The SFFaudio Podcast #473 – READALONG: The Shadow Out Of Time by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #473 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Mr Jim Moon, Marissa Vu, Bryan Alexander, and Julie Hoverson discuss The Shadow Out Of Time by H.P. Lovecraft

Talked about on today’s show:
19 Nocturne dot net or dot org, time-traveling, novella, Astounding Stories, June 1936, stricken strucken, the centerpoint for everything that H.P. Lovecraft writes, cats and poetry, cannibalism?, “The Dreamquest Of Unknown Political Economy”, Trantorians, Isaac Asimov, Olaf Stapledon, immense breadth of time, Doctor Who, Albert Finney?, Jack Finney, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Altered Carbon, the Uber economy, the HPLHS adaptation, economist, psychologist, the Foundation series, Jevons, connecting economic cycles with sunspots, cosmic horrors, the Jevons paradox, a dark insight into human nature, Malthus, eugenics, fascistic socialism, The Mound by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, traumatized by the wrong things, a utopia story, intellectual pursuits, laying some seeds, we wouldn’t notice anyway, 100% nerds, they’re librarians, puritans, an infinite library, Borgesian in its vastness, the spider people, the beetle people, they left their library behind?, Fahrenheit 451, cloud computing, playing around with time, curiously tenacious cellulose fabric, the things under the trap doors, Mencken’s definition of puritanism, World Of Greyhawk, adamantium stone, the Drow, stemming the tide, held at bay, very allegorical, putting down of the dark desires, strange other stories, The Outsider, seeing his form, the horror of seeing your own body, horror, science fiction, evil?, animals, Dreams Of Yith by Duane W. Rimel and H.P. Lovecraft, the rugose cone minds occupy the previous bodies, entitlement, no malice, where the horror is, a horror that nobody can even imagine, talking teapots and singing cats, from a pre-cartoon era, The White People by Arthur Machen, evil is not wickedness, talking rosebushes, airships and submarines, privileges, intellectual adventures, inward bound, what Nathan Peasley’s doing in the age when ferns ruled the earth, meeting with secret cults, generous freaks, how we would treat animals, curiosity rules, putting our minds in a wolfpack, living like a wolf, committing suicide, exercising your rugose body, Red Dwarf’s Mindswap, an exemplary species or individual?, Beyond The Wall Of Sleep, Julie’s narration, Passengers by Robert Silverberg, juvenile delinquents, Yithian kids, we’re abused herd animals, The Roller-coaster by Alfred Bester, a Westworld-like kill-torture-sex device, dreams and books and architecture, much nicer, being possessed by a library, do they wipe the minds to protect themselves or to stop messing with the timelines?, WWI, a very different sequel, Gothic tale, haunted house, a haunted basement, where you suppress that what you fear and dread, Earth’s entire history is a Gothic story, The Thing On The Doorstep, consciousness transference, The Tomb, The Nameless City, crawling through tunnels, The Beast In The Cave, At The Mountains Of Madness, resonating with the shoggoths, two levels, more exploration, Professor Dyer, when the Doctor goes to Gallifrey, Gallifreyans are Yithians, meddling, Seeds Of Doom, Genesis Of The Daleks, their Mormon mission, a rite of passage, a fascistic library, we don’t know enough about the slug people, Hammers On Bone by Cassandra Khaw, A Song For Quiet, Weird Detective, investigating a crime, Peasley’s rider went looking for cosmic horror info, access, amnesia, the undercooked conspiracy, the long fingered foreigners, special knowledge, Nyarlathotep, the MiGo, the Cult of Hastur, the Cult of The Yellow Sign, The Repairer Of Reputations, suicide booths, family plots, a hint of a story, family drama buried deep, what must have happened, this is fascinating, my dad has become this alien sociopath, the wife’s story, the son’s story, all Lovecraft so deeply, he was ugly, visage, he’s got a wife, a surrogate child, obsessed with libraries, how the avatar of Peasley’s occupier, A Year Off, the restriction of funds, Quebec or Florida, Antarctica, New York, the love of the home and the desire to explore, how important dream is, what his dreams mean, what Lovecraft’s stuff is all about, obsessed with his dreams, Donald Trump’s twitter account,

From the moment of my strange waking my wife had regarded me with extreme horror and loathing, vowing that I was some utter alien usurping the body of her husband. In 1910 she obtained a legal divorce, nor would she ever consent to see me even after my return to normality in 1913. These feelings were shared by my elder son and my small daughter, neither of whom I have ever seen since.

