Tag: suicide

The SFFaudio Podcast #916 – READALONG: Planet Of Adventure by Jack Vance

Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Planet Of Adventure by Jack Vance

Talked about on today’s show:
4 novels, between 1964, what did you think of this book, scanscope, waggling my fingers, “interesting”, three things that come up endlessly in these 4 books, Adam Reith and his motley crew, experience, one good big novel, a very good book, The Moon Moth, a murder mystery, all the things that are in here, a long short story, other series, the dude wrote a lot, really part of a series that’s one big book, clearly in the middle of a story, a natural final completion, the strength and the weakness of this book, designed to make you read more, a big side quest, almost gets the ship launched, only three, tries to steal a ship, loops right back to where he was, delay tactics, that could be the idea, frustrating, a perverse thought that would be really awesome, goes into the endless, eternity, just livves there forever, turns into a statue, still sits there today, frozen forever, about this book, where it comes from, and other books in this mode, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, a series by Mike Resnick, hero guy says “interesting”, gets out of his problems using his alien mind, thinks differently, hows he gonna get out of it?, a mode of science fiction, appreciate and frustrated with, Ringworld, luck is skill, bred to be lucky, such a fun idea, a little bit Mars, two moons, the cultural stuff, soft science fiction, it has to be handled well, in the tradition of, four alien races, pnumemen, a greek term for knowledge, strange society, throw it away and move on to the next one, the saving grace, it should be read as a whole, a modern novel, get you back up to speed stuff, it flows very well, which do you like the most?, the gold rush town, The Most Dangerous Game, the only way to get them, sentient tiger things, all the sequins that you can carry, biological?, mineral, geodes that grow in the soil, strange mushroom, nodules, geological nodule, like bitcoin mining, claim jumpers, what book is Casino World?, the eel racing, more than one thing going on in it, at least two big things, book 4, a girl in every book, I’m a princess of Mars, some adventurer who saved her, a sack of gold, be on your way, a big change from the expectation of the first book, most radical discontinuity, the love interest is excised from the plot, more freedom of adventure, kidnapped again, Zap210, Karina 429, employing the techniques of the odyssey, today at the typewriter, it was very tawny, old and boring looking, worn out, a direct reference to, that whole genre, from the late 60s, vintage sci-fi, when Burroughs was at his peak, 1912?, going on sixty years, that double gap, does it really well, doing it earnestly, no tongue in cheek here at all, there’s some of everything, a planetary romance, kinda stinky, mystery religions, the mysteries of some female anti-sex cult, the bitter old feminist sex-cult, fairly misogynistic, the main character is a male, he is heterosexual, underdeveloped female, I’m having these strange feelings, that’s how the species gets reproduced, very solid, weird sex cults on earth, cutting their boobs and dicks off, do it just for the art, a science fiction setting, was Jack Vance a seabee?, a photo of him on a boat, the start of the premise, the way a Star Trek episode would start, space navy, competent, we don’t know which one is going to be , nobody wants a bald short guy, Paul Wander, such a good name, Adam Reith, humans taken from earth and made slaves, getting back to Earth, the boat journey, Robert E. Howard style plotting, one damn thing after another, coincidence, what he’s written before, about the map, abandon the map, continents and islands, every time he goes to a new culture, a reskin, this is clearly Venice, Norse barbarians, merchant marine, essentially the same thing, you get off the boat, they have a different culture there, primitive people as you bulldoze their forest to make a landing strip, Thailand and Hong Kong, both Asian, not the same, what makes something taboo, puts a female mask on Zap210, orgy, the emblems, your emblem is you identity, keep with the Austrian accent, why people get tattoos, figure out their identity, what Jack Vance’s science is, how weird people are, the extreme of the underworld, a little bit like Weena and the Time Traveler from The Time Machine, made permanently child like, the whole point, the Eloi are the aristocracy, we don’t know how our car works, we’re definitely gonna eat you, she herself was a teacher of the young ones, decorum, don’t be boisterous, that kind of transformation, the only identity she had, girls inbetween, immediately kills, trying to get off the planet, a really bad villain, the worst villain ever, Wooldiver, avarice, the collection of money, his religion, he wants to be a Dirdirman, heresy, the big egg, sticking baby Chasch in the brain, chemically castrated, its all culture, this is how things are, I’m only level 4, a key to understanding, he becomes king of a city in book 1, I don’t have time for this, have to make reforms, I don’t especially care, he’s got adventure, king of that one small town, that extraction, the narrator is really good at making him evil, alive or dead, put in the glass box, presumably he’s dead, all wrapped up eventually, he and his remaing crew, some kind of a report, where it ends, a sequel, an epilogue, little Adam Reiths running around, pretty tame, not a sex adventure, Gor-curious, better written, a 25 book series, The Demon Princes, The Star-King, one damn thing after another and no resolution, you have to sell the book the way it needs to be sold, a four season show, the themes and the chapter breaks all fit together and hang together as a nice whole, not wrong, motivations, Predators, that human hunting stuff, mad Pnume, nighthounds are the same thing, walking on four legs upside down, as an ecosystem, not as thorough as Dune, worms up and down, one species planet, using that background to enrich the alienness of The War Of The Roses or some such, pilgrim plant, a restaurant, restaurant in Bankok, this is spicy, this is very pickled, grow to enjoy, a different set of taboos, cultural morals, the experience of adventure, Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, visit to Mars by magic carpet, legless children, the bitter feminist cult, an organ made of men, everything moves on, who thinks of that?, Elric of Melniboné, Melbourne, the sword who drinks, a sash, a hat, a way of hiding your hair, the ferry, very Charon on the ferry, the most modern of the books, eyes are free, almost all of them are zombies, cigarettes off the sidewalk, we’re not zombies like these other people, seperate from those zomies, trapped in your own algorithm, you block people, Brave New World, the soma, the only one that’s sweet, clever and so insidious, hunt escapees, really solid, compared to Ringworld, for such a big dumb object, in the first book, hard science fiction, engineering, superstrong string, technology stuff, everyone’s got spaceships, the scanscope, doesn’t know anything about physics, the hulk, it was cool to the touch, because it’s iron, what it can do, those strange markings, do not point at sun, Luke’s binoculars from Star Wars, a fantasy world, wooden sailing ships, D&D on this planet, everyone knows there are spaceships, yep yep, yes it is, hunting for food for a spear, learns a language by kissing a girl, they’re bitcoin mined, rhymes with stuff that happens on Earth, when you read Jack London, lots of horrible cultural shocks, temperature shocks, how assholish people are, telling it from the point of view of a dog, many many such, a liberation there, faithfulness, very frothy, apples are really delicious, the same reason that they float, this book is not a dense stake, that crunch sound, if you hold an orange, juicy, mostly fluff, I would have more of this, three books called the Alastor, three books, cluster of 10,000 stars, loosely under the control of this dictator, the Whelm, the weird Jack Vance culture, the dictator, shows up in disguise, lowly bureaucrat, giant space battleship, pops in and likes to observe his planets, Tales Of Dying, that’s what we read, a French version, it takes longer in French, Lyonesse, To Live Forever, get your level up high enough, trying to solve his own murder, Big Planet looked really good, more out of print stuff, the Vance Integral Edition, a matched set, limited print, 60 books, brown leather, collection vs. reading, makes it unappealing, a nice pulp cover, $1500 in 2003, $14,995, 47 volumes, cheap paperbacks, a successful author, Stephen Leacock, My Financial Career, Stephen Leacock’s house, Mark Twain’s house, a massive beautiful home based on telling lies, so many cases like that, nobody you’ve heard of has a writing castle in Michigan, the premiere medium, movies were just coming in, as a writer you were the source and the sole employee, you could do it, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Howard had a typewriter, a carbon copy, a big market for fiction, so many magazines, then hardback market, paperback market, audiobook ebook market?, audible makes money now, stretch your legs into some E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros, majestic romance, should rejoiced, the many mountained demon land, a literary event of the first importance, there is a map and illustrations, 15 hours, 520 pages, appendices, somewhere down the road, last weekend of September, Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, has two heads, a girl, astral projection, same way as John Carter, magic carpet, you don’t need oxygen, the symbology going on, everybody’s retarted, the language has got so much simpler, that literary voice, the dumbing down of pop culture, the producers insist they recap what’s happened, oh that just happened, don’t make them work for it, the themes are shallower, an endless fetch quest, the difference is that is an excuse to get the next culture, to have the next adventure, Metropolis, 2001: A Space Odyssey, static scenes, the exact right mood for it, 2010 is a great science fiction movie, Brave New World, gets you into the mood of what the book is going to be about, a really good painted cover, That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf by Kimberley Lemming, World Without Men by Charles Eric Maine, weirdly fascinating, that’s it, contraception, government conspiracy, shoots down the jetliner, its fun, ideas, the last man on earth, all these lesbians who hate him, very 2026, the first male child in 5000 years, look at this we created a male, enforced lesbianism, a supercomputer that runs the world, a fun read, Mr. Adam by Pat Frank, everybody’s sterile, inspecting a lead mine, we need to study this, we must study you, we have a sperm gap, the Chinese have seized him, Canada’s like we will play along, a mockery of American government and bureaucracy, a mocking satire, all these guys coming back from WWII, using science fiction ideas, the fun stuff, if it doesn’t have robots or androids or supercomputers or vampires it better fuckin have a murder, maybe an Agatha Christie, not as a steady diet, conartist in space, Deathworld by Harry Harrison, a good space opera, Deathstalker by Simon R. Green, weird urban fantasy, giant decadent space empire, farm planet, a sexy mistress that he bought from the concubine store, declared an outlaw, start a rebellion and overthrow an empire, plot reasons, swordfights and blasters, corrupt decadent courts, handmaidens with brains burned out, no one can say no, this is what happens when you put women in charge, and the adventure continues, a chonker, two weeks to read four books, other genres, military science fiction, subset of space opera, big dramatic galaxy changing, subverting tropes thing, invading this planet, this unit trapped somewhere, Honor Harrington, Horatio Hornblower in space, the big dumb object, bio-science fiction, Peter Watts, Greg Bear, Project Hail Mary, The Martian and the other Martian (Odyssey) by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Artemis, anything still being talked about 100 years later, Orville Prescott, its not as big as Shogun, old books still being talked about, 100 years later, an introduction by big movie collection, Forrest Ackerman, my Slan friend, skyscraper is a reference to a sail on a ship, the moonraker, Moloch, the heart machine, the human clocks, the mole world, a ruler as ruthless, the Seal of Solomon, supermundane science, Hugo Gernsback, I don’t want to be him and I think I am him, set in Novembro 2026, The Cosmic Courtship by Julian Hawthorne, Cirsova, illustrations, some collector had the issues, to do the OCR, they didn’t release those scans, Mary Faust, a brilliant scientist, an evil sorcerer, Jack Paladin, her love, swashbuckling, 1917, a gutenberg text, so many scans coming in, Black Canaan, how to pronounce Ouroboros, adventury book, it went down easy, a big investment is fine, more people should be readin Jack Vance, born in 1916, Showboat World, modern author biography, wrote a bunch of crappy books, cattlehand, mercenary in South Africa, joined a cult in the Himalayas, admit when a story is good, a story published in Chatelaine in 1983, a good story, called The Metaphor, a really good English teacher, flamboyant, teaching grade 7 for 16 years, my dog is a big fluffy cat, my mom is a cold austere building, do you need to talk to somebody, attracted to boys now, finally spreading her wings, a little older, just as flamboyant, the students all make fun of her, hit by a bus, how important you were to me, it was a murder, that is most of the mainstream literature that teachers push on kids, they went into creative writing, their upbringing, become a dentist, now reconciled with you brother, every single Disney movie, the working class playwright, Monty Python, broad country accent, coal mining is an honorably profession, more to life with gala lunches, nailing a lot, the people in the DSA, in favour of the working class but they don’t know any, LuluLenin, people aspiring to that sort of class, a lot of money for a mug, there’s something there, probably helped their writing, rich kids that did good, Larry Niven, Michael Crichton, a really solid paperback from the 70s, it felt complete, hit it big, moving on, very much a John Lange, bigger projects, The Great Train Robbery, he directed the movie, an excellently funny film, when you’re watching a 70s movie, The Black Hole (1979), the hot Maui sun, Deep Rising (1998), 80s movies, 60s movies, great westerns.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #876 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard and The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros by Clark Ashton Smith

