Tag: Arthur Conan Doyle

The SFFaudio Podcast #760 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #760 – The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Mike F. Smith (for LibriVox.org). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (3 hours, 17 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Bryan Alexander, Trish E. Matson, and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
1913, The Strand, republished, 199 pages, 3 hours and 15 minutes, what we might call a series, The Lost World, never even mention dinosaurs, does this book stand on its own, from a plot perspective, fall into the byplay, as characters, building on those characters, what character we needed, such a step down in terms of length, the mind blowing idea, discovered dinosaurs 3 years earlier, everybody dies, what challenger was doing, reverses all the damage he does, less potent thus less famous, the reception, invasion novels, village, how the rest of the world responds, golfers and babies, the end of the world, straight up, a giant stride being taken, the big setup, skull island, the plateau of Leng, Edgar Rice Burroughs, in Challenger’s wife’s boudoir, no action, the story as an idea, a request from publishers, more of that Challenger stuff, the adventures of these guys again, this story gets super-existential, I can’t report the news now, that old lady worrying about her stocks, in despair, we still have science!, all the roles that Conan Doyle is himself playing, aspects of his own personality, Sumerlee is the worst parts, Challenger is the guy who wants to be, Roxton is the manly man, the reversal, Aristotle’s unities, war imagery, corpses lying every which way on the ground, pseudocorpses, a gas attack, even more striking, propaganda operations, that’s where he got his, keeping up with the fairies, keeping up with everything topical, Danger!, England being attacked by an enemy using uboats, the spectre of death, War Of The Worlds, newspaper reports, telegrams, he wanted an [email protected] email address, clericals and anarchists, Paris has riots in the streets, racialism, the nigger at the beginning and the end, less complex societies, Sumatra, odious ideas of race, the pinnacle is all these people, after he bites his housemaid, a superman, making fun of challenger, short legs, the ride in on the traincar, doing a cockatoo, some rando, perfect for England in 1913, no colonies east of Sumatra, we peel around the world moving west, continues past England, eerily prescient, really poignant, layers of mediation, a snapshot of attitudes in this peak of colonialism, the Slovenians falling, the Teutons were slower to be affected, Doyle’s everybody here, could he have written this 20 years later, kinda stupid premise, ether is not a thing, ether has come back, Einstein, we don’t need this shit, you don’t need ether for the plot, a map of local interstellar space, a bubble of low density interstellar medium, pre-Einsteinian ether theory, cosmic particles, panspermia, what we’re looking at is not a gas, like the Force, allowing light to do its thing, it doesn’t make any sense, change the overall mixture, it can’t actually be a gas, the earth orbiting through this gas, diluting it, they wax papered the windows, A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber, a bucket of oxygen, a frozen gas vs. an etheral gas, echoes from this book, Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, supressed conductivity, a Vernor Vinge lift later as well, A Fire Upon The Deep, zones of thought, a sleeping field, the vocab word: catalepsy, I’m feeling cataleptic, can’t come into work today, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, a social novel, clearly sentimental, the imagery is powerful, the comedy aspect, makes it gentle, John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, that scale is so different, every woman on earth is now pregnant, The Day Of The Triffids, knocking up a whole world, hyper-personal, played by Brian Blessed, if fictional people can be reincarnated into real people, A Thousand Plateaus by Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, chapter tracks, a screaming thing, The Land Of The Mists, spiritually insane, 5% insane, luminiferous either, a spiritualist concept, observe as much as we can, if it exists, really?, takes it a priori, Lovecraft, water and salt, who he is and how, essential salts, materialism, too great a thing, three bucketfuls of water, ugly bags of mostly water, uses matter but is not of it, When The World Screamed, a Quatermass serial, a Doctor Who episode, Inferno, a Mirror, Mirror, evil UNIT, Brigadier has an eye-patch, like Spock, some other inventor, the Earth is a living organism, the crust of the Earth with the grapes, a wash to get of some virus or bacteria on the grapes, a line of 8 reapers, bloody golfers, machine metaphors, longing for simplification, early Christian apocalypse, Ragnarok, atomic bomb stories, after the bomb, Mad Max, 27 hours, makes a good play, its scope is much smaller, a total cop-out, just believe Challenger, all hold hands and become a better world, massive anarchist conspiracy, find people to blame it on, a prime target, lost a day, very controversial, personal reasons, hurts the stature, post-apocalyptic, not a plague, the policman standing up wakes up, traffic’s gone to shit, hard not to bring up Lovecraft, a science fiction story, field glasses, spot his housekeeper, a microscope, this microscope, this is wonderful, you can see for your self, and yet it moves sort of line, scientific method, emotionally interesting, existential, does my life have meaning, humour, Doyle’s such a good writer, everything flows so smoothly, our worthy Summerlee, mopping his heated brow, more easily condone, when my balance has been disturbed, one Sarah, so much classism, she is a woman of a sever and forbidding aspect, the royal we, alone at my breakfast, entertaining and instructive, imperturbability, upset a small vase, withdrawn the the study, I sank my teeth in the calf of her leg, ore herself free, some thoughts of an explanation, traveling very rapidly, is it illuminative?, pour this orange juice on his head, explaining the behavior, as you drink less alcohol, as you get older, restrain yourself, as your faculties go, laughter and impulsivity, rationalizing, this experiment is a good idea, so good, he’s become a monster, he bit her on the leg, use my rational mind, problems and issues, classism, rather horrified, loyal chauffeur, wryly sticks with the professor, such a domestic tyrant, they couldn’t appreciate it, we’re all going to die soon, while working on the engine, a common attitude, many rich people now, utter callousness, a natural progression, Sherpas are always missing when climbing Everest, Nepal, the last real town before Everest, a statue of Tenzing Norgay, without him Hillary wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, run 26 miles down hill, badass, Victorian, 18th century fiction, invisible servants, especially a British thing, French social novels of the 19th century, Russian novels, snapshot of the world in 1913, a maniac and a monster, we see this today, Kardashians, gigantic celebrity, talent on stage, staff was masked up, the science in here, the ether explanation, the ideas of what science is, pro-science stuff, what is this book about, what is a theme?, the hardest questions, you’re telling me I have to live, they don’t want to live in a world without…, you can’t published, you can find stuff out, the most stable idea, it isn’t the publication its the finding out, new things about reality, there’s still always going to be science, for science alone vs. life with him, some class stuff with the local guides, and racism, science is in many ways useless, too late to do anything about it, a Cassandra function, there’s delight, the future Earth will be repopulated, evolution is 100% true, a series of observations, predictions, errors, new observations, new predictions, very optimistic, horrific things happened and people were shocked for a while, Malone, feeble folk, like all the oft repeated truths, a lesson an actual experience was need to bring it home, still stunned by the suddenness of the blows, fires everywhere, one of the greatest tragedies, grim reading, her stocks! her stocks!, elide over millions are going to die, for the survivors, personally unaffected, wake up, a rictus grin, nobody died of dehydration, those people, COVID-19, awfully familiar, almost Lovecraftian, the abyss, how convenient, the engineers, this story is meaningless in a certain sense, what will not be forgotten, this revelation, ignorant self-complacency, what abysses may lie on the other side, all our emotions to-day, pushing the religion, explicit religious stuff, singing the hymn, that chastened effect, humility, a narcissistic element, we survived, a contradiction in the narrative stance, the only survivors, Huck Finn at his own funeral, headlines, DEAD LONDON!, The Star by H.G. Wells, almost exactly the same story, A Pail Of Air, a rogue planet, the new brotherhood, books and machines, a hint of this, cold last paragraph, Martian astronomers, Wells and Conan Doyle were really different people, you know why he didn’t get a sir, almost all his characters are monsters, imposing these things on people, often they get a comeuppance, The War Of The Worlds guy, their philosophies, The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, a really ambitious book, a bunch of child murders, aloof, The First Men In The Moon, Cavor is wonderful, suicidal, a cool romp?, sentimental, moved by it, convinced the whole world had died, where that leaves us, humanity being humbled, the amoeba doesn’t save anybody in this, the human future, out of space, this invasion from Mars, the most fruitful source of decadence, the conception of the commonweal of mankind, very Wellsian, Eric S. Rabkin, that’ll never be the case, damn that gets me, such a magnificent book, a Challenger adventure, he’s a great character, why is he so enthusiastic, reading old stuff does more than one thing, a picture of the society I live in, Fraunhofer lines, we can’t imagine this today, our tame scientist at the office, they have a scientist on staff, at the New York Times, maybe today, he don’t write a lot of articles, 5 people wrote them, daily newspapers, a list of experts they call up, just there to consult, be a Wikipedia and keep up with all that stuff, the golfers and the cricketers, pre-WWI Britain, a “tame scientist”, this had to have been true, these were going concerns, going through old newspapers, the topics covered, university level writing, mistakes, Lovecraft had a syndicated astronomy column across the USA, the local newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, the Province, 5 days a week, not doing Mondays anymore, the fonts are big, the end times for newspapers, Bryan’s new book, Universities On Fire by Bryan Alexander, the bleakest thing Bryan’s ever written, possible extinction, Scientific American used to be amazing, magazines are dead, retired teacher magazines are better than national general topic magazines, encouraging people to get vaccinated, insisted they didn’t need vaccination, the wackiness of Q Anon, silver colloidal treatments, oceans of scientific stuff, the evolution of Wikipedia on SARS, we have a stupider media, access to scientific material, mis and dis information, reading wrong stuff, getting indoctrinated by it, we lived through COVID in real time, the vaccine(s), distributed quickly, excited about the science aspect, prediction supposition, action, correction, new prediction, combined with the emotion, ring the bell, all four of the men, a very religious image, smart, how do you communicate with a whole lot of people, Doyle also makes a point, the churches had never been so packed, the end of Soylent Green, not slept in weeks, it’s people, a very similar kind of image, a utopia, golfing at the world’s end, keep golfing, a dystopian vision, a continuity, the bucolic English countryside, Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, Jane Austen, J.G. Ballard, pastoral, industrial, tamed nature, a lawn, feedstock for our machines, Kim Stanley Robinson’s The High Sierra: A Love Story, Switzerland, all about the hiking, under Mercury’s surface, Ministry Of The Future, catastrophes into eucatastrophes, he loves this environment, this landscape, lightly pissing on Yosemite, I hate Yosemite, The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois, searching for other survivors, about to kiss, we have to procreate, only New Yorkers were killed, almost lynched, a cash reward, Pseudopod, another British writer, M.P. Shiel, the movie is pretty good, Harry Belafonte, The Purple Cloud, he just steals other people’s stuff, this is nothing like British Columbia, same story different location, different title, The Place Of Pain, a lens that allows you to see the Moon’s surface like no other telescope can, super-duper-liar, lifting and using ideas, The World, the Flesh And The Devil (1959), heavy-handed, Star Trek, bring back Jim Crow, the cyanogen scare of 1906, Cosmos, Carl Sagan, never explicated to any great degree, a lake in central Afica that had a burp and killed everybody around it, a Fortean style gas, a heavy gas, Lake Nyos in Cameroon, impeding in Salt Lake, invisible, the entire text, Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien, we don’t know what happened to cause Jenny’s death, her funeral over zoom, they had just adopted a kid, Redonda, this guy’s really kill, this guy’s horrible, fun, a liar, it might be worse than that, Colin Wilson, Michael Moorcock, The Yellow Invasion, child molestation, everything about him is monstrous, his grift goes on and on, a kind of stature, a couple of handfuls of books from that period, palate cleanser, a lot of fun, very moving, done more with it, end of the world/British invasion stories, good writing, just as valuable for the context, if you’re interested in genre history, Francis Ford Coppola, an ongoing joke, roots in a lie, his dad ennobled him, his way of inveigling his way into the good graces of publishers, not occupiable, ESP and reincarnation, would you like to be a lord, a way of having a conversation with Vincent Price, Hollywood creepy, giant cosplay, Arthur Machen, Umberto Eco, another creepy guy, pedophiles out in the world, Sailing Alone Around The World by Joshua Slocum, not acting on best behavior, Jesse’s politics: pirates stabbing liches, Anne McCaffrey, Jesse can beat her ghost, live afraid, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, Gutenberg.org, a great story, 30 pages, about 45 minutes to read aloud, Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel, he is that guy, lost an eye and lost an arm, a portal fantasy, the story is very illustrative, intermural television, can it be done?, 1930, only 100 years off, Science & Invention, Dick Tracy’s two way radio, Metropolis by Thea von Harbou and her husband, contemporaneous with the making of the film, Alan Dean Foster, an amazing BBC radio drama adaptation, novelizations of movies based on novels, Philip K. Dick and Blade Runner, audiobooks of the damned, pirate audiobook narrations of novelizations, The Terminator, get inside Sarah Connor’s head, based on the script, Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Alien, fantastic, a stage adaptation of Aliens, a high school production, Sigourney Weaver in the audience, it stages really well, with film we don’t have to restage, refer people back to the original film, take care of that flood, rising tide, good book, Logan’s Run, Downward To Earth, Sixth Column, photography stuff, bud and stuff, hang out with Terence and see his beautiful southern France, abandoned lunatic asylum, changed it back, flash photography, photography takes practice, ghost hunters, flicker every so often, invite any spirit to play with it, arrange a card game with a couple of spirits, wild fun, the later end of Conan Doyle’s stuff, historical tours, hand hewn stone, 2nd biggest structure on Earth, built just before the Civil War, the rump state of Virginia, a Union unit seized all the money, ghost stories, the idea situation, a trash fire algorithm, the host with the most, do some Silverberg, life is really good, spoiled, choosing not to believe.

