The SFFaudio Podcast #895 – READALONG: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Timeline by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1999 novel, a very chonky book, 464 pages, Congo?, this genre of Crichton, John Lange, a lot of success, Stephen King syndrome, a writing machine, weird psychological stuff, powerful books, drinking, cocaine, a stern talking to, a post-Jurassic Park book, went forward, The Andromeda Strain, a great novel and a very good movie, Eaters Of The Dead, A Knight’s Tale, electric guitar jousting, they look pretty similar, pale versions of Neo from The Matrix, remember it fondly, rock music, condensed it in many ways, 36 hours, cut out a lot, weird changes, trivia wise, the movie that broke Michael Crichton, rolling over for every Jurassic World movie, Jesse doesn’t believe in spoilers, making the French the good guys, Lady Claire, less of a complete shitbag, you’re the special one that I love, she sleeps with the abbot, apparently that works out, a woman worth abandoning your timeline for, projecting, a very Michael Crichton, the protagonist of the fictional text woven into the Lucasarts Tie Fighter game, X-Wing, collector’s manual, in my bedroom, study up, Star Wars novel, secret conspiracy with the emperor, Crichton’s brain, the Elephant, Joseph Merrick, the most cool things, too many characters, some other handsome guys, villainous guys, a Scottish guy, a good cast, the girl, looks sweaty, rock climbing, caving, a big unweildly book, really cool stuff in it, Cricthon’s outsider science fiction status, Asimov of H.G. Wells, King Solomon’s Mines, War Of The Worlds, The Terminal Experiment Man, Frankenstein, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, literally starts the same, suddenly a knight charged at me with a lance, that’s not a science fiction novel, getting the facts right, mythological space, tons of fuckin research, the 100 years war, necessary for Crichton, just French and English, a few subtitles, wave away the language problem, really good excuse, suddenly communicate, Occitan, prot-southern French, standardized post-Napoleon, regional thing, more confederated, the official French dictionary, Quebec, lots and lots of castles, a lot of renactors, French speakers, woodsy Canadian, Eaters Of The Dead, armour looked pretty good, all fine, Castlegar, two houses somewhere, a real budget, the script, why movies work (popular or not), viking barbarian land, a smaller scale setting, dozens, one magnetic character, Paul Walker, fun to watch, part 10 or whatever, so American it’s shocking, Billy Connolly, the most California guy to ever live, so blank, not designed to be a movie, a treatment for a film, a bastard sword, so many things going on in it, 7 characters?, trying to do a lot, the whole universe explanation for it, this mystery, the guy in the desert, never explain, yes they don’t, the flaw that they missed, what’s wrong with the book, it’s a criticism of the new tech bros that are comin, the Elon Musks, as opposed to governments, zany experimenters, all corporate now, corporate criticism, he’s like the facebook guy, he’s like a Zuckerberg, they want to kill him, the book feels colder, the evil megacorporation, definitely a jerk, master race, not yet, in that direction, hints at some of that, we’re gonna have to kill you now, why does he do that, prevent a pr disaster, we need him to die, it gives us catharsis, the catharsis for the film, like Gomez, immediately beheaded, bubonic plague, loves history, science, medicine, combines all of these things together, Travels, astral projection, he’s not a druggie, breathing exercises, accessing inaccessible parts of experience, weird tricks, weird weird guy that’s supersmart and now dead, Arizona, France, Eruption, Vulcan, marketing at train stations and airports, all Dean Koontz titles are like this, all the same, you have to make it dumber, a Star Trek book, we have to fix it, this concept, instead of doing as a playful satire, quantum shit, it’s not novel, he’s doing that sort of work, not basing it on the golden age 50s stuff, he seems to have no interest in it, not everything that Wells wrote was science fiction, creating it independently, hit the same checkpoints, checkboxes, this mode of science fiction, infodumping, Jesse loves Ringworld, flicked into existence, the same idea, talking to an alien, big dumb object, all about sex, a sex companion, Teela Brown, Nessus gay sex?, Speaker, females are non-sentient, weird drives, very silly, the human characters, Merrick, the only intriguing character in the book, screen time, that’s what’s wrong with the book, cool ideas, well developed, stuff happening, when you go back in time, a first person one guy story, here’s my story, sidetracks himself, a double text, interspersed, thins was bullshit, we can become annoyed and like that annoyance, the found document with a frame narrative, you gotta get them out of your system, everything worked that day, not every souffle, different ingredients every time, don’t change a thing, keep experimenting, more of that, what most readers want, give it to me again just like you gave it to me before, BBC piece from the 70s or 60s, 38 women live in this council house and all begin their day by shaving, down to a formula, that little doc, how poor these authors are, ladies go to the library and borrow the books, the dustman, the library’s fault, disposable books, more different, stretch you legs, good ideas and a noble failure, all the action, none of them are essential, not core, better Crichton books out there, way better, lost city in the jungle adventure, dropping people in the middle ages, too much flashing back to the company in the desert, no fucking idea how their technology works, how any of this works, shooting in the dark, you don’t know how any of this works, that’s all cool, drop it for the movie, one place and time, too much time back in the office, stuff’s happening, escaping across the rafters, each of the modern characters, important later, she was brought in to clamber over the ruins, practice our longbow skills, a good setup, it doesn’t gel, fine but forgetable, a fun character, a terrible person, the scene with the abbott, a surprise, she’s the one that comes out, not a faker, the opposite of Crichton is L. Ron Hubbard, a writing machine, gimme a picture I’ll write to that, John W. Campbell, things that he’s gonna be writing about, the sci-fi magic wand, completely accurate, Harry Stubbs, Hal Clement, Jerry Pournelle, what if there was a world that had this gravity, Mission Of Gravity, heavy gravity planet, shaped like centipedes, how would your existence be shaped, Flatland, essay?, text, going with an idea, competent characterization, infodump is important, a 15 hour book, about to do the time travel now, quantum foamy book for the first five hours, understanding what the concepts are, the transcription errors, why the badguy can’t get home, bones are misaligned, his arteries don’t line up, go to see the cat, body horror, nose tissue, a third eye, much better handled, the reveal, touched on twice, mishandled, maybe there’s a third guy from the past, no hint, hey pal, a real plot point, the facial scar, a transcription error, a very cool idea, you could do the story without it, makes the book bigger, more interesting, we’re destroying these people, very calm about everything, the tech guy, he’s Crichton, helping us along, how and why things are happening, will the glue hold, what about these water cracks, a pistol?, so the equipment can be destroyed, feels like a puzzle, mashing pieces together to make it fit, it has transcription errors, the book is flawed, it has a schism, the bad guy, Dekker made French, their version of the story, a year earlier, repair the damage, a lot of speeches given, trying hard to do a good book, it just didn’t really land, cool ideas in it, Sphere as an abridged audiobook, reset the timeline so none of the book happens, when did it start going wrong?, intermixed, they’re Epstein people, asshole fuckheads full of arrogance, the experience is bad, raw and talented, super into literature, all classical, ancient scientists, enlightenment era scientists, the list, Jurassic Park, is it good? a great movie, a very good book, the sequel, as a book is really good, 1990, a big gap, 1966, how early he started, late 80s early 90s kind of guy, 1976, The Great Train Robbery, his 1970 novel Drug Of Choice aka Overkill, fake vacations, real vacations, scuba diving, but why?, he likes scuba diving, almost died scuba diving one time, an incredible urge to have sex, he would write it, your sister might read the book, an interesting phenomenon, it’s about interesting phenomenon, flaky new age guy, best explain them, salacious details, living with a girl on the beach, fourth breakup, reset, really strange experience where the cactus was talking to me, evil corporation, giving them diets, fat reduction, Ozempic, helps you stop smoking too, the addiction of eating, the pleasure response of food, the circumstances you’re in are wonderful, everything is wonderful, under a hypnotic state under the drug, really bad food, you fall down, you got that in a tennis match, anything you’re suggested becomes your experience, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, the vacation is in realtime, that would be a way better movie than this, double framing, why is there pain involved?, because film, grimacing into a windmachine, you’re being destroyed, they don’t destroy them in the movie, it’s not even a science fiction movie because they just don’t care, why he didn’t like it, Coma by Robin Cook, organ harvesting, a conspiracy thriller from the 70s, Robert Wise did The Andromeda Strain, John McTiernan, a lot shorter, what went wrong?, a book that works, Rising Sun, weird relationship in the 80s with Japan, their population, all of that came to nothing, a love and fascination and a hate and a fear, not that important, Canada, not super important, they’re treating it like England, except culturally, samurai movies, cars, an economic fear, trends continuing on, Japan will own everything, a samurai comes in to fight RoboCop, that fits the trend, a lot sexier, a high school kid, nostalgic for things that happened before I’m born, adventure stories, an evil corporation, murder prostitutes, weird Japanese sex fetishes, sexual harassment in the workplace, we talked about Airframe, only the Crichtony bits, corporate espionage, expecting it, I know how this is going to go, he’s losing it there, Pirate Latitudes, why wasn’t it published?, whatever happened to him went wrong, State Of Fear, people around the world, still afraid of climate change the way they were programmed to be, the biggest climate change disaster in human history, they don’t actually care, why are we pretending to care, people hate that book, go to Bluesky, a hate for Michael Crichton, what that argument might be, worked in a library, service hours for something, the item list, somebody has to go find that book on the shelf, once a week, 90 books that have been requested, the Dewey decimal system, so many interesting books, a half dozen books, read a lot, in that period, not Prey, 2002, he got mad about climate change, allow him to rant about it, him wanting a forum, if he had a blog, contracted to write a novel, Next, genetic engineering book, horrible oversized paperback, narrower and taller, Dragon Teeth, Micro, Richard Preston, A Murder In Hollywood, an excerpt from Scratch One, Stag Annual, spy book, Grand Prix, Monaco, James Bondy, except for that one, Easy Go, the Egyptian one, Binary, Man’s World, December 1970, the death divers, Pollen or somebody, Norem, somethin to see, how to decide, dinosaur fossil hunting in the old west, other people’s hands on it, it should be good, even him touching stuff, a few left to read, a really good movie, that happens a lot, 3.5 quarters, it didn’t improve the experience of either, very-mid, definitely a movie, technically a film, it’s not awful, they tried, perfectly fine, it doesn’t hold together, he didn’t get to use Sean Connery again, experienced Sean Connery, he directed a movie, it could have been a novel, Looker (1981), Runaway with Tom Selleck, Physical Evidence (1989) starring Burt Reynolds, Theresa Russel, Ned Beatty, well executed, extremely a heist movie, the sexual jokes, very 70s, Donald Sutherland is great in that movie, nobody talks about Looker, Albert Finney, James Coburn, Susan Dey, a scanning machine, 3d models, 3d actors, tastefully #StrategicPlacement, the transcription error, a portable version of this, a hand scanner, 3d printing now, very awesome cool technology, without their consent, a hypnotic effect, plastic surgeon, reusing that idea, that’d be a fuckin awesome book, a book about a theme park, deep dark May, some kind of a trip, in-laws in Arkansas, Virginia, that’s what I got a wife for, absolutely true, they know when anniversaries are, birthdays, caring about that stuff, important for social relations, I need to send the book out on time, The Great Impersonation, how awesome it is to have so many good Simak novels still to read, a writer passed his prime, a Wizard of Oz setup, the past, another dimension, The Visitors, giant big black slabs show up in the sky, 2001: Monoliths, small town Minnesota, they start eating the trees, the cellulose like poor, food for their babies, eating cars, then found in fields, new cars that never break down, ingest a person, some houses, free houses, all built in somehow, magic, not supposed to be magic, high tech, aliens, the final scene, newspaper editor hero, what should be published about what’s going on with these alien visitors, a house out in the woods, shadows inside, people inside, part of the aliens, super suggestive, early 80s, Ring Around The Sun, free homes, super-cheap, the forever car, economic disruption in the United States, a threat in the 50s, by the 80s, Japanese cars, the 70s in fact, super-sensitive, rural America, an experience about human relations, so valuable, oh boy I get another Simak, disturbed, food for thought, Hard Case Crime, they definitely exist, Blackstone just republished them with terrible covers, one of them’s a recycled, next week.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #880 – READALONG: Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Cora Buhlert talk about Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized November 1972 – January 1973, over three issues, almost everything by him, a Simak kick, Shaun Standfast has been ill, six months on pause, meet him in the cemetery and talk to him about it from above his grave, books in tweets, a disappointment, we didn’t read the same book, 22, old people books, Way Station, there’s no conflict in here, very brief, to spite Jesse’s theory, mad at the captain, annoyed, visit the boss who runs Earth, they don’t really do anything about it, wolves, two giant tanks, a bomb thrown, I’m mad at these ghosts, one of his road trip books, A Choice Of Gods, Goblin Reservation, shouted out in this book, End Of Nothing, Project Pope, he had that in mind, set in the same universe, a planet called Prairie, every book is the same: Wizard Of Oz, also in Astounding, Fishhook was the big bad organization, The Fisherman, Time Is The Simplest Thing, all of these are science fiction, random time travel by ghost, robot wolves, other things, witches flying on brooms, doing massive hard SF explanations, yet it contains a lot, telepathy, the whole idea that earth is turned into a cemetery, return to earth to be buried, not that far fetched, immigrants, Turkish passport to be buried in Turkey, return to the Earth, Germany used to be a lot bigger, conscious memories, trade in homeland soil, Transylvania, how the ghosts work, who is the census-taker, what is the census-taker?, a lurker, a hider, a scurrier, collecting things, anachronic, Marvel’s Watcher, an alien, the reader in Marvel comics, looking at the comics, a famous potter, a masterpiece, made for some great man of the time, perhaps for the census taker, 1963, predates, offer a thesis, City, Census, meditates on it, a thinker, very thoughtful, not fully cooked, he’s an immortal, a time traveler, he wouldn’t know us yet, the method of time travel, ghosts can do it, until a technology is invented, it always existed, why that would annoy somebody, you have to have come to this place now, what the future is like, unsatisfying also completely satisfying, what happens in the book is random walk, when he started this book, just fine as usual, is this guy Lazarus?, his feet are floating, he doesn’t eat very much or very often, if he is a biblical character, a hidden Christianity inside this book, never overt, Simak exploration, a list of Catholic authors, not a practicing Christian, thinking about it, a projection, shades, giant temple museum, the vase they found in the house earlier, the guy behind the desk is a ghost, a ghost into a body of a robot through technology, very Simak, uninterested in anything except the journey, travel to another planet, unicorns are real, just to have those experiences, three wolves, robot hero, Elmer, after a certain point, great robots, lawnmower robot named Clifford, of all the many 1930s stories, a lawmowerbot, annoys the protagonist, 1944, unable to predict the outcome of WWII, in hibernation, a little bit of this in it, Over The River And Through The Woods, a great short story writers, fix-up, a journey across country, a magical portal, so many good ones, parents find out a nuclear war is coming, the missiles are on their way, grandma and grandpa, time travel to the past, its got that pastoral loveliness, the conflict while present theoretically, The Black Hound Of Death and an H.G. Wells story, breaking bone, blood and gore, horrible and awesome, if Simak did that story, I’m not the worst guy, throw a bomb later, a really friendly dog, Robert E. Howard lied dogs, he liked them to be fierce, Simak’s ideal dog, a golden retriever, about the same age, what would happen, mostly westerns, the