The SFFaudio Podcast #876 – The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard (1 hour 23 minutes) read by Mike Vendetti and The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros by Clark Ashton Smith (31 minutes) read by Tommy Patrick Ryan, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Cora Buhlert.

talked about on today’s show:
Smith’s 1931, 1933, paired, Weird Tales authors, big 3, big 4, thieves stealing things from places, things not going according to plan, a tweet, art from both, who thiefed it better, Howard, had read the Smith before, 25 years now, maybe more, a few other things too, badgering about Conan, really good, over the last 4 years, sword and sorcery, really liked it, good introduction to Conan, a good story, with one caveat, no girls in it at all, more interesting character, Red Nails, People Of the Black Circle, Queen Of The Black Coast, old fashioned language, perfectly harmless Conan stories, stray racism, stray anti-shemitism, pro-cimmerianism, trying to cancel Astrid Lindgren, Pipi Longstocking, great children’s book, the audience for that Star Trek babies show, isn’t quite what you were expecting, of these two stories, which one is the science fiction story, literally an alien, stapled to a couch for 300 years, other planets, not surprised, if he was less Cimmerian he would question his sanity, the tones are very different, a pair of thieves into a forbidden building, one of them dies, with no great jewel, a horror story, a cosmic horror story, Tsathoggua, an inklings situation, an Inkling situation, Seabury Quinn is the big fourth, correspondence, Robert Barlow, Frank Belknap Long, H.G. Wells was in Weird Tales, Tennessee Williams, the people on the cover, Clarke would be one of the big 4 of something else, takes the cover, doesn’t have scantily clad women, Galactic Journey, Margaret Brundage covers, got quite grumpy, naked woman on the cover, strategically placed, less than 5%, scantily clad ladies, all academics, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Texas, California, Rhode Island and New York, except to go to Mexico, and New Orleans, re-qualification, San Fransisco, using the mail, reading each other’s stories, corresponding, not exactly an inklings situation, C.S. Lewis, writing for money, elderly and sick parents, stuff in the 1950s, a pulp story, chapters, the whole last chapter of the book is a nice delicious infodump, the fight in the bar, what kind of men are men, Gundermen, a city of thieves, Yara is a thief as well, a pot bellied Nemedian, Taurus, Poland maybe?, Zamora, Turkey?, Hyrkania, Russia, Ukraine, an analogous, the tower, our guy who’s bragging, to teach women stealing, a Kothian, hooked nosed shemite forger, he wants to sell a particular woman to a shemite, a slave of another race, he stalked her and got her, a big story about bragging and what being a man is, why has no one broken into the tower, the conflict, Howard doesn’t do this, semi-unconsciously, getting into a fight with Lovecraft about what’s going on, civilization vs. barbarism, Howard is massively affected by this, a completely corrupt city, carry swords openly, a beef, the only killing Conan does of a human, a Nemedian who’s already on the job, inaccessible towers, with winged people, pre-cataclysmic land, lions, tries to betray Conan, Conan figures it out using Sherlock Holmes style techniques, what eventually is not a pay-off, escape the city with a bag of gold, what do we come away with?, he doesn’t walk out with a gem, some insight into Conan, a mercy-killing, compassionate, Yag-Kosha, torturing him, blind, drugged stupor, he helps Yag-Kosha, a man of a certain thing, The Ten Commandments, very biblical, Solomon Kane, old testament characters, physically gets the Staff of Solomon, this proof of God’s power, A Song Out Of Midian, Mt. Sanai, Christianity, civilized long settled people, intricate and complex, formulas and rituals, simple and understanable, Crom was their chief, gloomy savage god, gave man courage at birth, kill his enemies, literally engaging, the perfect god for atheists, The Vale Of Lost Women, lovecraftian monsters, from the outer dark, essentially miracles, fights the god, that is victory, man can fight a god, he isn’t writing this because he’s trying to make a philosophical point, he can’t help but put his stuff in there, a minor debate in Conan The Barbarian (1982), a haze of bewilderment, all touched in the head, low tolerance, ideas about life, I live, I love, I slay, I am content, sits around and listens to philosophers a lot, how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, shaking your head, up their own navel, religion students, teachers of religious education, translated 500 different times, what’s going on, which is the better story and why, the Conan story, very enjoyable, a mythic depth to it, it’s cosmic, a Lovecraft feeling, came to earth in China, Ganesha, this is what I need you to do, take my heart out, squeeze the blood on this gem, ancient ancient stuff, in The Odyssey, Tim Powers’ On Stranger Tides, instructions, strums the guitar strings, biblical and beyond biblical, from the depth of the human consciousness, differing philosophies, read both before, deeper, more mythical, a great story, funny, what happened was, got on the internet, excited to meet other people, an early forum, Scott Lynch, The Lies Of Locke Lamora, KGB Bar, Asimov stories, rude, that’s true, way to stupid, a collection, appreciate it more, the executioner, dark but hilarious, some guy who was a jerk, ultimately you are on team Conan, an incredibly important story, rogue thieves story, definitely important, Boston Blackie, Dunsany, the first one in fantasy, the template for Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, we like the Conan more, the different philosophies, engagement with the world as it is, having that idea, rug pulled, The Mirrors Of Tuzun Thune, a much gander aspect, race and borders and stuff, how to be in the world, except for the story and the experience, we come out of the story with a greater awe, comes out with a missing hand, meets a monster, a genuine monster, into a circle, the same temple, things in particular, 3rd person, the author giving his opinions, that’s a mistake, all sorts of clever, early in Conan’s career, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, the names of the characters, he treats his characters very disposably, usually keep the main character, background characters always change, Turuz Oomphalious, Tommy [Patrick Ryan], what kinda accident, sounds like a real name, both of these are jokes, less than zero, omphalos, navel, also a circle, they’re thieves, thieving to be luxurious, fur bikini, enjoying the thievery, that drunkenness, decadence, a repeated motif, loves describing the colours of the materials, the materials themselves, the sensual experience, literally lost his hand, writing with his sinister hand, the story as it is, the tale of everything, the shrine of the god, the jungle taken suburbs, hyperborean rulers, one giant sentence, what kind of guy, violet juice, rubric, on strong vellum, made of the skin of the mastodon, some lying legend, a warning letter, the colour of the ink, he is an aesthete, pleasure seeking, touched in the head, a response, a little more like Taurus, he enjoys the spoils of his takings, the king of thieves, too much rich food, drunken burglary, own everything nice, The Hound, they steal art, they make art, their art is horrible, hounded to death, go in to steal something, round and round, lives to tell the story, his lesson was not learned at all, why we love reading Clark Ashton Smith, Conan’s motive, a very good question, the whole point of Conan, the viewpoint character, we want to be him and we want to have this experience, they’re doomed, the characters don’t survive, the luxuriant growth, as you approach it, snakes, other animals, and bats, a doom, walking towards their doom, they’re fools, Conan is Robert E. Howard wrestling with the world, people would come at Jesse with religious stuff, figure out what’s going on, how do you defend against their arguments, comes in cynical but open, asks his questions, a famous line in this story, that’ Heinlein line, armed society is a polite society, from outside the city, the Karen mentality, grateful and thankful, the thing we hate in ourselves, we need to be a certain way, in the end he comes away with a broader experience of the world, that is the payment, a young Conan, newish to civilization, very curious, an atheist, he’s anti-religion, a religious region, books about theology, he’s doing his own research, he’s arguing with them, A Witch Shall Be Born, crucified and survives, a betrayal story, every movie, even the Solomon Kane movie, he’s a philosopher, he’s wrestling with something, it’s not always Conan but it is always Robert E. Howard, women shouldn’t trick you into wanting them and then take your money, his takeaway, what if everything’s fake?, literally wrestling with things, Xuthal Of The Dusk, The Slithering Shadow, responding to gothic fiction, rejecting it, how to avoid becoming weak, he came to earth, a rebellion on their planet, jungles of China, the names are not great, his apprentice, oversteps, builds the tower, a story of betrayal, I have to stand on my own two feet, own bootstraps, ultimately we know what happened to Howard, don’t do that, pay his bills, caregiver for his mother, a double funeral, his father, slow to pay, trapped in this house, his girlfriend had gone off to college, is she really dying this time, he wanted to kill himself, the excuse, untenable, let’s be careful, a long life, he drank a lot, got married late in life, stepchildren, he did his art, he cultivated his garden, this amazing vocabulary, very strange for thieves, the stand-in for these characters, trying to make art, the putative author of the story, it’s navel gazing, he knows what he’s doing here, sensual pleasure, the problem of existence, existential philosophers in the form of sword and sorcery stories, steals to survive, jewels he kept, find yourself a husband, crazy socialists, civilized lands, next to warehouses full of grain, cuthroat capitalism, super loyal to his friends, young thief, mercenary, pirate, he’s everything, the man in full, 16-mid40s, a mistake to think about how Conan is, what is this character come away with, a sense of awe, wow, how are we supposed to feel about this mercy killing, honourable and terrible, Robert E. Howard’s position, frontier guy, dogs and horse being shot, too injured to continue living, a hypocrisy there, one of the pacific island wars, head blown open, what do we do?, the cameras are here, of course you’re going to shoot him, everything that happens is horrible, you sorta need to have a reason external to you, what it has to be is anti-dogma, thou shalt not kill (thy self), he’s trying to do good in the world, harms all of us, his friends are all sad, not gonna make you happy, a choice between these two stories, we are told to reject the story by Satampa Zieros, that’s why it can’t be compared, much tighter and more complete story in terms of unity of effect, what Poe would be talking about, it nullifies itself, it tells us to reject it, there are immense possibilities, first fighting dinosaurs, a nested dug in on itself society, the sun’s bright, how different they are when they’re really quite similar, why do Sherlock Holmes stories work for us so well, crusaders stories?, why do we like his writing so much, of they’re not