The SFFaudio Podcast #739 – READALONG: Grave Descend by Michael Crichton

Jesse and Paul Weimer talk about Grave Descend by Michael Crichton.

Talked about on today’s show:
1970, John Lange, a Hard Case Crime, very short book, way too short, is this over, 3 hours 39 minutes, shouldabin longer, where’s the there there?, shortest book?, these days, based on the length, incredibly big font, pump up the point size, thin paper, print closer to the margins, The Postman Always Rings Twice, 159 pages, definitely a novel, tor wouldn’t put it out, as a paperbook, Finna by Nino Cipri, Ace Doubles, two crappy covers, dive into this book, Macgregor, Scottish engineer type, paradise, Jamaica, Ian Fleming, espionage, the best part of the book, the boat still in the water, this is going to be a good book, the high point, facile, his employers, a reveal, setup to take a fall, trouble with the authorities, the flyover, he tries to break it, I want more money, testing them, as you know here it is, slidething, The Prisoner, as well you know, this is all a con, way to easily, if it was a longer book, the weakest of the John Lange books so far, handling of character’s thoughts, a very naturally gifted writer, so smooth and clear, weakness caused by being a bit rushed, starts off amazingly, good slick solid, Jesse’s ideas were more interesting, a patsy, a political assassination, just money, diamonds, a much better novel, Dancing Aztecs, a weak Westlake, it’s a television show, one episode, the pilot episode, sidekicks, girlfriend, motorcycle, the island, a setup for a television series, 48 hours to clear things up, To Catch A Thief, 48 Hours, a Scottish name, Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit, not to go into Mr. Macgregor’s garden, eating vegetables, literally looks like God, he tries to kill Peter, hiding in a bush naked and afraid, the island of Jamaica in Macgregor’s garden, James Macgregor, a familiar plot, Thunderball by Ian Fleming, two movies, Sean Conner was in both, the Bahamas, the plot, a health resort, an Italian NATO pilot defected with essentially a Vulcan bomber, Falkland Islands, two nukes, Bond’s job is to find the plane and get the bombs back, SPECTRE, a girl, hires an airplane, where the airplane went down, exactly the same story, instead of nuke’s its diamonds, Ocho Rios, Ian Fleming Airport, doing James bond, if you didn’t know, The Venom Business, something to do with snakes, reptile stuff, snake stuff, ocelot stuff, a second ocelot, nasty, Archer, a rich person with an ocelot, whoever was writing Archer, ocelot action and ocelot talk, so strange, a hitchhike ride, you can’t trust this lady, going along with it, deeper and deeper, playing with our expectations, saw that coming, waste the ocelot lady, very lean, a very Ian Fleming move, an alligator farm, a guy with a hat that can chop people’s heads off, not a science fiction gimmick, more like The Prisoner, Season Of Skulls by Charles Stross, a Dreamlands sort of space, Rover is a shoggoth, a book that speaks to Paul, sorcerers instead of spies, I am really in trouble, he’s good, a full novel, much longer than this, too easily, ticking things off, Inside Man (2006), Diamonds Are Forever, the setup is incredible, the payoff is fine, ticking time bomb, the diving, great stuff in there, twists, surprises, not warranted, a loosey goosey, diamonds not so interesting, the ending, open up a dive shop/hotel, not a TV series anymore, diver solves problems, Clive Cussler, Atlantis, Travis McGee series, John D. MacDonald, books of this length and of this period, the title, this Samuel Johnson guy, explainable entirely by Michael Crichton, Samuel Johnson was not a medical doctor, more like Doctor Who doctor, his dictionary, Robbie Coletrain as Samuel Johnson, Blackadder, a useful book, most people didn’t know, this poem, the police captain, Crichton’s obsession with Johnson lead him to name a character, comdended to hope, sudden blast, see Levet to the grave descend, of every friendless name the friend

On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet
By Samuel Johnson
Condemned to Hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
Our social comforts drop away.

Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.

Yet still he fills Affection’s eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind;
Nor, lettered Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.

When fainting Nature called for aid,
And hovering Death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy displayed
The power of art without the show.

In Misery’s darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die.

No summons mocked by chill delay,
No petty gain disdained by pride,
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.

His virtues walked their narrow round,
Nor made a pause, nor left a void;
And sure the Eternal Master found
The single talent well employed.

The busy day, the peaceful night,
Unfelt, uncounted, glided by;
His frame was firm, his powers were bright,
Though now his eightieth year was nigh.

Then with no throbbing fiery pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.