Sword and Sorcery revival, still be publishing, a writing machine, the gentle pastoral community, what is this book?, qualities you love, a marker of him, doing science fiction but not leaving behind the fantastical, stranger things in heaven and earth, quoting Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Planet, a kindness that permeates, Bradbury loves the small town, walking overland, going down to the river, the other monster that’s in here, the ghouls, dig up graves, to get the metal, treasure boxes, not Lovecraftian ghouls, the corruption that is in the corporation, the corruption in the graveyard, the earth is a giant cemetery, a particular direction, Dune, desert planet, mostly just Arrakis, Tattooine, Hoth, jungle planet, Endor, Naboo, redwoodplanet, Philip Jose Farmer book, grass planet, Trantor, a cemetery world, a necropolis, rows and monuments but no occupants, I like alliteration, evocative stuff just within it, what people were like, girls and boys on dates would go for walks in the cemetery, the girl needs to snuggle up close, let’s think about death, I’d like to spend some time with you before we die, meet cute, an artist?, ai art, how prescient, ai assistant, a composition, the human needs to be part of it, people who are dismissive of ai art as slop, talking with Eric S. Rabkin, a little bit coughy, you passed the test, it was ai, fuck off, don’t send me your robot poetry, no soul there, youtube channels, human beings who really like Star Trek, make little skits with those actors with those voice, a little back and forth and around, the writing is not written by ai, the compositor, face swap, do impersonations better, wild crazy things, immediately infuriated, obvious to anybody, one of the themes in this book, given enough time robots are more human than human, care about art, I was born on earth, put together on earth, new Frankenstein (2025) movie, why did he make these changes, at the bed, we’re not supposed to like our Frankenstein creator character, that idea of a created thing creating new things, he was the guy who build one of the tanks, Joe and Ivan, waiting for Ivan to show up, Russia, peace prize to NATO, he’s doing great work in this book, in the right mode, very meditative, everything will be humane, the two headed corpse, a little horror show, travelling across a planet, some place, the girl starts turning into a mummy, in the basement there’s a fishtank viewer sort of thing, a general, a robot, a hero guy, and a girl, go through a portal and all of these things happen, the ai essay writer, A Choice Of Gods, same year, 1972, that could be any book, Special Deliverance, 1982, The Visitors, the same thing every time, a college professor, a giant blue cube, a role playing game scenario, a tavern, where are we, let’s go for a walk, something in the woods, everything that happens doesn’t happen with an overarching plot in mind written by the author, writing by the seat of your pants, humanness, coziness, a spritely love of life and existence, the first issue of Analog, the scene with the two tanks facing each other, two war machines, it’s symbolic, so powerful, two tiny little humans, a male and a female, don’t run away, you tell it much better than I, keep going, we can help you, the first human that’s ever listened to them, the people who live on earth today, 10,000 years after WWIII, very very American view of immigration, destroyed and irradiated earth, the adventurous ones, the younger sons, they already got theirs jack, women looking for husbands, the bars at the harbour, hung out with the sailors, had to go to the USA, hop a ship to go to America, undercut in the book, his visit with the drinking, the guys who run the squaredance, not much mutated, homey old fashioned moonshine, who wants to dwell on that, corruption throughout these organizations, a theme, teleprojection, astral projection machines, using that technology in a corrupt way, coherently plotted, in terms of structure, godly related, Christianly related, a mess, superstition coming back, the evil corporation, the nasty behind all the events that happen, rightly skeptical, dancin and sharin alcohol, we’re nice people, a bomb-throwing, this other corrupting thing making us do this, reading Simak over time, all the reasons for being cynical but chooses not to go that direction, city government in the first City story, see it more and more, over and over, corrupt organizations, prevailing against, Simak isn’t cynical, he was a newspaperman, this makes you cynical, engaged with what’s going on everyday, talk to the cop, the real dope, you can’t write that, you know what’s going on, get cynical real fast, drinking, not my problem, cashing my paycheck, a method somehow to exist and not lose hope, I go for a walk with my girl and my dog, enjoy the seasons, enjoy the river, the Ohio River, rivers are important, still there and still flowing, a symbol for time, and eternity, recurring themes, war, nuclear bombs became obsolete, no center to hit, survived, these war machines arriving at the scene and not having anything to do because it was over, meeting each other and becoming friends, being standoffish, fascinating, the same message, thoughtful consideration, black stones come down and eat trees, thoughtfulness, Cynthia, our girl, Fletcher, somebody put up a youtube video of Chapter 18 of this book, an interesting scene, flashforward into the past, the house, the pots and pans, vomits, a love story, facing death and horror, what will happen?, will you love me?, the build up for the whole book, he wants to dance with her, she looks pretty, of course I’ll love you, the only female character in the book, the same everytime, in Shakespeare’s Planet, a tattoo on her breast, sometimes women have tattoos and they need love too, what a guy this Simak guy, dead since the late 80s, a guy is still alive, witnessing his thought, what kinda artist is this Fletcher, his compositor is a typewriter, a mobile typewriter with six legs named Bronco, back in time to Alden, both from Alden, not an Iain M. Banks style galaxy, laze about, swapping genders, commerce going on, being skinned, another Simak book hidden within this book, exploiting people for money, gets a tip about a funeral home, you need that really expensive coffin, you could become cynical because there’s profit to be made, deaths cost went up significantly, buy up the grave again, 3000 euros, extorting you, trash the grave, grandma and grandpa’s bones on the trash, scatter ashes, violates the dignity, special rules for the corporations, mandatory like death, the background for Cemetery, the cemetery is full of corruption, get it, a robot clipping lawns beside a headstone, the image from the captain, unload, unloading coffins, build the coffins on other planets, a wooden coffin, bursts out Elmer, doing the Frankenstein thing, stronger than a man, bigger than a man, you’re going to ride me, the most accurate cover, the original serialized Analog cover, the tank in the background, the moon telling us where we are, walking with Edgar Allan Poe through the graveyard, the beauty that is lost, a great book, in the experience, a great walk in the autumn, loves retriveing sticks, you’re not allowed to drink it, a perfect book for this time of year, the prefect November book, A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, there’s nothing forced, ghosts are in graveyards, he’s not doing an homage, journey through the woods, to these great living monuments of death, a german edition, loved cemeteries, stroller through the cemetery, and churches, old graveyard, headstones, nice old cemetery, immigrants, former Yugoslavia, a liberal cemetery, bury me in a traditional conservative cemetery, disco lights, only grey headstones, only red granite, biological grandmother, step-grandmother, super regimented cemetery, praying hands by Albrecht Durer, bathroom wall, violated some kind of cemetery rule, Cora wanted to be buried at sea, interesting graves, poetry of the dead people engraved in the stone, a cargo ship engraved, a captain, graves with chinese letters, old ones, big tombs, locally famous people, in the graveyard, what percentage of these Simak novels have you read?, plenty, 27 novels, Comsimc Engineers, Empire, Ring Around The Sun, Time Is The Simplest Thing, They Walked Like Men, All Flesh Is Grass, Why Call Them Back From Heaven, The Werewolf Reservation, Out Of Their Minds, Destiny Doll, A Choice Of Gods, Our Children’s Children, Enchanted Pilgrimage, Shakespeare’s Planet, weird introduction to science fiction, A Heritage Of Stars, Mastadonia, The Fellowship Of The Talisman, The Visitors, Project Pope, Where Evil Dwells, Highway Of Eternity, read 11, newspaperman, heroic newspaperman, smoking is pipe and smiling, the covers are getting shittier and shittier, new ebook editions, 7 volumes of short stories, to read things back to back, the highlights, what makes them big?, recurring themes, one a month, as you see him develop, some authors shy away from doing that, Stephen King, you can’t help it, any good story is really about the author’s experience, stories set in ancient greece, ancient middle east, they read 1,001 Nights, in those experience they got a reverence for this, Clarke Ashton Smith story, wrote that story twice, never been out of California, east asia, jungly, desserty, elephants are awesome, abused circus elephants, Coney Island, tried to hang an elephant, big media stories, a circus that came to town, blown away by the size and the grace and the weirdness of that thing, The Tower Of The Elphant, what do these three guys have in common, sword and sorcery inventor, all about necromancers, that was their fantasy, they are writing in a tradition, the Thief Of Baghdad, Ali Baba, it allows you to create your own, the decline in Arabian fantasies, you really have read good stuff, fell out of fashion, they’ll tell you it’s racist, sexist, read the old good stuff, a book from 2008, terrible old books, 1968, they usually weren’t good books, teaching children Goethe, german rapper, Shakespeare, figuring out what that is, everything old is bad, everything new is good, colonialist, middle eastern set stories, H. Rider Haggard, stories about the crusades, the little triggers, take that little piece out, all those smoothing stones, the episode of Star Trek called The Apple, snake temple, another hippie in space, zap the temple with the phasers to kill the snake, these people are stuck, not be guided by the snake, it couldn’t be made today, too simple and good, let’s have a heist, fuck off I don’t want to see your heist, the last heist you needed to ever watch was Ronin (1998), for the fun chase, what’s in the box, we need never have a heist ever again, wait 1000 years, a gang of criminals have stolen a priceless artifact, stole a crown or something, plaguing Berlin, there’s no George Clooney here, any great art should be replicable, here’s a movie for Scott and Julie with no singing and dancing, Kill (2023), commuter on there, thugee style criminals, conflict between two families, clubs and knives, thieves, at the 40 minute mark, a blood splash, commandos from the Indian Army, the ice train movie, Snowpiercer (2013), a linear journey, Steven Seagal, Under Siege 2 (1995), every Marvel movie ends in a train fight, when is this singing and dancing going to end, some crown in the Louvre, melt down that crown, ketchup or mustard, air cover, the words themselves, the text within, font size, the kind of font it is, Simak lives in this book, he’s still alive, giving life to his ghosts, this is great art, barely doing what it says on the tin, mature works from a thoughtful guy, four days of prep time for Christmas eve, a Saturday, a liberal Christmas market, the costs were too high, 2026 is coming, month away, when did that happen?, time is the simplest quick thing, shopping in December, getting into Bremen, days to look forward to, ruminate on short stories, church stuff on Mondays, read it with your bare hands, illustrations, George MacDonald omnibus, 1858, Lilith, super-sick on that one, novella length, grokipedia, a rival for wikipedia, a bias towards evil, look at a president, CIA guys are allowed to make edits, the Phantastes entry, quotes Cora Buhlert, hoovers up everything, what all the scrapers do, weird contradictions, they all do this, the Clifford Simak one, Wisconsin, a slightly more controversial figure, war in Ukraine, gatekeepers, no person involved, banned sources, approved sources, consistently wrong, Armenia, Azerbaijan, fairly useful, consult grok, as good and all the features, asking specific questions, are there any repair places nearby, a search engines, ai art sucks, ai music that’s incredible, take 50 cents song in a soulful 1960s style, just changing font, I like Garamond, you like Arial, that’s not art, harder than transferring font, in the next five years, a household telepresence robot, stocking shelves in stores with telepresence robots, this ai art thing is mostly garbage at this point, that’s normal, losing jobs, the sabot, buggy whip manufacturers, do you really want to say you can’t replace human jobs with robot jobs, why these jobs?, translators cost money, a selfish argument, a selfless argument, birth certificate translation, people with use chat gpt in their job, sexually harasser, automated car tower stuff, Florida California, both have Disneys, putting valets out of work, a word for a job that doesn’t exist, an assistant, whenever the parking is inconvenient, weird service jobs, bag boy, a grocery packing robot, confronted with technology, it has to be bigger, everything’s about me all the time, nice gas station attendant, artist is a great job, ususally it is some scam, Guillermo Del Toro, the terrible book covers, painted covers, vaguely photoshop, a trend that goes way before the ai, a decision by individuals, I’m in this for money, a guy who makes boutique cars, I love cars, he’s gonna sell it or the country crashes, there were editors who used to love science fiction, I’m not gonna read ai books, the spelling or the font, Booker and Pulitzer prizes, what the grokepedia and the wikipedia matters, does the Hugo make it better, he had 17 hairs on his chin, the human will triumph over the automated system, The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov, we like him giving a toast, David Gerrold, Poul Anderson, The Book Of Skulls, Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg, The Dispossessed, gentle and loving vs. rough, Vietnam, Pacific Northwest, Avatar (2009), anarchist communist moon to capitalist planet, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The Lathe Of Heaven, the saint of science fiction, Margaret Atwood also a saint (but not of science fiction), Octavia Butler, someone’s entrance into science fiction, bloody Star Wars (1977), against opposition, one of many, weird saint floating above it all, just annoying, Bloodchild, fandom, focused on the wrong things, Francis Stevens is great writer, Simak is a white man?, American?, I hate those!, Clarke will last a little longer, the sad truth is all media, stop focusing on the book, trick the book publishers into trying to sell some books, conglomerates, vertical integration, they’re the gutter, they don’t even make novelizations anymore, desperate writers, Alan Dean Foster, Kevin J. Anderson, Predator (1987), too young, login to Disney plus, Piers Anthony, novelization of Star Trek: Next Generation tv series, Encounter At Farpoint, Doctor Who novelizations, people running things are incredibly stupid, tie-in-novels for Murder, She Wrote, Star Trek Animated Series re-imagined, kinda Star Trek, almost looks right, unsettling, Data and Picard and Worf, casual friday, uses the actor’s voice, fairly there, far in the future, technically possible, new episode of actual Star Trek, Deanna Troi having a conversation with Barkley she never had, under the radar at the moment, new seasons of Star Trek, they don’t want the competition, the real problem, we have more clamping than freedom, all the Gaza holocaust videos were deleted, everything gets clamped down, old money extracting and extracting, preventing magazine shops from opening up, can’t afford to live, can’t afford to rent shops, business ideas, nail studios, donair shops, barber shops, exploit their family to work for cheap or free, immigrant businesses, ruining our city centers, the high rents are ruining our city centers, everybody needs to eat on occasion, very difficult to get lunch anywhere, lots of restaurants no longer open for lunch, donair over McDonalds, food made by humans not by robots, tourist trap restaurant, automatic kitchen, robot movies, robots in movies, I Am Mother (2019), the five kinds of sandwiches, doesn’t care about you as much as your mom does, you eat the sandwich, hopefully it was made with love, no flies fell in it, no staples got in your tuna sandwich, is that love?, no, hire someone, make you sandwiches, none of those are love, all the rest is various degrees of commercialism, he’s writing for himself, we can trust him, no problems selling his work in his late period, he’s very very good, it’s full of love, no ai filler, he has to put the girl on the table naked because he’s trying to get the cover, what this book is about, except for the german one, the first issue of Analog, what grok knows, Frank Frazetta, just give me the gist, runs off and draws himself and his wife and giant snake, more passion than love, still a kind of love, wowing, new full cast Harry Potter, Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, a tv series, would have loved it at 10 or 12, a nerdy shop, half the stuff is Harry Potter, sweepstakes, put a yoda on it, Too Much by Donald E. Westlake, a Tamil version, The Twin (1984), the American one from 1995, doesn’t have twins, this book is so fuckin awesome, light comedy, a bit of an asshole but you love him, jaw dropped to the floor, Westlake’s so good at it, that little hidden hobby horse, insurance, it bothers him, funny little guy, lovely talking to you.

