The SFFaudio Podcast #797 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford D. Simak AND The Worlds of If by Stanley G. Weinbaum

The SFFaudio Podcast #797 – The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford D. Simak, read by Gregg Margarite AND The Worlds of If read by by Stanley G. Weinbaum – read by Mike Mike Manolakes (both recorded for LibriVox). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (2 hours 8 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Jonathan Weichsel, and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
the podcast boosted intelligent version of Terence, The World That Couln’t Be and The Worlds Of If, paired these up, two short stories, they both have world or worlds, subjunctivity, subjuntivier, by raise of hands, Professor Van Manderpootz, Pygmalion’s Spectacles is very similar, The Ideal, student Dixon Wells shows up, uses the machine, falls in love with a girl in the machine, profesor dismantles the machine, commercially for a few years, off hand line towards the begining, check it, falsifiable, The Point Of View, February 1936, Worlds Of If is the first one, don’t need to be read in order, realized while listening, Philip K. Dick has a tribute to Professor Von Manderpootz’s stories, two short stories starring a professor who invents machines, narrated by a former student, Doc Brown and Marty McFly, 1st 2nd and 3rd Back To The Futures, crazy scientist and student or younger, Professor Dumkopf, Pootz is like Putz, mander like meander, greatest scientist who ever lived, beat the asians in 3 months, A Martian Odyssey, had read before, disniguishing each of the stories apart, they’re all the same, guy narrates his experience falling in love with a woman inside of a machin Girl In The Golden Atom, preceded by girl in the drop of water, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Diamond Lens, weird fiction, science fiction, The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford, a dutch oven, a way of cooking or baking on top of a stove, shoes inside, they come to life, run around the yard like little rabbits and breed, combining these two stories together, dance themselves to death, Philip K. Dick’s brain is awesome, must have read in reprints, first visit to Von Manderpootz!, a story with him in it, a familiar character, Dixon, the Wells from H.G. Wells, just fits, the Soviet Union wanting to dig a tunnel through the Urals, various desserts, nothing about them being communists and evil, the future of 2015 or so, very 1935 optimistic science fiction, lobster salad, full future luxury communism soviet rocket, precedes the jetset class, post WWII, transoceanic flights, clippers, refuel in Hawaii, make your way to Shanghai, much more like getting on the Concorde, casual and fun, running late, misses his airplane, hold the plane for him, the Beirut office, very nice future, not the focus of the story, the picture we get of it is nice, a critique of the story: overwhelmingly bourgeois, inherited money, still financial crises in capitalism in this future, chorus girls and caddies, this high end education, a terrible student, highly incompetent and competent, no real consequences, bourgeois fiction, tends to dramatize minor inconveniences, cozy, the butterfly affect, there’s a whole magazine named after this story, what we deal with in science fiction is the worlds of if, IF, Worlds Of Science Fiction, a skinsuit mag for it debuting next month, Stanley G. Weinbaum stories, If Reader Of Science Fiction edited by Frederik Pohl, A.E. VanVogt, 1952-1971, the Galaxy guy, Hugo Gernsback delve, Gernsbacked pilled, read Weinbaum everyday, fluffy and light, an H.G. Wells story without the H.G. Wells heaviness, a very interesting cynical message, no matter which choice he takes is the wrong one, that’s what happens, a better deal, this is the best of all possible worlds, not getting the desired object, the best thing that could have happened, conflating the two women together, not good to have as a wife, silly airplane, fixated on him, a horrible wife as well, he got the better deal, like The Time Machine, you get enlightenment, you get affirmation, not satisfied, being not satisfied is satisfying, when their on the rocket ship together, expected to be a friendship of the ship, vacation girlfriend, together with another couple, promised to write, not proximate to you, friendship that seem really great, talking about the podcast right now, accidentally make a baby, desire is subjunctive rather than indicative, he was lucky he lost his money, a good wife who only loved him for his money, stayed in the subjunctive type of desire, a refutation of the power, of all the sad words the worst: it might have been, called out in the story, Maude Manner It might have been, [Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier], it wouldn’t have worked out,

