Tag: Ursula K. Le Guin

The SFFaudio Podcast #704 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #704 – The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin; read by John Stratton

This unabridged reading of the story (1 hours 2 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

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

Talked about on today’s show:
The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin, Jesse’s been wrong about it for years and years, an important story (but not very well written), correct the record, well written but long, very effective, everybody who dislikes The Cold Equations can fight Jesse, Weird Science, May-June, no. 13, 1952, A Weighty Decision by Wally Wood, different enough, the whip hand of John W. Campbell, ghoulish and silly and fun, existential quite smooth, The Cold Calculations by Aimee Ogden, dealing with a different idea, a criticism of the premises, John W. Campbell, once upon a time, had to die, fudging the numbers, the Trolley Problem, why couldn’t there be a third track, not really the point, face the moral calculus, designed to illicit a very specific thing, an idea about reality, long, not that clunky, quite beautiful in places, simple, interesting psychology, a cold story, fiddling with the opening, some dude, it’s a girl, an artifact, silly, if you get pancreatic cancer you’re dead, wish fulfillment, kissed and made better, the pain of life, a lot of people don’t want to be disabused, Santa Claus is real, god will save us, Campbell’s trainee, the numbers are fudged, Capitalist Realism, there is no alternative, Barton is an employee, a quasi-merchant marine, the worldbuilding, not making enough money, the brother’s remittances, shielded from the truth, replacing the kitten, a metaphor for the whole story, trying to shield her from pain, we shield each other from the pain of reality, we’re all going to die, science fiction can do something interesting, more silly, comicy, the medicine, it is a trolley problem, even if it was plagiarized, follow through on you’re fucking idea, don’t tap out, the stupid E.E. Doc Smith, you can’t invent your way out of the laws of fucking physics, daylight bombing raids, the engineering is bad, the reality is correct, thin margins, on the commute, a non-insignificant number, all the EDS shuttles without stowaways are not stories, Stowaway (2021), accidental stowaway, out the airlock, there is no on purpose, nobody is to blame, maybe the sign should have said “you will fucking die”, don’t walk away from that, a beancounter on earth, blame capitalism, the ship can land after all, flip some tables, Mark Fisher, revolution is the alternative, is that really true?, Tom Godwin is wholly responsible, Jack London’s To Build A Fire, Yukon stories, Star Trek V, Star Trek II is a Cold Equations, because katras, euthanasia, a remedy for modern Star Trek, The Wisdom Of The Trail, soft lazy fucks, the white man’s logic, an estimation vs. a calculation, a different moral overlay, a guy who didn’t obey a sign, do not go there, the dog has more wisdom than the man, instinct vs. plan, what it means to disobey a sign, a sign as a piece of wisdom, the fine is the cost of her life, the X Minus One adaptation, a dumb adult, young and therefore innocent, it isn’t “fair”, having the medicine enhances, the reason its a white girl in the story, we as 1950s astounding readers, the kitten is innocent, changing it to a dude, flipping the genders, an adult man vs. a girl Barton, to hit us in the feels to make us understand, if it’s Hitler in the basement, not as many will walk away, the Azov battalion will walk away, both Bushes, eternal?, a sin eater, a more meta-story, a thought experiment, The Good Place, Stalin or any other evil person, a challenge to us to do better, threw in orgies for Evan, drugs, that’s fine, imagine the place that you want, Hitler’s in the closet on the EDS ship, it’s cold in here,

[THE QUICK EQUATION by Jesse

I was not alone.

There was nothing to indicate the fact but the white hand of the tiny gauge on the board before me. The control room was empty cept for me; there was no sound other than the murmur of the drives—but the white hand had moved.

It had been on zero when the EDS launched; now, an hour later, it had crept up. There was something in the supply closet across the room, some kind of a body that radiated heat.

It could be but one kind of a body—a living, human body.

I let my eyes rest on the narrow white door of the closet. There, just inside, another man lived and breathed.

I unholstered my blaster and stood up, facing the door. Maybe it was just a girl, I thought, just some dumb girl who couldn’t read warning signs. That would be bad.

“Come out!” My command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drives.

I thought I could hear a whisper of a furtive movement inside the closet, then nothing.

I visualized the stowaway cowering closer into one corner, suddenly worried by the possible consequences of his stowing away.

“I said out!”

I heard the stowaway move to obey, and I waited with my eyes alert on the door, my hand on the trigger of the blaster.

The door opened and the stowaway stepped through it, smiling. “In Ordnung—ich gebe auf. Was jetzt?”

It was Hitler.

I put him out the airlock.

There was a slight waver of the ship as the air gushed from the lock, a vibration to the wall as though something had bumped the outer door in passing; then there was nothing and the ship was dropping true and steady again.

I shoved the red lever back to close the door on the empty air lock and turned away, to walk to the pilot’s chair with the light steps of a man just doing his duty.

Putting my feet up on the console I thought about those guys on Woden – they sure will be happy to have that vaccine, I thought. I could hear their voices now. And won’t they be surprised to hear about what I did with the stowaway.

THE END]