Only my second son, Wingate, seemed able to conquer the terror and repulsion which my change aroused. He indeed felt that I was a stranger, but though only eight years old held fast to a faith that my proper self would return. When it did return he sought me out, and the courts gave me his custody.

the kid sought him out, there’s a whole novel in there, we have to race past it, Wingate is essentially Lovecraft, Lovecraft’s dad, the mother’s maiden name, we get rid of the women, they don’t understand us, or they understand to much, women are scary, I.N.J. Culbard’s comics adaptation, what that face looks like, drool, I had the most strange expression, a striking face, traumatizing, high on morphine, what the fuck’s going on, if you’re the wife…, the HPLHS adaptation, Al-ice, vestments, pretty amazing, the ending, almost comical, the polypous invisible horror race, an extended descent into the cellar, twist ending, a thousand Twilight Zone imitators, the weakest part of the story, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, an Inception level twist, we already knew that,

No eye had seen, no hand had touched that book since the advent of man to this planet. And yet, when I flashed my torch upon it in that frightful abyss, I saw that the queerly pigmented letters on the brittle, aeon-browned cellulose pages were not indeed any nameless hieroglyphs of earth’s youth. They were, instead, the letters of our familiar alphabet, spelling out the words of the English language in my own handwriting.

tentacle-writing, a massive letter to his son, a long boat trip, Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon, abandoning his son, is he going to kill himself?, just fleeing?, everything he imagined actually did happen, the heart of this story, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, reproduction without women, back to the text, self mutilation, giving up everything you’ve been looking for, bad idea, Australia, the biggest spider, am I mistaken in thinking the star headed vegetable carnivores of Antarctica are pretty nice folks?, people is people, racism, discrepancies, how many gay friends, he hates foreigners, anybody he hasn’t met, fear, fear of the unknown, raised so isolated, he is literally The Outsider, a night walk, to clear his mind, seeing people inside having a gay party in a familiar building, he is the horror, a professor of economy who becomes a professor of psychology, a sign of bad character, Darkest Of The Hillside ThicketsThe Shadow Out Of Tim, a marine biologist, made vs. suggested, no Sotho, Nug-soth, we’re going to get magicians back, filed under revisions, a pocket-sized version of Fungi From Yuggoth, high weird, panoramic and picaresque, Ramsey Campbell’s early mythos stories, visions, Campbellian weirdness, surrealism, a giant rolling head, a progression of imagery, the lidded bulbs close heavily once more, somebody’s guarding, the third stanza, a stream of putrefaction, hovering mist, those dead gates, the silver gates of Yith, is Yith the city or the planet, the machines, the secret that would bring the dwellers back, a mirror of what we’re seeing on Earth, another planet, the glowing dome, Lovecraftian key, The Book, at last the key is mine, unseal the lid, they have to do this repression, what does human mean?, eyeless huge and bloated head, striking imagery, Soth = Smith, caged by the great race, whistling horrors, the 9th stanza, carrion eaters, high in the even sky, the beings of Yith, waiting to be eaten, bat winged beings, snouted winged folk, who is doing the dreaming?, is it Peasley?, distilling the lovely imagery of delving, 150 million years ago, the blocky ruins of Interstate State Park, very Yithian, all the gardens, tables and pens and standing desks, their technology, weird mechanical contraption, convex mirrors, the keyboard hasn’t been invented, a clicking conversation, a horror, David Lindsay’s A Voyage To Arcturus, the sense, they possessed many senses, they can’t smell, of the body, more primal, smell seeds and swamps, taste is too close, not intellectual enough, hey all look like they’re wearing dresses, low and body-like, pleasure senses, chocolate, honey makes babies happy, a utopia dystopia based on reading and writing, being able to taste things, mashed potatoes, a secret favourite, he wanted to try everything, no wonder his wife left him, the ideal consumer for British food, a strange story, almost plotless, Neal Stephenson, a mystery at a distance, Jesse was struck, how he found out all his information, he reconstructs the journeys, he goes to all the places, visiting all the libraries, reliving his life, Sweden, he’s done things, two fans, more Lovecraft coming, The Dreams In The Witch-house, Inssmouth, Dunwich, the differnt adaptations, the 1972 Skull Comics adaptation, cute Yithians, the ship’s doctor, action, different ways to do things, Julie’s going to mess people up, told from the women’s point of view, Red Hook, The Music Of Erich Zann, racism, six pages and an eternity, a lot of streetwalking, one of the two Yithian senses.