stupid ideas, so distinctive and iconic, even though he’s great, he’s always going to be third tier of these guys, his ambition, tend my garden, make things beautiful, the colour of the wine, all surface, all pleasure, older than Robert E. Howard’s, at least one word he made up, abroad already in the half light, the poisonous looking fruits, malign attention, he is a thesaurus, adamantine, pecuniary depletion, it means purple, his vocab is better than everybody’s, he literally didn’t forget his words, come away with vocab words, Hyperborea, a place of his, greek for far north, Averoine, Poseidonis, Zothique, Ziccarth, he get’s a second story, absolutely isn’t, a pretty weird one, The Sword Of Welleran, The Theft Of The Thirty-Nine Girldes, chastity belts, elephant revenge, 1,001 Nights, The Black Diamonds, two kids grow up in Baghdad, always meals, has them have lunch, he’s playing with himself, his own version to 1,001 Nights, his imagination is running wild, Spider-Man or RoboCop or Peacemaker, Abdul Al Hazred, towel on his head, cosplaying, pretending to be a pirate, spears, he had a lot to live for, he would have been wealthy, H. Beam Piper, lived into the 1980s, he’s funny too, the humour is in the boxing stories, Breckenridge Elkins, the only book is on LibriVox, a mountain man, he’s so strong, exaggerated fun stories, Sailor Steve Costigan, not a bright guy at all, an amateur boxer, there was a demand for boxing, railroad stories, Action Stories, Fight Stories, a better market, more Howard, space em out, $0.99, they’re all the same, they’re all good, when Lovecraft reviewed the Clark Ashton Smith story, very Dunsany-like, The House Of The Sphinx, we come into a middle of a scene, there’s something out in the woods, a 1 page story, the house is falling apart, what is he doing in this story, a bookstore, in the lobby was a sphinx, Egyptian sphinx, designed to prompt you to figure it out, being very playful, to be playful, the connection, comes away different, enjoys the names and enjoys the joke, the luxuriance, it’s soapstone, wealthy aristocrat, no electricity, not selling to the same magazines, the author and their art, Michael Crichton, a literary connection, Travels, The Andromeda Strain, dedicated to Arthur Conan Doyle, engagement with literature from before you, Atlantis, Lemuria, trying to engage with the ancient, out of the bible, out of other stuff, mediocre writing that comes and goes, engaging with tropes, the save the cat formula, enemies to lovers, really popular, modern writers, they’re not engaging, they liked Firefly, you don’t have to read this old stuff, they draw on everything they’ve read, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Greek classics, took Latin, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, religious education classes, same five parts of the bible, quite annoyed, don’t ask questions, it should be, pulp authors, literature, mythology, religion, made teenage Cora go to religious education, Jezebel, transliteration issue, stole a bible, they’re designed to be stolen, here’s a question, walking around to hotels, leave a copy of the Robert E. Howard’s stories, an amenity, if you look at his manuscripts, backs of hotel paper, paper is expensive, designed to be stolen, hotel shampoo, the sheets on the bed, towels, pocketed stuff, everybody is a Clark Ashton Smith character, not going to happen, whoever the Gideons are, public book shelves, compare the translation, crime novels, little free libraries, in demand, other books were still there, crime novels, two crime stories, Midsommer Murders, NCIS, speaking of crime, reading Howard as a teen, how dare he kill that Brythunian, read a western, everybody is out to kill everybody, some piece of media, horribly immoral, they’re stealing as they go through the countryside, everybody in the city is a thief, when Conan steals, people who can afford it, poor farmer, from wealthy people, terrible people who have deserved it, human trafficker, deserves is not the way of Jesus, violent American trash, complete nonsense, a transgressive thing to do, Conan, Rambo, and Rocky, fifty years old at the time, sympathy, Nancy Kress’ Beggars In Space, reject it, what is being promulgated is evil, doesn’t happen very often, not connecting, a visceral this is evil, Slan is kinda evil for the same reasons, put sympathy in the wrong place, I am better than you, evil stories, on a podcast about it, refuse to watch shows, the death penalty, never watching this show again, 24, torture, a terrorist somewhere, children committing murder, Adolescents, radicalized, ahistorical, age control of the internet, see weird things online, atheist can’t have evil, how are you defining evil, god as the source of morality, dragging this out, important, as written in the move, not really a commandment, you have to, pre-the Israelites, virtuous pagans, a graven image, the KJV, some are uncontroversial, describes the Ark of the Covenant, of heavenly things, strange gods before me, take the name of the lord god in vain, remember the sabbath day, the same one, days of the week, the next one, honour they father and mother, respectful unless disrespectful, thou shalt not kill, armies kill, just war theory, you shalt not murder, when he gets married, thou shalt not steal, rob from the rich and give to yourself, Robin Hood, apparently not, the way they get out from under Pharaoh, fine get out of here, curse on the first born, lambs’ blood, we all know what steal is, when Blackrock does it, the number one, don’t lie about what people did, thy neighbour’s house, thy neighbour’s wife, set up these stones, the turn the other cheek stuff, old testament times, Jesus himself was asked, he didn’t say all of them, love god and love each other, a condensation, ordering your life where god is first, from that ordering of your life, this turmoil, this chaos, this idiocy, evil, makes the rest of it less important, in the proper ordering of things, willing the good of another person, jealousy fades away, good for you but also good, that’s a bad idea, causes strife, people living together well, in-groups, monotheistic and abrahamic religions, Hindu or Buddhist, pretty universal rules for living together well, Edward Page Mitchell, the best early science fiction writer, a fantasy, a Bangsian fantasy?, the rapture, a scene in it, pile up all the gold that they have, the heavens shakes, the roof comes off of the world, lit on fire, Moses is up on Mt. Sinai, down in the valley beneath, a golden calf to worship, revelry, Moses comes down and he’s really mad, throws the tablets at the golden calf, it zaps, elide it, got the tablets back, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, is that the same gold?, if it is, it is more interesting that way, a whole lot of different stuff to explain the story, 30 years of Moses’ life is absent, putting it all together we have to do a lot of inference, it’s immutable but very mutable, Edward G. Robinson, that’d be good right?, the Judas of the group, motivated by gold, we fell enriched, but we literally get nothing, we should raise money, nothing on tv, they pull open the drawer, a faith in the book, a faith in the word, the word remains, something fun about that, a notch deeper than that, Jesus is the word, bored in hotel rooms, single rooms, parents’ magazines, parents’ books, micromanaging commandments, when and how to have sex with what, giggle giggle, indulge Jesse, semi-interesting story, this one church has the Ark of the Covenant in there, exposed, maybe it is radioactive, we did our own raiders of the lost ark, [iodine] fight the radiation, how much does that effect us, translate it, we decode it, thous shalt not own a Tesla, surprising!, draw human blood, older fragments being found, the Gospels, the older fragments match, controversial content, what books included, what books aren’t, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Christians have got something cool over there, an argument or a possibility that is always out there, the oldest existing, when a new translation comes out, Hebrew or Greek, as accurate as possible, interpretation, different readings of passage, better not to have the tablets, imagine we have no doubt that it’s the actual tablets, that’s impossible, what’s really true is the story, as a film, Moses is put in the river by his mom, the prophecy for Oedipus, very similar, the ending is the Israelites leave Egypt, not a destiny doom thing, by the power of God, why is that so central to the idea, the parting of the red sea, a series of coincidence, read this as mythological, the Greek response to reality, the innovation that makes it powerful, Lewis’ conversion to Christianity, Tolkien had a part of that, these stories are mythological, this is the myth that’s true, the more interesting reading of it, these are not supposed to be read as actual events, scrutinizing the videotape, scripture only, the genesis story as literal, these stories were orally told through time, the details are not long there, the important points are hit, wowed the audience, Bros. Grimm stories, relating actual events?, yes, anything older than Abraham, the story of Noah, a cool movie to see, this is what it says, Noah (2014), a spiritual aspect to them, god helping you through tribulation, the historical aspect, the story they told themselves, Egyptian records, historical characters are in there, black Americans in slavery, the story of the Israelites being freed is a big deal, a deep thrumming, a Jenny (Colvin) word, either or both, Augustine goes through Genesis, meanings, in the year 300, these days aren’t literal, the number 40, a poetic word, a lot, many, not the conventional way, to sophisticated for how stupid we are today, important to understand what was being written and to whom, lamb of god, meant something specifically to the people of the time, we don’t have the symbolism, if we understood the symbolism, the story would make more sense, a cat on a rooftop in the Hansel and Gretel, very specifically a bird, broken by modern interpretation, Cinderella, a corruption to turn it into princesses, the original Grimms, the original grizzly versions, obsession with stone babies, cautionary tales for young women, why doesn’t the wolf eat the girl in the forest, and her lunch, he get’s into the grandma’s bed, what was the woodman doing there?, retold for a modern audience, very artificial sounding, Bros. Grimm: Demon Hunters, young women, nurses and nannies, aimed at girls and young women, The Iliad, Yul Brenner, Moses, his accent, The Magnificent Seven, Westworld, while he’s sitting on the throne, Priam from ancient Greece comes in, the King of Troy, we can get a timeline, Hollywood edition, smart and educated, a strange film, Cecil B. DeMille, a narrator throughout, and then this happened, Charlton Heston’s hair, an easter egg for us, Trojan War, the Jews are doing this over there, Midian, how would he know about that, very cool, much more interesting and public domain version of the MCU, terrible language, The Fantastic Four movie, Mythopoeia by J.R.R. Tolkien, fun as heck, when next are we three meeting again?, the links are there, science fiction and science fiction, hiking, full on the weekends, if not then, then, spread em out, did we ever do anything by C.L. Moore, we did a big show on it, Stefan Rudnicki, Skyboat let us use one, bye.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #875 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Undying Monster by Jessie Douglas Kerruish