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #754 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #754 – Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper – read by Mark Nelson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hours, 14 minutes minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert.

Talked about on today’s show:
Henry Beam Piper, 1961, paired with another Piper, probably serialized?, no, doesn’t need a serial feel, Putnam and Sons, standard Piper spaceship: ball, the hunting of the seamonster, Lone Star Planet, chased by giant steer, more action hunting in this, makes you want to read it, influences, a Jack London novel, Moby Dick, kind of a juvenile, a YA protagonist, not 18 yet, felt younger, felt older, “Tin Tin And The Space Whalers”, Tin Tin at the typewriter, drill down into this book, Tin Tin on Instagram, streamer tech, video and audio recording everything, flashing it to his dad, their planet doesn’t have satellites, only 20,000 people on the planet, stubborn SOBs, occasional miscreant, divide satellites by the number of people on earth, Jesse’s not a math guy, GPS, navigating from the stars and inertial systems, cute surprising moves, on the docks, pulls out a gun, sea-snail, gets poisoned, showcases Piper’s hobby horses, excuses for guns, excuses to smoke, loves his guns, low opinion of police, respect, government forces lumped in with the racketeers, as a group they get no respect, libertarianism is in the mix, propaganda for libertarianism, undercutting that, multiple volunteer fire departments in the same city?, one alarm system, seven small villages, look at the geography of this planet, near antarctica, very rural, ports, no farming, vat meat, vegan meat, under-egged that, limited to the ocean journey, the lifeboat, a Battlestar Galactica episode, Dogget will survive until the air turned to liquid, taught us interesting things, Fritz Leiber’s A Pail Of Air, To Build A Fire by Jack London, The Sea Wolf, Eden among the sealions, not a romantic vacation, thick bark trees, using machine guns to cut down trees, more guns in this scene?, everybody brought their own personal weapons, the meta, a former slaver hiding his identity, a dead woman’s fingers, driving down the price of a natural resource in order to enrich himself, the hazards of monopolism, they wanna lynch, government’s on the case, that’s be nice, not very likely, Israel hunting Nazis, a Federation government, agents, at the general level or admiral level, James Bond, ordinary murderer, bank robber or conartists, enslave a planet, he’s a war criminal, more along the Hitler lines, characters from the Jack Vance Demon Prince novels, a personal mission not a government mission, the Manuel Noriega story, maybe I should run this country, they went after him, they knew he was corrupt, ask Saddam Hussein, why am I the one defending libertarianism to H. Beam Piper?, lynch law is bad, correct moral message, you must go to court, reading books, schools in Florida, supporting public education, the value of a good education, old fashioned, out in 7 months, useless information from chat GPT, good curation of knowledge, critical race theory in math books, banning hijabs, a women only safe space room, wasn’t even allowed to do her internship, a math class, a technique to divide the poors, telling H. Beam Piper his business, going against his own instincts, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, grows up wild, ends up working for the British empire, his Irish father and his good instincts, turn him into a spy, British empire good, Heinlein takes that and says I can do one better, Citizen Of The Galaxy, he has legs at home, gathering information for the Empire, goes a little cynical with them, a revolution is about to start, we’re storming the Bastille today, whoof the rug is pulled out from under him, cooler heads have already been on the case, he’s not as good as Heinlein for this, YA elements, where’s the romance?, the girl who’s going to work for him, doing romance in the 40s and the 50s, not in the cards for our hero Mr. H. Beam Piper, the sister, she’s a girl!, that’s a rough place, these rough people, the dad is busy smoking, doing the job of three people, way below, he’s not doing it as good, we need way more about the ecology of a planet with four days in the year, they can’t eat any of the food, and the food can’t eat them, Larry Niven, catsnake?, for this planet Niven [would be] better, Space Viking, breezier and easier, very simple, space battles, why is this science fiction?, the strongest science fiction idea in here, its the instagram recorder, youtuber streamer, and the hunting of the wax, shielding, a commodity, intense sunlight, analogizes with Moby Dick, whaling was huge, tallow wax and whale oil, how they breed, not to hunt them to extinction, traditional societies, north German Bremen dish made with whale meat, the meat was not the moneymaker, it was the sperm, petroleum, he doesn’t do enough with that, a reporter, friend doesn’t quite do enough, disappears like Ishmael, not a classic for the ages, Little Fuzzy, interesting, not a terrible books, but not special, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, the definitive Piper book, Omnilingual, a richer piece, passes the Jesse test, the 20 chapter titles, a cute little nod, obscure author from Scotland: Arthur Conan Doyle, the Javelin, the Pequod, gunpron, monster killing, treason, masks off, a simple story, 180 hour away from sunset, H. Beam Piper with Larry Niven, had he not killed himself, they could’ve been friendly, Robert E. Howard, tapering off, Clark Ashton Smith, ailing parents, kept changing, c’mon you can do this, doesn’t have the fire in the belly anymore, coming into his oats, Jerry Pournelle, sometimes it don’t work, sometimes it do, Oath Of Fealty, Dream Park ain’t a good book, a little silly, pretty good book, the whole Bish thing, a kind of western, quickdraw, Firefly and Serenity (2005), special agent, an H. Beam Piper tv show, our heroes and their dialogue, the empire they were fighting against were flat, the Alliance, insurance company, the Dortmunder, a Donald Westlake character, the reavers, better in prediction than in execution, it had potential, fashionable to criticize, Cora always had her issues, the best episode of Firefly: Objects In Space, a bottle episode, the casting was good, The Witcher tv series, Elric, they both have swords and white hair, hiatus, forgetting to cancel shows, the pilot for the Logan’s Run TV show, the movie in fast forward, the new Logan, an elder council is running things!, they have to make it a series, there’s old people?, old and weird looking, there’s no renewal, Logan and this other chick, they find a car in D.C., an android robot that will help them every episode, a Paul thing, the Planet Of The Apes TV series, about 6 Star Trek episodes, you can’t tell anybody what you saw there, an old circus poster of an ape behind bars, Sky has never been so good again, music videos and cartoons, Dutch people, best TV channel ever, D.C. Fontana was story editor, Harlan Ellison wrote an episode, David Gerrold, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Logan’s Run, all on for Odds On, not abridged, a Jesse book, Breakthroughs In Science by Isaac Asimov, in a rabbit, Sixth Column, Tommy Patrick Ryan, Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak, Charwoman’s Shadow a novel by Lord Dunsany, in Spain, dowry, substitute shadow doesn’t grow and shrink, praises by Theodore Sturgeon, I love the book, humour and beauty, E.F. Bleiler found it excellent, tradition of George MacDonald, first science fiction novel, Keeper Of The Isis Light by Monica Hughes, Crisis on Conshelf Ten, political crisis or something, set on the Moon, her stuff is really short, thin volumes, mostly girly and boarding school stuff, kiddie gossip for teens, a series, Invitation To The Game, a horrible situation, it’s odd, fewer women science fiction writers, she put out a lot of YA, solid science fiction book, not having the greatest prose ever, on the pirate website, a real shame, Invitation The Game by Monica Hughes, Lisse and her friends are unemployable after graduation, embrace The Game, narrated by June Carter, abebooks, Scholastic Books, way before Harry Potter, the YA cover look, an affordable edition, the shipping, import them, twice the value of the book for shipping, Ballantine Adult Fantasy, the Internet Archive, a hard science fiction dystopian novel, children go to government schools, social welfare systems, agitating for political reform, many are involved in organized crime, just write science fiction like you mean it, and not too long, 192 pages, from 1990, died in 2003, she was British, Canadian by emigration, 11 novels?, Earthdark, the Arthur C. Clarke moonbus book, Devil On My Back, used headset, hairgel, the price was right, bargain hunter, Jesse’s gonna hug Cora, Angélique books by Anne Golo, proto-bodice rippery, smoky shag rug, nicotine stained wooden rosary, one bloody Mary two bloody Marys, might as well convert, half-equipped, stinky old books, best wishes to the father-in-law, taking parents to hospitals, four hospitals in six weeks, nursing home, and blah, Paul met Cora’s mom, already in pain, not very communicative, karaoke evenings, what went wrong, heart surgery, hip surgery, not a lot going on with her anymore, Worldcon, collapsed at the airport, farm animals, recognizing farm animal, have you ever touched a bird, have you ever touched a cow, where was Paul born?, have your touched a cow, have you touched a bird, a lot of people haven’t, three days old, Jesse’s mom’s photography is awful, very significant hand disability, well done Jesse, you get 9 points, the one who blocked Jesse, cows or goats, not a farm kid, obviously a cow, cow, bull, and calf, a little bull, the relevant pieces, an active farm across the road, the cows next door, one of the cows would run away, Uncle Heine and Aunt Marianna, three sets of grandparents, kids need to do that, in New York city, a farm visit, city kids, look at all the animals, sit on a horse, had to have his balls banded, that makes him a steer so he can be eaten, ox and oxen, most of the meat, you need one bull just like you need one rooster, prairie oysters, rocky mountain oysters, I’d like a weird meat cut please, boy penises are dog chewies, rawhide chewies are penises, product descriptions, pure meat, oxen are commonly castrated, don’t steer us wrong, working animals, riding an ox, horses or camels or bicycles, a monkey riding a dog, riding an elephant, bull-riding doesn’t last very long, pull carts, ploughs, Paul has to game, Over The Edge, work for an embassy, misadventures, get into troubles and have adventures, bye, breakfast is what Jesse is hearing, Odd’s On by Michael Crichton, reuse of Easy Go notes.