Graphic Classics - Volume 4 - H.P.Lovecraft: The Shadow Out Of Time adapted by Matt Howarth

The Shadow Out Of Time - adapted by I.N.J. Culbard

HPLHS - Arkham Advertiser, May 16 1908

The Shadow From The Abyss by Larry Todd

The Shadow From The Abyss by Larry Todd

The Shadow From The Abyss by Larry Todd

HPLHS - The Shadow Out Of Time

Представник Великої Раси

COC - Yithian

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #460 – READALONG: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #460 -Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Maissa Bessada talk about Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Talked about on today’s game:
the television series, Lenny Henry, Chef, tribes of homeless people in London, the novel, a little sandwich, what book would you take to a desert island?, The Sandman, not the way that things usually run, in the back of Paul’s mind, a full and visceral fall into London Below, the audio drama, Paul buys too many ebooks and audiobooks, Paul’s poor little TV, a new life in the world below, the sewer folk, the comic book adaptation, sadly and tragically, Glen Fabry, Preacher, DC Vertigo, Door has a keyhole over her eye, a completely different vision, insane, shot on videotape, early Doctor Who, Paterson Joseph, Mr Croup and Mr Vandermar, working hard to say bad things about Neverwhere, a children’s book for adults (true about everything Neil Gaiman writes), a metaphor for homelessness, Mr Stockton, Richard’s career as a security analyst, a metaphor for going inside yourself, looking for a critique, real damn good, a sketch, suggesting rather than telling, when Gaiman goes spare he goes better, Charles Dickens, here comes the pressure, the new illustrated edition, William Morrow Harper Collins, Chris Riddell, illustrations throughout, long noses, an eye, a branch twining through the pages, taking you down into it, the Angel Islington, Door is a child, Anesthesia, parallel characters, packed with illustrations, old-wordiness, “entwined”, Jesse’s book fell through the cracks, allusions to semi-mythical literary stuff, referencing earlier materials, The Graveyard Book, The Lord Of The Rings, Alice In Wonderland, Coraline, WONDERFUL, Neil Gaiman tattoos, we completely agree Neil Gaiman is awesome, Gaiman speaks to people, The New Mother by Lucy Clifford, why is it called Neverwhere?, physical place that has never existed in time, that fairy tale fantasy title, Stardust, reflective, gods and angels, pixie-like elfin girls, killers with knives, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, a murder of a family, a knife in the darkness, the backstory of this book, getting the same stuff in a different package, writing about marriage, a hand in the darkness, consider how London Below works, an unperson, utterly cut-off, social interaction, hitting Paul in the feels, nobody gives a damn if I live or die, tapping into fundamental fears, deep and true mythic social stuff, the beginning and the end, so much really works, very H.P. Lovecraft, Celephaïs by H.P. Lovecraft, disconnection with reality, the doubt, the ordeal, the trial, a subversion reading that’s IN the text, on the train platform, suicide, potent stuff, if they wanted to film it again today, too sensitive, romanticizing homelessness, if you’ve ever gone camping, romantic in the theoretical or in retrospect but there’s no romance in reality, too empathetic, an issue, defenses built up, its very very hard, people are strong even when they’re strong in the wrong ways, a problem you can’t easily fix, homelessness, many kinds of failures, Jessica’s reaction to Door’s body lying there, getting taken, a horrible thing to say “the all have homes, really”, generosity of strangers, it depends on how sympathetic you are, the book version, Jessica is not a monster, misplaced priorities, interested in the wrong things, exemplars of humanity, Aurora, Ontario, bags bags bags, she’s starving, “no thank you, I’m fine”, housing costs, pets, smoking, not enough money, schizophrenia, forbearance, neat hoarding, Jesse doesn’t have any doilies, if you don’t have a plant there’s something wrong with you, if you are not able to conform yourself, if it was not for a social safety-net more would be homeless, falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy, not a romantic story of homelessness, Lir (the musician), you always need another favour in you pocket, I don’t think he’s 100% reputable, rats and fur, a good craftsman, well polished, his turns of phrase are virtually perfect, a long list of things that are in (or not) a room, how Croup and Vandermar are alike, who they are without how they came to be, a very small world, Hunter, a little bit “dodgy” in the same way rats are a little bit covered in fur, How The Marquis Got His Coat Back, the Marquis de Carabas is from Puss In Boots, the sewer as a river, a non-existent person, the last door is opened by the Marquis, its clear to Paul, mutual friends, the Marquis came back from the dead, Richard left and returned, we’re going to lie-in, seeing it all laid out, Dante’s Inferno, the Marquis is like Virgil, Dracula, Frankenstein, Transformers, a tiny bit from the audio drama, the 15th century, they’re time travelling psychopaths, The Facts In The Case Of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe, Valdemar wants “Dead things. Extra teeth.”, we’ve never killed a marquis before, Men?, if you prick us do we not bleed?, no, the timelines, his watch and his debit card stop working, bubbles in time and space, three thousand years ago, the remnants of a Roman legion still camped, more fantastical elements, more 12th century England, no allowance for Jesse, Jesse was in competition with homeless people, Dungeons & Dragons modules, a quasi-homeless industry, if you want to help the homeless increase the bottle deposit, 2018 vs 1980 money, people don’t like to be condescended to, Jesse’s penurious poorness, a trunk full of bottles is a treasure, they wear weird clothes, pushing shopping carts around, its not only about homelessness, choosing your own way to live, Richard’s apartment is taken away, he has a duty to his fiance but a greater duty to a stranger, there re just some things that are wrong, the difference between rude and cruel, we’re dangerous as humans, you have to be sensitive, invisible people, standing at an intersection asking for money, you have to look away, horror, too sensitive a soul, the people who don’t see it, when Jessica sees and can almost remember Richard’s name, is Mr Stockton an angel in the world above?, angel investor, the restoration of an angel, a kind of underdeveloped parallelism, a media guy, Rupert Murdoch, he’s a monster, “I’m in banking”, oh my god…how can you live like that?, being Neil Gaiman, being Maissa, being a creator of a whole universe of characters is fun, choosing a life of mystery and adventure, a life of horror, a recipe for making money, Jessica is more down that path, no pet names, choosing you life, pre-history, the trolls he has on his desk, that’s lampshaded, TV Tropes, Spaceballs, replacing an actor, Iron Man, “I’m here, get over it”, you look different, no answer, that’s how you write the story, the fortuneteller, destiny, the trolls, his new office, the nice cup of tea, Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, talk about the mice, vastly intelligent pan-dimensional beings, the rats, ratty, Neil Gaiman’s book about Douglas Adams, “yes, this!”, zany but controlled, Gaiman has much more discipline than Douglas Adams, procrastinating, Dirk Gently, Last Chance To See, Starship Titanic, the very Englishness, the parallels that happen, the incompetent of the group, Arthur Dent, madcap adventure, Richard levels up, surviving the ordeal, he had empathy for himself, like Door’s sister, the bracelet, the level of humanity, Jesse am unashamed about reading this urban fantasy, the number of times “duck” comes up, “duck under”, like water off an oiled duck, poor towel substitutes, a small yellow rubber duck, inside the silver box, another velvet, a duck’s egg, why are there so many ducks in here?, a weird little affectation, somewhere in between the size of a duck and a planet, plotting’s not my thing, let’s see where this goes, Gaiman can do it line after line, incredibly talented at the job of knowing how to tell the story, being Neil Gaiman, Paul Cornell’s Shadow Police novels, a cameo.