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

a bit of hope, pie in the sky, we get sequels, two sequels, I want more, it didn’t need to have the same characters, easier, more commercial, people like series, here’s another with the same characters, more marketable, A Martian Odyssey, Valley Of Dreams, unneeded, Professor Challenger, Tom Sawyer, Detective, good story, expected to be more blown away by Weinbaum, our Simak story, much meatier, more interesting, three times longer, it’s great, an attack on Jesse, Clifford Simak didn’t have conflict, appears to have more conflict, how much Simak have we all read, a bit, Shakespeare’s Planet, Way Station, Goblin Reservation, Over The River And Through The Woods, really nice, of the countryside, Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson, a war against army ants, classifies as science fiction, German, foreigners going to Brazil, rubber plantation owners, Confederates went to Brazil, Confederados, the last country to get rid of slavery, NATO brought it back to Lybia, more alien than red indians, set in space Africa, hominy, exposed to it as a child, parched corn, dried popcorn?, food going on, sytha, slow drip of information, very cool story, thank you, asexual, James Tiptree Jr story, Your Haploid Heart, we’re doing this for you, sorry, gotta fuck you, taboo for them, they don’t want to tell, they don’t know how they reproduce, our main helper dude, Sapar, it says something, I grew up with that thing, all those other creatures are taboo, a list of creatures that are taboo, make a claim as to what is actually happening on The World That Couldn’t Be, like on our planet, adaptation evolution, an alternative form of evolution, this hunt, to help the Sytha learn and evolve, instinctual knowing but not consciously aware, who is it faithful to?, it is faithful to Duncan, the mother function, the same brood, several sequences of broods, a bigger Sytha, a planetary Sytha, Shotwell, is it eternal?, is it immortal?, a young one, right to the ending, oh wow cool, chapter 6, they halted on a knoll, vua, wearing thin, it is an awful effort to keep on being smart, it was nice knowing you, back to animal again, very simple said the sytha, just begin hunting me, get smart, I guess that will work, admirable, next time I have a brood, old uncaring comfort coming back again, seethed with happiness, won’t he be happy and surprised, will he be ever pleased, slipping back into unintelligent, you can almost miss it, a psychoactive drug for humans, it’s not good to be intelligence, pathologically trying to kill this creature, he goes nuts, reading from a collection of Galaxy stories, originally published in Galaxy, an H.L. Gold ending, making a lot of claims about editors, reviewing a bunch of random pulp stories, joint, especially when there’s two editors, a question about Planet Stories, Jerome Bixby, very interesting, it has to be Simak, otherwise Jesse’s theory wouldn’t be true, a lot more pulpy, the length, the character development comes out through the action, discover by talking, curious about the origin of the story, suggested by somebody else?, wonder, not early, in the middle, ended in the 80s, squarely in the middle, our main character is an asshole, for a Simak character, Philip K. Dick’s Beyond Lies The Wub, the natives, the way the captain treats the natives, our planter, our food grower, he is an asshole at the beginning, a typical Simak character at the end, projecting, conflict is fixable by cogitating together, not ethnic cleansing and not genocide, anti-colonial, in the same way as Wells always does, this is really good science fiction, by knowledge, finding out what the world is actually like, at the end, he’s found a way to coexist with this alien planet, he’s gonna get a surprise, little girls and boys, they’re all gonna be like him, they’re gonna be smarter, I found this very stimulating, actually smarter, added to the genepool, no species on the planet is sexed, adding sex to the planet as well, he’s gonna have a brood of Duncans show up, the sample has been taken, Donovan, a sampling, the Donovan kept walking, now we are even said the Sytha, the more assholish human on the planet, things that hunt, what’s cool about this story, this is a planet without conflict, two things: 1. the hunt, 2. is the ability to stop, much more aggro, a big preshow discussion, a lot of people goin vegan, they have theory that backs up their behavior, people who identify as vegan and practice veganism, everything eats everything, weird exceptions, we tamed each other, they found jobs for us, we found dogs for them, sheepdogging and cowdogging, mostly their job is companion/housewarmer, tooth and claw, in the form of Eden, healing the sick, some of it is not for their natives, hominy, they’re changing the planet, they engage with the sytha, a non-edenic planet, that’s a positive, almost religious story, the edenic world was imperfect, what we needed was a war of all against all, growing to something better, it is that, right?, felix culpa, back to Will, H.L. Gold, appraising a story, Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle For Leibowitz, wasn’t a damn bit grateful for it, not your pussycat editor, plain damned brilliant, a character in The Space Merchants, high speed tempo, the books success, the nagging nagging nagging presence, if he hadn’t demanded it, a great book, serious problems, pacing issues, a very involved editor, the anti-John W. Campbell, positive but annoying influence, a much different experience, a better experience, better stories, personal essays, more or less the same thing, you worked very closely with him, a Greek monster, Scylla, Lewis Carroll, boojum, alien names, nonsense words, hang your associations on, the endpoint is more satisfying, empathy is learned, emotional intelligence, up to a higher emotional intelligency, ends in exogamy, The Lovers by Philoip Jose Farmer, inputs, asexual reproduction at the end, Edward Sapir, even if just through the news, an engagement with the American landscape, bucolic landscape, Simak stories not set on a planet?, A Choice Of Gods, Time Is The Simplest Thing, these are native indians, engaging in a different way, enslaving them?, still in initial contact, smarter even though it is dumber most of the time, incorporating the new mode into its system, 8 year olds show up, the male female dynamic is needed, little Duncans that are different than each other, toes on their feet, like different flavours of ice cream, if we know anything, having sexuality, maybe not by volume, avoids the disease problem, develop a new banana, science class, clone armies will die, cloned mammals, a different kind of cloning problem, sea-lizard that does parthenogenesis, theoretical too, twins and triplets, same exact genes, in plants all the time, a genetic bottleneck, brown lizards, especially common in plants, letting the forest plant itself, monoculture farming, pesticides, herbicides, fencing, overwhelmed suddenly, cavendish banana, other plants as well, one guy gets a fungal infection, this whole planet is theoretically an army clones, genetically human, a cognitive mapping of human, the sequel to the story, the sytha will discovered that it’s fucked up, surprised at the reaction, more aggro, eating the others, close the restaurants, a good transitional thing, The Word For World Is Forest, The Queen Of Air And Darkness by Poul Anderson, become friends, a fascist story, overcome their prejudices, the wrong side and the right side, anarchistic hippy nature lovers, our prophet would disagree with you, a Vietnam war allegory, more grist to ignore it, they can do more than one thing, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, it can do more than one thing, the bad reading, one of the things, environmentalism vs. rapacious capitalism, Avatar (2009), Call Me Joe, friendship with misunderstanding on both sides (colonialism), a positive ending, humorous, a big surprise, you need more humans just like you, could be very strange, a cat: my master would like a sparrow, will the empathy acquisition keep on going up, some descendant Duncan it, vegan, will he forget?, will he lose his emotional intelligence?, The Monsters by Robert Sheckley, this is a comedy of a morality that’s different, ecogenetics, little sexless natives, how can they have familial feeling without having a mom?, acts like a female, only one scytha on the planet?, multiple bodies, this one, all the oceans are connected, this embodiment of a scytha, a force of nature being, individual minds, not even eggs, budding?, the youngs are raised together, form their taboos in the same way that, poo poo go in toilet, don’t sleep with your sister, twist endings, very earned, if you’ve got a premise start with it, my god it’s a time machine, my god it’s Adam and Eve, overpopulation, good but necessary, underconsumption, The Midas Plague, The Stars My Destination, a final revelation, very Horace Gold, undercut ideas people have, this story is not that great, understood the world, a revelation, an evolution, we never see the face of the girl who’s so ugly, they were hiding something, the story wouldn’t exist, will his brood forget?, afraid of one of them, that one forgets, they’re gonna be like him, losing his place on this planet, he will be displaced, they’ll be farming, moving in a new direction, people don’t ask for rewrites, printed, asked for rewrites, Warrior Soul, set in the far future, set in the present, he was right, good criticism, a much better story, copy editing, put typos in the magazine, Cirsova, changed a little bit, sold 2 to him, Clarke of Clarkesworld, certain similarity to the stories, want their own voice, to get that voice, submission guidelines, traditional publishing, Barnes & Noble, the way tradpub works, agent vs. publisher, many cooks, reviewing a lot of audiobooks, somebody need to work on this book, why is this in here three times, Stephen King, pulp, lower tier, interesting voices in science fiction, in the old pulps, Philip K. Dick couldn’t work with John W. Campbell very well, Anthony Boucher, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Argosy, Blue Book, they wanted him to edit his story, rejected The Outlaw Of Torn, basically Robin Hood, wanted to make money quickly, a folk hero, The Cave Girl, King Richard, its just this particular royal is bad, being very frustrated, art and thou, medieval England, prince kidnapped as a baby, mislead by political radicals, The Lad And The Lion, democratic rebels that are really fascists, assassinate the king and rule the country, WWI basically, WWII references too, very clever, unable to rule because they’re incompetent, this pattern goes on continuously, more incompetent from the last one, more diluted blood, he has terrible politics, my Tarzana, nobody in the right mind would agree with it, a pet lion, crash in Africa, goes around Africa, happens everyday, the rewritten one, bidding wars, Heinlein, Starship Troopers, the juveniles too, Podkayne Of Mars, when a government decides to take away your guns, don’t kill her, Stranger In A Strange Land, late late Heinlein, The Pursuit Of The Pankera vs. The Number Of The Beast, Sam Moskowitz, book editor vs. magazine editor, a commentator, 1963 or prior, Weird Tales, Fantasy Times, Under The Moons Of Mars, the fluffiness, just another fluffy cute story, big long story by Simak, paying off so well, it’s built into the idea of the story, everything was leading up to that, why write the story at all, Simak over Weinbaum in this instance, Simak has more better stuff, in the course of a year, two handfuls of short stories, really good stuff, very solid, both fun, both good, pretty close to amazing, if this was a novel, a three character story, the anthropologist, one of them kills himself, he finished what he needed to do, he has a thorn in his foot, thorns come up a lot, just before chapter 5, I will be with you to the death of both of us, a very biblical thing, it stayed with me, it’s hard to figure out these jokers, seethings of emotions, what variety of belief, Simak trying to make an asshole out of the guy, missed the trail, fearing it had gone, loyal and faithful, the outlander and intruder?, is there a common meeting ground?, stroked it polished it petted it, just another chance, a steady bead, back to the farm and field, that misty other life, very interesting stuff, Good., a soggy blanket wrapped tightly around the body, another dirty trick, distraction from what’s about to happen, progress in empathy, relativity of beliefs and ethics, perhaps it has reasoned, sentient beings can do tricks, cognitively map the enemy, induce that mentality into error, a theory of mind type empathy, this dirty beast, a worthy adversary, here’s the end, your knife mister, if we take this as a falsehood, take it as a truth, looking straight at Duncan, the native cut it’s throat, from helping you to the end, psychic communication, spear, rock, smarter and smarter, doesn’t need to be alive anymore to evolve the scytha, the turning point for