tales starts they don’t even know what they’re doing, Terror Tales started in 1934, when Lovecraft writes in, almost gets the job of editor, he knows what we’re writing, Edmond Hamilton, spooky horror, gothic, weird fiction, some science fiction, sword and sorcery boom, supernatural investigators, traditional ghost stories, supernatural detective stories, William Hope Hodgson was doing it too, John Constatine, the Dresden Files, female versions, erotic urban fantasy thing, less focus on the mystery, not weird Sherlock Holmes stories, an action movie, crime mystery, hardboiled fiction, Hammett or Chandler, where we’re going, back to the bathysphere, spread like butter on bread, talking about your food?, everybody agrees that it is a ball, two windows, the second hand description, has to go down again, I have to go down again, choose when he’s gonna come up, a padded room, padded in a sphere shape, the friction, moving so fast through the water, suspend your knowledge, barely had submarines, they knew back then, brace yourself when it is moving, seatbelts, for racing, just brace yourself, post WWII, he could had a chair in there, a window to the outside world, James Cameron, the bottom of the deepest ocean, a cool undersea civilization, Titanic, separate incidents, they want to go to space, to be the guy that went there, his explanation is not super evident in the story, it was there, Everest hadn’t been climbed, up by themselves?, there’s no food up there?, before mountain climbing started as a sport, climb across the alps, why are these people, this important, for the narrative of this story, it is crazy to want to do this stuff, he saw things he says, he never wrote it down, what he said that he saw, he’s crazy, hallucinating, pendants to other stories, The Crystal Egg, a precursor to The War Of The Worlds, a palantir from The Lord Of The Rings, the people of mars, designed to be in the same book as, kinda like Dracula’s Guest, experimenting with the idea, Elmore Leonard, Karen Makes Out, the nested narrative, a graveyard stone, having sex with dead bodies, super-normal, afraid of living out his life in a padded room, he’s insane, real boring, there are people down there, whenever a ship of our’s sinks, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society: let’s combine War Of The Worlds and Innsmouth, sinking our ships, the mer-people, mermen, aquaticans, [tritons by H.P. Lovecraft too] undersea people, the idea lives on, the earliest version, The Abyss (1989) weird things on the ocean floor, not evening getting it in a letter, H.G. Wells interviewed the guys on the boat, here it all is, The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft, as one does, creatures floating around down there, dolphins that are escorting them, Atlantis, Atlantis as aliens on earth, Disney World, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, dragged like a train on a track, giant squid attacks you, a vivid memory, sole visit, at 5, time machine, steampunk Nautilus, windows where you could look out, 1 or 2 meters deep, the instinct in picking these two stories, how stories are constructed, weird fiction vs. science fiction, they are, it’s pulp, literally is, constructed to fit in a pulp magazine, straight up science fiction done in a sophisticated pioneering way, radically different, something like science fiction, his math was really bad, a werewolf dude, weird mongolian priests did it, he just wants a monster, maybe it is about the effect, we know he wants the cover, for the formula to get certain things in there, manly brawn and manly code of behavior, I’m an honorable white man, all I ask is a pallate on the floor, a cool little touch, why The Odyssey is so important, guest host relationship, someone else’s home, white men have to be like this, also blacks here too, turn to the Wells, sailors trynna be interested in this thing, he seems crazy, who would you hire?, you need sailors, better trained, research vessels, those kinds of things are called Davits, poop is called the poop, a sling?, a boom, rowboats, lifeboats, modern research vessels, run some experiments, go back to the universities, what the sailors talking about on the ship, turns into a first person story, waited for three weeks, Wells is not an upper class guy, didn’t know any better, it’s pretty good, what do we make about what’s going on amongst the sea-people, making noises, a community, a city, they live on our trash, it’s tantalizing, is there something else going on there?, they have no idea they’re at the bottom of the sea, a gift from the gods, this is normal, comets are symbols from god, fall from the heavens, we also can see the heavens, they can’t, natural phenomena, Philip K. Dick, little people in a cage, plan c, we are plan a, Project: Earth, these are the replacements for us, escape into the world, just like we did, who are you writing this report for?, a CIA world fact book, he has to report to people, a Mormon god, he’s got his own god above him, they live in rooms with no ceilings, not gonna get rained on, its for privacy, swim over you and see what you’re doing, analogies to other sea creatures, polyps that make up barnacles, imagine these are barnacle people, they’re filter feeders, sunken ships, whenever we cross the ocean, the technology that they’re getting is getting newer, the Titanic fall on top of them, a lot of weapons, WWI, WWII, hasn’t worked their entire society, aliens on another planet but right here, the real effect of its being science fiction, the sense of wonder, an infodump that tells it, what if this go on?, is this contagious?, what if this secret order of monks is releasing our technology, push it to make it be that, this is Egypt, the black people living in Egypt, bad white people and bad black people, this torturous thing to other people, escape from Egypt, the secret cult of priests of Erlik, super-science, how we maintain our secret, clearly modified by Mongolian super-science, on him as a hound, the better explanation, I want the cover, everybody loves a good thew, thews attract girls, that’s just science, not even fiction!, the title, Wayne June who didn’t die from suicide, comes to visit, Mr Jim Moon, a black hound of death, the thing that chases you down, chased him down, probably just the one bullet, who is the ladies’ man, H.G. Wells or Robert E. Howard, there’s no girls in this H.G. Wells story, hits the gym, lives at the gym, gym bro, men or women, which one do you find more attractive, a bit of fat on his body, super-defined muscles, women don’t are as much, those are for the guys, Robert E. Howard isn’t writing for women, let me see his bank account, how he treats my children, Hugh Jackman was first being Wolverine, Muscle And Fitness and Good Housekeeping, flexing and super ripped and oiled, a v neck sweater, pastels, smiling, the oiled muscles all the time, cool muscles underneath, a good provider, H.G. Wells is the ladies man, its not cheating if…, I don’t want to keep this bod to myself, famously a playboy, not an Andrew Tate style playboy, he’s for men not for women, all the baggage he brings, Lovecraft (not a ladies’ man), characters are almost always men, and flat, Arthur C. Clarke style characters, Weena, The Sea-Lady, the whole serialization, a retelling of the Hans Chrstian Anderson story about The Little Mermaid, well she has flippers, pushed around in a wheelchair, she’s a fish lady, lives kinda like a disabled person visiting British society, the guest to have at your party, novels by H.G. Wells that nobody reads, The Sleeper Awakes, Amazing, green aquarium, all about propaganda and speakers that are telling you the news, The Sea Lady, Pearson’s magazine, slick mags before they were slick, middle class readership, 1901, Amazing Stories, 1928, 70 pages, a victorian bathing suit, you can see her tail, fins all over the place, he has women in stories, a couple running away for a sex adventure in Paris, each other’s spouses, one of them has a turban, I guess we should dine together, what if sexual relations are different, Robert Silverberg and other people, what if we live differently than we do, a comedy of manners, a giant chicken The Food Of The Gods, chemical fertilizers, The Colour Out Of Space, giant food and what it does to us, Buck Rogers, contaminated food, werewolves are a metaphor, they’re like dragons, european dragons are evil kings, they steal maidens and don’t share them, men who go crazy, not protected by law, scientific explanation story is about manners, amazing fights, the blackness of the forest, a hodgepodge of stuff, moderating behavior, he did bad, Kirby Garfield, savage and a barbarian, he’s from the city, doesn’t follow the rules of hospitality, werewolf making priests, to be courteous, skulls split open, bash their head in, the philosophy of Texas, cops show up on the trail, we assumed that, the assumed, makes you more polite, not saying that to be funny, the discourse in the United States, makes you more polite, Heinlein has that same take at points, make the case for this, honour cultures, insults are met with violence, daughters get murdered, in between that, fairly strict ritualized interactions between people, never insult your guest, in a safer environment, call the cops on him, that formal structure is gone, formal handshake is going extinct, to show strength, old men would shake my hand and it would come away broken, know who you’re making friends with here bub, hands hidden, its about showing grip strength/murder strength, something wrong with their mentality, a hug between hands, quiet backwoods, laws of Germany, new years day, squeezed your hand, when he finally died, not very sad, his handshake was too manly, rude sexual jokes, pre-teen or early teen, cooling rooms, quite backwards, the Devil’s Moor, boys and horses (pretty stupid), horse trainer, version 2, a mermaid, rescued from drowning, handsome but irresponsible, introduced into polite society, as an immortal, critical detachment, already engaged, a political career, other dreams, humorous fiction, fantasy fiction, Special Deliverance, sign me up for that, an Alex Pulpcovers book, in the Howard story, gorilla imagery, savage beast, viscous killer, The Grisly Horror aka Moon Of Zimbabwe, carnivorous gorilla, smuggled in by a cult, negros of the pinelands, Poe is not Robert E. Howard, more like Lovecraft, Lovecraft but horny, Clark Ashton Smith, there’s a girl in it, a girl who’s dead, Poe is focused on being married, in his art it is all about girls, pieces of affection, really smart?, teams sucks, maybe headphones are broken, troubleshooting in May, vacation to Deep Creek Lake, the whole fam, the inlaws, banging away, massive away, wired headphones, wired and no battery, her usual setup, in Maryland, built a dam long ago, springtime, go swimming/fishing, read some books, hydroelectric company, could be Japanese, also in Maryland, Baltimore bachelor party, science fiction convention, death metal festival, contacts from school days, good?, fiance is good, the Poe museum, Richmond, Virginia, they’re different aren’t they?, Mexico, Belize in North America?, not a continent, region, a really good atlas, neighborhood internet, everybody watching Netflix, gigabit fiber, Germany is falling apart, the old cables, Starlink available?, give your data, more than Elon Musk, Fort Mead, your money, your data, cellphone and landline phone, works great, more fun!, in a pulpy short story, way more fun, Wells is more interesting, someone could make a really good story, Lovecraft did, Shadows Over Innsmouth, it’s there, hinting at something that could be cool, doesn’t come together as a story, a better story, works as a story, goes by fast, blather about, strengths vs. flaws, Edward Page Mitchell, America’s future, vegetarian Chinese party, beautiful daughter, vacuum tubes, an amazing science fiction story, they’re funny, giving you drama and interesting ideas, The Man Without A Body, now he lives in a museum, collect heads, The Crystal Man, an invisible man story before H.G. Wells, C. August Dupin, I see and observe, an invisible man to be observed but not seen, The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Costa Rica, Scott Miller, 4 or 5 other ones, The New York Sun, 1870s and 1880s, bangers all of them, no attribution to the author, the 1970s, a pioneer, The Clock That Went Backwards, the exact same plot as Back To The Future (1985), a siege in the Netherlands, the Tardis?, he’s his own grandpa, isn’t that amazing?, completely forgotten, line the birdcage, toilet paper for your dog, his magazine stories got put into book collections, Wells was quite well know, the most famous person in the world, histories of human civilization, a science fiction guy, a Virginia Woolf book, Sir Walter Scott, mostly forgotten, 1852-1927, his own journal, The Tachypomp, unlimited speed, also makes sense, no Einsteinian problem, The Ablest Man In The World, The Inside of the Earth, who wrote this, food pills, in 1973, Sam Moskowitz, the sort of person who would have done this, recorder, doing pretty good, German pickles, see you for The Sea Lady, steampunk convention, terrible traffic, public holidays, camper vans, a glut, it doesn’t have to be smart to be fun, Worldcon Seattle, arrested and thrown into jail, toy collector convention, going out more, industrial history stuff, North Sea coast, lots of places semi-nearby, better weather for it, on a podcast today.