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere Issue 1 Page 10

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (Preferred Text)

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere BBC Radio Drama

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #086 – When Time Turned by Ethel Watts Mumford

Podcast

Reading, Short And DeepReading, Short And Deep #086

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss When Time Turned by Ethel Watts Mumford.

When Time Turned was first published in The Black Cat, January 1901.

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

The SFFaudio Podcast #432 – READALONG: Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #432 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, and Wayne June talk about Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
1967, expanded from Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday, what the hell’s going on, illuminating things, more direct, Wayne is pretty damn proud of himself, the difference between the two, crossover, the entropy is the same, applying shaving cream and whiskers, cleaner and cleaner clothes, some of the same logical problems as Superman‘s Bizzaro world, exactly the opposite, taking it to the logical conclusion, one of the fun things about it, what is passed over, the Hobart Phase, with participation, DC Comics, Superman spinoffs, Supergirl going through Superman’s baby photos, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Us Do Opposite Of All Earthly Things, the first issue of Action Comics, square wheels, is superman supposed to be smart?, how the economy works, don’t try to make it work logically, the ending, weird senses, LSD grenades, embryonic robots, what’s that mean?, let it happen to you, is there some overarching metaphor we’re missing?, every time it fell into plot, the graveyard, Jesus and Lazarus, breathing tubes, certain skills, everything’s reversed, Officer Tinbane, Ray Roberts, Robert Raymond, you shouldn’t try to prove the existence of God, does that have anything to do with this character?, searching out in a desperate attempt, question-answer, Centurion Longinus, a shocking death, Hermes is a psychopomop, a small business, the abortion, when does the soul enter the corpse, sperm shooting out of eggs, what is he actually saying right here?, hilarious passing references, soghum through the anus, throwing up whole foods, spirit soghum, a small bamboo Korean flute, time-bombs of hilarity, the substance and the style, the philosophical ramifications, random man, find a nearby womb, falling in love with a baby, Philip K. Dick’s twin sister, Colorado, Bishop James Pike, one of PKD’s marriages, falling in love with her sister, agonizing over sin, taking advantage, is that a crime?, Nancy Hackett, In search Of (hosted by Leonard Nimoy), dead in the desert, mind going a million miles a minute, having trouble deciding who he loves and doesn’t love, super-liberal, pro-gay, pro-black, the four parts of the USA, 10,000 politically motivated bombings, heaven isn’t real, secular saints, Copernicus, counseling Philip K. Dick, everybody’s consenting here, things are rough, her own psychological issues, she’s tiny and he’s huge, daughter sized and aged, treating kids like adults, things probably shouldn’t be happening in that park, what are we to make of the robots?, either pearls before swine or pigfood before jewelers, coming away from it without getting inside his head, not previously an aficionado, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, seeing the religious aspect as being interesting, the key to unlocking, Anarch Peak, highest point and without, a black Jesus figure coming back from the dead, two oblique angles, our John The Baptist character, attacking not from the front door, the Trojan horse method, coincidence?, 400 shows, a combination of subconscious and coincidence, Reading, Short And Deep, When Time Turned by Ethel Watts Mumford, kind of Science Fiction, living his life backwards from the point of his wife’s death, the dome of his skull expanded, from a female point of view, experiencing things in reverse, people remember what happened in the future, physical and mental knowledge is being destroyed, the swabble, the patent office, sucking the ink out of the page, never approaching it ion the normal everyday way, the fact that a robot is secretly and immorally implanting microscopic sperm sized robots, these librarians have stuff backing them up, the librarians are the bad guys, if you reverse everything, how does this work?, what does it mean?, robots are ambiguous, are they a distraction?, espionage, putting it on his left