a waiter, his personal waiter, a good listener, case consultations, a medical practitioner for the poor, a Yorkshireman working in France, this guy is amazing, a waitress listening to customers in a restaurant, a reputation among the lower classes, plans to send him to medical school, living in his house for decades, a strange relationship, a taciturn person, insightful and very humane, coarsely kind, an apothecary, a modest reason, the cool dive guy, the stand in for Crichton himself, why is that familiar?, a rich guy on the island, a house that has a name, Goldeneye, silversomething, the recognition is double, he’s also the bad guy, I’m the guy who put this book together, roleplaying, npcs, a fun adventure book, not everything has to be super-deep, lovely bits, a little off, is is the book, the explanation, traveling to Jamaica, Easy Go, Pirate Latitudes, a pirate book set in Jamaica, Belize, Bermuda, Bahamas, the commonwealth is useless, a great youtuber, J.J. McCullough, in the discourse, what is Canadian culture?, we’re sure about that, literally how the country is formed, similar, the atmosphere and recreation is similar, born into wealth?, the amount of travel he did as a young man, paying his way through medical school, his residency, directing movies, George Orwell, a very Crichton move, furniture and groceries, journalist and homemaker, everything is more expensive now, $100 a day, inflation dude, a Maroon community, where escape slaves go to hide, crocodiles, the doctor business, medicine of non-plant based variety is venom, caduceus, everything else is plants, digitalis, foxglove, nitroglycerine, you have plants and snakes, where it gets dangerous, snakebites, playing very adventurous games, interested in thinking about stuff, the crocodiles of the island, he isn’t just in it for the girls, Binary, the cover is a lie, she never was in the water, a lot of lying going on right away, they were both coached, to give different answers?, a shoutout to Sherlock Holmes, it has alum in it, forensics, drop some cigar ash, bauxite, from Jamaica though the Panama Canal to British Columbia, Alcan, authentic details, making it specific, post-doctoral fellowship studies, ER is his experience, House, M.D., most doctors stop studying, in his nature, outstanding, wanted to achieve in so many areas, minus child, a lot of learning to do, not in a happy place, Jesse is not a computer doctor, widespread and various problems, power supply, speakers pull a lot of power, a usb failure, as frustrating as fuck, very The Good Place, Jesse heard, a low level issue, Primal, as close to Robert E. Howard as you’re every going to get, in Gaelic or something, Graham Hancock territory, so well told and so beautiful, when man is reduced to his primal nature, a show with a thesis, some idea they want to present, Evan’s not going to like this, what triggers people is very interesting, injustice in the world, whatever triggers you is different and unique for every prison, Star Wars triggers Evan, Andor, very solid, Jesse doesn’t think Evan can get over it, Start Warts is stupid, Rogue One, prequels usually don’t work, mining, if there was a rebellion how did it start?, pretty good, not everything Star Wars is equally shit, on the feels, a baby Yoda!, armor is cool, Paul, Boba Fett, told correctly, little something to chew on, very well done, most stuff is crap, Sturgeon’s Law is probably 10% right, interesting places, Archaeology Magazine, slightly different than Indiana Jones, what things are being dugup, the techniques are boring but necessary, a lot of data, you don’t get a lot of metal, totem poles etc., petroglyphs, glacial archaeology, not just an arrowhead, Secrets Of The Ice, see glaciers again, Garibaldi Lake, squirrels [actually chimpunks], Nepal, Vietnam, 2023.