nice imagery, symbology, a puppet show adapation, a theatrical stage production, the movie and TV adaptations, The Twilight Zone adaptation, hits the points, about an hour vs. 20 minutes, this story is important and also its good, it’s not the physics, the engineering, made lean, disposable, an emergency, an escape pod, objections, a Socratic style dialogue, you’ve fucked it up, you’re gonna think about this, you’re gonna think about that, The Nothing Equation, James Patrick Kelly, responses, an uncomfortable place, a lot of people are unwilling to accept the answer, reject the framing, three dudes, essentially a fridging story, she’s definitely cold, Astounding readers, probably 1950s white men, arranged, sacrificing a young female character for man pain, yup, screwed up (by our current standards), no story can stand that test (being all things to all people at all times), fitting into that sort of tradition, Barton hurts, the brother hurts, Green Lantern’s girlfriend, series (add drama) vs. one and done, laughed out of the room or vilified, what if the one person is your mother, Gwendy’s Button Box by Richard Chizmar and Stephen King, a little girl, workers, an adult man, a 17 year old male, a six year old boy kid, it’s not supposed to be palatable, gender studies and science fiction, Paul is unqualified, we don’t want this story to exist, the reason for trying to undo the story, rejecting the premise to reject the conclusion, who is this for, people who claim to be astounding readers, engineers, it’d be good to have redundant systems, Apollo 13, a cold equation scenario, fuel vs. air, saving three dudes in space, kludging together, failures of imagination (not failures of empathy), empathy informs engineering, the challenger disaster, the o rings, the magic words, poor engineering, a gender response, an engineering response, Gary Westfahl, is he an authority, Cory Doctorow, why do we have these terrible trolleys, why are people tied to the trolley track, its too late to complain about the engineering, this engineering is terrible, margins are thin on the frontier, [had it been lampshaded by the narrator], an excuse, Cory Doctorow, capitalism sucks and then he pulls the lever, it doesn’t deliver the solution, frames, the fucked up nature of the premise, Elon Musk could save us, the technocrats will save us, the profound moral consequences of the world we’ve build up, we all live in Omelas, somehow you benefit from that, the rules of the game, a lot of people are cool with this, their goodness to their own children, quite beautiful, a beautifully written (and simple) story, A Few Good Men (1992), we’re the thin blue line, minimize the whipping at kids in basements, to make you look at the horrible thing you’re willing to live with, puppies, we got yoga, a completely different kind of attack on reality, N.K. Jemisin’s response, diversity and equality utopia, a liberal response, instead of walking away you stay and reform it, you denounce Raytheon, the twitter one by Olav Rokne, nominated, cougars are in, the solution’s in voting, the one about Worldcon, everybody’s choice, taking the piss on people, Facebook says its fine to call for the death of Russians, pointed at Chengdu, File 770 and other forums, their baby in their basement, centers of discussion, silly, that’s going to be nominated for a Hugo, best related work, Natalie Luhrs’ George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Evan’s tweets should be the priority, for worse, I love science fiction: I’m going to read all the Hugo award winners, Luke Burrage reading the Hugos and the Nebulas, not the cream of the crop, its my turn, we love her, David Brin’s bad Hugo winning book, taking turns, conservatives, liberals, Hugo nominators can be very…, Seanan McGuire’s fan base rewards her work, ecosystems, regardless of the merits, an electorate nominating and voting, the Oscar winners, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), snowballing and logrolling, the ones who walk away from the Hugos (walked into the dealer’s room), The Moon Moth by Jack Vance, less and less strahk these days, leftover momentum, momentum, the big game in town, clashing ecosystems, the whole puppy drama, just trying to right the ship?, the nutty nuggets, Brad Torgeson, The Ones Who Don’t Walk Away by Sean Vivier, analog daily science fiction, plotting violence, if only to end the torture of innocence, it has to be a joke, see that mop over in the corner? it’s watching you, I am good person, vote for Democrats, we have top men working on this, violating some of the premises, when AOC was down in Texas and mourning over the fence, a choice satire (or reality), the mixed results, everything on Goodreads is 3.8, we can’t have a rating system, mechanisms other than just writing, ratings break your brain, the incentives screw up the rating systems, we end up arguing over tiny percentage points, PC Gamer, Gary Whitta, Rogue One, The Book Of Eli (2010), debates about points, whether you’re wearing the badge or not, anti-thinking, why writing great reviews is so important, an attack on liberal values, there is a civic element to it, fleeing the country is always an option in a story like that, Paul would like to live in New Zealand, a settler colonial state, more paradise, their kid has two buckets, Maori writers, Born Of Man And Woman by Richard Matheson, That Only A Mother by Judith Merrill, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, told from the creature’s point of view, a nudie pic, what a pretty person looks like, a super powerful story, July 1950, horror, monsters, cats, basement, first person POV, diary format, child protagonist, 1996 one had a sexual element, added a bargaining scene, an uncredited adaptation, wrist bracelet thing, she gives the bracelet to Barton, burns, more depth and pathos, the fire is connected to the bracelet, fire rubies, what some writer did, Ursula K. Le Guin talks about the cost, the point of writing is to cause the effect you want it to have, a question rather than a delivery, an idea story, The Cold Equations is a door shut, why does it work so well, she starts in a closet, the white hand, she goes back into a closet, shot off into outer space, the writing is poetic, the sentimentality is through the roof, I will come to you on the wind, an object going ahead, that’s her, very close to the emotions, officious, this horrible bureaucracy, horrible capitalism realism, becoming sex workers outside of Omelas, under capitalism we have to be separated, jobs demand you do this, your economy demands you do this, if you don’t really scrutinize your government, your security depends on us being murderers and torturers, no more complaints about The Cold Equations being a story with bad engineering, Jesse killed everybody, a conceit that you need in a visual story, infodump, it would make a great stage play, that simple set, K.J. Parker’s How To Rule And Empire And Get Away With It, The Prisoner Of Zenda, Double Star, the power of stories, a professional liar, Herman Melville, Sixteen Ways To Defend A Walled City, no magic, Academic Exercises, finding hope in modern stuff, somebody has to winnow, the judgement of time and history, the market demands things Jesse is not willing to accept from the market, George R.R. Martin, the judgement of history, Robert Silverberg on a Writers Of The Future podcast, a juried award, reading the stories blind, an honesty, John W. Campbell (and a lot of people don’t like him), positing with authors, helping write engaging stories, hinted at, the universe is the ultimate judge of everything, the judgement of history so far, when Campbell gets it wrong (Scientology, overpopulation, telepathy), why still talking about The Cold Equations, a great idea story, barely an orgy on the EDS, why wasnt there room for three hookers on this ship?, Mars has got women, a Ferengi Harry Mudd delivering to miners on Stowaway

THE PROFITABLE EQUATION by Jesse

“I was not alone. Aboard the EPS were me, Magda, Ruth, and Eve, three hu-man fee-males I was transporting to a wealthy human mining colony on a planet named Ophiuchus III.

While I was calculating my profits, minus what I would render up to Damon Brool and the Grand Nagus, I had noticed a little white hand on the tiny gauge on the board before me.

The control room was, like I said, empty – except for myself, Magda, Ruth, and Eve.

There was no sound other than the murmur of the drives, and the batting of their long eyelashes—but still that little white hand had moved.

It had been on zero when the EPS had launched from the D’Kora-class ship Krookta – where I’d purchased the shuttle and filled it with just enough fuel to reach Ophiuchus III; but, an hour later, with the Krookta warped away that white hand had crept up, like an Andorian pickpocket.

There had been something in the supply closet across the room, some kind of a body that had radiated heat.

It could be but one kind of a body, I knew – a living body.

I let my eyes rest on the narrow white door of the closet.

There, just inside, another humanoid lived and breathed.

I unspooled my whip, stood up and faced that white door.

‘Come out!’ My command was harsh and abrupt above the murmur of the drives and the sudden pearl clutching of Magda, Ruth, and Eve.

I thought I could hear a whisper of a furtive movement from inside the closet, then nothing.

Nothing. Exactly what my profits would come to if I didn’t get whoever was in there out that closet and off of my EPS!

‘Out, I say!’ I said again.

I heard the stowaway move to obey, and I waited with my eyes alert on the door, one hand on my belt purse, the other clutching the whip.

The door opened and the stowaway stepped through it, she was cowering.

‘I give up,’ she said.

It was a Bajoran female, immodestly dressed from head to foot in thoroughly concealing yet ragged clothing.

She was obviously an escaped slave, probably from Terrok Nor.

I listened to her cry and plead and tell her unprofitable narrative.

Cracking the whip I told her to tell faster. I’d heard much the like before, she wanted to see her brother, capitalism sucks, and so I cracked the whip again, waved it all away, and considered.

Then I asked her a serious question: She had a choice, I told her: life on a remote mining planet with four wealthy hu-man husbands or a quick and utterly unprofitable death in the cold void of space.

She chose wisely, cousin.

Indeed. Oh yes, indeed.

Magda and Ruth are giving me oo-mox as I speak.

I’ve set the EPS autopilot to land on Ophiuchus III.

There’s not enough fuel for this Emergency Profits Ship to land land five hu-man-oids safely so that’s why I am sending you this message, cousin.

I’m sending you the contract details – now.

There.

In mere moments I will be stepping into airlock.

Eve will pull this red lever here and flush me out into space.

The hu-man males on Ophiuchus III were willing to pay an extraordinary price in gold pressed latinum – and for one more female, ooooh cousin.

This means even after your fee, what we kick up stairs to Sector Damon Brool, and even after the Grand Nagus gets his cut, this will be, or rather will have been, my most profitable enterprise ever.”

THE END

the Ferengi can make profits, a chapter for the sex book, Wallace Shawn, I sacrificed myself, the profits are unimaginable, Evan’s Grand Nagus Rom series, reforming Ferengi society, Ferengi liberals, Ferengi , because Leeta is in it, they would just ruin it, file off the serial numbers, The Orville, the side by side Discovery and The Orville, vegan Pizza vs. regular human pizza, vegan shoes, he knew they were poor because they had vegan leather, that Moon Knight show, he’s Egyptian, The Cats Of Ulthar, a long show for a short story, The Tempest, The Weird And The Eerie, Capitalist Realism, Starship Mutiny, The Last Of The Masters, dudes in robes, these people have been cut-off, Colony, cedar tree forests, utopia planet, what Le Guin was doing, Dick is more oblique or unconscious, Souvenir, Williamson’s World, larping different civilization, Dick well, Larry Niven love, they’re both females wearing clothes, Paul is self-loathing, not trolling, in German it’s silent, first names only, a Thai or Vietnamese name, referring to people occasionally, raw war footage, Black Amazon Of Mars, she’s got an axe, a tomb sweeping vacation, Allen Anderson, black tentacles, big axe, Eric John Stark, The Long Tomorrow, C.L. Moore, she smiled and let the wine cup fall, The Doings Of Vigorous Daunt, a billionaire that goes around the world punching people, like Russell Crowe, N.K. Jemison must be smart, a Warren supporter, anti-Bernie, she’s a shitlib, the afrofuturist aesthetic and ideas, unreadable, Out Of The Aeons by Hazel Heald and H.P. Lovecraft, The Man Of Stone, The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy, I snuggled up the corpse and it turned a little rotty, Dan Carlin didn’t know what a quadroon or an octoroon was, clearly he doesn’t watch Archer.

he Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Freas

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Freas

he Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Freas

A WEIGHTY DECISION by Wally Wood page 8

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin - illustrated by Jesse

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

Podcast

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

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

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

SF Masterworks - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

Anarres and Urras

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The SFFaudio Podcast #638 – READALONG: Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #638 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons and Trish E. Matson talk about Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Talked about on today’s show:
1978, kicking around for years and years, The Entropy Effect, the first Star Trek novel, Of Mist, And Grass, And Sand, a report with science fiction fandom, Will’s choice, The Moon And The Sun, Louis XIV, Jesuit scientist, sea-monsters, consciousness about the world, politics, first contact, a little person, a magnum opus, 1998, a capstone, the Hugo for best novel, Nebula and Locus awards, Heinlein dedicated Friday to Vonda McIntyre, polyamory, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Ursula K. Le Guin, Marge Piercy, Roger Zelazny, Joanna Russ, a tender and compassionate adventure story, swashbuckling, saddle buckling, acrobat skill, diplomat skill, real life swashbuckling, the personal rather than the institutional, dedicating a book to other people, my agent and my wife, turning institutional into personal, this is not a Heinlein book, why Heinlein thought something about it, Anne McCaffrey, C.J. Cherryh, the first in a trilogy, there’s a lot in this book, three different stories, little vistas, technologies used on this world, biology as a technology, very Dune, birth control, just slide it in, weaving world-building elements, the door dilated, second wave feminism, bears rereading, destroying so we can rebuild, an Earth empire planet, comparative text looking, the names of the snakes, October 1973, 1978, the ending, tons of changes, a lot dropped, stuff added, the last sentence, healers heal quickly, February and March would have come out in late 77 and the start of 78, a polish, a lot of plot threads that don’t go anywhere, we think she’s going to the city and then go to the stars, an Ursula K. Le Guin novel: City Of Illusions, The City And The Stars, rocket jockey finds love in space, subverted expectations, amazingly clever for a first novel, female protagonists in leadership positions, being in control of your own biology, what is he talking…, literally 100 years out of date, very Dune like, sex-education, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, biofeedback, evolving and changing and growing, outside of the center city, fighting for power, Jesse’s death, not dated at all, more social SF than hard SF, snake medicine good for somethings not so good for other things, making slaves, lies as a form of control, a 1973 person, in a religion that is telling you what to not do and what to do, people who are reading books, if you’re in the science fiction readership, an inoculation against the future, abstinence through yoga, will that change society? 100%, so immune to disease, breeding her horse, its a mule, where the novel doesn’t work as well, unfulfilled notes, what that material is made of, relationship material, a fix-up, a new view into the that world and a new problem to solve, The Lone Ranger, Kung Fu, a western, The Mandalorian, not with a flamethrower, education and information, Paul’s D&D tweet, the setting of a D&D game, she’s a druid, that time she bit someone, the crazy, the crazies, what we’re supposed to think about, Jesse is honour bound not to talk about the book (lest Jesse be a hypocrite), psychedelic, a drug book, heroin users, a medical problem, a dreamsnake breeder, a drug dealer, scenes with this character, the third part with the dome, alien plants, did the otherworlders come and leave the snakes?, left for us to excavate, going to visit her teachers, she’s lost her journal, its going to go well, how the dreamsnakes reproduce, to drop it there, why these things exist in the story, her real name, she’s snake, bestowed upon you, like the title doctor, call me nurse, the Doctor, Doctor Who, The Master, two kinds of degrees, the Bachelor, the Rani, other time lords, a special figure, living up to that title, a badge of honour, the War Doctor, training be damned, on a sentence by sentence level her prose is quite poetic, why isn’t this a classic?, she’s doing a recipe for school, for a Clarion West class, very powerful, setting things up, laying things down, this future, that not paying off is where it has gone wrong, the Kung Fu aspect, with her actions, she does a lot of telling along with the showing, every gun doesn’t have to be a chekov’s gun, a sandbox vs. a railroad, all the more rich, why you shouldn’t turn your D&D campaign into a novel, Jesse’s birthday present to Will:

The Birthday Present by Jesse

Once upon a time there was a gentle black bear who always wore the disguise of a human when going shopping.
He was a sly bear, so instead of just wearing a mask made of a human face, he also had gloves made from the skin of human hands.
Because it was his mother’s birthday he was determined to buy her a nice gift, in this case a bone china teapot.
As he approached the city gate the bear in human guise was asked by the city guard if he was “just a bear wearing a human face and human hands as gloves.”
Instead of denying it, the bear smote his challenger, his powerful claws making short work of the sentry.
In the third gift store he went into the disguised bear found a delightful bone china teapot with pink flowers and intertwining green ivy decorating its sides and lid and the bear knew it would make his mother sow happy.
Asking if the proprietor took human corpses as currency, the bear proffered the guard’s corpse, and after a moment’s calculation of the taxes, the shop owner consented, knowing there was plenty of bone in the corpse for the making of new teapots, and skin for the making of masks and gloves.