arm as an armband, a counter acting agent (operating in reverse [forward] time), if you know the past why don’t you act differently, Arrival and The Story Of Your Life, the ash of memory, mmmm coffee, reverse sewer trucks?, don’t think about this for too long, what’s in these sorgum pipes and where did you get it?, Red Dwarf, Season 3 Episode 1, Backwards, he’s literally taking a shit, the economy, taking its science fiction seriously but playing for comedy, money is something you want to get rid of, becoming impoverished is everyone’s goal, what is the equivalent of counter-fitting?, the money loses value, hyperinflation, the first review on Goodreads is written backwards, insight, the factions, they never believed the passage from Corinthians, death where is thy sting?, it might just be Philip K. Dick’s critique of how history has treated the Christ story, profound and doesn’t make any sense, ruminate and disgorge (don’t digest), he’s exploring but not landing on any square, that’s Pike’s thing too, harrowing hell, Sebastian Hermes, specially attuned, another Jesus figure?, always has to turn it into a small business, every chapter starts with a quote, inverted quotes?, Saint Thomas Aquinas, what the Hobart event was, almost a weapon, the FMN doesn’t have the Hobart Phase, Mars doesn’t have it either, like radiation from a Russian Hobart bomb, we need to escape this place it’s why you had the abortion, this Orange County, everybody’s playing this real estate game, the effects they see in the world are other people, the robot comes to the office, treat me as this other person, my future is your yesterday, another reading (at least), chimeras through the hold thing, you can call me Carl, Carl Jr, Karl Jung, Uditi -> U-Die -> You Die -> U as in U-Turn, Jung’s collective unconscious, the group mind, a death cult is a life cult, positive racism, the Roman Church, Pentecostals, Baptists, an excoriation against people who think they have all the answers, the TRUTH, contradictory to each other, the People’s Topical Library, why are they so scared to go to the library, destruction of books, he who destroys knowledge controls knowledge, conflicted loyalties, the black hats, Niehls, Lance Arbuthnaut, inventors, Edison types, technology, minus money, arbeit-naught? = doesn’t work, hit by meteors, hit by anti-matter?, from the macro point of view, is Earth orbiting in the wrong direction, going backwards and forwards in time, inconsistencies, does geology work in reverse, an undestroyed building, before the Anarch is brought back to life, a big convention, a special waiver, this is what happens when you take LSD, PKD wrote almost nothing about this book, we need annotations, the embryonic robots snuck into a filing cabinets, payoff, somehow reversed mirrored later on with the human sex, unpregnant herself, the process still exists, are the robots also effected by reverse time?, you can’t really see the connection between them, Kryten, the manuscript is called HOW I MADE MY OWN SWABBLE OUT OF CONVENTIONAL HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS IN MY BASEMENT DURING MY SPARE TIME vs. HOW I DISASSEMBLED MY SWABBLE INTO ORDINARY HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS IN MY BASEMENT DURING MY SPARE TIME, Thomas Alva Edison, maybe it didn’t all gel, or maybe it gelled well, how most people rated it, fun, really ambitious, plot machinations, once the paper for the swabble is eradicated time reverses again, stuck in an infinite loop, Saint Paul will be resurrected in 2,000 years, Jesse thinks Philip K. Dick had the dream at the end of this book, what roles do dreams play, you’re a crank!, Lister comes out of the Starbug, a sore back, Nodnol, you come up with your theory and then you test your theory, Bulgarian bicycles, reverse bar fight, sucking the pain out of his face, punching his tooth back in, the YouTube of Backwards [played backwards], backwards English, switching to reverse, flowing in reverse, totally confusing, you’re driving on the wrong side of the road backwards and backwards in time, our entire experience with reality seem to be one direction, deja vu, no wonder we’re confused, that makes sense, more about this in his next books, The Transmigration Of Timothy Archer, Valis, Ubik, more of what he’s playing with, John Dryden, Peter S. Beagle,

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

stories and collections, Dan Simmons, an ur text, hey baby we gotta have sex now cuze we can’t when we’re dead, Philip K. Dick using it, Meatloaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light, How I Rose From The Dead My Spare Time And So Can You, A Maze Of Death.