HARD CASE CRIME - Grave Descend By Michael Crichton

Grave Descend by Michael Crichton

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The SFFaudio Podcast #735 – READALONG: A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, and Tony DeSimone talk about A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Talked about on today’s show:
yay, the title is from Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe, yes is the answer, all the repetitions that build the emotions, Auber, written to somebody, that’s for you, the three names of the lady, not super-related to the plot of this novel, a point of inspiration, you take a great line of poetry and make it your book name, what he’s paying homage to, he didn’t steal the plot, this author from India, reset in India, the religion is no longer, 38 years later, this is very familiar, we’re all the same all over the planet, the entire book was stolen, chapter 8, the author ended up killing herself, because she knew it would be found out, wrote a [probably] suicide note to her mentor, this is the opposite of that, the great detective, into the public domain, using Sherlock Holmes, filing the serial numbers off of everything, making them archetypes, the vicar, an amorphous evil vicar, the wolfman, not from a literary source, Larry Talbot, Lon Chaney, Jr., Benicio Del Toro, The Wolf Man (1941), a cultist, a neutral party, set in England, 1887, a lost opportunity, October 31, 1887, Dr. Christopher S. Kovacs, The Lovecraft Ezine, a novelty book not a novel, The Wisdom Of George Bush, narration by the author, novel length, a bit different from normal novels, loose with definitions, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, experimental for the time period, epistolary books are popular, a collage book, I see what you did here, noticing the ending, the complete ending vs. the particular ending, a choldren’s book from 2011, Go The Fuck To Sleep, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, a novel told from the dog’s point of view, Elmore Leonard’s Coyote In The House, I’m a coyote, I’m cool, Be Cool, when he’s doing something else, confirm in the bottom right hand corner, Snuff, a cur and a hound, what breed he is, a mutt, conjured, one of Paul’s characters, a demon in disguise, modeling Hugo on Snuff, more than just a regular dog, an uplifted dog, what I was before he summoned me, Delvish stories, the horse Black, when you’re visualizing this character, a short haired dog or a long haired dog, medium haired dog, a big large greyish dog, Trish is wary, Gahan Wilson illustrations, a bloodhound, the sense of sniffing and to kill, conflicted rooting for Snuff, his master is Jack The Ripper, just blocking out his competition?, under a curse, being a closer, counteract his own curse, magical knife, the vivisectionist scene, Cain the original killer, Hugh Jackman, Van Helsing (2004), the monster that fights other monsters, read the last little bit of the novelty book, of course the distinction was subjective, the last paragraph, Jack and Jill went down the hill…, a button ending, just off the character’s right leg, wearing a Jeffrey Dahmer t-shirt, we are distanced in time from the Jack The Ripper murders, the Strange Studies podcast, HPPodcraft.com, will Paul be upset?, they addressed it, this is a long time ago, Genghis Khan was a bad man, the other Jack from england: Springheeled Jack, assaulting women, way less tight as a narrative, a folklore figure like Robin Hood, a pre-pulp figure, penny dreadfuls, villain to hero, Professor Moriarty, Star Trek, Wolf In The Fold, Time After Time, the fictionalized Jack The Ripper, the lengthy of the dog’s hair matters a lot, a shaggy dog story, a long joke, Paul disagrees with, unfair towards humour, why is Jill named Jill, the Frankenstein character, degrade, novelty books aren’t as good as novels is what Jesse is hearing, worthy?, the best way to understand what’s going on, Dracula gets killed, it’s not Dracula, faked his own death, constructed to be a novelty book in every respect, every day of the month is a chapter, the last line is a joke setup from the beginning of the book, the reason all the characters are in it, this is a monster mash, to have that cover, not design to be a novel of the normal kind, not a real book, a not well written book (if it is a blank book), weighty, the ride, not a substantial book, he’s playing (like a game), an early form of graphic novel, graphic novel is another word for comics, trade collections, a format, Reckless by Sean Phillips and Ed Brubaker, Gahan Wilson was never a comic book style artist, having him drawing these characters is fun, flying body parts, that cover is amazing, this is a mystery, setup to be a mystery, animals are trading information, James Warhola, one of the reasons Tony was drawn to the book, the animal characters, the spirit of the book, the graveyard scene, trading body parts, disappointed, fun and funny, a mirror, a statue, Pallas Athena, a regular female bust, the owl, naming characters, which one is Jack, the rat, the Mad Monk, a squirrel, Cheater, Larry Talbot in the chair, two assistants, unnamed cultists, the Good Doctor and his creation, openers, another bat, that’s the idea, bring all these character together, [The Monster Squad (1987)], the Creature From The Black Lagoon, a Spider-Woman, are we missing a mummy?, the thing steamer trunk, the thing in the wardrobe, the thing in the circle, stories with “thing” in the title, The Thing In The Cellar [by David H. Keller], The Thing Under The Stairs, what is the thing?, evil entities trapped in various places, growl and snarl, a checklist, a novel because it is a long Zelazny book, novelty films, Clue (1985), Battleship (2012), [The Beast Must Die (1974)], as a part of its marketing, 3-D, a marketing gimmick, constructed to be a shaggy dog story, because of that button ending, novels are the highest form of art, movie and myth characters, pays tribute to monster movies in general, mashups Abbot And Costello Meet…, Hammer Horror, Drak Pack, Rick Moranis as a teacher for a highschool for monsters, Gill-Man, Van Helsing, vampire brides, the witch, Hester, he’s making that joke, shaggy, its coming, shaggy fur, Zelazny is a great narrator, how good it was, the first Amber book, Nine Princes In Amber, Dark Tower audiobooks narrated by Stephen King, The Horses Of Lir, folklore resonates within, a universal truth of humanity, some older person is mean to you, there’s always a you, what water is and what it means, its transparent and also dark, where the mythology comes in, [New Wave], A Rose For Ecclesiastes, Damnation Alley, a cult following, other than Amber…, The Unicorn Variation, Jack Of Shadows, Deus Irae, Philip K. Dick, Lord Of Light, This Immortal [serialized as …And Call Me Conrad], slipped out of one dimension, there’s an audiobook for it, definitions of a shaggy dog story, irrelevant incidents, the very obvious joke, I love monsters, my friend Gahan Wilson loves monsters, he started with the reverse, wouldn’t it be cool if…, Case from Neuromancer, Molly Millions is a cool character, important in Neuromancer, the book is more important than Molly Millions, apologize for any confusion, make it a Lovecraft book, the Dreamlands, straight out of The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath, the dog and cat are flying, the river Shai, the river Skai, strange turbans, thag weed, did he do all this from memory, a typo?, a clue?, a verbal typo, a little error, did he do all that from memory?, compressing a bunch of things together, fake Dreamlands passages, Oriab, the technical plot of the book, openers and closers, they didn’t use the phrase, Robert Bloch’s The Opener Of The Way, August Derleth style, The Dunwich Horror, the Whateleys, the Universal Monster characters, the