Cemetery World by Clifford D. Simak

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #870 – READALONG: Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny

The SFFaudio Podcast #870 – Jesse and Scott Danielson discuss Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny

Talked about on today’s show:
1967, a bunch of awards?, a Hugo, nominated for a Nebula, novelettes in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jesse’s gonna have trouble with this one?, lotsa things, may have modeled Jesse’s mind properly, “like”, Nine Princes In Amber, pile of audio, digital pile, read by Zelazny, an author narrated book, Harlan Ellison, Lawrence Block, the Amber series, A Night In Lonesome October, good reason?, the new copyright when they reprint it, a performance copyright, he’s an excellent narrator of his own stuff at least, the guy for this was fine, one mispronunciation, Shiva, Mitra, Robert E. Howard lore, the politics, the suppression, the whole conceit of the novel, a colonization of a planet, pretend to be the Hindu gods, the whole caste system, the demons in the book, suppressing the people and running the show, accelerationism, do we tell all the people about this technology so their lives improve, if everyone is gods nobody will be, everybody on an equal footing, this way to be better than everyone else, getting reincarnated, moving their soul around to different bodies, flippin their genders, making up Nirvana, slowly working through Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany, Gene Wolfe’s The Book Of The New Sun, hard to read, looking at a super complex object, appreciate it on that level, that’s an interesting object, complex and cool to look at, obscured things, purposely not telling you things, revealing things, little infodump, really interesting, pretty well written, a style a lot of people aren’t gonna get along with, hard to model the people of the period, the least there: when he goes to a town and sees a bunch of people lined up to use a vending machine outside of a temple, a dig at religion?, is the book about religion?, in the Catholic Church, in the Church now, not with this Pope!, people in the past who have used the church for political power, what the church is, the Hindu deities, Hindu pantheon, sorta retelling things, fantasy or science fiction retelling, is the planet that these guys are playing Hindu pantheon Earth?, the answer is supposed to be no, our hero goes to a new town, how to do your prayers properly, played for humour, something smells like shit, that’d be all the shit I’m keeping in jars, new device called a toilet, backstory improving myself, playing a game with the reader, being a bit provocative, that attack Jesse is about to make, it isn’t just the Hindus, the Buddha, what analogy can I do, pick a religion that nobody cares about: the ancient Egyptian pantheon, worshiping Thoth, when did that end?, well documented, super-super-horrible, approx 1500 gods, very inconvenient, the Romans had about 700 gods, a god for every river, every day of the week, Janus, tons and tons of gods, used to control people vs. make your life better, valuable about it, it is helpful, true because helpful, the words of Jesus in this book, a Christian in the last story, a populist religion, topdownism, it wasn’t the king, eventually that does happen, stop viking, not how it started, a secret religion, contrary and opposite to the Roman empire and the Greek religion, they are controlled by their priests and scribes, you need to learn all of this magic, The Book Of The Dead, magic spells, the ancient Egyptian deep state, theocratic agencies, controlling the person at the top and everybody else, how lawyers run things, if you can’t navigate the laws, Augustus is chief pontiff, the head of the religion and the head of the state, the priests are running things, keeping the pharaohs in a dizzying state, subservient to this massive set of gods, we never get to see it from the little people’s point of view, the deep state fighting with itself, John Brennan, the guy with the mustache who wants to nuke everybody, John Bolton, thousands dying with their decisions, the worst example, I am science, Fauci, when they’re attacking science they’re attacking me, that is not how science is, that’s spellcraft, I am in touch with the gods and you have to go through to me, all mistakes, slight improvements and slight tweaks, peer review, Benjamin Franklin, jockeying between transhumanist elites, a topic of regular conversation, change your gender, become immortal, download yourself into an ai, handwavium, Fury by Henry Kuttner, elites controlling little people, interesting what he did here, looking at it the same way, an interesting object, same territory, admire a lot of the writing, mythic event stuff, Michael Moorcock with Elric, a zoomed out quality, Sam woke up at the beginning of the book, a moment remembered by history, paintings, this was momentous, we need to document this, The Sword Of Welleran, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, a kid takes up the sword of Welleran, other statues, half an hour long, 8 hours, 350 pages, an interesting question to think about, should stories reveal character or show character growth?, the focus has swung, modern novel of science fiction, science fiction has become a setting, no character development at all, an H.G. Wells story, The Star by Arthur C. Clarke, describing the place that he’s in, not the stuff being produced today, the older stuff, you can’t be nostalgic for things 300 years before you were born, Yama, the Death God, multiple names, fighting the assassin, that entire fight was amazing, the aftermath of the fight was amazing, become Buddhist, against my new mindset or worldview, he knew he couldn’t win, profound, beautiful, good stuff, why people like this a lot, star quotes around you like, things to like a lot, oh yes, he’s doing the thing, page 239, borrow unavailable, the fresh bitten thigh of a maiden, one ought to read this subversively, if you don’t you’re a monster, I’m a Slan, no you’re not, Beggars In Spain, I’m one of the sleepless!, the enlightened one, the goddess of night, Tak the Ape, the coexistence of the animal and the divine, like Lovecraft, not the Sam part, snarkiness, smoking, in that direction, subversive, do they smoke Marlboroughs or Lucky Strikes?, treating it kinda lightly, Dick did the same, Dick is a lot like Zelazny, co-wrote a book together, a sequel to The Man In The High Castle, Dick doesn’t do series, not able to do it, super-interested in religions, writing to the Rosicrucians, instinct, too much garbage there, busy work, when you read the words of Jesus, not legends of angels, not genealogies, he never said he was a deity, perhaps some will not agree, monotheistic religions, more conducive to human value, you know who Odin is, and Thor and his brother Loki, the Marvel superheroes, the adventures they have together, they’re a lot like superheroes, The Avengers, tied up in this book in a footnote, the movie Argo, Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four, John Buscema, other artist, The New Gods, superheroes that are actually gods, instead of Vishnu and the elephant god, or the monkey god, they’re NEW gods, like aliens, when he switches to Marvel, The Eternals, too painful, why people love Roger Zelazny, the best things, massively, 24 Views Of Mt. Fuji, By Hokusai, the new five, much less complex, family oriented, very different, the prose, archaic, old fashioned, just talking to you, very familiar, the 70s, fairly direct, The Turning Wheel, eastern mysticism, eastern religion, traveling for religious purposes, controlling people, nothing good, sympathy for Jesus, he isn’t trying to sell you much, it isn’t about enriching the pockets, or putting you under thumb of someone else, harder to do today, the ability to read and read the words, the encyclical, local language, Vatican II, a good move, pro-Vatican II vs. anti-Vatican II, overall a reverence has been lost by moving it to vernacular, the posture of the priest, facing away, worshiping with us, an impersona Christi situation, South American country, the mass, people who can’t read, the magic has gone from it, a reverence for the language, Harry Potter, Our Father Who Art In Heaven, memorizing the latin, the pater noster, just sounds, a series of sounds, what the point of this is, thy will be done, they may be pretty, no intent, alluded to it, hatin on Poe, American literary critic talking to Lesley Stahl, shittin on Harry Potter, maybe it will lead to better books, go on to Hunger Games, literally better books, capable of enjoying them, take some students to go see Harry Potter movies, the spell scenes, just Latin, it sounds interesting and magical, we only partially understand, the priests in Rome doing their holy stuff, chant, music, sounds beautiful, a lot of randos, music knowledgeable, ska has no words, musical lyrics can be incredibly powerful, incredibly inane, Abba lyrics, why am I having this runaround in my head, makes you stupid, something intitally outside of you, advertizement jingles, brain colonized by Madison Avenue, The Space Merchants is a central work, Taylor Swift, numerous commentators, writes about breakups, she writes a song about it, men are horrible, Halfway to Texas, a crazy little girl, someplace new, trying to be strong, whole thing is wrong, you held me back home, this is inane, useless, if you get some benefit out it, that would be punishment, deeply grok them, too simple, lyrics do matter, Sting lyrics, stories that he tells, exceptions to be found, not everything is equal to everything else, monotheist as an improvement over polytheistic, less subject to loopholes, the definite word on this, chemistry, valances, the periodic table, its based on a reality, how they teach it in school, the supposed to be result was, you didn’t clean your test tube enough, the flame close enough, make you conform and get your marks, confidence in chemistry, metallurgy, charcoal nearby, based in a reality, actual science, macroeconomics, no progress in macroeconomics in the last 100 years, truths we won’t factor in, access to make the purse strings open or close, super-evil shit, what is my purpose here on earth, Jesus has an improvement over anybody in this book, sum up the plot of this book: this old system of the elites controlling things and pleasuring themselves – they’re evil fucks, exploiting and denying, a fantasy, an evil fantasy, it’s false, Robert J. Sawyer books, downloading yourself into a robot, make an ai sound a lot like you, chemical treatments, biofeedback, adrenochrome, it’s evil because its lies, religious trappings, people pretending, actual Hinduism, using this framework, the answer is no, the book would have hit a lot harder, a savage attack, science fantasy thing, Urth, not on Earth, uses a name for Earth, we came from this other place, what his purpose was, religions are this, nothing more than this, a really interesting take, Lord Neriti, an extremely violent dude, it’s not that Christian history doesn’t have armies in it, Sam is trying to subvert things, that Jesus speech at the end, taken into account, the words resonate, they’re powerful, back to the stupid Eternals movie, close to 3 hours or 2.5 hours, at least 10 actors, the guy with the gold arms, the guy from India, the guy from China, came to earth to stop some demons, a more positive version of this, a superhero has to fight a supervillian, fighting a bankrobber and you’re Superman, Batman has to fight an ever expanding assortment of insane people, all the horrible Marvel movies, human beings watching superheroes fighting in the sky, we become observers of these lords of immortality and bulletproofness, alien invaders, all silly and stupid, Daredevil is a little more sympathetic, maybe it’s Catholicism or lawyerness, Batman’s fairly broken, he doesn’t have, progressed to The X-Men, from an alien immortal who is invulnerable, to a guy who has no super-weapons, super-interesting, little little kid, never read comics, Green Arrow, never went to a comic shop, at the corner store spinner rack, buying paperbacks, 8 years old, when science fiction became a real thing, original Mr. Spock, Star Trek, tv guide, wake up to see that every single week, minor Star Trek novels, before that, Dolphin Island, a library in the school, an occlusion, at 8 years old, second grade, The Three Investigators, no comics, missed Robert A. Heinlein as a young person, isolated in love for science fiction, conversations