The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #914 – READALONG: Spacemen Lost by George O. Smith

Jesse and Scott talk about Spacemen Lost by George O. Smith

Talked about on today’s show:
aka Lost In Space, the same book, Virgil Finlay art, our heroine in a space-bathing suit, castaways, survivors, our third George O. Smith, a drug in it, go save my girlfriend, plot points, set in the future, alien race, Hellflower, Highways In Hiding, hard to love, the ending, in a Simakian way, maybe we just be friends, the Iranians rowing towards your aircraft carrier, join with us, the ending, vegon sari, bunch of humans, an aside, by the way these are aliens, a very silly trick, Heinlein and others, tools of science fiction, flatcat, Spock’s pet, it has fangs, a chihuahua with a unicorn head, six inch fangs, pet celot, a fat teddy bear, the idea is the problem, what do we know about George O. Smith’s background, write what you know, “space can”, an L. Ron Hubbard story, he was a sailor, a coast guard guy?, what is the central idea of this story, a ship lost in a storm, lifeboats adrift, the currents of the sea distributing them like a shot of a shotgun, abandoning a ship, the boats don’t clump together, a lot of this book is arguments about how to do the search, why no radar, detector, not very interesting, a short story?, less notable, not the writing, the idea, search and rescue operations, what Hellflower is about, makes women weak in the knees, two diseases, the same disease, telepathy, the underground railroad, the Decepticons from Transformers, the league of Evil Mutants from The X-Men, a silly idea that kids have, a guy who could turn into a car, what if among us there are people who were persecuted, if they were better, more responsibility, so Slan as opposed, robots in disguise as trucks and cars and jukeboxes, almost four hours, over sooner, stretching the idea out, why do we spend any time in the space can?, yappin, all gonna suicide, euthanize each other, if we didn’t know them, the idea is inferior for fiction, been on a search and rescue operation, doesn’t make for a great story, forgiving, we could have been reading a Clifford D. Simak, Wizard Of Oz and Philosophy, science fiction encyclopedia, 1911 – 1981, in Astounding, QRM-Interplanetary, his more famous endeavor, forward trojan position in the orbit of Venus, if he was born in 1911, too young for WWI, a little old for WWII, publishing in the 40s, training, that’s in this book, how to fix the problem vs the theoretical stuff, training people learning function, gunsmithing vs. field repair, is it a good idea?, hero captain, space jokey, industrialist, for no good reason, I get $100 an hour, incentive to keep your people alive, a ticking clock in reverse, a Rockerfeller of whatever, a futile action, way more time or no time at all, they’re not beetles, basically dudes, you can teach us about romantic love, something you can pickup, spacemonkey, a bad episode of Star Trek, space salmon, fatal misteps, the way it is put together, a team searching, new tech ship, we can do radar, new technology does come in, why did any of that happen, engine problem, a setup to show how a search and rescue operation in space would be done, a great Star Trek episode, we would care about the characters, industrialist asshole, self-confident, the commodore is accommodating, The Galileo Seven, will they won’t they find the ship, another mission, deliver some medicine or whatever it is, the rational Mr Spock, none of that happened in our story here, got detected, at the last possible moment, take their pills, the first introduction of the Romulans, these ideas can work if you’ve got the right scenario, the right setup, searching, he gets zapped at over the speed of light, the parallax of the stars, observations, a proactive character, surly, once he’s out on the mission, a character who does stuff and takes positions, feelings, well done there, an excellent point, much tighter, these things that he’s interested in, little things that are excellent, a reality, when you connect these three things together, understanding what all the pieces do, go in to the under-hold to start peddling, exercise, not compelling, largely on the planet, Scotty is not decisive, he’s responsive, what should be done, you don’t care a shit, a decent grave, we have to be logical about this, losing the crew, a brief reading, keep those people under discipline, responsive to orders, what he could do, we need the phasers to fight these giants, there is a little bit of memorable plot, the aliens are attacking Pearl Harbour sort of thing, arm up, participate in the defense of that, the commadore trying to get his girl back, The Horror Of Fang Rock, isolated 19th century lighthouse rock, three sets of characters on this island and rock, viewpoint character, lighthouse keepers, three survivors from a ship, an industrialist, communicate with London to make a trade, the secretary (the girl), to screw other people, a guy with some honor and training, the alien is killing off characters one by one, a detective story, they don’t interact until the very end, this story can work, its setup so they can’t be proactive, communicate my name, use the exercise bike to move the ship, you don’t know how big space is, bro, closer to her fiance, the admiral, if you want to be promoted, following orders [beyond the letter], the conflict, call off the search, he disobeys orders, does he get the girl at the end?, we don’t know, problems with this book, not super-fixable, they’re fundamental, I spent all this time constructing, we’re not going to remember this book at all in six-months, the best of his space operas, Wesley Long, Nomad, the book cover looked good, he Venus Equilateral stories, works by George O. Smith, LibriVox has been having problems, blue