reaching across the lines, Snuff and Graymalkin, Jack and Jill, deliberately obscure, teamwork and respect, indignation, the rules of etiquette, Bubo is the cheater, Cheater, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a retelling of The Jungle Book, oh that person is a werewolf, Mrs. Lupescu, Mr. Lupescu [by Anthony Boucher], a teen book, or weird older kids in their fifties, kids can be bloodthirsty, Coraline, we want to be scared, Jack is essentially a good guy, Snuff is very loyal, polite as he rips you apart, ambiguous morality, they like the world the way it is, for whatever reason, having too much fun, the blind beggar with the pencils, Linda Enderby, having a lot of fun, I know who that is, a page where you put the checkmark beside, under Jesse’s rubric, a Jesse book is where ideas come front an center, clever, not as great a book as The Graveyard Book, the idea is not as good as the idea of The Graveyard Book, this is fun, WordSearch style games, it is a strange book, Roman A Clef, a novel with a key, each character is an analogue for someone else, The Great Gatsby?, you bring yourself to your book, the one set in hell, The Inferno, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Kurt Vonnegut in hell, it expects a certain knowledge, the hardest one to understand is the cultist or the mad monk, the Experiment Man, clunk around and pet dogs, Lenny from Of Mice And Men, Blaze by Stephen King, a Gollum-like way, neither an opener or a closer, the animal characters, charm and personality, make a fool of himself, he’s doing typical Sherlock Holmes things, his greatest disguise yet, one of Trish’s favourite books, it gives her a good and happy feeling, playing with ideas and references and characters in a very agreeable way, a very charming book, you’re allowed to love books, Zelazny’s opinion of the book, Zelazny’s son, living with his dad, fun writing this book, one of his personal favourites, long long long long joke, a short shaggy dog story, he’s not that shaggy, you pulled the rug out from under me, and Gray and I ran after, this whole book is front framed, I met a dog in a graveyard recently, that tiny front is subsequent to all the action, a prologue, recounting events of the past, chapter length is quite variable, the last chapter is the longest, not eating all your candy at once, why it is so unnormal novel like, Graymalkin means grey cat, moggy, that poor snake, Quicklime, getting drunk on fermented plums, sympathy of view for openers who were in it for good causes, letting Elder Gods ruin everything, a slavering vicar, a power monger, a lighthearted book, thoughtful, a good writer has different hobby horses that they want to ride, good writing or riding, scary parts of the book, trapped in the mad doctor’s laboratory, the vivisection, based on real stuff, demonstrated and wrote articles, the Anti-Vivisection League, The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, his characters are all villains, a big loveable guy, all the animals get along weirdly well, a fable, its funnier if you cut it off, weird stuff, specialized craziness, its self-aware, writing a werewolf book, a recognition, half the fun of the reveal is that you have to infer, Rasputin, a quiz book, a recognition guide, before the web, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was lucky to have three names, not being based on a specific character, a good place to start, an amazing idea or a fun idea, a classic for the ages or just a good book, it presumes the audience is people of his era, which political figure is being represented, it comes down through language, we know what a gladstone bag is but not who Gladstone is, Night Of The Hunter (1955), Tequila-Li, it should have been a penguin, a strange familiar, a big long giant useless pun, completely useless, a library sale, a provenance, all the illustrations, you need to experience the book version with the Gahan Wilson illustrations, a signed copy goes for $265, inscribed vs. signed, please don’t dedicate it to me, association copies are more valuable, a five time Hugo finalist, some rando, this was for Paul, massive collection $150,000, Nine Princes In Amber signed, advance reading copy, even truer than first edition, uncorrected proof, this work is a novel, why are you telling me it is a novel?, Based On A True Story: A Memoir by Norm Macdonald is not a true memoir, the ghost writer that Norm Macdonald hired was an alcoholic, one big long shaggy dog rape joke, foreword by Louis C.K., autobiography but I don’t have to tell the truth, describing it as a novel, novel means new, [A Million Little Pieces by James Frey], memory, what I remember about it, untrustworthiness, Better Call Saul, a copy of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, how time travel works, a real book, really good writers, the children’s book, a 19th century book, the ability to talk to animals, a gnome or something, The Moon Is A Balloon by David Niven memoir, so raw and real, BBC audio drama of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising, Over Sea, Under Stone, The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Jesse has some problems with series, New Year’s Day, Star Trek, I, Q by John de Lancie and Peter David, abridgement as an art form, abridgements or short stories, abridged books have fallen out of popularity, The Rules Of Acquisition, audiobooks come first and the paper book comes after, audiobooks are cheaper than paperbooks, Jesse’s prediction: audiobook and ebook only, colour eink devices, the full experience, some radical shifts in publishing, a backlit screen vs. a piece of paper, a digital device that doesn’t fuck up your eyes, Paperwhite Kindle devices, ebooks, library background, a sale on at The Library Of America, books are light and heavy, at night, reading before sleep, the blue light thing is bullshit, circadian rhythm, screens, Doctor Who, relaxing sleep related videos, rain and fireplace and somebody reading a book, real rain not fake rain, Wayne June needs to become a YouTube personality, a little set, a dog or a cat, there’s no problem Doctor Boblum, don’t mind these strange lumps, nerdy asmr videos, influenced my taste in music greatly, all the extras, the actress who play Jo Grant, you poor boy, more extras than Jesse’s ever seen, the problem is the writing, William Hartnell vs. Jon Pertwee, Inferno, a geothermal drilling plant, a mad scientist, a 1984 style dystopia, everybody is borrowing from everybody else, The Monster Hunters, they go through all the monsters, superfunny, the ElfQuest audio drama, work emergency -> emerged properly, Apple bricked Tony’s phone, The Haunting Of Roy Steel, a werewolf movie with a “paws”, what is the best way of expressing that idea?, Barry Letts, KVOS 12, one of the worst ones, the special effects, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, on PBS in North America, serials of variable length, ten 25 minute episodes, coffee addiction, really cool ads, local comic book store, 3 o’clock in the morning ads, recorded over, NSYNC footage, I recognize your name, you were a scriptwriter for Doctor Who, Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers Of London, people can have it whenever they want, can’t stop it might as well allow it, Tony’s reading of The Time Machine, The Sign Of The Four, Hard Case Crime, The Valley Of Fear, The Five Orange Pips, it works in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, the KKK, weird topical stuff, a lot of it is tech based, bicycles, Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the Annotated Brothers Grimm, being a bookstore employee, you need to arrange your life to do the things you like, how the government is fucking you, the rent is too high, a very big rabbit hole, happily retweet, pick your targets.