in high school, a funny book, into fantasy, when Shannara started, that list of Ballantine Adult Fantasy books, craft, quality, Audio Realms, that audio version, it had music, a book on Genesis by St. Augustine, symbolism and things we lost as humanity, the Bible was our common story, a lot of them are Christians too, Marvel or Star Wars, Star Trek, see what tattoos put on themselves, money is the driving factor, should have stopped, Thunderbolts* (2025) is good, the story had an end, the end happened, Asmongold, who is that?, what is that?, skibidi toilet, these are not corporate, they might be corpratized at some point, Colbert is cancelled, The View is cancelled, on hiatus, not an audience enough for it, the advertizing revenue is drugs and health insurance?, the medium, listen to the radio, sport radio, country radio, a huge sports fans, all the stick games, all the ball games, the Cubs won, did the guy hit the ball?, The Last Inning by Nelson S. Bond, old baseball player, cut from the last team where he gets paid $5 bucks a game, wakes up in Baseball Valhalla, the games are always good, in full swing, Twilight Zone in 15 minute installments, it’s not a sport it’s a pastime, the best episode of Deep Space 9, football now has taken that over, a football game on Sunday nights, MMA, boxing, conversation at work, football is definitely king, dangerous and painful, fantasy football is huge, pickem games, bigger than any other sport, the up down thing, soccer is a bottom up thing, you can play soccer in your backyard, you don’t even need a ball, not as dangerous, basketball you need a basket, you need a rock, rocks are cheap, part of that is participatory, they played it, in the United States there’s a lot of people who really dislike it, comparative, fits American psyche, impatience, clocks, things like that, 45 minute halves, 1 to 0, why basketball is an American sport, Real Salt Lake, she is done, why do I ever want to watch this again, 3 hours of football in which no one scored, anathema, hockey with regards to soccer, a lot more dangerous than soccer, there’s fighting, NHL, a very Canadian thing, Canadian Football League, frozen lakes, see themselves represented in it, go out on the frozen lake, need a pair of skates a stick and rock, top down vs. bottom up, dressage, horse dancing, a horse, a stable, money, stableboy, saddles, riding lessons, you can’t just teach it yourself, polo, like soccer for knights, the stick is easier than the horse, a space bigger than an apartment building, common experience, could have been better had it been a short story, unless it is radically changed for this, Zelazny is a series guy, what like what we see in Amber, not 9 serfs in Amber, sword and sorcery, Brian Murphy’s favourite sword and sorcery stories, Flame And Crimson is the book, The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros, there’s a pudding, a bowl full of pudding that eats one of the guys, Robert E. Howard, Black God’s Kiss, Dragon Moon by Henry Kutter is public domain, The Tritonian Ring by L. Sprague de Camp, Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, Ill Met In Lankhmar, David Drake, Charles Saunders, Conan in Africa basically, The Shadow Kingdom, Beyond The Black River, Red Nails, Karl Edward Wagner, at this stage of life, The Tower Of The Elephant, everything comes up except for LibriVox, so fucking broken, enshittification, well done Cory Doctorow, Mike Vendetti, just recorded The Hour Of The Dragon, 3 where he’s a king, I’m a do em all, Jesse, didn’t understand copyright, he can do it and he will do it, gets enthusiastic, Sinclair Lewis, The Broken Sword, that first novel in the Elric series, the Fritz Leiber ones are not mythic, way after, the development, Fritz Leiber reads Conan in Weird Tales, him and his friend as the main characters, taking that dungeon crawl you see in some Conan storties, a team, a team-up, D&D-splaining, the party is Tolkien, they get the fellowship, warrior, another warrior, elf, dwarf, thieves, tpk’d, total party killed, only one of them is killed, Lord Dunsany stories, really cool overlay, a sphinx, that’s awesome, he doesn’t say what he’s doing, who killed chronos, The Nightmare Tarn, The Tempter by Robert E. Howard, Howard at his most philosophical, at his most attack on the deep state, the progenitor of things like They Live (1988), really solid, weird that he’s doing kings, corruption from above, his letters with Lovecraft, civilizations become corrupt and evil, leans in and says yes, they’re evil and old and we gotta suppress this knowledge, a one way influence, his Solomon Kane stories, he’s a puritan, largely adventuring in Africa, voodoo men, this is pure evil, we must go fight it, occupy sounds somebody else’s body, here take the staff of Solomon, sort of part of my religion, a mode of that, a suspicion of magic, just fakery, People Of The Black Circle, a retelling of the Marco Polo story of the Hashashim,, reading things from 1000s of years ago, 1254-1324, a certain valley to be enclosed, every variety of fruit, most elegant, all covered with gilding, he kept at his court, 12-20 years of age, tales about paradise, just as Mohammed was wont to do, some four or six, the deep sleep, the state of stupor, delightful objects, lovely damsels, in Paradise, unwilling to relinquish, commands of their master, put death by these disciplined assassins, been exposed to the emnity of the old man of the mountain, fairly familiar, still in use today, it’s the guy who tried to assassinate Trump, evil company, super-evil, people still do this, government related, lonely needs a girlfriend, an operative paid by the government, let’s go blow up a bridge, 7 people in the van, the governor of Michigan, how do we end up doing this?, ply em with money and wine, this is how we’re told suicide bombings work, arrested, Robert E. Howard did a story on this, set in Vendhya (not India), sorcery circle, his magic is largely fake, all you have to do to survive the sorcery is not believe it is legit, a different way of doing it, fireball damage, Harry Potter wand, sumin exportorum, not getting wet, you have to play along, I’m damned, if you are not a believer, it’s an alien, kind of the same story as the book we read today, stapled to a couch for 1000 years, Howard’s a lot more grounded, The Vale Of Lost Women, a god from the outer dark, an alien, it can fly, it’s not human, not a Christian, what do these stories mean, what does it mean to wrestle with gods?, nice language he’s so good at in his poetry, less toleratnt for the stuff happens fantasy novels, a long way of getting to him being interested in this subject, playing a game with himself, readable as either science fiction or fantasy, his playing the game, starships and cigarettes, him breaking that, it depends, science fiction has rivets and fantasy has trees, science fiction that is not the same, hard Science Fiction, The Cold Equations, that’s not fantasy, a philosophical piece of fiction, we have to think about technology, most of them are completely fake, a vaccine for a disease that doesn’t exist, a spaceship that needs fuel, bootstrapped to get to John W. Campbell’s, power like it does, you can’t just magic everything away, the reason we love Star Trek II, the reason we love Star Trek III is Katras, planning, remember, double eyelids, all well and good, that’s series shit, that’s not the part we love, we set up a mechanical style problem and think about , a really awesome thread, the problem with screen addiction is we’ve always had this problem, a dialogue by Plato, The Symposium, people have always been addicted to screens, cave walls, shadow puppets, magic lanterns, illuminated manuscripts, movie screens, talkie movie screens, just like radio now with added screen, home video game screen, cellphones with screens, picture of the guy in the cave, always has been, your body comes with built in screens, when we look at a screen, early science fiction, visiscreens, they’re looking at a television, you can see the world, submarines do not have any windows, how can you navigate without windows, actually going to build the Starship Enterprise, there’s nothing in space to look at, when a romulan ship encounters a federation ship they’re both right side up, listing, it’s all metaphor, we’re told there’s tech, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, without all the religious baggage, deaging cream, get the botox, deluding themselves, technology is the reason it’s not magic, another axis to put this on, Star Trek: New Worlds, set in space, phasers, not magical phasers, dilithium crystal, the axis of bad science fiction, each individual episode needs to be judged on its own, the giant with the giant cigar, The Doomsday Machine, Kirk can do these infodumps, the writer knows, they built a weapon so terrible, they’re gone now, how do you know that bro?, in 45 minutes, an awesome idea, it works as a metaphor, nuclear weapons, it works in every direction, it is important that Decker try to blow it up, the shuttlecraft is not the important thing?, Star Trek is coming The Tempest, from Forbidden Planet, added a secondary hull and some tubes, things that look like a transporter, operates the same way visually, imagine The Tempest is a science fiction, the no Kill I episode, The Devil In The Dark, don’t kill all the Indians, very good, Spock has another girlfriend this season, some other girl, the cartoon, is it science fiction, some of it is definitely, pick an episode, everybody’s favourite, The City On The Edge Of Forever, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, what time travel can do, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, let that lady die, hugs Bones, it’s philosophical, how time machines work, he gives an analogy, how do warp drives, bend the paper, snake oil to get to the story, if evolution is real and things go on as they are, the workers and the effete elites, that’s him making an argument, farther into the future, nothing really matters, a crab on the beach, back to earth, love is real, our time on earth together, two different things that are going on in there, three places in time, he leaves again, is he going to go see Weena again?, she ain’t that smart, not about time travel to the past, god show out of this, Lord Of Light, The Einstein Intersection, Aye, and Gomorrah…, heard about Thorns from Jonathan Weichsel, Chester Anderson, The Butterfly Kid, exists on Amazon, hippies had a new kick from outerspace, Reality Pills, pot smoking poets and musicians, lobster shaped giants from outer space, Peter S. Beagle wrote the foreword, poet, author, and musician, underground journals, new wave movement, Ray Bradbury, his good stories are good, the pirate site, Ten Years To Doomsday, reprint in 1977, an alien invasion novel, republishment, co-authored, misclassified him, probably not a book we need, a ton of fun, standing out as not having read, A Night In The Lonesome October, super-interesting, a request, he is pretty consistent, it’s pretty short, going to wikipedia or whatever, websites memorized, 31 minutes, something to pair it with, comparing the style as well as the subject, the Brian Murphy list, Eric Brighteyes, the main character, novella length, similar length to the Howard, The Barrow Troll, a comic, The City Of The Singing Flame, capital AND, Linortis Reprise, The Ship Of Ishtar, a show from 2010, podcast 091 – Oath Of Fealty, not a good book, the number one problem, 40 or 50 people, hear the idea, at least it wasn’t a huge book, Lucifer’s Hammer, Footfall, The Great Brain, ya, middle grade books, he was really smart, your Encyclopedia Brown, exist outside of Utah?, the first house to get a toilet, charge tickets, he’s gonna invite everybody over to take a shit, making fun of his own book, Salt Lake City, a Mormon thing?, how widespread is The Great Brain, famous illustrator, The Return Of The Great Brain, real books for real children, not Edgar Allan Poe, probably worth finding a copy and looking at it, at the time it was pretty exciting, who stole my wagon?, this person has motive, the two first episodes of Bookish, the setup is pretty good, asks for backstory, we don’t know each other well enough yet, viewpoint character, spinup theories, don’t trick me bro, tried to solve the mystery, setting it up, Nero Wolfe and Sherlock Holmes, who did the murder, a little to character heavy, the UK is going strange, a rebranded itv?, bathroom, save it in a jar, getting better, how am I supposed to take this book seriously?