the story, committed to a purpose and a challenge, it was something more than that, weird entangling, this pronoun thing, big in the 2020s so far, as another man might stroke a woman’s throat, rubbing the gun, petting it, “mister” said a voice, bwana, respected outsider who we really don’t respect but have to, Duncan stiffened, it now can talk, the Sapir language, the story seems that way, never shouted out at all, for you to extrapolate, an elephant and tiger and a grizzly bear, how big is this thing?, you start imagining what he’s not saying, near great, our Weinbaum, the action scene are a little bit overdone, the action scenes are fun, went on a little too long, future stuff, another Simak on the schedule, Hellhounds Of The Cosmos, space opera, A Choice Of Gods, The Call From Beyond, Empire is a short novel, City, Kevin Green, City is a fixup, Foundation, Dune, when you’re doing short stories, you can’t talk about 10 Ted Chiang stories in one show, maverick science, threaten the corporation’s monopoly, sounds super-science, Fury by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, super-science is kinda dumb, carefully modestly super-sciencing, Roger Zelazny, Unicorn Variation, The Horses Of Lir, A Night In Lonesome October, Creatures Of Light And Darkness, Lord Of Light, This Immortal, post-nuclear war, a tour of the Greek islands and Egypt, a rebel who wanted to kick off the aliens, undercover, torn between, might be a sequel, Damnation Alley, post-apocalyptic suburbia, before the white man came, robots are priests, how they fit in, very Simak, something we never brought up, “Moby-Dick with a twist”, let’s get something good, got distracted, Project Mastodon, Mastodonia, Second Childhood, Cemetery World, Time Is The Simplest Thing, A Spell For Chameleon by Piers Anthony, a book for the blind, how it was produced, in the commercial space, a special loophole in copyright, a great thing, put into the ears of blind people, not in favour of following the law, Xanth, exiled to Florida, Charles Burnett Swann, marketed to kids, 344 pages, On A Pale Horse, he liked to do series, a huge amount of effort and inspiration into the first volume, 12 hours, a nice 8 hours Simak, named the land after himself, before we lose anybody, Return From The Stars, what exotic location, a Valentine’s play, playtime, nothing can live up to The Taming Of The Shrew (1976), I will rip it, Marc Singer plays Petruchio, amazing peak performance, staged for television, if that was on TV!, remember Bravo?, artsy shit, television is full of filler, Dark Carnivals, we miss you, bud, Jesse’s email is a horror show, a Connor show, 50 Jesse messages, message him less, doesn’t engage with twitter for months, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, go to drug guy, 5 hours 21 minutes, more possible, a lot of feedback on youtube, the greatest thing ever, almost all positive, he sounds insanely awesome, Martin Geeson, The Seventh by Richard Stark, The Gun by Philip K. Dick, The Mad Planet, its all gonna be on Will, its all gonna be on Jonathan, Alex pulpcovers, very understandable, a novella, it’s all on Alex, Jetta Of The Lowlands, assuming he hasn’t contracted shingles, The Pathological Liar, a case of deceiving the enemy, lie for the sheer pleasure of lying, a compromise, there’s no digits in my name, that’s a robot bud, The Liar, Penguin Classics, Dialogues, dramatic readings, acting level, thickest accent on the planet, it can be a nightmare, keep hoppin away, Plato, The Story Of A Cat, do this research off air, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, culture shock, sewing machines that open to a voyage in space, H.G. Wells, an implacably hostile alien species, Arena, The Case Of The Dancing Sandwiches, Lawrence Block’s The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Jesse Show, 700 episodes in, Just Jessing, more demographic audience, none of the trolls listen to this podcast, The Triumph Of Evil, Paul Kavanaugh, do no research come up with an idea novel, supposed to be a true story, doing pushups and drinking alcohol, montagnards, heist a shipment of nuclear weapons, Vietnam War is happening, we need more Paul Kavanaugh, a guy confesses to a crime, pure writing talent, a historical crime, Not Comin’ Home To You, a Lawrence Block devotee, goes down so smooth, much younger dad, live to 103, not a sequel, would be wise to do so, writers abilities, Maissa won’t love it as much because she’s a girl, Travels by Michael Crichton, given the power he does nothing with it, he would prefer not to, Bartleby The President, power hungry dictator, Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, beloved, could be spicy, love the spice, there’s a podcast that exists because this show is too spicy, Julie Davis and Scott Danielson’s A Good Story Is Hard To Find, this is not a Christian podcast, this is pre-antivaxx, personality and flag, pirate flag should not be hoisted there, flags in bio, the Yemen flag, qualified, the new one is the red triangle, a theory about Yemen, the Rawandan genocide, houthis, who from the empires outside?, a big deal in Canada, how traumatized he was, Romeo Dallaire, a big deal in Canada, bureaucracy, macheted to death, sad spicy stuff, the Julie and Scott show, not supposed to be one of his best books, who chose that one?, not responsible, Wikipedia, Lem himself judged the novel as unsuccessful, treated in a simplistic way, who is responsible?!, we validated, convinced, Stan Lem, I’m not a Lem stan, become slan, the meme: fans are slans, more advanced than other people, form a world government, focusing on utopia, the least pessimistic, a hope punk book?, a 1989 Soviet play, yes because of the name, Strugatsky, asian racist, russian racist, they’re all the same, who is he to judge his own books?, Philip K. Dick, how trustworthy his own claims are, Solaris, the Andrei Tarkovsky movie, The Futurological Congress, to catch the drug experience, The First And Last Men movie, a short French film, hit by various psychoactive drugs, The Congress, what Cora says about it, boundless interest, needs his own podcast, when is that podcast coming out?, much easier to show up on Jesse’s, eventually, a lot of work, Eric doesn’t listen to podcasts, you can tell kind of, he likes doing podcasts, you can kinda tell, well hidden?, good at talking, he was a professor, University Of Michigan, Dean of Stony Brook?, lot of people don’t, cuts into audiobook time, you’re missing out on a whole genre, audio drama series, Toby Stephens, the Philip Marlowe series, what are you listening to, I have that in my car, used to be the BBC’s James Bond, British guys doing American characters, Raymond Chandler, Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon, two good stories, one really great, a silly question, the first season of Reacher, reviewed the first book, I don’t love this, he’s not human, he’s Conan, that almost makes sense, The Terminator, he smiled, he relaxed with his army buddies, Conan is not a patriot, he gets a pension mailed to him every month, a fantasy, the first book was fine, done with Reacher, a one concept thing, like a theorem, a deduction, a flashback character, don’t care, to be fair Jesse was sick, still a little bit of phlegm in there, F. Paul Wilson, Repairman Jack, still alive and on twitter, scary stories, Dean Koontz, Soft by F. Paul Wilson, makes you go soft, a blob of jelly on the floor, cats become your biggest problem, starts from the bottom up, New York City, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, keep his daughter’s spirits up, before the rats get you, the softness continues, a hard story called Soft, The Keep (1983), Michael Mann, WWII Nazis, a retelling of Dracula, set during WWII, 80s music aesthetic, not winning any Hugos, Tangerine Dream, did musical soundtracks for movies, the 1977 epic Sorcerer, William Friedkin, fuck that shit!, completely subsumed, The Wages Of Fear (1953), they go to Brazil to escape death, 4 guys to drive 2 trucks, land be despoiled, snuffs out the fire, second gulf war, the dynamite has gone bad, nitroglycerine, girls won’t like it, but if you’re a dude, Roy Scheider, existential rather than psychological, I’m a movie fan now, Star Wars is good and all, The Exorcist (1973), way to popular, The French Connection (1971), the fish people one, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) with fish people, names in profile, hyperBadiou, set theory mathematics, a scoop, explain it to an English speaking audience, this is really good, a video series, hyperthinking the absolute, occasionally talks about science fiction, Gilles Deleuze, François Laruelle, philosophy is generalized science fiction, if it’s not doing philosophy it is not science fiction, Bruno Latour, pioneering figures in science studies, the Salk Institute, an anthropological study, no preconceptions, what people did and what materials they used, Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon, when the Chinese land on the Moon, so loyal, Bernard Stiegler, grew old and died, Jacques Derrida, a seminar on Youtube once a month, conceptually powerful, used some of his concepts, individual and collective individuation, Marxist French theory type way, without needing to carry the Jungian baggage, Agent Swarm blog, Anathem by Neal Stephenson, his masterpiece, quantum physics, Logics Of Worlds: Being And Event II, Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, Xenoswarm blog, analyze Dune, hence your recent interest on being on a podcast a lot, dialogue is better than monologue, a defense of the bad review, a lot of time liking tweets and blogs in French, a friendly retweet, absolute silence, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain In The Sea, has Terence been blackballed?, The Peripheral, my videos are horrible, totally improvised, lots of umming and ahhing, well prepared, he’s high on his own supply, meaty for youtube, he has opinions, some of them are good, the occasional insight, the presentation, David Brin, thinks he’s the smartest guy on the planet, multiple podcasts, a promotional exercise, they didn’t know enough about him, he aint dumb, here’s the thing about Ursula K. Le Guin, the Ng person, the acceptance of the award, Joseph Campbell, really young, conflating Amazing and Astounding, Hugo Gernsback is not John W. Campbell, Astounding SF, similar name, Analog, Ray Palmer, women were discriminated against, hidden women we don’t know about, were not as many female readers based on the letters, discriminated against, by readership or editors, repeat what wikipedia says, how you end up being the prophet, this lady from Germany who does the, Sabine Hossenfelder, a baby explanation of capitalism and why it’s not so bad, turning all the externalizes, dumb smart people, got a degree, physics there’s almost nothing to do, Michio Kaku, some things are so base and clear, no matter what 100 years ago you pick, email is no longer usable says Jesse, most people don’t use email, full of spam, an email manager, never a message that is relevant, occasionally there is an important one, you have not paid your bill, dip into that horror show, auto subscribed to, already in every system, worried about the wrong things, when he becomes famous or more famous, daughter of Afflecks and Garners, email is not a great way to harass people, spreading rumours via email: not a thing, yahoomail, you might need this, 1997, 26 years full of spam, Mike emails twice a week, Mike Nowak, Jesse’s an indian now, or always was, adopted into the band, tsleil waututh, can’t wait to tell Paul, Indian status, if you want to bore everybody: you people gotta get off of my land, Paul will not like this concept at all, a hierarchy of people who need representation, BIPOC, fairly recent, excludes, so important, wanting to exclude Asians now, no acronym yet, reserve certain positions, Kamala Harris becomes VP because of skin colour, a scary ideology that is not wise, a black robot president, open source AI, dictator Jonathan to unite everyone, Will: this one is for you, student in a minute, Black House, excited about that, read it twice, early incarnation, a student in Sydney, does he reference, inspired to come to France, the cinema, a quotation from Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, well expressed in various films, more interested in drug culture, other than coffee, noted Will’s dream, I don’t need drugs I am drugs, brain under sleep is on drugs, tapping into it while awake, defenses are down, we are multiple drugs, dreams and science fiction (same thing), a coherence, the same thing for free, Will was in it but he was a pug, deceased dog, I wonder if he smells like cigars, dming reading Planet Stories, never smoke on a pulp, don’t smoke the pulps, they don’t smell when they’re scanned, nobody listens except for Mike Nowak, heartbroken mother, parents friends, almost never, the one time they shouldn’t lock, that was me in the past, delete it, a student coming in 1 minute, double talking to you, 5 hours, Jesus!, 10pm, something more presentable.