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ad for Tales Of The Bizzaro World from Our Army At War, issue 187

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #391 – READALONG: Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #391 – Jesse, Paul, and Marissa talk about Second Variety by Philip K. Dick.

talked about on today’s show:
Space Science Fiction, May 1953, usual playfulness, written for the market, military guys, Imposter by Philip K. Dick, Imposter (2012), shield technology, replicants (androids), implanted memories, how many Philip K. Dick stories have androids in them?, an abiding theme, foregrounded or backgrounded, robot balls, little boys, wounded soldiers, beautiful women, they’re fighting each other now, evolution, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, the 1995 movie Screamers, aging special effects, very very faithful to the story, an alien planet (not Earth), “trade federation”, new Cold War, sympathetic Ivans, colonel not major, the double twist ending, something Dick would have been happy with, the hand slash, even more human, it was a different time, in the 1990s a sponge-bath was romance enough, that’s all it takes Paul, movie reality, Phillip K. Dick read (and loved) the script, a tremendous shriek, “better than my original story”, which ending is he happy about?, “I’m an andorid”, David’s robot teddy bear, Teddy Ruxpin conquers the Earth, The Little Movement by Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick fans site, Dan O’Bannon, filmed in Quebec, Alien (1979), he really got SF and PKD, a remake?, the sequel, one teddy bear vs. the world, a teddy bear with an autofac, the premise of The Little Movement, Lifeforce (1985), Space Vampires, Total Recall, the red cigarettes, keeping all the smoking, a solider thing, senet (an ancient Egyptian board game), Peter Weller, Mozart, long hair music, Don Giovanni, good writing, tossing the coin, the chips, swords instead of claws, better than expected, complete rubbish, “and me too!”, greenlit because of Blade Runner and Total Recall, the sequel movie: Screamers: The Hunting, and the sequel story Jon’s World, the female lead, LV386, Sirius 6B, how do we raise the stakes?, the script from Aliens jammed into the Screamers story, tying back to Dan O’Bannon, no-James Cameron, Hendrickson killed himself, Peter Weller acts as Sigourney Weaver for Screamers: The Hunting, as you do, time travel and a lobotomized boy, one of Philip K. Dick’s worst stories, definitely interesting (but a bad story), deconstructing the ending, an unpolished story, why the knobs and turrets?, well actually the submarine was blah blah blah, underlines and notes, more for the Philip K. Dick rhetorizer, session writing, “rigid”, Jon the boy, an autistic kid (son or neighbor?), the lobotimization was kinda random, going back in time to get the plans for the artificial brain, stories set after nuclear wars, happy go lucky mutants, grey dust, ash and pain, the wheel was a good thing, wheels on tanks and wheelbarrows, recreating the brains, Asimov robots, Elon Musk, high-brows, Ex Machina (2015), A.I. (2001), crapsack future, puttering along, Millennium by John Varley, Captive Market by Philip K. Dick, Marissa has met such psychic time travelers in Los Angeles, The Terminator, Screamers and Second Variety lead to The Terminator, what are the claws if not Terminators?, infiltration units, Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese), hypnagogic dream flashbacks, they bleed (they’re cyborgs), a natural extension, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Oblivion (2013), Battlestar Galactica‘s cylons (are claws), a long lost colony of Earth, the lobotomized kid baggage, licked the proclivity, unconnected thoughts, preferring illusion to reality, the world of ultimate reality, terror of the world, the harsh world of reality, beyond and above, paths for people to walk, men and women in robes, not like our cities, the best lobotomist, shadows of the ultimate reality, fucked with reality, a utopian paradise that’s fictional, recursive, if Dick was still alive he would have mined these stories for a novel, a Jon’s World podcast, more than four varieties, a parallel time sense, Philip K. Dick talking about himself, whole new lines of speculation, other futures, the visions of the eternal unchanging, this story exists out of time, THIS world, Greek oracles, prophecy in general, this crazy story, if you want to call it a story, on a tour bus through PKD’s mind, jazzy, totally not resolved, the trees beyond the ship, evergreen trees, briefcase, why is he taking the briefcase?, discussing things, metaphysical things, temper tantrums or whatever it is, PKD’s idea of utopia, robes instead of t-shirts, deer running free, we’re supposed to see this vision as suspect, steel isn’t just for tanks, the clean utopia is an artificial vision, horror movies, the horrible burning, it was worth it, escaping into an artificial reality, they’re all escaping the horror of their lives into Jon’s world, yeah we’ve all got to get lobotomized, in an insane asylum drooling, we’re the apex predator, the ending for Brazil (1985), a couple of weeks ago a kid was mauled by a bear near Jesse, nature wants to fucking kill you, the garden of Eden is a myth, bad affectation, the word lobotomy is scary, seizures vs. visions, religious ecstatic tradition, tribal society, Vikings, vikings a native North Americans with steel, Progeny by Philip K. Dick, Martian Time-Slip, a false impression of PKD, a Philip K. Dick action story ends with a guy sitting on a park bench, Second Variety is so good but less interesting than Jon’s World

