audiobook – Page 97

The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here’s a nice surprise! The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis! The Listener, who runs the ever admirable Free Listens blog, sez this:

Rating: 10/10

I’m absolutely amazed that Ancient Faith was able to get permission from HarperCollins and the Lewis estate to podcast this novel. Hart has a pleasing British accent and the confidence of someone who is comfortable in front of a microphone. She makes a couple of repetition errors, but is otherwise flawless. The recording quality is very good, as is befitting such a professionally produced podcast. The other books in The Chronicles of Narnia series are also available for free through the same website, so head on over to collect all seven books.

And, for my part I’ve HuffDuffed all eight files.

The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
By C.S. Lewis; Read by Dr. Chrissi Hart
8 Podcast MP3 Files – Approx. 4.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Ancient Faith Radio / Under The Grapevine
Podcast: March – May 2009
A fantasy novel for children by published in 1950 and set circa 1940. It is the first-published book of The Chronicles of Narnia series and is the best known book of the series. Although it was written and published first, it is second in the series’ internal chronological order, after The Magician’s Nephew.

Podcast feed: http://huffduffer.com/jessewillis/tags/c.s._lewis/rss

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Character list:
Lucy Pevensie, the youngest Pevensie child
Edmund Pevensie, the third of the Pevensie children.
Susan Pevensie, the second oldest of Pevensie children
Peter Pevensie, the oldest of the Pevensie siblings
Aslan, a lion
The White Witch
Tumnus, a faun
Professor Digory Kirke, takes the Pevensie children in when they are evacuated from London
Mr. Beaver, a friend of Tumnus
Mrs. Beaver, Mr. Beaver’s wife
The Dwarf, the White Witch’s right hand man (hench-dwarf)
Maugrim (aka Fenris Ulf), a wolf
Father Christmas
Mrs. Macready, the housekeeper for Professor Kirke
Giant Rumblebuffin

[via Free Listens!!!!!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Earthbound by Richard Matheson

SFFaudio Review

Earthbound
By Richard Matheson; Read by Bronson Pinchot
6 CDs – Approx. 6.5 Hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Published: September 2010
ISBN: 1441756886
Themes: / Fantasy / Horror / Gothic Horror / Haunted House / Ghosts / Succubi / Marriage / Sex /

David and Ellen Cooper came to the lonely beach-side cottage in hopes of rekindling their troubled marriage. Yet they are not alone on their second honeymoon. Marianna, a beautiful and enigmatic stranger, comes to visit David whenever Ellen is away. Who is Marianna, and where has she come from? Even as he succumbs to her seductive charms, David realizes that Marianna is far more than a threat to his marriage, for her secrets lie deep in the past and beyond the grave. And her unholy desires endanger the life and soul of everyone she touches.

TV writer David Cooper is trying to revitalize his shaky marriage by returning with his wife to their original honeymoon location. While the Coopers do end up in the same sea-side resort, they find their original digs are unavailable and have to stay in a disused beach cottage. There, every time Ellen steps out, or goes to sleep, a sexy woman named Marianna appears and quickly seduces David. She fucks him harder than he’s ever been fucked and that’s the entirety of Earthbound‘s simple setup. The plot from there is but a dance between David’s realization of it and his doing something.

There are essentially four characters in Earthbound. Approximately ninety-five percent of the novel is set within the confines of the haunted cottage. It’s all told in a tight third person, over the shoulder perspective. We get the thoughts of David’s mind in elaborate detail and hear the other two characters exclusively from his POV. It becomes immediately clear to the reader that Marianna is not only a ghost but also a quasi-succubus. Matheson never actually names the marriage-ruining ghost as a sexual vampire, instead the characters only describe Marianna as simply the ghost of a depraved woman. It takes nearly a half-dozen sex sessions with the vitality draining Marianna, and several visits from a helpful neighbor (who lives just up the beach) to point this out to David. It then takes several more for him to actually believe what he’s being told and experiencing. David wants to believe he’s just been cheating on his wife with a mysterious stranger – but the evidence he’s been presented with is fairly convincing. In the meantime David gets into several, what I would call, disappointment swaps with Ellen, they go out to dinner once and have some unsatisfying sex. About half way through the book I began expecting that Ellen’s many convenient absences would be explained by her being haunted by an incubus – I was wrong on that score.

I don’t think this book is really all that horrible. The storytelling flows quite smoothly and likely achieves the purpose intended. Unfortunately it carries no lasting impression. Being a confirmed bachelor, I guess I just don’t want to read about people fixing their marriages at haunted seaside cottages. And, as for it being one of the gothic novels of psychology, I far prefer the depths of ambiguity in Henry James’ The Turn Of The Screw to the shallows of Earthbound. This is the fourth Matheson novel I’ve read, the first being I Am Legend |READ OUR REVIEW| and the second being The Incredible Shrinking Man |READ OUR REVIEW|. Like the former, Earthbound lacks the one thing I really cared about: a haunting message to go with its competent psychological character study. Like the second, The Incredible Shrinking Man, I came away from Earthbound thinking it was absolutely the kind of book I never need read again, a story premise with a character who was too wrapped up in his own psychology for me to care what was happening to him. I guess I just want some ideas to go with my characters and not to simply see them interacting or responding to a set of unusual circumstances. Earthbound, therefore, is most similar to the third Matheson novel I read, A Stir Of Echoes |READ OUR REVIEW|. If you liked A Stir Of Echoes I suspect you will enjoy Earthbound. Myself, I can only recommend the earth-shatteringly good I Am Legend and Matheson’s truly amazing short story Born Of Man And Woman.

Speaking of short stories, when Earthbound was first published (by Playboy Paperbacks in 1982) Richard Matheson used a pseudonym, “Logan Swanson.” Reading around the internet, I got the impression that he’d balked at some editorial changes in the Playboy Paperbacks edition – and so declined to have his real name put on the cover. But, the story is probably a little more complicated than that. After doing some more digging I noted that one Amazon reviewer had this to say: “…not a lot of people realize this, but this book started out as a short story written very early in Matheson’s career.” Noting that the succubi in fiction article on Wikipedia includes one Matheson story, called The Likeness Of Julie. I dug up my copy of Shock II (it’s also collected in Hot Blood: Tales Of Erotic Horror) and read it. The Likeness Of Julie, which is just 9 or 10 pages, has a bit more of a punch than Earthbound, and is clearly the predecessor to a novelized re-working. Interestingly, it too was first published “as written by Logan Swanson” in a 1962 anthology called Alone By Night. And the pseudonym there was not likely due to a protest, but rather the fact that there was another story by Matheson in the collection. In any case, this Blackstone Audio edition uses the author’s full text version of Earthbound.

Bronson Pinchot, has been recording up a storm for Blackstone Audio of late (there are currently 44 titles with him as a narrator). For Earthbound he does little extraordinary other than voicing three females, two carnal women and one ethereal succubus. Surprisingly, he doesn’t have to stretch very much for in this small scale novel; he pretty much makes himself invisible in the text. I’d like to see him tackle some more meaty material.

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Short Science Fiction Collection Vol. 031

SFFaudio Online Audio

LibriVox A couple of tales that stood out for me in this collection Unborn Tomorrow by Mack Reynolds is a mystery with a male and female pair of New York City private investigators who have a client with a story tell. Its, clever, funny and manages a fairly unique twist on the time travel theme. Waste Not, Want by Dave Dryfoos is the story of an aged widower living in a society in which consumer consumption isn’t just fashionable it’s required by law. This is more of a vignette than a story, but if you’re interested, that idea (compulsory consumption), also pops up in Robert Silverberg’s second novel, Starman’s Quest too.

Short Science Fiction Collection 031
By various; Read by various
15 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 5 Hours 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Science Fiction is speculative literature that generally explores the consequences of ideas which are roughly consistent with nature and scientific method, but are not facts of the author’s contemporary world. The stories often represent philosophical thought experiments presented in entertaining ways. Protagonists typically “think” rather than “shoot” their way out of problems, but the definition is flexible because there are no limits on an author’s imagination. The reader-selected stories presented here were written prior to 1962 and became US public domain texts when their copyrights expired.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/rss/3674

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Competition
By James Causey; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
They would learn what caused the murderous disease—if it was the last thing they did! From Galaxy Science Fiction May 1955.

Devil’s Asteroid
By Manly Wade Wellman; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour 6 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
“The Rock Bred Evolution in Reverse!” From Comet July 1941.

Heist Job On Thizar
By Randall Garrett; Read by Norm
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
In the future, we may discover new planets; our ships may rocket to new worlds; robots may be smarter than people. But we’ll still have slick characters willing and able to turn a fast buck—even though they have to be smarter than Einstein to do it. From Amazing Stories October 1956.

The Hunted Heroes
By Robert Silverberg; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad genius who had a motto: Death to all Terrans! From Amazing Stories September 1956.

The Last Supper
By T.D. Hamm; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 4 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Before reading this story, prepare yourself for a jolt and a chill in capsule form. O. Henry could have been proud of it. It could well become a minor classic. From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1952.

Old Rambling House
By Frank Herbert; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 17 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
All the Grahams desired was a home they could call their own … but what did the home want? From Galaxy Science Fiction April 1958.

Pythias
By Frederik Pohl; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 12 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Sure, Larry Connaught saved my life—but it was how he did it that forced me to murder him! From Galaxy Science Fiction February 1955.

Revenge
By Arthur Porges; Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the fury of a biochemist scorned is just as great — and much more fiendish. From Amazing Stories February 1961.

Solander’s Radio Tomb
By Ellis Parker Butler; Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 20 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
“I first met Mr. Remington Solander shortly after I installed my first radio set. I was going in to New York on the 8:15 A.M. train and was sitting with my friend Murchison and, as a matter of course, we were talking radio.” First published in Amazing Stories June 1927, later in Amazing’s April 1956 issue.

Stop, Look and Dig
By George O. Smith; Read by Ric F
1 |MP3| – Approx. 36 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
The enlightened days of mental telepathy and ESP should have made the world a better place, But the minute the Rhine Institute opened up, all the crooks decided it was time to go collegiate! First published in Space Science Fiction, March 1953.

Such Blooming Talk
By L. Major Reynolds (aka Louise Leipiar); Read by Steven Anderson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 7 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
A bit of levity never hurt anyone—even a science fiction editor, writer or reader, we hope. And a laugh has been known to lighten a heavy load and even change the path of history. So—we give you this brief moment with an amazed scientist and his startling creations—for a brief chuckle. From Fantastic Universe March 1954.

Sweet Their Blood And Sticky
By Albert R. Teichner; Read by Gregg Margarite
1 |MP3| – Approx. 14 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
They weren’t human—weren’t even related to humanity through ties of blood—but they were our heirs! From “Worlds of If” November 1961.

Unborn Tomorrow
By Mack Reynolds; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 31 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Unfortunately, there was only one thing he could bring back from the wonderful future … and though he didn’t want to … nevertheless he did… From Astounding Science Fiction June 1959.

Vanishing Point
By C.C. Beck; Read by MGVestal
1 |MP3| – Approx. 10 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
In perspective, theoretically the vanishing point is at infinity, and therefore unattainable. But reality is different; vanishment occurs a lot sooner than theory suggests… From Astounding Science Fiction July 1959.

Waste Not, Want
By Dave Dryfoos; Read by Bellona Times
1 |MP3| – Approx. 18 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Published: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Eat your spinach, little man! It’s good for you. Stuff yourself with it. Be a good little consumer, or the cops will get you…. For such is the law of supply and demand! From If Worlds of Science Fiction September 1954.

[In addition to the readers, this audio book was produced by Gregg Margarite, Wendel Topper and Lucy Burgoyne]

Posted by Jesse Willis

LibriVox: Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders

SFFaudio Online Audio

I spotted this terrific looking book while browsing book covers at a local big box bookstore.

Beautiful Joe COVER

It turns out the book is a Canadian classic, one I’d never read, or even heard of, but one which I probably should have. The illustrator, Scott Plumbe, writes of it on his blog saying:

“[Beautiful Joe was written] in the 1890s by Canadian author Margaret Marshall Saunders [it was] inspired by a real life dog who had been cruelly maltreated by his owner and was later taken in by the kindly Morris family.”

What makes the novel rather different, and thus all the more interesting, is that it’s told from the perspective of the main character (a dog). Hoping that somebody had recorded it, I did a search and found a single voiced narration of Beautiful Joe over on LibriVox!

The vintage introduction makes it sound as if Beautiful Joe is a religious novel, but the actual text is fairly secular (at least so far). This seems to be a book designed with a message in mind, that cruelty to animals is wrong, worthy of banning.

Beautiful Joe
By Marshall Saunders; Read by Allyson Hester
2 M4Bs (1,2), 19 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 10 Hours 2 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: June 6, 2008
Beautiful Joe is a real dog, and “Beautiful Joe” is his real name. He belonged during the first part of his life to a cruel master, who mutilated him in the manner described in the story. He was rescued from him, and is now living in a happy home with pleasant surroundings, and enjoys a wide local celebrity. The character of Laura is drawn from life, and to the smallest detail is truthfully depicted. The Morris family has its counterparts in real life, and nearly all of the incidents of the story are founded on fact.

Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/beautiful-joe-by-marshall-saunders.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

The Wikipedia entry for Beautiful Joe mentions that there is a park, in Meaford, Ontario, named after Beautiful Joe. When you do a search on YouTube for same you can only get this effable, and oddly unironic, tour:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Dust by Joan Frances Turner

SFFaudio Review

Dust
By Joan Frances Turner; Read by Eva Amurri
8 CDs – Approx. 9 Hours 57 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Published: September 02, 2010
ISBN: 9780142428535
Themes: / Horror / Fantasy / Zombies / Disease / Death / Resentment / Indiana /

Nine years ago, Jessie had a family. Now, she has a gang. Nine years ago, Jessie was a vegetarian. Now, she eats very fresh meat. Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. Nine years ago, Jessie was human. Now, she’s not. After she was buried, Jessie awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Jessie’s gang is the Fly-by-Nights. She loves the ancient, skeletal Florian and his memories of time gone by. She’s in love with Joe, a maggot-infested corpse. They fight, hunt, dance together as one—something humans can never understand. There are dark places humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into the zombie gangs. But now, Jessie and the Fly-by-Nights have seen new creatures in the woods—things not human and not zombie. A strange new illness has flamed up out of nowhere, causing the undeads to become more alive and the living to exist on the brink of death. As bits and pieces of the truth fall around Jessie, like the flesh off her bones, she’ll have to choose between looking away or staring down the madness—and hanging onto everything she has come to know as life…

Here’s my take on Dust: Jessie is full of resentment, having died young in a car accident. Besides dying Jessie lost an arm and Jessie turned zombie. When Jessie was alive Jessie was a vegan – but now in Jessie’s undead form – Jessie works with a gang of bitter former humans (don’t call them zombies) that eat free range and organic animals like squirrels, possum and deer. Jessie and her associates communicate telepathically (because their mouths don’t make speech very well anymore). The undead very frequently address Jessie by her first name, which is Jessie. Jessie has many indignant conversations with her fellow embittered undead. They often punctuate their sentences with kicks, shoves and punches that break each other’s bones and dislodge sloughing off flesh. This is to be expected for Jessie. Despite these seemingly acrimonious interactions Jessie seems to love and respect her spiteful companions. They all share Jessie’s disdain for the un-undead (living people). Jessie and her surly companions have a hard life, having to deal with maggots, bloating and living out of doors all-year round. Then, after we understand Jessie well enough, Jessie’s living brother turns up, he’s interested in making peace with Jessie. But, Jessie isn’t having any of it. Jessie thinks he’s just a stupid “hoo” (that’s what Jessie and her friends call living humans). Jessie’s brother has a story to tell, but Jessie isn’t really willing to hear it. Next, a disease starts plaguing some of Jessie’s companions. Jessie thinks this is bad, but typical. Jessie also discovers something bad is happening to the stupid hoos. Jessie thinks that is what they get for being stupid hoos. But then the bad thing that hurts Jessie’s friends is something that turns the undead into less-rotty versions of themselves Jessie is angry. Jessie resents that her severed arm regrows. Jessie doesn’t want to look like a stupid hoo. The disease makes Jessie and everyone, even the stupid hoos, very hungry. That is bad, for Jessie, but deserving for the stupid hoos. The end (for Jesse).

You may be able to tell that I intensely disliked this novel. It was well written, with clear exposition, and it has clearly delineated story. Unfortunately Dust taught me nothing except that a clear exposition of the disagreeable does not improve it much. If you’re not teaching me anything, at least make the book fun. My dislike of Dust also stems from the fact that it posits multiple gimmes (a singular central conceit which may remain unexamined). Dust lets the reader assume nothing, the ground-rules aren’t fixed, and new rules are seemingly arbitrarily added on every tenth page. This means I, as a reader, cannot participate in the world of the book as much as sit back and observe what the author does with it. That is not fun. Based on the clarity of Dust I expect that Joan Frances Turner is capable of writing a fine novel, one that explores something more fruitful than resentment (which I will admit is a way to go with a zombie story told from the perspective of a zombie). But the zombie novel, as a phenomenon, may also be the problem. It may be time for people to stop writing stories from the perspective of a zombie. From my perspective Dust puts the final nail in the coffin of zombie stories told from the zombie’s perspective.

The audiobook of Dust does not contain the handy map that’s in the paperbook’s endpapers. Turner herself writes on her blog saying “the geography of the book is so vital to the story.” As to the narrator, typically when a narrator isn’t doing it for me I start looking for notable defects – asking myself “what is it that specifically bugs me about the narration?” Often this delivers some sort of gripe, like bad word pronunciation, an unconvincing accent or improper emphasis in important passages. I thought I spotted one badly pronounced word (“onerous”), but as it turns out, at least according to the Dictionary.com pronunciation guide, it is I who had been pronouncing “onerous” wrong! That said, Eva Amurri’s narration still doesn’t work for me. I’m not sure why. Other reviewers have praised her performance.