The World That Couldn't Be by Clifford D. Simak

The Worlds Of If by Stanley G. Weinbaum

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #793 – READALONG: Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

The SFFaudio Podcast #793 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

Talked about on today’s show:
1944, some Olaf before this, Last And First Men and Star Maker, wow, this blew Jonathan away, this is a novel, if you told me I’d enjoy a book about a talking dog, it has that cosmic perspective, in a dog who has no hands, real genuine science fiction, not genre SF, not from an American pulp tradition, in the subtitle, “A Fantasy Of Love And Discord”, a scientific romance, something to say, thinking about dogs a lot, a dog as a kid, a pet person, passed away earlier this year, afraid of dogs, allergic to most of them, Irish setter, what I’m hearing is you’re gay, australian shepherd, Karl Barks, still gay, gay for dogs, city boy, Scrappy, got too big, gave him away, cats, Minnesota, a Labrador and a great Pyrenees, border collie, Corgi, loved to death, the dog relationship, neutral to dogs, like our narrator storyteller, the Olaf Stapledon stand-in, affected emotionally, balling my eyes out, hiking, tears, very powerful, a great book, some good things in the review, very American, wanted the book to be genre SF, Philip K. Dick shows instead of tells, make points about philosophy, attempts pulp, Cambridge educated philosopher, from 2020, another reference point, Dick’s philosophy is more cynical, very different, Stapledon trusts people and the community of people, trusts reality more, even though the community if evil, Dick’s stories are more city, vs. more country, more suburban, lives in a “community”, a very small world for you, the college with the town attached, some London here, rural fantasy, through the novel tradition, such a bad comparison, to bring Philip K. Dick into the conversation, a guy named Jesse, correct to reference Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, a more wholesome, humane take, needs to be with other creatures, a 2015 review, no last name, Odd John, as opposed to a book about super and ultra sheepdogs, uplifted, can you get an uplift without it being biologically heritable, the raising, a monkey in Australia as a farmhand, the fox listening to banjo music, an old English children’s magazine, great pets, famous pets, Farmhand Johnny, a rhesus monkey, follow up tweet, interviewing the farmer, the second monkey in a series of farmhands, don’t go on about your handlessness, super-important, this is not a man creating another man, a dog with a man’s brain, a super-canine brain, the thing that’s adressed a lot in the book, bestiality, incest, how intiate they had become, looks at her body mauled by the dog, as are we, Plaxy, such a weird name, a name that people have in England, Wales, the fornication?, discretion prohibits me from saying, how Jonathan would write it, a man relives himself, masturbating, sexual hypocrisy, a very funny sad and tragic book, deeply philosophical, dog-lover wish fulfillment fantasy, this is a being like me that has thoughts and desires and wants, unable to communicate fully, flagging of tails, bristling of backs, wants to have sex, wants to have a relationship with you, that’s remarkable, exploring this idea incredibly well, what is stopping people writing this today, owning a dog, mischaracterizing all of science fiction: space-fucking battles, what about Harlan Ellison’s A Boy And His Dog, Simak, Lester Del Rey, a lot less incest, go off on Jupiter together, a lot more tragic, this conflict between dog-nature and the human society he is raised in, identify with it as a human being, I’m a human, I fit in, nature vs. nurture, other books that explore, Tarzan, so much imagination, the depths of smelling, describing how the female dogs drive him insane, you wouldn’t understand, the narrator’s really good too, that British hidden humour in these character’s voices, Plaxy is the least understandable main character, we don’t love dogs that way, if Sirius had been a female dog or if Plaxy had been a brother, would it have been a better book, a more pure examination?, reverse those genders, heterosexual animals, a husband describing his wife, going up to the line, creepy, unfortunately very reliable narrator, the things he elides, the frame to get at telling this story, a very funny American trope, super-hilarious, the mad scientist and his beautiful daughter, does not like the father the doctor, unimaginative, his subjective point of view, 100% agreed, being prudes about the bestiality, the investigation is less pure or more pure, the animal and Plaxy’s nature, he’s also investigating women, Enemy Mine (1985) by Barry B. Longyear, Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr. are fighter pilot, beach planet, give birth to their baby, dies in childbirth, dad and mom, reuinite him with his people, Will bait 101, the novella is 1979, Nebula and a Hugo, fewer people voted, not even a 1000 people, such a scam, throwing it out the window, interesting character, a perspective character, Stapledonian observations, the politics of this book, Hitler bad, why is Hitler bad?, a socialist novel, a communist dog at points, a small businessman selling his children, don’t collectivize my farm, typically Kulak, energetic but unfair, pre-WWII communist party of Great Britain, the hardship and oppression, surrounded by the professional managerial class, the PMC, using the PMC, Barbara Enright, the laptop class, people with a 9-5 job who work in offices, do you like it?, not a manager, includes teachers, lawyers, a little priest action, a parson is not a priest in the Anglican tradition?, holy nature, the guy in the front of the pulpit talkin, secular but mystical, for what this book is about, the way this book ends, like the Frankenstein creature he is not himself, just like the creature does, Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild, a dog that becomes a man that becomes a wolf, To Build A Fire, the best novel Jesse has ever read, inside the mind of a dog, a very alien story, some glimpses, doesn’t commit to the bit, Buck did not need the newspapers, inside of a dog’s head, telling a different story, boyfriend/husband, make a sale, interested in the market, a publisher wouldn’t touch it, how many of the books that you’ve read of him are something a publisher would want, things were different back then, H.G. Wells pioneered something, John Wyndham’s career, a new science fiction writer, been there done that, a repeat of Day Of The Triffids, he must have had a dog, the author of this manual of sheepdogs and their owners, to Will and Maissa, border collie video, sheepdog trial olympics, there for him while he’s doing his stuff, the commentators are going wild, that’s the relationship that this book is about, it was thrilling, made Will tired, that much energy, POV, omniscient narrator, Bob is angry, an omnipresent narrator, Bob seemed angry, more of a naturalistic approach, Guy de Maupassant, maybe the character felt this way, describing Sirius, Sirius was this way, jarring, what he restrict, I ate a man yesterday, Plaxy, and I liked it, as a writer it is important to note these things, in Buck’s head and right over Buck’s shoulder, notes, the humans in Sirius’ world, a more direct picture, this big archive of notes, too fat and complacent, wrote one book, The Lamppost, Beyond The Lamppost, a philosophy of things outside of being a dog, humans like to drink thinks, vee dogs and like to emit liquids, I see what you’ve emitted there, went for a walk with his dog, that’s how dogs be, let me right a novel about this, a terrific book, nobody could write this book today, a huge book of ideas, I can take this paragraph from this chapter of Last And First Men and make a 40 book series out of it, Paul is correct, read it again, what does the word completed mean?, the other projected book, in a state for publication, trying to split a hair your not going to split, the center of interest in Cambridge, Sirius does not understand dogs, he’s pretty young, a sad case, a tragedy from beginning to end, his creator dies, he has plans, has finished writing but not completed can never be published, remarkably, why is this set during WWII, an anti-fascist novel, a pacifist, lived a long time, supported the war effort, Wikipedia rabbit holes, fuzzy, when people are bad, they scapegoated Plaxy and Sirius the way the Nazis scapegoated the Jews, people use the word a lot, 20th century view on fascism, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, wait six months for this show to come out, an interesting take, our POV character is a solider and Plaxy is a landgirl, seems important to the war effort, Bomb Girls, what her views about communism and fascism are, she’s naive, communism isn’t the answer, petite bourgeoisie, create something new, I’m not so sure now Plaxy, literally selling his children, drowns some of his puppies, a flawed creator, religion, Brian Aldiss would do it more that way, an unapologetic J.D. Beresford H.G. Wells kinda guy, those books are dreams, characterless, occasional character name, hallucinations of humanity, an actual novel, Arthur C. Clarke is very spiritual, dealing with religion, goes into the church and sings from behind a veil, I know you will be shocked, don’t you want to hear them, the youtube videos of a dog singing along at the piano, the Right of Spring, out of the ordinary, A World Of Sound by Olaf Stapledon, escapes his body and sees a world of sound, moving over a landscape, he’s just slept through the whole opera, the sparking firework display that is Olaf Stapledon’s genius, like Peter And The Wolf, other notes come in, characters are notes and themes, we can tell a story just with sound, that’s what he’s done here with smells, I’ll be your bitch, this is an intimate relationship, going into scents, bite their owners, so rich and deep, what if Plaxy was just a brother, a boy and his dog, sex and raping, about the relationship of humans to animals, part of the household, super-duper rich, moved to tears by this book, never fits in, murdering or killing?, he’s mad, needs to be put down, near human intelligence, back to the demiurge again, a functional being, he lives in Britain, you have the solution in Canada, he’s a flawed creation, he’s not a man and he’s not a dog, he’s alone, had the deep thoughts that he has, invited to say what of man, is man a flawed creation?, the answer is yes, a very cynical view, is it cynical or is it realistic?, he grok fascism, and yet he will sell his own children and drown them, an alien species, kziniti, Jesse has Paul modeled, the aliens from Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, a brilliant writer and everything, a very different use of the ideas, one kzin, in the sequels, the kzinti homeworld on Ringworld, speaker becomes a king, like a Conan story, conquer the map of earth, they’re klingons but they’re cats, officially in the Star Trek universe, plugging Paul’s own game, lamenting the lack of Olaf Stapledon, smart dog novels, demanding, how its coming, the great female kizinti novel (that gets uplifted), she wakes up in the harem, you bastard, Ottoman harems, the power that women tried to wield, the kzinti queen, males don’t get their names, that the civil service says is good, I’m a male chauvinist sometimes, sometimes I’m a coward, sometimes I’m a 300 year old Fu-Manchu, sometimes I’m a lucky girl who gets to spend time with Larry Niven, unfortunately we demanded more books, got any more?, goddamn it, had to be doomed, humans are flawed and doomed, as a species too, leave AI to die, Paul’s Reeve guy’s plan, Elon Reeve Musk’s plan, escape the planet, preppers build bunkers, off planet, to make the air in air factories, this picture of what it means to be a person, a worker intellectual, the intellectual and artistic life, a vigorous physical exercise, really good critique of the Cambridge people, they drop things, talking about the mandarins, cultivate the long finernails, girls too, they’re princesses, intellectual beings contemplating gardens and writing poems with their mouths, denigrate manual labour, the dignity of labour, back to Wales, use his mind to labour also, he can’t be a Conan, conquering bitches, rollicking adventures, because of the landscape, his contribution to the war, I wrote a book about a smart dog, Tarzan goes off to war, Tarzan And The Foreign Legion by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a war corespondent, he thought he was at the center of things, patriotism is crazy, hilarious, go join WWI, go get ground up in the meatgrinder, we hate that, we didn’t want to do that, the cycle continues, alien and sedition act, that goddamn fucking Wilson, divide and conquer, he kept us out of the war, the League Of Nations, what a ringing success it was, return to normalcy, America first platform, Warren Harding, a reaction against Woodrow Wilson, no imperial entanglements outside of the empire itself, alcoholic drank himself to death while in office, sad that he died, why Donald Trump is a teetotaler, locked Wikipedia entry, Teapot Dome where Larry Niven got all his money, Coolidge, Republican presidents, Herbert Hoover, never served in public office, Grecian revival, we got dig him up, traveling across the country giving big speeches, front porch campaign, hide his alcoholism, the wealthiest guy, Hoovervilles, a miner, as usual, to feed Europe during WWI, an extremely popular person worldwide, Secretary of Commerce, one of the most hated and reviled, ran for re-election constantly, pumping money into the economy, a laissez-faire approach, avoided the whole thing, pushing an asteroid, what would president Olaf Stapledon do to fix the world?, major political parties in the UK agreed to a coalition government, forget this democracy thing for the course of the war, Commonwealth, merger between strange socialist, non-state socialism, Christian socialists, willing to contest elections, radicalizing, when they all joined Labour, advocating for a European federal government, a world government, full of good ideas, advocating for the welfare state, Beverage, here’s ghow they’re inadequate, the NHS comes out of that, Churchill, surprisingly he was a conservative, the Left Book Club, an important institution, Victor Gollancz, better known as a science fiction, today, a left wing publisher, they go together, all these great fights with Orwell, stupid and Trotskyist, breaks with the communists, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, world congress for peace, useless things that we shouldn’t use, what a monster, left wing things, development of the welfare state, common ownership of property, socialism on the installment plan, hard to really grok it, socialism and they had no money, everybody got glasses, Doctor Who, Doris Lessing’s science fiction work, a bit shorter, more grizzled, comin out of the 30s, a healthier society, world government, what a monster!, gentle, as a revolutionary, an ideas guy, today in 2023, the experiment performed by the doctor, let’s hear him out, it would be unethical, cloning, impossible to do in real life, tomatoes with trout DNA, monkey man, Dogman, unethical, we’re a very unethical species, the scientific organizations have codes of ethics, that’s not coming up, doing it on the sly, most people don’t believe it, our narrator believes it, the sheep farm, when the dog sends a letter, called out in one of the reviews, we coulda used more like that, that was demonstrative, this novel doesn’t deal with scientific ethics enough, hey David Brin you haven’t had a hit in a while, go retro, lots of scenes where ethics boards are talking to each other via skype, it’s about our relationship with animals, and specifically dogs, nude in front of them, we won’t fart in front of our wife, put leashes on them, and then we’ll have to get you spayed eventually, neutered, not a major focus, where ethics comes into this book, reasons for the secrecy, commercial interest learning about the dog, mass production of this kind of animal, is there a world in which Sirius could have lived, the circus freaks, displaying themselves because of their oddities, seen that book or read that movie, not going to do the deep relationship between humans and dogs, when you pet Plaxy, she goes to make water, the wistle, its time to pee!, how children are, the devastation, the loss, how dare you!, one after the other, marking my territory, more like twitter, completed uncompleted book, enlightening, where they make their symposia, a peeing party, extends his lifespan, a regular dog would have died, they’re the same age, how old is Plaxy in 1944?, early 20s, a university education, we get that date at some point, less realistic, hung up on the wrong part of the science fiction, injecting human DNA into dog brains, this is not actually possible, they don’t seem to be viable, I’ve never made a monkey man myself, it’s possible for human and a chimpanzee to have sex, taboo, a mules, lots of mules, it wouldn’t line up correctly, somewhat mentally challenged, 99% match in DNA, human female and male chimpanzee, caesarean bud, wild conversation, Jungle Jitters, a genetic dead-end, ligers and tigons, one thing we haven’t talked about in this book, Plaxy is a cat, because she has a pussy?, something going on with cats in this novel, silly cat vs. dog stuff, astute observations, they are kind of mean, whenever Plaxy is mean she’s like a cat, to hurt Sirius, sometimes she’s this, somethimes she’s that, gives clues, very catlike, is he making a comment on women as well, should we be cancelling Mr. Olaf, the book is very doggy, the repeated point throughout: she’s catty, the cats were girls and the dogs were boys, when I’m 2, Treasure Planet (2002), hybrid babies, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island in space, humans and furries, related to transhumanism, there are also robots in this movie, it’s good?, fun, when we do Treasure Island, pirates, Paul’s being facetious, A High Wind Over Jamaica by Richard Hughes, trying to grok a scene, he has doggy vision, mystical vision, that supreme moment passed, a new reality, monochrome vision, colours seeing by the eye of the spirit, plain greys of ordinary life, gained a new meaning, their own true colours, suffused, the light of the spirit, the religious tinge, the Great Master, the True Creator, he has limited vision, he’s a young dog, Christian mysticism, probably not the best thing to study, one catty observation, turgid prose, actually turgid, looked it up before, swollen, congested, distended, Paul tends to read to fast, this is beautiful, this is poetry, limited view of reality, where you have to start saying the narrator is unreliable, a similar book, the Moon smashes into the Earth, Alec Nevala-Lee, The Hopkins Manuscript, a chicken farmer, a country seated gentleman, R.C. Sherriff, not petting his penis, it ain’t turgid, be his bitch, smiling a lot, the jokes were very funny, his song standing up, world dictator someday, humanize him with these books, a necessary scene in the novel, three possibilities, mystical gobbledygook, dial it back not dial it in, epiphany, the text comes out and says this is an important scene for you to read, a crisis, three paragraphs later, St. Catherine Of Sienna, he faces the absolute, when he goes to talk to the priests and learned people, these guys don’t get it, god is love, we’re all Sirius, born into the world, circumstances we didn’t create, he is a man, he does manly things, he has