The End

making the story better, symmetrical, solving all of a story’s problems, a mini-Clarion, two stories set in the same city, adding the depth of richness, whatever you lay down pays off, out of the tunnels in Fallout 3, each individual stories, The Voyage Of The Space Beagle, novels are a marketing campaign to move paper, novelettes are better, the whole market for audible.com, longer books not better books, pushing novels over short stories, 50s and 60s and 70s, trilogies, I need these stories to be individual rather than be collective, healers heal quickly, don’t think of it as a novel, Alan Kaster’s INFINIVOX audiobooks, fiction podcasts, Escape Pod, Podcastle, Uncanny Magazine, Clarkesworld, new fiction, another Heinlein, more about snakes, the dream part, hearing about it over these decades, something Scott said, second wave feminism, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, totally changed the fabric of society, what makes this book good, Trekonomics, what makes Star Trek good, its the ideology, a beautiful child with deep sexual shame, what makes this book good, how people could relate to each other, whether science fiction should be didactic, stigma, how you can relate to other people, the post-apocalyptic setting, step-out side the system, what science fiction can do, fear, a powerful story, deep truth, escape from pain, forget myself, fantastic things, this is what made it really good, the ideology, all of the baggage of society we live in, Gödel, Escher, Bach, imagining differently being, life outside of capitalism, the divine right of kings, different ways of living, examine our assumptions, you cannot protect someone completely without enslaving them, puts it into action, giving advice, Hippocratic oaths, ethics, a great negotiator, a great character, as a TV show, Raised By Wolves, character based, what makes Deep Space Nine such a great show, a darker prophetic aspect, outside of time, all the more powerful on screen, the way other people react to her, the new shirt, her feelings about the shirt, a very talented writer, Superluminal, disparate elements, reacting to assumptions being challenged, legalistic, a fun read, started from a short story, right after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the very serious Mr. Spock, this is just her western, the genre she’s writing in, responding to the stranger, Conan stories, the effect is rather different with the Conan stories, a female inversion of the Conan stories, a wizard who has a pet monkey, Rogues In The House, scalpeling and herbs and a couple of snakes and the sticking around, the handsomest youth in town, thrown a lady over his shoulder and running off into another adventure, Melissa continues on, part of her being a woman, making a family vs. fleeing a family, just not marketable, center city, communication with the outside universe, an oppressive thing, the center as a first world nation, the strange weirdo people, whatever skills they brought, the one thing you don’t really feel, The Wizard Of Oz, poppies and heroin, ultimately it would be a lie, underwhelming, so locked up, not because you’re powerful but because you’re weak, when people are in bounty the instinct is to share it, Jesse hates feel good stories, fruit trees, a four fruit tree, what it is to go down and pick berries, a tree shoving apples in your face, you fucked it up, the food bank, the food bank is a new thing, the element of the church, the corporate thing, that’s a different show, how the health care system is terrible, wandering doctors, why don’t you move into town, healers retire to communities, she’s got the arthritis, word of mouth, she came to help that child, messengers, caravans, ships in the ocean would call out the news to each other, a pro-vaccine book, Arvin, we change viewpoints, arrested for assault, oh this is plot, action rather than dialogue, more dialogue please, a sidelight on the mayor, to figure out the truth, the slavery stuff, things changing over time, half-life calculations, radioactivity, Babylon 5, “The Deconstruction Of Falling Stars”, A Canticle For Leibowitz, what we assume, maybe they can heal her there, maybe the can’t, they’re liars, he says he’s going to heal us, the mirror of center in this dreamsnake cult, pain-relief, sound like real life, enslaved to a product that’s illegal, the externality, excommunicate them, damaged by whatever community they’re in, Melissa is hiding all sorts of things, the stable manager, the lies are consistent, something to the rumours, not face value, the reasons are forgotten, whatever led to the apocalypse doesn’t matter, we’ve got to learn to cooperate, families of three now instead of two, we need to work together, how the chores are going to be distributed, gathering the firewood, cleaning the horses, Scott may have heard of families, a family isn’t a democracy, an anarchy, age and experience, make demands, too harsh, fleeing the society of the family, fleeing on their own happy, Melissa wants to do all the chores, seeing the value in herself, self-respect, a nice journey, good messaging, the war was long over almost forgotten it had destroyed everyone, those domes, Larry Niven Ringworld material (scrith), The Ringworld Engineers, none of them cooperated, dwindled away, the engines off the Ringworld, it would pay off to read that terrible book, progressively worse, worthwhile?, seemed inexplicable, we like that too, adventuring, subversion, the god gambit, Speaker To Animals, if Will was in the adventure party he’d be Kizinti, he feels contempt for the fucking plant eaters, Bechdel Test, two aliens talking to each other, Garak and Quark, you solids, Odo, actors under, Nessus, comedy gold, Ringworld should be done as a comedy, Louis Wu is the straight man, the three person partnership, Jesse and Meredith and Alice, non-binary, they’re all female, Anna Fields, the cassette flipping information, you buy a license from Audible.com, buy from Blackstone and Downpour you do own it, Ringworld on Earth with a lot less rocket stuff, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre AUDIOBOOK

Of Mist And Grass And Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre

Of Mist And Grass And Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre

Of Mist And Grass And Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Serpent's Death by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Serpent's Death by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Serpent's Death by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Broken Dome by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Broken Dome by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Broken Dome by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Broken Dome by Vonda N. McIntyre

Droom Slang (Dreamsnake)

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #591 – READALONG: The World Of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #591 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and David Agranoff talk about The World Of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt

Talked about on today’s show:
three terribly scanned issues of Astounding, illustrations, a quick OCR, minor revisions, the introductory material, arguing with his critics and conceding a point, very Aristotelian, Damon Knight, a lot to eviscerate, a terrible book, one of those famous essays, David is forgiving, the good things that it inspired, why Marissa needed to be on this one, Philip K. Dick, Solar Lottery is basically World Of Null-A fanfic, Vulcan’s Hammer, the competent man porn, The Variable Man, The Golden Man, pre-verbal, all instinct, Vogt literally told Dick to write novels, the level of influence, plotting is terrible, Slan, van Vogt’s plotting philosophy: every 900 words plot twist, The Purge, The Hunger Games, Jesse will like this, no law in the opening, who is fit to live on Venus, putting it in communist terms, approaching full communism, full blown Null-A, general semantics, its not as stupid as it sounds, Bertrand Russel version, natural deductive logic, logical positivism, lefty peacenik thinks world’s problem can be solved by understanding sentences, two right wings of the same party, words have power, the word “cat”, pussy, feline, black cat, cursed, witch’s familiar, the power of synonyms, a feature of those things, be gaslit, fall into traps, Alfred Korzybski, mistaken silly ideas, the solution is silly, Olaf Stapledon and group minds, an idea we had to explore, a grift, L. Ron Hubbard’s grift, the aims that the people have behind these systems, not everybody operates on the same level, Robert A. Heinlein is believing this shit, Heinlein is very thoughtful, weird ways of living, to confined in the cultural mean of those around them, Gulf by Robert A. Heinlein, a future fans will be slans argument, Friday, Mr. Twocanes, join those supermen, Heinlein rejecting his own earlier embrace of general semantics, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, notice how it hasn’t taken over everything, Rosicrucians, go to church, he just kills dozens and dozens of people, how language effects your nervous system and decision making process, it knows what its trying to do, that ending, writing to the conclusion, why is this novel so bad, Astounding had a lot of shitty stories, its not that good, it has a status that is large, Dune, The Left Hand Of Darkness, Dune is a really good version of The World Of Null-A, basically yoga of the mind, shitty plot, the first time he’s killed, the equivalent of Star Trek: Picard, more and more churning, a Flash Gordon serial, John W. Campbell, supermen, Anthony Boucher, the corona virus pandemic, WWII, a letter from an SF author in Germany, V-2, rattling, rattle city, the guy is wrong about everything, moving through a liquid at a very high speed, a complete and crazy novel, A.E. van Vogt was Philip K. Dick’s idol, tanks getting piggy-back rides, the best defense, Knight rescinded his criticism, don’t judge it based on novel standards, an experimental novel, an action yarn, why he is, all these dudes really believed in the superman ideology, I don’t know it who I am, it barely has a plot, The Green Odyssey is a good book, an important book that is bad vs. an unimportant book that is good, influencing a slew of things, am I really married to the presidents’ daughter, she keep comings back, its like a dream, Jesse’s dream:

Dreamt I followed loud music, taking a shortcut home from my late night retail job, and found myself at a Carib Zombi takeout shak. Shamblers were everywhere, going in and out. I recognized one employee & ordered the SPECIAL. Another, a real freak, touched me, his corrupted flesh infecting mine. I told him to back off as where he touched me my flesh came away. He laughed and spoke a creole phrase under his fetid breath. I put on my own creole accent and gave him the counter response as he shambled away. More order came, and I took it to go. Spicy takeout.

most stuff shouldn’t be novels, cosmic jerrybuilder, this is what happens in the story, why all these plot twists don’t make any sense, unpuzzling is harder, what a convoluted mess it is, predicting the sequel, hilariously bad plotting, adding to the insanity, the ideas at the heart of it are really interesting, there are some things that have some value, the Promethean attitude about humanity, historicizing and contextualizing mental illness, go-sane, all who don’t practice are insane, structural problems, political problems, Michel Foucault, mental discipline, ulcers, Illness As Metaphor by Susan Sontag, repression causes cancer, HIV = excess and immorality, August 1945, SCIENCE TO COME, ulcers, if I pray for you you’ll get better, psycho-medical therapy, insulin shock therapy, what he does consistently, so common among science fiction writers, Robert J. Sawyer, all bullshit, the race is fairly indestructible but our present culture is finished, not a very Null-A thing to say, opened the realm of wonder, John C. Wright, Null-A Continuum, a fork, a Superman Returns, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, Black Destroyer, Alien (1979), an amnesia, interesting as opposed to shitty, the shitiness supports its thesis, animals don’t time bind, why Picard is shitty, remember how he got over those things, he found his brother in his vineyard and had a good cry, what was the whole thing about the Star Trek universe, being petty about jobs, the subersion we have in Deep Space Nine, labour problems, the only thing that supports Picard being a good show, I think Picard has dementia, why its a Don Quixote style show, all of this shit only makes sense only if its a dementia show, all the stuff that would support, we have a history and a memory, why antisemitism was so strong in Germany, there’s no morality involved in a tiger eating a deer, the least Null-A thing about Null-A, how humans are different from animals, put your hand in the box, testing Paul’s humanity, animal cultural legacies, skills that they can pass along, social ecology, Murray Bookchin, we create communities, we are able to carry on ideas, monogamy, Commando (1985) should be thought of as garbage, being entertained, David highlighted the shit out of Null-A, the most intense evisceration, an attack on literary grounds, at war with dictatorships, The Weapon Shop, his plots do not bear examination, sentences, Philip K. Dick at his worst, Joseph Conrad, two thoughts: like Flash Gordon and therefore it is trash, investigate that, the zig-zaggyness, extreme dissociative events, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, what a book is is what you take it to be, Joe Cinnadella is so fucking interesting because he was an Italian and a Nazi and a truck driver, any reading when citing sources within the text is legit, the way we are like Rick Deckard, oh my fucking god, he’s seeing inside my head, regular junky astounding stuff, Will has terrible taste, this book is stupid and interesting, reviews with star ratings, Sophie Wenzel Ellis’ story, junky pulpy thrown together bits, Lovecraft doesn’t care about markets at all, so market oriented it was not meant to be read after it was published, distracted from his market goal, those dignified realism books that nobody likes, Clark Ashton Smith poetry, what Will likes about it is its a super-science story, read Solar Lottery next, defend Will’s taste, 4 Gosseyns out of 5, a weapon called the vibrator, ridiculous space opera, you have to consider when it was written, Martian Time-Slip, laying in bed reading Null-A, a valid thing to think about, back to mental illness, WWII veterans, a social context to sanity, shell shock, PTSD, war created mental illness, maybe it’s all in the context, The Myth Of Mental Illness by Thomas Szasz, a funnier book, a jarring book, The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, corporations corrupting governments, the senator from Coca-Cola, giant chickens, an amazingly interesting book, really funny, Gravy Planet, the military industrial complex is going to make so much money, very Robert Sheckley in comedy terms, societal problems, history is a series of fucking errors, here’s how you’re wrong, why Isaac Newton is interesting, Newton’s Cannon by J. Gregory Keyes, when we get telepathy, his 75-year old man self, they’re thinking the same thoughts, the exact same thought at the exact same time, solving the same problem, when you go into Heinlein, Grok fills a function that isn’t a word we already have, we all grok this book pretty well, water brother let me tell you this is not the best drink available, when he’s trying to convince himself to kill himself, Paul’s issues, the original Gosseyn was Jesus, Behold The Man by Michael Moorcock, Alas, All Thinking! by Harry Bates, a historical document, what do you make of the quotes at the beginning of every chapter, chapter 18, “feast upon shadows”, pearls of wisdom, general semantics, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz vs. Isaac Newton, Dianetics is a fork, we randomize it, The Game-Players Of Titan as the stock market and predicting Wall Street as games and tricks, political anarchism, Ursula K. Le Guin, Norman Spinrad, gated community socialism, the Galt’s Gulch planet, The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber, mutual aid, 600 years of games, Vulcan’s Hammer, just looking at the cover, hardcover (legit) vs. paperback (trash), Jesse only likes garbage, the good art and the bad art, commercially available, the smart people say that it’s good, direct to VHS movies from the 1990s, Noah’s Ark with Sodom and Gomorrah scene, Ed Wood, they don’t care they don’t know they don’t give a fuck, Above Suspicion (1995), A Slight Case Of Murder (1999) TV movie, aiming high with no skills, big swings, the economics of Star Trek: Picard, Quentin Tarantino, The Unteleported Man vs. Lies, Inc., this is a good attempt, it did what it wanted to do, be careful what you put into the world, future reprints, a catalyst and an exemplar, pulp science fiction, Robert E. Howard really holds up, surprisingly terrible, Clifford D. Simak, Isaac Asimov, he’s pre-Dick but without the natural gift, John the Baptist, Dick Christ, Mysterious Galaxies in San Diego, there’s a reason he doesn’t need to know about it, if you like out of date sci-fi, showing how general semantics and science fiction are tied together, H.L. Drake, why Heinlein is so interesting, he’s fundamentally right, there’s something to it and its really stupid, nothing’s new under the sun, practicing the art of reading science fiction for decades and decades, all the sound and fury all around us, as part of their identity vs. a fact about their history, being out of the loop by not practicing the art of reading science fiction, anti-bodies against surprised, forseen vs. predicted, plague, thousands of plague stories, Carriers (2009), how the United States is going to be in 9 months, the USG shit the bed, The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, were just gonna have to let a couple million people go, top 10s, The Naked Sun, The Sphinx by Edgar Allan Poe, The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, And All The Earth A Grave by C.C. MacApp, history is your proof against cycles, terrible dead ends, 277 years ago in where Vancouver is now, Philip K. Dick becomes more and more relevant and A.E. van Vogt becomes less and less relevant, thrash metal, PKD is covering Null-A, the opposite of academia, it is education for podcasters and podcast listeners, Donald A. Wollheim, Evan’s cat’s name is Rusty Cohle, also the Will book, Stanley G. Weinbaum’s Dawn Of Flame, fired no job jobless, we wont need lawyers in our new Null-A society, be more like Saul Goodman.

