Star Trek – Page 5

The SFFaudio Podcast #714 – READALONG: Orphans Of The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

Jesse, Maissa Bessada, and Evan Lampe talk about Orphans Of The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
two novellas, Universe and Common Sense, in Astounding, May and October 1941, astounding, the back half of this book barely needs to exist, the ending, a tearjerker, a wifejerker, Jesse’s guess, Heinlein’s like: “sure”, good things, things that are missing, the environmental angle, the ship would be reducing furnishings, they would have a lot less stuff in their ship, keep feeding the converter, back in my day we had more material goods, there used to be paintings on the walls, the ship’s boat, books, feed the books or one of his wives in, the unnamed wife lost a tooth, he might have hit her, misogyny, she doesn’t even have a name, other than threatening to throw her in the converter…, the women are very non-existent, a girl he likes, the first mutant was female, no wonder he hates girls, the four armed knife-making lady, good eating, making swords, a widow who got to keep her name, so generous, real world, if they had a replicator, he’s inventing quite a bit of stuff, the matter converter thing, before nuclear bombs, let those mutants breed (to feed the converter), if you lived in a school for 20 years, the ship is made of metal, is there are room full of iron bars?, stripping off hinges and door panels and lockers, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, all the interesting thematic stuff was in Universe, longer than the first part, how are we gonna do this?, confirmed, a few allusions going on, one for all and all for one, Alexander Dumas, organizing the re-mutiny, we should get the women too, the mutiny on the Bounty, Pitcairn’s Planet, reverse, the ship’s boat went with Bligh, explains the misogyny, Fletcher Christian etc., kidnapping a bunch of ladies, Heinlein indicating, they found a box of books that boys always somehow find, that’s really sad then, the Sabine women, start your civilization with patriarchy, a general cruelty everywhere, sympathizing with Bobo, Joe-Jim, Hugh, a wife-beater, lots of good things in here, done so you might not notice it as much, he needs to indicate he is being cruel, slavery, genocide, crazy religion, so good, the Bible, and yet it moves!, Galileo, Universe is an allegory for the scientific revolution, Common Sense is an allegory for the Mutiny On The Bounty, the society is backwards, a fundamentalist religion that they call science, imagine Heinlein wrote a colonial rebellion set during the American Revolution, the British are coming, having an ultimatum-off, he wouldn’t have any illusions they were general bastards (but not focus on it), he would tip his hand, Evan is going through Ben Franklin, a very sympathetic character, a dynamo, different from the other founding fathers, going with the flow, Joe-Jim is never show as three or four times older, reading for several generations, he seems like a guy, figuring out what the pronouns were, Joe-Jim is a him (not a them), a real phenomenon, people sometimes have two heads, little bit of bickering, fun to experience, a two headed friend, chess or checkers, when one of those heads dies, the other dies quick thereafter, other guy same person, control of limbs, highly coordinated, hims share an ability to control his body, it just flows, this two headed person plays chess and checkers with himself, too hard, our infodump old man character, two guy in one body, hims figured out that the ship was not the whole, two heads are better than one, call yourself on your own bullshit, Zaphod Beeblebrox, forgettable, seeing Bobo get killed felt bad, sacrifice himsself, an emotional catharsis, kinda sweet but unneeded, thinking about the title, orphans in space, they don’t know who they are, who are the real orphans of the sky at the end of the book, orphans from Earth, leftbehind and purposeless, was there only one ship’s boat?, stuck there forever, heat death of the physical ship Vanguard, the really cool thing about Universe, an allegory for the human condition, a hard SF story, a retelling of us on Earth, the purposelessness, they have their culture, they have the genocides they need to do, a very destructive element, an intellectual revolution, Heinlein’s on the side of Hugh here, the scientistic world view, sweeps everything under the rug (then don’t look under the rug), to Far Centaurus, your head was too big, learn to read, gravitation is metaphorical, super-fun stuff, crazy people, literally true at all points vs. metaphorical at all points, metaphorical explanations and poetry and lists of people, The Iliad, every town in Greece gets its own hero, the hometown hero, an artifact of that, all the electrical stuff is all true, the gravitational stuff is all metaphor, this guy in the sky is watching you, have a revelation, no big guy in the sky, having literal wars over who’s going to be in charge, not hitting you over the head with it, it makes great SF, good eating is the purpose, when you take away the light, eating and making sex, and killing, the Chief Engineer, no art, they don’t even understand fiction, they didn’t know that this fiction, like Galaxy Quest (historical fiction), Universe is terrific soft science fiction and terrific hard SF, more backstory, why Jordan?, D.D. Harriman, a company?, a corporation?, Time Enough For Love, New Frontiers, the Methuselah’s Children people, flourishing as savages on a planet called Pitcairn Island, a massive decline, we need to right the ship, get high up in the position, die and freeze to death, they were wrong, that is the point, we have other environmental problems, fossil fuels to shove, rewriting this book starting earlier, years with Joe-Jim, kidnapped by the muties, apprentice to this wizard, where does the mutie food come from?, how many people live on the Vanguard?, at least three women, 4 or 5 maybe 6 and a couple of guys, what the farms are like, more on industry and food distribution, is there taxes?, only two hours, who else can do something that much in that short?, an explanation for the swearword Huff, to huff with you, a drib and a drab, the audio drama is a bit different, no Joe-Jim, barely a sketch, Dimension X and X-Minus One, half hour adaptations of classic science fiction stories, a Heinlein thingy, Brave New World, Bernard Marx is an accident they let go, Winston in Nineteen Eighty Four, a standard character, how this idea has evolved, not hard enough, all about the ecology, the first one, the idea had been around since the 1920s, developed so well by other writers, Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, how it is sustained, going deeper into the purpose of this, explore the frontier, mid-20th century stuff, Philip K. Dick, very American, fascist imperialists who wanted to conquer another planet, an expansionist culture, re-read Aurora, how many Universes inside of Aurora, Robert J. Sawyer, as more trilogies piled up, so amazing, Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer, centrifugal force, accelerate half way there and decelerate half way, a constant 1g with one day where everybody is floating around, the narrator is the ship’s computer, its a murder mystery, the computer did it!, a little bit clunky handling humans, his humans are robotic, a metaphor for us here, we are on the starship earth, there have been many mutinies, and all we recognize is good eating, those poor plebs on the ground, as the captain gets fat and closes our door, Evan is correct, you need to know that you can create something, is good eating a bad purpose, the best adaptation of this is the Star Trek episode For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky, a generation starship inside of an asteroid, then instruction manual for the universe, disobey the high priestess, brain pain and then a stroke, put them on the right course, an evil computer to Kirk, free choice, high technology, McCoy is dying, packing a lot into 50 minutes, The Orville one: If The Stars Should Appear, opening a canopy, cultural revolution, understanding their purpose, the minds of the people, the plot summary, suffering from a fatal disease just for this episode, xenopolycythemia, high priestess, Yanada, 10,000 years ago, all it takes is a commercial break to fall in love, an instrument of obedience, take a Christian cookie and drink the blood of Christ (to obey the pope), activated, deal with the oracle, behind the altar, a cure for McCoy’s condition, there version of Common Sense, Thomas Paine, a revolution, Ptolemy is common sense, Copernicus is common sense, Agora (2009), Hypatia of Alexandria, her slave knew, the experiment on the boat, an allegory, Aristotle’s explanation, it seems round, the words turn up in the text, new purpose, Paine’s pamphlet, the common sentiment, a trick we do on ourselves, where on the globe do you live?, they all know the Earth is round, the Earth orbits the sun, flat-earthers, contrary, Heinlein’s having it both ways, a revolutionary guy, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, why the universe is the universe, an attack on the phrase, “It’s just common sense” <- you haven't actually thought about it, looked at the evidence, what the common perception is, whoever is spending the most money to do the most speech, propaganda and advertising, bougie colleagues ordering from uber eats on a rainy day, blocking out ads, cellphone ads, it is common sense that an island shouldn't rule a continent, Evan loves Tom Paine, if you don't agree with me you're an idiot, follow through with evidence, the reason Paine left England, I must bring down the British Empire at all costs, a historical figure, marshaling whatever arguments are available, Ben Franklin brought Paine to America, Evan's headcanon: Ben Franklin Is A Time Traveler, shows up in Philadelphia, if you take him out the American Revolution doesn't happen, he knows where to be at the right time, a historical fiction to be written, Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, a real dynamo, The Sea Wolf by Jack London, people are demanding Evan’s Star Trek book, cut it off after Voyager, so sexless, gender politics, Rite Gud, Raquel S. Benedict, Everyone Is Beautiful No One Is Horny, sexless films, frustrated at the lack of sex in Star Wars, Obi Wan should be sleeping with sandpeople, he abandoned his Jedi ways he should get a girlfriend, 1990s direct to video, hey that’s random, Lethal Weapon is a buddy cop movie with a sex scene, seeing Mel Gibson’s ass, heightened experience of all things, this no sex thing is spinning in Maissa’s head, bathing suits, they recycled their clothes, sacred texts, acid free paper, a lot of bindings to break, computers, scribes, no moving parts in the computer, so hidden, operating the ship, the way you control the ship is you put a hand over a sensor, fiber optic, the light is blocked, bowl-shaped ruts in the hallways, visualizing the things that are there that they are not talking about, light and heat, florescent tubes, more meetings more soviets in Aurora, talking with computers, Kim Stanley Robinson likes his meetings, giant chunky novels, too many meetings, Evan is like an Ent, liking ideas, 50 pages of people talking about their values, Slavoj Žižek, anarchists, workers councils, debt or medical bills, there’s pleasure to be had in working out your ideas, people sitting around and talking about things, too big of a class, co-workers complained about Evan, feed me with your insight, Evan wants you to correct him, in comparison, you didn’t take the minutes properly, a 600 page book, there’s a dozen major characters vs. having two characters with one torso, Star Trek or Doctor Who, one guy represents the whole planet, character interaction stuff, characters are there to deliver the ideas, we don’t need more wife-abuse, we need to know that these guys are jerks, The Orville episodes that are just their version of Star Trek episodes, the social media planet episode was novel, time loop thing, the Kaylon invasion arc, standalone is good, Strange New Worlds, a robot suicide, Isaac kills himself, a depressed robot, Sisko’s girlfriend tries, The Orville has sex, Rob Lowe as blue alien, some alien takes over people, flashfoward three time to Pike’s a mummy who can beep, he’s going to be a beeper later, bad writing, it took them a long time to get to the planet, Prodigy as Teletubbies Star Trek, sex in Lower Decks, back on the bridge Kirk smiles at McCoy and Spock looks insulted, a little button, an old Heinlein story rehashed, back to episodic, they’re trying, Picard is a total disregard for everything that was supposed to be Star Trek, old Star Trek canon, inner eyelids and pon fars, saddled with endless lore, why is Spock’s girlfriend in this?, that’s not science fiction, Captain Pike meets young Picard and introduced him to Earl Grey tea, Earl Grey decaf! Star Trek’s back!, just words, more stuff thrown into the converter and rebel against the masterminds of the ship who are driving us off course, The Integral Trees by Larry Niven, 240 page slim volume, a ring around a neutron star, Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer, Sawyer was influenced by Heinlein, the Quintaglio Ascension, miniature dinosaurs on a moon of a Jupiter-like planet that is tidally locked and the main character is a tiny Tyrannosaurs Rex Galileo perhaps from Earth from a generation starship from Earth, a Voyager that’s a rip-off of a Robert J. Sawyer [“Distant Origin“], a bizarre accident or suicide or murder?, pretty amazing, later works, definitely early Sawyer, malevolent AI, the AI did it, but why?, a second mystery, The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett, The Shining by Stephen King, bringing my microphone to America, Binary by Michael Crichton, eventually Michael Crichton will be much appreciated, trying to kill the Republicans, two cylinders of gas, doing some writer stuff, together they are the book, a writerly trick, a dynamo of thinking in writing, responsible for a lot of cool books, on IMDB, directed the TV movie, Sphere, Congo, a white ape movie, everything Crichton was huge in the late 80s, Westworld, Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland in The Great Train Robbery, a beautiful movie, natural scientist, Oscar Isaac, a real person, becoming Christian, this woman’s a witch, desexed Hypatia, a fictionalized biopic, pretty good script, spending time in that weird old place that nobody filmed stories in, 4th or 5th century, darkish ages, the Library of Alexandria, also destroyed, what we have left, kind of a downer, really nice to see, a love triangle and no sex, a terrible title, 2009, a Spanish movie, figuring out heliocentricism is basically a sex scene, sensawunda as orgasm, The Physician (2013), Avicenna, medicine stuff, join The Sea Wolf party, when was Will’s last tweet?, on vacation, Disney stuff, Scrooge McDuck, thinking about thinking about what Will would have thought of this book, The Star King by Jack Vance, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, re-re-read The Shining again, Black House is amazing, a blind DJ, Peter Straub, beer brewing philosophy grads, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, 625 pages and a sequel, connected to The Dark Tower too, a murder mystery kind of thing, The Talisman, a third book, 40 and a retired cop, this 4 hour book was twice as long as it needed to be, 10 hours longer than The Shining, Evan’s Price Is Right guess was off, Martin Eden is 14 hours, a bird’s eye tour of the setting, zoom in on different characters, John Barleycorn is only 6 hours, space these things out, Vernon Lee’s Prince Alberic And The Snake Lady, sell it more, Violet Paget, “only a few marble animals about the porphery rhinocerous”, a weird tale of some kind, William Morris’ weird fantasy, the language and the experience of it, to H.H. the Ranee Brooke of Sarawak, queen or princess, controlling pirates, Mens’ adventures pulp magazine covers, a Malysian state in Borneo, the Sultan of Brunei, richest person on the planet, the first white Rajah of Sarawak, a fun very weird history, really nice and weird, the Bruneian empire, 1841-1946, a little piece of Malaysia that got turned into a little piece of Europe, I wanna do colonialism too, a mini-viking story, it was in The Yellow Book magazine, a selling point, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Weird Tales, committing to late August, why Heinlein is good (and bad), bad instincts, John W. Campbell’s bad influence seems likely, we can imagine a happier ending, the women were suddenly liberated, suddenly some sentience, why they get smacked in the face and loose a tooth, lots of stabbings, into the matter converter with you, being a bad slave or having a wrong thought, who is the strawman character in this book?, the engineer, the captain, setup only to be easily confuted, Jesse is easily confuted, lazy, indecisive and not thoughtful, a criticism of religion and politicians, we think Biden and Justin have the reins and are well informed, the captain didn’t do anything, prepared to listen to arguments, ignorant and easily manipulated.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #713 – READALONG: Ghostland by Edward Parnell and Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #713 – Jesse and Connor Kaye talk about Ghostland: In Search Of A Haunted Country by Edward Parnell and Like A Thief In Broad Daylight: Power In The Era Of Post-Human Capitalism by Slavoj Žižek