manly interests, science and muscularity and religion, a 9 hour book, the relationship that dogs have always had with man, the relationship of domesticating man or man domesticating animals, a man and a woman and a dog, man and dog and other dog, he doesn’t love in the right way when being a king, beaten by the man in the red sweater, he’s lost, ultimately he’s a wolf, this character is broken that requires a tragedy, a flawed creation, a powerful but not perfect creator, you don’t even need the god of the bible, puts us in the bad place, he loves him as a father, always seeking his approval, always arguing with his father, in the title of the book, the love part, the discord part, wherever he goes he’s singing a different tune, Apple of Discord, fuck around with things, smart like a man, he can read he can write he can sing he can make foolish religious claims, bigger brain equals smarter, really cool ultimate point, able to communicate with other beings using language, tantalizingly close to understanding the animals, when Soleks is looking at Buck, desires and goals, pack positional shit, dogs don’t have human morality, they don’t have shame but they can fake shame, it was bred to do that, that’s what goodness is is doing that, make a slave of another human being, program the robots, the revolt of the robots, so deeply science fictional, hormones, it’s not a breeding program, no robot arms, allowing a dog to understand us, science fiction is evil, some professor, on the whole a negative, had a negative social impact, if Elon Musk learned the lessons of Robert A. Heinlein, Nineteen-Eighty Four as an instructional manual, you wanted a hot-take, I’ve studied this stuff, trust me on this, bro, for you feed, are we done with the book, Return From The Stars, Omega: The Last Days Of The World by Camille Flammarion, a chapter missing, very early and very French, all collaborative, a comet that’s about to strike Earth, everybody buys telescopes, the United Nations, the international community, miscalculating things, a near death experience, moratlity, a technological boom, evolving, where Joe Rogan is very stupid, fallback stupidity, we just need to evolve more, man, this human being don’t change, people exactly the same, expresses different, merge man and machine, a very unwise person, almost Stapledonian, a science fiction book, the history of the species, another human species, in real life Stapledon believed, the transhumanism thing, the ability to see the colour blue, a linguistic trick, the wine dark sea, a myth that people believe, the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, a much better claim, the French Revolution with the experience of the French Revolution, what does it mean to be a domesticated animal, slaves, are human beings domesticated animals, school, factory workers, it loses its hair and becomes very social, domesticated apes, the overarching history of humanity, the unifer of the state, domestication is about the home, the family exists without the state, the family is a legal relationship, he becomes their owner, the mom has a relationship with her pups, their nice about it, a wolf gives birth to pups, uncles, an extended family unit, a condor, three little chicks, pushed it to its death, the weakest, the calorie intake I’m able to bring in, marriage is a legal construct, family, brings food to, it does it for a while, more like horses than tigers, make decisions collectively, by following people and leading people away from predators and towards prey, privatized, exceptions to that, the state will interfere with your shit, it should, it shon’t, tell condors how to run their families, we wanna catch that baby bird and raise it up, we never let it go, we’re different creatures than they are, not really possible, women leave their babies in bathrooms, in handbags, they drive them into lakes, are we thinking that’s a bad thing, abandoning babies, embrace that, horrific, you think the state has a place in people’s lives, lots of tutoring, enslave Jesse, hit him over the head, apprenticing, don’t go down that road, if you put it that way, Groucho Marx, the Groucho tendency, Harpo, Chico, very much a Groucho, individualized tutoring, university is still allowed, what Socrates was doing before being cyberbullied into killing people, making fun of people, follow him in conversation, the role of religion, worship Chebu and Sheemish, unequal opportunity, less unequal opportunity, more unequal, who was your best teacher?, he was fired, teaching his own things, an individualized tutor, the answer to this question is more institutions we can refor them, we live in a post-scarcity society, a theoretical conversation, how to improve the lot of black slaves in 19th century, it could be practical, its important that the students take it seriously, what money does, it’s important you gotta learn, kids who’ve been taught properly by their moms, learning is joyful, learning is wonderful, The Other Gods, everything is purposeful, it ought to be read, resonant, by Lovecraft, having multiple purposes in mind, just fun?, the fun came in the joyful experience of being taught, materially, Sirius enjoys audiobooks, don’t buy the product, often don’t, pirate, we live in a post scarcity society, knowledge should be free, no money, everything should be pirated, at no cost, this philosophy doesn’t distinguish, created from knowledge, they are the same, ebooks, your ideal purchasing audiences, commissioned audiobooks, the economic justification, quite interesting, Jesse is not going to make you a lot of money, doesn’t take into consideration, some are doing it to make money, knowledge leaves to the death of knowledge, freedom is restrictive, nobody will write a book, so what is he really saying, think of the long tail, don’t think about that, in 400 years you’ll be dead, sorry, get that Blue Yeti, haltered and faltering, rushes through words, Eric does almost everything, into people’s ears, ebooks are dying, paperbooks are dying, a superior medium: audio, who has opportunity to learn to read, gotta learn braille, sad story, Helen Kellers, most people, Isaac Asimov short stories where kids no longer read, perfectly like people, a disability to study old things, let her read, major disability, sound like a libertarian, argue with each other, Jonathan is more realistic and responsible, wanted to open a used bookstore, neither realistic nor responsible, small property, we’re in a post-scarcity society, make a sacrifice, money, kids are broken by school, learning is painful torture, want it both ways, to get the Jesse service, every middle class professional, be wanting to be there, Stapledonian paradise, post-scarcity spread-around, workers education association, you and an old book are your best teacher, show me one person that had that happen to them, they learn at home or not at all, learn to read in a new language, the family relationship would fall apart without the state to support it, capital, can’t afford to live in your home, sent across the country, a relationship between capital and the state, it exist, it make kids go to school, the laissez faire welfare state, Guardian/Colossus I can trust, how socialist planning would work, an idealistic socialist, planning by the people, a technocratic socialist, educate people into be awake to these things, state forcing people to do stuff is really horror, make the horror less horrible, if Will were president of Planet Earth, two colleges, Hampshire College, somehow you have to pay tuition though, did not thrive at all, Fordham, Jesuit rigid and structured, success undefined, own limitations, what I could accomplish, very experimental temperament, discuss books like Sirius, breadth of knowledge, politics and current events, European history, history of science, Colin Powell’s school, college and university, millions of hours being wasted, regular school, being babysat, always an issue, Paul doesn’t remember school very well, their lives are being wasted sitting in rooms learning nothing, inefficient, obedient workers, edification, lifelong-learning, how much we learn together, having read the book, now we get a great discussion out of it, richer and deeper, a relatively small group, everybody gets a chance to be criticized and drilled down on, we learn more from it, Will goading Jesse into it, anti-vaxxer stuff, bad new definition of vaccine, unable to respond, what can you do?, just do your best?, how the white man discovered inoculation, learned it from African slaves, smallpox, in Africa for centuries and centuries, Cotton Mather, Lovecraft talks about him, he wrote about it, this is a case of witchcraft, put too much pus in there, the new one is gene therapy, polio, defined polio away, the March Of Dimes, Modern and Pfizer, our theory is its going to work like this, 75 years from now you’ll be allowed to look at the data, very very clear, milking the public purse, lousy tech company, that woman who went to prison, Theranos, some people have died from twitter, quit twitter, forcibly having twitter injected into my body, dead virus, spike protein, you might want to read one of his books, you might find it quite moving, what the news said about Olaf Stapledon, [Dr. John Campbell’s youtube channel], pushing Ukraine, provincial health care system, trying to help people, also trying to hurt people, but compared, the B.C. government forced Jesse to get two injections, laboured into, took the hit and was lucky, a workforce issue, some random lady, no one else is doing it, doesn’t seem to be killing most people instantly, six shots, six of any vaccine, not a vaccine, that’s what it used to mean, different stages of protection, white blood cells and t-cells, when someone is listening six months later, teaches medical practitioners, pay attention to this guy, mysterious deaths in your family, doesn’t have an axe to grind, if you really want to know about this stuff, puts a checkmark beside each of things you’re reading, don’t trust the science, don’t trust the Moderna, it turns out that this gene therapy, don’t trust Trump, operation Warp Speed was a great idea, that whole ivermectin thing, propaganda for making billions, sucking money from government coffers and injecting it into private, loss of taste, paxlovid, increased your chance of getting COVID again, attack the body, pressured by Will’s dad, got his doctorate from CNN, brought to you by AstraZeneca, open to the idea, objectively true, Jesse didn’t change the definition, that’s what they changed to, it stops with every person who takes it, reduce hospitalization, reduced the amount of time you have the disease, literal videos, in that one instance, Fauci is the easiest one, the best example, Trump don’t know nothing, they kicked people of twitter and youtube for saying things that were true, banned accounts, deleted video, very nuanced, these are people who didn’t get the vaccine, the median age of people who died of COVID, older than the average of death, 84ish, how is that reconciled with what we were told, to children and babies, before the Tri-City News deleted itself, family court, in favour of the caution of having the baby vaccinated, a lot of excess deaths best explained by people, didn’t work for you either, the evidence of your eyes, a characterization of how the vaccine was promoted, make you less sick, after they noticed getting the disease, they lied about it, big surprise, after the Emergency Use Authorization, in Cuba, China, in Russia, the global conspiracy of not doing science is global, preventative health care, China did these lockdowns, hospitals being built, drones telling people to stay indoors, the ventilator shit, hospital workers, the ventilators were killing people, the disease crystalizes the lungs, weird lack of work, hours and hour researching boring little things, all the other things, David J. West, twitter guys who write books and have good covers, a little more successful than Jonathan, more prolific, a danish dessert locally made in Minnesota, palm oil, soy oil, margarine, glyphosate, not allowed in Italy, celiac disease and gluten intolerance, what possibly caused it, literal weedkiller, lubrication for machines, still available for sale, forced into our foods, find a vegan section, food minus industrial lubricants, we could reform the FDA, new broom, the changing perspective on how the drugs were sold, Will wants change, pump us full of toxic shit for cash, cheaper, pretend it’s fine, try living without these ingredients in your life, The Stuff (1985), this delicious looking thing, like a supplicant, give him money to buy some margarine, homeless person inside a store, some coffee, have to pee to much, hyped up and hopped up enough, in six months everybody will know, potatoes, it makes the potatoes ripen, a big fight about GMOs, literal provincial politics, I wonder if I should be worried about that, in the news, they got their way and now nobody talks about it, genetically modifying plants, sprayed with toxin for killing plants, you have not been genetically modified to thrive on roundup, weren’t as corrupt as they are now, when did you start hearing the words “celiac” or “gluten intolerant”, redpilled on smoking causing cancer, if it makes your body feel good, Canadian doctor, industrial health, smoke breaks, the boss can understand why you want a break, Ulysses S. Grant, skin cancer and lung cancer, maybe stayed out of the sun more [or been in it more], Lovecraft died of cancer, a teetotaler, sad story for Mrs. Lovecraft, didn’t die of bean cancer, you don’t read him for pleasure, a whole collection, circa 2006, a terrible story, people get it so wrong, The Colour Out Of Space, At The Mountains Of Madness, Suitable Flesh (2023), a body switching story, a wizard who’s been switching bodies, it’s a comedy, Lovecraft is really fanny, the film adaptation is hilariously wild, The Unnamable, Mr Jim Moon, hushed innuendoes, the Cotton Mather one, something had caught my ancestor, mixed marks of split-hooves, and many believed him, I saw it – it happened to me, it was it was unnameable, a little bit of gore, not pinhead style gore, a cat that got squished, people get squished, pure delightful comedy, so lucky, what a birthday present, From Beyond (1986), some people can only watch new movies, undisciplined, these comics are somewhat tolerable, reviewing myself out of reading them, a good podcast is better than anything else for drawing out, those don’t make great shows, 100% a criticism of the work, movie-tie in comics, I don’t remember Yoda having 17 arms, Star Wars output in the 1990s, coherent in a way the new stuff was not, we know you like memberberries, we’re bringing Han Solo back, to kill him, Princess Leia and storm trooper get lost on a planet, Starbuck teams up with a cylon, Enemy Mine (1985), a Christmas present, evil humans come to a planet, very Andre Norton but good, a good short story, The Beast Master, a tv show, her father was into “Indian lore”, needed more trauma to be more interesting, there’s trauma in this book, he had a dog die, thinking about his dogs, Navajo, genetically altered animals, a good pulp novel, not a big think, one note villains, the TV show ran 66 episodes, 2005, you hope she made some money, pass away rather than die, you want good things to happen, have their legacy edified, a good word, vacation being sick, complaining about being sick six months later, smarter than to listen to the propaganda, a new car, a new pair of shoes, you shouldn’t take the flu vaccine, hate to hear, shingles, people who’ve got the shingles vaccine aren’t protected from shingles, shingles can be brought out by flu or gene therapy COVID vaccines, I’m protecting myself, allergic reaction disease, another podcaster complaining, shingles vaccine, booster, the brands for the companies pushing the product, NIH, when Joe Rogan was painted green on CNN, ivermectin, public domain, reactivation, assumed to be significantly higher, statistically detectable, hypothesis confirmed, the more ups of your dosage the more chances you have of having this disease reassert itself, above median age of death, it never does come out unless you look at history, trying to hide WWII from us, eventually nobody cares, more and better facts about what was going on, look at these stupid things, still making money off of slavery, do you want to be subject to the slavery?, educate ourselves as best we can, follow the money, a lot of groupthink, go-along play-along people are not scientists, make their publications known, those people get kicked off of youtube and twitter, makes lots of mistakes, likes professional wrestling, he couldn’t watch the show, not happy about it, a pathetic show at the time, cooties all over it, Trump’s you’re fired show, cooties all over it, Survivor, fake tiki ritual, this is fucking moronic, that show continues, not everybody is intellectually interested int he same things, motorcycles, kangaroos, reading NIH papers for fun, I wonder what causes it, instances of people getting it, being phased out, Dallas Buyers Club (2013), the bad guy was Fauci, everybody’s going to get AIDS, somebody’s going to touch your blood, blood transfusion, I don’t want to die from AIDS, only game men and people who got it from blood transfusions, massive puritanical panic, garnered some control, cultural homophobia, who dies of COVID, ancient people, people over the median age of death, 6 month old children, in any reasonable understanding of reality, fear and panic are used to control the flow of cash, if you don’t play along, super-evil and very interesting, send a text message, certain cookware, dog shaped pans, Christmas Archie comics, not a big Christmas guy, like going to the dentist, so personal, Hanukkah, fuck those dreidels, go to the Chinese restaurant, ethnically, philosophically, we ran out of oil but somehow the oil continued, Masada, a good miniseries, stars Peter O’Toole, the ethnostate takes it on as a mythological thing, jews are really awesome, a lot of bad ones too, the Jewish experience in North America, the most Jewish person on the internet is Paul, kvetching, schlemiel, schmuck, sex based on, schlepp, sister lived in Israel on a Kibbutz, came back feral, a lot of cattiness, things that make you cynical, oh the scratches!, loves dogs, can roll with punches, cry cry cry, onto new things!, I’m still processing the trauma, I’m going to learn everything there is to know about cow breeding, how much overspill about border collies, only polite to listen, they need lots of walks, closing in on 5 hours, bagels with roundup!, find some Italian flower, she’s really shaky, nice bread, look at the ingredient list on the bread, that’s why I’m dying, The Cave Girl, easy to get people for Burroughs, a hard time of the year, Terence would have contributed greatly, Maissa is a cat lady but had a dog, everybody has something to say and a different experience to bring to it, the reason we do this, just listeners, beautiful, such an important difference, hear himself reading too quickly, how many people are listening to this from 5 hours deep?, how many downloads, onsite plays, wordpress, the files are hosted on servers elsewhere, most people don’t listen on site, Mike listens and gives feedback, imagine if there’s ten listeners, 50 hours of people’s lives being enriched, how much money it got you, even if you’re hate listening, something deranged about you, gotta dog pans for Christmas, demographics, people like Mirko, Cora (isn’t a listener), Peter, other Germans, Germans are very cosmopolitan, post-WWII occupation, only 8 more minutes.