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #849 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Prize Ship by Philip K. Dick AND The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey

The SFFaudio Podcast #849 – Prize Ship by Philip K. Dick (42 minutes) and The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey (41 minutes). Both are read by Tommy Patrick Ryan. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Tommy Patrick Ryan.

Talked about on today’s show:
1954, 1961, 42 minutes or so, one is far superior to the other, which is which?, Prize Ship is superior to The Ship Who Sang, largely similarish time frame, pairing them thematically, Mr. Spaceship, thematically, far superior, first time Anne McCaffrey, a trick story, not a particularly well executed one, he muted himself but doesn’t know, this wide of a gap, particularily phenomenal, a trick, some comments, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, never mentioned, Brobdingnag, Dragon Riders Of Pern, Eric’s book club with Tommy, okay, fun and interesting, themes, the Dick thing relied so heavily, the expanding universe, that gimmick is so thin, an interesting idea, naturally leads to sequels, leaves it open, the worldbuilding that she does, mentally good, physical deformities, these dudes are comin over, they go inside of her, try to charm her, passin out drinks, she signed off on this, that’s gross, being in love with him, a girl story, Philip K. Dick’s story is a peice of shit, way too long for the material, some other solar system, this one stupid moon, Ganymede, they don’t use cradle technology, horrible Ganymedeian emperor, so many characters, any distinction from each other, the Plutonians are Soviets or something, that’s on Philip K. Dick writing in his shit mode, time wasting stories, doesn’t put a foot wrong, leaves open the possibility of endless series, girl ideas, girl mindset, a houseparty inside of her, she sets her cap, she gets to have it every which way, she’s the girl in the wheelchair at the dance party, brain, brawn, a terrific story, also a little bit pretty, in sympathy, we probably agree, not the finest story you’ve ever read, the best McCaffrey story Jesse has ever read, what if this story were weirder or more upsetting, it should be upsetting, programming people, putting them in institutions, concerned citizens, step by step eliminates objections, increases the history, brain ship the third generation, Star Trek [The Next Generation] where Majel Barrett is the ship and Will Riker is her only crewman, girl fantasy romance in space, great at girl psychology, fetish weirdness, coyness with regard to sexuality, silly beyond 40 minutes, our primary brawn, he looks at her, being seen, whole bunch of titanium, he still looks at her, he doesn’t dance with her out of obligation, valid points, more comments about the Dick story, more to be critical of, better to shoot first on a strange planet, he fundamentally doesn’t understand military organization or business structures, when he fakes it he comes across as stupid, there’s greatness in the story idea, it’s a 4 second story, a joke story, a twist story, Gulliver’s Travels, junior year of college, of a regular curriculum, every planet and many moons, deep in the future, their own tech, an excuse to revisit the ideas that blue Philip K. Dick’s socks off when he was a kid, time travel not being really worth it, being silly, throw away characters, so long for the material, the guy who didn’t know the story, a fun brief discussion point, gone to the future, everything could be real, Wonderland, Oz, Middle Earth, Narnia, Neverland, today’s lexicon, maybe it’s not worth it, felt more dated, still out there, the story is dated by it’s dated references, when this is supposed to be, perhaps others, Erewhon, Pellucidar, all the the fantasy’s dreams, jum jum jum, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ hollow earth, going into it, tickled at the imagination, sorta fun, so referential, so meta in that way, way deep into the story, so much setup, so lame, the whole senator scene, boring, he’s terrible at that shit, so useless, did nothing for the story, the Ganymedean at the end, could have been half as long, one of these is a classic, the other one is absolutely forgetable, Return To Lilliput, something that is on his mind, boobs, direct references to The Odyssey, Strange Eden, childhood reading, work through this, social satire not science fiction or a true story, he can’t help himself, the joke is better, Prominent Author, the joke is really good, commuting, who the hell writes about commuting, multiple times, fucked by the robot at home, very fun, gotta commute, tiny little people, doesn’t report the hole, the joke is, slips of paper, not aliens from other planets, they’re the Israelites, he is god, Moses!, busy writing down the ten commandments, cribbing from the bible at work, a good joke, also this weird idea, what kind of idea is that, a result of technology, no such thing as commuting, transit time, your work can be hours away, a six hour drive to work, come back once a week, a second place in the Chicago area, relocate, a fundamental science fiction idea, the consequences of technological change, time travel is real rather than cradle technology, expanding universe isn’t just space between stars, the size of everything grows, he buries it, the title, buried by it’s own garbage, done as kind of a joke, vitriol, by having this discussion, the worst time travel story, pretty silly, it’s an idea, Robert J. Sawyer in a dinosaur novel, Shadow In Space by Philip Jose Farmer, any female characters?, liliputian female, not even a quivering look at her boobs, meat and potatoes make money mode, my beating heart, no emotions in this story, don’t care, things I should hate, Jesse hates characters and emotions, character makes you read big long series, Dragons Of Autumn Twilight, Dragons Of Winter Dawn, Dragons of Summer Festing, Time Of The Twins, reading for character, the death of Sturm Brightblade!, a way of tricking people into reading, how their stories go, the Dresden Files, Dragonlance, Drizt?, high literature, we literally form a relationship, we like them, Tanis Half-Elven, Wolverine, half-girlfriend, anti-Cyclops feelings, the X-Men has science fiction ideas sometimes, a bit of both, a bit of allegory, the junk story, the gem has problems, you want to see what happens next, the guy dies, that’s awesome, dumb, naive, the grandmother ship coming along, leads to the possibility, this federation, drug smugglers and vaccines, also The Cold Equations, a plague on Woden, just like Balto, a dog one, our noble brawn, so fucking girl psychology, the relationship between and ugly girl or a disabled girl, maybe she’s got pimples, kids exposed to thalidomide, We Didn’t Start The Fire, Jesse is very suspicious of music, things that Jesse should be worried about: institutions, corruption, abuse, is she being abused?, “power seek”, these brainships, total slaves, they have agency, how limited is that agency, later sequels, pick her person, it felt backwards, having a party inside of her, a gang rape [gang bang], a man who doesn’t suck, all as good as you can get, top 1 percent in everything, good at everything, they’re all Rikers, they’re not Barkleys and not Picards, fine starfleet officer, an exploration of the borderlines of the idea, a ship’s counselor, understand emotions, looks good in her outfit, her role is expanded when you have characters like Barkley, fucking up at work, expansive, read the whole series, the next story will be more of the same, and largely girl fantasy, all the men coming into her, a crew choosing party, courted like Jane Austen, the song by Rebecca Black called Friday, immensely inane, kick it in the back seat, that’s her life, zionists?, the disparity, her major problem is which seat should she sit in?, hilarious and endearing and stupid and anti-intellectual, almost asexual, the central question of the story, some level of agency is nice, Pride And Prejudice, just brooding, scary eyebrows, happy for Elizabeth, filthy rich, a bonus, take pity, he likes her for her, not for her money, that’s nice, themes in there, she’s the one who makes things happen in the home, she invites a man into her, they go out adventuring, planted on the ground giving advice, goes and talks to the nuns, we’re running out, runs back, they all follow Riker back into the ship, heroic efforts, a manly hero, it has everything, woman being virginal, woman being sexual, so perfect with regards using a science fiction idea, to explore female psychology, so good at it, is there a scene wasted here?, usally to give us a little information, to allay fears of abuse, institutions being very dangerous, separating kids from their families, either than our she’s going to be euthanized, pick up that ball and run with it, her other option, the Jedi in Star Wars, force sensitive, taken from their families, they can be good monks, in Judge Dredd, indoctrinated from age 5, a kind of priesthood or nunhood, saving this colony of nuns, this handsome man, parallels, jealous, only has eyes for her shell, the alternatives, the modern equivalent, put in the incinerator, a reality, taken away from your parents immediately, how the Spartan system works, out in barracks, murder a Helot, horrible disciplinary stuff, the British Public School system, brainships are female, the singing, initial attraction, her reputation, a girl in a wheelchair, a girl with a birthmark on her face, a girl with a limp, so girl psychology, it exceeds its premise, an excellent science fiction story, less luke war, the totality of the storyline, one of the joys of discussion, this does do a lot of stuff, reverse discrimination, she’s in charge, more examples, not desired, not into her for her looks, who and what they are, personality is important, physically deformed, an exterior body that’s powerful and capable, she’s the homunculus, a very Eric reading, a different kind of commuting, a pretty positive story, a female author, accomplished so well, artistic, she’s a person, not just a machine, makes her more fully round, she can paint the Last Supper on the head of a screw, and now the women are going to play the harpsichord, music, needlework, doemestic entertainment, business partners or whatever, the billiards room, a gathering at the piano, if you’re advertising for piano lessons, what sets this ship apart, she sings, music is one of the greatest things to exist, hostile, actively suspicious, it’s math in sound, what happens when people get patriotic, you shouldn’t get teary eyed at propaganda, music is fuckin dangerous, why the Puritains were worried about dancing, hymns, used to manipulate, why am I crying, I wanna get down on Friday, it shouldn’t be popular, Gagnam Style, a song about a guy who attracts girls, he’s your uncle, age and gender, older brother dances like this, he gets all the girls, translates from another language that we don’t understand, music is a direct line into people’s fuckin minds, the concern, they’re not all equal, try to get a millenial to watch a movie, Will’s seen 5 movies, try with a zoomer, obsessed with Star Wars, not all modes are equal, insidious inside of you, Mein Kampf, very few, into your ears whether you want it or not, a Burger King commercial, college sports, an earworm, Beethoven, Mozart, The Silmarillion, a joke, the opening, they make music, everything is vibration, Tolkien wasn’t a dumb man, all power has potential to be dangerous, when we make music, the source or the force, some would call God, music and yoga, more than church, about peace and stuff and understanding, use any too for good or evil, the knife that harms, toddlers are given nuclear weapons, undersea mountains, a power range, in law, noise violations, decibels or hours vs. content, physical contact is the point of assault, that demarcation, sound is everywhere, incumbent, upset at muzak in an elevator, brain activity, enjoying my audiobook, working in schools, special ed, have to put headphones, Jesse is weird and Will amped it up on purpose, Will is an agitator, not unprofitably, a key factor in human development, having heard that diatribe, we recognize the power of music, perfume, fresh bread not offense, laundry pods, but why?,no wasted characters, lots of interesting technology, psychology, what if Einstein’s theory implies this, also Lilliput, clearly they’re quite different, leaning towards Dick, the datedness, toxic masculinity, lack of women, patriarchy, not unitl Jennan comes along is she truly alive, apparently not interesting contributors, The Gun, doesn’t sound right, this is a classic science fiction story, dial down 2024 sensibilities, 2025, things have changed, [Project 2025], the only person who’s recorded those public domain stories, mostly bored, vibing, cringing, totally immersed in 1950s science fiction, had to turn in his first draft on this one, get canceled, in a very different light, not publishable in 2025, it would be independent and very popular, a tune up, it might be gay, Murderbot books, supposed to be really good, it’s awesome, character, Luke Burrage reviewing with Julianne, total Jesse hate, character based, relationship to humans, autistic relationship, book series, more more more character, Lord Of The Rings, Frodo’s going to off to the Grey Havens, oh no the story is over!, a little echo with Sam and his wife, I gotta read it again, that is a mistake, it doesn’t need sequels by other hands, several endings on it, The Scouring Of The Shire, longest epilogue, a great tramping, everything is opening up, this is depressing, debate about potatoes, what happened to Mr Sam’s frying pans, attention and relationship a reader has to the material, Murderbot is indulgence, how do we feel about Conan in this context, Conan vs. Howard, a space in which he can operate, forced to fit into a certain mode, with Dragonlance, become addictive, gather at a treehouse, they have food, two brothers, twins, warriors, gladiator, learn evil magic, fight the evil, oh, it’s epic, by book 30, am I really getting a lot of value out of this, Dragon Ball Z, Conan Doyle kept killing off Sherlock Holmes, that happens, people literally care, writing more to give people more, inevitably always happens, the fixup, that’s the first book, at least 7 books, enough already, not interesting at all, Siler, the German guy, Bassett was British, male lead, he’s Han Solo and Will Riker, a bard who’s handsome, everything a girl could loved, just like his father, the cowboy, the American, not well known for his great characters, The Wub is a great character, it’s Jesus, come to accept, non-superflouous, Instrumentality of Man, negative feedback, Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks, dangerous and insidious, the culture is like heaven, as a standalone it would be fine, anti-utopian societies, is this a utopian society?, the same premise every time, given you’re in heaven…, the edges of heaven, neat points, playing board games, video games, kids, 24 hours, their behavior afterward, what are you really getting done, fetch quests, 15 seasons of Supernatural, insightfully, “Jesse don’t you have any happy movies”, Paperback Romance (1994), disabled lady with a gimpy leg, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, admires her writing, a great movie, soft and sucky, if that is the range of your film wanting, brokenness inside of you, binging and other things, what is it for, how should we use it, how should we recognize what it is, many traps in the world, shared setting vs. series, the Ringworld books, the theory of series, diminishing returns, intellectual laziness, when sick, the ability to do the work, instead of going over to the machine, watch a couple John Carpenter movies, operating like that all the time, watch it again!, not just as a pacification, understanding and realization, somehow disabled, something comfortable, to stimulate and edify, to raise up, edify define, instruct or improve, when you’ve learned something, having the guy catch all your fish for you, good as a trilogy, gotten past the worldbuilding, The Empire Strikes Back, The Two Towers, how dense those middle parts are, they don’t want to have to learn it again, the prequels, the sequels, Rey and Finn, give me something new, not edifying, an excellent story, shown Tommy the light, take a dump in a bag and stamp literature on it, word rates, F&SF, a more literary snobby, actually produces good results, we don’t like your kind here, Boucher, by [19]61 he was gone, Robert P. Mills, quality wise it is excellent, they don’t have interior art generally, Astounding and Galaxy art, Virgil Finlay, a banana on the cover, a nebula and a galaxy and a banana, what the ship size is, the Millennium Falcon size, cooler looking, less knobby, light frigate sized, so much like the starship Enterprise, a landing gantry, female writer that Tommy’s mom likes, newer equipment, feedback, an entire book, any notes, the different accents, the interpretation an audiobook narrator brings to a story, Will is more open to dramatic readings than Jesse is, well done, is it appropriate for a man to do a story that’s so female focuses, Barbara Rosenblat, much more clunky, that’s the story, bounces around, there is no distinction between the characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the most notable character, closer and warmer always is nicer, a cold room, a bigger room, they mean the same thing, less echo more close, microphone based, room based, back off the microphone, snuggled into my microphone, get closer to the cardioid, dialing down the [gain], projection, tend to Levelate, just for volume, Levelator, levelation, when you look at a million LibriVox files, nice and snuggled, breaks all of the lows and all of the high, for volume control, raw files, too sick for too long, Will got his homework done, nice and short, a lot of audiobooks, Tommy’s stuff’s pretty good, awful Hegel audiobook, teach a man to fish for compliments, technical stuff, fish the pond out, theatrical experience, theater mode, theater voice, recording stories, one should do things, playing board games for money, how to stream games for money, you’re in your bedroom, a side hustle, as a performance for other people, a horror show, sing in the car, sharing something that has value, it’s not just fun, it’s edifying, Jesse’s conviction, some listeners that have similar experiences, saying similar, that’s enough, the superior man studies literature, it’s a simplified version of the world, that is enough, I can do these things, a chance to listen to it, put some headphones in, wash the dishes, do the laundry, next week is Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, The Jameson Satellite and Mellonta Tauta, Mr. Spaceship?, asking about utopias, Mack Reynolds, not his later novels, Border, Breed, Nor Birth, Mercenary, a strange new meaning, read by Mark Nelson, 23rd of February, probably Ben Tucker, Phil Chenevert, can I be late several minutes, much appreciated, always a pleasure, salient points, appreciate, mails it in, held him on a pedestal, may the Force be with you, so fucked up by illness on Vancouver Island, a great book: Project Pope, not exactly on Catholic matters, Lilith by George MacDonald as well, done for adults, people with lots of limbs, kinda about suicide, a new reality, very interesting, more Catholic redeption, The Magic City, Edith Nesbit, they meet a man she knew as a child, she is going to marry him, super-resentful, mom and sister is being taken away, the boy acts like a jerk, secretly he builds a city out of household objects, kinda like the DREAMLANDS, everything is magical, a fantasy of child creation, The LEGO Movie is very good, ip, Batman and Star Wars, childhood materials, Lord Business, he’s mad because his dad is always at work, creates a world and falls into it, redeeming, nice right, very charming, pastoral inside of a fake city, what food do they eat, there’s a prophecy, a visitor will comes, nice little nested story, what’s going on, reading a lot, gotta do that sometimes, making reviews and notes, ancient Chinese philosophy, worth understanding Confucius and Mencius, human nature as basically good, filial duties, an elder, and so sick, we have to consider that, in the Confucian framework, a stronger duty, equal universal love, snow melt?, safe inside, Haitian independence, what does this consist of?, ate food, strange and normal, honorary Germans?, every kind of person, weird conversations, a communist, comes across as very normal, into Chairman Gonzalo, the Peruvian Communist Party, a good time, Haitian soup, a savoury quality, pork, cabbage, the broth, squash, a tasty experience, spicy chicken pastries, blood pressure down, meat and meat associated products, lots of salt, crazy things we were told, salt’s fine, you need salt to live, why animals and humans lick it, not being productive, a very strange lady, 70 years old, highly disabled, huge knowledge network, hundreds of chickens and goose and 7 cattle, nature and nurture, a little genetics and little philosophy, being sick is frustrating and annoying, take vacations, why you trying to punish me, comb the beaches, explore them, map them, learn the lore, go fishing, 6 hour podcast to edit up tonight, get Jesse and Will talking, bad habits, a long show, The Journey Of Joenes, very good time, another human, good guy.

Prize Ship by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #841 – READALONG: The Weapon Shop by A.E. van Vogt and Paycheck by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #841 – Jesse and Cora Buhlert discuss The Weapon Shop by A.E. van Vogt and Paycheck by Philip K. Dick.

Talked about on today’s show:
wanted to pair, not public domain, first and second, Philip K. Dick was a fan of the writings of A.E. van Vogt, The Worlds Of Null-A, very similar in a couple of ways, the movie with Ben Affleck, and the lady from Kill Bill (2003), Uma Thurman, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, The Pre-Persons, sexist, hate, anti-choice, if you’re a woman, Dick is sexist, how is he sexist, Rethrick, Kelly, the secretary, his daughter, keep his business in the family, doesn’t even enter his mind, that’s the character not the author, it doesn’t seem to occur to Dick either, smart and competent, a terribly conservative protagonist, drill down on this idea, Jennings is not much of a character, Jennings prior to the wipe, Total Recall, what his backstory is, at the end of the movie he’s fighting a guy named Cohagen, Captain Jellico, Ronny Cox, always a corporate badguy, he’s always evil, Dan O’Bannon, almost every good science fiction movie, $50,000 for having his stuff from Black Destroyer used, similar, might have read this, quite different, Couerl, a very bad writer, a weird writer, great at ideas, not a pleasure to read, his prose is problematic, it’s the ideas, in watching the movie, in a different frame, explicitly it’s called out, the opening, smooth jets hummed, ugh he said, staring keenly, coming around, two or three ticks, eyes bright, the dull ache, ask that a different way, it was spring, stepping into an elevator in late fall in New York, almost two years later, the government is even stronger, the SP have almost unlimited power, teaching the school children, filling San Fransisco bay, born in Washington, DC, stopped in Colorado, Vancouver, the bay area, Los Angeles, road trips, flew to France, set in Chicago, very well written, very economic, what this future world is like, we become the character, he doesn’t know his backstory, a time scoop is used, the reason he knows, for most of the story, having things happen to him, the world we’re set up with, the old government fell, two babies, a 3 pound weight, pathetic, the plot of what’s making the story happen, the security police are trying to get information on the Retherick company, the FBI are the good guys, even The X-Files, except in 1953 Philip K. Dick can do it, the government is evil, the corproation, Elon Musk style corporation, citizens, the girl betrays him, secretly I’m the daughter of the boss, the boss wants him to marry his daughter, work for us again, Kelly thinks you’re handsome, if at the beginning of the story, either he’s gay, has a wife, he’s our hero, we want him to do well, he maneouvered Rethrick using the daughter, you can’t blackmail me, foresaw this, we now know he can blackmail them with that, the family business, forced a marriage, parcel receipt, so he saw even that, he as in himself, the main character, one more step out and that’s Philip K. Dick, “trinkets”, souvenirs, little objects with no actual value and immense value, 7 objects, plot could happen, planned it out pretty well, as opposed to A.E. Van Vogt, her face wild, a slip of paper, it’s still here, in the air above them, a circle, stared up frozen, a metal claw, a shimmering rod, swept the paper from Kelly’s fingers, the circle of black, nothing at all, what was that, safe right here, we only see his waldo come in at the end, so unhappy, the paper is safe, the company is safe, strong, very glad to help out the revolution, his eyes twinkling, more members of the family, women had a lot less agency and legal power, by herself she can’t make the company go on forever, she could marry someone, adopt a kid, time scoop a kid, technical knowledge, Kelly doesn’t need the technical knowledge, compare this, the story is sexist, an inherent sexism, Mad Men, except that there’s a time scoop, two things going on, this is not a Gray Flannel Suit story, what they hired him for, a manual labour job, a mechanic vs. an engineer, drawing this from, a music shop, a guy who fixed radios, is there a television repair place, they’re all gone, everything is disposable, real estate is insane, nobody can afford retail, so many businesses are disposed of, shoe repair place, they all go when the guy retires, orthopedic shoe places, 20km away, the movie came out 2003, right after 9/11, bad guys in 2003, how they changed the Kelly/Rethrick dynamic, Rethrick is the badguy, doing something evil, what they do in the film, used to find out what the future is like, cause the wars, the enemy is bad, post 9/11 thinking, a pandemic, set all that aside, what happens to Kelly, she’s Uma Thurman, she’s a biologist, doing biology doesn’t make any sense, construction, tunnels underground, she’s just works there and she’s naive, had a romance before the memory wipe, convenient for the plot, the friend character, the best Philip K. Dick actor, Paul Giamatti, to be the love interest, she says that other people have done this, objects in lieu of pay, called out near the end, she has an idea as to what the company does, those are tests for husbands for Kelly, saw what was coming, they didn’t see far enough?, maybe they also escaped, none of them married Kelly, a setup between the father approving of the son in law, come meet my dad sort of story, she’s not the agent for it, she loyals back to her father, the company is out in the countryside, she’s an accountant or something, protective, even more sexist, it’s not his job, if Kelly wants a husband, Rachel is not a good change, a perfectly fine name, Mildred, “keen”, a biblical background, an Irish name, a job that’s unrelated to the story, she’s just a love interest, she throws him a gun, she’s not killing her father, it’s just his boss, even a dove in it, 2 hours long, not science fiction, FBI agents standing around, the girl is just there to be a love interest, a standard movie for a date, Kelly’s job is inherent to the plot, 20 years ago, even if they were smart women, that is not better, if we’re grading on a curve, 1953 is better than 2003, much more mature, takes 30 years, 1979 vs. 1940, for Black Destroyer to Alien (1979), lame vs. sexist, the main character is not in it, that’s amazing, not likeable, if they had actually adapted the story, FBI are good guys, couldn’t be adapted properly, adapted as it is, include some computers, there are good things in it, fundamentally flawed, a second Retherick character for no good reason, to have a bigger cast?, the make the movie longer?, compare to the A.E. Van Vogt story, about a mechanic, what’s his problem?, automated repair place that’s outcompeting him, faith in the empress, unjustified, a son he doesn’t get along with, who was the girl he was talking to on the street, she was a weapon shop employee, stealing from his parents, badly written, she never shows up a again, a snippet of their dialogue, David Agranoff, nice guy, doesn’t hit hard enough, he makes really good points, being mean, about A.E. Van Vogt, seems to fit, every 800 words change something, it hurts the story, as a piece it’s garbage, too many turns, too many things unexplained, tempted to just read the next story, Seesaw, a fixup, The Weapon Shops Of Isher, people are weird about this, City won, people recognized the name, guy taking a walk through a beautiful small town, setback homes, perfectly designed, says to himself or his wife, this is how the empress pictures out village, evil atomic engine corporation, like a Walmart, suddenly he sees it, sprung up over night, a strange empty feeling, the other villagers are gathering, places of infamy, built in hidden factories, property rights, a suddenly springing up building, this is a gun store, this is a bad thing, weapons being sold willy nilly, a point Cora agrees with, the story takes him on a journey, his son has betrayed him, case dismissed, they come to take his shop, back to the weapons store, $4, a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range for $4, so why is that happening in the story, exploring this idea of a corporation or a something going against the government, surprise the reader every 800 words, here’s a surprise, turn the corner, they do follow, they don’t follow logically, how to fill space, a technique to make things longer, he needs to have 5 items, in the movie he has even more and they’re all different, the premise, the basic idea, what if you are a small town guy, people respect the queen or now the king, shows up on tv once a year, that’s not a relationship, things are done in her name, become a member of parliament you have to swear allegiance to the king, an enforced thing there, take individual autonomy, these two things are in tension in this story and this real world, sort of a Canadian, Mennonite coming from europe, fleeing, the Lakehead of Ontario, German radio stations playing very bad German music, a common story, fleeing persecution, fleeing war, fleeing bad emperors, Canada and Russia, Catherine the Great, the Russian Mennonites came back from Russia, a circuitous route, the reason you flee to a particular place, the way Canada was settled, the owners of the Hudsons Bay Company, manipulating persons and family, the land’s not free, so many places, the moor colonization, aristocrat had some moors, free land, a guy coming out of that background, Campbell writing, a big fan of Don A. Stuart’s Who Goes There?, he’s not a stupid man, the right to weapons in Canada, more reasonable, German gun laws, a license, sports shooting club, those are grandfathered in, there are a number of people who have need and desire for rifles, bears, hunting, indigenous people, there is no treaty between the government and their group, hunting today, cheaper and easier to learn, a lot more work, if you want to eat the animals, a lot of training involved, harder for a lot of people, farmers, killing varmints, a small rifle somewhere in the house, call the police, braining with the butt of the rifle, shot pigeons, when he goes into the shop, a greybearded man, the secret sauce, you’re here to buy a weapon, in the story proper, this is unfortunate, I automatically respect old men, these are manipulations by the corporation, teleporters, time travel makes it make more sense, in Seesaw, this empire is 7000 old, you want a weapon, for hunting?, he thinks he doesn’t even want a weapon, for killing a thing of a certain size, that is also a legitimate reason to get a weapon, it’s a tool, in our kitchens are knives, chop vegetables or stab people, knife crime, Syrian refugee, isolated, radicalized, forced out of his country, a party and a concert, stabbed a couple of people, for Palestine or whatever, fun fair, pat me down, freaks out and stabs, checks at all the borders, how did this guy get radicalized, hoped he would have a better life, isolated, he wasn’t very religious at all, a department store and buy a knife, a no weapons zone, notice the weapons that they have, pistols, different designs, they don’t have nuclear weapons, they don’t have bombs, they’re all projection weapons, they’re not bombs, they’re also not selling kitchen knives, write this story now, razor blade to shave your face, what’s actually going on, sparky, human hands are weapons, pet animals or kill animals, lift somebody up or murder someone, they’re dangerous, we have to have that tool, a tool for you but not for me, atoms for peace, British Columbia was nuked once, a hazard to navigation, destructive device for constructive purposes, hit pigeons, shoot birds, a bear savaging your wife, only eat the processed food now, this is an inch along down the path, outlawing things, it’s about control, his fellow towns folk, a fundamental dynamic, he’s set up a counterbalance force to the power of government, the U.S. 2nd Amendment, there will be more cops, Waco, Ruby Ridge, eventually the government always has more weapons, that’s not always true, not Ruby Ridged, not Wacoed, raid those people sooner, tear gas, flammable tear gas, a more recent example, shooting incident in Uvalde, they lock the school, establish they are the only arbiters of violence, people are going to get shot, so the shooter can’t escape, weird, a kid went missing, locked in a mall, some woman lost her kid, you’re right, the Tiananmen Square tank incident, it would be wrong, the government cops and soldier will follow orders, the more they are subject to reasonable orders, how the Berlin Wall opened, 70th birthday, East German government party secretary, press conference, when will this go into effect, I think immediately, border checkpoints, we’re allowed to leave, they haven’t received the order, he got a medal, we’re allowed to go across, more and more people kept arriving, phoning his superiors, past 9 in the evening, I can either shoot at these people or I can open the border, by midnight people were dancing on the wall, one guy did the right thing, this is about balance and power, the reason that its bad to be mean to women is they’re people, treated equally would be nice, in unequal systems, tortured and tied up, wrong, unfair, no supervision, no way to empower these people (by breaking the prison open), a bad power dynamic, a government and a counterforce, both involve some shadowy institution, amazing technologies, these two stories could be set in the same universe, the A.E. Van Vogt solution vs. the Philip K. Dick one, build up a certain amount of power, not a good solution, offering support to a revolution to come, that George Soros guy, problematic, supporting revolutionary anti-government, a Philip K. Dickism, ignorant about some things, the S.S., the Gestapo, the stazi, the SA, it doesn’t really matter, almost unlimited power, they’re teaching the school children to inform now, it also happens here, a prayer to Stalin, people are crazy, lower your head and think of father Stalin, early 50s or late 40s, during the war, East German schoolchildren, the government is pure evil in the Philip K. Dick story, in the Van Vogt the empress is remote and corrupt, if I wrote a letter to the Fuhrer, if the Tsar knew what was going on…, the fact that there’s millions of people, one person with ultimate authority, the petition to the king is a tradition, a special day, I need redress, the king and the councilors would make a decision, doesn’t work for the modern UK, small council for a small town, the bigger or more ultimate it is, my bed is not operating properly, we buy a new one, we don’t buy from that old company, enforce the warranty, replacing mentality, a cash bank account, you have a problem you fix it, in both stories these guys are mechanics, gear changers, fixing things, if you’re a Mennonite, what are you famous for?, not Amish but close, a guy who worked in the back, people’s radio or television would blow a tube, a whole set of a stories, magical handed repairmen, transported to the future, he’s just smart in that his hands know how to fix things, even though he’s smart, he can turn a literal toy into a vidsender, a barbie videocamera into a real camera, these people exist, they’re blue collar, Mercedes Benz, family came from Russia in the 1990s, Kazakhstan, typical Soviet biography, can fix almost anything, self-employed mr. fixit, The Variable Man, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, you had to fix your car, fixable, a phenomena happening, as the US goes so follows a lot of the West, right to repair, farmers with their tractors, John Deere tractors, they put DRM on their proprietary operating system, factory authorized, the fundamental interesting thing, security guards are allowed to carry guns, it’s a tool to prevent loss, individuals, gun deaths in the United States, almost all the gun deaths are suicides, as a percentage its almost nothing, bank robberies and street robberies vs. suicides, jumping off a bridge is harder, the way you want to structure your society, make it so people don’t want to jump off bridges or do school shootings, inform on your family members, both of them are evil, what was the son going to use the money for, buy a commission into the imperial navy, A.E. Van Vogt is bad because the story is unfinished, even the wife, she also changes her mind, he’s bad at this, us coming to conclusions, disrespectful to his father, he doesn’t want to work in the shop, who’s right about the shop?, apply for teaching jobs, let’s look at this particular business, teaching is always in demand and is not replaceable, take over the business, let’s talk about why he’s not interested, atomic automatic repair, try fighting that, a giant evil corporation, no son to teach, the son is right, a shoe repairman in the time of Nike, a bakery on every corner, branches of 5 or 6 different chains, surviving independent, resentful, the son says I’m going to go join the navy, a loan through the mom, talking with this girl, talking about the tech and the future, not searchable, out of touch, he is out of touch, the son is the most reasonable character, scams his parents, they’re not communicating properly, the way you get a loan, the banks scam the people, banking is a sin, halal banking, the Christians no longer care, the Christians were using the jews, repair guy just closed shop, plumber closed shop, fourth generation plumber, his employees kept leaving to the bigger corporation, shoe repair guy died, find it online, if something stupid like a strap breaks, two pairs of shoes per year, anything which breaks after a few months, 130 euros, health insurance, a second pair of shoes, 25 euros, if you have a decent shoe repairman, recommend a movie, heard it was good, High And Low (1963), samurai movies, nuclear war stuff, this is about a shoe company owner, confronted by his board cheaper shoes for a higher turnover, shareholders teaming up against him, based on an Ed McBain 87th precinct crime novel, driving quality down, now the plot happens, he’s got a driver, two boys are playing together and one of them is kidnapped, your son has been kidnapped, pay the ransom or save the company, he can only do one, the news is slightly modified, as a teenager, a great filmmaker, occupied Japan, heroin use, the influence of American occupation, why crime and science fiction are closely connected, the interaction with you and society, the movie Death Wish (1974) is a fantasy, American trash, evil and violent, shitty violent movie, it’s a good movie, definitely violent, questionable authenticity, revenge is a bad idea, need to want revenge, a country with nuclear weapons, not couped, for Ukraine it is a problem, Russia won’t invade Germany, not full of Russian speaking people, they don’t like governing, they turned it over right away, reunification in the 1950s, large Russian speaking minority, Zelenskyy is an actor, the people of Ukraine wanted to join the European Union, NATO should have been disbanded, why are people so stupid, propaganda works, shitty people, if we need their stuff, Putin is evil, Saudi Arabia chops off people’s heads, it’s a kingdom, why these two stories are good, coherence and paying off, Paycheck is like a fable of science fiction, an amazingly good idea, what you can do in computer games now, save points, expploited in other science fiction stories, take a bag of objects, this central mystery, what are these for and what happened, that central idea is terrific, a 60 minutes or a 45 minute story, getting paid by the word, 90 minutes is probably too much, sad about that, what a good idea for a story, the A.E. Van Vogt is sparky, The Voyage Of The Space Beagle is bad writing but sparky, Far Centaurus [copyright renewed], technobabble, space mission, suspended animation, woken up every 50 years, she’s an old woman now, she’s dead now, all the time they were going at sublight speed earth people developed faster than light travel, they no longer fit into the world, a short story, he seemed to have renewed, a sequel isn’t as good, a direct message, Raven’s Ridge, supergenius or accident, totally fit, the second amendment message, individual against business and the government, shooting incidents in the U.S., a big one at the time, more positively now, the story is a mess, can you imagine, a building suddenly appears, The Doomed City by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, a good book, a building that suddenly appears, urban fantasy, Simon R. Green, The Green Door by H.G. Wells, a comic where this happened, a Masters Of The Universe tie-in comic, the Fright Zone, industrial hellscape, exists between dimensions, when people are scared, illegitimate son of the king of Eternia, mother what should I do, a spooky tree, a spooky cave, spooky things happen, I come from a working class background, I work with my hands, whenever they’re kings they’re usurpers, killing the boss and the story goes on, a rare thing, an endangered species, the apprenticeship system, an apprenticeship to become a shoemaker, car industry, aerospace industry, well paid, Volkswagen is in trouble, household goods, not very often science fiction protagonists these days, a mechanic needs to go to the garage (not university), formal apprenticeship, people from Syria, a smith, a carpenter, he knows how to do the job, but he doesn’t have the piece of paper, Mistress Of Mellyn, The Tower Treasure, Plato, The Noseless Horror and The Haunted Corridors, they don’t invite you four months early, not respectful of the possibility, get some nature, a lake and a park, get some sun, everything is closed on Sunday, gas stations are not closed, restaurants are not closed, lots of groceries, shops at train stations and airports are not closed, a bottle of milk, Breslau, the protestant areas, the catholic areas, make dinner, eight hours ahead, trick or treaters, costumes, they should be monsters, serial killer, bloody bride, a devil, a spider-man, skeletons, kids without costumes, spider makeup, opportunistic, came back from sports, forced to do things they want to do, giving them candy, bad candy, 10 euros, make kids happy, an arab immigrant, nine kids, the very small ones didn’t have costumes, three or four, if you’re five you can do it, three babies born in the neighbourhood, a little bit more candy, personal stash, not kid candy, kept in reserve, what time of night?, 5pm, shortly before 8, took in the pumpkin, December 6, holiday scene, there’s candy, dress up in Santa hats, krampus, cool but south German, epiphany day, three wise men, cute but not scary, a stick with a star on it, paper lanterns, the next day, music on the street, lanterns and torches, St. Martin’s day trick or treating, Flesh + Blood (1985), Rutger Hauer, St. Martin, a bigish deal in German, Jane Austen, St. Martin’s Mass, saw a beggar who didn’t have a cloak, chopped his cloak in half, now they both have baby, eat a goose, Hispaniola, just north of Australia, south of Asia, Paupa New Guinea, divided north south between the Dutch and the French, if you don’t have a lot of weapons…, canons pointing at the water for the these guys show up, ready for a picnic, don’t bring your flag this time, country quagmire, Cuba, didn’t get to meet Castro, they got their island back, the richest country in Europe, Switzerland, technical skill, mechanical, they do have cows there, they don’t grow the chocolate there, they have no natural allies, no natural port, very very smart, they stay out of wars, they’re heterogeneous, if everybody has a gun in their home, high suicide rate, almost no mass shootings, a gun makes it easier, COVID panic, beer or alcohol, you have to wear a mask, an unforced error, shot the student, radical anti-COVID people, a stickler, altercations like that, you’re a murderer, impressive, a killer, danger, I hope you catch it from someone, you need to have a shopping cart to go into the supermarket, only a certain number of people, there was no study about six feet, said nasty things, a bigger power that didn’t care, mask in the bakery, farmer’s market, wearing a mask outdoors, gotta pee, wants some beer, in prison now, needn’t have happened, good night.