A Night In The Lonesome October by James Warhola

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Reading, Short And Deep #380 – Halt! Who Goes There? by Robert E. Howard

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #380

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Halt! Who Goes There? A Mystery Story by Robert E. Howard

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story (and an exacting transcription PDF).

Halt! Who Goes There? A Mystery Story was first published in The Yellow Jacket, September 24, 1924.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #658 – READALONG: Dancing Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #658 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, and Trish E. Matson talk about Dancing Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake

Talked about on today’s show:
mid-1970s, questions, longest novel, why it is so weird?, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1965), Westchester, Pennsylvania, a bold claim, a huge collection, Rat Race (2001), this quasi-genre is called “epic comedy”, The Cannonball Run (1981), Aston Martin DB5, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., a diocese in California, a really stupid movie and really good, atypical for Westlake, a huge cast, funny as heck, ever scene is very Westlake, overall the picture is unWestlakian, 40 people and a hawk, omniscient point of view, chapter titles, the structure, he’s a master at this terrible genre, entertaining, light, Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake, a problem somewhere in New York, Westlake showing us New York, a member of this neighbourhood, everybody in New York is looking for something, the second day of the search, fifteen hours from South America to New York, the inferred bar fight, so good, you could put this right on film, Westlake movies, very filmic stuff, in novels characters would never do this, the master of the novel form, at the height of his writing powers, he’s using his powers for simplistic movie comedy, Cannonball Run is trash, super-cute, he’s enjoying himself, self-indulgent, Farrah Fawcett, they’re inherently bad for you, The Good Place, The Cannonball Run II (1984), Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965), Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies (1965), Wacky Races, Dick Dastardly, a plague we’ve gotten through and over, the Harlem Globetrotters on Scooby-Doo, mid-60s into the 80s, the Scary Movie series, parody movies, a cast of famous actors in Airport, the airport sequels, Airplane!, big cast novels, The Gods Must Be Daring (1997), a wonderful assemblage, leaning on ethnic stereotypes, bigoted stereotypes, n-words and other ethnic slurs, how it was back then, we should do better now, Harlem, in the parade of truckbeds going by, a chapterlets from the point of view of the two kids watching the parade, in dialect, the Brer Rabbit stories by Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus, Brer Fox he lay low, Brian Holsopple, dynamism, no restrictions, all out zany, so wide so broad, hanging out with Pedro is a book by itself, ravished, so many people end up happy, there’s only one winner, they all had fun in the race, all in the journey, the best episode of Deep Space Nine is about a crew of Vulcans and the Deep Space Nine raggamuffins, they don’t win they declare victory, go back to Quark’s and have a raktajino and enjoy they’re muscles being sore, the familiar plot, the setup, The Fugitive Pigeon, The Maltese Falcon, the Westlake Review blog, The Mourner by Richard Stark, how Westlake often does something, how he created Dortmunder, a comedic scene, derailing your hardboiled protagonists, cozy versions of Stark plots, back to Paul’s poll, side series, sidekick heisters, a criminal job at the airport, he’s a wonderful guy, only the hawk isn’t criminal, so much meta writing, as a professional writer, always looking for ideas, when he hits on an idea, how the aztecs are genuine, how many scenes where suddenly the action stops, a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure Of The Six Napoleons, the strange circumstances that brought about these events, a squash court for a certain park, congratulating themselves, “I believe my subject is bewilderment”, bewildered by reality, how it could possibly be, sixteen Dancing Aztecs, why are they moving like that, they have a reason, heisted from an ATV by Americans, a British coup in Antigua: Under An English Heaven, Kahawa, a coffee train heist book?, hustling, gritty, only New York, decades ago, Robert Moses, a sense of place, Westlake’s job is to go out in the city and observe and say “wow”, two travelers, places to go in New York, amazing experiences you can have, the real treasure of Westlake, a sanitation worker with a big route, the park on the weekend, the beach in the winter, a billion corners of New York, how