Here is the paperbook’s map (as illustrated by Claudia Carlson and designed by Tiffany Estreicher):

DUST by Joan Frances Turner MAP

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #094 – READALONG: Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #094 – Jesse talks with Julie Davis and Gregg Margarite about Audible.com’s audiobook of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (as narrated by David Hyde Pierce)

Talked about on today’s show:
MindSwap by Robert Sheckley (SFFaudio Podcast #076), Laputa, Lilliput, acting like a Fox News commentator, the new movie version of Gulliver’s Travels, scatological humor, Spark Notes on Gulliver’s Travels, the history of censoring Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver’s Travels illustrations, essays about farts, high-heels and the low heels (are Tories and Whigs) vs. the big endians and the small endians (are protestants and Catholics), the definition of satire is that the story is so clever you don’t recognize it, comparing Mark Twain to Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain’s new/old autobiography, Grover Gardner, is there a biography of Jonathan Swift?, Jonathan Swift was a cleric?, too many atheist ministers in the Anglican church, The United Kingdom is a theocracy, A Modest Proposal, Swiftian sermons, Ireland, Queen Anne, Audible.com’s edition of Gulliver’s Travels, Jorge Luis Borges, he lies in all possible directions at once, difficulties with pronunciation, how long until the release of The Zombies Of Blefuscu?, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), Brobdingnag (land of the giants), Gulliver in Lilliput is every little boy’s fantasy (Gulliver is like Godzilla), is there a uniting theme to each section?, “your massive manliness”, an inventory of contents of Gulliver’s pockets, Gulliver’s pocket-watch is his god, the most immediate way to go to prison is to act as if the time is not what the consensual hallucination that is Standard Time isn’t, time, the humor doesn’t translate well to video, the Ted Danson Gulliver’s Travels miniseries, The Scarlet Letter, Ten Things I Hate About You, The Taming Of The Shrew, Easy A, a visual/literary double entendre, a well shot bon mot, John Cassavetes, The Tempest, Hellen Mirren as Prospero, Ian McKellen’s Richard III, Forbidden Planet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brick, Westerns, Firefly, remix culture = culture, Dante’s Inferno, Sergio Leone, virtuous pagans, Laputa (is Ireland), floating islands (and flying islands), Isaac Asimov’s annotated Gulliver’s Travels, science, the vaccine-autism link debacle, the proper procedures for science (ask questions don’t), marble pillows, “people are people are people”, Balnibarbi, Bangsian Fantasy, Luggnagg, Pushing Daisies, Torchwood, John Irving’s The World According To Garp (and the Robin Williams movie version), the unfortunately immortal Struldbrugs, the Struldbruggian mark reminds us of Logan’s Run, The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, Houyhnhnms, Edo Japan, Fumi-e, making fun of the travelogue, Stockholm syndrome, wearing yahoo skins, Gulliver is a cipher, existentialism, the waiter lives in bad faith, “don’t put down SparkNotes”, the romantics, who are the yahoos really?, “what you’re actually supposed to do in life”, “our faculties are fit like a horse’s are for running…”, “since we’re talking about finding the meaning of life…”, “and now the religious fanatic part starts to come out…”, pushing atheism on other people by denying their gods (like Zeus), Jehovah’s Witnesses, evangelical atheism is an oxymoron, ‘you can’t reason somebody out of something they weren’t reasoned into’, a misogynist’s club, the problem with polytheism, “people reading the astrology section of the newspaper are going to get us all killed”, rating the classics, dissecting a snowflake with a sledgehammer, books that teach you how to be seditious are extremely valuable, Dante Alhegeri’s Inferno, cognitive dissonance, why South Park is so important (it’s seditious), The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Simpsons, “critical thinking” means it is really important that you think, Craftlit, The Turn Of The Screw, Earth Abides, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell |READ OUR REVIEW|, the Epic Of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh The King by Robert Silverberg, Julie is appreciative of the Socratic SFFaudio style, A Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast, Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke, the meaning of catholic is universal, orthodox Catholic vs. unorthodox Catholic (cafeteria Catholic vs. conservative Catholic), an open source view of God (via mgfarrelly in a Boing Boing comment), Taylor Kent’s “if you don’t know Jesus you’re screwed” outro, Scientology, was the virgin Mary a surrogate mother?, Gregg expects to be in purgatory, The Book Of Eli, The Road, Mad Max, “the thing that is not” (lies), utopia, “words are the root of all problems as in we don’t match them to reality very well”, The Invention Of Lying, Ricky Gervais, Earth Abides, In Brouge, “that was the most moral extreme violence I’ve ever seen”, Belgium.