screens of death, Amateur In Chancery, scientists do science in space, beautiful Astounding cover for Nomad, Alien, aliens working machines, a human in a spacesuit coming in a crack in the spaceship, December 1944, over three issues, a short novel, how to spell George, Operation Interstellar, the sniff test, an Ace Double it should be fun, realtime communication across space, Z-Wave technology, that doesn’t sound great to me, telepathy, Time For The Stars, telepathic twins, the earth rate, the space rate, he marries his grand-niece, a cool bunch of stuff, why they have dead-zones, it works even though it is imperfect, other ideas underground, are they homo-superior or a disease, some guy inventing a technology that doesn’t exist, turn back to our old friend Clifford Simak, the crew abandons the ship, taken to the future, time barge, where the losses went, disappeared on a sea-voyage, a lot of mountains, go hiking and disappear, search and rescue crews who just exist, wilderness and a place where people can go missing, elderly Chinese man got lost in the woods, the right search algorithms, rural France, the water in which I swim, mountainous area, dense pine forest, for skiing, make an injury, The Headless Valley (1958), a part of the Nahanni River in NWT, turning up without their heads, a head eating monster?, a volcanic spring, tropical all year round, wild and strange country full of mosquitos, 16mm film, feature length, they took a lot of film, only him and his wife, he’ll die, it’s just that wild, a cave occupied by humans, inherently interesting to the people involved in it, some of the drama in this story, a search cone, where they jumped out of hyperspace, the theoretical reality, decelerated out of hyperspace, drifting in a cone, doing my best to like it, they way he constructed it, not much is happening, what repetition there was was not needed, the search continues, one of the remarkable things in here, to wash herself, her futuristic clothing that dries instantly, nylon, I love nylon, silk stockings, the future: it’s coming, City by Simak, take those story by story, one of the stories is public domain, Heritage Of Stars, Highway Of Eternity, the tail end of his career, sign me up, trying to sell Alex on, The Cosmic Courtship by Julian Hawthorne, The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison, a Ballantine Adult Fantasy, a 15 hour book, the ship metaphor, Saturday, books with the word Highway in the title, The Highwaymen, Planet Of Adventure by Jack Vance, a 4 book series, one big book, Star Trek guy on a space shuttle, their ship is torpedoed, some aliens that look like humans sorta, execute one of the two main character, Paul and Adam, fix his spaceshuttle and go back to Earth, a series of misfortunes, each of them have associated humans that are on their team, The Moon Moth, mostly a series of different cultures, in the plotting, the Starship series by Mike Resnick, a captain rebels against his orders and becomes a space pirate, they’re bad people, each book is a different problem, all of the adventure happens on one big planet, the author doesn’t employ hard SF, the solution to problems, quite personable, enjoyed ever book, one big book, 20 hours is normal, easy and enjoyable, a guy who likes science fiction ideas, cultural ideas, he goes underground, propagandized the humans to keep them sexually immature, drugs in their food, seems kinda relevant today, we’re actually the same species, birthed out of their brain, if you’re a really good loyal servant, mystery cults, Christianity is the opposite of a mystery cult, everybody gets to go to heaven in the end, the moslem religion is not a mystery cult, read and find out what happened, if there was a theme to it: mystery cult bad, hiding the truth, alchemy vs. science, publish and reproduce, get the decoder ring, science is about knowing, cultural techniques, drugs, bafflement, switcheroo, that’s bad, he’s not trying to revolutionize the system all at once, do good, a compelling throughline, property of the wank, the DirDir and the Pnume, the four alien groups, slightly bigger than Earth planet, free on Audible, make use of, a long but good book, The Name Of The Rose by Umberto Eco, we could do a show on that, good so far, 75 pages, Foucault’s Pendulum, early on in the Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast days, The Island Of The Day Before, learn Italian, have some vino, Numero Zero, what’s it about, conspiracy theories, secret societies, nice, good, segments, satirical, esoteric references, it needed an index, demonstrate the Earth’s rotation, Eco rejects, apart from the title, another subtle literary joke, a 17th century historical search for the secret of longitude, references to previous novels, a crucial plot point, first right of refusal, the test audience for that, a pretty difficult part of Catholic history, the boat rocking back and forth, the type of novel that it is, some profound stuff, full of ideas, lot of action movies, crying movies, a seven minute story, get mad at the story, Tea For Two by Joan Mosby, designed to be readable for little kids, if it was a ghost story, ghost sisters, the nicest street in the ghost town, if everybody’s ghosts, what would have happened if the ghost gun had gone off, more participatory, 3 random cards, The Apparel Peril by Jesse, The End, murder ghost or robot, make jokes while writing stories, British America, Northwest American Territories, South Canada, North Colorado, North Idaho, North North Dakota, American Ocean, it’s all ours, basically American territory now, so funny, so juvenile, he’s always been twelve.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #913 – AUDIOBOOK: Spacemen Lost by George O. Smith

The SFFaudio Podcast #913 – Spacemen Lost by George O. Smith, read by Mark Nelson.