William Frederick Timmins art for The World Of Null-A on the cover of Astounding, August 1945

Astounding, August 1945

Astounding, August 1945

Astounding, August 1945

Astounding, August 1945

Astounding, August 1945

Astounding, September 1945

Astounding, September 1945

Astounding, September 1945

Astounding, September 1945

Astounding, September 1945

Astounding, September 1945

Astounding, October 1945

Astounding, October 1945

Astounding, October 1945

Astounding, October 1945

Astounding, October 1945

ACE - D-31 - The World Of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #584 – TALK TO: Jason Thompson

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #584 – Jesse talks with the great Jason Thompson, he of mockman.com

Talked about on today’s show:
you and me and how things go, Joe Rogan, based on guests, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, Alex Jones, what is up with this guy?, everybody’s got there issues, interviews suck, hard hitting, Jesse’s not here to take Jason down, an excuse to make friends with people on the internet, too prolific a tweeter, wonderful and strange things, man eating plant images, such an old trope, avoid crusty tropes, a story set in Cuba, what keeps Jesse going, what inspires Jesse, what drives Jesse, such a good media, covering all the senses, late to the party for The King Of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, the Dunsany biography by Mark Amory, huge gaps, doesn’t care about Dunsany’s dream stories, family anecdotes, NecronomiCon, a biographer who liked fiction, Pathways To Elfland, together they make one good book, a great cover, Frank Kelly Freas, Tim Kirk, I don’t like your stuff, Jesse didn’t grow up with manga, Jesse’s niece, first of all its backwards, anime, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Lovecraft being a racist, anything that exists and is really ongoing, Hong Kong action movies, Akira Kourasawa movies, Gou Tanabe’s Lovecraft, publishers, save money by redrawing the Japanese sound effects, Shonen Jump, this cool thing, cool hipster (save money), seeing your work mirror imaged, seeing the flaws, your face from an unexpected angle, we’re here for digression, a cultural shift within a tiny subculture, The Silver Key by H.P. Lovecraft, the moral, strikingly different people, the title and the library and the castle, a different personality, Celephaïs and The Coronation Of Mr. Thomas Shap, Neil Gaiman’s Lord Shaper, the word crap and crappy, the husk, the shell, gone into the dreamrealm, the cliffs at Trevor Towers, Dunsany did have more than the shallow entertainment value he was successful at, the preface is to help ease people into it, a normal English village just a few miles from the border with Elfland, 1911 issues of The Sketch, facing illustrations, the halfpenny papers, one of the cool dynamics, escape into dreamworld, wealthy people problems, ennui, meaninglessness, so good with names, all the names, so good, name arcs, goofy names, a little bit of a mythos, semi-serious, Episode 12: Miss Cubbidge And The Dragon Of Romance, How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Knolls, Tommy Tonker, the whole gnolls thing, gnomes + trolls, The Man Who Sold Rope To The Gnoles by Margaret St. Clair (Idris Seabright), a Jerusalem artichoke made out of Indian rubber, California, the 2nd half of the 20th century, Philip K. Dick, Clark Ashton Smith, Clark Ashton Smith: The Emperor Of Dreams, Lovecraft: Fear Of The Unknown, working to be edified, arts/literature/education, lifelong learning, be reading all the time, what was going on, Arkham House, Ballantine paperbacks, historical non-fiction, read the shortest stories, stick-figure astronauts, pushing the PDF Page, read it from the original source, we read the stories as they appeared, all of the bonus things, editorial introductions, illustrations, old things are cool, J.R.R. Tolkien -> Conan comics -> Robert E. Howard -> H.P. Lovecraft -> Clark Ashton Smith, Fungi From Yuggoth, gone beyond, 1 year old baby, prose poems, prose pastels, The Nightmare Lake, the most complex rhymes scheme, difficult to understand, a series of images, you’re seeing his dreams, as dense as anything you’ve read in prose, the HPLHS’ Lovecraft’ commonplace book, Jesse’s big into dreams, understanding your own psychology, lucid dreaming, fairy tale dream sense, a faraway magical land, bits and pieces of everyday life, dream reading/watching/RPGing, the best way to determine if you’re in a dream, such a prodigious dreams, my dreams exceed ALL other dreams, there’s books in your dreams, blurry, a foreign language, the first sentence, so obvious, generating that amount of detail and perceiving it, your GPU, fog in an old 3D game [isometric], how to record dreams, patterns, Tetris dreams, picture plants with white grubs on them, get the grubs off, The King In Yellow, Edgar Allan Poe, a trans-woman, Dreamland-like dreams, the name of two streets or the name of the town, Jesse waited five years to talk to Jason, Francis Stevens’ The Citadel Of Fear, The Curious Experience Of Thomas Dunbar, super-science, giant laser guns from the Moon, a Japanese-American scientist, a style and a genre, the very first super-hero story, an irreplicable experience, that mad-scientist, you should be called “Sampson”, 30 years before Batman, Argosy, 1904, Robin Hood, Zorro, Thor, the actual generation of a Daredevil style meta-human, the origin issue, The Elf-Trap, Friend Island, a visionary, correspondence with other writers, somebody appreciates what I’m doing, there’s good things here, female SF authors are not as common, arguing with people on twitter, depending on the genre, the Love pulps are all women, Frank Belknap Long, gothic romance, female authors in Weird Tales, C.L. Moore, A.C. Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, initials are not necessarily hiding gender, Leigh Brackett, Ursula K. Le Guin, more than 50% women writers in SFF, Jeff Vandermeer, Ted Chiang, medieval travel narratives, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, a fake book review as a novel, Don Quixote, Dreamquest, Roy Thomas, it eventually becomes wordless, the narrator was too startled to speak, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, the language is the barrier, the spanking scene, Charles Baudelaire, he has sex with a shark, Marquis de Sade style sexuality, how do I deal with the rape scene?, Azathoth as vision of god, Jason is not independently wealthy, Hodgson doesn’t have the name, Les Chants De Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont, Kickstarter, Lovecraft adjacent, a children’s book comic, YA comics, comics about mid-1800 super-villains, expectations, a bland porridge, reined in, cool stuff that makes kids interested, drawing in the margins, WWII, the best way to educate soldiers, the most economic and best way to teach soldiers to clean their rifles was to draw comics, carefully draw the bold back, why comics are so beloved by children, comics teach words through context, reading manga, what are they saying?, the sound of a scream, favourite writers, what are you not tweeting about, D&D module maps, torture chambers, a 20 year commitment, for those who are listening, ancient travel narratives, Marco Polo, Journey To The West, maps are kind of comic-like, a spatial narrative, there’s a lot you can leave out, the Dreamlands Map, revisions, the geography is not defined, all the capitalized words, Dunsanian easter eggs on the edges, Chaosium, The Field Guide To The Dreamlands, Sidney Sime’s map of Dunsany’s Dreamlands, its set in England (sort of), actual geography, expectations, changed placenames, snatch away the fruit of the fruits of others labour, copying is what we should all be doing, how it got made, no longer the product of a god, the product of a flawed god called Man, you develop your own or stop doing it, Gary Myers’ Dreamlands stories, The House Of The Wyrm, a YA novel, Kij Johnson’s The Dreamquest Of Vellitt Boe, a story of description and travel, the spirit of the story, for time to winnow away that which is unimportant, lots is interesting after 1900s, focusing on the public domain, making a short film out of this story, Henry Treece, The Green Man, a children’s adventure, a prehistorical romance, cave kids, The Viking Trilogy, Viking Dawn, The Road To Miklagaard, Viking Sunset, Asterix, Getafix, how did this translate, Tintin, Lucky Luke, Captain Haddock is an alcoholic, the movie adaptation, true to the original works, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, every 1930s serial trope, Magnum, P.I., a hot aircraft, three jam-packed stories, Canadian public domain, why aren’t people doing more, Vouldir, Sidney Sime museum, Virgil Finlay, scratchboard, why the lines look the way they do, using the same models, why I can’t draw hands, going to art school would probably have helped, practice, practice, practice, the smell of Used Bookstores.

Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea by Jason Thompson

Jason Thompson's Map Of The Dreamlands

The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath And Other Stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Jason Thompson

Mockman's map of Tomb Of Horrors

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #577 – READALONG: I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #577 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein

talked about on today’s show:
Galaxy, July – December 1970, Robert A. Heinlein talking to himself, is this a kissing book?, sex talk, is there a person who doesnt get kissed, she had babies with the judge, my wife lets me kiss 10% of women, saving the incest for later books, a 1980s book, right after some of the big books, Friday is the last good Heinlein novel then he went crazy, 4 years after Frederik Pohl’s Day Million, only recommended as an artifact, rolling my eyes, listening at double speed, essentially the same thing over and over again, ultimatum, if you don’t do x I will fire you and leave the country, everybody is the same person, really glad Evan’s going to be on for this one, the world rather than the guy taking over the world with the talk – endless talk, its a guy who wants everything to be about him, I fell in love with lawyer, injecting myself with my own sperm, the biggest ego trip on the planet by the biggest asshole in the world, having Jake’s baby, he has it every way, socially it’s Jake’s baby, through his entire catalogue, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, Variable Star, closing on the worst, kinda interesting, way too fucking long, sigh, Evan despaired half way through when he’s already impregnated himself, there’s wonderful stuff here, being a document of the sexual revolution, forward thinking, keeping up with the trans-movement, you are your physical body, an internal self, (s)he performs as a woman, physicality, the Wikipedia entry is very short, a threesome, Eunice before she is murdered is swinging, Johan Sebastian Bach Smith, we’re from Mars, really cool stuff, less meetings would have helped Stranger In A Strange Land, get off the poolside bench and go get a job, their job is to talk with the sex crazed maniac, not through the news clips, very modern, all about billionaires and what they want, everything is a billion percent corrupt, very realistic, abandoned areas, what she thinks her job is is to perk up the disabled ancient corpse man, dress up as sexy as she can, before she dies, I don’t trust it, if you read this subversively, it becomes even more insidious, the worst thing about Heinlein, rape fantasies and child molestation, the conversations he has with himself, reading Larry Niven, everything seems to be working out, motivated by slightly different things, its sick and yet he really is on to somethings, the very strong class and financial stratification of society, the .001%, is this world really that bad?, where’s the rest of this society?, ending with Malthus, Mathusean arguments are stupid, The Population Bomb, Star Trek, The Mark Of Gideon, Stand On Zanzibar, Make Room, Make Room, geography, the water wars that are going to come, resource wars, Quantum Of Solace, invisible car, a problem of distribution, some of the least informative and least interesting part of the book, everyone was wrong at the time, pervasive throughout the book, the bugging, surveillance, he’s a brinksman, not everybody is you Heinlein, you can’t deal with everybody that way, wherever we go we take our phone, the universal communication device, more important that any piece of clothing or your house, universal bugging, rich people and royals, a member of the wedding party is sent to Canada, very fetching, your going to go to Canada to throw off the scent, every fucking relationship is tainted with money, the most ethical person in the book, he tries not to be corrupted by it, money is a problem, another theme that’s going on in here, rich people can’t and don’t have friends, it’s true, assets relationships and opportunities, body organs replaced, Bug Jack Baron by Norman Spinrad, Eunice’s soul, it has no connection, he wanted a threesome in his brain, a swinger book, they have sex with everybody except for the grandkids, the grandkids are “monsters”, how did that happen?, who caused that?, inveigle and puppet everybody’s life around him, they’re not competent, their all murderers and their black guys, I kiss them, let him save souls and I look sexy in this shirt don’t I?, is Heinlein addressing this in any sort of self-conscious way?, repossessing an employee of mine’s body, take her name, am I like Eunice, after you paddle me on the bottom in the way that I like, FUCK YOU ASSHOLE, so annoying man, people shouldn’t read Heinlein cause he’s so fucking annoying, Harriman never thought about that, Number Of The Beast, set in a dystopia that he caused by him and a few other people like him, my Clinton organization, you’re the one doing that, become a vegan like me!, strontium 90 in the Chinese milk, nuclear war, all the good stuff is made in China, this book needs to be Neuromancered, all he can do is threaten people with his money, build some fucking roads and infrastructure, constantly calling him “boss”, S&M language, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Sir Boss, boss instead of master, a very difficult book, novella length, an amazing explosion of ideas as in Day Million, reality bombs, if you were going to film this it would be a nightmare, endless dialogue scenes, the action all happens off-screen, nothing exciting going on, conversations in different lawyers offices, seriously? you’re, honor cherish and obey my husband, he’s not a good a person, this dude was into these ideas so early, All You Zombies is a transsexual story, he’s his own grandpa hahaha, he’s a guy from Missouri in 1907, if he was born in the 70s…, a heterosexual man interested in being a woman, heterosexual man becomes a heterosexual woman, gay street back and forth, omnisexual, he marries another old man, “born in the wrong body”, put into your right body, he’s thinking through these ideas out there on his own, Venus Plus X, [Myra Breckinridge (1970)], dresses and cuddling, the male gaze, do what thou wilst, sexual libertarianism, communities and movement cultures, really interesting, Evan’s been around this planet 40 some times, the self goes away, actors can act in a role, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlisle,