HARDCOVER - Four Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

Four Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #753 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #753 – The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson – read by Mark Nelson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (7 hours, 29 minutes minute) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
1960, Avon Books, reprinted in 1980, LibriVox, hey this is started to get interesting, the final twist, ringing a bell, when he had his eye taken out, I sacrificed it for wisdom, that guy with the hammer, should’ve seen it coming, the only thing he ever talks about: Scandinavian mythology, Scandinavian history, he did a trick on me, a secret fantasy story, historical, something special here, details were new, Speed is not a good movie but it gives surplus value, an elevator action scene, a bus scene, every Marvel movie, an L.A. Subway scene, underground horizontal, more like Spartacus, working for some other king, a historical figure, something else, spilling over the premise of the cover, a sex book, role reversal, other characters are sex objects too, unusual for Poul Anderson, very tame, a veil drawn over it, sex happens offstage, a little bit of voluptuousness, rub one out to it, given the cover, a very poor sex book, historical adventure, historical exploration, terrible pornography, if that was what he was aiming for, coming into a seaport, smells and sights, sweaty sailors and spices of the market, good at description, on plot, meandering, he knew where he was going, not an intricately plotted spy novel, doesn’t leave dangling threads, easy competent well done read, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur, pre-that, the Roman emperors, The Storm Before The Storm by Mike Duncan, Julius Caesar, Mike Duncan’s The History Of Rome podcast, the Revolutions podcast, throwing a dart and getting close enough, the Norse myths, our guys are always swearing they’re under weirds and trolls, the days of the weeks gods, the Edda, 1222-1223, well after the events of this book, pretty fun, twist ending, tricked Jesse the whole way through, enthusiasm for Poul Anderson novels, meandering journey, highlights of the era, Marius, a servile war, done way to much?, if you know you know, Paul was delighted, Sulla, the wars against the Cimbri, nice descriptions, smells and sunset and oars, quite good things, Mithridates, a very interesting character, our godly hero, interacting and learning, this pulled it off in the plotting department, we have to stop this Iliad, oh that’s clever,

In the time that followed, Phryne had horror to do. Twice she stopped—once to cast up at a certain sight and once to change her blood-stiffened gown for a tunic. It was hot and foul in the ‘tween-decks space; the groaning and gasping seemed to fill her cosmos. Her temper began to slip—having held the hand of one youth and smiled on him, as the only lullaby she could give while he died, she heard a man screaming as though in childbirth, and, seeing he had a mere broken finger, she chased him out at dagger point. Otherwise it was to wash and bandage, cut and sew and swaddle, set and splint and fetch water, with no more help than a ship’s carpenter from Galilee or some such dusty place.