Spacemen Lost was first published as in Startling Stories, Fall 1954

This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (3 hours 53 minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox.org

The next SFFaudio Podcast will feature our discussion of it!

Spacemen Lost by George O. Smith

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #912 – READALONG: The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark

Jesse and Misha Burnett talk about The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark

Talked about on today’s show:
happy birthday, Westlake/Stark, so good, Indianapolis, a guy named Stan Deavers, not an officer, in the airforce, upstate New York, flee the scene, at the end, Handy McKay, Presque Isle, Maine, legally inadvisable, the mode you need to be in to get to the thing, a burned out lodge, drawing on his stuff, early 60s late 50s, Korean War era, a volunteer or a conscript, it’s the saluting civil service, writing what he knows, a snowtop, does that on purpose, getting introduced to crime, crime writing, stealing money, roll in the dough, there’s always complications, some hook for this book, the varieties of evil, all different kinds of badguys, Parker on the beach, the machine, he’s got a code, it doesn’t follow the law it follows his laws, Claire, an opportunistic infection, nice way of puttin women, she doesn’t want to know about it, very succinctly put in the first few pages, she doesn’t want to know, the old guy getting out of prison, the broken man, got what it takes, willing to think about it, his ex-wife, she’s got my kid, she’s shacked up with another guy and I’m friends with him, the weak link, the wife, a type, through her psychiatry, working out why she’d married this guy, why she’d left him, takes over the story for a while, he is his own criminal, manipulative, perfectly good reasons for everything he does, second wife, mistress, using his patients as his crew, how subtly Westlake brought across the idea, the questions he asks, how are they planning on getting away, hesitant, meaning exactly the opposite, The President’s Analyst (1967), James Coburn, he’s gonna be the thing that fucks up the score, book 2 chapter 1, she’s not allowed to look at him, characterization, after this novel, that’s bad, she has to talk, how come Parker doesn’t know, a huge fucking problem, a problem throughout, criminals want to talk, tell sex stories and crime stories, tell the same stories, they have to talk, Parker doesn’t have to talk, to solve problems, from his end, she’s falling apart, to get her through, cut loose now that he’s got a sense of power, going home to kill his dad, a theme in here, the last lines of the book, and the casino after, turns her into a wildcat in bed, she doesn’t spend that money at the casino, that idea of risk and insurance, we gotta try to wear belts and suspenders, live our lives, we live at the hotel, Parker goes out for a swim, only asks the questions that are need, the phrase “self contained”, too talkative, garrulous, a mention of Salsa, a fun character, a good reliable guy, until they’re tested, a Parker wikipedia, Trent Reynolds’ The Violent World Of Parker, Westlake’s love of theatre, casting, varieties of evil, the man who was before, a revenge book, changes his identity, his face doesn’t matter, one of the characters had heard about Parker, a little list of characters, all the other Parker names for the Parker movies, that’s pure Westlake, Lynch, Charles Willis, it’s the money man, a dentist?, a mortuary guy, takes the elevator up, driving his big car he feels young, that perfect Westlake psychology, very hardboiled, talk about killing the kid, he can’t help but be funny, Porter, Walker, Archer, something like that, very clever, tippin his hand, writing it for himself, doesn’t even use his name, maybe the character lacks definition, Jason Statham, the Mel Gibson, a pre-reminder of the John Wick movies, a film that captured the hardboiled, Parker making a joke, the way he punctuates his chapters, a different angle, the most memorable villain, his own amateur antics going wrong, a master manipulator, throat cut by his patient, Westlake giving us some opinions, here are my politics, what makes Parker the character we’re interested in so interesting is his massive competence, a lady at a hotel, an ex-madam, runs her mouth all the time and drinks the coffee, these are genuine types, science fiction, thinking about Stanley G. Weinbaum all day, Kim Campbell, cosmic clearance, all the NATO papers, an executive summary, what actions to take or not take, the theoretical framework, how the reins of power work, personalities, maintenance, how universities actually operate, things are not done in committee meetings, they’re formalized, nothing ever happens in the committee meeting, the announcement of what’s already been decided, graft, ass-covering, rewarding your friends, a crime book, they look a lot harder, as long as everybody publicly liked that cop, suddenly the investigation doesn’t get any funding, things get lost, how do you live in the world?, The Sandbaggers, low budget spy-show, James Bond as a reality, agents are disposable, a patriot for some reason, you do think the soviets are bad, make Britain great again, a WWI fighter pilot [Harry Day], laws and regulations are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men, how fast they’re driving, conform yourself, a hedge against risk, driving is very dangerous, are you willing to get a self-driving car, your capability, a program outside of your own hands, a very good driver, a very careful driver, the problem happening in the driver’s seat, over the transmission, managing and assessing risk at all time, unacceptable, driving to conditions, in the rain, driving at night, anything perceived as blackness, the fog was incredibly thick, Illinois, Silent Hill, people barrelling past, all manner of idiocy, they’re out there, you can’t assume they’re going to do the smart thing, zen philosophy, why is it a bad idea to go to a psychiatrist, these