The SFFaudio Podcast #875 – The Undying Monster by Jessie Douglas Kerruish (7 hours 56 minutes) read by Ben Tucker, for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
Monster?, before 2014, her publication in famous fantastic mysteries, pretty good, not super well known, did you write it, different spelling, different lady, here’s a big novel by me, 8 hours long, a full novel, 3 and half hours is novel, people disagree, unplug and plug back in, decent, you liked it, good points, inventive, where to get there, that one’s not great, the recording, he’s got a British accent, most of the voices, competent, Ben Tucker is good, an interesting choice, a lot more acting, did you manage to see the movie?, this last week, last night, driving to and from some stuff, spoiler alert, a good werewolf story, Luna, more obvious, the werewolf is attracted to the moon, for whatever reason, fasinated by shapechangers, werewolves in particular, the druid class, into wolves and bears, Diablo, a werewolf or werebear, Brandytook?, lifted from Tolkien, our favourite hobbits, awith a swing of his stick, inventing the game of golf, the shapechanger, turn into dragons, D&S or Pathfinder, forgotten everything about this book, all the pictures, a hand of glory on the cover, scenes from all sorts of different stuff, the drivers died, irritating, big loss there bud, missed out on the etymology, fascinated by skinchangers, skinwalker, a [novel] approach, 4th and 5th dimension, a very strong personality behind it, the Saga of the Volsungs, oh yeah, skipped throughable, the video on YouTube, on archive.org, sort of worth watching, the book is quite different, 8 hrs vs. an hour, the last line of the movie, wait a minute, a weird joke to put in a murder movie, this book is all sorts of things, Oliver and Swanhild, she straps on her brother’s service revolver, WWI, driving almost everybody to kill themselves, the shaw, either Doyle, Professor somebody, or that lady, Doyle is Conan Doyle, with so much baggage, the subtitle of the book, Hound Of The Baskervilles, a reverse gothic novel, early Scooby Doo, old man withers!, the supernatural thing is always fake, inheritance scheme, condos, what shaw is, old english, a thicket or copse, what it is, context it makes sense, this weird dark cave, forested, a coppicing, a copse of trees, a forest cultivated for making charcoal and home heating, sticks of the right size, for making faggots, walking sticks, wand, a little tree branch, you can just substitute the moors, with the Doyle reference, a mystery, supernatural stuff, documents, the legend, a doctor showing up at Sherlock Holmes’ residence, the legend of the Baskervilles, extraordinary evidence, a response to that, a story by Barry Pain, The Undying Thing, contemporaneously, turns out it was first published in 1893, a chain, a feudal house in some part of England, the old English manor house, a family in decline, the setting is great, cool old things, secret rooms, mounds, guys who live in cottages, Holmes, Dracula, vampires, a series of RPGs, larping, Vampire The Masquerade, weirder, give me all the rules, five phases of werewolves, krynos form, the wolfman, almost pass for a really hairy dude, a dire wolf, loup garou, Norse mythology, unexpected but welcome, the twist, the dog is dead, maybe he’s not a werewolf, the first ancestor, still hiding, the Magnus guy, all turn into wolves because of crazy, if you have the knowledge when you are in the womb, before he had sex to make you, encoded in your genes, racial memory, scanned through it, as soon as she’s out in the wood, how come I know that, forgotten the movie, noted on a tweet, really funny audio drama called THE MONSTER HUNTERS, retell old movies as their own, 1970s groovy monster, Heir Of The Dog, a game on Steam, gold car, ache in my back, she’s playing with the record player, they are attacked by a werewolf, this is what inspired that, the tropes are there, scared to death, when John Baskerville comes, connecting these altogether, incest, old English families, keep it in the family, Swanhild is also in Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard, 1883, maybe it starts with a g and ends with an l, ghoul?, such a werewolf nerd, a rundown of the Saga of the Volsungs, the race of the Volsungs, an edda, the translation by William Morris, 3000 years later, reading Edgar Allan Poe, you fool, this bird is not a Raven, yeah, we don’t care, where Gandalf came from the dwarves of the hobbit, Smaug is not in there, Fafnir is a talking dragon, talking dragons are also shapeshifters, there’s just talking dragons, talking fish, dragons are men, they shapeshift because of their behavior, sit on piles of gold, kidnap maidens and keep them for themselves, a good king doesn’t sit on his horde, he has 1, if you are a bad king you become a dragon who should be slain, werewolves are something you do, you put on the mantle of a wolf, the skin of a wolf, something you put over yourself, you become a wolf’s head, becoming crazed, about to be eaten by her brother, the way the family will prosper is by eating somebody, conk on the head, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, brother sister creepin, Roderick young comes to visit, falls into a black lake, the background for what could have happened, heroine, really good at hypnosis, the gal Kate, still alive at the time, wasn’t dead yet, I’m a normal man now, did kill that lady, alone with only one other person, a thin explanation, believing in the rules of the thing, a GenCon viking guy, vikings and dwarves, beards and culture, the land of the ice and snow, Immigrant Song, really fun, links, the setting that it’s pulling from, a neat exploration, is it well written, cheesy stuff, the movie ends abruptly, the natural ending is about an hour before the ending, the lady detective wrap-up, some more hypnosis, better in its parts than it is in its whole, the giant man overlooking the estate, the first image in the PDF, made of the shaw, sort of symbolic, the giant man of Dannaou, ancient chalk carving out, horses or men, the horses are well regarded, genitals exposed, looms over the whole story, you’re Danish, I knew it, sloppy, convention stuff, a terrific Lovecraft connection, The Alchemist, an early one by him, little boy raised in a castle, near Spain?, no mirrors in the castle, part of the castle has been condemned, some kids point over at him, maybe he has a dragon head, this ancestral curse upon the family, the men in the family will die before the age of 30, they die from accidents, earning immortality, he has cursed the family, by literally staying alive to kill them, in the background of this, Paulo Coelho, The Lurking Fear, respect Lovecraft as a humorist, a journalist who goes to investigate Thunder Mountain, a family up there, under the right conditions, one of these cannibal people living under the old house, a big burly friend with lots of meat on him, CHUDS, Lovecraft is hilarious, Re-Animator, same joke five times in a row, so many cool touches, our lady detective, she’s there but she bakes some taffy and they make fun of her, not really the same character, she’s the star of the show, a Madame Blavatsky, her aunt, her lesbian lover, not a lot of homosexuality in here, this threat of incest, vibe based, you don’t remember incest in there, Stapledon, the guy who made the hound luminous, he’s married to the love interest, he wants to be the heir, he gets really mad, that’s find, simulated incest jealous, a kind of a clue, the Baskerville race, the Usher race, a brother and a sister, alone together, she has a boyfriend fiancee, we’re out of duty to not being incestuous, a childhood friend of the family’s, we were in the war together, another male character, to do some lifting, made the change, hears the howl, going through the moat, the secret room, he was much more dedicated to his fiancee, the fake arm thing, artifical arm, Thorin Oakenshield, Bifur and Bofur, Zipper and Zoffer, son of, Swanhildsdotter, fake arm saved his life, the movie doesn’t represent the book very well, too much to adapt, she’s such a great investigator character, Murder She Wrote but paranormal, he’s got a crush on her, such a Mary Sue for this book, she is having so much fun being the smartest one in the room and the love interest, her hero character, she brought in herself, kind of a witch, weight as much as a duck, extracted from the PDF, wit, knit, Hammond’s race shall live and thrive, espieth, dieth, worse than death shall be his lot, you should kill yourself, why did the grandfather kill himself?, he saw the monster, The White Ape, Facts Concerning Arthur Jermyn And His Family, when we do a show on Congo, Michael Crichton, King Solomon’s Children, an Amazon delivery from Africa, kerosene, as you are a Lovecraftian investigator, the box was his grandma, sorta looks simian, he couldn’t live with the knowledge, racial horror, my grandpa used to work in the circus, restart the call, super bad joke, packed delivered, which is worse, in this book it tells you, a break, why that racial memory stuff needs to come in, under control when they had the knowledge, they had to kill, we just gotta eat somebody, attacked before the book started, the poacher, the butler’s worried, she grabs his pistol, reading it into it, laying it down, weird, fun, you shouldn’t marry your sister, on board the not marrying your sister train, a lot of characters, the least interesting character is our werewolf, our dude’s name being Oliver, Oliver Reed played a werewolf, 1942 movie, 22, 24, the reprint, 1948, Ben-Hur, a 23 hour show and a couple hours of talk about it, back to the werewolf book, a twist on the genre, the racial memories were weird, Danish Norse mythology, lycans is Greek, in Roman times, man in saxon or something, werebear, werecat, manbearpig, Saxon is German, Eaters Of The Dead, Beowulf, Grendel!, a good twist, hate parties, flapper dancers, false trails, a viking longship in a mound, the sword hilt, the background, the evidence that this is all true, complete bullshit, she does a lot of things very well, a preconception, word association, revealed, this is actually, false memory shit, demons, recovered