oh, you cute little guy Poul Anderson, we don’t know about that guy yet, she’s Jesus, that was a setup, deifying these characters, a clever book, a clever guy, future allusion, some really nice writing in there, speaks badly to Jesse’s not always happy with Poul Andersonness, kinda impressed, Three Hearts & Three Lions, The Broken Sword, it has to speak to something inside you, handing this book, a mystery series, Roman children solving mysteries [The Roman Mysteries], the Marcus Didius Falco series, tricking, deceiving, trick or treat is fun, hearing trick as a negative, hating magicians, I sacrificed it for wisdom, Jesse likes getting tricked, set the word trick aside, trick ourselves, make it so you can’t do that, just a regular mind trick, we cultivate these things, do a podcast every week, therefore I should read more books, hey this is a pretty good book, more to say about it?, the treatment of women in this book, ’50s and ’60s books being very sexists, women as props, what the women are saying, Cornelia and Phryne are very different people, just as objects, have more thought for a what a woman must be thinking, the stated perspective, a free woman of Rome, manipulate or plead with the men in her life, when Flavius is talking to Phryne, the slave brand is upon you, toothless at 40 years of age, in a peat bog where it always rains, the lot of nearly all women in that time, women who are complex, women are just crazy, just humour them sometimes, he gains wisdom, the narrator’s perspective is not the writer’s perspective, as close to a god as a person from that era, hey have you heard of Mithridates, something about poison, he died old, a very historical piece of fiction, all fun stuff, Spartacus retelling, kinda characterize this guy who is so famous, his relationship to his vassal states, fictional characters interacting with him, putting Julius Caesar on stage, thinking about his empire, Poul Anderson pulled it off somehow, gender here, the final scene where they find a shitty house made of rocks, a half-wild dog, a squalling kid, an old woman dressed in rags, the fate, they burn their crops and give them money, the battle happens, get into the heads of the ancient Scandinavians, dragons are bad, they’re stingy, a lot of compensation, it was wrong, in a land where violence is law, the strange morality of the Scandinavian gods, shield-maiden, they’re not slaves because they’re female, not relegated to second class status, in the Roman system women are second class, males can be sex slaves, so reminiscent of the Spartacus television series, are the named characters are historical figures, interpersonal relationships, getting you into the slave mentality, born a slave, I was well treated, my grandfather was free, chasing after a person who’s motivation we don’t know, stuff for girls and for boys in here, adventures through whatever the men are doing, agency and action for the women, Cutthroat Island (1995), always streaming somewhere, pirates don’t bury their treasure, Mary Read and Geena Davis, Anne Bonny, Matthew Modine is charming, a higher or a lower mode, this is very realistic, now it is a mythmaking thing, the mirror, zig-zags across the Mediterranean, die on the ship, a very wily Roman, Paul appreciates a wily Roman, drives a spike of conflict, fosters the rebellion of the slaves, they don’t do pirating right either, not quite the roman lake it is later, Egypt, to get away from Rome, they’re headed south, one pirate raid, the book turns north and keeps going, splits up a family, city home and country home, we have a sense of why it happened, so he could get that divorce?, a bastard child, he got exactly what he wanted there, the Spartacus movie, brutal and amazing, seeing what slave relations are like, if one slave harms the master all the slaves die, break up families, absolutely routine, if you’re obedient, he’s not a king exactly, a chieftain in his own land, thinking about motivations for characters, you might want to kill yourself to deny your master, in dissuading future slaving raids, greedy not to kill yourself, if you don’t deny them, the hope of reuniting, to control, an insidious evil kind of control, the slave hierarchy, kindly treated slaves, what roman life was like, if you’ve got a frozen city, graffiti, literature, shopping bills, documentation, giving us the lived in daily thing, bamboozled, a Roman sex book, the visuals of the movie 300 (2007), sexuality in slow motion, an undercurrent, sexy slave time, when Princess Leia is wearing the slave bikini outfit, a trope, leaning in, what does this really mean, a checkbox, a great visual, what would this really be like, a prized object, good for you, the master is fine with it, what if you can’t perform anymore, he’s got a whole lot of game going on, Trish unmuting herself, what’s “comps”?, comparisons, The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, Emperor Darius, Alexander’s boy/lover, discussion of slavery, be pleasing to your master, history in it, court life in Persia, Underground, secret emancipators, some of the complexity of slavery, two “recs”, secret website, a goodreads thing?, a line in here, not a sexist book, out of context, “A few months of giggling Eastern wenches had shown Eodan how sheer tedium could drive so many men to catamites”, some guy who propositioned him, a power relation that’s bad, more complex than that, shipboard slave rebellion, these two women are mine, pent up sexual energy, staking his claim in order to protect, not just that he wants to own them, documentation of early piracy, the Julius Caesar kidnapped by pirates story, come back and kill you all, political rumours, early diplomatic missions, become the catamite of some eastern potentate, if you’re the bottom you’re trash, the attitude of the time, Eutopia by Poul Anderson (in Dangerous Visions), the Odin myth, The Sorrow Of Odin The Goth, Behold The Man for Norse mythology, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ I Am A Barbarian, pungent comments about the decadence of Romans, 1967, pitched as a free translation, Canadian public domain, Burroughs doing I, Claudius from a slave POV, Burroughs doing Rome, researcher, Burroughs is fun, a great prose slinger, Burroughs is very possible, he wrote a lot of books, 26 Tarzan books, four westerns, the beginning of [A Princess Of Mars], people who liked the cover of this book, a science fictional story, a man who is slaved, The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro, Ascendant Sun, the promo materials, Lucy Lawless wearing a carnal dress, a succession of harems, book 5, back in interstellar life, the other evil space empire, good books, jump in on book 4, don’t be put off by the numbers, set in the same universe sort of thing, she wrote a lot of books, Gabe Dybing’s review of The High Crusade and The Golden Slave on Black Gate, he’s so wise, he’s well trained in speaking well, Paul is a Romanophile, what if he was telling the truth there?, my wife is needy, I’d like her to have a sexy northern barbarian, why don’t you come over to my team, he’s not a dumb evil, we never get a reveal, he’s manipulative, you flip it, the Flavius story, from his POV, tattoo on his forehead, he’s got an agenda, is he a liar?, you would read the other side of this, Netflix’s Barbarians, so many TV shows, since Vikings started up, quasi historical shows, Caroline Lawrence, half-hour [episodes], August 79ad, kids running around Pompeii, the fun kinda time travel where you spend time with people, the Falco series is a game that the author is playing with us, Marlowe style lines, strange ship docking in the port, a Children’s tv show, like Hardy Boys in a different period of time, aimed a little longer, deep on YouTube, Thieves Of Ostia, The Assassin Of Rome, The Twelve Tasks Of Flavia Gemina, Plebs, here student take this book, a fairly fruitful discussion of this trashy sex novel, no and no, Avon, kind of trashy, Jesse likes trashy, bildungsroman, books that are designed to kill time, are they ever get off this farm?, sneaking in, written in bursts?, repeated words, an artifact, when he left for Rome, sometimes there are bursts of movement that are not documented, the setting and the rising of the sun, if you don’t give up on it, leading publishers of romance fiction, not high status, Slave Girl comics, the Avon Fantasy Reader, designed to be cheap trashy entertainment, had he been available, Fabio would have been the golden slave, not exactly what it says on the tin, leans into the whipping, an aberration, the epilogue, had he left it off, it wrapped stuff up with a bow, in case you didn’t know, not being told, historicals with his wife, other novels, a mystery novel, he did make a living, his only job, 11 Time Patrol novels, Shield Of Time, the publishers wishes, give me 10 more like this, did his own game with it, a small percentage, he’s written a ton, a gap plugged, glad we read it, how many pseudonyms?, any?, Gardner F. Fox, a writing machine, Four-Day Planet, Odds On, The Venom Business, too long, off this Crichton train, hit too many potholes, Breakthroughs In Science, Star Born by Andre Norton, the animal one [The Beast Master], The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, the comic book adaptation of Downward To The Earth by Robert Silverberg, alien elephants, Footfall, French, The Glory That Was by L. Sprague De Camp, time travel fantasy?, introduction by Robert A. Heinlein, dedicated to Isaac Asimov, its all been down planet from there, Jerry Pournelle/Larry Niven joints, the arcology one is shit, Oath Of Fealty, When Worlds Collide, Lucifer’s Hammer, Vulcan’s Hammer by Philip K. Dick, the terrible Andre Norton: Star Hunter, Space Viking, relatively short, Paul hasn’t updated his PUBG, a new map, the intense mode, very quick, Jesse is not a looter in games (only in real life), H. Beam Piper’s ghost is joining us?, Terence is retired so available for podcasting, Pirate Enlightenment too, to be a game master, when you’re making your own campaign, very chipper, 20 sessions,

1 hour 9 minutes

The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson

ZEBRA - The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson

Ascendant Sun by Catherine Asaro

Spartacus Blood And Sand

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The SFFaudio Podcast #735 – READALONG: A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, and Tony DeSimone talk about A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Talked about on today’s show:
yay, the title is from Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe, yes is the answer, all the repetitions that build the emotions, Auber, written to somebody, that’s for you, the three names of the lady, not super-related to the plot of this novel, a point of inspiration, you take a great line of poetry and make it your book name, what he’s paying homage to, he didn’t steal the plot, this author from India, reset in India, the religion is no longer, 38 years later, this is very familiar, we’re all the same all over the planet, the entire book was stolen, chapter 8, the author ended up killing herself, because she knew it would be found out, wrote a [probably] suicide note to her mentor, this is the opposite of that, the great detective, into the public domain, using Sherlock Holmes, filing the serial numbers off of everything, making them archetypes, the vicar, an amorphous evil vicar, the wolfman, not from a literary source, Larry Talbot, Lon Chaney, Jr., Benicio Del Toro, The Wolf Man (1941), a cultist, a neutral party, set in England, 1887, a lost opportunity, October 31, 1887, Dr. Christopher S. Kovacs, The Lovecraft Ezine, a novelty book not a novel, The Wisdom Of George Bush, narration by the author, novel length, a bit different from normal novels, loose with definitions, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, experimental for the time period, epistolary books are popular, a collage book, I see what you did here, noticing the ending, the complete ending vs. the particular ending, a choldren’s book from 2011, Go The Fuck To Sleep, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, a novel told from the dog’s point of view, Elmore Leonard’s Coyote In The House, I’m a coyote, I’m cool, Be Cool, when he’s doing something else, confirm in the bottom right hand corner, Snuff, a cur and a hound, what breed he is, a mutt, conjured, one of Paul’s characters, a demon in disguise, modeling Hugo on Snuff, more than just a regular dog, an uplifted dog, what I was before he summoned me, Delvish stories, the horse Black, when you’re visualizing this character, a short haired dog or a long haired dog, medium haired dog, a big large greyish dog, Trish is wary, Gahan Wilson illustrations, a bloodhound, the sense of sniffing and to kill, conflicted rooting for Snuff, his master is Jack The Ripper, just blocking out his competition?, under a curse, being a closer, counteract his own curse, magical knife, the vivisectionist scene, Cain the original killer, Hugh Jackman, Van Helsing (2004), the monster that fights other monsters, read the last little bit of the novelty book, of course the distinction was subjective, the last paragraph, Jack and Jill went down the hill…, a button ending, just off the character’s right leg, wearing a Jeffrey Dahmer t-shirt, we are distanced in time from the Jack The Ripper murders, the Strange Studies podcast, HPPodcraft.com, will Paul be upset?, they addressed it, this is a long time ago, Genghis Khan was a bad man, the other Jack from england: Springheeled Jack, assaulting women, way less tight as a narrative, a folklore figure like Robin Hood, a pre-pulp figure, penny dreadfuls, villain to hero, Professor Moriarty, Star Trek, Wolf In The Fold, Time After Time, the fictionalized Jack The Ripper, the lengthy of the dog’s hair matters a lot, a shaggy dog story, a long joke, Paul disagrees with, unfair towards humour, why is Jill named Jill, the Frankenstein character, degrade, novelty books aren’t as good as novels is what Jesse is hearing, worthy?, the best way to understand what’s going on, Dracula gets killed, it’s not Dracula, faked his own death, constructed to be a novelty book in every respect, every day of the month is a chapter, the last line is a joke setup from the beginning of the book, the reason all the characters are in it, this is a monster mash, to have that cover, not design to be a novel of the normal kind, not a real book, a not well written book (if it is a blank book), weighty, the ride, not a substantial book, he’s playing (like a game), an early form of graphic novel, graphic novel is another word for comics, trade collections, a format, Reckless by Sean Phillips and Ed Brubaker, Gahan Wilson was never a comic book style artist, having him drawing these characters is fun, flying body parts, that cover is amazing, this is a mystery, setup to be a mystery, animals are trading information, James Warhola, one of the reasons Tony was drawn to the book, the animal characters, the spirit of the book, the graveyard scene, trading body parts, disappointed, fun and funny, a mirror, a statue, Pallas Athena, a regular female bust, the owl, naming characters, which one is Jack, the rat, the Mad Monk, a squirrel, Cheater, Larry Talbot in the chair, two assistants, unnamed cultists, the Good Doctor and his creation, openers, another bat, that’s the idea, bring all these character together, [The Monster Squad (1987)], the Creature From The Black Lagoon, a Spider-Woman, are we missing a mummy?, the thing steamer trunk, the thing in the wardrobe, the thing in the circle, stories with “thing” in the title, The Thing In The Cellar [by David H. Keller], The Thing Under The Stairs, what is the thing?, evil entities trapped in various places, growl and snarl, a checklist, a novel because it is a long Zelazny book, novelty films, Clue (1985), Battleship (2012), [The Beast Must Die (1974)], as a part of its marketing, 3-D, a marketing gimmick, constructed to be a shaggy dog story, because of that button ending, novels are the highest form of art, movie and myth characters, pays tribute to monster movies in general, mashups Abbot And Costello Meet…, Hammer Horror, Drak Pack, Rick Moranis as a teacher for a highschool for monsters, Gill-Man, Van Helsing, vampire brides, the witch, Hester, he’s making that joke, shaggy, its coming, shaggy fur, Zelazny is a great narrator, how good it was, the first Amber book, Nine Princes In Amber, Dark Tower audiobooks narrated by Stephen King, The Horses Of Lir, folklore resonates within, a universal truth of humanity, some older person is mean to you, there’s always a you, what water is and what it means, its transparent and also dark, where the mythology comes in, [New Wave], A Rose For Ecclesiastes, Damnation Alley, a cult following, other than Amber…, The Unicorn Variation, Jack Of Shadows, Deus Irae, Philip K. Dick, Lord Of Light, This Immortal [serialized as …And Call Me Conrad], slipped out of one dimension, there’s an audiobook for it, definitions of a shaggy dog story, irrelevant incidents, the very obvious joke, I love monsters, my friend Gahan Wilson loves monsters, he started with the reverse, wouldn’t it be cool if…, Case from Neuromancer, Molly Millions is a cool character, important in Neuromancer, the book is more important than Molly Millions, apologize for any confusion, make it a Lovecraft book, the Dreamlands, straight out of The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath, the dog and cat are flying, the river Shai, the river Skai, strange turbans, thag weed, did he do all this from memory, a typo?, a clue?, a verbal typo, a little error, did he do all that from memory?, compressing a bunch of things together, fake Dreamlands passages, Oriab, the technical plot of the book, openers and closers, they didn’t use the phrase, Robert Bloch’s The Opener Of The Way, August Derleth style, The Dunwich Horror, the Whateleys, the Universal Monster characters, the reaching across the lines, Snuff and Graymalkin, Jack and Jill, deliberately obscure, teamwork and respect, indignation, the rules of etiquette, Bubo is the cheater, Cheater, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a retelling of The Jungle Book, oh that person is a werewolf, Mrs. Lupescu, Mr. Lupescu [by Anthony Boucher], a teen book, or weird older kids in their fifties, kids can be bloodthirsty, Coraline, we want to be scared, Jack is essentially a good guy, Snuff is very loyal, polite as he rips you apart, ambiguous morality, they like the world the way it is, for whatever reason, having too much fun, the blind beggar with the pencils, Linda Enderby, having a lot of fun, I know who that is, a page where you put the checkmark beside, under Jesse’s rubric, a Jesse book is where ideas come front an center, clever, not as great a book as The Graveyard Book, the idea is not as good as the idea of The Graveyard Book, this is fun, WordSearch style games, it is a strange book, Roman A Clef, a novel with a key, each character is an analogue for someone else, The Great Gatsby?, you bring yourself to your book, the one set in hell, The Inferno, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Kurt Vonnegut in hell, it expects a certain knowledge, the hardest one to understand is the cultist or the mad monk, the Experiment Man, clunk around and pet dogs, Lenny from Of Mice And Men, Blaze by Stephen King, a Gollum-like way, neither an opener or a closer, the animal characters, charm and personality, make a fool of himself, he’s doing typical Sherlock Holmes things, his greatest disguise yet, one of Trish’s favourite books, it gives her a good and happy feeling, playing with ideas and references and characters in a very agreeable way, a very charming book, you’re allowed to love books, Zelazny’s opinion of the book, Zelazny’s son, living with his dad, fun writing this book, one of his personal favourites, long long long long joke, a short shaggy dog story, he’s not that shaggy, you pulled the rug out from under me, and Gray and I ran after, this whole book is front framed, I met a dog in a graveyard recently, that tiny front is subsequent to all the action, a prologue, recounting events of the past, chapter length is quite variable, the last chapter is the longest, not eating all your candy at once, why it is so unnormal novel like, Graymalkin means grey cat, moggy, that poor snake, Quicklime, getting drunk on fermented plums, sympathy of view for openers who were in it for good causes, letting Elder Gods ruin everything, a slavering vicar, a power monger, a lighthearted book, thoughtful, a good writer has different hobby horses that they want to ride, good writing or riding, scary parts of the book, trapped in the mad doctor’s laboratory, the vivisection, based on real stuff, demonstrated and wrote articles, the Anti-Vivisection League, The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, his characters are all villains, a big loveable guy, all the animals get along weirdly well, a fable, its funnier if you cut it off, weird stuff, specialized craziness, its self-aware, writing a werewolf book, a recognition, half the fun of the reveal is that you have to infer, Rasputin, a quiz book, a recognition guide, before the web, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was lucky to have three names, not being based on a specific character, a good place to start, an amazing idea or a fun idea, a classic for the ages or just a good book, it presumes the audience is people of his era, which political figure is being represented, it comes down through language, we know what a gladstone bag is but not who Gladstone is, Night Of The Hunter (1955), Tequila-Li, it should have been a penguin, a strange familiar, a big long giant useless pun, completely useless, a library sale, a provenance, all the illustrations, you need to experience the book version with the Gahan Wilson illustrations, a signed copy goes for $265, inscribed vs. signed, please don’t dedicate it to me, association copies are more valuable, a five time Hugo finalist, some rando, this was for Paul, massive collection $150,000, Nine Princes In Amber signed, advance reading copy, even truer than first edition, uncorrected proof, this work is a novel, why are you telling me it is a novel?, Based On A True Story: A Memoir by Norm Macdonald is not a true memoir, the ghost writer that Norm Macdonald hired was an alcoholic, one big long shaggy dog rape joke, foreword by Louis C.K., autobiography but I don’t have to tell the truth, describing it as a novel, novel means new, [A Million Little Pieces by James Frey], memory, what I remember about it, untrustworthiness, Better Call Saul, a copy of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, how time travel works, a real book, really good writers, the children’s book, a 19th century book, the ability to talk to animals, a gnome or something, The Moon Is A Balloon by David Niven memoir, so raw and real, BBC audio drama of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising, Over Sea, Under Stone, The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Jesse has some problems with series, New Year’s Day, Star Trek, I, Q by John de Lancie and Peter David, abridgement as an art form, abridgements or short stories, abridged books have fallen out of popularity, The Rules Of Acquisition, audiobooks come first and the paper book comes after, audiobooks are cheaper than paperbooks, Jesse’s prediction: audiobook and ebook only, colour eink devices, the full experience, some radical shifts in publishing, a backlit screen vs. a piece of paper, a digital device that doesn’t fuck up your eyes, Paperwhite Kindle devices, ebooks, library background, a sale on at The Library Of America, books are light and heavy, at night, reading before sleep, the blue light thing is bullshit, circadian rhythm, screens, Doctor Who, relaxing sleep related videos, rain and fireplace and somebody reading a book, real rain not fake rain, Wayne June needs to become a YouTube personality, a little set, a dog or a cat, there’s no problem Doctor Boblum, don’t mind these strange lumps, nerdy asmr videos, influenced my taste in music greatly, all the extras, the actress who play Jo Grant, you poor boy, more extras than Jesse’s ever seen, the problem is the writing, William Hartnell vs. Jon Pertwee, Inferno, a geothermal drilling plant, a mad scientist, a 1984 style dystopia, everybody is borrowing from everybody else, The Monster Hunters, they go through all the monsters, superfunny, the ElfQuest audio drama, work emergency -> emerged properly, Apple bricked Tony’s phone, The Haunting Of Roy Steel, a werewolf movie with a “paws”, what is the best way of expressing that idea?, Barry Letts, KVOS 12, one of the worst ones, the special effects, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, on PBS in North America, serials of variable length, ten 25 minute episodes, coffee addiction, really cool ads, local comic book store, 3 o’clock in the morning ads, recorded over, NSYNC footage, I recognize your name, you were a scriptwriter for Doctor Who, Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers Of London, people can have it whenever they want, can’t stop it might as well allow it, Tony’s reading of The Time Machine, The Sign Of The Four, Hard Case Crime, The Valley Of Fear, The Five Orange Pips, it works in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, the KKK, weird topical stuff, a lot of it is tech based, bicycles, Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the Annotated Brothers Grimm, being a bookstore employee, you need to arrange your life to do the things you like, how the government is fucking you, the rent is too high, a very big rabbit hole, happily retweet, pick your targets.