aren’t tools that you use, too much uric acid, chemical imbalance, maybe you don’t want to just submit, where all this was leading, what’s enjoyable about the Parker novels, we get to feel superior, we get to see these situations, that’s just what I would do, the hyper-competent guy who’s got everything thought out and all together, we can aim at it, competency is the attraction, guessing right, walking the street, what’s going to happen, a problem on the horizon for them, guessing wrong guessing right, modelling somebody’s mind, distracted, bump into things, sleep hygiene, people making bad choices, sometimes surprised, a wise choice, we’re playing a game when reading these books, reading Agatha Christie, like Poirot, formulas to figure it out, puzzles, why science fiction and mysteries are compatible, Westlake as Stark sets up billiard balls on the table, this is not going to lead to anything good, how these good books work, those rules that Stan Deavers needs to learn, to show all the possible things that can go wrong, the mirror image of these books is the Dortmunder, they lose two-thirds of the money, three killed at the hand-off, had everything gone right, go to hide the vehicle, and the money’s gone, not answered in the book, would Parker have given him some catch, Parker would have killed him, stringing-him-along, put up a front, you did good, the one ironclad rule of the Parker novels: if you try to screw Parker you die, he’s gonna kill her too, a person not holding it together, French in The Rare Coin Score, that’s it, when team-members?, people a part of the score still their money, loyal to the people you assemble, pickup style basketball heisting, he gets tested a couple of times, off the guy, off the wife, off the kid, dark humour, what the rules are, 100% up front, where this job might need to go, Fusco, got the money, maybe you go to prison sometimes, you live on the run, down in Puerto Rico, those later books, Ask The Parrot, playing with the titles, very dry, dry jokes, the assessment of the girl of Parker to the psychiatrist, he wouldn’t care about her either, exactly right, she’s surprisingly insightful, I don’t think he’s evil, why is she even in the book, the connection between Fusco and Deavers, disagreements, such a funny tableau, sitting around the table mad at the doctor, tray in his room later, poor assessment, not seeing the psychiatrist would be a problem, a patsy he can use, a little in control, finally control, shooting people, plausible psychological portraits, finding them benign or able to hold their shit together, these people are resources I need to get my job done, stealing more money, the stealing of the money, the money is just an excuse for the job, there’s always a little bit of mistrust when somebody does need the money, he goes to visit his ex-wife, a salesman, selling encyclopedias door to door, Bank Shot, The Hot Rock, another chance to get for this emerald, Kengle didn’t know, a bunch of books, food freezers, are you free for a job, hell yes!, you’re using your skills, fix problems, returning back to homebase, assessing the problem, fixing it, and returning, out of the mentality of needing money, ice cream or having another pony or whatever, will you be happy, hap being luck, happiness is the exercise of vital powers through lines of excellence in a life affording them scope, was he happy?, a grouchy old bastard, it wasn’t just fucking and eating, engineers like to make problems, mechanics like to fix problems, a happy river, a shipwright, an ancient Greek king comes to you, they’re all hollow, show off to the other kings, building beautiful ships, teach those skills to someone else, since we all live in this 1967 American society, it’s all a fucking scam, it isn’t about the cruelty, what is necessary to get that thing done, almost like a reverse murder mystery, how to get away with the crime and why, a lot of per-assessment, the uniforms, the band-van, letterhead, nobody gets killed on the actual heist, some risk we didn’t assess properly, go wrong in a way that makes it a book, him looking over the job and deciding whether they meet his exacting standards, Breakout, Slayground, all the post-heist stuff, so many books in the series, definitely one of the better ones, an idea book, not all ideas are equally good, half-way through an idea story, I got a contract to fill, locked inside an amusement park, sounds really cool, kinda not enough there to keep a whole book going, back to Dortmunder, The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution, The Road To Ruin, Drowned Hopes, Bad News, Get Real, read by William Dufris, the voice of Bob the Builder, a tv producer…, what!?, the pay is good, what a crazy book, a private enterprise, money in his pockets, let’s do that, where the title comes from, bizarre, such a period guy, hints here and there, Dortmunder is getting older, when the new books start coming out, Chevvys, Pontiacs, the era is so different, the Rat Pack guys, Frank Sinatra, the internet is not even possibly a thing yet, bizarre man, Levine, cops, deliberately avoided, Lawrence Block’s Evan Tanner, super-hero premise, The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep, freelance James Bond for revolutions, the revolutionary spirit, the people must be free, a silly premise, sex-adventures, well-written, likes to travel, goes to some place, writes a book, can you write us a new one, Tanner On Ice, he was cryogenically frozen, woken up and decanted and not have aged, such a ridiculous problem, they were willing to publish the whole book series, not quite up to the snuff of your random Westlake novel, Westlake has a ton of short stories, The Letter by Donald E. Westlake, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, August 1965, bear with me, pretty good right?, massive preoccupation, The Risk Profession, A Murder In Hollywood by Donald E. Westlake, an insurance investigator, a very good murder mystery set in the 1970s, a new book, John Lange pseudonym, Stark’s more consistent.

The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark - GOLD MEDAL

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #910 – AUDIO DRAMA: Hellcats Of The White House by Paul K. Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #910 – “Hellcats Of The White House” by Paul K. Willis – this satire of the then current politics was first broadcast on CBC Radio, Tuesday, December 22, 1987.

There’s a crisis on Wall Street!
U.S. oil supplies have been cut off!
Alan Greenspan is called to the White House where President Ronald Reagan likens the present position to that time he was on submarine duty during WWII in 1957.
The nation teeters on the edge of a complete economic collapse.
The Iranians, and their anti-ship missiles, are blocking the Strait of Hormuz!
How will the Gipper’s get America out of the looming Depression?
Invade Managua!
Maybe, you can live in your car?

written by Paul K. Willis

Featuring the voices of:
Frank Daly
Diane D’Aquila
Richard Donat
Ray Landry
John Stalker

engineered by Ray Folsek

sound effects by Bill Robinson

produced by Tom Shipton

Hellcats Of The White House by Paul K. Willis

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #909 – READALONG: A Murder In Hollywood by Michael Crichton

Jesse, Maissa Bessada, and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about A Murder In Hollywood by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
a 2026 novel, Michael Crichton, evocative, the narrator, Ray Porter, sorta simple, which detective he’s modelling, a theory, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, H.P., except for the egg part, fussy, bragging about how great he is, a good beach read, fast paced, well told, Hollywood insight, the document we’re reading is supposed to come from, I can bring up those details if you want?, supposed to be talking, a recorded conversation, an after action report, seduce some co-ed, self-aggrandizing, in a bar with a double scotch, exactly where he is, who actually did the murder, second reveal, not a full reveal, the title, an accident in Hollywood, why are there ten more pages, oh the murder, film sets, kinda know what a gaffer is, was a film director, in 1973?, even while in medical school, The Andromeda Strain, the people at med school learned he was writing, the book is Binary, A Case Of Need, made by Blake Edwards, didn’t age well, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, A Shot In The Dark, The Great Race, The Pink Panther, Westworld is filmed in the west, like a period piece, set in a fictional old west town, already a meta of the thing, when did Michael Crichton go to Arizona, a 1959 article by Michael Crichton in the New York Times, the forward to this book, wow!, 13, pesky kids, prodigious kids, he had a typewriter, when Clark Ashton Smith hit the newspapers he was very your, California boy writes poetry, a big deal, thick thick, Lovecraft was all over his newspaper, a column on astronomy, what’s going on in the skies right now, arguing with astrologers, can all this novel be explained by Michael Crichton being a Scorpio, way to simple, throwing that in there, not supposed to make that character look good, our narrator is kinda like Dr Watson, A Study In Scarlet, it doesn’t quite fit, the least popular Sherlock Holmes thing ever written, a fakeout at the core of the murder scene, RACHE, written in blood, German for revenge, a lot of stuff like that, trying to solve the mystery, taking note of the camera, and the repeated mention of the nitrogen ram, fell and hit his head, the window open, for the insurance, Sherlock Holmes cares about justice, Perkins, I’m not the police, reporting to the studio heads, so thorough and so Sherlock Holmesy, I like to think no, dismissed Clete so thoroughly and quickly, Alex is right, he’s also a mercenary, the very first line of the book, we’ll make it right, how you gonna keep Clete out of it?, what he was hired for, very damning of Hollywood, everything is corrupt, those girls at the airport, fancy meeting you here, our hero is the cut-out, how are we getting this text, it doesn’t matter what’s real, renovating his place, painted to look like real wood, in the 70s, such a modern complaint, obviously been on a movie set, shadowing Robert Wise, if this was from 1973, if he was going to publish it as John Lange, hurt him a little bit, so revealing, lost in the shuffle, switched to writing as Crichton, finished book, super-polished, nice and concise, it can get quite ponderous, a hefty paperback, it’s not more than what it is, almost reads like a novella than a full length novel, very tightly written, dwell on a lot of things, red herrings to distract you from an important, this girl is crazy, a lot of characters, keeping all the names straight, the names in this, distinctive and memorable, map them to real people, who’s the Yul Brenner in this book?, part of the point of what he’s doing, our ultimate villain, killing his own stuntman, what the plot of Blood Rock is, a time of transition, teaching old values, what we get of the script, revenge, stealing women, acting on stage, people standing and giving lines, the way it is cut up for film, stand around doing nothing, somebody dropped a prop, the actors have to keep the show going, a Murder on the Avon, related to the film being axed, turned out great, made money, Madame Bovary, stunts, tripped going in the house, a drawing room, the Moana remake, a clip floating around, runs down the mountain, greenscreen, The Sound Of Music, slide, you couldn’t possibly expect…, westerns, reliable, horror movies, as a murder mystery this is a good book, was he murdered?, an open question, we gotta replace the writer, blackmailing, to get more money, he didn’t deliver anything, the female lead, Sally Oldman, Sally Vega, Suzy Vega, a name to give to a blonde, fired for incompetence, she’s blind and no one knew, can’t hit her marks, we got a really good insight into studio staging, on location, he’s great at what he does, wrung out the possibilities, a little lesson, the publicity guy, he has to be everywhere he has to do everything, he knows every person who has any responsibility for making the movie a success, the perfect piece to pick, calling it out, how could it possibly be a series?, the assistant to Perkins, insurance fraud, why Murder She Wrote is stupid and funny, wherever this lady goes there’s suddenly a murder, Cabot Cove’s murder rate, a cosy farce, stolen things, blackmail letters, very few murders, submarine plans went missing, fairly high-tech, bicycling, bodybuilding, the power of bicycles, you don’t have to feed it, you don’t have to house it, faster than walking, to increase your power, you’re there, very empowering for women, run over or poked, turns out to be protecting her, totally up for more Michael Crichton, by another hand, assume what a sequel will look like, accurate, how much drugs were happening in the 70s in Hollywood, they’re all on pills, nobody was sober, the psychiatrist to Marilyn Monroe, axed, only the one scene, that guy aint good, killed herself/murdered, she did not have a happy life, a huge star, that song is so annoying, recycled that for her, very Hollywood, the Oscar list of stars who had died, who they don’t put on there, Stagecoach (1939), a period piece, not enough name recognition, Jurassic Park movies, people love Dinosaurs, the brand, Prey, Rising Sun, Disclosure, Netflix could do a thing with this, they do a lot of terrible things, the original Westworld on Netflix, a staple of HBO, the audience for it is not a film audience anymore, Prime, a subscription, promoting things, they’re so focused on kissing scenes, this is not the movie audience, too expensive and too few things looking forward to, experienced well in the movie theatre, being in the theatre, wasted my fucking money, who is the audience for A Murder In Hollywood as a film, break up into 6 episodes of someone, isn’t it weird they translated that, Westworld the movie, some of his best novels are movies, instead of writing the book, Looker (1981), reading Predator, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and Total Recall, make ai actors, it’s a murder mystery, it stars Albert Finney, a plastic surgeon, a little fix, an evil James Coburn is an ai bro, the liferights to the ai actor, there is no book, the book is the movie, a great read, a great movie, which one is better, the film stock, still set in a similar time, Runaway (1984), as a book, his ideas are what makes him a great filmmaker and a great writer, he could throwaway something like this, leave that in a drawer, the dinosaur hunting one, and the pirate one, another drawer novel, digging up fossils, early paleontology, some stuff about how fossiling has always been an industry for faking, fake hominids, H.G. Wells, entertainment, drawing an audience, the most accurate representation changes every 10 years, what looks cooler?, about the size of the chicken, sharper teeth, the Jurassic World movies, the new super-dinosaur, we built them that way, designed to look cool, none of this is real, Triumphs Of A Taxidermist: A Confidential Conversation by H.G. Wells, the history of candy, rot and corruption, name drops, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Blackstone picked up all the John Lange books, the new one, one of the few independent publishers, readable books, magic professional version, twice in recorded history, in 1066 we invaded England, 1634 moved to Maryland, persecution, English recusant Catholics, Lord Baltimore, the title, an Irish name, lose the lands, learned a thing or two, a fun book.

A Murder In Hollywood by Michael Crichton

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #908 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: People Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard and Stragella by Hugh B. Cave

The SFFaudio Podcast #908 – The People Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard (28 minutes) read by Connor Kaye and Stragella by Hugh B. Cave (1 hour 15 minutes) read by Mike Vendetti, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
The SFFaudio Podcast, who is this Hugh B. Cave guy, and H.P. Lovecraft were from Providence, a beef, quoting Samuel Johnson, anybody who writes for anything other than money is a fool, the pure amateur, a beef over magazines, some amateur society, the representative for this area, a $10 fee, in their documented letters and interviews, hand-written letters, twitter in longhand, is exceedingly brilliant, a better artist than his theories indicate, a splendid story, Dead-Man’s Belt, the main characters are black, living in the city dump, stretch your legs a little bit, philosophy of why anybody writes anything, wrote poetry for free, miss a class, wouldn’t tutor for free, the money is necessary to take it seriously, a rationalization, put his writing behind other people’s writing, his good name, seeing the two here, the superior story?, wow!, bold claim, better than Stragella, not an S-Tier Robert E. Howard story, crab-man story, a first draft, an attempt at something, Black Vulmea, Isle Of Pirates’ Doom, ideation, setup, the whole war with the crabs is one page, great concept, out for vengeance, he died, where’s the rest of my story, 2 more chapters, The Cave-Girl, fightin trogladytes, I Am Legend, the weird telepathic crystal, dungeon full of human people, scribbled it down, later famous and dead, desperate for more Howard, strung it out, so short, the PDF is 11 pages, it’s really short, not two columns, you could do a sequel to this, self-contained it was, this is a note in a bottle, another 3 bottles, I found more paper and another bottle, short and hideous history, the red hour, dawn, blood and dawn, perfect Howard, the backstory, where’d she get that airplane, she’s Amelia Earhart, goggles and white scarf, Genndy Tartakovsky of Dexter’s Lab and Primal, from Manila to Guam, he goes mad with crab rage, moans over that, did they eat her?, experiments, super-creepy, this weird lab, grafted into a crab body, weird crab mad science, developing hands instead of clippers, give me something, an iron rod, very sketched, a complete story, not quite as Almuricy as Almuric, who would be the market for it, horror weird thing, The Noseless Horror, the mongolian werewolf, the guys who loved King Kong, 20 pages, down endings, Chinatown (1974), so horrible, suicidal charge, a little more crab meat, cracking of their shells, some kind of actual vengeance, doom the species, they’re afraid of him, super-intelligent and advanced, the kind of crabs they are, japanese spider crabs the size of horses, basalt island that goes up in tiers, feels artificial, a redoubt, why are they not in the water, a little more story, he managed to sneak in his favourite thing, he is the barbarian, always the goodguys, the guy from the backcountry, a counterexample somewhere, maybe Solomon Kane, atavistic throwback, a guy on the frontier, flying in the high tech thing, contemporary America, lots of cool stuff, charismatic magnetism, everything’s telepathic, A Princess Of Mars, the alien though process of the crabs, to impinge upon, unnamed narrator, Robert E. Howard running around on the beach, really fun, in those eyes, not even fear or hate, looked at in that manner, even the eyes of a human enemy, a certain acceptance, a worm about to be struck, they never could fathom, we were of different species!, of diverging order, exterminate some pests, is it possible that all life came from one stem?, they had progressed, along different lines, watching them do their homework, walkin sideways, so suggestive, guided by definite though inhuman thoughts, cutting off the need for more explanation, his version of The Shadow Out Of Time by H.P. Lovecraft, more explicitly ancient, it’s not a coast, wedding cake shaped island, looking for this story on google, please stop, the only way you’re going to find it, a very obscure story, 1969 publication, lots of good things to like about it, vampires vs. giant crab alien people, confused, the story got the cover, a scene depicted, Stragella is standing in front of people, a tiger, a giant snake, when that happens in the story, its called an “orgy”, ghosts?, the vampires bring them back to life to torture them again, a vhs tape being replayed, they can’t become vampires, reenacting their deaths, for our own amusement, makes the story more spectacular, in their to get the cover, a great cover, the other illustration, in the rigging, holding the lantern, looking down into the hold, until the firearms came out, supposed to be a contemporary story, 1932, Miggs, the dying copanion, Knells Yancy, psychoanalysis of the story, understatedly smart, gets to Serbian, set in the Indian Ocean, the Bay Of Bengal, they ate everybody, the Demeter from Dracula, the permanent coffin base, hide it off the coast, come to land and feed, a good scheme, they need some netflix though, as a vampire story it is very good, the double setup, William Hope Hodgson story, the giant sea snakes, like vultures, a derelict ship, super-poetic, written to order, it’s too long for what it is doing, a chronology of the story, lost in a storm, a persian priest who jumped over board, drank salt water, floating, the fogbank, enshrouds the ship, a tramp frieghter, bring back tramp freighters again, make tramp freighters again, Captain Katanga in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, tramp freighter media, admiring it, how he got the tattoo, draw whatever you like Professor, ornate crucifix, walks around with her shirt open all the time, double protection, the ship’s bible tucked into his belt, too obvious, overly constructed to do what he did, suddenly it turned out to be, video game item pickup, a scrap of paper, it was in the bat boxes, like a videogame, a big long rpg like FALLOUT, a new mission, item discovered, the next action sequence, a novel or a lot shorter (a third off), this has potential to be excellent, where to put the blame, he does the poetic, wailing of a dead wind, good opening, not Lovecrafty, horror vibe