Talked about on today’s podcast:
a novel, a memoir, Edward Parnell only wrote one other book, the writing life, The Listeners, 2019, folk horror, this is gonna be much like Mark Fisher’s The Weird And The Eerie, ghost stories, such a memoir, interwoven, to much me me me me me me me, the subject, the author’s story, invested by the end, because story, the emotional hitter, commercial, television movie references, television adaptations, it hits like a very specific and narrow memoir, rambles to look at the places that inspired the writings and the people to live there, an hourglass and a skull, time and death, The Wicker Man, a raven, forests, the ghost of the grim reaper, bird imagery, bird watching, taking pictures, survey work, notes, on the website, key figures, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, the British landscape, Susan Cooper, Walter De La Mare, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Tam O’ Shanter, artists, Houdini, most of the assessments, The Night Land, The House On The Borderland, The Ghost Pirates, when he encounters them, children’s authors, Lucy M. Boston, the Green Knowe series, Mr Jim Moon, Jim Moon is this guy, media influenced him, Hypnogoria, The Children Of The Stones, the Doctor Whos, Quatermass at the end, Quatermass And The Pit, the 1979 Quatermass with the planet people, my brother’s dying, my mom has this disease, more literary in the UK, a really good publicist, we get Ready Player One, nostalgia tied to something real, attracted to these works, loss and death, inexorable forces, reading ghost stories and horror stories is therapeutic, therefore private and not to be read by anyone, three underlines, she goes blind, the period of time when these things are happening, the present day, this journey I’m taking through time and place, an enthusiastic book reviewer, Skule Skerry by John Buchan, Buchan’s best supernatural story, Edward Parnell’s brain on paper, he likes birds, an emotional book, leukemia, being in highschool, we’re friends is we’re broken in the same way, the opium we’re addicted to is weird fiction and horror, they’re not facing it again and again, the ideology of rom-coms, an extensive movie collection, a binful of movies, not happy movies, prison movies, science fiction movies, drama, The Lack podcast, eerie in fact, romantic comedies are ideological, this is fun, crime action, thriller drama, a very narrow opiate, facing the scary thing, escapism, escape from the horror, the black pill and white pill, horror is also escapism, emotional catharsis, cocaine bumps in the bathroom of a gas station, jump scares, two adaptations of Oh Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad, Michael Hordern, mumbles and putters, I just want a happy movie, films about cancer, Caterpillars by E.F. Benson, phantasmagorical light that consumes him like a cancer, metaphor, The Voice In The Night, pathos for people who did nothing wrong, lepers but worse, throat cancer, influenced, why does this stuff exist, upon first seeing The Wicker Man, it’s not fair, a bit of a jerk, a bit of a prude, that’s terrible and that’s the point, Arthur Machen’s The Cosy Room, everything is fine, everything is good, everything is fine, everything is good, everything is fine, everything is good, he can’t help but think of it, weird fiction as opposed to horror, The Willows, what we know about reality, Flannan Isle lighthouse, lighthouse keepers went missing, a D&D module based on The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, you open the house and there is all the food set on the table, cooling, where are the residents, a true short story not based on reality, The Lighthouse by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch finish, The Lighthouse (2019), something bad is going to happen, a true event, how much is embellished?, was it really warm though?, was the candle still smoking, Horror Of Fang Rock, no physical trauma from the page itself, themes and experiences one step away from reality, overdramatic, getting mad at the film, banal evil, Howie goes to the school, Rowan’s desk, a beetle tethered to a nail, that’s him, this poor thing, desensitized to the banal cruelty, if you grow up on a farm, a sacrifice, animals in there too, pigs and chickens, accept that sacrifice as a requirement, a purpose to the sacrifice, this doesn’t accomplish, just torture, do you really know that?, no school shootings on this island, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the answer is not in the story, tradition, eating meating, I’m a vegan now, I choose what goes into my body, to great success, growing up in this tradition, a good ghost story, media things first works of writing not done by committee, Nigel Kneale, new Star Trek, it’s not really terrible, I’m still watching it, I’m not super-disappointed, the pain is so much less, written by a committee, hit these beats, too contrived, and dishonest, memes, fully grokking memes, even dishonest memes are honest in a way regular media can’t be, trying to make a point, resonating with somebody about something, an Avenger movie, Iron Man’s looking defeated, out of wormholes, that feeling that is generated in that moment and that scene, that meme’s stickiness, take that vision and adapt, The Tractate Middoth, not single vision or adapted from a single vision, committeed and commercial, reach exceeds grasp, why is that?, I would recommend it to other people, one sort of subject, his loss, flower language, his own personal truth, forget that, self exploitative, no falsity, all genuine, you need to punch this up, it hurts in a way that is genuine, people who haven’t had it will never be able to write that in a way that is at all convincing, cancer in media, not-genuine, the cancer film industry, dementia, making Connor angry, a cheap emotional device, genuine or ungenuine, I don’t need to know that I can fake it, the Our Opinions Are Correct podcast, Cory Doctorow on writing about guns, incorrect details, why should I care about something you don’t care about, a modified SIG Sauer, that style of writing is a mistake, really interesting ideas, Unauthorized Bread, loading the toaster, there’s the story, the details about any particular scene are there to get you to the ideas, maybe I didn’t need to read this whole thing, it’s a sign, gone to the place, confined to Britain proper, based on the experiences, the story reviews, how The Willows works, what trips Algernon Blackwood took, he found a dead body, how disconcerting, upsetting, traumatic, no wonder The Willows, Stephen King’s The Body, based on reality, that’s how kids are, especially boys, a dead body!, your currency in the kid community, years later, you remember that time we found a dead body, yeah the one I found, perversity comes from truth, a bullied short guy, responsible for the gyms we see all around us today, gyms are everywhere, too early, way ahead of his time, Physical Culture magazine, a McFadden publication, Ghost Stories, Liberty, the eugenics movement, WWI, the wrong location, go where the success happens, being a Hollywood movie star in Austria, atomic physicist in a backwoods community with no cyclotron, Jo Walton’s Among Others, witch, reading a lot of old fiction, the depth of the book is not there in the same way, is this the house where?, do you know anyone who was alive when?, looking at birds, the interleaving in, the journey itself, daytrips, communicating those experiences, his phone, sourcing the text message to get the date, 1982, February 15th, Tuesday, sciatica, 292s, I’m reading The Hobbit to the kids, on chemo, he’s dying here, there’s something wrong, a long term list of goals, I’m on a death path here, it can’t be true, don’t look it up, at the core, who is this who is coming?, a helluvah phrase, on the beach, the figure is coming towards him across the sand, this inevitable force, incomprehensible but coming for you, cancer, dice being rolled happening constantly, the wrong number once to often, no control over it, bad decisions, started smoking again, Korean ginseng, selenium, Steve Jobs, there’s hope, you don’t want there to be hope, we had fun, we talked about the old days, we joked about my hat, spend more time with the kids, say hello to mom and thank her, a good cry, horrible trauma for the whole family, not wanting to be there, I couldn’t be there, did it cut too close to the bone?, making it worse, completely helpless, taking people’s mind off it can make it worse, joking around as best she can, I’m a pirate, not something you can talk to kids at school about, didn’t want to be pitied, or treated differently, taking notice, they’re adults they know a little more about it, the heroes if there are any, the medical professionals, helping people out of wheelchairs, a kindly word here or there, service, nobody did anything wrong, if we could just get some more money, rumors and hopes, what’s it gonna kill me?, beyond formal treatment, do the things I like to do, eat delicious food and smoke cigarettes, you’re going to make it happen, make the kill, make the death, make the die, the big push against cigarettes, cigarettes = cancer, there are reasons that people smoke, regulating brains, wiser, a trip to Vietnam, drinking beer, cigarettes are very expensive in Australia, half my rent, 50 cents a packet, maybe I’ll try smoking, I just enjoy smoking, benefits to smoking (not related to the actual consumption of tobacco), social things, to avoid social awkwardness, something to do with your hands, cosy up to, gotta light, vaping actively as social?, astonished by the amount of smoking in the UK, no adverting, covered in cancer, shock policy, driving dangerously, drinking, selling cigarettes, working class, I just hate these images on the packet, Player’s Lights, a cool drawing of a sailor, a cancerous tumor, $12 a pack, Connor was a drug dealer, synthetic hallucinogens, herbal stuff that was unregulated, on the edge, don’t hallucinate at the gas station, off the radar, addictive?, alcohol, can you use fiction that way?, some new thing every time, genre is so established, this little tiny niche, fulfill any particular niche, going back, what was anthologized, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, a pre-Harry Potter hit, Alan Garner, too late, kinda kiddy, an interesting mythology, am I gonna get that wonder and amazement hit?, it’s raining outside while I read this book, we’re connected, what we do on this podcast, running out of good books to read, key figures, Robert Aickman, Arthur Conan Doyle was deluding himself, self-delusion, spiritualism, for the propaganda he did during WWI, in service of government some, Sir Anthony Hopkins, go an fight the hun, originally his own son died, Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit, cognitive dissonance, a peripheral figure, Rupert Brooke, died in WWI as usual, Robert Burns, bisexual, rewatching Star Trek, why is Star Trek so good, what I know now, what Roddenberry said about Wagontrain in space, a space western, Oregon trail, more like Kung Fu, crossing the country, The Littlest Hobo, like Lassie with no owners, island hopping, a particular idea they’re going to explore, allusions in the episode titles, digging into these things, the title of a Star Trek episode, this is a wonderful place, typical human reaction to an idyllic, ah the Tahiti syndrome, an amazingly hard to understand poem, probably gave a baby to, This Side Of Paradise, death is terrible because we won’t be together bodied, the horror of not being together forever perfectly in paradise, really about something, being disembodied together forever, the wise, the older people, I don’t want the real world, she’s going to get old, he died young, a truth you can get in poems, I’m going to write a star trek episode, what if you are an old M.R. James style man and found a whistle, there is no relaxing, an insubstantial book, we lucked out then huh?, educational, definitional, the history, it turned out to be a lot more, researching folk horror, 1993, it’s very new, a realization that this is there, one of three movies, The Devil Rides Out (1968), Witchfinder General (1968), a secret cult, Vincent Price, The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971), a confection for the film, fantastic elements, a Hammer movie?, there is a monster, folk horror with a monster, an evil being, literary vs. filmic, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Ritual (2017), Midsommar (2019) the definitive folk horror film, a new folk horror essay, misunderstanding all the bird sequences, the diversity of bird wildlife, they don’t have big animals in the UK, hedgehogs and birds, foxes, they decimated their mega-fauna, black bears, keep your head on a pivot, trainspotting and bird-watching, snakes AND marsupials, a million different marsupials, a good aspect, genuine interest, part of his brain downloaded into the book, talk to somebody with a common interest, a family of birdwatchers, Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek, scattered, what’s his overall theme, two follow ups, more focused, Žižek blogposts, a compilation, excellent at breaking them down, an unpopular main mode, jokes, some Yugoslav country, is smoking permitted?, of course not, you will find ashtrays in the room, he loves jokes, youtube something, mannerisms, the weird show, the thick accent, a lot of ideas, experiences, related through an almost obsessive collection and interest in jokes, not insanely bad, the officials in charge have no senses of humour, George W. Bush, the joke is him, invasion of Iraq, and Iraq too, he is exactly what he’s condemning, a dim bulb in a high position, folksy charm, a monster, a little jokes, self deprecating or you deprecating, Power In The Era Of Post Human Capitalism, getting banned from YouTube, an echo chamber, the joke is on him, they all bought it, “right wing”, “left wing”, we just do our best, it may be, humour is crucial to that, being able to discuss a subject you have no power over, you have pain, what can you do about it, relief against pain is having a good laugh with your brothers, you’re sick, connected to Australian politics, fucked up Canadian politics, have an ignorance off, a new party in power, the Labour Party in Australia, centrist, Marine Le Pen, the far right French candidate, a choice between Nazis and a middle that is capitalist realizing us to death, it has to get pretty bad, Macron is a neoliberal, the emergence of independent candidates, teal candidates, blues and greens and reds, environmental disasters, COVID, ideas about energy, renewable sources of energy, the temperature is rising in Australia, we can’t stop coal mining, torn, progressive energy policies, conservative policies, France, the left is muted and not that progressive, the Green Party, social welfare support, free education, renewable energy, an elected senate, appointed by the Queen on advice of the Prime Minster, it’s going to take a lot, majority vs. minority government, a lifetime membership, civil liberties are not important, massively corrupt, a war with nuclear consequences, the biggest cheerleader, brinksmanship, he aint that wise, painting his face, his dad was president (his dad was prime minister), inertia, hugging the leader of the party, keeps that party going, the party of capitalism, we have to live on this planet, NATO has got its hands on stuff, go on a podcast, read a book, talk about that book, encourage guillotine research, start with all the guillotines, it will get out of hand, he hasn’t worked for that newspaper for a long time, quoting Margaret Thatcher, Nancy Pelosi: “we’re all capitalists here”, I go to hotels with my girlfriend, I smoke, I give a speech somewhere, a conscript, performing cunnilingus, is it true you perform cunnilingus?, across the army base, the real concrete problems we see around Europe, what is really going on here?, a joke, talking with, irrational when it comes to some things, Taiwan fighting to the last man against China, no negotiation, irredentism, if Australia was invaded, Mad Max 1 and The Road Warrior, be in that biker gang and talk about the Toecutter, one tank of petrol is about 300 km or 2 hours, intercepting tankers, occupied by another country, you have trade agreements with China or we’re all putting you in concentration camps and gassing you, Ukraine, an Australian version of NATO, WWI, entangling alliances, the war didn’t start in 2022, the shelling of the Donbas, we’re free and fair, Victoria Nuland’s leaked call, this is who’ll we’ll go with, a coup, don’t keep expanding capitalism to eat everything on the planet, Richard K. Morgan’s Market Forces, conflict investment, how to make money from war, literally what happened, a realignment happening, Republicans aiming for the poors, we’re anti-war, $40 billion, the squad, the fake left leaning part of the party, lining their own pockets with taxpayer money, inflation, utter corruption, we need to know what the problem, hence the suicide, delicious sandwich and more jokes, the slow suicide, enjoying his wine too much, published 2018, as you’d expect, he’s reading the newspapers, he’s seeing what is being said, running it through his critical thinking filter, finding falsity there, different from the United States, their propaganda spills out, YouTube, China’s youtube, such weird big films, films set in China, to fit the market, up for another book of his, he has an idea machine gun, spraying the pages, a review from goodreads:

“Zizek moves from subject to subject, not like a ballerina flowing in graceful movements, instead, it is more akin to watching a very fat man who often slurs his words attempting to jump from one stone to the other only to slip and fall miserably-only then preceding to get up and say something that’s actually a rather profound interpretation of a culturally relevant product.”

a really interesting dude, from idea to idea, Black Panther, he’s not a snob, a regular person’s point of view, seeing them for what they are, not every idea is of equal value, really important and profound and world moving, why was it such a big hit?, the CIA’s job is to be there, they’re the heroes, assisting these other countries in Africa, once you start watching a movie with military equipment in it, as much hardware as you want with script approval, bro out, Top Gun, the miltiary base bar, Connor bought a motorcycle because of that movie, Mad Max (1979), Lord Humongous, the sociology of the Mad Max George Miller universe, this is a cult, they’re larping, the world is going to shit, the cops are corrupt, there’s crime on the roads, larpers scaring the old people, hack his own leg off, the whole premise of the movie Saw (2004), a collander on his head, the Smegma Crazies and the Gayboy Berserkers, American football, chest protection, makes you look cool, real life becomes a bit like that, wars in Africa, shit got so crazy, bizarre costume, wigs, horrific shit with genocide and murder, shamanic ritual, the Worker Party, George Galloway, woking everything, what if I told you was a woman?, what if I told you I was seven years old?, everybody is equally willing to let everybody else larp, you do you, let me be, let everyone be, that’s not the end of it, you say you’re a dog, foxkin, Evan’s theory about the Klingons in Star Trek, they stopped doing that stuff and started larping, hitting each other and talking about honor all the time, like Samurai, cut their topknots, cutting fingers off, full body tattoos, cultures in, not breaking kayfabe, pumped up guys throwing each other across the room, put on a display and show, a shirt that says “GENDER”, Toecutter being a very important member of this gang, Billy getting indoctrinated, a social constructionist, a good Parnell and Zizek, more like these please.

Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Zizek

Ghostland by Edward Parnell

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #709 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Souvenir by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #709 – Souvenir by Philip K. Dick; read by Mike Vendetti

This unabridged reading of the story (31 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, and Mike Vendetti

talked about on today’s show:
Fantastic Universe, October 1954, editorial introductions, the teaser, Williamson’s World, logically motivated self-interest, admired and widely read, blind self seeking, the editor, Leo Margulies, robes and university campuses, Upon The Dull Earth, cedars and walking around, attention span, a typical Philip K. Dick story, questioning the logic and assumptions of empire, Dick is criticizing the galactic polity, they literally nuke the planet, they genocide them, without irony, the Empire Of Man by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, by any means necessary, destroy the village in order to save it, homogeneity, Time Out Of Joint, one happy world, alignment, technology, a repressive troweling to a bland sameness, really ideological, eight things, gunboat diplomacy for cultural hegemony, if you don’t share those values, should information be shared, inventions being public domain, share all inventions across cultures, choosing technology, the Amish engagement with technology, an unexamined choice, globalization, one big world, the end of history, should cultures keep pace, AP Human Geography, who’s making these metrics?, the goal of all societies, the UN Human Development Index, is Williamson’s World post scarcity, they seem to LARP, the Klingons are an advanced post-scarcity society that got bored and started to LARP, a lot of time on their hands, the frontier, Mr. Spaceship, the way out of cultural decadence, the silk road, interesting fusions and developments, the Ming dynasty, crafts, back to Galactic Pot-Healer, make that jewelry, The Man In The High Castle, infantryman, page 48, ten minutes later, Corporal Pete Matson, blast rifle, instructions will follow from his relay web, the hill disintegrated into dust, his supple body alert, airborne, perfectly good spacecraft, ROTC class, dropped his wooden gun and never came back, Starship Troopers before Starship Troopers, the dream of all those generals during the atomic years, people living on Mars, what we see going on in Ukraine, Sun Tzu: you don’t destroy the fortress you want to own or inhabit, what Putin has done in Ukraine, The Art Of War by Sun Tzu, 3,000 year old wisdom, like there’s nothing of value there, hey honey what are you doing back, two souvenirs, planting his nuke mines, bought them from people on the planet, the wooden cup, nothing remains, surprise!, Pete!, special leave, 48 hours, suitcase, souvenir gathering, a Japanese head in their dufflebag, I’ll take what you want, did he buy the bolt of cloth?, spoils of war, dufflebag, a travelling salesman, more explicit, more like a business, strictly business, how’s school, another cold, military secret, a handmade wooden drinking cup, something that reminds you of a different place, he writes whole stories based on a tiny little incident, a snowglobe story, The Crystal Crypt, the writing shack, there’s no different place, where would he have picked that up?, an archaic word, how plausible this story’s premise is, Paycheck, these little tangible objects are really significant and substantial, no other authors are interested in, the everyday object on the mantle that has profound implications, obsessive interest in art, the creation and repairing of ceramics, the fake guns, the authentic and the inauthentic, the jewelry, yin yang symbols, you contemplate this thing and it can shift your reality, a fascinating philosophical topic, that’s to drink out of, plastic cups, a great folded cloth, “picked this up cheap”, contraband, you’re not supposed to have a Japanese soldier’s head in your dufflebag, everybody’s doing, a whole different world, a whole different concept, Pete Matson beamed, foreign lands, Paul banned from an Italian McDonalds, the shame, not our world, what the internet relay, Roger’s Lecture, Dark Eyed Girl, electric cars, relay coordinates, you hooked on to the web, the internet in 1954, a regulated internet, this is the technology, no need to replicate an experiment, no time to do that, all cultures have to keep up, the Amish, they’re always saying here’s a new technology, cell phone? what is this English technology, we’ve seen the internet and we’re not that into it, discord, get off discord this is class, the greatest thing ever, why aren’t you on tic tock?, snapchat, growing up in a culture, I’m accustomed to the uniform galactic culture, relay = internet, a radically different social stage, a brief story, an infodump (page 44), a hundred people can’t manage, weaving and dyeing, communication and sewage and medical agencies, terra of the 21st century, an archaic culture, co-ordinated, we prefer it, keep pace with the general trend, a uniformity of development, integrates the valued factors, the machine is the development of the tool, power ratio, tools into machines, if you reject machinery you reject man’s essential key, accepting all technology, rejecting your essential nature, genocide a planet for being Amish, a sentimental interest in the novel, the unique, the handmade, cheap food, a schism, reconcile do our two things, automate my entire home, local folk dances are inferior, country granola cruncher, let Alexa run your house, handicrafts in the basement, driven by a robot pilot, ladies dried up and old and hot and young, local food, here are our demands, ham fisted story, novel length ideas in a super short story, new car every four years, planned obsolescence, tube era vs. transistor era, repairshop, illegal to fix your own stuff, a plastic cover under the hood to make it look neat, a German automaker, hoods are only to be opened at the dealer, a sealed iPhone, don’t fix it throw it away, credit for a new phone, stuck in the eco-system, we’ll fucking nuke you, larping around, duels, clan, a medieval Westworld, Williamson Jr., self-aware much, Gene Williamson, land and women, prestige, like the medieval jousts, separate deity?, a vague animism, we retire, some kind of dancing, we devote a lot of time producing drama, murals, rough wood, we have a big pigment industry, materials for doing their art, really self-aware, Worf: “I’m going to have to have my head ridges pumped up by Doctor Pulaski after this shift. Captain, you may be interested in how my head ridges are a tradition going back several generations”, fatalistic, nobody who is an animist says I’m a vague animist, primitive rockets, the head of the family, we all go get ourselves kid for no reason, Dr. Futurity, zapped to the future, Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, indians going back in time, everyone’s young, as soon as they get sick or injured they just die, best gametes, static and stagnant culturally, live to fight clan battles, samurais from middle ages Japan, the reality their born into, Tokugawa samurais are larping, bureaucratic jobs, dandies going to opera, what turns them into the Japanese of WWII, banzai charges, a very dangerous larp, married to a kamikaze (he didn’t come back), come back with your shield or on it (Spartan culture), where’s my rumspringa, so superior a place?, we’re hyper-competent, move to Cuba, people actually do move to Cuba, Korean war-era crime novels, some people didn’t just come back, they just stayed in Korea as defectors, defectors effect you, emigrating out of your country, what is so awesome over there that I need to go?, you can’t move into Japan, what is it?, is their culture superior, you’re not even allowed to question, where did you get that material, this will spark something, a party conversation, the seed, U.S. government doesn’t care about the amish, still lots of things to bulldoze, the Amish engage (vs. embrace) capitalism, Amish trucks, choosing to not engage with capitalism, immune to gas prices, they make their own fertilizer, a sketch, very good story by Mr. P.K. Dick, so different, such weird characters, steal him away and have sex with him, we’re a patriarchy, we’re in a patriarchy and I’m the head of the household, Roger and Matson, take issue, a homogeneous culture, ancient Rome, different cultures to deal with, what’s Dick’s impression of the Roman Empire, the black iron prison, the Roman Empire never ended, universal homogeneous culture, who’s a Roman, everyone who is not a slave is made a citizen, too harsh on Dick, Arnold J. Toynbee, problems with Toynbee, a Prester John story, if we found Prester John’s story today, Wakanda except its Prester John, a capitalist realism, aren’t these people quaint, they are the fifth block, Traveller (RPG), seeded throughout the galaxy, a giant galactic empire, as man does, culture shock, colonizing the galaxy, here’s the pioneer, Roanoke colony suddenly reappeared, the premise of the story, we’d destroy anything to avoid war, bickering provinces, we lack the vary concept of variation, the idea itself must remain unknown, semantic correlates, hints and verbal leads, the logic of the nation state, language politics, you must learn the national language, a bit preposterous at times, at work in many nation states, war is a result of cultural difference, absolutely not true, child brides, keeping everything the same, what do they have these patrol ships for?, its not war when we are nuking our own people, pax Britannica, police action in Asia, Mike you wanna come?, MacArthur, nation states make this case all the time, we must supress cultural difference, body bags, in terms of bloodshed, melting pot vs. mosaic (multiculturalism), festival du bois, traditional costumes, rustic music, french immersion schools, official, cultural homogenization, a less bulldozery method, cultural funds through the government, application for government funding for your culture is a big thing in Canada, gamefied, doing it on your own, nuances that don’t fit into Philip K. Dick’s story, the hammer of overseas gunboat diplomacy, cultural holiday, earth day (April 22), suppressing Lenin’s hundredth birthday?, the population bomb, you poor have to have fewer children, arbor day, making earth day for the whole plane, plant trees, may day, investigate it, way to conspiracy theory, Lenin was a big deal in the Soviet Union, celebrations for their heroes, 4/20, apply for money to get your giant marijuana cigarette, conspiracies actually do happen, Hunter Biden’s laptop, its a private company, posting something that was true, it was conspiracy fact, who are you going to believe me or your lying eyes, a quagmire, we were always doing it, fewer people are drinking the kool-aid, Jonestown as a larp, a dead action role playing game, 20th century Bushido code, after WWII Bushido, revive this Bushido spirit, seppuku, yakuza, government checks, an alternative way to go, Hells Angels spelled their name wrong, we know we don’t care, they like it, they have to egage with capitalist realism, we know we are drinking ourselves to death but we like it, going through with things, commitment we can appreciate,

Yakuza guy: “Yes I know I don’t have to cut off my finger because my boss told me I did a bad job on whatever assignment I was given, but I already have…a full body sleeve of tattoos so I might as well snip it off. Because what is the other way to go? I don’t want to play League of Legends all day and Wordle’s just not doing it for me.”

, Masons, Elks, Shriners, fraternal organizations have gone belly up, the motorcycle clubs keep going, special forces motorcycle clubs, subversive people, since they did away with the draft, a military of mercenaries, you can’t afford to get out, you make too much money, become a consultant, another word for a mercenary, fantastic!

Souvenir by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #703 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Call Him Nemesis by Donald E. Westlake

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #703 – Call Him Nemesis by Donald E. Westlake; read by Chris Pyle

This unabridged reading of the story (54 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Evan Lampe.

Talked about on today’s show:
Worlds Of If, September 1961, programmatical problem, H.L. Gold, art, a juvenile delinquent rumble scene, early 50s, a strange story, a juvenile like Heinlein, so much Westlake in it, advanced stuff, the man with the handkerchief mask, the perfect stranger, Miss English, the girls in the gilded teller cages, dozing, savings account (again), the bank robbers are exactly the same, triplets, little Eddy, that kid from the bank, a transitive property in the writing, what makes the story longer than it probably should be, one of the cops doesn’t get it, why (maybe) it was better for Donald Westlake to leave science fiction, essentially science fiction, except for the fantasy element, The Scorpion!, a comic book superhero origin story, J. Jonah Jameson’s pov, a super-hero’s early exploits, Batman (1989), a scientific investigation, curlicues, letters to the newspapers, kid language, warn the citizens, bad doer’s begone, your printer informs on you, sending messages to IBM, sneakily (and sincerely), your printer, the editorial introduction, we never get the word nemesis in the story, a vigilante story, Westlake plays fair, Stephen King ten times, Stephen King was heavily influenced by this man, George Stark in The Dark Half, Richard Bachman, he probably read this story, Carrie, Firestarter, nobody noticed that in all these years, imposing control, Charlie McGee, psychic potty training, serve us, education, a maturation, a better story than this, he’ll grow out of it, he will beleive he has lost his power, too much into this idea, jumping to the supernatural, super-science, very 50s, more fantastic than Galaxy, Fantastic, genre conventions, what genre something is, where’s Francis Stevens, William Hope Hodgson, more fruitless, SFFaudio.com, what to call it, far out of genre, if you fix your criteria, interesting cases, Spider-Man is not a science fiction story it’s a super-science story, the origin vs. focus, Francis Steven’s 1904 super-hero story, he even gets a super-hero story, no swords, no magic, worrying about the category is important, a science fiction story, a star or a planet named Nemesis, New York, juvenile delinquent gangs, Westlakeisms, whatever Stephen King genre is, a very broad thing called fantasy, dragons and wizards and swords, the characters are having a genre struggle, genre savvy, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, wrong genre savvy, hard SF does not work down here, it had been fantasy from the beginning, migrating through genres, the frosted window, Scorp old boy, Tonto, Kemosabe, radioactive scorpion?, the issue with super-hero stories, the opening promise, superhero origin stories, Batman learns kung-fu, now I’m Spider-Man, a promise and no delivery on that promise, the 50 best fantasy books of all time, an Esquire article, nice list, thanks, is that all we have for this story?, surprised by what the story was, pyrokinesis, fun reading, fluffy and frothy, all surface and no tension, teams up with police, a Halloween costume, his powers don’t match that of a scorpion, change your name, Invincible, an amusing problem, what do I call myself, a weird strange deep dive, Marvel Puzzle Quest, has the bends, Namor, Mr. Fantastic, crystal bends light, Aquaman is DC, the gang names, Scarlet somethings, generic gang names, Jesse has still not seen The Warriors (1979), Xenophon, Scarlet Raiders and The Challengers, a bunch of teenager, the Golden Avengers, the Warriors, such a strange phenomenon, kids don’t join gangs anymore, Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, switchblades, fuck mom and dead let’s go out and fight, the parents were away so much, kids sleeping in the factories, dad was off in Italy, mom was in the airplane factory, helicopter parenting, slinging drugs, a Westside Story vibe, Graham Greene’s The Destructors, ride the buses for free, not paying, I screwed the man, let’s destroy his house, kids who desperately need something to do, city hall people logic, skateboard parks, midnight basketball, slingin weed, idle hands are the devil’s playthings, no zip-guns, from the parents, dad’s WWII service automatic, the word is even funny, the fuzz, fantasy, strange reality, Harlan Ellison’s juvenile delinquent books, on brand for him, scrappy, Rowdy Roddy Piper, short and small, an aggression, cuttingness, a fantasy of our own reality, comic books, Batman and Superman, superhero comics in his closet, a much darker path, Batman’s let’s make em gritty vs. Batman campy (Adam West), a lady who calls herself Catwoman, Joker (2019) is like Taxi Driver (1976), a more realistic depiction, mild-mannered taxi driver by day, The Wild Wild West, a companion Desilu show to Star Trek, trick gun, assassinating politicians, living in his own fantasy world, “I’m Justice”, it could have gone really dark, placating the kid, fuck all of you, the tone is humorous, Westlakeian mode, coins, a god’s eye POV, a jokey tone, some phrase, a psychic expert kept on hand, just in case, The X-Files, Fox Mulder, immediately ridiculous, Fluorocarbons Are Here To Stay!, the logic of the story and the point Westlake is making, an indestructible material, a giant football stadium, weird properties, immiscible liquids, it’s sinister, government being, Courtney Brown at Emory University, a weird guy, remote viewing, satellites are expensive, do their domes contain nukes, psi-shit, at what point do you learn that, more like Watchmen than The Comedian, used for assassinating people, Philip K. Dick is useful for us, mutants, The Golden Man, post-human in every way, Tony Stark changes, Peter Parker is always the same guy, a moment of growth, when Stacy dies, a fundamental break, Dr. Manhattan, we can’t even think the same way, a relatable story, Watchmen has all of them, the owl man, half Batman and half Ironman, Rorschach, Silk Specter, all the horrible things going on in Olympic training [and Hollywood’s casting couch], it cannot but go sour, Green Goblins, as a kid, useful as a kid, ultimately this goes nowhere, a reflection on reality, whoever made that movie, a modern Taxi Driver, Suicide Squad, Wonderwoman, for children, giving them to adults, Black Widow (2021), The Americans [TV series], Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021), forgettable light entertainment, not brain food, is that all there is?, evolving characters over time, Thor’s arc, getting fat, played for laughs, Demon in a Bottle, Iron Man in the 1980s, alcoholism, Secret Wars, note on the same page, spectacle, kick the butt, very Lovecraftian, Dr. Strange, Fu-Manchu, a gigantic red flag, a licensing issue, a drama fest, accusation, a Fu Manchu podcast, growing my long fingernails, daughter of Fu Manchu, a dragon instead of a train, furry faceless creature, Ben Kingsley, retcon, Brandon Sanderson, french fry fiction, french fry movies, poutine fiction, Vladimir Poutine, cancelling poutine, Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky, people rounded up and murdered dachshunds during WWI, slapping a sticker on their body, salisbury steak, hey listeners you’re real fucking dumb, how stupid do you gotta be, NPC face, blowing Jesse’s mind, hamburger prepared like a steak, put some pickles on it, superhero origin stories in Stephen King fiction, one of King’s tropes, freeing themselves from confinement, the Dark Tower, Everything’s Eventual, finally liberated, our best man: Ted Chiang, Understand, Braniac or Lex Luthor, Limitless (2011), the transformation process, he becomes post-human, a science fiction canon includes two Ted Chiang collections, crazy, he’s so good, I hope he’s writing, Ian Tregillis, magicians vs. superheroes, a creepy antagonist, WWII, when Captain America starts, the super-heroes counteract each other, Red Skull or whatever, nullify themselves out, compatible with history, punching out Hitler, Red Guardian, the communist answer to Captain America, he’s a communist in the 1960s, found family, fake family, real family, when Red Guardian thought of communism, under the Comics Code [Authority], if Will was here, played for comedy, boisterous brawler, done with superheroes, T.C. from Magnum dusting his hands gif, pornographic materials, searching lockers, they found some, surprising to see it be mentioned, Westlake is such a strange guy, he doesn’t gloat or show off, stop showing off, just make the story better, let’s have fun, not his best story, the idea is sort of poo, mom told me, a super-hero origin story thought through, The Avengers didn’t start until 1963, teaming people up, dark hair and good looks of a TV or movie girl, 30 minute TV show, The X-Men starts in 1963, another pen name we don’t know about, Edwin West, Strange Affair, Sin Street, a fallen minister, Bob Bristow, all a man needs is money, a giant pearl necklace, beds 25 cents, a really awesome cover, a beautiful painted cover, a drop of ink in a sea of toner, every paperback had a crackerjack cover, now people go to Amazon, flipping it over, what lists are for, it will be successful if people buy the books from the list, the worst part about it is shilling for Amazon, sleep well, Evan.

Call Him Nemesis by Donald E. Westllake

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #700 – READALONG: The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #700 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein.

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in F&SF, October and December 1956, hardcover 1957, set in 1970s, set in 2000/2001, the cat and the door, isn’t the door supposed to dilate?, Heinlein In Dimension by Alexei Panshin, The Pleasant Profession Of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn, lucky for Paul, Paul didn’t like it, just the cat parts?, time paradox, time loop, Trish hated it, a cardinal rule, #SIFTP, analysis, horrible indeed, recounting Trish’s shame, supposed to like the main character, Pete rules, Danny boy, pacing, not a struggle to finish, Evan should read all of Heinlein, Evan dug the stuff about domestic labour, a key feature of the conversation about feminism and technology, Philip K. Dick was a technophobe, Nanny, domestic labour devices, the robot’s trying to have sex with your wife, the washing machine, washing day, any liberation from work is good (especially drudgery), still sexism, 1950s America, Evan loved the cat stuff, a love-story about a man and his cat, Pete’s inner life, this little opener, the famous ones, researching, listeners appreciate, other podcasts on Heinlein, even people who hate Heinlein reference him all the time, Our Opinions Are Correct, By His Bootstraps, “All You Zombies”, similar plot, less romance, less something, all about the time loop, even tighter, a long short story, good, fun, and funny, similar structural stuff, a bullshit paper on time travel, loops ensue, Dictor, he a bad man, he also main character, did Heinlein invent time loops or merely perfect them?, finding Heinlein icky, bootstrap paradox, 19th century, outside of science fiction, economics, politics, such a pervasive misunderstanding, something obviously impossible to do, whadontchu do the impossible?, stupid people collecting phrases, the icky factor, engaged with vs. shit all over, squicky?, “grooming”, the stand in for Heinlein (Dan Davis), unfair, overstating, Heinlein still wrote it, he’s pushing her away, “Yes Ricky, that’s what I want”, over-reading, kids as sex objects, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Hazel, The Rolling Stones, no talking about the show before the show starts, the stand-in for Heinlein is someone else, the nudist is Heinlein, the Japanese Netflix movie, not that bad if you can attune yourself to Japanese aesthetics, “a door you should not go through”, fine, it did the story, the femme fatale, reducing the ickyness, just pining, did what it had to do, it didn’t dwell on the fun stuff, haircuts, stock stuff, women’s labour is not in the movie at all, the world that Heinlein builds up, am I supposed to like the character?, he’s a drunk, he wants to make his tech repairable, right to repair, a bigger issue today than 30 years ago, you’re not supposed to open your own hood, Jesse’s ancient car, other personality qualities, being resentful, being oblivious (for the plot), kinda dumb in some areas, an idiot ball, trusting Miles and Belle, the passion to dive into your work, being his own boss, don’t let other people tell you how to do your job, selling stories, the same scene over and over and over again, “dicker”, sticker, ultimatum, instead of haggling, saying the unstated, the other guy always collapses, a weakness in Heinlein, his second plan, that trick sucks and Jesse hates, it doesn’t work in reality, try and do it today bud, Heinlein has to be an Android guy now, one of the many annoying things Heinlein does, his worlds are constructed by him, there’s always another guy across the street, you have to move to another town, Sears is gone now, all to common situations, helping the businesses stay honest, gas stations, gas prices are always in alignment with each other, working together, a supply issue, independent gas stations, corporate owned, concessions at a movie theatre, booktowns, a wedding district, negotiation logic, interpersonal connections, “how dare you, sir, interrupt my nudist making out session with my wife, I’m going to go nuclear”, in that case we’re best friends, autistic, an all or nothing approach, padding, a mode that he gets into, inane identical conversations, after your 50th Heinlein novel, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, more evidence Heinlein was always telling you what books to read, he loves Rudyard Kipling, Jesse doesn’t read for character, the world is fantastic, so much going on, France has a king now, Canada ate England, the six weeks nuclear war, the capital is now in Denver, the amount of worldbuilding, nullified by the Japanese movie, 3 years from now, robots that look like people everywhere, iPhone didn’t take over in 2 years, these guys don’t care about the thing Jesse cares about, a Japanese audience, he’s the Time Bride in this situation, zero age difference, schoolgirls in sailor uniforms, oh yeah and we have to have a cat, asking questions and angry about stuff, a robot Pete?, a very bad replacement for the nudists, it made it cute, where did that come from, you’re always late, Dan, bad bad writing, I serve you for five days, have conversations to explain plot, reverse engineer that robot, another convention, avoiding a paradox, the reason, all the podcasts in existence, we’ve done the most on anything (by Heinlein), everybody does Starship Troopers, a number have done The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, a couple have done By His Bootstraps, some have done “All You Zombies”, the movie is not the story, that story is pretty simple, essentially the same, a Heinlein booster, a white nationalist?, learning to drive, there was a door, why is this not a book that sticks in the memory?, so lower on the tier scale, less racist that Farnham’s Freehold, awesome plot work, it feels slight, sentimental works, otherwise slight, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, avoiding that one, a cat is in it, there are cats in it but it isn’t a cat book, flatcats, he loves cats, Pixel, a character Jesse liked, the nudist was funny, nuding it up, do better in 2022?, let the women talk about the women for a little while, little girls have inappropriate crushes, an excuse by pedophiles, go play with somebody your own age, see a psychiatrist, here’s a candy cane, peer appropriate relationship, hypersleep, still wants to marry the same guy, don’t wake me up, she’d rather not exist if she’s not going to be with him, ten years of living without him, he’s not a jerk, oblivious, focused on his work, he can write female characters strong and self sufficent and have brains, a manipulating self-center bitch, a response book, previous time travel books, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, When The Sleeper Awakes, the future utopia sometime in the 20th century, the richest man in the world, his light bulb being on, Red Dwarf, engaging with a long tradition, two methods of time travel, shunted out of the plot, a plot device, the cold sleep, a great novel, neglected great writers, Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, a wife who wants to have her husband killed, Walter Neff, while somebody is sleeping, he didn’t jump he was pushed, killing off Dan B. Davis, the Hays Code, slim volumes, so digestible, the motivating plot, the way the book is structured, it starts with a loop, 11 doors in Connecticut, drafting or drinking, back in time, his decision, running around to get the plot happening, Back To The Future 2, he sees himself on stage playing guitar and Chuck Berry phone call, how Heinlein’s a good writer, the car had gone missing, Jesse knew what happened to the car, a mystery, red herrings to distract us from the little clues, chef’s kiss, time travel, not loved when so well done, he invents the Roomba, so many touches, Hired Girl, the hired girl, he can see them in their starkers, as god made them, all confection and lies, assets, competent, the hired girl took over, what’s so interesting about this book, technology at its core, plot vs. tech, the Japanese movie in relief, plasma battery subplot, Heinlein’s saying the opposite, everything’s off the rack, philosophy of engineering, on point, in railroad times you build railroads, loop de loop rollercoaster, the character having interaction with himself, nothing more beautiful than that, “you’re stupid”, I said., arrested for barracking, that zombie drug, sentenced to being zombies, zombie workers killed by its owner, working the implications of the tech, Heinlein at his best, really exploring, he loved Colorado, overrun, expropriated for government use, Los Angeles is a port, he’s not half-assing it, he likes, nudity, Colorado, cats, California, self inserting his own bio, the whole bit with the cars, producing to give people jobs, we’re doing it, cheese caves, in the Japanese adaptation, 32 year old car, you need to be rich to own an old car, to support the Japanese car industry, more iron to make more cars, the domestic market, the Japanese market, immigration, its hard to assimilate, racist or whatever, something they’ve thought a lot about since WWII, how to keep the economy good, a stable economy, trashing five year old cars, Australia is full of Japanese cars, Canada too, right hand drive, insure it at a higher rate, where Heinlein goes the extra step, the fit and finish, no gauges, satire, milk subsidies, a license to have a milk farm, where the government cheese comes from, more cows producing, distortion effects, pop vs. soda, pop is a verb not a noun, Wisconsin is pop country, corn syrup, sugar is cheaper in Canada, corn syrup is cheaper in the states, social commentary, a continuation, his futurism is really good, technology has massive impacts on our lives, real science fiction, useful technology, the right side of this question, make women and men’s lives easier, his own life, tricked out with interesting tech ideas, labour saving, the history of the dishwasher, scrub dishes all day, Jesse is a monster, not a smart dishwasher, I have to pay my servants, after WWII, dishwashers had existed since 1850 but they get hot in 1950, Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sister, A Treatise On Domestic Economy For The Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School, our bastion of power, efficiency expert, scientific management, fordism, talking about the domestic sphere seriously, expanding their own freedom, the natural place for women, sounds scary when you say it, if you’re going to continue the species, off on the hunt, Jesse literally cannot suckle babies, hormone shots, we don’t even have the baby being gestated in side the woman, Lois McMaster Bujold, uterine replicators, Podkayne Of Mars did it first, Bujold does Heinlein better than Heinlein, the domestic labour saving devices, Jesse’s not allowed in his mom’s kitchen, her space to dominate, a room in the house for men, cohabitation rooms, smoking rooms, Trish seething in the background, liberate women from this using tech, drive across or rocket across, Jesse has been talking a long time, Drafting Dan was for himself and for men and women, his inventions were for everybody, Hired Girl helping women, saving household labour, the domestic sphere idea, a woman’s domain, restricting choices is a bad thing for human rights, through husband or father, how people or women thought of it in the 19th century, antebellum reform movements, newspapers, social movements, protests, writing governments, pushing for laws, anti-prostitution, temperance, the anti-slavery movement, women’s anti-slavery societies, it degrades the family, making women sinners, informally not legally married, separate spheres idea, women didn’t have property if they were married, the Temperance Society of Philadelphia, write articles, give speeches, push for laws, a historical rabbit hole, something else that is going to annoy Jesse, the plot is a chef’s kiss, the time machine plot was unnecessary, a wonderful feeling, Riki becoming a brilliant engineer herself, wow she grew up and started the Aladdin rival company, Dan went back in time and did everything else, the challenge, Trish had her female empowerment plot taken away from her, a good thing about that movie, irrelevant to the plot, a better reinterpretation, given how all the female characters were written, intelligent women who do things, too early, without that loop, the loop at the beginning, an alcoholic suddenly, to fix the problem, to get revenge, he’s doing a figure skating thing, that the loop happens, who is Heinlein?, could there have been parallel existences?, Pete died, she grew up, if I did see my name in the paper, it could never have happened that way, the very existence of that line of print, excluded not possibles, a supernatural engineer, the supernatural entity is Heinlein, a beautiful technical execution, why is that scene necessary?, because he was a nudist, an intertime travel love story, Time Bride Isaac Asimov’s November 1983, Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, Trish is going to love this story, engaging with the minor aspect of the story, many exceptions, spouses in the reverse case, not societialy appropriate, if Edgar Allan Poe had, getting married in Korea, school and study up, more free now, the western standard, the average age, a lot less marriage as well, not some inexplicable quirk, women don’t have to get married to support themselves, older men would have more of it (money), marry off your daughters, women make their own money, marriage is obsolete, as societies developed, incomes are equal, the only reason marriage exists is to control women, traditionally, easy binding contracts, trying to buy a house on your own, marriage contracts for two years, the Islamic world, Shia, Sunni, merchants, a contractual thing, business routes, renewing your drivers license or your car, about insurance, why are insurance companies invovled, The Year Of The Jackpot, related to marriage, 26 working years, make all the right bets, Lifeline, murdered by insurance companies, Time Enough For Love, something Heinlein is thinking about, it fits with the idea, on a track that can’t be changed, a fixed track, that sentimentalness of it, his cat likes him, the reason it is all worth it, now wife and kid, 30 years down the road you can’t have your cat, just have your cats out for the summer, Lockstep by Karl Schroeder, the march of civilization, Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold, investments, can you control and manipulate the world, the bad guys in Neuromancer, Technovelgy [Bill Christensen], technologies in books, Drafting Dan, CAD, Eager Beaver, Flexible Frank, Hired Girl Robot, Radioactive Coding for Checks, Robotic Hand, Waldo, Stasis (Cold Sleep, Hibernation), Thorsen Memory Tube, Computer component that allows a machine to learn through experience. Universal Checkbook, the ATM, Window-Willie, boob tube, a pulp image, glass recycling, transaction fees, the debit card, you can’t believe how expensive it is to clean windows, he invents a lot of the tech in the story, two kinds of science fiction going on at once, the effect of technology on society, a time travel story, Idiocracy (2006), C.M. Kornbluth, the premise for Futurama, a forward going time machine, Flight To Forever by Poul Anderson, the desire to go back, time travel paradoxes, similar to this, Bender’s Big Score, after the first cancellation, Lars is Fry, going back in time, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data, Star Trek: Voyager, The Orville, billions of years old, Marvin in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, if this is the worst of Heinlein…, is he in the same facility as himself, a lockbox with 16 different keys and locks, leave a letter with a lawyer, Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, time travel role playing games, fade away, Back To The Future (1985), puzzles for the writer and the reader, an intellectual exercise, have the rest of the book blank, the last short story Heinlein ever wrote, a trilogy, a series, Time Enough For Love, The Long Arm Of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven, cold sleepers, harvest their organs, corpsicles, The Crack In Space by Philip K. Dick, A World Out Of Time, Rammer, hard SF, and noir, a very turgid book, Evan is struggling with, a grade 12 honors seminar, “Science Fiction And Social Issues”, Vulcan’s Hammer, Doctor Futurity, bye Trish!, Solar Lottery, a whole year, five times a week, Alfred Bester, The Roller Coaster, Passengers by Robert Silverberg, it’s certainly something, to palate cleans you, a lot of paranoid men worried their robots are fucking their wives, they’re all so good, the older version of The Time Machine movie, Somewhere In Time (1980), Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, reverse time bride, not fairly icky to Jesse, Paul found it icky, Maissa thought it had icky aspects, alternate future, he’s wrong everywhere but also dead on in many ways, not because Heinlein loves pervin on the girls, I’m robin the cradle, people age, you get old, Pete dying, Riki aging and seeing the cat again is a super-positive thing, seeing your childhood pet again, preserving their pets just for summers, the whole metaphor is very poetic, necessary, somebody can age faster than someone else, have a bigger baldspot, make him oblivious, if he had to serve a jail sentence or something, prison romance, a reality for a lot of kids, a good ideas movie, The Tomorrow War (2021) with Chris Pratt, Edge Of Tomorrow (2014), you stand with Ukraine, they’re recruiting right now, oh, I’m too old, put up or shut up, family drama, if you really want to explore the idea of time travel, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, the wording of it threw it into Creepyville, stop doing that, written in 13 days, the cat initiated it, not another word, bye Paul, the step of actually recording is important, cannot remember it at all, John Buchan’s The Watcher At The Threshold, a dog cart ride, there’s no hunting, they talk about going hunting, the structure of the story, super-deep and super-good, running around town, Evan needs to do the whole run of Heinlein, Civil War, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Evan is becoming a boomer, he stopped a war, sacrificed his presidency , it makes Evan squee, his great great grandson founded Raytheon, when we are not living under martial law, another novel?, The Hill Of Dreams, Weird Friction, Will wants to do The Sea-Wolf, a lot of hate on twitter, Civ 6, video game logic, he knows Civilization, the headline, Putin Gains Rights To Bases In Donetsk According To Something, the headline buried the lede, implying that Reuters in cahoots with Pfizer, cahoots going on, amongst those cahooters, triggered by stuff, Heinlein wants to be a woman, literal hate, contextualize this stuff, Heinlein is progressive on gender issues, when you look at the 19th century, the progressive position, I think this is a scam, this is a scam, look at and improve student papers, stretching to find things to fix, finding more fake problems, operating in bad faith, control the narrative lest people get the wrong ideas, thinking Fauci is a saint, a holiday in Taiwan, a brutal massacre is now a holiday, Peace Day, remember the horrible past, the dumbest meme I’ve ever made, Putin Rasputin, twitter takes on Ukraine, thanks for your quote tweet asshole, grapple with ideas, it could be seen as mean, people think Evan is mean, emojis, reacting people’s dismissals of old writers, borne of and reflecting worthy new ideas, we don’t have read old books any more, reading Moby-Dick, joking with Connor [Kaye], scoffing at the idea of sensitivity readers, stirring shit just for fun, someone reading over your work, ask a scientist to read your thing, the writer who did the article on sensitivity reader, find and replace, disfigure, somebody is going to be hurt by it, continent sometimes means China in Taiwan, if you’re pro-independence, Columbus discovered China, the China of North America, sensitivity is reading, you can be hurt by words in a book, Chinese lesbians want to fuck their mothers, annoyed, having their feelings hurt, seeing their pain mocked, inner city gangsters, what kind of thoughts do they think, Harlan Ellison wrote juvenile delinquent novels, helping a student write a werewolf story, being in the wilderness, bringing your own experience to the table, if you need to have a gang in your story, writers do hire researchers, Elmore Leonard had a professional researcher, Tishimingo Blues, farb, civil war underwear, a dialogue point, a setting for a crime story, professional divers, the reason Jack London works as a writer, fish police, Yukon, homeless, Korea, boxing, Hemingway, the laptop class, the people who COVID was an inconvenience for, being a professional writer pays nothing, the sensitivity reading pays really well, it sounds mean but is it a lie?, only if you are totally ignorant, insensitive people, is gypsy salami racist?, Thinner is super-racist, Stephen King, is it racist or just a trope, King didn’t even write this, cancel Bachman don’t cancel King, is Bachman a shitlib?, dark but sensible takes, some colleagues are idiots, Putin’s two hour speech, trying to remake the Soviet Union, a pro-Russia guy?, Russia and the Soviet Union are different, why do people have opinions about things they know nothing about, there’s no dissent, Russiagate was bullshit, how did we get here?, being badass, arming civilians, Molotov cocktails, good 20th century vibes, not one step back, there’d be irony in that, if you’re looking for irony Stalin is steel, yellow and blue flags, smoke a cigarette to them, Ghost Of Kyiv, Colonel Tomb, Vietnam, a legend, war propaganda, legendary, like a fake name, Colonel Tomb laughs from his ghostly lair, sniper women, Battle Of Sevastapol, Miss Pavlichenko, Woody Guthrie, Russian soldiers on Tinder, a fifteen minute break, all that catfishing, people get triggered, they don’t deserve their country, Taiwan wont roll over, an sensitivity reader changed Conan Role Playing Game 1st and 2nd editions, mysterious is like inscrutable, ancient is less descriptive, the mail man came vs. the mail carrier came, a doctoress, an aviatrix, mailman vs. mail-carrier, unintended consequences, writing out the caste system, it’s ancient India, role players want to play whatever you want, a black skinned paladin in medieval Europe, Pathfinder, martial arts changed to unarmed, Bruce Lee and kung fu, unarmed combat, making the game more of a board game, a Crom eating barbarian, swordfighting and boxing, copy and replace less badly but for what purpose, that’s just a stereotype, paying attention the writing, mud huts becomes stone buildings, mud is bad, civilized folks don’t live in mud huts, they have to upgrade their buildings, mud is othering, some people live in mud huts, modern homes are “rammed earth” not mud, euphemism treadmill stuff, a generational change, when talking to outsiders, first nations, Squamish, the word is always changing but changing from top down, policers of society, black vs. African American, white south africans who fled South Africa, race vs. ethnicity, both are real in a cultural sense, a black hispanic, coloured, Arab African, Barack Obama, when Joe Rogan got called out again for a nigger video compilation, words that are taboo, do you want to be a whipped dog or use your independence of thought and information coming in currently, bowing to authority vs. being independent of mind, Mark Twain doesn’t need a sensitivity reader for The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, a profoundly anti-racist book, replacing nigger with robot, Robot Jim, a science fiction story, the gender flipping project, when Conina slays Thoth Amona, your premise is wrong, being offended isn’t being physical hurt, you don’t have the authority to speak about this, you don’t gave the right identity for it, adding questioning, adding bi to their bio as a proof against attack of being white, Evan has seen this documentary, who’s the oppressor here?, maybe she has a skill I’m not great at, The Fable Of The Bees, the worst thing you can do with your money is save it, there’s nothing to buy, travel, going to America every year, The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen.

Freas - The Door Into Summer

PAN - The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

Frank Kelly Freas - THE DOOR INTO SUMMER

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SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein

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The SFFaudio Podcast #698 – READALONG: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #698 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Talked about on today’s show:
1974, a subtitle, knowing a ton about this book, you know all about the , its finally time to read The Dispossessed, book review journals, Moby-Dick, Oliver Twist, Jane Austen, media-property, because science fiction is more academicy, pretensions, taking that to heart, my credentials!, the gatekeeping of credentials, later printings, an ambiguous utopia, an ambiguous heterotopia, two societies, two worlds, idealized in certain ways and the we see its flaws, an inverted travel narrative, the square society, to learn about ourselves, Neils Klim’s Adventure Under Ground, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, John Savage, interleaving of the past with the present, a very novel thing, a hard start, protesting, a terrific book, a perfect book?, the audio drama, it is the book, the propertiless society, propertarian, go to the non-hotel, we don’t have wallets here, we have so many plot points we have to hit, a companion piece to the novel, too difficult, Classics Illustrated comics, bare boobs, a four colour version of the book, deplorable listeners, Will loves this book, read it at age 3!, something metaphysical about Ursula K. Le Guin’s politics, get right with the world to understand the physics, the insurrection, simultaneity theory, bleeding to death, poignant, the ambassador from Earth, we’ve ruined everything on Earth, this terrible moon, this terrible planet, one fucking tree, Will had read the book before, reading this novel the first time, all the bare breasted ladies, the pet otter, taken by the title, there’s some people and they had their land taken away from them, the phrases “being possessed” and “being dispossessed”, everybody has hair, her braids, propertarian, rope, everybody would cut their hair, for the common good, jewelry, no hair, everything is owned and defended, how can you have your labour stolen if you don’t have labour, the near rape scene, a terrible scene, an awful scene, a great scene, alluring naked women, a Monica Lewinsky situation, a fuge state, his metaphysical shakras were not aligned right, drunk, the demon rum, drunk me, a growing up book, a shirt that they were, that is not my hand, that is the hand that I use, Le Guin was right, nobody had written a utopia set in an anarchist society, gangster society, it gets destroyed, it would be invaded, a communist authoritarian state, how the Soviet military worked, ranks, license and requirements, team people, chain of authority going up, MPs, political officer, commissars, The Hunt For Red October, the Defense of Moscow, how pirate systems work, signing the articles, making your mark, operating under laws, customs, violating customs, Robert A. Heinlein, the academic stuff, academic politics, sucking up, conceding power to the powerful, the most authoritarian figure, I’m among equals, deceived by that feeling of equality, making a contribution, volunteering for more field labour, Fidel and Che, out in the fields reaping, wuffie, respect, currency of a certain kind, refusing all work, not full participants, lazy bums, back to the land movement in the 70s, communes, work pretty hard to make food show up, subsistence farming, The Whole Earth Catalog, a chicken that lays an egg, other benefits, giving you something to do, heat and light and food, were they living on Urras, water and potash, making clothes happen, Pacific Edge, The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson, bombed back, on the edge, Soylent Green and Silent Running, drought, all used up, going authoritarian, nearly involuntary, grand gesture, simultaneity, the only wall, sitting on the wall, a boundary, a symbolic wall, openness, the deserty environment, rooms, basements, gaudy crap, prosperity, no lies detected in that drunken rant, what we have to do, becoming accepted, the science committee, not one bad actor, a drift towards authoritarianism, celebrating Christmas, the Tyranny of Structurelessness, Jo Freeman, anarcho-feminist, the loudest most passionate voices, inevitable acknowledged, the equalest person, running this podcast, if you don’t like it, you can go make your own podcasts, it doesn’t hurt the original organization, you all have to listen to me, Trish would need to shape up or ship out, consider the listener, you need a better microphone, the loudest voice in the room, its in the language, prophylactics, what’s the alternative?, back to structure?, she’s really good, a critique of anarchism by people not in the movement, Mikhail Bakunin, the dentist authority, the smoothest words, rhetorical skill is not necessarily being right, the playwright in the book, committed to an insane asylum, separated from his loved ones, separating families, dormitories, school is prison and torture, are they on Annares?, public enemy number one, more egalitarian, all to Le Guin’s benefit, she reeealy thought it through, this is what SF is, this is really Science Fiction, it ain’t about physics, what other criticism, they don’t have cell phones and the web, we live in a post-scarcity economy if not for the rent-seeking fucks, back to education, you’re to smart for this class, you’re egoizing, hurtful, the teacher is in authority, this should be two different classes with two different levels, the teacher’s fault, go find somewhere else to be, school would be much less of a prison if teachers could do this, you can’t do that, engaging with the material, totally shut down, sympathy for the prison guards, nobody was getting the joke, thought experiment/joke, Xeno’s paradox, challenging the teacher’s authority, a top-down mechanism, the older people run things, a gerontocracy, ossified, The Doomed City by Bros. Strugatsky, forced to change jobs, 150 years, evolution or change, anarchy is hard to sustain, we evolved from hierarchical animals, drifting towards social structures of power, Murray Bookchin, The Ecology Of Freedom, a lion eating a gazelle, the “king of the beasts”, a “communist collective”, the “queen bee”, the first to become vulnerable and useless, the council of elders, authority outside of nature, we are the most wise, the first witch doctors, you’re just a young little idiot, there’s truth there, to learn skills, starting a fire, knowing how to skin an animal, the bigger the class the harder it gets, firing students, being fired by students, your knowledge gives you authority, the heirarchy is not imposed, participating in the hierarchy, destructive of the hierarchy, institutions, the survival is the proof that they know better, not the everyday, attack ships on fire of the shoulder of Orion?, he’s only four years old, seasons, time to move the camp, it happened in my childhood, the playwright [again], struggling to make a critique of his own society, when people walk out of the theatre, he can’t get another idea, it drives him insane, there is no escape, the miners who lived on Annares before, give up the hair, we need to take one of your kidneys, utilitarianism to the extreme, but…, they give him vaccines, I don’t want that, accedes, its almost like the rape scene, its my body don’t put things in it I don’t want to get in, vaccines for college?, medical records, living on top of people, community college, get these three, small pox, I died of smallpox shortly thereafter Paul, the devastation I wrought, always goes back to that title, they stickem, roommate, not allowed to live there, your space, you want women, blondes, brunettes, light skinned, dark skinned, we gottem all, women as possessions, burning his clothes, clothes for him, people gonna move, get rid of stuff everyday, bookshelves full of books, that one dollar scan place, the books own you Paul, they give you pleasure, a physical tactile pleasure, having them ways upon your soul, sad and relief, so threatening, you will be dispossessed of those things that possess you, people had stuff taken away from them, not embrace possession, rejecting the concept of property, dispossessed the miners, all the stories that could be told, that she put those people in there, a powerful concept that is far to little explored in SF, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, pre-sex cuddling at the party, the one thing that will get you a separate room, alone time (with somebody else), eating a banquet in front of hungry people, fairness not prudishness, as you dig down you got back in time, Evan has too many books, homes of different sizes, longhouses, skulls of your ancestors are the title deed to that property, small dwellings, big structures, fuck rooms, you didn’t have family, public houses, the anthropological record and the creation of family, abolishing marriage and the family, the reason for marriage is property, paternity certainty, an institution that insures that, the bloody sheet, marriage is a creepy thing, women are possessed when they have babies inside them, wow!, really powerful stuff, she gets men pretty good, Lathe Of Heaven is pretty good, The Left Hand Of Darkness, stuff happening that’s important on every page, the prison stuff, such a resonant image, they’re doing it to themselves, the Stanford [Prison] Experiment, maybe it works, engage with these terms, when gin came into English society, the temperance movement, got a hold of people’s brains, we’re not fully in control of our decision making, “problematic” means very little, a jiu jitsu counter move, I have no defense to ‘you’re egoizing’, the only guy on the planet who knows the manly art of boxing [Almuric], we need this for ideas, ideas invade your brain and control your thinking, advertising, what songs are, memes that control us, Kirk’s nodding to McCoy, one or twice a day, why this book is so good, what societies are, you can’t live by your own, in a relationship to a society, an attractive hellscape, trying to engage with the poors, relationships we have to deal with, a generalized social contract with everybody, what determines what we do, social pressures, and social ideologies, when that sign comes down, most people shouldn’t be that worried, too much work, we have to be fully engaged with the things happening all around us, a traffic radio station, truckers blocking local access to the United States, this is a sign, something’s going to change, obey and be obedient, a whipped dog, not a fan of being owned, they don’t have enough stuff, the dust is too strong, is it the privation or the no borders, their planet is their country, Red Plenty, The People’s Republic Of Walmart, post-scarcity anarchism, Trekonomics, Four Futures, scarcity and equality axes, visions of anarchy, one from Hain, is he gonna get stoned when he gets there?, a good way to end the book, people who want to fight those people, a two sided riot, another internal critique, killed, the committee of public safety, a seed crystal, the only location is a the wall, the only border on the planet, a leading and abusive question, what influence did this book get from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, prisoners, lapping over rules, what is going to be done, what happens when someone rapes someone else, they just space the guy, pirates are terrific, a constitution for every voyage, we are forced to signed articles in the state in which we are born, driver’s license, worshiping the queen, not singing the national anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance, how great their lower classes are, the heart and soul, I don’t give a fuck about them, WWI, WWII, the truckers, plebes, plebs, a libertarian novel, a society of custom, There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, getting past the idea of earning their lunch, Ursula Le Guin is very different than Heinlein, ideologically open vs. ideologically closed, an axe to grind, he’s going to teach us, exploring vs. lecturing, philosophy, open discussion, the ranting guy in the public square vs. let me tell you about this weird journey I took, commune time, rewriting this story, people dissatisfied with their neoliberal hellscape, why the indians are always dispossessed, keep enacting copyright laws, you say you want global vaccination but you keep your patents, intellectual property is central to this book, he wants to make it public domain, my vaunted position, where power can be wielded, wielded for the betterment of the few, also I want to give away this thing, the good anarchist leaves the anarchist society for anarchist reasons, stolen credit, in actual post-scarcity copyright, A Scandal In Bohemia by Me, attribution, Bros. Grimm, the guys who get the credit, by some person or persons in society, Soviet copyrights, the guy who invented Tetris, Mr. Kalashnikov, Einstein gets credit millennia later, the names done by computer, I named you, you’re “the Zygote” now Will, words have consequences, a good show on it right now, big books can work out, padding, 382 pages vs. 341 pages, should we do it, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Heinlein’s very pushy, he’s got theories coming out of ying yang, an analogue for the American Revolution, Artemis by Andy Weir, Paul’s an old, The Door Into Summer, air your grievances, the politics of reality, protecting wealth, I thought better of you, monarchy, social Darwinism has its opposer in mutual aid, I fuck you and everybody’s better off, says the tongue, engaging with conservatives of the small c kind, cutting off blood supply to your left arm, a lazy arm, we ignore him we take his truck away, costing our whole society, listening to the pain, an idea in opposition to social Darwinism, force, power and its tool violence, the averted eye, a serious problem, the ally, the ambassador from Earth, the old cities, the bones and bricks, once the plates are subducted, the Sargasso Sea, lost ship, a 19th century maritime junkyard, the problem of plastic, a beautiful passage, along with the great ideas, a night blooming flower, only one darkness, Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake, a guy visiting an anarchist world and looking for trouble, a culture that is propagandistic, a founder a founding document, the country with 5 military bases Djibouti, its hell, when the food starts to go, violent accidents, a lot of danger, the food train, half-rations, a really beautiful passage at the end of chapter 6, lying in bed just talking, ideas and affection, their kid is great, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Odo, justice, the collective is the Borg, consensus, a small elite, the female changeling, they all have genders, us for us stupid TV watchers, a bunch of amoebas, they got Jesse, they understood Jesse’s biases, O D O, sample, Bajoran is a made up language, when they need to have a need for a new episode, super-jealous, hurrmp, René Auberjonois, populate instead of fuck, we copulate together, sex isn’t dirty and blasphemy doesn’t exist, beauty, green and verdant, Downpour.com, support your local library, how am I gonna share my files if they have DRM?, a worldbuilding thing, the invention of the Ansible, The Word For World Is Forest, she gave it away, she gave it to Orson Scott Card to use, she’s not propertarian about it, pirate the book, the Hanish cycle is not a cycle, its set in a universe, marketing department, no planet in the sky, a photo of Death Valley or something, the cover of the first edition, Rembrandt, in his fancy clothes, he has hair, rolled out of the show, spicy takes, how shitty Urass feels, go to the plays, get hot dogs, AP Human Geography, ranking of democracies, triggering Evan, they don’t have a media environment, Thu, they don’t believe in democracy, defining democracy as people having control of their lives, free garbage media, “seed papers”, media censorship, its our society, Annares is a commune in the desert, a kid’s book, Schooled by Gordon Korman, hippie kid goes to the city, weird resonances, those granola cruncher people, what they wanted to do, parallel books, a very slight book for little kids, a good sci-fi that focuses on education.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

SF Masterworks - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Anarres and Urras

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