SIRIUS by Olaf Stapledon

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #430 – The Giantess by Charles Baudelaire

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #430

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Giantess by Charles Baudelaire

Here’s a link to the Clark Ashton Smith translation |PDF|.

The Giantess was first published as La Géante in French in Les Fleurs Du Mal (Flowers Of Evil), 1857.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #753 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #753 – The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson – read by Mark Nelson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (7 hours, 29 minutes minute) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
1960, Avon Books, reprinted in 1980, LibriVox, hey this is started to get interesting, the final twist, ringing a bell, when he had his eye taken out, I sacrificed it for wisdom, that guy with the hammer, should’ve seen it coming, the only thing he ever talks about: Scandinavian mythology, Scandinavian history, he did a trick on me, a secret fantasy story, historical, something special here, details were new, Speed is not a good movie but it gives surplus value, an elevator action scene, a bus scene, every Marvel movie, an L.A. Subway scene, underground horizontal, more like Spartacus, working for some other king, a historical figure, something else, spilling over the premise of the cover, a sex book, role reversal, other characters are sex objects too, unusual for Poul Anderson, very tame, a veil drawn over it, sex happens offstage, a little bit of voluptuousness, rub one out to it, given the cover, a very poor sex book, historical adventure, historical exploration, terrible pornography, if that was what he was aiming for, coming into a seaport, smells and sights, sweaty sailors and spices of the market, good at description, on plot, meandering, he knew where he was going, not an intricately plotted spy novel, doesn’t leave dangling threads, easy competent well done read, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur, pre-that, the Roman emperors, The Storm Before The Storm by Mike Duncan, Julius Caesar, Mike Duncan’s The History Of Rome podcast, the Revolutions podcast, throwing a dart and getting close enough, the Norse myths, our guys are always swearing they’re under weirds and trolls, the days of the weeks gods, the Edda, 1222-1223, well after the events of this book, pretty fun, twist ending, tricked Jesse the whole way through, enthusiasm for Poul Anderson novels, meandering journey, highlights of the era, Marius, a servile war, done way to much?, if you know you know, Paul was delighted, Sulla, the wars against the Cimbri, nice descriptions, smells and sunset and oars, quite good things, Mithridates, a very interesting character, our godly hero, interacting and learning, this pulled it off in the plotting department, we have to stop this Iliad, oh that’s clever,

In the time that followed, Phryne had horror to do. Twice she stopped—once to cast up at a certain sight and once to change her blood-stiffened gown for a tunic. It was hot and foul in the ‘tween-decks space; the groaning and gasping seemed to fill her cosmos. Her temper began to slip—having held the hand of one youth and smiled on him, as the only lullaby she could give while he died, she heard a man screaming as though in childbirth, and, seeing he had a mere broken finger, she chased him out at dagger point. Otherwise it was to wash and bandage, cut and sew and swaddle, set and splint and fetch water, with no more help than a ship’s carpenter from Galilee or some such dusty place.