memory, almost all of this is fake, hypnosis ads, quitting smoking, any phenomena that exist in society is either a threat or a tool, it’s not what we think it is, it’s not Mesmerism, the phrase hypnotic ability, a hypnotic disability, the performer up on stage, dancing like a chicken, those are plants, one way of understanding, cold reading, guy pretends he has psychic powers, begins with a G, he loved you very much, a scam, assistants, who travel around, fill in, become actors, a little bit like dinner theater, if you can’t juggle, often involves dominance of personality, the most interesting person in the room, the non-Vichy France, De Gaull was the tallest, if tall promoted more, you need to be seen, hire a dwarf, a commanding presence, submit your personality to that person, to regress him back through his ancestry, you want this to be true, confabulating, I didn’t want him to make stuff up, familiar with hypnosis, through hypnosis, the book is really good, an interesting departure, refind it again, cool, but incongruent, a little hard to follow, impressed, 40 minutes of the last hour, viking hypnosis, taking away his trauma, we’re all gonna watch Ragnarok together, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, all this viking stuff, the rainbow bridge, the Norse myths, just watching the Thor movies, God Of War videogames, out of Greece and into Norse myth stuff, Neil Gaiman, Beowulf script, stuff going on with him, not sure we like him, he’s a good narrator, super-impressed, a good writer, Lemony Snicket, instead of Tim Curry, a retelling, having that knowledge, the reference to Wagner, Ride Of The Valkyries, tapping into the same stuff, the Ring Cycle, retelling, nothing new under the sun, all variations, quite similar to it, she has done a little thing, what I imagine Seabury Quinn is like, remixes popular things, Murder On The Links, Poirot on a golf course, nobody reads him anymore, not true of Holmes, The White Company, Professor Challenger, 4 or 5 of them, When The World Screamed, drill to the center of the earth, the earth doesn’t like it, a really good Doctor Who serial Inferno, turning people into werewolves, green werewolf, a mirror universe, under a fascist regime, eyepatch, just like the Star Trek Mirror Universe, they destroy the world, Stan Lee, they’re different, much more like a werewolf, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bruce Banner, cosmic, get a werewolf costume cheap, acts like a werewolf, transformed by contact, scary and fun, how it ties into this book, in the tradition of this Hammond family, the possibility, the accept it, they don’t cut down the trees because they’re not cowards, it’s a trait, they’re leaning into it, Teen Wolf (1985), Teen Wolf Too, dad’s a werewolf, terrific, he has it under control, keep that anger under control, Nazi Germany, werewolf units, fight to the bitter end, hide out in the mountains, run NATO for us, Operation Gladio, unwilling to submit to others, dangerous between the cities, like Robin Hood but in a bad way, turn werewolf, the North American wendigo, the same idea, you do this by having eaten human flesh, killing a person in the way you kill an animal, acted wildly, play on the basketball team, otherwise you might become a wolf, metaphorically, vampires work that way, a Star Wars reference, Wendigo in Marvel Comics, Alpha Flight, werewolfesque, Beast, female werewolves, types of mutants, Shaman, Puck, Sasquatch, a man of the woods, bigfoot, werewolf adjacent, an uncontrollable thing, starlight and pine trees, a lack of control, they don’t even realize, I didn’t realize I was a rapist, Seth Green plays a werewolf, interesting to think of how people handle werewolves, the player was in complete control, a special attack, he’s hairy, he heals, outdoorsy, he’s short like a Wolverine, 5 foot 2, the inbetween a man and a werewolf, the claws come out, Hulk 181, Ginger Snaps (2000), Brotherhood Of The Wolf (2001), a frogdog, ERB enterprise, a six-legged frogdog from Mars, Odin’s horse has eight legs, a regular horse, in about 10 years, rural wild dog attacks, suburban?, clawed by one of these dogs, transformed, on her next flow day, the period cycle, not an expert on women’s periods, on the moon’s cycle, doesn’t track the calendar exactly, in men’s bodies, most animals have a season, she’s just a girl trying to go to high school, 2 sequels filmed back to back, solid action werewolf movie, you can do a cool variation, Wolfen (1981), a review of how good it is, the audio drama of A Princess Of Mars, $90,000, Bruce Boxlightner, Tom Baker, Sean Patrick Flannery, Tim Russ, nice and short, all 18 books, start another Burroughs series, submarine, lost world, The Land That time Forgot, Beyond Thirty, airship/submarine, savage ladies that need to be saved, The Monster Men, artificial men, he’s really good, Tarzan Of The Apes, The Return Of Tarzan, first went full Burroughs, his origin story, in America, follows Jane back to America, Clayton, still engaged, gets on a steamship and runs into communist spies, gets to Paris, a Rue Morgue thing, maybe it is you King Of The Jungle, an Arab princes, a stolen stallion, lion hunt, pirates, a lost colony of Atlantis, women are super-duper-hot, a lot of treasure, super-hot sacrificing priestesses, the craziest novel, heavily serialized, The Cave Girl, a nebbish guy, just read books, from Boston, she’s adopted, washed up, French baroness, under her tutelage, they’re all good, back a little bit, wrapped up with a bow, he torches her career, she hid evidence right from the beginning, the most cringey scene, that makes you better, that meme going around, that meme going around, the male fantasy, the female fantasy, the midwit, the idiot and the supersmart guy, Strange Tales magazine, two ladies asking for Robert E. Howard, what’s supposed to be male fantasy, you just have a good enough lens on this, this book is so girl, too long, there’s a lot going on, the archaeological dig, let’s look for papers around the house, stuffing out of the couches, funny stuff, you can’t put it in a movie, described in some detail, offstage, some couches, got his dictionaries out, swam in the moat, they’re treating it like its a serious mystery, a very self-aware book, a little bit like they’re in an RPG, literally how Dungeons & Dragons came to be, I want to have my own character, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are D&D characters, big into D&D, walking home from school, storytelling and coming up with interesting scenarios, the diceless part of it, some of the funnest fun books, Choose Your Own Adventure, theater of the mind D&D, this level of detail in the narrative, remember the time we tore these couches apart, as a pure narrative, she needed an editor, novel length, one aspect of the book, the scurrilous journalism in the background, and tourism, they sorta solve it, the sister gets a telegram, a substantial sum, laughin, I hate being a celebrity, the paparazzi I hate you guys, the girl psychology is hilarious, a popular author for a period, in her time, she was not a Doyle, female fantasy, an interesting perspective, there’s a woman in danger, man, don’t run into the woods, dummy, the good reporter, recording seance, it was him along, the seance people, from Chapter 5, golden calf in Sussex, over the breakfast table, inflexible monosyllable, Providence, unless those poachers get involved, the Daily Speculum, funny newspaper name, afflicted family, taken in dense fog, larger than sacred edifice, mainly boots and blurs, portraits of the Monster, heavy type, bandied about, argued about in coffee houses and bars, their exact meaning, spicy murder or divorce, the Sussex Horror, Stop Press, snub them all, the drawing room, playing up the book as being exciting, everybody’s talking about you, influencers, fairly high tech, threw it back, horses, more Victorian, you don’t need that for the story, only if it helps the story, if it is a red herring, female service, being famous, they’re vampires, a really good find, the hand, missing his hand, the hand of fate, the hand of glory, learning about energy exchange, an energy vampire, sending out vibrations, a drug, fame and fortune, reporters all over the grounds, a much more literal thing in today’s society, any level of famous, people who work for youtubers, carry the camera, show off the new makeup, how is thing a thing?, that’s the world we live in now, a pretty fun book, two thumbs up, a solid B, book club, more critical, what’s wrong with this one, some Arthur C. Clarke, put yourself in the shoes of highschool you, The City And The Stars, where it went, the worldbuilding is incredible, a sad ending, ate Luna, we can never be together, maybe contraception didn’t exist, the Anglican church’s the Lambeth conference, gonna do two Robert E. Howards, pair them with other things, 2 desserts of the same ingredients, spirituality and emotional healing, move out of summer, other events, The Tower Of The Elephant and The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros, out all of October, Too Much by Donald E. Westlake, John Jones’ Dollar by Harry Steven Keeler, the first episode of Red Dwarf, White Dwarf, a Jupiter mining ship, 2 lower deck guys, eating from the vending machines, put into suspended animation, three million years later…, everybody’s dead, everybody died from a radiation leak, the last human alive in the universe, piles of dust, back from hypersleep, lonely and going senile, like Douglas Adams, a comedy, full of science fiction, the story should be over, back as a hologram, his own roommate back, every kind of science fiction there is, the shipboard computer, 2 pounds six pence, because of compound interest, Futurama does that, drilling to Hell, so lucky, you can watch Red Dwarf for the first time, some capacity in October, is this great literature, a good read, concerns, tropes that happen, inventive, the 4th and 5th dimension, human consciousness, she’s crazy, I’m a sensitive, I’m a supersensitive, Call Of Cthulhu style investigator, on the level, laughing along with what she thinks is very formal, playful, the most important person in my life, progress.

The Undying Monster

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #497 – The Tempter by Robert E. Howard

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #497

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Tempter by Robert E. Howard

Here’s a link to the poem |PDF|.

The Tempter was first published in The Cross Plains Review, June 18, 1937.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #851 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Jameson Satellite by Neil R. Jones and Mellonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe

The SFFaudio Podcast #851 – Prize Ship by The Jameson Satellite by Neil R. Jones (53 minutes) read by Josh Horowitz and Mellonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe (36 minutes) read by Drakaunus. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Will Emmons.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Jameson Satellite, Amazing Stories, July 1931, Mellonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe, Godey’s Lady’s Book, February 1849, also in Amazing Stories, Novemwbr 1933, tweeting is writing, pair it with something, an interesting pairing, thematically connected, a sommelier, tasting notes, one is much better than the other, we can agree, Neil R. Jones, as a story, good narrator, rough, short, intervening period, the sentence are pages long, makes it harder, one over the other, a “better story”, story is the wrong world, a meditation, congeries, a disorderly collection, a jumble, densely packed, a few through lines, human values have utterly changed, we’re told and then we’re shown, the wrong way to approach literature, what to put out there, edifying ideas, Edgar Allan Poe probably believed intuition was stronger than a posteri logic, just sort of there, social criticism, we don’t even care if people die, maybe Poe thought that, a very hard to understand man, 1840s is not our period, a different world, when talking about Poe, had he lived a few more years, the wrong side, we all implicitly know this, you could argue that he wouldn’t of, would have wanted to have been involved, one of the facts, stumbled through, plowed up, people’s takes on this story, his grandfather was a general in the American Army, somewhat inovoled in espionage, tried to become an officer, he went to West Point, cipher stories, stories not considered difficult, he’s gotta show his brain, this mess of a story is amusing and full of interesting things but as a story is terrible, easily captured by interesting details, hooks, you can love it even though it’s not a good story, a very solid story, what?! stupid, being on track, when he falls into the volcano and breaks himself, he calls out psychically to the aliens, your brain is different, suspense shit, artificially make it bad, works incredibly well, similar cosmic scope, 40 million years or whatever, Edgar Allan Poe with his 7 diary entries, given how old it is, 100 years older, super-old, 180 years old, do some math, 2025 – 1848 ?, 177 years old, buy it unbound, copies of that in a bound form, newspaper is pretty sketchy, a flyer, designed to be ephemeral, no waybackmachine for 1849, some weirdo hoarding, basement or loft, a promotional book put online by Land Rover, a 10 year old reading experience, all that stuff is not preserved by the waybackmachine, the audio and the javascript, just think about plays, surreptitiously recording a play, perfomred and lauded and respected, minor notes in a magazine in a newspaper, both of Poe’s parents were actors, you can still go to Ford’s theater, not the same actors, with regards to preservation, a theme of both of these stories, really fun, seems silly, with the radium, when he preserves his body, the story is made of elements, a bad chemistry metaphor, plans to preserve my body, references to the ancient egyptians, all those premature burials, a grave preserved for the lifetime of your loved ones, keep my ashes in their house, for religious people, bodily risen up by Jesus, preserve the bones, coffins and graveyards and memorials, the boomers are moving towards cremation, need land reform for graveyards, people take up a lot of space, morality about bodies, wars are good, the presumption, Solander’s Radio Tomb by Ellis Parker Butler, Pigs Is Pigs, eventually becomes the tribbles story, Martian flat cats, normal stories, An Experiment In Gyro Hats, Radio News, December 1923, a giant radio, speakers, a comedy story, revised slightly, a lich who gets his wish, the things in his will done after his death, a religious radio station, codicils in his will, give sermons, moving their graves out, the changing attitudes, if enough people don’t like jazz anymore, the radio station becomes unfashionable, a very similar idea, orbiting the earth, way past that, there is no character involved, the earth becoming tidally locked with the sun, all very fun, thinking about my own death, first dead man on the moon, sort of useless, an elaborate tomb, a nice bed, a cup of water beside the bed, free wifi, students can drink their starbucks on the steps of my tomb, where it could start, he’s no longer in his own body, he’s materially no longer himself, there’s no left and right anymore, he has no body, ears don’t seem to be thing anymore, or sleep maybe, or eat, autotrophic, a tiny bit of philosophy, sort of benevolent, what’s going on in the universe, great idea!, travel to all those planets out there!, contrast that with Mellonta Tauta, best friend/husband, wants to annoy, Poe is leaning into it, opposite philosophies, death vs. transcending death, a collection of observations about the 19th century and what is real, we are probably in a giant galaxy orbiting a black hole, it’s deep, one is shallowly deep, deep and easily dismissable, good in their way, Will can dig it, the climax, considering suicide, the benevolence, you could come with us, contemplating suicide, staying with the dead thing, staying with the dead earth, bury your loved one, jumps into the grave with the dead person, the alternate way, allow that person to be buried and visit a lot, dead and can’t respond, having been orbiting the earth not just his whole life, very cool, visiting the graveyard all the time, transitioning between life phases, accumulate mementos, throw away part of yourself, throwing away the possibility of being reminded of it, orients us, fixate on those sorts of things, different possibilities, the price of going out into the universe, leave behind this dead thing, a price you pay, he has that thrust upon him, really dramatic moments in the story, it’s fun and interesting and not self-aware, that era of science fiction, not true of Poe at all, gets in the way of himself, the audio version, sometimes excluded is the editorial introduction, hopefully the readers will, hopefully you guys get it, I don’t know, fun and funny, whenever presented with a fact through words, especially through words, it’s blue now, long story short that’s a false claim, you know Jesse’s nature, telling an untruth, in a story especially in print, the propaganda works, January 6th was an insurrection, if repeated enough, McDonald’s catchphrase, I’m lovin’ it, whoever I am, whatever it is, you become the I, more McDonalds, Hardees, Carl Jr.’s, same kind of situation, breakfast later than McDonalds, the getting up late lifestyle, many unhealthy things, physical constitution, Lord grant me chastity but not yet, reiterate, really good science fiction, really naive and fun, that deep time element, most science fiction stories of the period, associate with Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time, vegetable men, aliens, a professor who has his consciousness transported through time, vegetable bodies, a mindswap, from the ancient earth and outer space, have a family, not consensual, they’re not even they’re just explorers, Douglas Adams, how big space is, almost Star Trek, the natural result of keeping down the TNG path, smoothed out and smoothed out, Lt. Brocclis, pursuing the interests, helping each other, eventually what they are, they don’t EXTERMINATE!, talk to them, cutely naive and nice, cynical with takes he wants to give you, our balloon is crashing, whatever!, that’s fine, I wrote it for my own benefit anyway, he’s great, he needed to get these ideas out there, when not drunk, not a good drunk to be around, doesn’t have people he can talk to, experienced with demons, both parents dead age 2, won’t even adopt him, loves one, hates the other, intellectual problems, kinda have money, nobody understands you, too many hormones, be more calm, go by days, sections by days, thematically organized, April 1st, he knows what he’s doing, foredated, displayed until, looking at march magazines on the newsracks, dated ahead, the year is 2848, probably when it was published, early early January at the latest, 1000 years, puzzle stories, largely the inventor of detective stories, other than possibly in China, Judge Dee, an analogy at best, reading Roman novels, watching the latest Star Trek Section 31 movie, it is that different, they don’t map together, Lucian of Somosata, it’s not science fiction, weird laurel, is it science fiction, Hugo Gernsback would say so, self conscious, the materials available, extends to be still valuable, because of its comedy aspect, Now my dear friend, a long gossiping letter, a comedic engagement and science fiction, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the floating disc places with scientists, he’s taking apart science of his period, a really interesting argument, not really trying to tell us about technology, what science fiction is about, how knowledge of the universe changes us, the ruins of the island of Manhattan, fixing up the palace’s yard, a time capsule, the starting stone of a building, improper deductions, a way of attacking his period, Godey’s Lady’s Book had illustrations, they look like turkeys, April 8th, Eurkea!, a balloon from Kanada, late papers, Amerikan antiquities, a new fountain at Paradise, an island time out of mind, a rivulet, the whole length of the island is 9 miles, densely packed with houses, 20 stories high, the year 2050, wherewith to build up even the ghost of a theory, they were of a great portion of the Knickerbocker tribe of savages, pants, some allusion, a knight of the Golden Fleece, after a fashion of their own, acute in many respects, the poe phrase “monomania”, a kind of pagoda, wealth and fashion, an attack on modern New York, natural protuberance, in the light of beauty, miraculously preserved, a turkey cock and a dromedary, a savage attack on women’s fashion, the contents of the cornerstone, likely to have been a dealer in corn, they must have turned him into sausages, as a kind of science fiction, science fiction-like in many respects, it doesn’t work as a story, it works as an artifact, reproduced in the newspapers, undercooked, why are they on this balloon?, other balloons, above and below, having its gas changed, so infested with people, not fully supported by the story, travelers through the sky, no evidence that they’re powered, floating, travel by train at 300 miles per hour, Pundit and Pundita, people of the future, too undercooked to be a coherent story, two angels talking to each other, a dialogue, those are something but they’re not science fiction, worthy of being included in a science fiction magazine, a curiosity, allow that analysis, the canons of the short story, he’s a pioneer, we don’t know what to expect, The Complete Poe, a story or a fable, subtitles, an essay, The Philosophy Of Composition, how poetry should be made, The Raven, a space filler, the word magazine, the part of the shop where the gunpowder is, argosy essentially means magazine, its full of good stuff, these metaphors extend and change, a piece about hansom cabs, ruminating for a moment on hansom cabs, robotic looking a new technology, a two wheeled vehicle pulled by a horse, watching Sherlock Holmes tv adaptations, a new tech, patented in the UK, what’s it like to ride in an uber, here’s a Poe something, its not a short story, The Premature Burial, articles and anecdotes, a story at the end, The Cask Of Amontillado, a confession piece, Guy de Maupassant, and Hemingway, a form of art, doing a skit is not a play, sing, Shakespearean plays, bums in seats, in the direction of science fiction, precluding it from being science fiction, a way of judging and classifying, this piece is a good piece but not a good short story, is this a good novel?, no, just finished Dune, too long?, seductive, Frank Herbert, he could be wrong, complete and enough, a good novel as well as a good story also an evil story and scary, Paul’s doing what’s right here, not as a 13 year old boy, many 13 year old boys have read it, exposed to moral complexity, great bene gesserit characters, rich and smart, full of the ecosystem shit, wheels within wheels and plans within plans, surprising and scary and revealing, should we use people as objects to accomplish our goals, especially if we want to live, why are the Harkonnens bad and the Atredies good, at least worse, Leto vs. Paul, values people more than anything, muddled, lost perspective, the worm is coming, the scene that shows his character, reunited with Gurney Halleck, equipment vs. people, going in we’re on Paul’s side, that betrayal, they value people, tools to be used, squeeze and squeeze, betrayed by one he was good too, what is the lesson there?, a rich and difficult world, solid solid, Confucius would say, better to be like Leto and die, warrior prince, doomed by our position, what’s good about the book, complex and rich, the more Paul becomes fucked up the better the book becomes, a decent payoff, it’s unexpected and yet inevitable, different readings of it, Frank Herbert misunderstood Paul, snippets on social media, just reference the book, look at what objectively happens, talk about Gollum all day, ultimately what happens, too compelled by that heroin, or Smeagol, a certain intention, what Gandalf said, the author doesn’t matter unless they’re pointing to a particular piece of text, authors can be wrong, whom amongst us knows what’s in our own mind, explains some part of your psychology or interest, more than just intention, actual text, another mind can model it, part of our job, engaging with it and understanding, “Paul was good actually”, he becomes a knife fighter, I’m a friend of Jamus, all his names, the responsibility that comes with having killed Jamus, he’s there to survive, his mom is a user, being used, evil masterplan, Leto was used, have sex with this girl, she is pretty sexy and smart, to his true love, gotta marry the emperor’s daughter, negotiations about the dowry, the sister is so weird, in almost every respect, her position in the book is strange, that’s the trap, don’t fall in, the seduction, the movies of Dune, hurt Will’s reading of Dune, unnecessary, read the wikipedia entry, people like that Dune, what do we know about Neil R. Jones, Hugo Gernsback, so popular, millions of sequels to this story, The Professor Jameson Saga, does not call for a sequel, like TNG, a TNG feeling out of it, cryogenics, cryonics, inspired by this story, the afterlife of this story, what if we made it real, immortality, Herland, the western system of religion, what do you want it for, so I can explore other planets, just afraid of dying, completely dead, the most likely thing, never alive, Io’s got volcanoes, if they don’t have stageplays, their strange morality, Iain M. Banks, just get tired of it, get bored, get done, weird AI ships will store your body for you, a diorama of a historical scene, I’d like to be Lincoln being shot in Ford’s theater, just as long as my beard gets to be blue, highlights, in to being blonde, hair dyed red, pink haired Will, this explains so much, they already think Will’s gay, mortified hairdresser, fire engine red, a lot of work, grow it out, hair smells like smoke, wear a fez, that’s what is fez are for, there’s no brim, it’s not for protecting your eyes from the sun, an aesthetic form, a fashion, a technical device, just like a smoking jacket, you smell like smoke, those wives, a smoking robe, febreze chemicals, an exfoliating scrub, brand loyal, the proximate cause, face feel smooth, sunk cost, pushing us in a direction that’s not good, full body deodorant, don’t do that, you can wash em, you can wash your feet, use soap, hair is the least popular place to use it, don’t use it in your eyes, the mouth, separate mouth products, this stuff called water, actively looking for an unscented shaving cream, can barely walk, one day shaving cream with no scent, blood ox below 98, an electric razor, goatee, patchy and weird, partner/girlfriend/fiance, another thing to worry about, think about brushing, no teeth so no brushing, food chewing device, future pairings, very profitable, two 50 minute stories, solid in their own way, more interesting than fun, Mr. Spaceship and Mercenary, what to do is the question in life, Ben-Hur, The Garden Of Fear, winged men, Connor Kaye recorded it, many other authors, no audiobook that’s public domain, commercial releases, why LibriVox hasn’t got on that, The Hate Disease by Murray Leinster, he’s steady, Gregg Margarite, 2 hours, a possibility, the description, sold already, the Interstellar Medical Service, greeted by a rocket attack, a pandemic of demonic possession, 2010, medical stories, they’re related to science, danger, Alan E. Nourse, [Scott Miller’s] Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, The 54th Of July, social breakdown and what causes that, pretty prolific, he was a doctor, what’s wrong with your penis books, science fiction with a medical twist, Star Surgeon, promoted into existence, Dal Tigmar had always wanted to be a doctor, a silver star of a star surgeon, being racisted at, a medical starship, curing diseases, on the question of length, pairing it with something else, who pairs with Murray Leinster, very pairable, a neutral quality, the opposite direction, not one of the big three, Seabury Quinn, good at making himself popular, a Jules De Grandin collection, who else is in Weird Tales?, David H. Keller, let’s see what’s available, need to read more, The Rat Racket, late for him, Amazing Stories, April 1956, Amazing, November 1931, making it happen, not at 100% yet, a couple weeks ago, rough, still not a good time with Jesse, reschedule, typical to miss those, Jason Thompson, The Magic City, Project Pope, Lilith by George MacDonald, the day before our savior was born, not great, recording’s not great, a difficult story, barely a story, an accident of history, 7 famous stories, they know Poe is public domain, Scott Miller, Spotify deleted 2 Poe stories he put up, how fucked up it is, automated bullshit, a person in the world, friends who are musicians hate Spotify, paid subscriptions, discounted rate, ads, questions about their algorithm, what’s curated by humans, paid to make playlists, YouTube is polarizing, very full of good stuff, heavily censored, manipulative, super-evil, Paul doesn’t like Louis Rossmann, philosopher repairman, fixes macbooks, right to repair, a great video on Linus Techtips, a local computer company called NCIX, computers built there, a giant empire, he’s the number 1 in the world for personal computer construction, personal computer information, lives locally, a scandal recently, product called Honey [browser extension], defrauding or deleting people’s affiliate links in favour of their own, a little kickback from Amazon, using it to monitor you, finding out the bank you were promoting is stealing people’s money, data scraped and stolen, should have said something, Jesse’s hero, psychopathic, personality disorder, everything’s about them, narcissism, you broke this so you owe us, fixing a broken macbook, how do you end up as head of a giant corporation, probably have something wrong with you, our system rewards anti-social behavior, very interesting, seeing it on the edges, attacking adblockers, he gets his money from ads, attacked from his audience, find a way to not be the bad guy, always the victim, that moral victory of just lay out the facts and look at the two arguments, I got a lot of employees, on the side of, the mea culpa isn’t forefront, when the NFL has the superbowl, superbowl ads for fake bitcoin companies, a 3 hour mea culpa, they paid him money to run that sponsored video, so many employees I need to pay, yep, that’s how it works, be like Louis Rossmann yes, COVID stuff, on the wrong side, check to see people being vaccinated, New York, Texas, works for a billionaire, a very cool guy, his own mental problems, ethically he’s very solid, a bad practice, Paul Atredies dangerous, be more influenced by people I actually know, if I have a hero it might be the pope, this particular Pope, Pope Francis, surviving in Argentina, these are different things, he seems good, never worked for the guy, Scott works for him, seems solid, thinking of converting, jubilee year, people of good will, forgive all your debts, forgive him in your bank account, the big magic doom, Will hates himself so he follows a truly evil Israeli literature professor, baby Jesus in the keffiyeh, love without power is totally useless, power without love is very evil, Jesse’s student is here, go to him, end this.