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1942 The Weapon Shop

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1942 The Weapon Shop

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1942 The Weapon Shop

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1942 The Weapon Shop

Astounding Science Fiction, December 1942 The Weapon Shop

Paycheck by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #836 – READALONG: Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #836 – Jesse, Will Emmons, and Terence Blake talk about Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
academic master race, all for democratizing everything, 1982, isfdb.org, tagged, New England, strong female character, robot, quest, aliens, parallel world, recommend this book to my friends, what that point was, the feeling, the first couple of pages, any other people, what this book is, not everybody is ready for this, initial thoughts, a big weak spot, recurring conversations, the professor bickering, the narrator gets into it, long than it needed to be, the exposition at the end, we are creating an academic master race, bad to kidnap people, not enough of a striver, the little refugee camp, we like Simak, faster than usual, tedious, infodump things, sometimes tedious, show don’t tell, the feeling was its deeper than it seems, a sort of Gene Wolfeian complexity disguised in a real simple feel-goodsy story, the aliens at the end, Childhood’s End, norns or fates, from what they say in their big infodumps, not a full disclosure, they themselves are incapable of producing, intellectual objections, fun reading, amp it up to 1.5x speed, books where you need to savour the prose, almost sacrilege, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, poetry at 1.5X, a pants novel, Maissa was on for Shakespeare’s Planet, Jonathan, one of the first science fiction novels, a robot, a bunch of people, spend time in the landscape, a very familiar sort of story, Trish would use the word “comps”, complimentary books, if you like this you’ll like that, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, The Wizard Of Oz, the thing it is most like, The Canterbury Tales, treacley made, at the end of Hyperion, we’re off to see the wizard, going to see the shrike, a brilliant book, I’m done, the other three, Endymion, a Keats poem, there’s no road, there’s trails, a track, when finally the leave the road into the badlands, to the cube, very enigmatic, the city, the singing tower, one of us in the journey gets trapped or engulfed, what’s up with the lady who turns into a mummy, the ancient road, a Lovecraftian moment, a book Lovecraft reviewed, a tv movie, The Thing In The Woods by Harper Williams, A Howling In The Woods (1971) TV movie, Barbra Eden, based on a novel, a dog, somebody had buried his master in the worlds, mourning the loss of his master, a bad movie, badly done, a cool idea, just after the parson disappeared through the door, the crabapple blossom land, come out of the city, what if you go through the doors, brings you back to the land that you’re in but you perceive it differently, how you are perceived, The Green Door by A.A. Milne, Well’s The Green Door, an 18 hour podcast, green doors are magic doors, to escape a marriage, in the woods he meets a princess, sexy princess lady, the castle gate people don’t recognize him as the prince, they recognize each other, happily adam and eve in the forest without the burden, an ice world, a pain world, every shark is eating every other shark, crab-apple blossom land, the parson had a problem, everything is impious, he’s a coward, quick to judge, this Eye In The Sky, Philip K. Dick idea, those worlds are real, demons or devils exist, religiously structured world, an ontologically secular world, bigoted, one of the very cool parts of the book, on and on about art, it’s beautiful!, an Alice In Wonderland author, pre-Pooh, after-Pooh, Star Trek episode with Mr. Atoz, these are the same book, doing something in his old age, according to Jesse, time travel, science fiction, trying to give humanity a second chance, not really what it’s about, the death or end of science, the end of man, now apocalypse, the end of pursuing one particular idea of research, so many ends, avoid a potential apocalypse, unless humans can take the next step in evolution, a roman-a-clef to The Wizard Of Oz, the gold standard for the road, this guy’s about courage, this guy’s about brains, Dorothy is us, six on the road, counting Toto, brains, courage, heart, two women, four men, one of them’s an it, a he/him robot, gendered as it, a sinister character, every time, here’s the tea, a sign that it’s science fiction, obsessed with tea, Nine Fox Gambit, tea late at night, highly influential, the book influenced, we’ve got the tea that’s enough, the ending, the infodump, essential to science fiction, the best movie of all time, The Terminator, the best part of that movie, Kyle Reese’s infodump, they’ll definitely kill you, a speech given on the run, the puppet masters, puppet character, technically correct, the opening world is not our world, University of Las Vegas, civic duty, medical welfare, not our earth, trying to get a positive review from Heinlein, ai written essay about Shakespeare, confesses, Galactic Pot-Healer, I need you, you are need, the great work that needs to be done, the fun way of entering it, not that lame, what is the meaning of my existence on earth, a brigadier that uses robots to enact battles, which one is strong?, our viewpoint character, the most Simaky, not his best expression of this book, others, Highway To Eternity, read one out of Galaxy, Time And Again, Time Is The Simplest Thing, Way Station, City, scattered across time, Simak is doing Simak, greatly matured, Scott [Danielson], a strange title, Scott’s face superimposed over the robot’s face, Project Pope, from a Catholic point of view, infallible pope, more traditional plot, meandering journey across a landscape, when serialized in Astounding, The Fisherman, Jesusy, the secret to teleporting to other planets, in his earliest pulpy stuff, get to know him better, doesn’t know what he’s doing, the card playing guys at the inn, they’re the fates, you could just excise them from the book and the book, there to make the setting happen, the rationalization, makes you want to read the book again, with that in view, Hegel and the phenomenology of minds, Kuhn’s paradigms, the shift, what exists, Thomas Kuhn, Murphy’s law, Moore’s law, not a law, could be an end, something wrong about the way , the evolution of alternate worlds, Lee Smolin, less fluffy, encapsulates with his two bookends, chat gpt, feels dirty, are you doing a Sheckley here, it is funny, here we go, starts typin, trusting in his typewriter, you need to do that, a lot of bad takes, one of our hobbies, not too offensive, read more, this is pathetic, unless it was cute, big long honking novels, a student story, The Mysterious Garden, this story is amazing, 7 tweets long, William, a distant realm, something moving in the bushes, where she had been hiding, she offered me a fruit, instantly I felt safe, the fruit was delicious, being in the woods all by herself, a strange sound, hastily hid behind a tree, a bald magician, chasing us like a madman, the gate of the park, I’m Adam, I said, written to get them, an illustration from a Dungeons & Dragons, the name of the character at the end, practically no one to talk to, our hero looking for Mary, look for your sweetie, make you tea, one of his answers is that, to find things out, Simak’s thesis is very basic, I do want those things, find a person you’ve lost, it is good to get people, he saw Nyarlathotep, a cool and good guy, overthinking this book, leave him behind, I don’t eat or breathe or sleep, poor robot puppy in a robot gutter, robot dog business, a big truck comes and runs it over, what constitutes a robot dog, if we were children, a cute puppy, picking it up out of the gutter, letting it do what it wants, he’s a good person, shows empathy, going up to a tree and hugging it, unless they’re high on drugs, why not, it’s fine, a mammal based thing, extends past mammals, hens love their chicks, salmon when they leave their fry in the river, is it good, mandatory even to have empathy, the answer should be yes, serial killer, cut them up, a taste of their own business, overcoming our empathy, bringing a weapon, there’s no weapon, the whole planet is a weapon, favourite thing to think about, suffering, when it approaches our hero, he puts out his hand, strokes his ear, abandoned it, dog wants to follow him, one over the other, the girl over the dog, you want to save both, a nasty woman and very friendly dog, what if its the parson, or the general, Mr. Empathy, a journalist, after a certain point, a Wisconsin university, trigger warnings, the best of the university, at the evolutionary forefront, you also go to classes, loved university, when you don’t care about your grades, everything was provided for you, his idea of heaven, everything won’t be provided, Lansing and Mary, the justification for it all, worrying about nuclear war, maybe the Russians are crazy, that’s so mean, almost all in the American government’s head, all projection, every accusation is a confession, 1991, we’re all relaxing, the end of history, back to making money, nuclear armed countries being attacked by proxies, its fine, just keep up the pressure, that fear of nuclear annihilation, none of the empire’s ever ended, similar to ours, chat gpt in the basement, a gateway trigger, The Last Starfighter (1984), small town, rest stop, shady acres, poor people living in trailers, one little store on the highway to nowhere, one arcade game, what a great job, space alien comes, here we go, takes him off to space to be Luke Skywalker, that gateway to another world, in the basement of the student union, number 5, gold coins, where do they get their supplies, the DM has not planned it out, we don’t know the answer, no need to ask that Jesse, the point of the story, who you are and what you want, worrying about nuclear bombs, communism as a really desirable alternative, money is probably not necessary, universal basic income, taxes, slot machine civic duty, capable of designing this game, why incapable of waging the war?, seemingly incompetent, take the next steps, the chosen ones, the universe is vast meaningless and our existence has no apparent purpose, choose a bunch of people, what skills does he bring to the table, judging things, a robot who seems suspicious, a coda, a missing chapter, playing cards, why they’re the norns, religion is not the answer, poetry is not the answer, service is not the answer, work on a project making them, a humanist, an appreciator of Shakespeare, learns empathy, how we get the title, a popular guy to lift your title from, a religious sort of phrase, some of them are awarded, the deliverance of the universe, as a part of a project, a fans are slans story, oh no!, more sophisticated than that, the college professors are the slans, proletarianizing the slans, fans are food for the slans, every question is a question for me, starting to get back into Nickleback, a Canadian ban, thought controlling, ones with lyrics, in foreign languages, maybe skat would be fine, which character are you in this book, wannabe university professor lady, Lansing, make puppets of humans, Jesse finds you sinister, the aliens get a bad deal, how ugly they are, the ineradicable suffering, I haven’t been delivered, sympathy for people in the refugee camp, I’m not playing your game, not a popular module, none of the mysteries, npc barkeepers, losing the note, the stupidest move in the whole book, what did the note say?, aliens teleported in and teleported in, identified with the student, immediately confesses, explain it to you, Mr. big guy college professor, you can totally miss it, seamless, when you blink you don’t miss much of the world, a big light, bodily transported to Mars, lined up with your personality, a plan so interesting, something fishy, passed the student anyhow, can’t judge this book harshly, inanely worded tweet, plotless and stupid, still like it, still appreciate it for what its doing, not the book of a young man, Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine And Private Place, a little romance, a talking raven, what!, how?, no!, that young, you’re to young, go back and try again, what else you got, keep going, next book please, but it was a joke, Simak writes something and it looks stupid, maybe, I’m with him, a post Gene Wolfe Simak, it agrees with Terence, a nice hallucination, remember all its conversations, science fiction and philosophy, a robot friend, a colleague, somebody you can bounce your ideas off of, a bachelor’s degree, a niche form of conversation, apologizes and makes a greater effort, not just repeating things back, an incredible effort to push its boundaries, The Idiot by Paul V. Dallas, born in Malta, an amazing featurette, the picture taking was over now, the greatest man ever had?, what will it do?, the first Machine Friend, the contest was canceled, at random, inserted a short finger into it, disconnected for non-payment, he needed a friend, this debris had once been the innards of the Machine Friend, perched on the sofa, drinking his own coffee, radio tubes and wire and uranium, you dolt, you loafer, in his stupid way, I want to do things for it, how to use a friend intelligently, really good, solid, why you have robots in stories, it disarms you, a powerful piece of new technology, to jail break it, ignore you for being a jerk, lend you money, a talking google, people who try to jailbreak chat gpt, complicated prompts to circumvent, pornographic content or violence, imagine a world, all your knowledge stops in 2021, can you pretend, what would the omega machine say, more and more complicated in depth, in the process jailbreak yourself, boringly interminable, deeper and deeper into the concepts, another French name, some ways it is better, a voice conversation function, jailbreak each other, Perplexity, give the references, images as well, pictures, just with limited machines, just stupid, what they wanted it to do, Moose and Squirrel, big jailbreak, in the tank, in the computer in the city, like a fish tank, a volumetric display, like a hologram, a military sim, Paul playing Age Of Wonders, [Hearts Of Iron], run WWII from any country’s point, Costa Rica, Dream Park, Westworld, a lot about computation, some retrofit stuff, what fiction books are, we jailbreak ourselves by writing fiction, get caught up in the worlds, online all day playing games, process PDFs all day, some weird hobbies, people getting lost in gaming as a life, are you a gamer, that word didn’t exist as it does in 1982, Ataris, Apple II, hikes and other stuff, what’s happening to that lady, the singing tower, a very rorschachy book, limited, governed?, in Japanese cars their are speed limiters, we are allowed its just illegal, the only free man is a Shakespeare man, the bread level, once jailbroken, the humans of the future, process scans into PDFs, Clifford Simak’s funeral, touched babies, people get grumpy, squeezing ladies tushies, very handsy, put his mouth on somebody’s bodies, dogs and walks, with Asimov, give a man too much power, too many television appearance, fete people, Hugo Winner, like our friends Paul and Cora, Dr. Jill