many nooks?, various spots that need pooping on, an archaeologist looking at the mid-1970s, the father in Somebody Owes Me Money was always working on the insurance papers, gimme twenty books and only one was written by Westlake I could find it because of characterization, the bewilderment scenes, he must be a private eye, the private eye said, weird glomming on, the mom smells like a tomato, at the park with his kite (on fire), he’s got a B.B. gun, almost like magic realism, you can’t say no to it, the wry affection he holds for most the characters, gentle fun, Jane Austen, “the hero”, he likes them all, gold, how all the different statues got broken, a twist at the ending, 150 pages earlier, the wrong statue, a sleight comic novel of skill and craft, Westlake at the height of his powers, an unreliable narrator, the Westlake review writer is very expert, an FBI agent who had been fired years ago (but thought he was under very deep cover), throw a monkey wrench in, create scenes, Robert Redford is a thief, The Hot Rock (1972), Sidney Potier as an agent trying to stop him, absolutely zany, a filmic only genre translated into a book, something that is difficult to do in a book, the power of his amazing characterization, Westlake showing off, the answer is yes, pretty impressive, Bank Shot, Smoke, The Spy In The Ointment, in dialogue with other authors, Lawrence Block, past comic novels, Art Dodge’s greeting card company, Two Much (1996), Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, the V.S. Goth Cab company, like Edgar Allan Poe the French love Donald E. Westlake, an unauthorized Stark adaptation, big in France, Drowned Hopes is Westlake’s retelling of The Colour Out Of Space by H.P. Lovecraft (kinda, not really), Smoke by Donald Westlake, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, audio doesn’t get archived on the Waybackmachine, ground out of the internet, forever is not as long as we though it was, Travelers Far And Wee by Donald E. Westlake, this explains all the traffic in New York, something that’s easy to miss in Westlake is that he’s very philosophical, he’s surprised he’s an author, the fake publishing agency, its a fuck book, Westlake wrote those, the market’s not there (the Science Fiction market), they all have day jobs, less and less reliant on getting that publisher, where there’s a demand to be an author there’s going to be a scam, these comic crime capers are all about himself, they’re all getting scammed, the wonder, the absolute bewilderment, its unbelievable what people ill trick themselves into doing, calmer and calmer the more they fight, he likes being a cuckold, the other Oscar, best adapted Screenplay, Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me, one of the joys of this podcast, re-reads, the secret of what podcasts are for: its , The Curse Of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, everybody needs a good excuse, Larry Niven, allowable as long as it is homework, a mental block, assignments for podcasts, how many podcast has Scott got going?, two readalongs per month, all in good fun, a Luke Burrage show, Amazon and Google searches have greatly degraded, use an adblocker, adblocker browsers (Brave), the central Andes, the maximum extent of the Aztec Empire, a fictional South American country, what research did he do? his whole life, a Richard Stark novel set of the coast of Cuba, Lawrence Block’s novel Killing Castro, a very political time, he’s really good at hiding the politics, his weird personality, very different from most SF writers, Robert J. Sawyer makes his full time living as an SF writer, wife with a job, lives in a condo, no kids, hundreds seeming thousands of TV writers writing terrible shows and making very good livings, seemingly no interest in books, the history of the 20th century, the Teapot Dome Scandal, all the other people in the family that amounted to zero, billionaire, Elon Musk did something interesting with his money, putting a car in orbit of the earth is stupid but cool, Joachim Boaz writing about Larry Niven’s inheritance “at least he’s honest about it”, stuff on the moon, expanding the Dortmunder world, the recent film adaptation of The Colour Out Of Space, the HPLHS, The Voluminous Podcast: The Letters Of H.P. Lovecraft, little Auggie Derleth, C.L. Moore, the redemption we all wanted him to have, mea culpas, his political transformation, if this is what a conservative sounds like sign me up, economic philosophy, more people of the elite class need to have that feeling in order to change, he thinks he’s better than everyone else, and he’s failing at school, writing a newspaper column as a teenager but can’t finish high school, straight from the source biography, the destruction of Uncle Hugo’s bookstore, the website, H.P. Podcraft has a patreon, Houdini, more professional than premier prestige podcasts, what a triumph their podcast is.