A Night In The Lonesome October by James Warhola

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The SFFaudio Podcast #713 – READALONG: Ghostland by Edward Parnell and Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #713 – Jesse and Connor Kaye talk about Ghostland: In Search Of A Haunted Country by Edward Parnell and Like A Thief In Broad Daylight: Power In The Era Of Post-Human Capitalism by Slavoj Žižek

Talked about on today’s podcast:
a novel, a memoir, Edward Parnell only wrote one other book, the writing life, The Listeners, 2019, folk horror, this is gonna be much like Mark Fisher’s The Weird And The Eerie, ghost stories, such a memoir, interwoven, to much me me me me me me me, the subject, the author’s story, invested by the end, because story, the emotional hitter, commercial, television movie references, television adaptations, it hits like a very specific and narrow memoir, rambles to look at the places that inspired the writings and the people to live there, an hourglass and a skull, time and death, The Wicker Man, a raven, forests, the ghost of the grim reaper, bird imagery, bird watching, taking pictures, survey work, notes, on the website, key figures, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, the British landscape, Susan Cooper, Walter De La Mare, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Tam O’ Shanter, artists, Houdini, most of the assessments, The Night Land, The House On The Borderland, The Ghost Pirates, when he encounters them, children’s authors, Lucy M. Boston, the Green Knowe series, Mr Jim Moon, Jim Moon is this guy, media influenced him, Hypnogoria, The Children Of The Stones, the Doctor Whos, Quatermass at the end, Quatermass And The Pit, the 1979 Quatermass with the planet people, my brother’s dying, my mom has this disease, more literary in the UK, a really good publicist, we get Ready Player One, nostalgia tied to something real, attracted to these works, loss and death, inexorable forces, reading ghost stories and horror stories is therapeutic, therefore private and not to be read by anyone, three underlines, she goes blind, the period of time when these things are happening, the present day, this journey I’m taking through time and place, an enthusiastic book reviewer, Skule Skerry by John Buchan, Buchan’s best supernatural story, Edward Parnell’s brain on paper, he likes birds, an emotional book, leukemia, being in highschool, we’re friends is we’re broken in the same way, the opium we’re addicted to is weird fiction and horror, they’re not facing it again and again, the ideology of rom-coms, an extensive movie collection, a binful of movies, not happy movies, prison movies, science fiction movies, drama, The Lack podcast, eerie in fact, romantic comedies are ideological, this is fun, crime action, thriller drama, a very narrow opiate, facing the scary thing, escapism, escape from the horror, the black pill and white pill, horror is also escapism, emotional catharsis, cocaine bumps in the bathroom of a gas station, jump scares, two adaptations of Oh Whistle, And I’ll Come To You, My Lad, Michael Hordern, mumbles and putters, I just want a happy movie, films about cancer, Caterpillars by E.F. Benson, phantasmagorical light that consumes him like a cancer, metaphor, The Voice In The Night, pathos for people who did nothing wrong, lepers but worse, throat cancer, influenced, why does this stuff exist, upon first seeing The Wicker Man, it’s not fair, a bit of a jerk, a bit of a prude, that’s terrible and that’s the point, Arthur Machen’s The Cosy Room, everything is fine, everything is good, everything is fine, everything is good, everything is fine, everything is good, he can’t help but think of it, weird fiction as opposed to horror, The Willows, what we know about reality, Flannan Isle lighthouse, lighthouse keepers went missing, a D&D module based on The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, you open the house and there is all the food set on the table, cooling, where are the residents, a true short story not based on reality, The Lighthouse by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch finish, The Lighthouse (2019), something bad is going to happen, a true event, how much is embellished?, was it really warm though?, was the candle still smoking, Horror Of Fang Rock, no physical trauma from the page itself, themes and experiences one step away from reality, overdramatic, getting mad at the film, banal evil, Howie goes to the school, Rowan’s desk, a beetle tethered to a nail, that’s him, this poor thing, desensitized to the banal cruelty, if you grow up on a farm, a sacrifice, animals in there too, pigs and chickens, accept that sacrifice as a requirement, a purpose to the sacrifice, this doesn’t accomplish, just torture, do you really know that?, no school shootings on this island, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, the answer is not in the story, tradition, eating meating, I’m a vegan now, I choose what goes into my body, to great success, growing up in this tradition, a good ghost story, media things first works of writing not done by committee, Nigel Kneale, new Star Trek, it’s not really terrible, I’m still watching it, I’m not super-disappointed, the pain is so much less, written by a committee, hit these beats, too contrived, and dishonest, memes, fully grokking memes, even dishonest memes are honest in a way regular media can’t be, trying to make a point, resonating with somebody about something, an Avenger movie, Iron Man’s looking defeated, out of wormholes, that feeling that is generated in that moment and that scene, that meme’s stickiness, take that vision and adapt, The Tractate Middoth, not single vision or adapted from a single vision, committeed and commercial, reach exceeds grasp, why is that?, I would recommend it to other people, one sort of subject, his loss, flower language, his own personal truth, forget that, self exploitative, no falsity, all genuine, you need to punch this up, it hurts in a way that is genuine, people who haven’t had it will never be able to write that in a way that is at all convincing, cancer in media, not-genuine, the cancer film industry, dementia, making Connor angry, a cheap emotional device, genuine or ungenuine, I don’t need to know that I can fake it, the Our Opinions Are Correct podcast, Cory Doctorow on writing about guns, incorrect details, why should I care about something you don’t care about, a modified SIG Sauer, that style of writing is a mistake, really interesting ideas, Unauthorized Bread, loading the toaster, there’s the story, the details about any particular scene are there to get you to the ideas, maybe I didn’t need to read this whole thing, it’s a sign, gone to the place, confined to Britain proper, based on the experiences, the story reviews, how The Willows works, what trips Algernon Blackwood took, he found a dead body, how disconcerting, upsetting, traumatic, no wonder The Willows, Stephen King’s The Body, based on reality, that’s how kids are, especially boys, a dead body!, your currency in the kid community, years later, you remember that time we found a dead body, yeah the one I found, perversity comes from truth, a bullied short guy, responsible for the gyms we see all around us today, gyms are everywhere, too early, way ahead of his time, Physical Culture magazine, a McFadden publication, Ghost Stories, Liberty, the eugenics movement, WWI, the wrong location, go where the success happens, being a Hollywood movie star in Austria, atomic physicist in a backwoods community with no cyclotron, Jo Walton’s Among Others, witch, reading a lot of old fiction, the depth of the book is not there in the same way, is this the house where?, do you know anyone who was alive when?, looking at birds, the interleaving in, the journey itself, daytrips, communicating those experiences, his phone, sourcing the text message to get the date, 1982, February 15th, Tuesday, sciatica, 292s, I’m reading The Hobbit to the kids, on chemo, he’s dying here, there’s something wrong, a long term list of goals, I’m on a death path here, it can’t be true, don’t look it up, at the core, who is this who is coming?, a helluvah phrase, on the beach, the figure is coming towards him across the sand, this inevitable force, incomprehensible but coming for you, cancer, dice being rolled happening constantly, the wrong number once to often, no control over it, bad decisions, started smoking again, Korean ginseng, selenium, Steve Jobs, there’s hope, you don’t want there to be hope, we had fun, we talked about the old days, we joked about my hat, spend more time with the kids, say hello to mom and thank her, a good cry, horrible trauma for the whole family, not wanting to be there, I couldn’t be there, did it cut too close to the bone?, making it worse, completely helpless, taking people’s mind off it can make it worse, joking around as best she can, I’m a pirate, not something you can talk to kids at school about, didn’t want to be pitied, or treated differently, taking notice, they’re adults they know a little more about it, the heroes if there are any, the medical professionals, helping people out of wheelchairs, a kindly word here or there, service, nobody did anything wrong, if we could just get some more money, rumors and hopes, what’s it gonna kill me?, beyond formal treatment, do the things I like to do, eat delicious food and smoke cigarettes, you’re going to make it happen, make the kill, make the death, make the die, the big push against cigarettes, cigarettes = cancer, there are reasons that people smoke, regulating brains, wiser, a trip to Vietnam, drinking beer, cigarettes are very expensive in Australia, half my rent, 50 cents a packet, maybe I’ll try smoking, I just enjoy smoking, benefits to smoking (not related to the actual consumption of tobacco), social things, to avoid social awkwardness, something to do with your hands, cosy up to, gotta light, vaping actively as social?, astonished by the amount of smoking in the UK, no adverting, covered in cancer, shock policy, driving dangerously, drinking, selling cigarettes, working class, I just hate these images on the packet, Player’s Lights, a cool drawing of a sailor, a cancerous tumor, $12 a pack, Connor was a drug dealer, synthetic hallucinogens, herbal stuff that was unregulated, on the edge, don’t hallucinate at the gas station, off the radar, addictive?, alcohol, can you use fiction that way?, some new thing every time, genre is so established, this little tiny niche, fulfill any particular niche, going back, what was anthologized, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, a pre-Harry Potter hit, Alan Garner, too late, kinda kiddy, an interesting mythology, am I gonna get that wonder and amazement hit?, it’s raining outside while I read this book, we’re connected, what we do on this podcast, running out of good books to read, key figures, Robert Aickman, Arthur Conan Doyle was deluding himself, self-delusion, spiritualism, for the propaganda he did during WWI, in service of government some, Sir Anthony Hopkins, go an fight the hun, originally his own son died, Teddy Roosevelt, Kermit, cognitive dissonance, a peripheral figure, Rupert Brooke, died in WWI as usual, Robert Burns, bisexual, rewatching Star Trek, why is Star Trek so good, what I know now, what Roddenberry said about Wagontrain in space, a space western, Oregon trail, more like Kung Fu, crossing the country, The Littlest Hobo, like Lassie with no owners, island hopping, a particular idea they’re going to explore, allusions in the episode titles, digging into these things, the title of a Star Trek episode, this is a wonderful place, typical human reaction to an idyllic, ah the Tahiti syndrome, an amazingly hard to understand poem, probably gave a baby to, This Side Of Paradise, death is terrible because we won’t be together bodied, the horror of not being together forever perfectly in paradise, really about something, being disembodied together forever, the wise, the older people, I don’t want the real world, she’s going to get old, he died young, a truth you can get in poems, I’m going to write a star trek episode, what if you are an old M.R. James style man and found a whistle, there is no relaxing, an insubstantial book, we lucked out then huh?, educational, definitional, the history, it turned out to be a lot more, researching folk horror, 1993, it’s very new, a realization that this is there, one of three movies, The Devil Rides Out (1968), Witchfinder General (1968), a secret cult, Vincent Price, The Blood On Satan’s Claw (1971), a confection for the film, fantastic elements, a Hammer movie?, there is a monster, folk horror with a monster, an evil being, literary vs. filmic, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Ritual (2017), Midsommar (2019) the definitive folk horror film, a new folk horror essay, misunderstanding all the bird sequences, the diversity of bird wildlife, they don’t have big animals in the UK, hedgehogs and birds, foxes, they decimated their mega-fauna, black bears, keep your head on a pivot, trainspotting and bird-watching, snakes AND marsupials, a million different marsupials, a good aspect, genuine interest, part of his brain downloaded into the book, talk to somebody with a common interest, a family of birdwatchers, Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek, scattered, what’s his overall theme, two follow ups, more focused, Žižek blogposts, a compilation, excellent at breaking them down, an unpopular main mode, jokes, some Yugoslav country, is smoking permitted?, of course not, you will find ashtrays in the room, he loves jokes, youtube something, mannerisms, the weird show, the thick accent, a lot of ideas, experiences, related through an almost obsessive collection and interest in jokes, not insanely bad, the officials in charge have no senses of humour, George W. Bush, the joke is him, invasion of Iraq, and Iraq too, he is exactly what he’s condemning, a dim bulb in a high position, folksy charm, a monster, a little jokes, self deprecating or you deprecating, Power In The Era Of Post Human Capitalism, getting banned from YouTube, an echo chamber, the joke is on him, they all bought it, “right wing”, “left wing”, we just do our best, it may be, humour is crucial to that, being able to discuss a subject you have no power over, you have pain, what can you do about it, relief against pain is having a good laugh with your brothers, you’re sick, connected to Australian politics, fucked up Canadian politics, have an ignorance off, a new party in power, the Labour Party in Australia, centrist, Marine Le Pen, the far right French candidate, a choice between Nazis and a middle that is capitalist realizing us to death, it has to get pretty bad, Macron is a neoliberal, the emergence of independent candidates, teal candidates, blues and greens and reds, environmental disasters, COVID, ideas about energy, renewable sources of energy, the temperature is rising in Australia, we can’t stop coal mining, torn, progressive energy policies, conservative policies, France, the left is muted and not that progressive, the Green Party, social welfare support, free education, renewable energy, an elected senate, appointed by the Queen on advice of the Prime Minster, it’s going to take a lot, majority vs. minority government, a lifetime membership, civil liberties are not important, massively corrupt, a war with nuclear consequences, the biggest cheerleader, brinksmanship, he aint that wise, painting his face, his dad was president (his dad was prime minister), inertia, hugging the leader of the party, keeps that party going, the party of capitalism, we have to live on this planet, NATO has got its hands on stuff, go on a podcast, read a book, talk about that book, encourage guillotine research, start with all the guillotines, it will get out of hand, he hasn’t worked for that newspaper for a long time, quoting Margaret Thatcher, Nancy Pelosi: “we’re all capitalists here”, I go to hotels with my girlfriend, I smoke, I give a speech somewhere, a conscript, performing cunnilingus, is it true you perform cunnilingus?, across the army base, the real concrete problems we see around Europe, what is really going on here?, a joke, talking with, irrational when it comes to some things, Taiwan fighting to the last man against China, no negotiation, irredentism, if Australia was invaded, Mad Max 1 and The Road Warrior, be in that biker gang and talk about the Toecutter, one tank of petrol is about 300 km or 2 hours, intercepting tankers, occupied by another country, you have trade agreements with China or we’re all putting you in concentration camps and gassing you, Ukraine, an Australian version of NATO, WWI, entangling alliances, the war didn’t start in 2022, the shelling of the Donbas, we’re free and fair, Victoria Nuland’s leaked call, this is who’ll we’ll go with, a coup, don’t keep expanding capitalism to eat everything on the planet, Richard K. Morgan’s Market Forces, conflict investment, how to make money from war, literally what happened, a realignment happening, Republicans aiming for the poors, we’re anti-war, $40 billion, the squad, the fake left leaning part of the party, lining their own pockets with taxpayer money, inflation, utter corruption, we need to know what the problem, hence the suicide, delicious sandwich and more jokes, the slow suicide, enjoying his wine too much, published 2018, as you’d expect, he’s reading the newspapers, he’s seeing what is being said, running it through his critical thinking filter, finding falsity there, different from the United States, their propaganda spills out, YouTube, China’s youtube, such weird big films, films set in China, to fit the market, up for another book of his, he has an idea machine gun, spraying the pages, a review from goodreads:

“Zizek moves from subject to subject, not like a ballerina flowing in graceful movements, instead, it is more akin to watching a very fat man who often slurs his words attempting to jump from one stone to the other only to slip and fall miserably-only then preceding to get up and say something that’s actually a rather profound interpretation of a culturally relevant product.”

a really interesting dude, from idea to idea, Black Panther, he’s not a snob, a regular person’s point of view, seeing them for what they are, not every idea is of equal value, really important and profound and world moving, why was it such a big hit?, the CIA’s job is to be there, they’re the heroes, assisting these other countries in Africa, once you start watching a movie with military equipment in it, as much hardware as you want with script approval, bro out, Top Gun, the miltiary base bar, Connor bought a motorcycle because of that movie, Mad Max (1979), Lord Humongous, the sociology of the Mad Max George Miller universe, this is a cult, they’re larping, the world is going to shit, the cops are corrupt, there’s crime on the roads, larpers scaring the old people, hack his own leg off, the whole premise of the movie Saw (2004), a collander on his head, the Smegma Crazies and the Gayboy Berserkers, American football, chest protection, makes you look cool, real life becomes a bit like that, wars in Africa, shit got so crazy, bizarre costume, wigs, horrific shit with genocide and murder, shamanic ritual, the Worker Party, George Galloway, woking everything, what if I told you was a woman?, what if I told you I was seven years old?, everybody is equally willing to let everybody else larp, you do you, let me be, let everyone be, that’s not the end of it, you say you’re a dog, foxkin, Evan’s theory about the Klingons in Star Trek, they stopped doing that stuff and started larping, hitting each other and talking about honor all the time, like Samurai, cut their topknots, cutting fingers off, full body tattoos, cultures in, not breaking kayfabe, pumped up guys throwing each other across the room, put on a display and show, a shirt that says “GENDER”, Toecutter being a very important member of this gang, Billy getting indoctrinated, a social constructionist, a good Parnell and Zizek, more like these please.

Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Zizek

Ghostland by Edward Parnell

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #694 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #694 – The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard – read by Elroi Shelley. This is a complete and unabridged reading of novel (15 hours 25 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Will Emmons, Connor Kaye, and Cora Buhlert talk about The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