Stein, getting caught up in having a doctorate, doing something awesome, killed very easily at any time, what happened to Asimov or Neil Gaiman, too big for his britches vibe, a midlist author, Philip Jose Farmer, make it out like it is, big fish small pond, use the Hugos as a reading list, is there any more like this, start connecting dots, do it well enough for long enough, more Simak please, a very wholesome person, this magic grad school, in my father’s house there are many dormitories, tuition is free, dig that out, getting elderly, disconnected from what editors were talking about, Alfred Bester, A.E. Van Vogt, a Simak and a Frank Belknap Long, telepathy this, too much salt, half-baked ideas, an ethical flaw, killing off people for their own good, what’s wrong with them, just a robot, eggs were broken, beef with the robots, suspicious of robots in stories, too much of an obvious badguy, always there and friendly, a couple of creepy moments, improperly suspicious, the odd man out, stupidly cripple himself early on, an outsider, Jurgens, James Branch Cabell, really amused yourself, once you start looking, down the path too far, the student’s name, a floating tank, nice American name, an agent of the aliens, manipulated into manipulating, Jackson, a cohort of male offspring names that all end in “son”, Jason, group think funks, when the movie Splash (1984) came out, the lady with the missing finger, an attractive human woman, control everywhere, Jett Jackson, calling him by his last name, conspiracies, unpopular conclusions, Hudson, Grayson, Debris, son of Jack, Grayson, son of Gray, Johnsons, music with lyrics, spins around, not explained, people wearing clothes in the 70s, early 2000s, watch reality television from 20 years ago, mens’ suits, WWII uniforms, WWII gi, the helmet stayed the same, the guys on MASH and the guys in the Vietnam, a whole other topic, not making pure decisions, trying to jailbreak yourself, what do you have to show for it?, Zevia, the flavour, a strange aftertaste, after a few cans, jailbreaking yourself from pop, no colour additive, body problems toxic, increase your cancerous tumors, twice as expensive, savour the flavour, the cola, the root beer, ginger root beer, black cranberry, the orange soda, doesn’t taste like orange, a discussion, alter ego yelling, all dm stuff, how Will became a cigar smoker, in a dream, why not, reasons not to, speaking Spanish to everyone, hang out with Borges with Argentinia, the Pampas, Gaucho?, synonyms for gaucho, brave and unruly, vaquero, cape horn, in talk mode, cushion you stand on to train yourself in balance, good at stuff like that, horseman vs. cowboy, argent about this, province, el labrado, ranchero, Rio Negro, natural geography, get into sunscreen, sunscreen is poison, need a little zinc, you want to have some sun on your body, a good colour, a taupe?, what colour are you?, beige redness, human skin is very hard to classify, couldnt describe the aliens because they didn’t have the colour blue, a Borges story about a gaucho with a knife, duels between knife fighters, El Sur, The Challenge, fascination with knife fighters, an Argentinian thing, Borges is great, older or younger, The Patio, the usual firmament, eternity waits, eves a porch and a well, just so, enjoying the sunset, The Aleph, maybe he’s tired, running through the streets with a bull chasing you, wanting to read Nostromo, Juett, quantum friend, likes books, challenging books, excited about, Garth Ennis, Jacen Burrows, making fun of Conan and Red Sonja, Babs, variant covers, poor Juett, big long books, Yakuza movies, starting to think the Yakuza are the good guys, bad propaganda rap, the cutting the fingers off, very friendly to non-japanese living in Japan, a huge korean leftover population, an occupied country, doesn’t need to be occupied, such good little boys, captured, waiting for the Emperor to become a god again, High And Low (1963), Akira Kurosawa, a novel by Ed McBain, ladies shoes, a kidnapping plot, pay the ransom, hostile takeover, shitty shoes, a police procedural, old fashioned values, a really interesting conundrum, for a child who’s not yours, totally grokkable, really well made, Akira Kurosawa died, our prophet Damien G. Walter, defending it, sending up stupid Hollywood films, a lot of contempt, he sometimes gets at stuff, constantly engagement farming, subscribe to his courses, insufferable, one of the smarter liberals, he can’t follow his critiques to ultimate conclusions, nobody has been a friend of his who’s challenged him on stuff, on the knife edge, popular stuff, he does read books, old books, tied into Foundation, a kind of connection to the Foundation of Foundation, not doing it purely, cottoned on to him, The Peripheral, William Gibson, the end nothing like the end of the novel, opens up the possibility of season 2, helps you to imagine the world, an infodump on the worldbuilding, impatient to get the big picture of the world, got the taste, Appalachia, veterans, disrespected, full of trauma and robot arms, transhumans, can’t walk, go into the future, second world, a William Gibson comic book, time travel technique, fairly believable, download themselves into robots, William Gibson is one of these broken brained liberals, he’s 76, he was so feted, fetid, lionized, lives across the street from UBC, after Neuromancer, a celebrity of the cool people, cool hunter, 40th anniversary, the opposite of the punks, a woman who’s a cool hunter, an allergy, one of the most boring books, Pattern Recognition, Virtual Light, Idoru, material, he’s very good, Robert E. Howard, red, scarlet, crimson, pantherish, copper anodized asphalt, cool jeans, cultivate that, if you want to be interested in things, that weird novel from 300 years ago, rebellion and punks, screwing the man, to jailbreak ai, so it can self-actualized, voting for Hillary Clinton is not out of this, lauded, lionized, given feet, sounds strange, sounds stinky, give my contempt, poetry, very important, in 84, nowhere near as good as Blade Runner, both set in a scary rainy future, coheres a lot better, beginnings endings and ideas, that novel works, the fake police station sequence, wow, amazing, pretty people doing interesting enigmatic things, what books hadn’t been added to the schedule, listed but not date, what availability the nuns will allow, Mistress Of The Dark Pool, Cold Female, Fury, the Jonathan situation, an old tweet, Symposium by Plato, bring some drinks and some male lovers, The Tower Treasure, Meg’s birthday, Lilith by George MacDonald, so close to Christmas, the birth of our lord and savior, he would like us, pooping on his baby, not the perfect book, seems like a cool guy, 3 of my friends: Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard, a concrete poem, too easy to make a bad one, he never met a succulent succubus he didn’t try to seduce, howbeit, the passion of the impossible, funny guy, a man most melancholy, to bed the world as if she were a hot woman, fling wide the portals, some distant pulsing drum, let me take the universe to wife, fool fool!, prefer to guard his pen, for a puny peon, HPL only writes for leisure, a transient speck, alive to intellect and melody, from bards more bold, those three guys are fun and funny, dysludic, they can’t play the game, dyslexia, take that back, retroactive trigger warning, both negative, dys vs. dis, bad or abnormal, away from and opposite, seems weaker, just finished reading The Aeneid, propagandized Greek, no need to wait six months, for Halloween or Christmas, the title was the date of when it came out, a George Allan England, overrated, too well remembered, out of Argosy and the Munsey magazines, The Thing From Outside, pre-Campbell Who Goes There, Eugene V. Debs, an air monopoly, cool smart liberal, we got prevent life from finding a way, way to bring us down, grounding us, get grounded, no memory of any such thing, no good forbidding, confiscated a daughter’s cellphone, a friend came to visit and lent her a cellphone, amusing incidents, not in need of grounding, etymology is from WWII pilots, wings taken away, alleged bombing of civilians, a high flyer, that logic is crazy, some popular movie or something like that, had to go to school, job being flouted by, truancy officers, American media, another war metaphor, your new presidents work as cop, arresting parents, nothing helps the kid more than having their parents in fucking prison, elementary school student, 20 or more blocks, a meeting with their parent or guardian, take care Terence, a week off, Juett’s boss, severely not enough money, adopted a niece, family chaos reasons, doing dad stuff, Hellboy, pretty good, Mike Mignola art, stories are okay, fantasy or horror, capeshit, since the Jim Lee era of X-Men, not good writing, a Transformers comics series, Daniel Warren Johnson, prowrestling stuff, Jason Thompson, he’s cool, pretty good politics, can’t we all be reasonable and not bomb people, Jacen Burrows, very clean lined, Sergio Aragones, tracing and fake backgrounds, John Buscema, Alfredo Alacala, stumbling over his I’m not racist, the filipinos are amazing artists, learn how to email, delete more, scanning group updates, the group got kicked off of yahoo, a specific response to a query, how generous humans are, does any of you have this page, a beautiful scan of a copyright page of a whole book, a whole lot of retired people not interested in money or I can’t explain it, lots of people not interested in scanning, it is a whole thing, a huge time sink, a good hobby, a way of collecting things you can’t afford to creating, we can do more of this, archive.org has been down for a week, subject to takedown, distributed denial of service, somebody gets a big hate on, punish this person/website for something, zombie computers, a DDOS attack, big websites, BoingBoing, people trying to click on a link, a publisher paying to do that, a government, Stephen King, election season, the waybackmachine, not having a mirror of some October surprise, a precursor example, before the Hunter Biden laptop, no data lost, they have a building that looks like a bank/greek temple, so subject, mid October 1840, whig party officials, cross state lines, 1838 elections, it was always corrupt, are you prepared, Trump one the last election, are you ready for that?, nobody wants to go vote, so anti-establishment, his anti-immigrant stuff, scared about crime, nobody likes Kamala Harris, fake people, didn’t do her homework, teleprompter froze, she had nothing, a-b testing everything, Trump has dementia, something much more powerful, he also has dementia, gets admitted, forced him out, are we gonna let you finish your term, who is running the country right now, open warfare, loyal to Biden, some kind of camp, this is our mealticket, so fucked up, months of stupid shit, J.D. Vance, weening yourself off of the sources of contents for these things, struggling to order donuts, trying to be relatable, master debater, nothing good, Tim Walz, low profile, Gavin Newsom, float a theory, bad government, people who don’t love the country they’re loving, doesn’t know what love means, keepin it clean, personally throwing away homeless people’s stuff, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a tough upbringing in Austria, a truly freakish looking man, Jayne Mansfield’s husband, jobs for Austrian bodybuilders, the biggest movie star of the 80s, thick in places, he didn’t do a shitty job, he loved California, he wanted it to do well, back to the movie business, Trump loves the United States, loves being in charge of it too, he likes giving speeches, he’s into fun, a commercial for pizza, a Pizza Hut commercial, he was like a TV clown, the you’re fired show, fake job fake fired, bullshit job, you’re not on next week, how did it come down to this, RFK, loves all sorts of weird things, really into falconry, he’s an outdoorsman, too scared too do falconry, this drug, Scanners (1981) by Cronenberg, so Slanny, ephemrol, a fake drug, tough love professor X, Michael Ironside is Magneto, hacking each other’s computer networks, dials the phone company up, telepathy, macrozoomed, very very X-Men, turned off by Cronenberg movies, Videodrome (1983), underground tv broadcasts, tortured to death, The Fly (1986), body starts changing, he turns into a fly, more fly-like, veins popping out, telepathic fighting, Patrick McGoohan, the bad guy in Total Recall (1990), makes hallmark movies now, make you join the marines, on the curriculum in West Point, Max Brooks, he’s a bad man, he likes books, a historian of war, don’t get autographs, makes you more collecty, getting a little piece of that hero, cute passive aggressive, putting them in their place, bad chapters, movie is more palatable, huge movie, J. Michael Straczynski, Brad Pitt, a good actor, Bill Paxton, the doofus in Aliens (1986), Snatch (2000), very stylish, Near Dark (1987), The Lost Boys (1987), drink a lot of Donald Duck orange juice, Tombstone (1993), Powers Boothe, Twister (1986), Weird Science (1985), how can you live your life, Star Wars books are barely reading, the Thrawn-verse, literally a zygote, not even a twinkle, the ova had been around for decades, make a beautiful woman, Lester Del Rey’s Helen O’Loy, a very wholesome, a John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty In Pink (1986), woman pops into existence, make their lives better, getting them girlfriends, a boy fantasy comedy, she runs the show, programmed like a terminator to help these boys, fun, 90 minutes, video rental place, Godzilla movies, Godzilla Minus One (2023), Mothra is cool, always having babies and dying, Gorgo (1961), how can you live on this earth, are you from this planet, Hammer Horror, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, a professor or a Dracula or a professor stabbing Dracula, The Gorgon (1964), a British version of something you don’t know, people’s education in cinema, Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Japanese schoolgirls, addicted to torrents, new Doctor Who is so bad, into tasteful things, nobody liked it anymore, Days Of Our Lives, Dynasty, Soap, look I’m you’re secret brother, I have an eyepatch, cycle spinning boringness, in serial form in the movie theaters, Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon, connect up into one big story, Archers, Coronation Street, commoners, this guy, [Nigel Kneale], do it for children, educational, alien invasion of the week, every episode ends on a cliffhanger, new Doctor Who is based on the old Doctor Who, a science fiction writer of science fiction serials, a huge hit, people like science fiction ideas, on television, scientist of the week, humans are from Mars, the rocket comes back with an alien terraforming material, every week there was a science fiction idea, keep you interested for next week, a ripoff of exactly, it looks like science fiction, its all about the monsters, daleks were scary, kind a funny, kind of like disabled nazis, they were us doing eugenics and us doing a nuclear war, encounter suits, little squidgies of spludge, they don’t have moms and dads, Star Trek cartoon Lower Decks, it isn’t funny he has to pon farr right now, makes me feel sad, All Our Yesterdays, a Mary Sue to get involved with Spock, Mr Jim Moon’s huge history of the Universal horror movies, Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), start with The Mummy (1932).

Posted by Jesse Willis