Sartor Resartus (meaning ‘The tailor re-tailored’) is an 1836 novel by Thomas Carlyle, first published as a serial in Fraser’s Magazine in November 1833–August 1834. The novel purports to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as ‘god-born devil-dung’), author of a tome entitled Clothes: Their Origin and Influence, but is actually a poioumenon. Teufelsdröckh’s Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a sceptical English Reviewer (referred to as Editor) who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher. The work is, in part, a parody of Hegel, and of German Idealism more generally. However, Teufelsdröckh is also a literary device with which Carlyle can express difficult truths.

this book sounds really fun, the clothes make the man, he’s wearing a white labcoat so its okay he’s putting his finger in my butt, a yellow vest, wearing a blue shirt at Best Buy, putting on the wrong uniform, girls protesting a rule they’re not allowed to wear pants to school, talking about a body as a piece of clothing, this suit’s looking better and better, just like Brad Pitt’s, meat sleeve, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, Case’s contempt for the flesh in Neuromancer, Linda Nagata, does this make me transsexual?, strip away the entire body, ultimately he concludes it wont work, the old transhumanist argument, Transmetropolitan, robot eyes, synesthetic neurons, we are what’s out there, the oppression of women throughout history is largely due to their bodies (not their femininity), a patriarchal society?, the Teresues myth, Strange Days (1995), the working title of Blade Runner?, the ship of Theseus, Bryan Alexander, I’ve had this axe my whole life I’ve been chopping trees with it every day this is the third time I’ve replaced the handle and the third time I’ve replaced the axehead, Jason Thompson’s adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft, what makes it valuable to me, if they market it properly, this famous dude named Jesse, an association copy!, this is a SPECIAL comic, The Pro by Garth Ennis, The Boys, my 30 year old car has every part replaced, two ships of Theseus, identity is a fictional concept or one that only applies with brains, 2 Os stuck together, ultimately any particular atom is not different than any other atom like it, the trial, the hearing, the (Trump) impeachment, yeah don’t care, from a poor person’s point of view, done to a poor person, exploring the same ideas, getting his sex jollies from everybody he meets, lets emigrate to the Moon, The Wizard Of Oz, this feels strange and skeevy, what the fuck man?, the Tin Woodsman (Nick Chopper), he eventually chops his own head off, eventually in the Oz series all of the cutoff armed and legs are rejoined into a golem, the better claim, what make a person a person a character, the cloning stuff, there isn’t really a good cloning novel, the idea of dealing with this concept and ultimately bullshit, Moby-Dick, an onion with no center, as you grow in life, greener or browner, all a mistake, an action adventure contest, put the key in the slot before the bomb blows up, if you met twins, Nine Lives by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Future Is Female, her second story is public domain, all these clones are having sex with each other, totally unequal power dynamics, how Joe was raised, his mom is a wino, Joe’s illiterate, his more artistic end of himself, not good at shopping, he’s the worst Heinlein when it comes to selling his books, Soylent Green (1973), its perfectly legal, Saul and Charleston Heston are in a gay love story, super-powerful, how could I know, a wonderful scene, a great book and also a terrible book that nobody should read, I remember regretting reading it, he had peritonitis while writing this, why this book is badly edited, why do you have these endless scenes of dialogue of going on forever?, the whole Moon thing, they’re all connected, a few hundred people there, frontier hypothesis, very Philip K. Dick, this tired old earth, that’s Elon Musk, yo, 1% are gonna move to Mars and leave us in our abandoned areas, a pipe dream, Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, invite Elon Musk, I got lots of podcasts I want to listen to, Red Mars justifies its bulk, a few meetings in there, Jesse is not a fan of meetings, Mars was big in the 90s, Red Planet, a three month sabbatical from Heinlein, I wanna assassinate this Johann smith, the corruption, the billionaire class, Jeffrey Epstein, Joe was adopted by a painter who used him as a sex slave, no pants Smith, I might be a bitch but I’m not a cunt, I’m not a slut I’m a tart there’s a difference, the iteration, tarts give it away, he’s exploring, this sounds real bad, have you thought about the power dynamics here?, sounds like real bad fucking shit, this is not cool, we’re all consenting adults here, a very rich old dude gathering up congresspeople and senators and supreme court justice, this is not an equal relationship, literally pure evil, so selfish, I wanna be those people, you should be stripped of your powers, what you’re doing is monstrous, driving through in your armored cars, its NOT OK BOOMER, a powerful ideas man, Jesse benefited from it the first time, now I am an Ayn Randian, the last issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, you couldn’t pay me to read Ayn Rand, understand this dangerous concept, take in Heinlein’s idiocy, this astounding piece of exploration you’re going to get on this subject, I don’t wanna ever see a desk again, where Heinlein spent his time, it doesn’t ever say where it was, California?, no go zones, a compound for rich shoppers to visit, the speakeasy, the number of times he complains about chairs, how the chairs are very uncomfortable, 1980s baroque, Chinese screen, Chinese obligation, now I’m stuck in this chair, Heinlein’s office, a perfect unobtrusive secretary, panty ruffle, very buxom secretaries, the original Total Recall, they changed the title, the chair and the pain, the word cloud, OLD is the biggest one, SEX, LIPS, CAT, a book without a cat, giving away cats, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, an old man on a space station, he’s also James Bond, how similar Heinlein is to Philip K. Dick, self confessional, its all about fertility as usual, Heinlein’s sterile, the estate is a trust, meeting with lawyers and doctors, that striving for immortality in ANY way, the kid from Mars, a son who died in some stupid war, it doesn’t matter Paul, I know who it is, these granddaughters aren’t biologically his, clones himself in multiple ways, his own mother and father, all very deeply psychological, why this guy is interesting to read, it isn’t generic shit, the expressing of unspeakable irrational striving, his DNA wrote this book, whaddya want that sounds terrible, he’s exhausting, I’m glad he’s dead, am I wrong?, The Three Musketeers, Paul’s weird head-canon, Heart And Souls (1993), Luke Burrage’s head cannon, did he strip the kid of the money?, the major takeaway, money’s going to the Moon, the Moon is the baby, the Moon and the Moon landings are his baby, Destination Moon (1950), we can do this shit, he really was the leading exponent of this idea of SPACE PROGRAM, The Return Of William Proxmire by Robert A. Heinlein, Expanded Universe, was he sterile because of all the STDs? the swinging for other ways?, super-super-important for him, maybe if I was my wife, kinda weird, not entertaining, you really should, we’re really fucking selfish and crazy, read it at double speed, Evan recommends this book, if youre interested in ideas this has them, sit on my lap, I will only marry you if you only, don’t make me be this intimate with you, I’m glad I’ve read it I’m glad I’m finished reading it.

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein

I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein WORD CLOUD

Heinlein's Desk in 1986

Posted by Jesse Willis