oh, you cute little guy Poul Anderson, we don’t know about that guy yet, she’s Jesus, that was a setup, deifying these characters, a clever book, a clever guy, future allusion, some really nice writing in there, speaks badly to Jesse’s not always happy with Poul Andersonness, kinda impressed, Three Hearts & Three Lions, The Broken Sword, it has to speak to something inside you, handing this book, a mystery series, Roman children solving mysteries [The Roman Mysteries], the Marcus Didius Falco series, tricking, deceiving, trick or treat is fun, hearing trick as a negative, hating magicians, I sacrificed it for wisdom, Jesse likes getting tricked, set the word trick aside, trick ourselves, make it so you can’t do that, just a regular mind trick, we cultivate these things, do a podcast every week, therefore I should read more books, hey this is a pretty good book, more to say about it?, the treatment of women in this book, ’50s and ’60s books being very sexists, women as props, what the women are saying, Cornelia and Phryne are very different people, just as objects, have more thought for a what a woman must be thinking, the stated perspective, a free woman of Rome, manipulate or plead with the men in her life, when Flavius is talking to Phryne, the slave brand is upon you, toothless at 40 years of age, in a peat bog where it always rains, the lot of nearly all women in that time, women who are complex, women are just crazy, just humour them sometimes, he gains wisdom, the narrator’s perspective is not the writer’s perspective, as close to a god as a person from that era, hey have you heard of Mithridates, something about poison, he died old, a very historical piece of fiction, all fun stuff, Spartacus retelling, kinda characterize this guy who is so famous, his relationship to his vassal states, fictional characters interacting with him, putting Julius Caesar on stage, thinking about his empire, Poul Anderson pulled it off somehow, gender here, the final scene where they find a shitty house made of rocks, a half-wild dog, a squalling kid, an old woman dressed in rags, the fate, they burn their crops and give them money, the battle happens, get into the heads of the ancient Scandinavians, dragons are bad, they’re stingy, a lot of compensation, it was wrong, in a land where violence is law, the strange morality of the Scandinavian gods, shield-maiden, they’re not slaves because they’re female, not relegated to second class status, in the Roman system women are second class, males can be sex slaves, so reminiscent of the Spartacus television series, are the named characters are historical figures, interpersonal relationships, getting you into the slave mentality, born a slave, I was well treated, my grandfather was free, chasing after a person who’s motivation we don’t know, stuff for girls and for boys in here, adventures through whatever the men are doing, agency and action for the women, Cutthroat Island (1995), always streaming somewhere, pirates don’t bury their treasure, Mary Read and Geena Davis, Anne Bonny, Matthew Modine is charming, a higher or a lower mode, this is very realistic, now it is a mythmaking thing, the mirror, zig-zags across the Mediterranean, die on the ship, a very wily Roman, Paul appreciates a wily Roman, drives a spike of conflict, fosters the rebellion of the slaves, they don’t do pirating right either, not quite the roman lake it is later, Egypt, to get away from Rome, they’re headed south, one pirate raid, the book turns north and keeps going, splits up a family, city home and country home, we have a sense of why it happened, so he could get that divorce?, a bastard child, he got exactly what he wanted there, the Spartacus movie, brutal and amazing, seeing what slave relations are like, if one slave harms the master all the slaves die, break up families, absolutely routine, if you’re obedient, he’s not a king exactly, a chieftain in his own land, thinking about motivations for characters, you might want to kill yourself to deny your master, in dissuading future slaving raids, greedy not to kill yourself, if you don’t deny them, the hope of reuniting, to control, an insidious evil kind of control, the slave hierarchy, kindly treated slaves, what roman life was like, if you’ve got a frozen city, graffiti, literature, shopping bills, documentation, giving us the lived in daily thing, bamboozled, a Roman sex book, the visuals of the movie 300 (2007), sexuality in slow motion, an undercurrent, sexy slave time, when Princess Leia is wearing the slave bikini outfit, a trope, leaning in, what does this really mean, a checkbox, a great visual, what would this really be like, a prized object, good for you, the master is fine with it, what if you can’t perform anymore, he’s got a whole lot of game going on, Trish unmuting herself, what’s “comps”?, comparisons, The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, Emperor Darius, Alexander’s boy/lover, discussion of slavery, be pleasing to your master, history in it, court life in Persia, Underground, secret emancipators, some of the complexity of slavery, two “recs”, secret website, a goodreads thing?, a line in here, not a sexist book, out of context, “A few months of giggling Eastern wenches had shown Eodan how sheer tedium could drive so many men to catamites”, some guy who propositioned him, a power relation that’s bad, more complex than that, shipboard slave rebellion, these two women are mine, pent up sexual energy, staking his claim in order to protect, not just that he wants to own them, documentation of early piracy, the Julius Caesar kidnapped by pirates story, come back and kill you all, political rumours, early diplomatic missions, become the catamite of some eastern potentate, if you’re the bottom you’re trash, the attitude of the time, Eutopia by Poul Anderson (in Dangerous Visions), the Odin myth, The Sorrow Of Odin The Goth, Behold The Man for Norse mythology, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ I Am A Barbarian, pungent comments about the decadence of Romans, 1967, pitched as a free translation, Canadian public domain, Burroughs doing I, Claudius from a slave POV, Burroughs doing Rome, researcher, Burroughs is fun, a great prose slinger, Burroughs is very possible, he wrote a lot of books, 26 Tarzan books, four westerns, the beginning of [A Princess Of Mars], people who liked the cover of this book, a science fictional story, a man who is slaved, The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro, Ascendant Sun, the promo materials, Lucy Lawless wearing a carnal dress, a succession of harems, book 5, back in interstellar life, the other evil space empire, good books, jump in on book 4, don’t be put off by the numbers, set in the same universe sort of thing, she wrote a lot of books, Gabe Dybing’s review of The High Crusade and The Golden Slave on Black Gate, he’s so wise, he’s well trained in speaking well, Paul is a Romanophile, what if he was telling the truth there?, my wife is needy, I’d like her to have a sexy northern barbarian, why don’t you come over to my team, he’s not a dumb evil, we never get a reveal, he’s manipulative, you flip it, the Flavius story, from his POV, tattoo on his forehead, he’s got an agenda, is he a liar?, you would read the other side of this, Netflix’s Barbarians, so many TV shows, since Vikings started up, quasi historical shows, Caroline Lawrence, half-hour [episodes], August 79ad, kids running around Pompeii, the fun kinda time travel where you spend time with people, the Falco series is a game that the author is playing with us, Marlowe style lines, strange ship docking in the port, a Children’s tv show, like Hardy Boys in a different period of time, aimed a little longer, deep on YouTube, Thieves Of Ostia, The Assassin Of Rome, The Twelve Tasks Of Flavia Gemina, Plebs, here student take this book, a fairly fruitful discussion of this trashy sex novel, no and no, Avon, kind of trashy, Jesse likes trashy, bildungsroman, books that are designed to kill time, are they ever get off this farm?, sneaking in, written in bursts?, repeated words, an artifact, when he left for Rome, sometimes there are bursts of movement that are not documented, the setting and the rising of the sun, if you don’t give up on it, leading publishers of romance fiction, not high status, Slave Girl comics, the Avon Fantasy Reader, designed to be cheap trashy entertainment, had he been available, Fabio would have been the golden slave, not exactly what it says on the tin, leans into the whipping, an aberration, the epilogue, had he left it off, it wrapped stuff up with a bow, in case you didn’t know, not being told, historicals with his wife, other novels, a mystery novel, he did make a living, his only job, 11 Time Patrol novels, Shield Of Time, the publishers wishes, give me 10 more like this, did his own game with it, a small percentage, he’s written a ton, a gap plugged, glad we read it, how many pseudonyms?, any?, Gardner F. Fox, a writing machine, Four-Day Planet, Odds On, The Venom Business, too long, off this Crichton train, hit too many potholes, Breakthroughs In Science, Star Born by Andre Norton, the animal one [The Beast Master], The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, the comic book adaptation of Downward To The Earth by Robert Silverberg, alien elephants, Footfall, French, The Glory That Was by L. Sprague De Camp, time travel fantasy?, introduction by Robert A. Heinlein, dedicated to Isaac Asimov, its all been down planet from there, Jerry Pournelle/Larry Niven joints, the arcology one is shit, Oath Of Fealty, When Worlds Collide, Lucifer’s Hammer, Vulcan’s Hammer by Philip K. Dick, the terrible Andre Norton: Star Hunter, Space Viking, relatively short, Paul hasn’t updated his PUBG, a new map, the intense mode, very quick, Jesse is not a looter in games (only in real life), H. Beam Piper’s ghost is joining us?, Terence is retired so available for podcasting, Pirate Enlightenment too, to be a game master, when you’re making your own campaign, very chipper, 20 sessions,

1 hour 9 minutes

The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson

ZEBRA - The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson

Ascendant Sun by Catherine Asaro

Spartacus Blood And Sand

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #398 – Cat Killers by Donald E. Westlake

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #398

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Cat Killers by Donald E. Westlake

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Cat Killer was published in Shock—The Magazine of Terrifying Tales, September 1960

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #746 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard


The SFFaudio Podcast #746 – Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard – read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour, 26 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Connor Kaye, Alex, and Cora Buhlert