from the 30s, not enough here for what is here, why is it just Miggs?, Miggs is there to die, sniffing the flowers, what’s up with the flowers, the cursed flower, smelled too sweet, Strega Nona Russian witch character, Strigoi, straggling, the flowers are coming out of her coffin specifically?, the ghost scene, apes, the tiger, monkeys, the Indian crew, she goes to each of them, they become skeletal after she caresses them, her mom and dad?, all supposed to be Serbian Gypsies, add more characters to be eaten, the afterword, the Andaman islands, seems like years, characters don’t do anything, he pulls up the anchor, sets the ship adrift, holes the ship, sets it on fire, he’s a sailor, their coffin ship, isn’t this fucking cool, CRAB PEOPLE!, maybe they’re building a rocketship to go to other dimensions, their whole history, every parts, The Night Wire by H.F. Arnold, a double man, what Edison was, two mens jobs at the telegraphy machine, different messages, witchcraft!, weird party trick, a useful man, his whole Edisony thing, horror movies, watch the VHS tape, the lady in the well, The Ring (Ringu), a foreshadowing of, Robert Barbour Johnson’s Far Below, Lovecraft’s ghouls in New York, a war of extermination, genocide is my job, in the television adaption, so traumatized, the old chief, you turn into a ghoul if you stay down there long enough, it’s his wife, quite short, a swift kick punch, short on action, quite nice, this amazing little classic, here’s another Dracula, wildly popular in his time, named on the cover, wrote a lot of stories, no one talks about him anymore, suggesting that it was a weird menace story, Terror From The Deep, much more Dracula than anything else, a nautical Dracula story, the genres, weird horror, more towards the horror, the style in which it was written, high poetic language, Spaceway, don’t let that influence you, these are aliens, aliens from the ocean, do they harvest under the water?, we never go into the cliffs, so attenuated, more tantalizing than anything else, snipped off his girlfriend’s hand, keep goin, how great could it have been?, ideas awesome, more of him in the raging vengeance mode, very little bashing, down for more weird menace, is it anywhere close to the top of anything in Weird Tales?, no, enjoyed it, very solid, b plus, a grading system, had it been a third shorter it could have been two thirds better, or make it 4 hours, too long for what you get, what is a novel for, what is a movie for?, when most people say they want to be a writer…, they know what the shape of a novel is, how interesting the idea is, with only Miggs (along with Yancy), where the story fucks up, in the captain’s cabin, he finds two bottles, he leaves them there, later he goes back for them, putting together a really tight plot, why someone needs to be alone, it should be a perfect jigsaw puzzle, why did he leave those behind?, random, like computer game logic, the tarpaulin, tarpaulin is cloth embedded with tar, what’s the etymology of tarpaulin, maybe it needs another pass, tightening up, could be a vampire classic, as maximally awesome as possible, a big fan of maximally awesome, an episode of Primal, dumps out of dinosaur and caveman, Victorian haunted house, as you would expect anyway, the ring of Thoth Amon, past lives, serpent man, modern people wrapped up in a prehistorical cursed adventure, almost completely wordless, Pingu, Mr. Bean, functionally a silent film, Wings In The Night, massive font, that maximally awesome, Hills Of The Dead, standing on top of a cliff being attacked by hordes of zombies, nobody has done it as well, doing it without the dialogue, in the UK they had a theatrical release, see them in the movie theater, I guess we’re done, still on team People, on the crab people’s team, an invader in their land, take over Manila, colonize Guam, get the fuck off our island, going ham, locking in, crashing out, roid rages, reefs around the island?, ran out of fuel, a seaplane?, make it a novel, coast in to shore, whatever horrible vengeance, zip up his arm, so suggestive, one of his best stories, weird mysterious fog bound islands in the Pacific, fragment of Lemuria, a giant fence, ancient ruins, primitive natives, a new one, Fragment by Warren Fahy, way off Australia, the last piece of some ancient supercontinent, mantis shrimp, copper based blood, The Uncharted Isle by Clark Ashton Smith, they can’t get off the island, get in and explore it, eating through the tanks, eat everything, a Michael Crichton knock-off, Jurassic Park, off of Costa Rica, a list of stories that are that, 11 pages, same as Stragella, ghosty stuff, sacrificing their children to an ape gorilla god, oars for his boat, escapes the island, one of the oars is over the bar, island stories are essentially like science fiction stories, Star Trek, planet of the week, The Odyssey, from island to island, different guest host relationship problem, will watch in theater, refusing to see things for twitter reasons, Nolan movies, he has a problem with sound, why does he do that?, he doesn’t care about dialogue, just doesn’t matter to him, greyer and greyer, set photos, filmed on location in Greece, azure sea, ashcloud everywhere, stripped all the colour out of it, people on twitter, ai fixing silent movies, people ai fixing Nolan movies to make them more colourful, silent films are difficult to watch, take title cards that are used, The Mark Of Zorro (1920), Safety Last (1923), really good solid jokes, soundtrack, stings, none of that was recorded, sometimes you see the actors saying words, impersonator, maybe subtitles, he objected, the mouth moves a whole lot, lip read what he’s saying, the title card with what the guy’s saying, playful and smart, solved rather quickly, A Murder In Hollywood by Michael Crichton, random virals vs. mutual, the joke about the nobody wrecked your home, he doesn’t like humour, being clever and witty, comes back to punish him, hubris, why Helen of Troy killed Agamemnon, two different characters played by the same actress, their not twin sisters, to such an extreme degree, led to some confusion, subverting something.

People Of The Black Coast by Robert E. Howard

Stragella by Hugh B. Cave

Posted by Jesse Willis