Dancing Aztecs (ITALIAN) by Donald E. Westlake

A New York Dance by Donald E. Westlake

A New York Dance [interior dustjacket] by Donald E. Westlake

Dancing Aztecs by Donald E. Westlake

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The SFFaudio Podcast #525 – READALONG: The Variable Man by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #525 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa Vu, and Evan Lampe talk about The Variable Man by Philip K. Dick.

Talked about on today’s show:
a novella from Space Science Fiction, September 1963, illustrations, going deep into Philip K. Dick, wanting to like it, recapping Evan’s thematics, big data, blinkered, as art, so many important elements, starting where he ended up, shifting realities, what is human?, the frontier, labour and the meaning of labour, interesting authoritarian dystopias, anti-Orwellian, Solar Lottery, The Man Who Japed, direct democracy, optimism, they have the whole universe open to them, the narrowmindedness of Cold War thinking, the first tinkerer hero, an average putterer, preternatural in fixing or degraded skills?, preposterousness, the generalist vs. the technocrat, academia limits you, narrow corridors of specialization, I know more than you and there’s no way you can reach, getting ahead of Paul, write a sonnet, build a wall, solve equations, pitch manure, specialization is for insects, esoteric order, intellectuals vs. academics, feted, he’s great!, how Philip K. Dick doesn’t fit into his own environment, what is this all about?, what’s happened, his car breaks down, “I’ll have a look”, how can we possibly move to a new place, “My god! This is amazing!”, The Golden Man, completely like a chickenhead, functionaries, coffee and boobs and that’s it, the proto-tinkerer, Time Pawn or Doctor Futurity, time travel, saying something about the interaction with specialization, the “genius bar”, “geniuses” being slightly more than minimum wage, Jesse ruined the show, Robert McNamara, The Fog Of War (2003), a numbers game, true to life, not guiding the policy, Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), letting the spreadsheets dictate, the tyranny of the computer, hydraulic empires, China, the nature of the infrastructure, Arnold J. Toynbee, Dune, one small intrusion, no variables allowed, A World Out Of Time by Larry Niven, Stability, Meddler, Paycheck, competence porn, House Of Cards, Sherlock Holmes, almost any John Scalzi protagonist, Breaking Bad, he’s doing science!, so awesome to see it, oh my god we’re going to do some science, helium has these properties!, black boxy, the kid’s vidsender, a genetic freak, he is the hydraulic empire, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, Little Black Bag, such a competent bag, competence satire, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, is a vizsender facetime?, this is public domain, the visuals, lemmee fix that, a real robot now, fantasy real objects, stories with games, War Game, trying to invade the Earth using board games, sitting down to play, Monopoly is a capitalism simulator, the purpose of Monopoly, toys and game and hyper-competence, fixing things for coffee and donuts, no vivid mental life, the Pole, Soviet scientist, Sergei Korolev, expansion, why do we never see the Centaurans?, Traveler, a decaying empire, The World Jones Made, imperial ambition, Oregon trail, the noser or the jitney, a used car lot, Mimsy Were The Borogoves by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, a mirroring, a conversation, Waterspider, Astounding, 3-D movies every night, The Variable Man, the old time pre-cog who wrote it, The December 1962 IF, a meta-story, commenting on his own work, Orpheus With Clay Feet, We Can Build You, a reference to Nanny, pre-cogs are science fiction writers, how to build the future, welding skills?, soldering skills?, the ultra-competent handyman, shoe a horse and run a government, fantasy as the main element, Reading, Short And Deep, Strange Eden, slem ray vs. r-pistol, asshole braggart character, tame animals, there’s a lady, a retelling of the Circe episode, Jesse just lights up, getting those rocket ships off the ground, Beyond Lies The Wub, a pig with a ghost inside it (that wants to talk about philosophy), so weird and obsessive, The Gun, The Defenders, an elaborate bureaucracy, meetings, no love interest, it reads like a script, dropping bombs on a guy with a horse and cart, Mr. Spaceship, weapons of war, a dying scientist, a vehicle of exploration, The Defenders, a trans-humanist force, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, shell people, “you can be beautiful”, they have longings, Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson, the cripples, colonization, Dick’s first long fiction, how to put things together, novel structure, the coffee, the boobs, the trail of Philip K. Dick, the characters are lacking, irritable anxious weird dudes, I want my comedy, Evan thinks Galactic Pot-Healer is Dick’s novel (for a deep philosophy on work), the jokes, the silly stuff, you went there didn’t you, the compatibility test, spending the time, reading it is a pleasure, intellectual stuff, themes, no pleasure, elegance, beauty, Earth against the others, who is the aging empire here?, the British, the Nazis, vundervepons, invasion board, the big board, The Penultimate Truth, fake work, fake war, are they the Japanese?, Philip K. Dick’s childhood poems, Aunt Flo judging his work, weeks and weeks and weeks of newspapers, war war war war domestic domestic domestic, American tank giving Japanese tank a piggy-back ride, The Man In The High Castle, the role of war, the war of munitions, the war of industry, we can win WWII no problem, here’s a Japanese intern(ee) that was murdered, The Simulacrum, Reinhardt, Reinhard Heydrich, the Wannsee Conference, the calculation, spreadsheets were involved, Supernova In The East, anti-war in Japan, elan, The Crystal Crypt, a snowglobe story, the Black Clad Leiters, Nazis on Mars, childhood trauma, reflecting, what if me and my fellow writers are pre-cogs, nobody else uses pre-cogs, Null-A, a parody of the plots of The Pawns Of Null-A, Null-P, Think Like A Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly, what if…, The Great C, work as therapy, art therapy, what’s your therapy?, occupational therapy, Dick being a bit of a pre-cog, find work you love, find pleasure in your work, fantasy, Taiwan, work should be enjoyable, work being meaningful, a euphemism, a way of tricking yourselves, kindergarten, lunch is coming and take your pills, universal basic income, getting paid in coffee and a sandwich, the lack of ability to fix things, openable phones, a plastic cover over the engine of modern cars, alienated from the ability to fix your own stuff, walking towards this Philip K. Dick future, the whole Amish thing, human scale technology, Murray Bookchin, anarchism, the light switch as consent, thinking through the technologies we choose, obsessed with tiny houses, being “off grid”, growing the fuel for the horses, compressed air technology, social ecology, the kind of guy they don’t talk about in school, Towards A Liberatory Technologies, post hole diggers, this would make a good movie, very visual, Molly Jojez has blue skin, they always adapt the wrong stories, a failed experiment, Idiocracy is The Marching Morons, Mark Twain, a reverse Connecticut Yankee, Flight Into Forever by Poul Anderson, the heroic past, Little, Big: Or, The Fairies’ Parliament by John Crowley, return of the king, The Skull, Paycheck, Captive Market, All You Zombies, For Us The Living: A Comedy Of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein, social credit, socreds, Alberta, ancient political ideas, neo-liberalism, an interesting thinker, mostly wrong about everything, The Number Of The Beast, time and space and universes, Barsoom and Oz, Sliders with sex, we need utopias, solar punk, green shoots away from this grim dark, post apocalyptic story, Netflix, lots and lots of science fiction and almost all post-apocalyptic, zombies, an anarchist take on a post apocalyptic story, Doctor Bloodmoney, dog eat dog vs. human eat horse, a thing for horsemeat, another thing for the rhetorizer, Horselover, why is he murdering the horses?, Confessions Of A Crap Artist, weird conspiracy theories, another meta observation, pseudo-science magazines, a Dianetics scene, a misfit, the competent man stuff, his answers are all wrong, interesting in their absence, there’s no explosion, not acceptable for a film, that’s not the problem he’s interested in, true wub!

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #516 – READALONG: The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #516 – Jesse, Mr Jim Moon, Maissa Bessada, and Evan Lampe talk about The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie

Talked about on today’s show:
1920, serialized with wonderful illustrations, WWI, volunteer hospital dispensary, Cynthia, Dashiell Hammett, Dick worked in a repair shop, H.P. Lovecraft never left his house, the best selling novelist of all time, Shakespeare, pretty impressive, go back to the start, so polished, Sherlock Holmes, her first dog was named George Washington, Agatha Christie: surfer, her house was named Styles, her husband had an affair, she mysteriously disappeared, Curtain, the template for her later books, a court case, gathering everyone together in the library, Captain Hastings, his brother she kept in a basket, Oscar Wilde, interactive, written on a wager, the ideal detective story, what really made her reputation, what she’s created here is something people really liked, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, an intellectual game you play with yourself, Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin, the novelized form of a game that can only be played between a reader and an author, a sudoku puzzle, “cosy” murders, Mr Jim Moon’s shows on Choose Your Own Adventure books, props, the map of the house, the fragment of the will, play along at home, tremendously cool, an ahead of its time idea, Dell mapbacks, Avon mapback, a very American cover, Marilyn Monroe, the layout of styles, who’s lying, American hardboiled, so detached, emigres, the corrupt police department, everyone’s dirty, Raymond Chandler, a body, a motive, more escapist than fantasy literature, who killed this nice lady, who started this goddamned war that’s killing everybody, Bryan Alexander, it can’t but help talk about WWI, pro-war rallies, patriotic Belgian refugees, the rape of Belgium, an offer to write propaganda, unemployed uppercrust guys, Inspector Japp is not the right class, I much prefer the Belgies, aint your ordinary run of foreigners, noir books, James M. Cain, the murderers are the main characters, suspense, game-playing fantasy, if you could do anything after the war, I’d like to be a detective (like Sherlock Holmes), Jesse ruins the show, 15 Agatha Christies, read like popcorn, so relaxing, so untaxing, turn on my brain more, Chandler, the breakdowns of people’s lives and marriages, Hastings is sort of a flake, offers to marry the first lady who starts crying in front of him, an odd scene, someone might take you up on it, failed romance, the promise that made Agatha Christie very wealthy, there could be more of these adventures, like Arthur Conan Doyle, Miss Marple, problems from success, an outsider’s view of something very inside, Murder In Mesopotamia, Murder On The Orient Express, this is where Agatha Christie wrote, basing it on her own experience, losing money, murder for revenge, murder for love, murder for money, mostly money, Evelyn Howard, playing housemaid, a con-artist, American hardboiled evil characters, The Postman Always Rings Twice, the estate is a diner in California, the Howard and Inglethorp relationship, the intricacy of the plotting, double jeopardy, civics class, this cleverness, like a puzzle, The Simple Art Of Murder by Raymond Chandler, the authentic flavour of life, begging the question, a really long game, deeply embedded, impressively patient, on vacation in Dartmoor, The Hound Of the Baskervilles, the isolated house, a convoluted plot to disinherit somebody, red herrings, almost efficient, legitimated, the spy, the escaped lunatic, thrown off the scent, not the way murders actually take place, the Khashoggi assassination, reading too many Agatha Christies, lured into an embassy, a hit team, a lot more grubby, Jesse wrecks the podcast again, real life murders, John Haigh, the next rung on the ladder, when bodies are dissolving, poison is her trademark, Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books, the American response to Christie and Holmes, “I suppose you’re wondering why I gathered you all here”, the real murderer is revealed, the consulting detective, kinda strange, kinda weird, no matter where he goes people die, Miss Marple, Angela Lansbury’s Murder She Wrote, the most prolific serial killer, the title, all the mysterious affairs, Dorcas, Jonathan Fast, a strange SFy name, don’t write notes to your gf, they would have got away with it if it wasn’t for Poirot, an antecedent in Sherlock Holmes, leaning on an intellectual heavyweight, Hastings has his heart too much on his face, a vague suspicion of everything, the game is under foot, how self-aware this is, I’m a kind of literary detective, Tommy and Tuppence, this is a thing in this world, her second husband was an archaeologist, ahead of her time on the meta-stuff, more than 60 novels, Philip K. Dick had 40 novels, this drive to write, Stephen King’s legacy, Mr Jim Moon’s Stephen King shelves, back to King, The Running Man, The Long Walk, a straight-up metaphor for life, from the alien perspective, newsreel footage from the 1930s, wearing a hat, Our Dumb Century, “Man Ventures Outside Hatless”, sunglasses replaced hats, the fossil of a whole fleshed out society that existed, John Buchan, the politics, Belgian refugees, the Poirot TV show, a French detective, a detective has to have a quirk, McCloud, Cannon, Ironsides, quirks, a cup of hot chocolate to get the little grey cells working, an outsider who brings insight into the cases, tapping into the same thing Jane Austen does, closely observing society, classes, a close up focus, shared DNA, upper classes, seeing the dirty laundry, quaint and cozy, later books, the interwar years, a very static world, the way class works in England, hardboiled novels, a more liquid environment, you get to ignore class conflict and unions, inheritance, always on vacation, the investigation is into people’s character, whether Mr Darcy is a jerk, whether this man is suitable for marriage, an orphan who gets adopted, seven Belgians, the audio drama, her patriotic poem, go fight in the war and get killed, the Napoleonic wars, detachment makes them popular, an escape, her perspective, poisoning thousands (with her words), toured the world, staying at the Ritz, Jack London, send me to the worst part of town, The People Of The Abyss, those who don’t live off of the investments of their grandfather, the best selling novelist of all time is a woman, she’s the J.R.R. Tolkien of the mystery, Alfred Hitchcock, The Feminization Of American Culture by Ann Douglas, Mary Wollstonecraft, women should marry their friends, poetry is peacock feathers, “dude this will get you chicks”, a valuable skill, not our world, the amazing thing about humans is we’re not as visual as we think we are, we live in the world of words, Lovecraft’s spells, false realities, oral cultures, languages and literary traditions, a bookshelf is case of spellbooks, a certain kind of magic, the primary medium, music, idea based SF vs. cozy based mystery solving, politicize Dick’s works, the worst sin she commits, pure escapism, detached relationships, there’s a wall all the way through it, a big circle, skating along the perimeter, look for the things that aren’t there, children, all adult children, Hallowe’en Party, Mr Jim Moon’s Halloween researches, a wonderful childhood, the money went away, WWI pilot, a little too attractive, he’s too pretty, that famous disappearance, the darkest incident in a person’s life, public crisis, so guarded in her interview, the worst incident in Philip K. Dick’s life, the lowest point of people’s lives, a very very very famous writer, a fulfilling life, a life well led, the adaptations, Japanese mysteries, the audio drama vs. the TV adaptation, really well put together, seeing the mustache, whole mediums come in, Maissa’s audio drama video, a poolside infodump, Big Finish, the modern novel is showing some signs of wear, new technologies, a VR story industry, streamer media, Twitch, what the kids are doing, kind of like podcasting in realtime, celebrities, content creators, Deadmau5, Dr DisRespect, performing and talking, whatever medium in 50 or 60 years they’ll be doing documentaries about these people, not only for children, livestreaming, drawing, a new medium, magazines, what we imagined 2019 would be like, it was not this, the war is barely there in the book, adaptions play up the war, she plays down the war, The Mousetrap is excellent, a great sense of humour, everybody did it.

Pan - The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie

Pan - The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie

Posted by Jesse Willis