Talked about on today’s show:
1903/4, set during the third crusade, Saladin and the Assassins, The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle, Haggard was proud, kind of a Haggard guy, this sounds awesome, the famous ones, King Solomon’s Mines, She, Elroi Shelly, what kind of accent does she have?, Arabic, superstormtrooper, a Spanish documentary called Otto Skorzeny, Alemania (Spanish for Germany), Italian, 11th century accent, November 23, 2021, a shield with a skull on it!, Robert E. Howard’s Hawks Of Outremer, did Howard read this?, it is mentioned in the book, a black shield with a white skull, Rosamund’s dad, they’re not Irish, the mythology around Saladin, he’s so mean, all is forgiven, more of a villain in this book, frees with his own money, only a few people become slaves, Templars beheaded, don’t like the Hospitalers either, a huge list of books in Howard’s library, weird erotica, the tone is different, the battles are awesome, Haggard always has great battles, Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit, counting shots scenes, movements of armies, a little less kissing, a really good book, the other brother, they both get to marry the girl!, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Abduction From The Seraglio, another Robert E. Howard story, The Shadow Of The Vulture, Red Sonja, taken to a harem, loves singing about executing people, quite famous, our hero Saladin, the best PR in the west ever, an eastern potentate, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, an artifact of the period it was written, a contemporary review, a really fun read, interesting, great women characters, the rug pulled out from under me, boys’ school style, chivalry and public school ethos are indistinguishable, fair play old chap, so innocent, the christian religion isn’t the motivating factor, an inter-familiar dispute, sister/cousin, when God gives Saladin three repeated dreams, rose of the world, a very Christian book that loves Islam, 5 million Muslims in Germany, the Howard crusader stories, interested in Islam, the whole Arabian Knights thing, kind of a Theosophist, all the religions were good, different facets of the same jewel, She is an Arab, the beautiful illustrations, Chapter 23, Haggard went on a trip to Syria, the impetus for this book, a band of knights, two knights on a personal mission, more like tourists than crusaders, our side is justice, Saint Rosamund, some of the homework that he did, page 631, this chapter is so metal, to these I say, score face and bosom, made loathsome to the sight of man, the brides of Heaven, the swords of furious and savage men, the Faith, St. Clair at Acre, 1291, A Winter Pilgrimage by H. Rider Haggard, this book is so…, these people are getting way to worked up their religions, that’s what Heinlein would do, too hard core, flagellation, gang raped by roman legionaries, medieval snuff porn, a beautiful painting of woman being brutally tortured, a guy on a stick, of some particular imam, in the end you will get what you deserve, what he did wasn’t very nice, trauma by inference, waking up in cold sweats, you have to bow and scrape, you ate some of my salt, that much fun, Robin Hood, slave characters, Saxon-Norman etymology stuff, King John, the father of the modern historical novel, Outlander, the mooning over the girls, nice to the Jews, antisemitism, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, a Russian countess, what people think Lovecraft was like, I hate poor people, French people, a city named after Sir Walter Scott’s house: Abbotsford, the fake chivalry code of the Southern USA comes from Sir Walter Scott, a phenomenon in the early 19th century, a book highly influenced by Ivanhoe, 1819, writing about ancestors, Virginia Woolf and modernists couldn’t stand Sir Walter Scott, anything past 10 years ago obviously has no value, we don’t need Jane Austen because we have Bridget Jones’ Diary, the classic chivalry story, 1920, a throwback to classic novels, Don Quixote, a parody of classic chivalry, The Song Of Roland, language issues, stories of heroic knights, drew on older legends and stories, Robin Hood is an old legend, early Hollywood Robin Hood is straight out of Ivanhoe, returning crusaders, a little bit tight-fisted, he wants you to say these are people and they can live in England with us, literal slave collars, accidental pun, Cobra Kai, shocking, Connor is six, dwelling on backstory, dishonorable knights, not having a dad, kidnapping women, disrespecting my family, a cross-worshiper!, almost biblical, violence at school, teenagers beating up kids, learn karate to defend yourself, the 70s kung-fu phenomena, white kids want to be a Chinese guy, the whole world has passed by the Karate Kid, consistency with real truths about what families are like, many mirrorings, one’s like a Saxon one’s more Norman, a broken family united by respect and love, an outside uncle, a broken family in the religion over there, the backstory of the assassins, Shia and Sunni, Iran is the bad guy even though they had nothing to do with 9/11, Ismaili, a breakaway family, People Of The Black Circle by Robert E. Howard, what’s going on in Tibet?, briefly touched on drugged visions, Masouda is such a great character you want her to have a spin-off show, role of a lifetime, super-mysterious, horrible ending, all for love, he kept pulling the rug out from under us, all set to work out, a happy ending, not much character development, Masouda had a lot, when we find things out, she’s a widow, the inn will run itself, this book was for us to me her, too long to read, she’s our guide, very masterfully written, the two fathers, two muslim brother enemies, Flame and Smoke are the two other best character is the book [and horses], Rosamund and Masouda are mirrors, half-Frank, she’s a fallen princess, the opposite constellation, a French countess mother, Masouda is a tragic Rosamund, her boyfriend has to go live with monks, really effective, making things rich and deep, why William Wilson is such a great story, where there’s smoke there’s fire, the brethren, stylized language, it creates the atmosphere, how you sell your movie, “Extreme Prejudice”, “Collateral Damage”, a euphemism, anticipates, she’s sent off to a nunnery, she’s marrying god!, sent off to become a priest, he didn’t write this by the seat of his pants, good writing, become a priest or a monk, too concerned with dreams, a higher purpose, so well put together, the opposite of the pre-show, squee moments, scenes, harry potter, train scene, quidditch scene, the horses know something, this is my dude, opposite of snarky, not a snark in it, very sincere, Cassell’s Magazine, December 1903, he doesn’t tease us, serialized without cliffhangers, better than the more modern style of serialization, a lot of little stories, anticipating, feeling like it is just about to end, it could end at any point, the final illustration, it was Godwin’s face, “spoiler”, that ending is supposed to be a surprise, when Masouda died, a tragedy, so fucking dark, he touched her head and it rolls away, the Robert E. Howard scene, he commands armies, there’s no supernatural extras to this story, Howard is more hyperbolic, an opening scene for a Robert E. Howard story, selling this as a script, the ultimate reveal, people would be angry at this movie, so fantastic, devastating, foreshadowed, you will meet her in the end, more recently, Game Of Thrones, any character can die at any time, this story set it up fantastically, she’s too good of a character, a heart of gold, she’s saving the brothers, she’s driving the plot, coming up with all the plans and disguises, the perfect anti-payoff, once she died, everyone is going to die, Godwin can’t live, this is how the end of the story is going to go, Rosamund is going to die as well, St. Rosamund, embedding humor into the structure of the story, see it in reflection, abruptly ended, and I’ll let you live, 16 hours, oh my god, so shocking, so satisfying and relieving, it made you want to laugh, catharsis, Saladin got you too, the Italian opera ending, everybody dies, Hamlet, an everybody dies story, happy, it makes me smile (not squee), the best kind, the good kind of squee, it earns its squee, if both brother got to marry the sister (literally), a fantasy setting, very historical, how much of this is real, actually real?, family members of famous people, Nada The Lily, the secret son of Shaka Zulu, another book like this, Haggard on utube, a very early film of Haggard at his home, silent, how wealthy he became from his good writings, she hated She, really long and almost all journey, a lot happening structurally, dock in Cyprus, a hostage situation, and a reverse hostage situation, this book kept derailing Jesse’s expectations, a crusades book but not a crusade, strange inter-relations, Arabic, subtlety, going a little easy on it, it could be shorter, the changes of point of view, abutted scenes, the opening, almost every thread connects, almost perfectly composed, mid-H. Rider Haggard, the eighth H. Rider Haggard for Will, the guy who’s most responsible for squeecore, -doom core, South America?, The Heart Of The World, a secret Mayan civilization, as a prose stylist, what makes the English language work, not writing like a normal person, intentionally antiquated, main literary influces: The King James Bible, the old testament, more action here (than in She), Zulus talking in the thou form, a pack of ghost wolves, The People Of the Mist, classic lost race fantasy, Cora is nocturnal, Treasure Island, “Oh, Connor me lad”, a big project, Jim in the inn, this is a Heinlein juvenile written before Heinlein, its squeecore!, I’ve become what I hate!, it resembles Citizen Of The Galaxy (a retelling of Kim), Robert Louis Stevenson is an interesting person, very unhealthy, adopts an older woman’s son, goes and dies in Samoa, Connor would be keen, a good pirate story, the way the book was written, the Lovecraft – Sonia Green marriage, you’re going to eat right now, you’re going to breathe right now, draw me an island, a writing prompt to bring them closer together, a relationship book, the first manuscript for Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde was burned, Travels With A Donkey, some Random series book or a Treasure fucking Island, great material for a biopic, Jim and John Silver, save it for the podcast, Treasure PlanetTreasure Island and The Hobbit, the nicest aunt in East Germany, illustrated Huckleberry Finn, upgrade mic and headset, bone conduction, The Doom That Came To Sarnath by H.P. Lovecraft, The Busy Body by Donald E. Westlake, Almuric by Robert E. Howard, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Doomed City by The Strugatsky Bros. (Boris and Arkadii), “get the communist!”, you can’t get Eric, good luck bud, trolling vs. invitation, The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein, The Sea-Wolf by Jack London, a February of novels, shorter than Hour Of The Dragon, reading Donald E. Westlake, nephew novels, addictive, we win all the fun characterization, he’s like a treasure, why science fiction sucks: he can’t get paid, it was science fiction’s loss, really funny, a lot of people want to have written, the craft, he wants it to be awesome, joke poems, Waterhouse’s Circe, why are there flowers all over the floor, attraction and danger, the stories are super-rich, when you write a story based on a picture you’re decoding the picture, encoding a picture in a person’s brain, transfer our brain thought into another person’s brain thought, telepathy, no difference between intention and reception, “Mountain Dew”, something to skip, “you think you’re going to do The Dispossessed without me?”, an anarchist planet, anarchist moon, Poul Anderson, People Of The Black Circle, Sunday BBQ winter or summer, woke scold, a Robert E. Howard kick, Galactic Journey, Will needs to logoff, popping ps, 40 degree heat, thunderstorms, a sworn interpreter, Germany classics, Karl May, a convicted conman, O. Henry, living happily ever after on the prairie, your old Alberta home, a recording booth, a Neumann microphone, Shure dynamic mic, imported musical instruments, luxury goods, RØDE microphones, rood, what is a chapman, the drugged wine, Chapman’s ice cream, the chap part is cheap, the cheap man, Mercedes Benz is a luxury brand in Canada, car industries, Blue microphones, the microphone boom, shockmounts, research the fuck out of it, semaphore eyebrows, German TV adaptation of The Sea-Wolf, Cora comes from a family of sailors, The Red One, hunting moths with a shotgun, the house of a headhunter, Das Millionenspiel, a War Of The Worlds situation, The Running Man and The Prize Of Peril, furious Sheckley, one of the best things German TV ever did, The Running Man by Stephen King, hunting humans, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, The Hounds Of Zaroff, late night horror, King Kong (1933), The Most Dangerous Meme, Predator (1987), Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, basically its Hitler, John Buchan, Rogue Justice, 1939 – 1982, your audience may have been born and died in the meantime, Dr. Mabuse by Norbert Jacques, propaganda and lies and misinformation about copyright, Babylon Berlin, Metropolis by Thea von Harbou, Fritz Lang, VPN, Jorge Luis Borges, basically all the Conan stories are public domain, dictionary, Valley Of The Lost aka King Of The Forgotten People by Robert E. Howard, the eyestrain thing, a giant crab!, way more than Solomon Kane, historicals, Dark Agnes, Shadow Of The Vulture, People Of The Black Circle, Almuric, Revival by Stephen King, The Troop by Nick Cutter, The Seascape Tattoo by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes, not a big Heinlein fan?, how dare you, Isaac Asimov, see the weaknesses, good short stories, Arthur C. Clarke, the Foundation stories, The Goddess Of Atvatabar by William R. Bradshaw, a whole continent down there, Klim’s Journey Under The Ground by Ludvig Holberg, patterns, The Cats Of Ulthar by H.P. Lovecraft, H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Challenger, cheap classics, import prices, Citizen Of The Galaxy, a month of pocket money, Saladin, disintegrating, Valentina by Fern Michaels, import bookstore, bodice rippers, Angélique by Anne Golon, highlanders, a romanticized version of the Vietnam War, a solid fantasy book, a great story, so filmic, American style, BBC’s The Tourist, TV American style, Doctor Who, really important, something squeecore, just broken.

Cassell And Company - The Brethren

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

CASSELL dust jacket The Brethren by H. Rider Haggard

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!