The Jameson Satellite by Neil R. Jones - Amazing Stories, July 1931

Mellonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #850 – READALONG: Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton

The SFFaudio Podcast #850 – Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Tommy Patrick Ryan talk about Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
under his real name, 4th novel, 3rd book, if it was under another fake name, Professor blah blah blah, tricky at base, a copy of the paperback, just like what he did with The Andromeda Strain, stuff on the copyright page, footnotes everywhere, verisimilitude, a document dump, subversion, see what the score is, a more difficult time, shit information, the answer you would have got 15 years ago, some terrible reddit thread, ai summary of the whole thing, full of fake citations anyway, tripped up, the afterwords, an abridged audiobook, the movie, the dwarves, it wasn’t that good, the scenery was British Columbia, we got trees they got trees, fairly good adaptation, well regarded, late at night, sent late, Antonio Banderas still sounded like he was from spain, what’s with the no beard, Omar Sharif, champion bridge player, Lawrence Of Arabia (1964), his last film, learning the language, John McTiernan, slash, Michael Crichton came in to finish the movie, a very good director, Burt Reynolds tv movie, Norm Macdonald, they had to build a lot, a lot of horses, a lot of extras, rains, not a bunch of big names, European actors, our main warrior, the translator, the main viking for us, Buliwyf, Beowulf, the first 20 minutes, keeping it hidden, another Beowulf adaptation, pretty obscure, the Neil Gaiman cgi version, what if he was a coward the whole time, the sea-serpent scene, how he swam with the sea-serpent, the culture of bullshit, a great book, so ambitious, it’s really solid, the footnotes help somehow, in the middle of a battle scene, a little bit like The Princess Bride, very different from the film, the same structure, William Goldman, maybe we should do that one, it’s fantastic, part of it is the source material, a unicorn movie, really clever, a clever idea, a bet, did it on a bet, The Saga Of The Volsungs, deeply connected to Tolkien, Tolkien’s connection to Eaters Of The dead, at what point does it become complete fiction?, after chapter 4, an adaptation of Beowulf, as witness, historical figure, nicely implied, written down by this Arab dude, you need to tell my story, this wizard lady, lady of death, it can’t be 12 warriors, it has to be 13, Gandalf having the conversation, in The Hobbit, the reluctant participant, The Red Book Of Westmarch, There And Back Again, the same story, a mountain from also which comes a dragon, slay the thing and return home again, kinda funny, it is the premise of The Hobbit, all the rich hobbits were thieves, proud of being footpads, they’re old money, robber barons, they’re just Englishmen, hilarious, an Islamic scholar, drinking the mead, having sex with the slave women, he’s choking out a lady wanting to be sacrificed, wow!, not pulling his punches, very solid book, how good is that?, is this real? all the way through, that style of writing hurt sales, an after action report, setting up the frame, not a good writer, wrote it like an anthropologist, drier versions, giving himself a pat on the back, narrated by George Guidall, his vocal quality, very matter of fact, he had fallen in love, so I’m sitting there, super-hot wife, I enjoyed her for a while, all those locks on the door, an impotent rich man, he’s so matter of fact about it, that’s why they sent me out, the asides, the telling of stories, friend of the prophet’s, bearing his slippers, the miser, big long story, that man was cursed, a Guy de Maupassant story, out of embarrassment, gets fined again, completely destitute, he stole somebody’s shoes, our narrator thought it was a funny story and nobody laughed, cursed, you had to be there (in the culture), that culture’s clash, extended, Hrothgar and his son, faithfully done in the film, accidentally on purpose, beef, fight, quality of deception that they love, deception REALLY GOOD, quashes the growing rebellion, you send for a hero, questioning his loyalty, what did Buliwyf ultimately get out of all of this, and what else do you want?, the movie improved on, it’s good, the viking prayer, lo there, now I see all my deceased relatives, the line of my people back to the beginning, where the brave may live forever, he’s become acculturated, a very good adaptation of the book, any additions are structurally helpful, very streamlined, 6 and half hours, feasible, these books are designed to be picked up at a spinner rack at a drug store, typical Crichton heist novel, very ambitious, succeeds at every measure, the small big idea that it is, made his reputation, so well told, competence of the government agents and agency to solve a chemical mystery, he isn’t a faker, all my friends write novels for nanorimo, some weird idea that I have, an insatiable market for paperbacks, a new thing next week, The Venom Business, read Airframe and report back, Congo, The Great Train Robbery, terrific movie adaptation, funny, fast paced, clever, sexy, him showing off that he can do everything, a fake scholarship novel, not science fiction exactly, technothriller, more like a Robin Cook novel, his movie version of Coma by Robin Cook, Westworld, so solidly, characters, stop repeating yourself, Rendezvous With Rama, character and the idea, Arthur C. Clarke is not a normal dude, normal human relationships, ideas, Kim Stanley Robinson, Pacific Edge, this guy is clever, 2312, 900 pages, no plot, no characters, let me worldbuild, The Silmarillion, more plot, everybody wanted more Tolkien, great worldbuilding, novels, humour, very dry, a lot of writers, successful writers, cool ideas, some of them get awards, highly acclaimed books, this could be one third as long and be way better, he’s great at short stories, The City And The Stars is an amazing book, lean into the commercial success, a disaster set on the moon, A Fall Of Moondust, a terrible novel, The Nine Billion Names Of God, Crichton didn’t write a single short story, A Case Of Need, Dealing, a drug dealing novel, Congo, Bruce Campbell, after Jurassic Park, a date movie, everybody wanted everything from him, universally beloved, kind of a problem, everything is Jurassic Park, elevator pitch, the quintessentially example, Jurassic Park, The Meg, Sharknados, Rising Sun, 1992, Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, Japanese businessmen are horny and probably bad, maybe too late in his career, one year after the book, 14 years old, moving into high school, he was a movie hit before Jurassic Park, Spielberg’s directing, get the kids going, shorts and boots, Sam Neil, Event Horizon (1997) is a movie, intense, how long is Congo?, chunky, King Solomon’s Mines, very King Solomon’s Mines, with lasers and monkeys, him engaging, writes books with poets as inspirations, big ambitions, gonna be interesting, white apes, intelligent monkeys, a little pulpy, a little longer, Sphere was weird, you can go wrong, Timeline, State Of Fear, weird ideas, talks a lot about science, The Terminal Man, MKUltra, tin foil hat, brain implants to control people, he’s really on it, whatever he’s writing, past Jurassic Park, what happened between 1980 and Sphere, no book for 7 years, in Hollywood doing tv shows, his Travels, sex with movie stars, every year after that there’s a new book, posthumous from there, one last year, with James Patterson, also not writing his own books, his fictional post-script, they’re neanderthals, has become less crazy, 1992, more than 30 years ago now, the state of neanderthal research, Robert J. Sawyer wrote a trilogy, homo sapiens are extinct, sexuality, their females going into heat, our hero describes the culture of the vikings, they are not pederasts, the culture where he’s coming from a pederastic culture, the Greeks, the relationship to females and slave females, marriage, is your wife faithful?, of course she isn’t, they’re your sons anyway, semi-reflected in the Scandinavian culture of today, a southern European thing, lock the women up, you wife may have a child from another man, something people wouldn’t have put in their book today, full of good detail, an adventure, action packed scenes subverted, capturing the alienness, a new york journalism student, basing it on a real document, carries that through, think differently, how influential Ibn Fadlan’s, rip off whole sections, handsome Hollywood actors, shows like Vikings, slavery among the Scandanavians, the worst slaveowners, most brutal, most casual, super-widespread, just kill them, get new ones in the spring, brutal, awful, some of that in here, complete casualness, raping the slaves, so good, choking out the sacrifice lady, she seemed clear in her mind, she was into it, that you’re into it to, god they’re weirdos, they don’t wash properly, the best sort of effect, a single player RPG, you in the final scene doing something horrible, really good writing, a very moral book, he grew into something better, what made it good, here’s this historical figure who really did travel from Baghdad into north country, meat into the story, suicide path, other female slaves, a question of consent, treatment of women, good for sex, procreation, and sacrifice, weird respect for women, treat em well, two female guards to prevent her from changing her mind, character growth, in fiction, the idea of progress, morally progress, technologically progress, from bronze swords to long swords, the Japanese katana is the highest form, the same job, chop or stab, the vorpal sword, light sabers, a cavalry saber, saber doesn’t mean what they do in Star Wars, all sorts of stupid stuff, progress is a mistake we impose on a set of circumstances, there’s change, and there’s continuity, people are not different, culture is slightly different, death cults, people remain the same, an illusion, we do this in story, stories should reveal character rather than show character growth, doing a lot lift, do you even lift, bro?, he isn’t as quick, trickiness and cleverness, shifty, you can change hands, your sinister hand, nobility, this other mode of being, being a tricky bastard, why Loki as a figure is interesting, his brother Thor, wrathful and kind of dumb, H. Rider Haggard’s Eric Brighteyes is a dimbulb, he’s a dimwit, strong and young, she’s playing him the whole book, a dimmy, 14?, he’s got so many good books, really good, a lot of really good books, he was supertall, standing next to Spielberg, 25 novels, Disclosure, 66 years old, older than Eric, born in 1942, he was writing paperback, put himself through medschool, CIA?, his memoir Travels, goes to Belize with his sister, almost dies, almost dead, this urge to have sex, not acceptable, connecting it to previous experiences, world traveler, the danger is these guys are gonna rob us, the physical circumstances, lives voraciously, a viking sort of idea, horny because you almost died, a biological perspective, pretty extraordinary, chakras or whatever, talking to a cactus, the cactus is talking back, sell everything, super-open and very hidden, as Doctors in everything except completion, mysteries to be solved through surgery, you don’t give them the other option, the show ER, long hours, cockiness, treat themselves as gods, that’s no way to be, a man who couldn’t be contained, Alec Baldwin movie, I am god, Malice (1993), The Bear The Edge (1997), Redbelt, David Mamet, House Of Games (1987), Tim Allen, Steven Segal, swordfighting movie, Conan The Barbarian (1982), cooperative play like in Wrestlemania, that’s fake, at dinner, Horatio Hornblower, Beat To Quarters, New Orleans, Phoenix, C.S. Forester, [lembas], healing energy.

Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton

Posted by Jesse Willis