In The Abyss by H.G. Wells

Black Hound Of Death by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #860 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Return Engagement by Margaret St. Clair AND The Black Abbot Of Puthuum by Clark Ashton Smith

The SFFaudio Podcast #860 – Return Engagement by Margaret St. Clair (28 minutes) read by Ben Tucker for LibriVox AND The Black Abbot of Puthuum by Clark Ashton Smith (54 minutes) read by Tommy Patrick Ryan, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
1950S, 1930S, fantasy and science fiction, a nice match, correspondence between Margaret St. Clair and Clark Ashton Smith, different, somebody saves somebody else, the way they are told, why did she tell the story that, resentful, the unnamed I, straightforwardly, the story is better that way, twice as long but less happens, what other connections do they have, sex and food and drink, food and drink and a lot less sex, a science fiction story about class resentment, a low status person upset, less intelligent than him?, less canny, less knowledgeable, naive, an ugly American, a sailor who has traveled all over the planet, how you act in Saudi Arabia, strictly by the word “information”, successful, a famous cook, makes recipes from the solar system, a really good sense of taste?, so full of resentment, on an airplane with a celebrity, docked two months pay, by being generous?, not mean?, a psychic, a comeuppance, has to go back every year and do the dance, porcupine people, hedgehog people, silly stories, with the lens of 100 years later, a little cringey, being a negro, overt racism, movement, timeframe, white people afraid of the black man coming and taking their women, mandingo, purple lips, red teeth, three inch claws, horns, a monster who happens to be black, an incubus, unnecessarily black, a multivalent word, an evil abbot, not even the actual abbot, we don’t need to collapse that valency, one is evil, one is defeated by evil, how this was constructed, a Robert E. Howard story, a Solomon Kane story, an evil innkeeper, lock this door, a house where they kill travelers, a Margaret St. Clair story that deals with the same thing, the Benders, kill travelers, a historical kind of thing, on the Oregon Trail, murdered their stuff is taken, are the incestuous, probably German, the daughter or the wife?, what you get in The Odyssey, cyclops closes the door and starts eating you, Circe, guest host relationship and violations of it, black wall in the desert, not a natural sudden reason, forced into it, she takes the agency and chooses the pikeman, funny hook or twist at the end, cut up his fingers, cheat each other, this beefy guy, the heroic work, he did all the stuff, Spanish for spoon [Cuchara], a big bluff dumb strong guy, wiry, D&D characters, a very D&D story, a oneshot, make the abbot a Drow, the dead one?, a black underground elf, African, they’re evil too, Drizzt Do’Urden, drow ranger with a panther, Gencon, a statue of him, super well known, deep enough into the fandom of D&D, R.A. Salvatore, accidently omitted Clark Asthon Smith, mini-quest, dungeon crawl, at the end of the story you have been entertained, that’s it, Peter Schmitt [@raskolnik2] tweets, precursors to Fafhard And The Grey Mouser, one of them gets eaten by a pudding, further adventures, disposable, go along and hangout with these guys, weird sense of honour about it, the dudes eat humans, serving them meat, strange meat, tuck in, they skipped the meal, they wanted to skip everything, the beer, chary, tasting the liquor, a potent kind of ale, baked meats that neither could identify, the effects of the ale, premature sleepiness, the eunuch, simba, enraged tembo, set in Zothique, dying earth far future continent, the black men come from the north, an inverted world, lamias are called out, he loves sex monsters, almost every Clark Ashton Smith story, fun while reading, insubstantial in terms of heft, ornate and pretty, a sidequest, shoot it, the animals are getting upset, donkeys and horses, is he bent?, the strange meats, constitution save, investigate, four pages of exposition, from the title of the story, slay a monster, boss battle, minions, the no shadow thing is cool, a ripoff of another story in Weird Tales previously, the same plot as The Tower Of The Elephant, a previous guest host relationship that went bad, stapled to a chair, a team-up, Conan and another master thief, shoot me again, a sympathy kill, kill this guy to help him, murder hobos, kill him!, he’s an evil wizard, sometimes the evil wizard is the good guy, misery unending, by the numbers, ornates it up, why did this story come into existence?, wanted to make a sale, enjoyed writing it, artistic merit, with the language and the immersion, a lesser artistic achievement, a prose poem, he loves poetry, poetic language, an ironwood bow, so cool, dark, incredibly dense, wood that will sink, why would you have that, material is superimporant to Clark Ashton Smith stories, enough description of the armour, chainmail and leather, enchanted arrows, bronze, acclaimed by bowmen, and all his brood, magic arrows mattered, special potions or elixirs, fell asleep, try to stay awake this time, the girl and him were talking, divide the girl, we worked way to hard for this and she’s way too hot, he shook the helmet vigorously, the forefingered talon, he’s cheating his buddy, dearly coveted index talon, what are you doing?, is she dumb?, is she not present, more of a chiding, they’re not bros as much as Fafhard And The Grey Mouser, the button on the story, endings are superimportant, inter-related, a lot of people on twitter talking about what science fiction is vs. what fantasy is, bad takes, fantasy and science fiction are the same thing, space and tech vs. swords and magic, an adventure stories, let’s test this theory with semi-random stories, like both authors, fantasy and weird fiction, main mode is science fiction, technology in every instance, a grandma who is on a return trip from Venus, a special spot nobody talks about, through the thief, bribed and studied his way into finding a forbidden city on Venus, a very Clark Ashton Smithy sort of story, on her way back the thief has a comeuppance, the sungod of venus, magics a guy out of existence, we don’t have perfect access to all of reality, worshiping strange phenomena not fiction, not wholly embodied in physical form, in the illustration, if you scroll down far enough, our cookbook writer being zapped for the first time, hedgehog guys, zappers on their heads, crests, even more technological than it is, tomato babies, discover in the story, the new novel thing, a really horrible tweet, too stupid, political compass with star wars and star trek 2 others some other fantasy on the other axis, a really bad way of thinking, the reason Star Trek episodes are good, later Vulcans go into Pon Far, space salmon, that’s the idea of that episode, his spawning ground, a cool idea, subsequent episodes that have that, facts about Star Trek lore are not inherently interesting, the idea that they’re going to explore, warp engines and transporters, when some idea inherent in them, split into 2 Rikers, what if your life took a diversion how would you feel, the transporter technology, philosophical ideas in a fantasy story, adventurey, Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, how to be in the world, you exist in a place where there is a heartland and hinterland, how ought one act, from one cave to another island, how ought one act, lost the thread, rare for fantasy to engage to ideas of technology, Star Wars, second mode, replicator stuff, social science fiction, what if you live in a society that thinks everyone should have a good death?, submit himself to euthanasia, time for him to be euthanized, good thing or bad thing, philosophical dilemma, to get to that idea, Eric [Rabkin], along the lines of, what could or might have been, what could be and what could be the implications, what does it mean, a teleportation device, and human behavior, what does that implicate, exploring the human condition, does the fantasy story today explore the human condition?, explore sexuality, the most interesting thing in it is there is a harem that needs to be added to it, most interesting idea, here’s William Emmons’ little fantasy, a literature of pure craft, similar to literary fiction, what the narrative is doing, a very different mode from science fiction, joined at the hip, it’s metaphor, realistic fiction there’s no metaphor, Walter Kirn and Matt Tiabi, A Good Man Is Hard to find, a road trip, grandma in the back seat with some kids, an agenda, if I was a painter I’d pay that, racist, a reflection rather than a metaphor, a space sailor who goes on a space cruise, exhausted the entirety of realistic fiction, Ulysses by James Joyce, a roman-a-clef, every scene is paralleled, an interesting mode, Milan Kundera, realistic fiction is something, when Conan fights a god from space, that’s not the same as wanting to divorce my wife, non-genre fiction, literary fiction, in the book trade, market novels, an established genre, considered serious art, high falutin people, we don’t agree on what makes it good, a better wordsmith than Margaret St. Clair, sentence by sentence, better at ideas by a lot, obsessed with drugs, flowers and their relationship to sexuality, aliens that are not humans, they have some human like qualities, not considered intelligent, circles back on that, the official line vs. the experienced sailor, he’s the canny one, a third character, why are you so resentful, didn’t teach you this stuff in school, how much you don’t learn, bottom up education, top down on earth, kind of cool, very often the case, an aunt stuck on earth, a nephew brings her various plants, a response to the idea, eat whatever your parents give you, stole it from a chicken, the loss of the chicken baby, veganism, a science fiction idea, veganism, vegetarianism, health, things in animal foods, chicken beef or eggs, a lot healthier, kindness to animals, that’s huge, environmental, cow farming, milk or beef, methane, internal environment, external environment, third concern, it is cruel to be cruel, the act of killing, distressing to the animal, when these creatures are not considered human, eat their souls, the contract is not with them, it is with their governing body, the stewards of these creature, in loco parentis, the chicken dance, the flower dance, the point of the story, the heart of the story, what makes someone or something human or not, the constitution, not a part they’re focused on today, so messed up, women were not considered people, all personal, lust, contracted out, themselves lusty, personal stuff, not very high in the brain, literary fiction, double twinning, the semi-dead abbot, evil incubus replacement abbot, her own sexual desire, Clark Ashton Smith lust stories, lust goes in many directions, an exploration of an idea, an exercise in colour and scent, they don’t know what to do, ways of analyising stories, C.L.A.I.M. character, language, allusion, imagery, message, that is there life, allusion is the hardest one, on the planet, all of Shakespeare, the poems, how outdated Jesse is, that’s so old, how many things about, what words does he repeat, he’s great at it, almost always pointed toward message, she’s focused on some idea she’s exploring, look at this idea, what do you think of my exploration of it?, that’s not the best mode probably to do it, a fur coat turns into a pine tree, fantastical escape to a mirror world, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien escaping into a fantasy world, aspects of that, The Lord Of The Rings is not for the children, had an idea, a story for that language, create a mythology, specific to England, Arthurian legend, it’s England, there’s no Scottish hobbits, in the creation, fictional language, got so lost in it, a reason for all this language, a fun story for kids, The Silmarillion, in which to escape, Forgotten Realms books, Dragonlance, places to escape into, massive diminishing returns, Ringworld 1, Ringworld 2, 3, 4, use the one to escape into the other, very solid, you don’t need to have a series, the resentful sailor, so cozy, not really idea fiction, twig your brain, watching Star Wars vs. watching Star Trek, brain stimulated, older Star Trek, more recent Star Wars movies, does Star Wars scratch the same itch as the movies go on, the sequel movies, do kids like them?, the prequels, special effects, less for kids, the back stories, the sequels, Luke’s a bitch, Han dies, but Chewbacca gets a medal, go on to be heroes, the extended universe, an entire alien invasion, went and hid, like Obi Wan or Yoda, hermitting, Andor, the story of Stalin, historical fiction, empire people, everybody’s villainous, using Star Wars to tell a stories, light sticks, a sword guy, tricked with spaceships, that’s not right, we profit by trying to understand what makes something good, better and better at discrimination in a positive way, look for the signs, standard Lovecraft, standard Robert E. Howard, very flowy, you wrestle with Howard, you have to, the Kull stuff, not fully justified, his boxing stuff, his western stories, Ghost Stories, a ghost boxing story, he’s a really funny guy, ghost boxing, you get killed in the ring and you come back fighting, The Spirit Of Tom Molyneaux, better male role models, suicide, canny dude, sword into anything, there’s something there, what Lovecraft does that Smith doesn’t do, The Moon Bog, a pocket version of The Rats In The Walls, a story for St. Patrick’s Day, he’s dwelling on what it means to have a legacy you’re not fully aware of, race as a synonym for your family tree, mom and dad die in mental asylum, what does it say about me that my ancestry is a cannibalistic monstrosity, deep time and it’s connection to us, very unusual, Sadastor, Weird Tales, 1930, almost a prose poem, a fair lamia, above the sources of the Nile, the lamia was vexed, fearful of her lips, cautious of her embrace, mythical tears, the demon tells a story to her to make her feel better, a tale of sexual conquest through astral projection, he really digs lamias, succubus and incubuses, he has sex with her, make you feel better, a lot funnier, so silly, so fantastical, no humans involved, the luxury of luxurious things?, everybody knows she’s a lamia, hasn’t had sex in two weeks, Farnsworth Wright can’t do anything with it, Lovecraft Smith commentary, as hefty, horny and materialistic, haunted, one’s a drinker and the other isn’t, let him drink, he lived longer than everybody else, some good stuff out of him, the great appeal of his sculpture, back when he was alive, his drawings, his poetry and his prose poetry, hard to get people to do shows on poetry, epic poem, something of the Necromancer, George Sterling, an influence, why George Sterling liked him, A Wine Of Wizardry, liked to tipple, did him in, turn to my lady Margaret St. Clair, she puts soma in it on purpose, Lazarus, artificial meat, shown to me, this podcast, a topic show on something, what?!, food?!, in fairy tales people never say I love you tyhey just give you food, Ambrosia? [The Food Of The Gods], carnivores, all the meat is fake now, really good, speaking before a senate committee, the very idea people would consume the flesh of animal, really popular fake meat, cannibal, a replicant of human flesh, goes deep into us, the body of Christ, becoming divine, spiritual, H.G. Wells’ The Food Of The Gods, a giant chicken, The Space Merchants, aka Gravy Planet, grown in this vat, food is a technology, cooking is a technology, should we adopt them or not, ads for listerine and toothpaste and tampax, as a man, up in arms about it, yelling at people, a diva cup person?, silicone cup, a consumable good, use it over and over again, absolutely would not allow, the ingredients list, in Germany, no crap in here, processed foods, halal, their not allowed to put certain things into their foods, religious stricture, raw meat, raw apple, pay a little more, guaranteed in whatever way that means, sugar is added to almost everything, German purity laws for beer, water, hops, barley, sugar, that’s it, cheap, selling drugs, baking soda in your cocaine, filling it up with crack, fentanyl in their heroin, jet juice, sharing with his passenger, his zero-g hooch, his lips had drawn down in a sour grimace, a dose of picrin, so much worldbuilding, unpleasant memories, what had gotten into us, how the old man had felt, Tisiphone, a celebrity, fine emporium clothes, a wonderful batch of juice, biliol berries, martian fungi and grains, mangosteens, durian, cocla extract, away from the anti-gravs, cloudy peach green, under his bunk, diplitating kit, extraordinary, a man of taste, a connoisseur, a cookbook, you can’t eat the Jupiterian food, a moon, semi-electrical, tomato babies, what do you do when you’re at the market, an asian fruit, spiky on the outside, a really bad smell, a delicious taste, creamy and custardy flavour, very scoopable, asian watermelon, not everybody likes it, he asks about it, they pour him more, he’s mad himself, he seduced me, the narrator, what are you so mad about, McBreem, he didn’t mention me in the thanks section, Farquarson, he shouldn’t be as mad, why does this story exist as it was, some celebrity comes over to your house, he used in the movie, you’re mad at him, why this story is pretty good, cool tech world changing stuff, her interest in food, a fury, that fits, near the end, a non-humanoid species, Zink explained to him, the interplanetery, bindin’, a barrel full of nuclear bond glues, extract it, she’s very funny, a Star Trek solution, not word salad, technobabble, the way they wrote Star Trek The Next Generation, plausible, reverse the neutron flow, that’s not the point, the point is the idea, little subtle ideas about things, drunkard characters, the other fun part about it, he knows things, lovely jet-juice, the opening line, the ingratitude of humans, interplanetary units, fish a terrestrial out of water, a lucite spitoon, working class, breeding dachshunds, gardening, a rare bulb business, a classicist, wiccan, autobiographies, who is this author, introducing the authors, a homebody having fun at home, a retrospective introduction, the purpose of science fiction is to prepare the way for a global consciousness, good husband characters, married late, son by marriage, step-son, meet the author, 1947, Startling Stories, March 1947, hang on tightly, H.H. Munro, Saki, solid comparison, off and on, young sprout indeed, immediate cause, detective and other stories, rejected by a different bunch of people, a feeling that they cannot compete successfully in it, Kansas, propagated the carnations, low quality housekeeping, funny names for dogs, they have fleas like ordinary dogs, The Soma Racks, a sense of her character, shots fire by her in a letter to Weird Tales, Bobby Derie’s blog, June 1934, about ten years, another story by Edmond Hamilton, nothing but exclamation marks, flies in my soup, science fiction at its worst, a waste of space, vampire and werewolf stories, garlic is something to put in salad, a rounded jewel-like self-containedness, Jules De Grandin is a pain in the neck, Seabury Quinn, not what Jesse reads for, Fantastic Adventures, 1946, Rocket To Limbo, presenting the author, she’s got bangs, send a photograph, snapshots, airmail one in, meet a deadline, women liking to talk about themselves, fiction instead of fact, Frank Stockton’s My Terminal Moraine, Jules Verne, old Hugo Gernsback’s publication “Electrical Something”, science and fantasy fiction, “battle between worlds”, human interest style stories, turned to writing, “quality stories”, detective or quality magazines, the same kick, personal taste, a great deal of fun, gadgetry of super-science, the laws of thermodynamics, straight out of her studies, pet hobbies, carnations, flowering bulbs, financial hobbies, chamber of commerce, Richmond, California, if we could build a thirty foot wall, pulp writers, the big slick magazines, the pulps at their best, touch a genuine folk tradition, balladic quality, the slicks lack, the columns of The New Yorker, science fantasy fiction, editors and readers, tough PDFs, some scans are not great, readable, small font, Frank Stockton’s, a moraine, the gravel from a retreating glacier, the Rocky Mountains, the glaciers carve the mountains as they push through, down towards the center of the earth, a river of rock, gravel, millions of years old, buried underneath things, a recently retreating glacier, found in the ice, show you what they find in the moraines of retreating glaciers, satchels that got lost somehow, Moraine Park, they look like a river or rock, terrible, not on LibriVox, sell Tommy on it, The Lady Or The Tiger, leave the ending off, what do you think happened?, somewhere in the east, obsessed with randomness, behind door number 1 is death, behind door number 2 is, half barbaric, half civilized, just like her father, she knows, what is behind each door, indicating for her happiness or her happiness, a quick death or marriage to woman who is not her, half jealous, half nice, character revealing, which do you think she indicated, so well balanced there’s no way to know which one it is, not insubstantial, Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg, another pair of shorts, record some stuff again, pleasantly surprised, the room noise, the narrator, daily classes, new stuff on LibriVox, more of an Alex (pulpcovers novel), a gold medal paperback crime novel?, new Arthur C. Clarke, adventure fiction with lightsabers, fantasy anyway, peace, pair something with Will, knowing what to pick, done in two weeks, two hours, Philip K. Dick, The Ship Who Sang, Ithaqua by August Derleth, sometimes he’s actually okay and good, The Snow Thing, The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood, what would pair well with August Derleth, and then there were two, dm business, continue think immigrants are there to destroy my father’s mill, broadly not true of Venezuelan people, fleeing, megaprison, my favourite president, very Jonathan of Jesse, favourite president, kill the fewest, Carter killed fewer than most in recent memory, Mitterand, he’s dead, Macron?, executive branch, the king and the street, a funny weird twisted mirror, competence, not be focused on enriching a class of people who are not a member im a member of, things happening in the world, transnational people, abeing meeting in DAVOS, Bildeberg Meeting, annual off-the record, chattam house rules, Nayib Bukele, pretty scary, extracting slave value from them, Salvadorians, cutting down crime, if your news businesses, old businesses, French Guiana, Papillon (1973), if you had watched more movies, Devil’s Island, love me some human trafficking, late friend Gary, how to look for human trafficking, talk to the staff at the hotel and you’ll find them, southernmost key, Key West, Peter Santorello, Haitians, artists, a facilitator for ultra wealthy people to have fun vacations, aquatic sport, living his best life as he can, how Bryan Alexander operates too, Qatar, the best use of Bryan’s skills, kids not getting any tutoring, protect your time, drive down everybody’s wages even further, not serving the wrong function of your job, send French people far away, the guy is popular in El Salvador, prisoners, what’s going to happen there, bitcoin vs. regular crypto, Maxime Bernier, such a fig leaf, Wilfred Laurier, most don’t have French accents, also French, a way of keeping the Quebecois in, mostly a western Canadian, young manness, skibum, not working for Canada’s best interest, for Canada to live Canada must die, very silly, immigration, Alberta First, people getting upset, what’s the opposite?, fuck your country, middle class is kicked, not very American, or New Zealand, very pro American, Obama did the same thing, more spread out, copyright change, opportune, the federal employees?, Elon Musk, an Afrikaner, easier to get in, work permit, income comes from loans, a house of cards, still bombing Yemen, leverage with Putin, improving things vs. making things worse, an Epstein guy, Israel guy, look at the photos dude, pee tape, ideological affinity, mean?, lack of go along to get along, Ukraine invasion, the most recent one, it didn’t start in 2014, it didn’t start in 2021, use of military force is either good bad, liberate would be another way of putting it, North Korea invaded South Korea, puppet government in Ukraine, Syngman Rhee is a lot like our guy in Ukraine, the loser her is Ukraine, made the situation better for whom, also Slavs, Serbs, Poles identify as Poles more than Slavs, it’s complex, Russians in Ukraine, the Soviet Union, war is bad and kills a lot of people, Paul would have said, Putin could just leave, pretty true, Stalin could have just left Moscow, no holocaust going on, incursion into Kursk, repel the invader, what time you want?, 25 minutes to solve eastern european history, boistered vs. bolstered, similar, an alternative term, boisterous, colloquial English, Kentuckian, the English speaking peoples, WWI and WWII, the English speaking peoples, so many bullshit stories on when Canada became a country, we fought at Vimy Ridge under our own command, Canada is dead but dreaming, could be a good idea, triggered by border stuff, what nation states do, I like immigrants, I like immigrants too, successive administrations, cruel to them, using them as a tool, building a deportation machine, border security guards getting worked, get to the root of it, stop making people flee their countries, might not even win his own seat [he didn’t], People’s Party Of Canada, Canadian national identity, immigration, view all policies, platform, gender ideology, global warming, Canadian identity might be interesting, trap a Canadian, proud to be a Canadian, make something really funny happening, what makes somebody Canadian, not American, defined only in opposition, what are the French, what are the German, a sense of belonging, project, sentiments, trust and common understanding, gradually integrated, multiculturalism, the dad, Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s dad or theoretical dad, the Castro one is cute, much cooler than the reality, integrated into our society, with a distinct flavour, official multiculturalism, what’s unstated here, leftover fears about Sharia law, cult of diversity, pushed his ideology, extreme multiculturalism, quotation marks, no core identity, cherish and maintain, cutting spending, a lot of money in it, for every cultural group there is money available to help them celebrate, multiculturalism budget, Maillardville, Festival de Bois, party of the forest, innocuous, francophone festival, these precedes Justin, my son is Cuban!, blackface paint, tortieree, meat pie, pride is really scary, a sin, in the time available, gender ideology, next time, focus on the multiculturalism, in our time, a time thing, if Canada is a real country…, European identity, bicultural, binational, Upper Canada and Lower Canada, Ontario and Quebec, told you’re a citizen, Indians, First Nations, Native Americans, Amerindian, for treaty peoples, vaguely when WWII happened, voting, 1934, it’s weird, kinda makes sense, reservations, Canadian identity doesn’t exist, Rambo, Sylvester Stallone, First Blood (1982), filmed locally, goes crazy, calmed down and arrested, 2nd movie, boss comes and says, prove there are POWs in Vietnam, a big thing in the 1980s, POW flag, the Vietnamese and the Russians have been using them for farm labourers, betrayed again, betrayed by the politicians, goes to Afghanistan, find him in Thailand, the gallant people of Afghanistan, a funny speech, super hilarious, he’s an Indian, they make him into an Indian, half German half Indian, he gets a bow and is riding a horse, Indians signed up for the military at a disproportionate rate, fairly accurate, giving stinger missiles, used against the evil evil Russians, it’s all projection, headband, a little stone piece of jade, you take home to America, really base cartoonist propaganda, Germand and American, a melting pot, melted down this Italian American into a german indian, sundered from the land, Americans are not Canadians, institutions, the German country is bigger than the country of Germany, their sense of identity comes from Julius Caesar, showing up and talking about what Britain is like, a fun riff, Heart Of Darkness, when the Romans came into Britain, this dark country, everything that goes on in the Congo, the story is told in the time it takes for the tide to change, is it science fiction, definitely fiction, is it horror?, horror is hard to understand, is it fantasy, with that direction backwards, the terror the terror, the horror the horror, more than one movie, dying words, The Horla!, The Horla!, The Secret Sharer, also him, who loved him, that guy Joseph Conrad, Robert Silverberg, we could pair The Secret Sharer with The Secret Sharer, was he slav tho?, immigrant from Poland, eastern european names, Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, say their names right, Minnesota, Scandinavia up there, 1059, vikings fighting indian, runic stone found under a tree, did the go to Minnesota?, Kentuckian culture, really cold, Paul doesn’t speak to Will on bluesky, sad story, new Paul comments, hurt his feelings, gotta live with your choices, kicking yourself over and over, it wasn’t unreasonable, the irony, it all happens over hate for Jonathan, in disgrace, block for no apparent reason, Jesse is a lot, too many dms, at peace with it, suddenly change, beecome a lot less?, seems unlikely, new Jesse: a little, less concentrated, more diluted, new recipe, The Moon Bog by H.P. Lovecraft, ancient, nice illustration, fearsome region, all the peasants and police in county Meath, the frogs piping in the swamps, right!, it’s happening right now!, a nice guy to know, nice racist guy, just like Jonathan, funny tho, interested in understanding other minds, how dare you, sir!, he rhymed with peasants and police with county Meath, no one will stop Jesse, super racist, let’s read his stuff, quite racist, Koreans are pretty racist, Instagram, what you go there for, funny racism, kids are not okay, pressing the number 9, bye.

Return Engagement by Margaret St. Clair

The Black Abbot Of Puuthum by Clark Ashton Smith - art by Virgil Finlay

The Black Abbot Of Puthuum art by Sergiy Krykun

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #830 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: A Witch Shall Be Born by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #830 – A Witch Shall Be Born by Robert E. Howard, read by Phil Chenevert for (LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged audiobook (2 hours 4 minutes), followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, Cora Buhlert, Jonathan Weichsel, and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, December 1934, not dead at this point, 1.5 years, the comic adaptation, a few surprises, interesting stuff going on, Jonathan sent Salome, the narrator is wrong, the sandwich meat, a historical character, Biblical character, famous for doing a striptease, the head of John the Baptist, a silver plate, the severed head, stories based on other stories, the real world, made up out of whole cloth, an orc who opens a cafe, in Howard’s time, opera, Oscar Wilde’s play, two Salomes, Herod’s daughter, women weeping at the crucification, going to visit the grave of Jesus, Mary, Mary’s mother, Mary Magdalane, religious education teacher in school, an amazing conversion story, no idea, years later, two different women, there were only 4 names for anybody, Salome III, the daughter of Herod’s wife, the feminine version, step daughter, for a lot of the middle ages, religious education teachers, bible questions, that’s my Salome story, so fleshed out, not a lot of detail, an excuse for a sexy dance scene, slowly slowly over time, the internet exists, almost all of these conan stories are set in analogues to places, our city, Khouran, equivalent of a crusader state, on the border between two civilizations, the ruling class, a mercenary army, Antioch, roving bands, Cossacks, Shemites, Conan comics, Belit is a famous character, a Shemite, the people of this place, hawk nosed and curly black beared, semite, one of the sons of Noah, legends about these people, third Conan, The Phoenix On The Sword, first and late, order of publication, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, the king limits you, Robert E. Howard annoys me, get to the Conan, Conan is a supporting character, more important, how everyone relates to him, Beyond The Black River, captain of the guard, feels like a sequel to Black Colossus, scenes not in the story, when Conan is up against the henchman, Man Eaters Of Zamboula, the chick is being tied up, Xuthal Of The Dusk, brutally whipped, great torment, a little piece of satin, the barbarian and the civilized person, nailed to your spine, they’re still in here, arm instead of neck, Ukrainian, Cossack, Turan is Iran, the Vilayet Sea, the Caspian Sea, one big mega continent, a regional name in Northern Turkey, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the descriptions of the people, crusader states, near Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, we have to, the sister appearing out of the window, lights out, lights on, when is Conan coming?, Velarius, killed so many dudes, 5 deep in dudes, Conan on the cross, the highlight of the story, him in the tent, casually takes command of the army, a side of Conan that doesn’t get touched enough, over the course of 7 months, fake siege weaponry, hidden knight regiment, smart and strategic, charismatic, army or pirate ship, the crucifixion scene, how audacious the writing is, everything that Conan does, the exact opposite of whatever Jesus does, spits in the eye of his nailers, instead of dying, if I could cut myself down, pulls his own nails out of his feet, read it very slowly, exactly right, an inversion of Christian ideas, four riders in from the east, the birth scene for Jesus, three kings from the East, an extra horse, on twitter, the cucifix is an X shape, the Tree of Woe, a literal tree, later done as an X men, Wolverine is a northern barbarian, very tough to kill, wild hair, crucifix cut down, trying to distinguish it from the original crucifixion, Y shaped crucifix, not have their cake and eat it too, the parents might notice, Robert E. Howard wants to make this a thing, wrestling with God, a Nemedian scholar epistle by pigeon, plot is happening in the background, engaging with this religion thing, Robert E. Howard vs. Christianity, Jesus is doing it wrong, his father, an amateur bible scholar, biblical history, discuss the bible, get down from that bloody cross, makes Conan the anti-Christ?, a fake Christ, King Clovis of the Franks, my battle axe, Cimmeria, (simmeria or kimmeria), Ireland, the Celts, (seltics or keltics), her I go, the official Del-Rey audiobooks, he’s running with this idea, this ultimate hero, the toughest guy, the smartest guy, shadow versions of Conan, monster Trog, Constatious is the anti-conan, he’s got a mustache, what evil Robert E. Howard would do, nationalistic, the twisted version of Conan, Olgred, if he dies he dies, should we give him some water?, that barbarian philosophy, Conan is the moderate best version of all of these guys, Taramis and Salome, identical except for the birthmark, sister raped, I like good things, she’s not wise enough, Conan takes one look at her, he’s seen between her boobs, he didn’t just like intuit it, normally covered up, over her heart, in the Comics version, secret lover, captain again, People Of The Black Circle, sidepiece, I need to be in another story, great sex probably, you know it is great sex, given a girlfriend, the poor queen is going to have look somewhere else, what makes our evil Salome so evil, good with it, orgies at the palace, virgins and young married women are being debauched, too many parties, too much raping, ill-management of the kingdom, selling people off into slavery, high taxes, the monster in the basement, embarrassment, pops up for two seconds, a screw you to Lovecraft, barely clad women, Margaret Brundage, Farnsworth Wright, sex sells, Seabury Quinn stories, a cash bonus for the cover, the most famous scene, Salome whipping Taramis, wears one of the only brass-bras described in text, technically gold, good honest brass, furry loincloth, Teela?, an alternate Teela, blonde, in the comic book adaptation, on the original Savage Sword of Conan, a Marvel Treasury edition, No. 23, first time in color, Savage Sword No. 5, almost 2 and half comics, rotate em north, why is she blonde?, Hyborians, aryans who are not blonde, such as Mr Hitler, a change because it makes a startling contrast, real Conan stories, The Black Stranger, silk breeches, never furry, regular loincloth, tropes needed for the visualization, for the first time, no idea except for the story, she’s a jew, too greedy, that’s why they die, set in the biblical, old testament, part of this is the new testament, they even changed the religion, not worshipping Ishtar, Mitra, Herodotus, where she learned her evil, in Kitai, China, too petty, stupid witch, Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet, not dead at the end, left out in the desert to die, don’t leave someone in the desert to die, Oedipus was left out in the desert to die, exposure, Greeks and Romans, a curse, take this baby out, compassionate guard, an old couple in the woods, very Snow White, at the state fair, gypsy fortuneteller, doesn’t even go home, haughty guy on the road, she’s very attractive, that’s this story with parts shaved off, the most important parts have been shaved off, good and evil twin think, woman twin thing, Maria Montez, Cobra Woman (1944), a volcano god, could be a Conan story, set in France, The Acolyte, Howard didn’t invent this trope, slow down and read the crucifixion scene, shows up late, a certain effect, Weird Tales, is this a Conan story?, this reaction, a Sherlock Holmes series hosted by Vincent Price, Jeremy Brett, in the opening, starts with Watson, I was getting married, then the client walked in, the two Watsons, the best Sherlock Holmes, showing the mystery, that is a storytelling convention, a teaser, how television is structured, James Bond movies, not the Bond novels, specifically a mystery, trying to solve the mystery, The A-Team, Matlock, the hand with the glove on it, Columbo, mess around, collapse, extended the monster fight, because it is a comic, looks cool, what makes Roy Thomas doesn’t change anything, copy and paste, slightly less nudity, nipples, contact with Conan, Hour Of The Dragon, vintage Lancer edition, bad and violent, being blonde, changing it is a mistake, rewriting this story, better at it, the seven months, the fun Conan stuff, how to be in the world, the heart of what’s going on here, great writing, you can see what he’s doing, agree with it, let is pass over you, a heavy cross had been planted, iron spikes, naked but for a loincloth, limbs and body, burned brown, the perspiration of agony, tangled black mane, an unquenched fire, I’m sorry captain, your delicious queen, incessantly back and forth high above, finally in the story, were it not for them, live on the cross for days, I am leaving you unguarded, flayed alive, so firmly established, so long as anyone is near, these desert vultures, he needs to setup, he’s not going to be saved by his followers, he’s fucked, and so brave captain, farewell, when Taramis lays in my arms, mallet like fists, spat savagely, wiped the saliva from his gorget, living flesh, eyeless, brutal, horrible, everyone’s fear, what makes Christians so excited about Jesus, in the garden earlier, a supple erect figure, burnished armour, a faint rising of dust, the one touch of sentient life, less than a mile away, existing in another age, Conan stared blankly, the fertile meadowlands, miniature in the distance, a silvery gleam, sandy desert, away and away, the old joke about Jesus, Peter, I can see your house from here, a horrible joke, he can see, fixed in place, giving us the experience, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, to stretch away, empty wasteland, as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky, the city had betrayed him, a hare nailed to a tree, a red lust for vengeance, curses, all of his universe contracted, his great muscles quivered, his graying skin, driven deep, the knifing abysmal agony, a surge of helplessness, shutting his eyes against the aching glare of the sun, drawing Conan, undefeatable in battle, there’s no leverage, and yet, a keen beak stabbing at his eyes, he shouted, wary circling, spat at the salty taste, no water had touched his lips, as a man in hell glares, white water he had breasted, jacks of sparkling wine, bellowing, the sun sank, a lurid ball in a fiery sea of blood, unreal as a dream, he licked his blackened lips, the shadows crawling up from the East, attacked by the vulture, kills it with his mouth, the three kings from the east (and a 4th guy from the north), the reverse at the end, this is the opposite of turn the other cheek, reading it, howling with laughter, make fun of religion, Letters From The Earth by Mark Twain, audacious writing, The Roads by Seabury Quinn, a Christmas story, so reverential, so irreverent, not mocking, defiance, in opposition, something that you just don’t do, not then, maybe today, radical stuff, more pious, Ben-Hur, biblical novels, supplementary, a Civil War general, maybe Cora should read it, a story of the Christ, willing to do that book, great story, great movie, subversive, oppositional, he’s not trying to undermine the story of Jesus, he’s rejecting the story of Jesus, an ironclad rule, horror movie, old Hong Kong movie, a butcher, grinds them all up, delicious dumplings, howling with laughter, considered taboo, subverting expectations, Howard did, Doctor Who, the Doctor goes to see the crucifixion, 61 years, the BBC always says no, taboo, that’s also England, a Christian country, it has a king, Jesse is confused, Canada is more Christian?, more religious, significantly less, playing weird games, an official organ of the United Kingdom, programming which no one watches, The Myth Makers, the Trojan War, the ancient world, not interested in ancient history, alternating, another planet, Robert E. Howard is obsessed with history, engaging, shocking, yeah, I see what you’re saying, attacking H.P. Lovecraft and his argument, and his fiction, barbarism vs. civilization, ancient evil, stab at it or shoot it with arrows, he might make a nod, let me write a story and show you why you’re wrong, this guy I know, pretty silly, twitter is for shitpoasting, banned from twitter a bunch of times, poasted an egg, Hitler, Churchill was the villain of WWII, David Currie, ladies imagined you went back in time to meet Hitler, the great man of history aura and rizz, hatred and respect, one ball energy, pure ick, nobody knows who Hitler, do an Anschluss, none of this is funny, shitpoasting should be good, literally wrestling, the United States, rural Texas, how do you fight against this, most people don’t read, people all go to church, reverent to the point of obedience, you have to fight for yourself, oppressive, a button ending, a series character and needs to continue, Red Nails, the adventures will always continue, why we’ve got this power, what any of that meant, what Jesse likes about Conan, Conan’s worldview, not even a revenge, captured in the original Conan the Barbarian movie, not the strength of your body, the strength of your will, very Nietzschean, once you’ve been maimed, Thulsa Doom, literally a snake man, the reason he’s evil, a cultish personality, uses it for evil, girl kills herself, Jonestown, early 80s stuff about murderous cults, too young, religious education textbook, Moonies, mass weddings, Jonestown dead, black, discoloured by the poison, the difference between a cult and a religion, many times before Jonestown, Mormons, free the Holy Land, the second coming, locked in a cage, every woman in the city has to have sex with me, as a person how do you escape that?, you can be trapped by circumstances, embittered, ecce homo, behold the man, you can buy into this, you’re a physical mortal being that has limits, that refusal to make a noise, refusal to give satisfaction to your torturers, the Nemedian section, interwar period, Theosophists, L. Frank Baum, Swedenborg, Swedish Christian, talked to Martians, Mount Shasta bigfoots, questioning all of that, permeated into rural Texas, a broad horizon, conservative Christians, writing, reading and correspondences, rejecting submission, Taramis has it happen to her, rejects tears, what would you say, she’s a girl, she’s allowed to cry more, you’re not going to get any relief, hah!, bye, the hard nut of this story, other stories to be told here, comes back at the end, maybe it would have attracted too much attention, sell more magazines, #StrategicPlacement to cover it up, a pure example, The Vale Of Lost Women, literally fights a god, comes away unbowed, the illustrations for Sword And Scandal, concepts, an action scene, static, put Conan on the cross on the cover of the magazine, a crucifiction, the anglo idea of the scrawny Jesus, buff muscular dude on the cross, a Roman catholic thing, treasury edition, green fur diaper, a famous painting by Corben?, Frazetta?, different enough, it’s not the T, legs apart, Boris Vallejo, comics, engagement with and a defiance of the Christian central image, the symbol of their punishment of their savior, a little skull on your desk, a reminder of death, a symbol of triumph, a Mexican church, Jesus don’t look so happy, in Bavaria, a crucifix in every public building, other flavour of Christianity, a Catholic university, crucifixes all over the place, choosing to wear them, students, told about it, stuff they should know, church is a book club for people who don’t read, a social gathering, babysitting, community, somebody telling you, God is watching you, people who read the book, that’s scary and hard, rural Texas, responding in a way most people didn’t read the Bible, the name Solomon Kane, his poetry is full of biblical stuff, not for money, Song of Solomon, not in a way of belief, Lovecraft’s not a Christian, an atheist, why is this crap in the bible, why didn’t the editor throw it out, Edgar Rice Burroughs was very hostile to the idea of religion, Will’s take, why is it the way it is?, something going on here, Howard philsophy, this unbowed thing, the invictus philosophy, I am the captain of my soul, I’m the master of my soul, a sports movie, life is rough for the barbarian, city people vs. rural people, what is a barbarian, someone who lives on the frontier in Texas, Jon Voight is walking, Urban Cowboy (1980)?, Midnight Cowboy (1969), Acadians, not the city, the keffiyeh, these are village people, the river Jordan is there, the place that betrayed him, doesn’t sack the city, I don’t know what Conan will do buy I think he’s honourable, he’s a barbarian, always not raping women, a little handsy, the evil Conan stuff, not cruel to be cruel, a negotiation scene, always in the cards, cut him down I like his spirit, two different ways of being, hijacking, distilled the essence of Conan’s barbarian philosophy, a foreign land, we never see Cimmeria, we never see another Cimmerian, only the bad writers do that, chased The Frost Giant’s Daughter, the Vanir, the Aesir, Norse mythology, Hyborian Age Scandinavia, Aquilonia, 15 year old Conan, civilization isn’t his thing, Herman who kicked the Romans beyond the Rhine, Battle Of The Teutoburg Forest, Beyond The Black River, my ancestors were the picts, Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

a bit simple, notice he’s a captain, very similar philosophy, he loved poetry, he must have read it, it has all the things, death is the end, we even have a scroll, not being under the sway of another, not being submitted to another, better to rule in Hell?, Milton, better to live on Earth, what is Conan’s alignment in dungeons and dragons, Chaotic Good? [Chaotic Neutral?], I got a horse, Hour Of The Dragon, a king has certain responsibilities, he makes the laws, Lawful Good, not a Paladin, a successful, to drink life to the lees, Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson, a rewrite of a Kull story, Exile Of Atlantis, a quieter character, more cerebral, what’s real, who am I, more a Philip K. Dick character, gazes into mirrors, talking cats, a different mode, Conan like superman, the wrong Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, more celestial or cosmic, combines both, all the good Weird Tales authors, flavour and depth, ineffable, from a Nietzschean perspective, in the poems, Weird Tales poems, lots of other writers too, get at stuff in poetry, more monster, the monster was the weak part, deleted the monster?, talked up, just came out and got killed, that was his role, scary for half a second, a bunch of arrows in him, the Kozak camp for seven months, join some band, a lot of savage sword is filling in that detail, takes over somebody else’s gang, the one with the pirates, we all know who you are Conan, filling in the corners, this story is set six months, when Queen Of The Black Coast is adapted issue 59 to issue 100, The Lost Valley Of Iskander, The Man Who Would Be King, Conan The Destroyer takes the names, Taramis and her sister, that monster is more Roy Thomas, Taramis is the bad one, oh no she’s evil, Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, the protector of the princess’ virginity, the Red Sonja, Sandahl Bergman, plays the evil queen, a Red Sonja movie, the assistant is The Beast Raban from the original Dune movie, not a good movie, Conan is not called Conan, all fucking public domain, tricked Arnold into doing it, owed Dino De Laurentiis, full of philosophy, one of the best movies ever, he’s taciturn, Pumping Iron (1977), it’s not Conan, blended together, the riddle of steel, everything about it is awesome, Max von Sydow, a huge Howard fan, Ming The Merciless, in the Solomon Kane movie, in Star Wars, he was in Dune, the judge of the change, geeky movies, Ingmar Bergman movie, theater kids stuff, Three Days Of The Condor (1975), Judge Dredd (1995), Niki Lauda, good career going on in Sweden, asked again and again, not forced to do these films, no you really don’t, Seventh Seal (1957), ripping off foreign art films, how can I transfer this look to my movie?, no one has time to watch more than one Swedish movie, if you’re going to see one Swedish movie, only an hour and a half long, Scenes From A Marriage (1973), tv miniseries, Flash Gordon (1980), Sinews Of A Toe, cheesy, great actors directed to death, Timothy Dalton, looked like a football player, Edgar Wright movie, Hot Fuzz (2007), cast for his looks, cartoons, the one who faints all the time, Brian Blessed, Topol, the original serial, a james bond movie girl, Belinda Topoff, Christopher Lambert has one good movie, Highlander (1986), Subway (1985), The Highlander The Series, let’s go to Paris every six months, I chop off heads in Vancouver, the lead singer of Fine Young Cannibals, Roger Daltrey needs his head chopped off, this Buffy thing, pre-Buffy, even Cora’s mom loved it, the sequel series, Highlander: The Raven, raped by Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Gracen, Evil-Lyn, Eva Lynd and Steve Holland, in a cowboy hat, The Man Of Bronze, the 70s Doc Savage, James Bama artwork, bulked him up a lot, posing in the ripped shirt, Walter Baumhofer, the widows peak helmet hair, explain it, inexplicable, weird 90s humour, the stupid actor, you can do it, Rob Schneider, also in Demolition Man (1993), Dredd (2012), laserdisc, Judge Dredd, 2000 A.D., the Judge Dredd audio dramas, they’re great, Strontium Dog, an alternate Marvel Universe, all the actors are British, excuses to got to Britain all the time, deleted in two minutes, this work links now, the Big Finish ones, BBC doesn’t do audio drama anymore, never started up again, recommending to Maissa, meta, Sam Spade style character, the whole world of 2000 A.D., American superhero fiction, Judge Death, reptile dinosaur judge, making fun of the United States, Americans don’t get it, already a parody, makes it a little more serious, play it straight up, simple, Circe Lannister, very good, a good role for her, a gangster drug lady, scars, Beetlejuice movie, Tim Burton, mixed up, Willem Dafoe, Danny Devito, how to find content, books to review, Black Gate, way leads onto way, the poem by Robert Frost, seven months later, Survey Team, public domain for years, everybody like Philip K. Dick, Legends & Lattes, obviously not public domain, artwork, fooling around, The Demon Breed by James H. Schmitz, author photo, dog, a savage guy in a tree with a giant ferret, oh wow, didn’t like animals, you are an animal, trawling, what’s new on LibriVox, best of James Schmitz, The Witches Of Karres, another classic to match, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, wait six months, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes by Anita Loos, so good, Confessions of An English Opium Eater, drugs, latest releases, 80 pounds is still a lot, talk therapy?, cognitive behavior therapy, Grave Danger by Frank Kane, Ben Tucker, a crusading newspaper, a maritime insurance company, stranglehold, literature, you understand books a lot, a renewal of copyright, a translation, Peter Weller, read by RoboCop, William Gibson books, Hermann Hesse, psychedelic drugs, drugs are you in your head, external drugs, meditation, Planet Of Transients, Steppenwolf it is your culture, translate it back to German, collaborating with Ray Bradbury, Henry Hasse, weird stuff, a dirty link, November, probably the only one who could read it in the original, high level German speaker, three novels in a row, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, What Mad Universe, overload yourself, so late in the year, take some time off, deleted a line, pre-Christmas periods, Christmas market, ctrl-z, harder to commit, David J. West, twitter friends, Sword & Scandal, a little bit bitter about his divorce, good dad, similar taste in jokes, of all the twitter authors who submitted stories he’s the only one, these twitter authors, wipe your forehead, a classic comedy setup, a thief is hired by this guy, my girlfriend is in this harem, a half moon, pointing in the wrong direction, A Choice Of Gods, spread the Simaks out, next year, The Jameson Satellite, suddenly, so mysterious, a background actor in movies, standing around not listening to audiobooks, socializing, has to do with evolution, vocal gestures, autist, about status, becomes the alpha, The Status Civilization, The Journey of Joenes, novelist, all very interesting, no end in sight, Sirius, Odd John, regional election, evil right wing guys, far right, conservative guy, a rather plump social democrat, organic farmer, right wing dude, Cora is fine with these results, the mayor of the county, we call them judges, county councellor, a human mutation, awesome and frightening to behold, a new super-normal species, like Slan but not written badly, anti-Slan, Slan and Counter Slan, a special one for Will’s birthday, December is always iffy, stuff going on in the real world, neighbourhood garden parties, Russian rice dish, a stack of audiobooks from Mike [Vendetti], Beatnik Wife, So Long Sister by Hugh B. Cave, who is Hugh B. Cave, pulp guy, Abe, booktuber, lived to 2004, a less known Hugh, sources differ, I name thee Cave, Island Ordeal, Strange Tales, Weird Tales, wrote for the Spicys, Lawrence Jannifer and Donald Westlake, The Man Who Conquered Age, The Quick And The Dead, 30 Seconds by Roger Leslie Bellem, Spicy Adventure Stories, Corpseless Coffin, weird menace story, Corpse Girl’s Return, Dead Drunk by Frank Kane, Dark Vengeance by Fritz Leiber, between the early period and the mid period, the wilderness years, a good one, Suspense was short lived, based on the radio drama series, Claws From The Night, quite a few Fritz Leiber stories, The Black Ewe, read by Scott Miller, Bob Silverberg’s take on beatniks, Robert Silverberg is looking for unrepublished stories, that’s hilarious, author lost track of his stories, pair things more, Waterspider, providing too many choices, The Pause by Isaac Asimov, sent him an email once, takes vacations with his wife, live in your podcast booth, 74 items, The Futurological Congress, like Lem, popular con, toy collector con, bread and butter, toysplosion, 2 and a half hours by car, drinking habits, Coca Cola, Zevia, stevia, type 2 diabetes, in Hurleys, American pop is really horrible, Mexican pop, high fructose corn syrup, way less shit in it, read the list, carbonated water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavours, beyonade, Bionade, speciality retailers, citric acid, stevia, natural flavours, the artificial colours, bio neutral or bad for you, metabolically different, acts on your craving in a different way, no bottom, cutting out one thing that is bad for your, all the colours is clear, as a drink, diet Coke, probably on Amazon, exploded into the mainstream, organic, preservative, offbeat flavours, elderberry, upstart company, Spirit of Georgia, weird flavours, a good root beer, cream soda, Dr. Zevia, more exotic flavours, 60 cents a can, carbonated is very nice, I used to not be as gross, the cigar is probably better for you, life corrections, mouthwash, destroying the oral biome, big leaps, heart problems, what products are advertized vs. what products are not advertized, when they were selling it to people, for different purposes, to kill, deodorant and antiperspirant, picked your brand, cigarette companies went into food, Frito Lay, products that don’t exist in nature, stab and put on your plate, marketing, Cheetos, flavoured styrofoam, eating your own death, it is not food, what is a Cheeto?, peanut flavouring, they’re made of corn, everything is made of corn, plowed into food products, niblets, potato, shelf stable, where the branding comes from, buy potatoes, there’s no potato brand, Doritos, anything with a brand, different kinds of apple cultivars, you don’t want to read Robert E. Howard fiction written not by Robert E. Howard, same with food, nobody has the patent on steaks or beans, what forum would they be in, tv spots for mouthwash, you’ve already formed the habit, Listerine was pushed really hard, a hair product, for making things surgical, making you pure, genetic purity, physical culture magazines, work out, Listerine is a brand everybody knows, your dentist pushes it on you, Odol, consolidated, three hundred years ago no such products existed, marketing and fads, masking protects you from death, Worldcon in Glasgow, mostly Americans, no one in Germany at cons wears masks, 7000 people, self reported, long meandering way, what killed all those people, heart disease comes from tooth issues, antibiotic mouthwash, you shouldn’t be antiseptic where you don’t have a wound, microbiome is good for you, alcohol, more expensive, what are they putting in there?, nothing good, one of those things you really don’t need, just like shampoo, deodorant is totally unneeded, change your shirt, have a shower, teenage years, spray cans, roll on stuff, eczema, allergy, allergies are new, the 1919 Spanish Flu killed everybody, the people who died were often killed by their doctors prescribing aspirin, fills your lungs with fluid, every British historical drama, died at 16, traumatized, people died of diseases, we’re sold on a bill of goods, is there a causal link, we are sold on these lies, maybe mouthwash is bad, chlorhexidine, making up chemicals from natural products, on our in our bodies, water is not the problem, natural flavour is a catchall, grape pop, good bacteria, bad bacteria, nitrates to nitrites, evolved to help you, don’t trust anything with an ingredients list you don’t understand, the selling is the problem, probably okay off a tree, where are you on toothpaste, fewest number of things in it, the same toothpaste for 40 years, no longer produced, you could be a toothpick guy, use ashes from a fire, fluoride, fluoride pills, it is not food so you shouldn’t eat it, whitening toothpaste, probably a bad idea, the amount of research you have to do, sodium laurel sulfate, don’t swallow anything is a poison, don’t put poison on your body repeatedly, animals don’t have allergies in nature, the food is adulterated, called for burned bread, dragonsblood, a resin, from something you stab, arsenic, lead, radium toothpaste, that healthy mouth glow, minimize input, give an animal a potato chip, you know it is bad, it tastes something, licking fabric, cleaning the tongue off, the toothless cat, clawless?, auto-immune disorder, normal cat food, cost, a whole bunch of pets, cheap food, can’t afford this caviar, better medical care than others, more shots?, some cats you can’t catch even if they have a limp, them knowing better than you do, bit by ticks, ivermectin is good for a lot of stuff, parasites, treatment for COVID, how did they not understand it?, for horses, designed for humans used on horses, mammals are pretty similar, doses, horses are pretty big, scabies, spread by insect like things, scratching, spreads in nursing home settings, pesticide, a bad name, a useful medication, they did it at the time, low doses and dosed late, has massive effects, hydroxychloroquine, skeptical, weird infectious disease fear, paxlovid, still patented, taking that stuff like candy, patented vs. public domain, Meg bought a Peacock to watch the , They Live (1988), seems true, longer than it needed to be, after he beats up his friend, always wonder, the aliens come and kill all the revolutionaries, ask me in six months, we should watch, the short story is good, the movie is better at doing it, the story does it through hypnosis, the physical sunglasses, though a glass darkly, more directly to Plato’s Cave, 7 minutes, goes on and on, an extravaganza, the opening is great, the homeless people, the ending is no good, The Thing (1982), Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China (1986), a western, Yojimbo, what is it for, the rebellion is crushed, destroys the transmitter but he dies, he’s crushed, you are Rowdy Roddy Piper, lizard people fits better, they’re not like us, hating on reptiles is wrong too, skinless and ugly, it looks like they’ve been flayed, blue, post-radioactive, the ghouls from Fallout, they’re the masters, and cops, watching it with commercials, Dirty Work (1998), Norm MacDonald, Artie Lang, so many guest stars, Don Rickles, Chevy Chase, a great movie that nobody loves, open a revenge business, stupid as hell, $50,000 to get a heart transplant, medical testing for food, hallucinating and itchy, Gary Coleman driving the car, Chris Farley, it is not about the plot, just to get to the jokes, rape jokes, hilarious, some guys come over and want to rape him, shame on you, devolves to, old people talk about old movies, eventually they’ll enjoy it, movies from before I’m born, Luke Burrage, nobody should listen to podcast past 10 years ago, how did that come into your head?, that’s what people say?, don’t trust anyone over 30, the most charitable, CIA or FBI op, an authority figure, anti-cultish, pro-cultish, don’t read anything past 10 years ago, wait 10 years then read about it, left undone, a big translation, find a movie that is worth watching, the new Kyle Gallner movie, Strange Darling (2023), cell phones and cars and insurance, Dinner In America (2020), Alien: Romulus (2024), done with Alien since Alien 3, Reagan (2024), big discrepancy, fan base of some kind, conservative Americans, low budget, independent, stars nobody, viscous murder spree, mystery/horror/thriller, The Sixth Sense (1999), it has a twist, a punk band, the cops are after him, semi-retarded girl or something, a pet shop, abused by her boss, regular home family, they fall in love, we don’t use the term, autistic, an acceptable term, everything is CRTs, the movie is amazing, it all fits together like a beautiful puzzle piece, really talented, tight movie, no major budget needed, killed by COVID, torrent or buy it, if you watch the trailer, he’s on twitter, Red Letter Media, Emily Skeggs, her highest rated thing, a theater thing, a lot of work, not a movie star of the Hollywood kind, Veronica Mars, Bones, independent movie star, things that are older than me, Metropolis in the theater, channel surfing, find a lot of good stuff, pet food, just chicken, making the switch, eggs, yogurt, cheese, dogs like cheese, omnivores, cooking for animals, easy bake oven life, such an easy animal, when a cat is affectionate, they’ll let you know when they don’t want to be touched, it is nice to be liked by cats, like to be liked by cats, liked or licked, Tommy says hoping to find some time this week, edit podcasts, coffee, how to steal movies, exporting bodies, elderly Germans, a weird menace story, never see the bodies, most to the middle east, buy foreign bodies, Qatar, a secret trade in German bodies, I consent to be cut up in the Middle East, the dead body is given a covid test, death certificate, tiny print, useless information, every German state has a different format, data protection, so you can’t sue people.

Marvel Treasury Edition 23 Back Cover

SSOC A Witch Shall Be Born

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #784 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #784 – Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard, read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (4 hours, 5 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Connor Kaye, Alex, Trish E. Matson, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, October and December [1929], The Return Of Skull-Face, by Robert E. Howard AND Richard A. Lupoff, open for a sequel, paid by the word, hoping for a sequel, a bold statement, incredibly clear, the Mary Sue character is Steve Costigan, semi-modern world, super punch powers, a different same guy, WWI shell-shocked veteran, more, Conan in a cave, not the same as Sailor Steve, a wanderer with no ties, expecting Zuleika to die, a shell-shocked Stephen, The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu, very similar, Seven Footprints To Satan by A. Merritt, he’s Satan, New York, missions, wear the ape suit, kill the guy, the ape suit, Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Curse Of The Golden Skull, a Lemurian sorcerer, [The Howard Collector (#9), Spring 1967], he’s already got the idea, Elmore Leonard, Karen Makes Out -> Out Of Sight, facesucking happens, kisses George Clooney, Double Entendre, a little pause, story proper, a huge mistake, a Poe poem fragment, Thule rhymes with newly, a misnumbered chapter, such a relish and enthusiasm to your voices, growl y work, soliloquy, throws himself at the bars, all poems?, Talbot Mundy, one Swinburne, a lot of Chesterton, Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, magic shadow shapes that come and go, directly quoted, oh there it is!, the epigraph of the very first chapter, right up front, internal comparison, look at the two, more than 10 years, Fu Manchu continues for about 40 years, movies get a hold of Fu Manchu, Nicholas Cage as Fu Manchu, Thanksgiving, still hope for Fu Manchu, The Mandarin from Marvel, the Johnny Quest TV show, Doctor Zen, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Ming The Merciless, the Klingons, the yellow peril stereotype, Kaiser Wilhelm II, excuses to conquer things, justification for what Fu Manchu is doing, the supposed heroes are archaeological graverobbers, pillaging of archaeological, the James Bond books, the opium wars, European exploitation in Asia, go Fu go!, the unmitigated better, a problem in this book, Skull-Face is racist, turn my blacks and my browns and my yellow, pan-Asian co-prosperity sphere, we’ll chop your heads up, empire no matter where it goes and what it does, playing these oppressed people against each other, seize power for himself, you white people, Howard was smarter, Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft think about their racism a lot, Steve work for this guy, he just saved you from hashish addiction, you don’t have PTSD anymore, the Irishmen who is the American who is Robert E. Howard, allies himself with the British Empire, conflicted here, to flourish, not that detailed, you could have been a king, the sequel book, curious, slash Skull dash Face, the flawed hero, legitimate grievances, Skull Face is Atlantean, as only Robert E. Howard can do, a living mummy, The Hour Of The Dragon, mummified, Acheron, LV-426, Richard Shaver, the prophet, Lemuria, Mu, Thule, amazing poem, Dream-Land by Edgar Allan Poe, the farther last l, out of of space and out of time for the rest of the poem, read more Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, a John Buchan adventure that turns, who is the boss of the network I’m working for, a secret police officer, a smart and funny man, exotic Asian adventures, completely forgotten, having a lot of fun putting this together, playing in someone else’s sandbox, The Black Stone, what if it was Call Of Cthulhu, I read this story by my body, Tuesday class, D&D, wrote up a module, a rip off of the opening of this book, three boys, a recent realms war, hashashiri, an opium like propdict, marks their hands with a trilobite, steal some royal jelly, the unguent, to enhance his mumminess, train tracks walking from home Taito Bandito, directly inspired by, wrote down a dream,

dreamt the alien invasion of the earth began through vapes. dissatisfied humans got addicted to cheap alien vapes smuggled in from “outside”. incompetent earth govts couldn’t stop the smuggling. eventually the poors of earth preferred the alien health care plan that came with… …cheap vapes. the earth govts and their media lapdogs were playing up lies about health care concerns about the alien vapes, but were so corrupt and the lies so obvious that only a puritanical few bought into it. and when any of these got sick they took the alien health care. […] through human fronted proxies the aliens plowed profits from their vapes into real estate and started selling cheap housing to poors. 2 year mortgages. this really got earth’s human overlords mad. after 7 years, the aliens had successfully taken over the earth and most humans… …were absolutely fine with it.

didn’t think anything of it, smoking hashish, basically opium, is it possible to get addicted to hashish, concentrated marijuana tar?, withdrawal symptoms, brain fog vs. physically debilitating, martini withdrawal, cigarette withdrawal is intense, a headache, why hashish?, assassin, the same story almost as the old man in the mountain, People Of The Black Circle, Marco Polo, the old man in the mountain, a fantasy land, I have the power to send you to heaven, recruited to be an assassin, completely correct, why this story feels its substantial, Omar Khayyam (1957), the world trade center attacks, 77 houris, mixing them together, his first choice, chasing the dragon, Lord Dunsany talking about Lord Dunsany, I just came from the world you created, told like a straight story, the response to stories in The Book Of Wonder, the inspiration for Lord Dunsany style stories, eastern exotic sounding places, aiming for with the girl, Zuleika, white enough, a much more detailed racist, it’s a science, I’m a scientist, not just a wizard, recruiting business, one time dose reducer, get you addicted to another drugs, makes your arms strong, lacking something a little bit, the main character is telling his own story, our drug addicted PTSD hero is telling his story, the descriptions of things are more serviceable, he’s not a poet, published during his lifetime, not even the height of his popularity, Almuric, kinda sad, awesome beautiful description, kicks along, this Gordon character, the stand-in for Petrie and Naismith, amateur detectives/spies, secret police work in reality, go to Oxford, meet your friends, cut up the middle east, as a Robert E. Howard representative story, can’t fully root for the good guys team, chooses the wrong side, he likes his girl, being in the arms of a beautiful girl who he loves and trusts, a strong character, brave, initiatve, saves his butt a couple of time, animal magnetism, he got beefy arms, beefy guns, how quickly he blows through the layers of conspiracy and worldbuilding, secret catacombs under London, the Cult Of The Scorpion, pre-Adamite, any other author, we’re just going, The Shadow Kingdom, They Live (1988), also Plato, the myth of the cave, William Shakespeare, Philip K. Dick, a conspiracy against a footsoldier, a flawed character, too awesome, Solomon Kane’s flaw is he’s insane, he’s a religious whackjob, God’s vengeance on earth, a vessel, that just makes it better, a poem with Solomon Kane, a historical incident, The Hills Of The Dead, flying vampires, holding the Staff of Solomon, Dennis Dorgan or the Mountain Man stories, he’s fixed of that, who’s going to cut up Africa, the tattoo on his hand, a mission to impersonate somebody, ape suit, catacombs are fine, coulda gone so hard, could gone the extra way, cut my own path with my girl, living as a hermit in a cave, living in Celephais, a dead bum in the ocean, gone mad, the end, kinda pulpy at the end, from the very top tier, colourful muscular description, so morally degenerate, my morals had been so beaten, go through some struggle, survive drug withdrawl, willing to die to keep the girl alive, moving on, a ticket to solve his addiction problem, willing to go against Skull-Face, he should have been more conflicted about it, serpent men are not so bad, a lot shorter, saved Skull-Face’s life, we’re square now, you’ll be my slave forever, A Witch Shall Be Born, favourite Conan, he’s not Conan, Kull would be pondering, am I a shadow?, this is all weird, kind of is, supposed to be a realistic story, not this pure force of will, not even Sailor Steve, they search the mummy case, poking at it, hey you just let him go, mesmerism, a great scene, we as the audience know this is Skull-Face, let me look at this sarcophagus, just a dead body, can’t possibly be him, a little down on the art, page 33 of the 46 page one in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, in the foreground, looking very Aryan, over the shoulder of horror, supposed to be a horror story, how to make Skull-Face in the canny valley, skeleton with a bit of skin, an acquired taste, Hugh Rankin is not great, appreciate them, Conan By Tweet, muddy looking, they’re stylized, a sketch, not the same kind of line work as you see in Finlay, a legitimate master, quickly and cheaply, the opening art, scraggly nails, the Fu Manchu vibe, Egyptian for a while, the man who came from the sea will be their god, so good, the dry run for this, literally yellow, parchment like bones, the eyes are very sunken, you can’t understate how awesome, hot under the collar, presumed to be Zuleika, black people, an arab looking dude, and the web, this is the threat, all these races are against the Anglo-American global empire, more cartoony, I don’t like Skull-Face anymore, WWI, Big Trouble In Little China (1986), his best movie, the funnest, wry and clever, playing with tropes, this plot in a large sense, David Lo Pan, Fu Manchewy, marry a girl with green eyes, get his body back, so charismatic, fish out of water, friends with some Chinese guy, not my culture, fumbling and tumbling, he thinks he’s the white savior, he’s the sidekick viewpoint character, starts like a Lovecraft story, why did a whole block of Chinatown explode, Zugartha?, the adventure isn’t over, underground tunnels, black blood of the earth, drink this potion, skepticism of any authority, tied with humour, Howard would have liked Carpenter’s stuff, into conspiracies, conspiracy minded, do the blood test, put on these glasses, drink the potion as you’re going down in the elevator, Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson, The Ten O’Clock People by Stephen King, action sequences, They Live works as the premise, putting on a monkey suit, he’s smart because he looked at his shoes, why isn’t this a better known story?, the 15th thing you would mention, so much other stuff, for other authors, the standard is so high, prejudice against it because it is a pastiche, angling for a certain market, the most successful author of the time, Seabury Quinn, The Vampire Master, Agatha Christie meets this trope, Cora, a reference to Edgar Wallace, Boby Derie, the ideas that carry you not the prose, like a rollercoaster, the smear of not completed by Robert E. Howard maybe, no comic book, no movie, no TV show, a race war with the brown people, a very controversial movie, the new Fall Of The House Of Usher on Netflix, Evan Lampe, Mike Flanagan, Edgar Allan Poe checklist, The Haunting Of Hill House, Shirley Jackson, cheapens his own work, a hill haunted house, no modern writer can write in someone else’s shoes, modern to its bones, can’t adapt someone else’s work, post-modern, not such a problem, so pervasive, everybody is doing it, William Gibson, same with Sword & Sorcery, Fritz Leiber was good, an exception, two Conans!, one is small one is big and they like girls!, there is a dangerous threat to white supremacy, a threat to democracy, a threat to the west, a threat to the rules based older, not international law, aka we say what goes, thinking white supremacy is bad, George W. Bush, make democracy happen, Professor Moriarty starting WWI, something similar here, start a war for reasons, I’m leading the brown races into victory, hah! suckers I’m not actually Egyptian, deciding where to put the twist, good things and the bad things, anticipating what the students like, there’s a beautiful woman: the master needs you, the 9 year old thinks girls are yuck, all identical beautiful daughter, a blue stripe a yellow stripe, everybody gets a love interest, champion you to her father, having so much fun with this story, you want to have an introduction to Robert E. Howard, a lot of understanding, take it at face value, a college student, do you think this is his most racist story?, Black Canaan, The Hyena, where this story fumbles a little, Limehouse, only 48 houses, not at his strongest when not describing Texas, New Orleans, the book research showing, beautifully told, the East of Africa, the racism, super-racist, a werewolf story, a were-hyena, tricking his acolytes, Hasim, a brute, so is the Afghani henchman, disposable characters, a rich field, the assumption that it would work, all those people, undead Atlantean necromancer, such a bad enemy, the situation in Djibouti, in 1977 the French said…, France is like yup, just looking at the history, a home invasion, almost a century goes by, divesting of colonies, gun pointed at the floor right now, this guy isn’t leaving, mutual security, a treaty between two equal countries, hey Italians, Italy sits on the couch with a big gun, Russia would you like a military base next to France?, within walking distance from each other, at what point did that independence come filling the house with potential foes, right near the Suez canal, Panama Canal, Noriega stopped talking orders, they don’t call it that anymore, revolt against the guy who won’t leave your country, not the ideal leader, so vague, grow a lot of bananas?, more sarcophaguses out there, the first one to awaken, if this was a movie, the last shot would be a bunch of sarcophagus floating, the sequel comes out and it, this time a lesbian Skull-Face, licked together, on youtube, commenting and liking, released as one audiobook, as fast as possible, an American accent, getting tired, the accent slipping off, are they called thick accents?, strong accents, not a very sweaty Australian accent?, Crocodile Dundee was ocker Australian?, British texan accent, when you think of horror books, Razorback, so many great Australian horror movie, The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), art film Paris, a car movie, an Australian biker movie, specializing in car chases, terrorizing gangs of bikers, Soylent Green (1973), a Volkswagen beetle with spikes coming out of it, gang takes over town movie, Christine, Trucks, Dead End Drive-In (1986), aka regular Australia right now, juvenile delinquents, Brave New World but with movies, dystopian drive-in, escape the drive-in, so many good films, so lucky, whatever video stores, a lot of video stores, previously not rewound, a big thick thousand page book of every movie on VHS, so much treasure, do a rental, nightmare, late fees, when you buy a movie, come back never, a great pleasure we still kind of have, so hard to search through now, JustWatch service, Plex, pirate any movie you want, Tubi has the best set of movies, Prime’s pretty good, Netflix, Shudder, Razorback (1984), Stone (1974), Bubba Zanetti’s my hero, Cinefamily, victims of the me too movement, are you an attractive woman, still can’t get work, secret job, all the shareholders (board?) got an anonymous email about an anonymous woman, a non-profit, Alamo Draft House, things to pirate, if you could choose only one country per decade, Americans made a lot of good movies at one point, Britain made some good movies, an exciting time for world cinema, each country wanted to be that new dominant, Italian movies, French producers, American actors, Dreamspeaker, (CBC tv Movie 1976), they adopt him, runaway kid who burns things down, sympathetic judge, that was unexpected, mute companion slash husband, put in a tree and let their corpse be eaten by birds, a Vancouver Island bases sort of story, Thunderbird blanket, a pretty brutal ending, a TV movie that came out on TV in the 1970s, child suicide, kid strangling himself, dies of broken heart, this is impossible, Jesse loved it, Chief Dan George, George Clutesi, Kelly (1981), realistic vs. Hollywood ending, about the horrible institution that school is, her blind friend, sets fires to things, go live with your dad, robs a bank, these two movies so like each other, kids being institutionalized, people like a happy ending, times for certain mediums of art, that was Jonathan, Dead Calm (1989), boat sabbatical and Billy Zane shows up, music in the 1970s, The Beatles, the next big thing, unique and original music, one guy would become the next big thing, a bit too calculated, new service bringing in tons of cash, throwing money at weird things, get a hit with any of these things, a short period of experiment, the president show, House Of Cards, Robin Wright Penn turns to the camera, a condemnation of the actor, a meta-thing, grievance on screen, all the 1980s movies, Stranger Things, Extraction (2020), a low budget action horror movie, Prey (2022)?, Slash/Back (2022), one of three Canadian territories, Nunavut, Yukon, North-West Territories, so much heart, some social issues, tremendous fun to watch, Reservation Dogs, APTN, The Beachcombers, a fun discussion, Wolfen (1981), Poltergeist (1982) with skyrises, irony, Whitley Strieber, 80s UFOlogy, considering doing a podcast, write my book, the picture that Alex is going to delete, a Yeti Nano, Elgato low profile mic arm, iphone 11, upgraded, android guy, more thinkpads, working for Lenovo, a T510, Skylark Dequesni, start wt, pocketknifes, arm a youth gang, brand new keyboard, lowprofile mechanical, cherry ultralow profile, $99, swing over, Blue now owned by Logitech, it’s Swiss!, $20, XP was running, downgraded, 7 was good, law firm as the head of IT, bought out, three month notice, wind everything down, a ton of laptops with no legal owner, shrug, cases and cases, they go in waves, what laptop should I get?, LGR (Lazy Game Reviews), old computer hardware, 45 hours researching laptops, modular, no glue, fixup and give to homeless person, engage that much with the local homeless, Connor must run a laptop, a little bit of noise, from the fan, too intense, good specs for processing videos, limit the processor, 10% of its power, put it across the room, connecting it to a monitor, quickly edit things, a luxury, if you travel, a suitcase style computer, everythings embeded like a tick, millions of files, half-processed, these torrents are on this harddrive, Gulliver Of Mars, The Languages Of Pao, a Don Pendleton, Thunderball, From Russia With Love, came from Trish, Eaters Of The Dead, a fun book, look how thin it is, Sands Of Mars, The Song Of The Whip, cylindrical black thing, the one with the martini, deleted by now, wireless hockeypuck, lightbar, brand and product number, scrutinizing the photo, two middle names, investment companies, hey we’ve been hacked, very popular, it doesn’t take up any deskspace, electric standing desk, cable managment, Uplift desk, an old Ikea Jerker, you should make a website for this there’s money top be made, servicing these desks, facebook page and reddit threads, these desks dont die, super-customizable, modular like Lego, standing desks didn’t exist, they were not an idea yet, sit-stand desks at work, back problems, you shouldnt be sitting for 8 hours a fuckin day, sat with a rigid back, you know actually it’s good to slouch a bit, lied to their whole life, running around with sticks in the forest, thrown into a canoe taken to a farm, left in the library for 18 hours, students that can’t recognize animals, schools so fucked up, scare them straight, its like prison, homeschooling, grow up without huge neurosis and giant deficits, Poland farm work, the culture in this small village is so fucked up, next generation of toxic bullshit, a lot of bullying, the Aryan Nations gang, prison mentality, a daypass to go home, traumatized, empire building, told one thing as a kid, margarine is for lubricating metal at a cheaper price, I Can’t Believe We Were Lied To, the irony of life, plastic bag tablet to dye it, the butter lobby, mush it together, whenever the topic came up, hasn’t grown any mold on it, something you can eat and not die from, a rock will pass through you, not something that’s supposed to be in a human body, food pyramid, students back to back, early Russian Revolution history, the three precursors to the NKVD, Kadets, three political parties vying for power in 1919, designed to show how the Russians were bad, the old curriculum, the regular history of India, massacre in Amritsar, policy of being evil, decided to breakup the country, this is the British doing that, divide and conquer, we don’t learn that much, a hateon for the Russians, 2014, the Holodomor entering Canadian curriculum, have them read The Gulag Archipelago (is 75 hours), there’s a prison system, not a complete picture, the focus is on the things you want to make them think, The Trail Of Tears, why school is evil, testing you on the adherence to these lies, what next?, There Werewolf Of Ponkert by H. Warner Munn, The Devil’s Elixir by E.T.A. Hoffmann, unabridged, wacky stuff, may need more time, books to do, Februrary next year, that coffee bud, vodka, loosens you up, maybe the show wouldn’t be so good.

Skull-Face illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin

Skull-Face - illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin

Skull-Face - illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin

Ken Kelly - Skull-Face

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The SFFaudio Podcast #626 – READALONG: The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #626 – Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker.

Talked about on today’s show:
1903, 1912, there are 7 movie adaptations (at least), audio drama, no comic book adaptations except for one in Graphic Classics, how influential it is, Dracula, Dracula’s Guest, why excised, is it very similar to Dracula or very different from Dracula?, experimental, aka a lawyer, a school teacher, Lucy’s suitor, cowboy, the doctor, the Dutchman, brides don’t get names, not so much in the format, The Call Of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft, the coziness, they way American television deals with stuff (its a cop show), Odile Thomas from Hypnogoria, Role Playing Game characters, the antiquarian, the daughter from away, the solicitor, the detective named Daw, a module, cause and effect are reversed, lifting from books, H. Rider Haggard, She, common elements, less problematic, less interesting, to chew over, perfectly okay, what filmmakers have done with it, story breaking, most of the people are breaking it from other versions of the movie, most movie makers watch movies and most novelists read novels, re-make, John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Thing From Outer Space (1951), Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, novels are great at a lot of things, tricking you, the toolset is different, Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb (1971), the Hammer adaptation, the gothic style and mid-sixties fashion sense, period pieces, as Mr Jim Moon pointed out, the new woman, participants, Mina vs. Tera, the Dutchman’s journal, the cartouches, wearing men’s clothes, reincarnation is bullshit, the latest Tom Cruise mummy film, The Mummy (1999), Frankenstein, there is no definitive mummy story, what a general audience knows about mummies, they’re back, they’re cursed, and they’re out to get people, she’s wrapped but not embalmed, making prep for a return, I’m blossoming, this mummy was undead, regular mummydom, I have something here, it would have been a series… Dracula II: He’s Back, what’s going on in Tera’s plan, same plan as Dracula’s, a lost chapter, the earlier gods, back to the source gods, its really cool what she wants to do, go back to the beginning, where the magic is, raarrrh!, Silvio the cat, he has his own version of Tera, the vat is wiser than Margaret, what happens at the end of this novel?, fresh in Will’s brain, she’s back!, a less cynical read than Jesse does, a 5,000 year journey, the new woman, is it a threat?, yes, everybody’s a threat, how cops deal with people, resisting being killed, we’re all like that, you have hands, cup a tea or a slash with the knife, where she’s coming from, she’s a magician, a great sorcerer, she exceeded her teachers, look at her history, she murdered a lot of people, a menace, she goes through with the marriage, why?, not so much a takeover as a fulfillment of a plan, kind of like a detective story, he gets out a magnifying glass, it becomes a different kind of book, that skillset is not leaded, physically taken over by the spirit of Tera, Tera was manipulating the dad all along, a character named Winchester, the Egyptologist, Abel’s bedroom is actually a tomb, do not remove any of the items from it, let me lie in state, all the Egyptian tombs were active places of attendance, grave goods, by right of possession, he is the curse of this mummy, he’s got the agent off to get the lamps, all the deaths that happen in the excavations and expeditions are his responsibility, ways of understanding how people are understanding, The Awakening (1980), The Mystery Of Imagination’s Curse Of The Mummy Tomb (1970), they saved money, visually its more interesting, a teleplay, 100% behind, the country house, the train, the electricity, the difference in tone, happy in her domesticity, a happy life at home with her adoring husband, the sinister ending, decked out in the queen’s garments with a predatory expression on her face, the best adaptation, fashion issues, problematic fashion, stylish, the seven fingers, all the covers, sometimes caressing a jewel, Jesse can’t stop noticing, a sixth and seventh digit, the hand does a lot of extracurricular activities, Guy De Maupassant’s The Hand and The Withered Hand, Swinburne, mummy stuff around the house is like having a Tesla, Raiders Of The Lost Ark has no mummy but it does have a jewel, a pretty bad movie, its a horror movie, a suspense story, a supernatural story, The Omen, a certain tone, set before the novel starts, high concept, the whole story (but backwards), The Mummy Resurrected (2014) aka Resurrection Of The Mummy, super-terrible, on Tubi, The Eternal (1998), Christopher Walken, set in Ireland, a female iron age druidical bog mummy, almost like an art film, narrated from two childrens’ points of view, the curse is alcohol, thanks Jorge Luis Borges and Bram Stroker, a typo or not, a license and a rewrite, Lou Gosset Jr. Bram Stoker’s Mummy, very faithful and a complete mess, The Tomb (1986) deliberately and accidentally entertaining, musical sequences for no reason, not a good movie but also quite interesting, The Jewel Of *The* Seven Stars, this is wrongly titled, the happy ending, why is she evil, the Wikipedia summary of the plot, manipulated by evil Queen Tera, wreak her will on the end, she’s a Corbek, confusing, Heston’s amazing, he’s wearing the neckerchief, 18 years previous, a curse movie, when you look at a movie it tells you about its period, 1970s = divorce and marriage breakup, the wife is still alive, they are rhyming with the original story, servicing their own subconsciousnesses and serving the audiences, Bram Stoker loves this setup, one stranger from the United States, in good faith working together to solve the issue, “the great experiment”, this whirlpool, this orbit of this obsessive egyptologist, Silvio, we get to do with it whatever we want, she’s also a time traveler, one of the most famous novels of the 19th century, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, all the other films that are basically the same story, Lifeforce (1985), The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson, Hailey’s comet, a retelling of Dracula (in space), the disappearance of her body, she’s astrally all over the place, she’s a star rover, she’s cosmically aware, where’d he get his money, smuggler drug dealers, Cornish smugglers, re-setup your tomb, all the stars aligned, why it was a craze, a very meta-situation, its not because the Egyptians were obsessed with death, China has mummies from 2,000 years ago, a Chinese mummy, “Lady Dai”, decanted from a mysterious liquid, melons, you can see her tongue, changing lives, windows into a period of time from so long ago, Tera has weaponized our interest, knowledge of forethought, alive again in a physical body, the treasurer with the spear, she wanted to be excavated, English servant, a lower class (?) man who knows evil when he sees it, an elite functionary in a think tank, a weapon for hire, genuinely fascinated, Mad Mike Hoare, Egyptology instead of killing, he’s our klaxon, Silvio is our klaxon, robbing tombs, assuaging European guilt, revenge from a great Empire from 5,000 years ago, a decadent civilization, her evil is less Catholic, she’s willful, I’ve got this whole other system going, why would it be deleted?, it underscores the more bleak vision, the ambiguous ending (1912), why Silvio has seven claws on one foot, its really Silvio’s story, her familiar, cat vs. snake, a grey cat, a tabby, the only female pharaoh of upper and lower Egypt, was Hatshepsut gender fluid?, the trappings of masculinity, her name was obliterated, when we think about kings and queens in ancient days, do whatever they want, financial freedom, you can be a gladiator!, strucken, the blasphemy of their life, resistance to the priestly class, the priestly class today, flourish, be your true self, two extra digits, upper and lower, a full and healthy life and an extra life, Ayesha was evil, manipulative vs. evil, presidents and speakers of the houses, is it seven?, a description:

He was certainly a magnificent animal. A chinchilla grey Persian with long silky hair; a really lordly animal with a haughty bearing despite his gentleness; and with great paws which spread out as he placed them on the ground.

a Lovecraftian description of a cat, a good command of language, quite engaging, slow paced, only 10 hours, quite respectably good prose, beautifully written, smooth and easy to read, Will disagrees, cut out about a third, how efficient that 1970 TV movie adaptation is, no train ride, the gas mask, compressed scenes, it could have been shortened, he cut it the wrong place, commercial instinct, he was a stage manager at an acting theater (a playhouse), tweaking to improve stories, playing to it, right from the beginning, the opening chapter is a dream, this is how Tera manipulates people

It all seemed so real that I could hardly imagine that it had ever occurred before; and yet each episode came, not as a fresh step in the logic of things, but as something expected. It is in such a wise that memory plays its pranks for good or ill; for pleasure or pain; for weal or woe. It is thus that life is bittersweet, and that which has been done becomes eternal.

ways of reading this,

Again, the light skiff, ceasing to shoot through the lazy water as when the oars flashed and dripped, glided out of the fierce July sunlight into the cool shade of the great drooping willow branches—I standing up in the swaying boat, she sitting still and with deft fingers guarding herself from stray twigs or the freedom of the resilience of moving boughs. Again, the water looked golden-brown under the canopy of translucent green; and the grassy bank was of emerald hue. Again, we sat in the cool shade, with the myriad noises of nature both without and within our bower merging into that drowsy hum in whose sufficing environment the great world with its disturbing trouble, and its more disturbing joys, can be effectually forgotten. Again, in that blissful solitude the young girl lost the convention of her prim, narrow upbringing, and told me in a natural, dreamy way of the loneliness of her new life. With an undertone of sadness she made me feel how in that spacious home each one of the household was isolated by the personal magnificence of her father and herself; that there confidence had no altar, and sympathy no shrine; and that there even her father’s face was as distant as the old country life seemed now. Once more, the wisdom of my manhood and the experience of my years laid themselves at the girl’s feet. It was seemingly their own doing; for the individual “I” had no say in the matter, but only just obeyed imperative orders. And once again the flying seconds multiplied themselves endlessly. For it is in the arcana of dreams that existences merge and renew themselves, change and yet keep the same—like the soul of a musician in a fugue. And so memory swooned, again and again, in sleep.

who is having the dream, an Egyptian river aka the Nile, a brief boating expedition with Miss Trelawny, Tera inserting herself,

It seems that there is never to be any perfect rest. Even in Eden the snake rears its head among the laden boughs of the Tree of Knowledge. The silence of the dreamless night is broken by the roar of the avalanche; the hissing of sudden floods; the clanging of the engine bell marking its sweep through a sleeping American town; the clanking of distant paddles over the sea…. Whatever it is, it is breaking the charm of my Eden. The canopy of greenery above us, starred with diamond-points of light, seems to quiver in the ceaseless beat of paddles; and the restless bell seems as though it would never cease….

coming out of the dream, the doorbell, the knocking, you know about the plow, big dipper, Polaris, north of Egypt, he’s definitely a good writer,

The record of a soul is but a multiple of the story of a moment.

deep time, the Egyptians didn’t have a dualist perspective, Jews tend not to go with dualism, there’s your Ka, your astral thing, your body, your id, your ego, your superego, programs inside, my brain is a computer, my mind is the software running on the computer, glitches and reboots (sleep), how does it technically work for Tera, a takeover?, a new vessel, pour your spirit, the dualist take on it, all part of Tera’s plan, moments of clarity, William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe, don’t fall asleep because you die and some guy wakes up in the morning with your memories, The Body Snatchers, a worse version of you, let’s share this space, she’s like an immigrant, old and new, the upstairs and the batcave, the upper and lower, bring the foreign into England, central to the Empire, the author wrote the book, he’s the guiding hand, he doesn’t have full access to why he’s doing stuff, inhabited by Tera, giving permission, the old woman who’s the new woman, I’ve killed 9 people in the last 5,000 years, ancient alien metal, aerolite, meteorites, star spawned, a magic sword, star connected, she is in some way divine, a symbol of something, the devil is real in a certain sense, numerology, explained as science, the radium that is so prominent, an astral body, hey pick up that fork, corporeal transference, there need be no bounds, its fun to taste stuff, you don’t want to have a sequel, the wrong scale, the possibilities opened up, Will doing his Farmer impression, what the ka does, the Riverworld series, When The World Shook by H. Rider Haggard, a millionaire socialist, a striking resemblance, reincarnation, a science fiction plan to destroy the world, theosophical adventures start to become science fiction stories, so many valances, gothic or weird stories, that X-Files feel, The Jewel Of Seven Stones by Seabury Quinn, Weird Tales, April 1928, a bad priest and a good princess, less ambiguous, Jules de Grandin, no deep philosophy and stuff, read more Bram Stoker, The Crystal Cup by Bram Stoker, super-obscure, very abstract, souls, what does it mean?, a cup filled with nothing in it, taking the reality of materialism and transmuting it into poetic beauty, a stage play, it could be a short film, there’s no characters except for the cup and the light, A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, super-cool and very weird, a feature length no budget film adaptation, A Princess Of Mars with LSD, how John Carter gets to Mars, various relationship, the party, the tower, suicidal action, metaphysical, audiobook and readalong available in the feed, Will’s cup of tea, down for more stoker, subtle, she’s got a plan.

The Awakening (1980)

Bram Stoker's The Mummy (1998)

Blood From The Mummy's Tomb (1971)

The Tomb (1986) VHS

BORIS VALLEJO cover of The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

FRENCH edition of The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

Oxford Paperback - The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

ZEBRA - The Jewel Of Seven Stars, 1979

The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker, Arrow 1975

ARROW - The Jewel Of Seven Stars (1962)

Arrow - The Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

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