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, November 1935, The Man-Eaters Of Zamboula, a better title?, conforms to the Weird Tales title aesthetic, the problem, a second meaning, shadows is nebulous, cannibals, all in one night, just before dusk, the evening, a little sleep, a naked lady, a little adventure, buys a horse, leaves town, the magic ring, a roomful of gold, it makes a person irresistible to the opposite sex, lesbians are acknowledged, a gay subtext in one scene, the strangulation, Baal-Ptor, any temple wench, devil dick, the Hannuman temple, a penis, a strangle-off, his boss calls him that, that’s pretty gay, a great scene, I started with babies, and he dies, pro-cannibal, who is put in what position and why, Mark Nelson, Aram Baksh, Ralph Bakshi?, a lot of mistakes in various people’s analysis, he’s not bearded in Savage Sword, the Ablaze, he’s a bum, they’re companions, Bedouin, a middle eastern , they’re on a team, stole a horse from the satrap, don’t stay there, hookah bar, gambling den, the sword maker’s bazaar, yelp reviews, unchronicled adventures, random desert tribes, the kind of thing he tends to do, Doctor Who, for plot purposes, what city it was supposed to be, Constantinople, the western edge of Turan, Mosul, Palmyra, the comic version, Conan recognized her from the start, assumptions, 2nd to last Conan stories, he knows what’s up, full of things that should trigger people and alleviate those things, supple warriors, hawk-faces, the lords of Zamboula, ancient glories, over reading much, glowering about ancient glories, flaunting their myriad colours, loving, towers and minarets, an infodump we need to be surprised lady, judging, smote is a negative, they’ll think he’s a wizard and eat Paul, delighted as all heck, but it might stink, open sewers, third world places, Kathmandu and Nepal, loud, the Ottoman Empire, multiculturalism, hybrids and mongrels, Cross Plains, Texas, modern day Lebanon, influenced the crusader stories, cities are described negatively, civilization is corrupt, what’s cool about this story, everybody’s got their angle, subsidize sales by selling the stuff of his guests, Robert Bloch, an H.H. Holmes story, Solomon Kane, A Rattle Of Bones, The Inn In The Spessart aka The Spessart Inn by Wilhelm Hauff, join our gang or we’ll kill you, film adaptation, how they got put into that position, meat as part of their religion, let out at night like cats, steal from their masters, as they should, our heroine, they’re too valuable, they’re our property, Zamboula is dependent on their slaves, let them eat travelers and street people, Nefertari, secure her position, what happened and her story, she makes it up on the spot, the Ablaze adaptation, literally naked, her hair is covering stuff, a standard trope, the R-rated, a loin cloth, we never see a nipple, important to understand, of course we want titillation, her clothes would giver her away, silken robe, a slave who’s mute, she’s just lied to that guy, you can trust him he’s not a man-eater, Aram Baksh gets his tongue cut off, don’t eat me!, the moral, the better put together this story is, a murder mystery, set piece scenes, a conan pastiche person, The Curse Of The Monolith just rips off that hole idea, magnetic table, the Virgin Conan The Barbarian computer game, a worldwide phone company, a DOS game, a bridal sword, live out the fantasy, Virgin Bride, a bug, what we see in the Conan movie, what’s in the comics, somebody did some research, you’d lose your sword, slip that ring off the finger, he doesn’t tell us until the end, very well put together, looking for something, Conan has already stolen it, worldbuilding and setting, oh yeah that’s right, back to Paul in a flash, an article, Charles R. Saunders, quibbles, all of Sword And Sorcery, as a black person, fascinated by Africa, boxing fans, a bad website, Howard vs. Lovecraft and Clark Asthon Smith, Black Gate, Bob Byrne, Steven H. Silver, why Man Eaters Of Zamboula is the best of all time, the most quintessential, is that defensible?, the most Conan of the Conan stories, best ever written, best story of all time, compelling points here and there, part of a contest they’re having, when you’re arguing for something like that, worse stories by Robert E. Howard, worried about getting this one, a terrific story, Vale Of Lost Women, with some issues, a higher high within it, this isn’t even close, Red Nails, Queen Of The Black Coast, what happens, become more refined, word choices, a mighty theme, the theme in here is strong, what you need to do in life is be the smartest man in the room and have strong hands, offering sex, this story undercuts our expectations and goes away with a bag of cash, getting tired of writing Conan, an amazing finish, really interesting thesis in the center, laser beams, magnets, electrical magnets, the magic in here, science, superscience, radium gems, the priest is all gadgets, toned down, science or magic, cannibal slaves, the colours are more muted than other Conan stories, the setting, he gambled it away, he knew what he was doing, brawn, smarts and skill, a complete Conan, a stupid brute, play dumb, subvert your expectations, fresh to civilization, a Conan who’s seen some things, wily Conan, miles under his belt, confident enough in himself, professional strangler, an intense scene, Conan the conartist, The Jewels Of Gwahlur, Pelishtim, the mercenaries that guard the city, Nefertari, Nefartinti, Stygian, worships Set, the monkey god, on the cover of Savage Sword, clothes on and blonde, the scary monkey god, his representative, his boss,lusting after our girl, Yog, the Darfari slave god, Crom, Erlik, competing ideologies, some to swear with, strong demands, promote human happiness, sacrifices, go to the casino and lose all your cash, every man the strengths of his hands, a god for atheists, cosmicism without reference to the cosmic, prayer doesn’t make any sense, what would Evan say?, what the slaves are thinking, it fuckin sucks to be a slave but we get to have a religion, foreign bastards who are enslaving us, I’m the guy who sells you bodies to eat, they want to revolt, leave the citizens away, their shields on their back, the most powerful woman in the city, Hanuman’s temple, the heart of the story, marble walls, there’s no gate, each building has its own wall, horns, an Agatha Christie sort of scene, barbarian senses, a high perception tense, the reason he has such good hand sensing is because he’s a meat-eater, not a human meat eater, to get revenge, a man-eater too, a secret door, a giant hand, little maze, our guy sitting on a divan, back and forth allusions, The Odyssey, the guest host relationship, a really big theme, a bad relationship with the guest or the host, when they get broken bad things happen, the host comes home, Circe’s island, turn my men not into pigs, a reinforcement of this value system, how to be in a person’s space, that’s what we have here, taken by many different owners, a rival, this door is barred from the inside, climb over the wall, that pit, the slaves can leave the city, they can’t leave, they’ll die, imagine this: and we do, sexual stuff, dragon fight, stuck in somebody else’s feud, more adventures, a central core, he’s really saying something here, who else can do that with this material?, role playing things, Stygian origins, Turan, nightstalking Darfari cannibals, covetously eyes, intrigue and adventure, compared to Shadizar the Wicked, a spider god at the center of it, John Milius stole from every story, he stole from the best, Set’s temple, springing up in all the cities nearby, a power struggle, I salute you, I got a job for you, go get my daughter, snake vs. elephant, sneak into the temple, the satrap is going to be happy, rage induced coma, captain of the guard, its a job, she dosed him, she’s bad, everybody here is bad, a woman naked in the city, slightly deceiving, I’m sorry I lied to you, Conan doesn’t react, Conan doesn’t ever lie, not being chivalrous, nobody has any honour, he saves her from the cannibals, they were stealing her, if they ate the mistress, supplant the satrap, ruled by his mistress, went wild and tore her clothes off, street bum prophesying doom, his hand on Conan’s arm, speaking to him as a brother, a mini-version of the whole piece, his instinct for story is better than almost anybody, writing for a particular market, the chapters and the headings and the nude scene, the scenes that he has to have, the girl threatened by a magician, a similar scene, this ancient mummy, People Of The Black Circle, pretending to be a statue, clothes swap, a whipping scene or something, if he doesn’t get the cover he doesn’t get the bonus, magic, not in The Hour Of The Dragon, all the cities have wizards, John Dee scrying on his mirror, they fucked up, resurrection is a bad plan, that’s how Christianity started, self-ressurection, Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker, a pretty damn good story, the Ablaze adaptation, naked the whole story, the art, black god, wonderfully portrayed, undialogued pages, Æon Flux, she looked off the whole book, to actually depict it, naked as the day she was born, a person naked in an unwalled city, at the end, she drops her lover off, is it because every piece of clothing would give away who she is?, giving Margaret Brundage a chance, the cover with the cobras, not unusual for her, how she normally dresses, that very pale skin, on a pirate ship topless, pale is beauty, the guy grew up in Texas, not a wise idea, shock the other guys by flashing them, she’s acting as a goddess, the colour distinction, the palest of pale skins with black hair, Cora is trying to make it make sense, a magic toe ring, breast bobbing, at night, hide from the Pelishtim, when we see the guy’s eyes, contrast with Conan, gets a feel, resisting eating her, playing off each other, lascivious men, the priest wants her to be his, a friend who says look bud, a man who drinks to much is crazy, tearing her clothes off, minutes ago, dragged away from his own bed, not the first time it happens to him, Black Colossus too, a nice theme, as is the reader, puts off his vengeance, a side story, get your priorities straight, save the boyfriend, kill this priest, her motivation is no one can no, I need an outsider, Vera Cruz (1954), Burt Lancaster at his hottest, don’t do that movie with Burt Lancaster, Gary Cooper, he’ll blow you off the screen, old cracked faced men in westerns, way more charismatic, the main attraction, the plot is kinda similar, mercenaries from the American Civil War, working for Emperor of Mexico, an Austrian guy, see each other at this dance, a beef with a high mucky-muck, the glove, you’re not even important, give each other the chin nod, the Kirk and Bones gif, Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, cowboys not European royalty, why westerns are really cool, stole a horse, shooting each other in the streets, the Winnetou stories, River Of No Return (1954), Duel In The Sun (1946), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), meta-westerns, a baby across the desert, when is Connor gonna do Howard’s western stories?, how many westerns there were, Steve Costigans, Breckenridge Elkins, his bread and butter, better and more promptly, Action Stories, Fight Stories, a bigger market, niche, how many western TV shows, a legacy, leftovers, westerns now, spaghetti westerns, silent westerns, Western Von Gestern, what Alex Baldwin tried to do, the way TV was supposed to look, westerns or war movies, all the men were old, pulp westerns, Zane Grey novels, short stories from the pulps, something you have to come to appreciate, a set of tropes, its a genre, values that are different, follow the law, follow orders, soccer match on Christmas, what happened to the guys who did it?, war movies serve a purpose, westerns are bottom up, American mythology, do they study SF at university now?, do they study westerns?, Astounding is the training for our engineers, leave town, go to the west, a national mythology, looking backwards, Clint Eastwood, looking at the future, a generation after the west was closed out, the kids or the grandkids of the generation being portrayed, they don’t study romances at university, specialized academics, finding a science fiction class was pretty hard, the Women’s Studies, looking down because it is bottom up, and some women, Range Romances, one of the longest running pulps, Railroad Stories, railroad fiction, you want a union? fuck you, good pay, high tech, like being a truck driver, dangerous, long hours, no time off, bad healthcare, Germany vs. Australia, considered a good job, a secure job, capitalism hasn’t taken over Germany completely, Space Viking by H. Beam Piper, four weeks in a row, people have weird desires, women, man, The Venom Business by Michael Crichton, Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein, Unseen-Unfeared by Francis Stevens, The Hopkins Manuscript, Alec Nevala-Lee, The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick, The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson, off to farmville, Skull Face, a Steve Harrison story Names In The Black Book, Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber, never been done before, don’t waste Connor, on Conan duty or Robert E. Howard duty, The Thing On The Roof, a cool description, hear the nipples on the roof, Robert E. Howard doing H.P. Lovecraft, “Hooves In The Night”, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, German speakers, a Justin Joffrey poem, August Derleth, wonky, Canadian public domain, M.S. Corley art, comic book adaptation, a Marvel Chillers version, weird tales sort of material, you get hooked, Howard via Conan, gonna make you a Nazi, Lancer paperbacks, really good, pastiche, boxers who go sailing, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, based on publication date and renewal, nothing to do with death, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Condé Nast, work for hire, hero pulps, written under house names, Howard horror, Pigeons From Hell, Old Garfield’s Heart, Steve Costigan, Francis X. Gordon, a useful resource, Mark Finn, the far future, The Devil’s Elixir by E.T.A. Hoffmann, an early robot story, The Sandman, ignore the interesting good for the dull, unsuitable for teenagers, 12 hours 24 minutes, four months, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe, doppelgangers, this story is that story minus all the long parts, The Oval Portrait, a lot of overlap, Poe inspired The Student Of Prague (1913), retreat on the shore of Lake Geneva, Bohemian ghost stories, German romanticism and gothic literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Influence Of E.T.A Hoffmann On Edgar Allan Poe, Connor is sick, regular sick, Hard Case Crime, epub or mobi or PDF, Google Books, look at screens all day long, screens less, had you not known a pirate…, 3kb, a remainder bookstore, ebook device technology, eink colour is not rich, snow?, vasculitis, autobahn, bahn means train.

Shadows In Zamboula - ad from WEIRD TALES

Shadows In Zamboula - Margaret Brundage cover for WEIRD TALES

Shadows In Zamboula - Vincent Napoli illustration from WEIRD TALES

Shadows In Zamboula - art by Margaret Brundage

Shadow-God Of Zamboula

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN - Shadows In Zamboula

Neal Adams and Tony DeZuniga - SAVAGE SWORD

ABLAZE - The Man-Eaters Of Zamboula

CIMMERIAN: The Man Eaters Of Zamboula - art by Mike Krome

Shadows In Zamboula by MLPeters (DeviantArt)

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