Second Variety by Philip K. Dick - illustrated by Jesse

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #389 – READALONG: The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #389 – Jesse, Paul, and Marissa talk about The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick.

talked about on today’s show:
1965, 1966, Worlds Of Tomorrow, Project Plowshare, 1967, the original outline, greedy copyright reasons, Pyramid Books, an awful name, expecting less, anger, making fun of itself, if you don’t have a love in your heart for Science Fiction…, the subtitle:

“Being that Most Excellent Account of Travails and Contayning Many Pretie Hystories By Him Set Foorth in Comely Colours and Most Delightfully Discoursed Upon as Beautified and Well Furnished Divers Good and Commendable in the Gesiht of Men of That Most Lamentable Wepens Fasoun Designer Lars Powderdry and What Nearly Became of Him Due to Certain Most Dreadful Forces.”

Jack Vance, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative Of A. Gordon Pym Of Nantucket, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, a pretty good satire, the Cold War, time travel, slaver aliens from Sirius, more than one naked boob is illegal, the most analog for Dick is the cartoonist, a pretty terrible plot, the book is a “turkey”, making the novel work somehow, the book Dick would want to survive WWIII, a very Dickian perspective, an apology as to why scholars should ignore certain Dick comments, self-parody, confabulation, a drug trance half-dream state, Dick is an emotional sponge, emotionally engaging, disintegration of the mind, a person becomes so involved in an artificial world they get sucked into it, Don Packard, fake weapons, would-be fascist, Surly, F for fungus, very Swiftian, 18th and 19th century roman à cleff, Dick isn’t at his best when Dick is talking about people with real power, presidents and councils vs. drinking coffee at home and sitting on park benches, the Park Bench action aspect of Philip K. Dick novels, a book about politics, the subtitle helps the reader, the cogs and the pursaps (the cognoscenti and the “pure saps”), Dick’s take on George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four, collaboration with the enemy, a three-sided conflict, the inner party, the outer part, self-delusion, more traditional Dickian themes, a lot of acronyms, how to look at it, Was Philip K. Dick A Bad Writer? article

Febbs was that unhampered, unbureaucratically restricted, elected leader. Of their clandestine political revolutionary-type organization which (after long debate) had titled itself, menacingly, the BOCFDUTCRBASEBFIN, The Benefactors of Constitutional Freedoms Denied Under the Contemporary Rule By a Small Elite By Force If Necessary. Cell One.

the acronym explosion after WWII, BATF, NATO, MAD, you’re a cog if you know all of these acronyms, the reins of power, being man-in-the-mazed (verb), Lars Powderdry, Victor Klug, mind disintegration, a lot of etymology in this book

“Do you know what the English word ‘to care’ comes from?” he said, as he poured her coffee for her from the obedient gadget wired to the stove.

“No.” She seated herself at the table, looked gravely at the ashtray with its moribund remains of yesterday’s discarded cigars and winced.

“The Latin word caritas. Which means love or esteem.” ‘

“Well.”

“St. Jerome,” he said, “used it as a translation of the Greek world agape which means even more.”

Lilo drank her coffee, silently.

was Marissa aware of herself as a being in the 1980s?, when Gorbachev had meeting with Reagan…, the Evil Empire, Tear Down This Wall, they were get along pretty well on TV, they like coffee and golfing too, relations with Putin (except for Trump), that’s a strongman, Hitler admiring Mussolini, the Russian weapons haven’t been plowshared, childrens toys, advice givings owls, brazen heads, weapons were fashion in the 1960s, celebrating new developments in weapons technology, the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark’s dad, Captain America: Civil War, Iron Man is a weapon to powerful to give to the military, War-Machine is tony stark with camouflage-on, the suit and I are one, where comics tie-into it, comics at the forefront, for every super-powered hero you create you need a super-powered villain, after the KKK who is left?, SPECTRE and SMERSH, the North Koreans, Julian Assange, without a villain it wont work, the Sirians, no screen time from the aliens from Sirius, one trick Dick missed, the old what-we-need-to-unite-the-world-is-an-alien-invasion ploy, Cuba!, the Iranians!, ISIS!, Russia is less of a worry (seemingly), NATO expansion, Ukraine, don’t forget to nuke Marissa in Los Angeles, gone are the friendly meetings and handshakes, when Snowden first appeared on the news, when Glenn Greenwald went on TV, the machine of outrage in Washington (D.C.), that’s not really what’s going on behind the scenes, the Surly F. Febbs, we need to get into these councils to join the ranks of those in the know, more tanks, more tank funding, Desert Storm, T-90s aren’t rolling up, the Battle of Kursk, the war economy turned into fashion, if you squint in the right way, the Hummer was plowshared, the real Hummer vs. the second generation, the H2 and the H3, or do all the other cars look like the, a giant owls that tells you about your life and holds your cigarettes, a bit of Penultimate Truth, Three Stigmata, inside-out, we have to create M.A.D., if you treat Russia disdainfully…, fake reality, put the population in danger, everything is good and light and nothing can hurt you, a real sense of reality, being less consumer oriented, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, turning people into rugs, the de-evolution gun, that’s another book, Colony by Philip K. Dick, humans from Earth, we’re going to ruin this place, beer cans and cigarette butts, shape-shifters, “I trusted the rug completely” by Robert Silverberg, I trust my bed not to strangle me, your boss’ phone is out to get you, The Twilight Zone (1985), stories can’t happen any more, Richard Matheson, so many Twilight Zones, the last chapter, am I going to kill myself?, Paul didn’t like chapter 32, conversations Philip K. Dick has with his wife, Iceland, his main girl was kind of awesome, super-smart and loving, falling in love with this teenager, the suicide ideation and discussion, you know there are advantages…, PKD books are almost all dialogue, talking about Bach, how would you rank The Zap Gun?, pretty high?, one of Marissa’s favourites, in the top half for Paul too, pot-boilers, The Man Who Japed, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, don’t you denigrate Martian Time-Slip!, big ones coming, Deus Irae is a muddled-mess (with redeeming features), more coherent, the narrator, don’t blame the narrator, this book doesn’t translate into audio that well, The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, hitting x2, Dick doesn’t put in filler (generally), digression and set-up, beautiful and funny, reading-along, sooo funny, sticking with choices, con-comedy, keeping your powder-dry, be reasonable, have your weapons ready, “If you want peace, prepare for war”, slow paper reading for this one, not having the subtitle is mistake, lazy-ass fucks, what the hell are they thinking?, so stupid, it’s in there for a reason, nobody else wrote that for him, rent-seeking lazy ass fucks, the PKD estate just got offended, obfuscating what the book is doing, a cover that looks like nothing, the whole premise of this book, the lurid ACE Books, even more lurid, purple and yellow, super lurid, a dude pointing the zap gun at the next book over on the shelf, my people want to read a book like this, dis-owning every idea Dick had by deleting the meaning for the art, we hit the Jesse button, obfuscating the artists intent leads to consumer unhappiness, wub-fur, wub-like, wubs are from Venus, wubs are hiding in every PKD universe (even when they’re not in the text), getting sucked into the experience, how Philip K. Dick gets obsessed with games, The Game Players Of Titan, dinner’s ready!, the little man never able to escape, trying to be a big success, still running around that maze, a metaphor for Dick’s own career, his whole job is to make you empathize, trying to trap your mind, Dick is disintegrating our minds with his inconsistencies

Packard wound up: “S. G. Febbs fell victim to the Empathic-Telepathic whatever-it’s-called Maze and shortly succumbed-in fact in record time, beating the smallest period established by voluntary prisoners from the Wes-bloc federal pen on Callisto.

“S. G. Febbs,” he declared into the mike in conclusion, “is now at Wallingford Clinic, where he will remain indefinitely.”

after Dick committed his wife, who is Surly G. Febs based on?, why you need a key, Tuckerising, there are these books: Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, de-Tuikerized, Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, that’s Heinlein that’s Le Guin, what you lose over time with an old book, seeing the Trump-analog, before or after JFK or RFK, acreeted material, Murder At the ABA by Isaac Asimov, Darius Dust = dry as dust = Isaac Asimov, the analog for Harlan Ellison, really old paperbooks, notes by previous owners, a lot of readers seem to be insane, easy to do with a Dick novel, making those connections is hard, The Search For Philip K. Dick by Anne R. Dick.

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Project Plowshare by Philip K. Dick

Pyramid Books - The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis