Dan Simmons – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #765 – READALONG: Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #765 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Tommy Patrick Ryan, and Jonathan Manfred Weichsel talk about Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
1976, Clifford D. Simak, late Simak, probably the 1st science fiction novel Jesse read, Madeleine L’engle, steered Jesse right to Larry Niven, not a great book, a lot of Russian reviews, a weird choice, teenage boys, as it would, a floppy story, the Darrel K. Sweet, Carnivore and the robot, working on it, 1978 paperback, a robot and an alien, 1982, fourth Simak, Special Deliverance, Way Station, A Choice Of Gods, most famous, The Goblin Reservation, three robot brain, why is this here?, gestalt was really big in the 70s, Baby Is Three, a way of experimenting with storytelling, tribunal ship thing, shove however many pounds of crap into a ten pound novel, doesn’t interact, Eric’s group, sort of a sideshow, the main storyline, there’s no resolution, given Shakespeare in the title, the wyrd sisters, they’re not gendered right, why are the people there, why are any of them on the planet, why are we here?, why does he need the ship, a philosophical novel, different monsters, desolate, Starobin by Margaret St. Clair, paradise sucks, an existential philosophical novel, Elayne, a rose tattooed on her breast, finally!, that’s what its there for, white cowboy boots, finally somebody looked at my boobs, this is awesome naked chicks with tattoos on their boobs, all the kids who read this were set back in their misogyny, very non-sexual, you can pretend I’m your dead old girlfriend, a very mature Clifford Simak, the blaster on the hip, a loos game, all doesn’t work, and all doesn’t work, existentialism doesn’t take you anywhere, for a totally sexist objectifying scene, some women do like being topless, free love concept?, super-cringey, woke people these days are gonna ban this book, gratuitous and unnecessary, starts out goofy, behaves in the opposite way, a similar game, very clever and very sneaky, taking those tropes and cultural prejudices, all fictional characters, Carnivore is the best character, honor ideas, proud warrior race, first impressions, killed and ate Shakespeare, hunting the best game, he’s Caliban, he doesn’t have a mom, the wizard dude in The Tempest, incantations, where’s Miranda?, he had a copy of Shakespeare, his skull talks, is it just because it’s the book, Shakespeare is being channeled here, Ariel and Caliban, a terrific play, shipwrecked, nose and throat sounds, passive mode, brain was hallucinating, a trailer for Orson Welles’ Othello, he doesn’t have any special effects other than his words, no laser beams or motorbikes, one of the major props is Desdemona’s handkerchief, the central focus of a story, Shakespeare is a philosopher of the human condition, to tell us about ourselves, as men and women we’re jealous, we are fatally flawed, Simak is not interested in conflict at all, have you read Simak?, conflict is diffused immediately, aren’t we in this discourse now, eat me!, you probably won’t taste very good, don’t gag on me, that’s his nature, he can’t do let’s setup a strawman enemy, what makes him different from everybody else, Heinlein’s strawmanning, a Philip K. Dick book, pretty good, not great, sexism, he’s the hero, Carter, Horton, brain skits, I guess they don’t read Seuss here, quite to the contrary, Gail Neiman, most people don’t read, incredibly rare, most people don’t read at all, Neil Gaiman in reverse, can’t experience some of the fun things that humans can do, time tunnels, C.J. Cherryh, break causality, the whole idea of stargates, breaks the universe, its a setting, shenanigans, a stage, the island in the tempest, Elsinore, strut around, a lot of speculation, self-aware, the play’s the thing, why Shakespeare is so universal, he’s god, he’s the god of this planet, he winks himself off the screen, he’s better at short stories than he is at novels, a good book, Max Deboost in 2013, succinct introduction to mysticism for the young adult, what Scooby-Doo is solving, I read it 13 times, planets and carnivores, robots and galaxy gates, the brain computer interface, telepathy, brain computer interfaces, hey, this is fun, all that stuff, and easy-breezy, and thoughtful, we experienced something, should probably read more, continue to read, objectively much better, lodestone attraction, Time Enough For Love, Martian Chronicles, I, Robot, The Hobbit, when you’re young you’re a sponge, 1800 words, impressed on their brain, frustrated, see ya goodbye, to do what and go where?, explore the time tunnels, that’s the existentialism, Paul is not big into existentialism, we like him because he knows who he is and what he needs to do, whereas we’re more like Horton in that we don’t know who we are and we don’t know what we need to do, very unsatisfactory, 1904, he’s from 120 years ago, very traditional SF, could have been written today, the robot can program itself, swapable modules, fits with the actors on the stage, a man plays many parts, the dowdy cook, everything on goodreads is 3.something, on a grading scale, ahead of the average, human beings as locusts, the environment, her gun is a tool, his gun is a weapon, solid concepts, cringe, written before Tommy was born, a big book in the public eye, what he was going for, there’s biker chicks, I’m an embodied being, at the thrift shop, weird things, a videomicroscope, looking at the cells on my arm in realtime, little puddles of liquid coming out of the skin, hairs and broken hairs, a piece of metal embedded in your palm, macro creatures, haircuts, very cerebral, biological organisms, sexual creature, bringing up the topic, the book doesn’t work perfectly, explore them further, scattershot, 20 pounds of shit, good fertilizer, 20 pounds of emeralds, spilled over, a quarter of what he’s trying to present, the beautiful crown or tiara, Heavy Metal magazine, Mœbius, expected to be there, he subverted and explored the trope, a personality, a sense of duty, map the tunnels, feelings for Carter, a very boring Heavy Metal story, standing around perceiving, presentation, sizzle, have you ever thought about this?, they think about another thing, a good introduction to science fiction, appreciated, an existential science fiction novel, when they start talking about magic, there’s a dragon in the story, is Prospero really a wizard?, interpret Shakespeare, they usually get him wrong, entertaining and edifying the low class people, his low class audience, low class brain, I like robots, I like monsters, what are we all doing here, man, was that Neo, Logan’s Run, it’s the same thing, The Thirteenth Floor (1999), zero sequels, not an action movie, action scenes, Simak does it really well, conflict between nostalgia for the past and anxiety about the future, dispersed across all these planets, an idea out of Americana, unthinkable future, a metaphor for this American train of thought, a very American writer, the whole civil war angle, A Choice Of Gods, really really really weird, he loves robots in a way that Asimov doesn’t, the Indians were robots, Heinlein and Simak were almost exactly contemporaries, Simak starts earlier, Simak was a newspaperman, Wonder Stories, Amazing, fantasy magazines later on, Astounding and Unknown, the same age, the reference points to rural countryside housing and the landscape, more of the Bradbury style, Jack Finney, Charles G. Finney, he doesn’t talk down to the reader, here’s some ideas to explore, made it longer, the voice of Carnivore, stupid brute, David Drummond, X-Men’s Caliban, Days Of Future Past, H.G. Wells, ugly mutants, Wolverine, Beast, Futurama’s ugly mutants, the people who read it, mimetic fiction, give me a guy who only wants to be eat and a guy who wants to be eaten, realistic fiction, Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant, falls in love with a prostitute, The Midnight Bell by Patrick Hamilton, secret crush, prostitute’s POV, 20000 Streets Under The Sky, A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, Fools Die by Mario Puzo, no ideas there, enjoyment, enjoyment vs. appreciation, PKD points, appreciate what he’s doing, Philip K. Dick’s Progeny is probably the best take on autistic children with capes being raised by robots, yuck your um, harsh the squee, relatively enlightened, unintentionally sexist, super-forward thinking woman, talked about it too much, pulled Tommy out of it, The Empire Strikes Back, anything on Dagobah, get me out of here, wise I am, Yoda is wrong about everything, your training not complete is, a pendulum, the court of King Charles II, Senior Dildo, a dildo expressed in poetic terms, other poems, A Ramble In St. James’ Park by John Wilmot, Roxana by Daniel Defoe, from one extreme to another extreme, we have definitely beaten that horse, so tame, this one is female, Pond, what’s the story on Pond, the undercooked nature, this intelligence that can split itself, a beaker full of Pond, it’s strange to be carrying a glass of your friend, pour out Pond somewhere, Ego from Guardians Of The Galaxy, the Deep Space Nine aliens, the glory hole moment, the God Hour, rough metaphors for something, the splendour of nature, this is sunset?, the Golden Hour?, the main theme of the book, gestalting, group mind, doing Dunsany, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, in service to the drama, is there conflict in this story and if so where?, instantly resolved, fate, part of nature, not so toothy, not so clawful, he’s cool with that, even though there’s no one to spread the word, their understanding of the universe, limited perception, let’s try to explain that to him, they don’t understand something, we can dialogue this guys, conflicts resolved through lecture, there are only misunderstandings, a friendly neighbour sitting down: “uh, you’re an alien from another planet. That’s unusual. I had a brother-in-law from Tennessee”, it never is, a great attitude, a really really good grandpa, Heinlein would be insufferable on Twitter, wrong in interesting ways, he’s undeniable, 3 Hugos 1 Nebula and Grandmaster, audio of Simak accepting his award, polygrip, the lady who is always getting canceled, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Grandmaster, Gandalf awards, engaged with Jules Verne, Dickens, poor people living in London, reading A Christmas Carol, I like him because I got to be him, he deals with class, Paul is related to Charles Dickens, doing something about class, first class, more poignantly, TSA lines, treating other people differently, their boobs, caste vs. class, the Sikh religion, eliminating caste by name change, you’re one of those people, defeats caste or class, a famous name, my young daughter: you’re a maid, I wanted to be a princess, nobody aspires to be low class, I’m a Disney princess, give Hunter Biden a foot massage, pen-name, telemarketer, James Williamson, too ethnic, an FCC violation, a bunch of consonants together, writing with integrity, somewhat agree, Mark Twain, Richard Stark, name changes, invagle their way into a jet-set class, laptop people, vacations on tropical islands, lie a lot, Vistula, sounds strange, memorable, 2016, Masters Of The Maze by Avram Davidson, time tunnel ghost, minotaurs, oubliette: a very Heinlein word, dungeon, this oubliette called Earth, Elon Musk wants to get out of the oubliette, 12 guys have gone camping on the Moon, one more note, early Known Space, Wunderland, planets aren’t that great, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, mythology, Simak has a better life philosophy, Dan Simmons is a horrible person, it goes without saying he’s a monster, Mecca should be nuked, Islam taking over the west, a broken step, generally used for sexual predators, what’s that, urban dictionary, missing stair, 9/11 broke a lot of people, untrustworthy or “managed”, that is evil, con culture, whisper network shit, author x has grabby hands, of the worst order, Until The End Of The World (1991), Wim Wenders, meandering plot, trafficking in a machine that allows you to record dreams, watching their own dreams, an opal mine heist, music by U2, Jesse is not a U2 expert, indie director, giant canons on top of the mountains of Hollywood, The End Of Violence (1997), drones before drones, Paris, Texas (1984), a live recreation of Nighthawks, almost cyberpunk, genuine SF on film, Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Harry Dean Stanton, awesome and fun, so critical of nudity, make you two connect, a lot of nudity, I enjoy gratuitous sex and violence, a progressive novel, he’s so old, right-thinking, Jonathan may think I’m a douche now, book titles: Warrior Soul and Other Stories, Kitty Kat Massacre, that sounds horrific, Savage Headhunters, came across as a social justice warrior, you’re fine, too aggressive, triggered, conservative thinking is a “you’re not of the body”, we need to kill the disease, people turn off receiving data, it’s hard to understand, shortly after 9-11, months later, hot dog, do you know what just happened, trying to bomb the hot dog stand, unable to recognize, a blackout happened, why the car stopped, these people are really scared, what’s wrong with them, fear is contagious, they’re being affected in an irrational way, why Jonathan doesn’t like social media, ultra contagious pathogens, looking within yourself is hard, followers to followed, I’m considering reducing my followers, 11,000 people he was following, Stephen King, a TV show from 10 years ago, tweet about politics, posting Chicken Dinners, people use twitter in different ways, a slow minute, upset about some Republican idea, a steady feed of everything that’s happening with Paul, Fredosphere tweeted a candy bar he liked, something to do with the people and not the media, why people were obsessed with premature burial, the 2nd Red Scare, Dashiell Hammett, Atlanta, Cop City, what Hammett was arrested for, Dashiell Hammett’s a hero, he know whereov he spoke when he wrote Red Harvest, it wasn’t because of social media, more visible, mass hysteria on crack, post 9-11, pro-ano sites, pro-anorexia, propaganda, tips on how to lose weight, moral support, all the trans stuff, social memes, beings subject to thought control, we are social beings, maybe the Mennonites are right, Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow, Orphans In The Sky, instead I reading what I wanted, I’m deeply subject to this shit, I have to be careful, David Currie, political tweets, Smouldering Toxicity, Max Blumenthal, Natsec Media Lackeys, Kit Klarenberg’s detention, that’s kinda horrible, a tweet of support and then took it down, sighs: Jesse, this is something more people should know about, he’s really dumb, what makes me really dumb here, some principles, these things are valuable, not these books, reconciliation, people tar sources, Evan Lampe got triggered by Elon Musk, triggered by Taiwan related tweets, blocking all bluechecks, the Elon Musk tax, a really good thing, we’re all strange, a writer and and artist, the input is what you read and what you consume, the output is what you create, a complex mathematical formula, lazy after a while, not accustomed to searching, iconoclastic, tweeting old movies, The Good Place, this is dumb I’m out, get good, new stuff is very divorced from the old stuff, how I want my brain to work, 20 Books To 50k, mainstream media talks about it, indiewriter, dungeoncore, read 40 dungeoncore books, making a formula, they makes that are unreadable, weird set of people, indistinguishable, create unique books, reading old books feeds into what Jonathan wants to do, expand vocabulary, Orwellian newspeak, doing that in the background, if this was 1968, Frank Zappa, make statements, people disagree with them, the artist taught me something, sophisticated, these are great covers, random paperback covers, painted, the theory on design now, the assumption is the other books sell, a foreign idea, look at you aghast, why would you do that?, bad tropes or bad ideas, if you want to be published…, agents personal tastes, if you read older books that’s going to pollute that, you’re sabotaging your career, you’re undermining yourself, writers on twitter, cat mom, trans flag, kofi, venmo, follower counts, Dollar Tree’s book section, Our Opinions Are Correct, Jesse is not understanding how the economy works, for a buck 25, intellectually interested, Charlie Jane Anders, they were iO9, Victories Greater Than Death, somebody is buy this and reading it, most of the economy is fake, passing the same five dollar bill around, fake it til we make it, I become a Tor editor you become a Tor editor, BoingBoing?, Gawker, Jalopnik, back when blogs existed, write books and manage a website and have a blog, they have a producer, not a lot of, H.P. Lovecraft, E.A. Poe was overrated, compared to what?, Charles Dickens was overrated, A Tale Of Two Cities, historical fiction, just like a science fiction story, a doppelganger, serialized, you seem like a reasonable fellow, this guy who’s a lawyer who likes like a loser vagabond, impersonate each other, Jesse doesn’t love Stranger In A Strange Land, gripping, subterfuge, political anger and angst, chopping babies heads off, a spilled barrel of wine, a slaughter, too many roosters, butcher some chickens, farm animals, Jersey cow, I’m a farm now, obvious reasons, the agricultural land reserve, Maissa and Will, think about government stuff, party change in BC, the latest one on June 1st, 2023, 21 minor medical ailments, skin irritation, social health insurance, why did they do that?, government can actually make changes, a mountainous region, limited land for farming, if you’ve paved over all your land, they shut down the border, a shortage of Alberta beef, a separate system, food production in the place where you live, the egg shortage, buying incubators, chicken coin miner, no food supply to New York, horrible riots, deliberately trying to fuck things up, what the citizens want somehow, its not impossible for good things to happen, making work, an inefficiency left over from a previous system, toll bridges, let’s reduce the amount of traffic, too much congestion, $17 to drive across the bridge, they gotta cut it down somehow, Chris Christie, Fort Lee, a bigger island than Manhattan, and a lot of empty buildings, Manhattan sinking, capsizes, sinking due to massive corruption, the Bronx, Bronck’s creek, the Gotham, Kumbaya (come by here), Gullah, scheduled for both.

SHAKESPEARE'S PLANET by Clifford D. Simak

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #740 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Pursuit by Lester Del Rey

The SFFaudio Podcast #740 – Pursuit by Lester Del Rey – read by Dale Grothman for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (1 hour 59 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Tony DeSimone.

Talked about on today’s show:
Space Science Fiction, May 1952, he was the editor, his editorial, a new baby, growth and development, a personality of its own, the most appropriate name, themes, we like good science fiction, final frontier, space opera has long since been overdone, to meet every challenge to spread throughout the universe, always a bad sign, extension in all directions, indefinite indivisibility, occasional fantasy, still countless fine stories, our only taboo, a matter of taste, a better definition of maturity, suspenseful stimulating entertainment, suggestions and objections, a cooperative concern, a letters section, reviews of the best of the new books, special mention, occasional articles, future editorials, the art for Pursuit, that’s the Moon, our hero, an unusual situation, a product of this magazine, for no reason, the wonderful and thoughtful editorial, reprint mag, cover his bases, as a showcase, an okay job, a little editorial at the end of the story, Pursuit ends where the story is just beginning, unrelated to anything we know, dining room in the mountains, another planet, national boundaries, endless possibilities, if you can, not responsible for mental breakdowns, licensing this story idea, not super-unique, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, Larry Niven, stepping discs and teleportation booths, fascinating stories that explore that idea, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, much better than here, Living Space by Isaac Asimov, parallel earths, your own personal planet, alternate universes, pocket universes, transferring from office to home through an alternate dimension, different versions of Earth, he’s an ideas guy but not excellent at executing, fast paced, a lot of pursuing and chase, deliberately obfuscatory, pressure on the reader, all red herring, Philip K. Dick, his sense of reality, mentally ill, Total Recall, novelette length, man on the run, the least good Philip K. Dick stories, short and painful, acceptable, authors who could do this better, a fun game: anonymize a story, someone like Paul, its one of these five authors, a gameshow, reveal the author’s name, Shaun Duke, streaming on Twitch, guess the author, the sky above the port was too easy, an author who wrote a lot, not a realistic game, a Lester Del Rey-ism, the relationships, wild talents, George R.R. Martin’s Wildcards, Parable Of The Talents, a role playing game, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, the rules, a superhero RPG, Marvel super hero RPG, Villains and Vigilantes, rolling up characters, random powers, mutant powers, lack of powers, Captain America doesn’t have any super-powers, maximized human, plus shield, plus moral goodness, lift Mjollnir, turns into a super-hero story, a mindfuck movie, Vanilla Sky (2001), Abre Los Ojos (1997), easily adapted, make it weirder, less straightforward ending, Ideas, did he know where it was going?, it kind of makes it worse, a plot and a plan, why the Moon sequence is in there, a John W. Campbell idea, psi-powers, seeded well enough, the unconscious part, the poltergeists, fair-ish, his style is such, good done ready next, when he meets the girl, ok, what is she doing?, explained by horniness, a little uncomfortable to read, dated these days, definitely horny guys around, The Sky Is Falling, idea-based, Badge Of Infamy, ancient parlance, horndogs, kind of uncomfortable, lurched into the bedroom, a gurgling cry, cold sober, none of her act, you damned alien!, you filthy monster disguised as a girl!, you can’t pass one tests, the dust on his feet proved that, crying now, I’m human Will, oh I’m human!, then prove it!, more apologies than one, she had proven herself and virginally so, complete surrender, cursed himself for a fool, ran off to the FBI, they’d been smart picking a virgin for the job, simple, simplistic, I like this idea, he likes the right ideas, his writing is serviceable, The Boys, what would Superman really be like?, he’d be a monster, accidents happen, we all become Lex Luthor, the hate for superheroes, he exhausted the idea, a reality that is ridiculous and impossible, to simplify and cheapen plumbing, you can reorganize your cells after you bite your wrist, you can jaunt, a better revenge story, The Count Of Monte Cristo with teleportation, Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, the armed forces and the intelligence agencies, a three week Honeymoon to Hawaii, Mauna Kea is erupting, Paul is sensitive to sulfur, poi poi vulcanism, for other reasons, a planet walk, scale model of the solar system, a long walk, when measuring, Sweden, the lack of limits kills the idea in the end, its unconscious, The Golden Man, an X-Men style mutant, a mental midget incapable of even speech, incredibly impotent, suicidal, all instinctual, upgrade, anywhere in time and space, the end of storytelling, where Ted Chiang does good work, Understand, Vernor Vinge’s Bookworm, Run!, Flowers For Algernon, Lester Del Rey does it first, Helen O’Loy, The Faithful, H.G. Wells, David Brin the whole sundiver series, For I Am A Jealous People [is PUBLIC DOMAIN], self impressions, a good sign, SF stories about religion, as one reviewer recently pointed out, pulp magazines, who is standing out to Tony?, Thomas M. Disch, new wave, physically deformed guy uses time travel to get laid, sex with dinosaurs, All You Zombies, has sex with a lady named Eve, The End, a stage play adaptation by John Jakes, The Cold Equations, two people in a room and a voice on the radio, Strange Horizons, story ideas and cliches they would not accept, the main characters that are Adam and or Eve, anime, in the public consciousness has to have its analog, Behold The Man by Michael Moorcock, a great idea, nobody needs to write it again, sad, unique, novelette length?, a novel version, in the film industry, Saw (2004), short films are what you do when you can’t get funding for a feature, get funding for a feature by making a short, the whole premise is the end of Mad Max (1979), a tiny little rip off of one little scene, mining these old things, The Veldt is the holodeck, the same problems, what science fiction really is, if we have a technology what would that mean?, flat screen technology, the social consequences, what is the social consequence of , a certain band of science fiction, the good stuff for you, that’s the stuff that you want, what is the best really?, they really are objectively better, fixing typos, a missing page, what do we really mean, carrying a saddle through the whole story, no horses, no hats, space western, we can sweep too much, there are things that are better, its hard to judge, our sole aim, the best science fiction magazine, best to some group of readers, Strange Stories is not as good as Weird Tales, which is better Astounding or Amazing, Adams Family or The Munsters, an aesthetic, goofier, they’re all goths, Frankenstein monster, werewolf, grandpa is a vampire, Marilyn is normal, not adopted?, a fun idea, The Graveyard Book, a kid adopted by a jungle, Tarzan, extracted what little juice, very little juice, the way that he told the story, tighter plotting, a Hitchcock movie, a lot of running around, the payoff is kinda straight forward, what’s going on?, our complaint about the last Michael Crichton, Grave Descend, Drug Of Choice, Easy Go, fun all the way through, a nice ending, satisfying, minimal ideas, too big?, not enough restrictions, boundaries and constraints or restrictions, Julian May’s The Many Colored Land, explode things, too much, time travel, what can’t he do?, a better thinker, we need you to fix this story, Ted Chiang, the coolest things, where he saw himself earlier, Robert A. Heinlein, the car, the old fashioned running boards, the least substantial Lester Del Rey so far, the most interesting ideas, Badge Of Infamy, when Jesse shownotes it in six months, Mars, ex-wife, The Last Ship, network channels, TNT, the Navy funds the whole thing, based on a novel, A Town Called Alice, On The Beach, global pandemic, 2014-2019, masks, the remainders of the federal government, its like Soylent Green, getting rid off the useless people, gain of function, fear of nuclear war, a 20th century fear, the second in command is the Jayne from Firefly, right wing nut lens, Adam Baldwin, Chuck, gun crazy, typecast in his beliefs and his life, gone the way of Kevin Sorbo, mouths cover up by mugs, dub in dialogue later, semi-passable stuff, something you don’t seem much in plays, silent film, change people’s lips, de-aged Indiana Jones, 80 year old action hero, weak sauce, Raiders Of The Lost Ark is a terrific movie, had Indiana Jones nothing, he didn’t need to be in the movie, we wouldn’t have had the truck chase, Temple Of Doom, played comedicly, that was ok, Jaws (1975), The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, highly educational, especially obvious, getting scolded all the time, hang our with artists all day, very different, accompanying documentaries, the weird things happening in the early 20th century, our troubling amnesia, I’ve got amnesia amnesia, self inflicted amnesia, Momento (2000), the Mark Twain episode, Jesse would love this, different Christian denominations, Paul is a map guy please and thank you, a pilgrimage book, axis mundi, foundational, catholicon, special rooms for everybody, protestants be like, dish on the Disch, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, PUBG later, assault a crime lord, escort mission, rescue mission, based on Jack Vance’s Tschai novel, players muddying things.

Pursuit by Lester Del Rey art by ORBAN

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The SFFaudio Podcast #668 – READALONG: The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #668 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Marissa VU, and Will Emmons talk about The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

Talked about on today’s show:
1983, time travel fantasy novel, awards, Bronson Pinchot, the best narrator there is, he’s actor good, the accents and the emotions, Grover Gardner, a chameleon, his timing, his best self, Jonathan Davis, mostly fiction, Perfect Strangers, Beverly Hills Cop, The Bronson Pinchot Project, renovating a whole town, Marissa’s pick (along with Scott), a good idea, the stack of to-be-reads, Will’s first Tim, an addictive quality, stuck in time, body parts disappearing, I’m gonna get kidnapped, get murdered, the evil clown, a “generous” book, Last Call, Declare, Gene Wolfeish, gaps in history, a supernatural explanation for an oddity, On Stranger Tides, Homer’s The Odyssey, the Fisher King, Egypt, voodoo magic, World Fantasy, a friend of Philip K. Dick’s, an entertaining person, have this book not be fiction, everything that’s coming, great for readers because it allows us to participate in the book, ripped off many times, so Call Of Cthulhu, body switching, more setups than payoffs, a big long book, connections, obviously obsessed, the Cold War, 1800s, Las Vegas in the 60s 70s, always some magic, the Tim Powers genre, all the research first, weird facts, building the plot to that string of history, William Ashbless, entwined with Coleridge, Dean Koontz’ The Book Of Counted Sorrows, The Stress Of Her Regard, the William Ashbless wikipedia entry, not a romantic poem, walks in the countryside, kind of predictable, James Blaylock, had you said the Blaylock, hideously deformed, the poetical efforts of our deformed friend, The Digging Leviathan by James Blaylock, enjoying himself immensely, good fake romantic poetry, Lord Byron, Marcus Aurelius, the whole frame of the river being frozen with a shotgun pattern in it, Kubla Khan, drowning, the juice of paradise, the milk of the poppy, the visitor from Porlock, opening in Egypt, The Twelve Hours Of The Night, also inspired by the plot, interesting historical facts, this meta stuff, invented and written by no-one, All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein, that meta-play, why this book works, that playfulness, if you like role-playing games and magic, entertaining, skating through it, the 17th century trip, the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion, a little ice age, its dangerous to do these things, other stories set in this universe, is that what we want more of?, Dog-faced Joe, Anubis, expecting a lot more Egyptian stuff, set in the London Hoboverse, a hobo simulator: Hobo: Tough Life, steampunk, there’s practically no steam in this at all, that meeting hall, the thieves guild, very Dungeons & Dragons, the grifter’s guild, playing up to Charles Dickens’ pre-Victorian England, ahistorical or super-historical, the Punch & Judy show, how people engage with puppets, when a puppet calls you out and you get mad at the puppet, ventriloquist dummy, there’s nothing funnier than that, these puppets are more than puppets, steal all this for your D&D campaign, Call Of Cthulhu, Vampire The Masquerade, is Dog-faced Joe Anubis?, making Egypt for Egyptians, time gates, weird powers, cursed with lycanthropy, a magical disease, make Egypt great again, P. Djèlí Clark, Anubis’s heiroglpyh: a pen or a feather a wavy line a box or a cup a bird or a jackal (or a wolf), where’s my Anubis content?, other expeditions, secret history stuff, images produced for this book, a wall, Anubis, somebody passing through a gate within Anubis, he’s the god of Death, Dog-faced Joe is immortal, live your life backwards, become the richest person ever, rule the earth, wills (and testaments) are a way of extending your life beyond your life, their will lives on, their estate has a founding document, a very Egyptian thing, totally looted, all the big graves are looted, a little bit to be said about why the magic works in the timegaps, the manna is higher, very Larry Niven-esque, very Tim Powers-y, playing by a different set of rules, maybe a little more cringey, Jesse doesn’t think about Declare ever, Fred Heimbach, dark evil forces, allows participation in the reading, On Stranger Tides, Elizabeth Bear, Will’s extra homework: a Laser Book: Blake’s Progress by Ray Nelson, a giant battle scene, a thousand wives fighting a thousand lizard gods, if you ate some of William Blake’s brain, his poetry proves he is a time traveler, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, John Keats, the pre-Joycean fellowship, Mary Shelly, John Polidori, romanticism and science fiction go together, the break between realism and science fiction, they know about science but they don’t choose to be clinical, the romantics fit, Ozymandius by Percy Shelley, One-Eyed Jack by Elizabeth Bear, urban fantasy, historical fantasy, Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, medieval urban fantasy, We Are Seven by William Wordsworth, buried twelve steps from your door, struggles with depression, 2006, Gentlemen Bastards, secondary world novels, The Sin In The Steel by Ryan Van Loan, The Councillor by E.J. Beaton, books in other worlds, all the dwarves and elves, building up a secondary world, Rocky XVIII, Star Trek, all the movies in the Enterprise database, The Strange Case Of Mr. Cigars, Bride Of Chaotica, reverse lore, where were all the books Bilbo was reading in Rivendell, do the Rohirim don’t know how to write?, memorized poems, the aliens from Galaxy Quest (1999), Andy Serkis recording The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, Alternate Routes by Tim Powers, Earthquake Weather, Expiration Date, Forced Perspective, its the communists [at Baen] demanding series, latter day sequels, an Anubis Gates story, Subterranean Press, Philip K. Dick, weird inklings, Lego versions, The Laughing Dead (1989), priests and nuns oh my, fun book, the dwelling, under 15 hours, novellas are the best, let the cat in.

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers - illustration by Zeljko Pahek

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The SFFaudio Podcast #642 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Sowers Of The Thunder by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #642 – The Sowers Of The Thunder by Robert E. Howard; read by Connor Kaye

This unabridged reading of the story (1 hours 34 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, Trish E. Matson, and Alex and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
Oriental Stories, Winter 1932, 9 issues, a spinoff of Weird Tales, G.G. Pendarves, Hung Long Tom, Otis Adelbert Kline, The Dragoman’s Jest, the kock-off Edgar Rice Burroughs, E. Hoffman Price, Magic Carpet, 5 issues, the Arabian Nights theme, historical fiction, what kind of stories they’re publishing, guys with scimitars, yellow peril, the mystical east, Orientalism, Australian stories, the land of upside down, the exotic, Outback Tales, Bush Tales, shaggy dog stories, time wasters, folklore, folktales, bush poetry, don’t worry Trish, North-West Adventures, Yukon Tales, Jack London made that genre, American movie productions set, I Heard The Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven, the last frontier, She in the Arctic, that excitement about Antarctica, Hawks Of Outremer, Robin Hood, King John, the crusades and the crusader states, a lot of work, the research for Oriental tales was too much work, battle scenes, historical errors?, Saladin’s a real guy, a shoutout to Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, Swords Of Shahrzar, there’s a lot going on in here, the twist ending, why it didn’t grab you, Jewels Of Gwahlur, a completely different kind of mode, transferring information, giving what you need for what he’s going to do, we need a map, El Borak, The Fire Of Asshurbanipal, the 1982 Conan movie, Subotai is in this, Baibars, Gerry Lopez, Lopez, lifts from other Robert E. Howard stories, deep in your soul, make it part of your life, A Witch Shall Be Born, Hour Of The Dragon, Tower Of The Elephant, a Kull villain, dressed like a mongol, what happened to Baibars in real life, a king by his own hand, Oliver Stone or John Milius, there is no one Conan story, Queen Of The Black Coast, Belit for this scene, giant snake, an amalgam of Howard’s themes and ideas, the wheel of pain, we don’t know who the hero of our story is, that mode, is the hero Baibars, its a ruse, a castle full of Arabs, “this is a ruse”, this is a trick, the trick happened earlier, not a mystery exactly, we’re not supposed to know, our reveal is a supposition of reality, Haroun, Harold Lamb, why it feels like it doesn’t work, our Irish lord fleeing despair in Europe for relief in the east, a historical supposition, he’s making an argument, the protagonist vs. the viewpoint character, rising around for three chapters until the plot hook, it bounces from castle to castle, all this stuff didn’t happen over night, what’s the time frame of this story, we need a map and a timeline, from Egypt to Palestine, the first invasion, the subsequent invasion, historical about Baibars, Kingdom Of Heaven (2005), the reveal was amazing, he was my taskmaster, I was his body servant, I hate that guy, I am not Haroun, a really interesting thing that he’s done, really impersonal, a bigger scoped story, the fall of kingdoms, Howard works best at the personal level, the undercooked personal level, the knight who secretly betrayed him, a prophecy, twice as long, the lady knight thing was so out of nowhere, that plot arc, a bit out of place, why it doesn’t work as well as Hawks Of Outremer, not much of a payoff for any of the characters, the romance plot ends in tragedy, it can’t be told from his POV, we want to want him to win, pulling itself in several different ways, everything that happens in it is historically accurate, a scar on his face, involved in many intrigues in his life, going amongst the people to spy, what made him such a rags to riches story, an indentured slave, the schools, a northern barbarian, blue eyed, pale skin, chopping skills, 1,000 sword swings a day, kinda hard to understate, he thinks of himself as an Irishman, him confronting the east, why the mongols were stopped, how come the hordes didn’t take over the Arab empire, Baibars stopped them, he took a crusader state and teamed up against the mongols, team-up, wow!, the opposite of Saladin, Saladin is noble, Baibars is cunning, quarterstaff, neither of us will ever be able to dominate the other, when our hero dies, that scar on his face like Kull, Howard projecting himself against a historical figure, an different kind of defeat, Cahal, kay-hal?, his kingdom is the dark side of the moon, he kinda gets what he wants: an end to himself, he came here because he couldn’t go home, he’s seeking death, you can’t defeat me, I see you as a fellow person, a terrible defeat for Cromac Fitzgeoffrey, he clawed him, the only way Howard could engage, more than the end he wants, western civilization will crush Islam in 1,000 years, talking with Evan Lampe about Robert E. Howard’s letters to H.P. Lovecraft, within his stories, Lovecraft was never effected by Howard, Howard was very effected by Lovecraft, barbarians, barbarianism is the norm (not civilization), putting myself up against any historical figure, an intellectual heavyweight from a small town, such an insight into Howard’s psychology, the technical need, it isn’t a classic of Robert E. Howard, the scimitar with the scarlet flying, the babies being spitted, the bar fight, the Roy Thomas written Savage Swords, it doesn’t flow in the way we want it to, another way to do it, unless he abandons the thesis, the Irish viewpoint character, when the Mongols hit eastern Europe, these sons of slaves, disinherited before he was born, dies of a poisoning not meant for him, Haroun, Baibars is not the leader of Egypt, he’s not yet the leader of Egypt, info dump drops are 100% accurate, all these kingdoms, the Syrians and the Egyptians, imagine Canada trying to jump into the fight on January 6th, to get up to speed, who the sides are, relatively painless, if flows perfectly, the common enemy, a bit more messy, the craftsmanship, getting the writing done, the European inset, given the people he’s chosen to write about, he wanted to be as accurate as possible (or so it seems), Conan wouldn’t react the same way, a kingly figure who is worthy, who is Conan’s greatest adversary?, not Thulsa Doom, a monkey with a cape, his own lust, a doomed character, a femme fatale story, he’s so bitter at the beginning so revealed at the end, uncharacteristically Robert E. Howard, does he notice her at the beginning?, he looks into the visor, pulled back almost like a woman, he zones out a little bit, a giant army is coming, we should run, the great oaf, a slender knight, a rough red beard, a Vanir, something slumbering, man, where have I seen you before?, shadowed eyes, a thousand racing chaotic thoughts, an almost womanish gesture of rebuke, distracted by the Odin swearing assistant, Howard’s red herring is literally red haired, the ending works for Jesse, why it is not THE classic of Robert E. Howard stories, with the reveal and the supposition, growing mustachios, Connor read this for us, what’s the time period, the final battle is 1244, a year, six months, time to grow a mustache, Jerusalem, from Cairo to Damietta to Jerusalem, with a bandit far to the east, at least six months, seven chapters, how do you tell this story if you’re trying to be accurate, Die Hard (1988), these guys are gonna hang out and have adventures together, Marvel Team-Up, Green Lantern – Green Arrow, Hard Travelin’ Heroes, these two titans testing each other, team up for one battle, the double reveal of the masked night, strangled by the concept, the thesis, make this story longer, a modern fantasy novel, a novel length story spending more time with each of the characters, impersonating a man, tell it from her point of view, Will really liked this story, Vikings, go back in time, cut people up, lets have a hitting contest, Christopher Lee is a pirate, the Spanish Armada, a punching contest, The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), PTSD in those days, drink each other under the table with fermented milk, a character that we don’t understand any better having read this story, different personas to live their lives, shocking and amazing and why are they doing it?, a lot of disguises, Eleanor, trying to fix this story, make it shorter or longer, the Eleanor plot arc, make it episodic, chunks, Akbar, start, middle, and end, episodes, add in something in the middle, uncharacteristic, make baibars more empathetic to see something from his perspective, The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, only technically true, different perspective characters (all Baibars!), a unique idea for a series of stories, could I beat Baibars in a fight, it would be a tie!, I would be his equal!, I would be his match!, overstating the case, the sub-thesis, 100 years later in the history, the crusader states are in decline, Red Cahal rode, Tyre, Jaffa, Acre, Hospitallers and Templars, the Teutonic knights invaded Russia and Poland, spread Christianity and stamp out paganism, to stabilize his rule, pay off his guys, keep the mongols out, the fading kingdom, suicidal, at least a year, full of difficult pronunciations, living by his wits on the edge of his sword, a predatory nose, a haunt of poverty, weeds grew rank, lizards, the echoing emptiness, no gaily clad pages, a reiver’s hold, how does a noble house go down?, it just takes time, arguing so hard with Lovecraft, really interesting vs. rousing adventure, a good miniseries, his femme fatale who betrayed him, too short for what its trying to do, more resonant, he had to do so much infodumping, skillfully done, Hour Of The Dragon, the downer ending of Hawks Of Outremer, the same setup, his brother is dead so he’s sad, a gracious enemy vs. a devious enemy, strategist, leading incredibly heavily on a romance, I’ve heard stories about you tell me if they’re true, different media, in a TV show, techniques, what Shakespeare does on stage is so what you can’t do, an audio drama would need a narrator, a text crawl, its setup a lot like a mystery, Dashiell Hammett style, going around and getting beat up to solve a mystery, a recitation of facts is not a story, Shanghai, Shadow Of The Vulture, the Siege of Vienna, Magic Carpet, Red Sonja, a revenge arc, first concubine of the sultan, that bitch betrayed all of Europe, a red headed wanton, down the road in history, a generic Howard guy, a Howard woman who never needs to be rescued, what the Jews and Syrians were wearing in the street, different Irish guards, this guy’s young!, Dark Valley Destiny by Catherine Crook de Camp, Jane Whittington Griffin, L. Sprague de Camp, a photographic memory, an inability to not remember things like dates of purchases, Marilu Henner’s memory [hyperthymesia], a major facility, he was 30, being towards death, Bill Hollweg, Edgar Rice Burroughs, part of the attraction to Bill was these feelings, racial memory, events in your ancestor’s past, a guy who becomes Conan, Jack London, the Celt’s facility with language, Before Adam, The Call Of The Wild‘s race memory, reverting to one’s ancestor, the definitive word, White Fang, The Sea Wolf, savouring, Jack London’s one of the best writers ever, as I’m flying across the street having been hit by a bus I’ll be screaming “I should have read the memory”, an eidetic memory, worth reading (at least once), expensive bon bons, don’t read every Conan story back to back, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the beats, 1995 – 2021, The Sowers Of The Thunder volumes from the 1970s, The Sword Of Shahrazar, Skull Face, the most racist, Howard doing Fu Manchu, an Atlantean priest, now Will is sold, a Famous Fantastic Mysteries podcast, Virgil Finlay, Hannes Bok, Lawrence Sterne Stevens, Almuric, something wrong about the ending, May June July August, Connor needs to do the one about the Polish lady, Leigh Brackett, doomed cult ideology, Outpost On Io, Chief O’Brien is not super-doomed, he likes being doomed, virtual reality prison for 40 years, oh I’m a robot, Philip K. Dick’s Impostor, the Gary Sinise movie sucks so bad, a giant chase sequence with Ice Cube in the middle, we like O’Brien, we know O’Brien, more Irish fated ill guys, other gloomy Irishmen characters, The Terror by Dan Simmons, The Coming Race, too long, another true story that’s been modified slightly to make it weird, except for the giant polar bear monster spirit, maybe that’s why the expedition was so doomed, tinned meat contaminated with lead, a supernatural element, the HBO biopics were really kind of depressing, real life is much harsher than stories are generally, spice it up with the fantastic it becomes more spritely and less dour, lets the medicine go down, the slash fiction, an archive of our own, they fall in love, some hot gay sex, grasping that pole (so to speak), take us through your inspiration for your story, where the slash fiction lives, post your own fan fiction, a good tagging system, Of Stray Cats And Lost Kings by galerian_ash, comments and kudos, rather shocking, the red cat is adorable, red head, its a metaphor, gold hair tinged with read, the Dane, Oh, and I love the bit about the stray cat staying,

What wonderful tension you hold here between Cahal and Baibars. It’s such a classic situation, but you’ve made it fresh and new here, and I particularly like your emphasis on a lack of personal hatred. I find myself sympathising with Baibar’s honourable patience and Cahal’s tussle with himself, and thus your resolution is both hard-won and satisfying. I did like the little details that worked to reveal each character, too – paticularly Barbar’s “let’s ride!”. What else would a warrior from the steppes say? – on a completely different note, it was delightful to learn about Baibars’ cat garden in Cairo, and to discover that the cats of Torre Argentina and the Mosque Aziz Mahmud Hudayi have such noble heritage. Thank you for that!

what his name means, what was missing from the story!, the most Howard thing, Cahal was like a bear, the male gaze, male gay vs. lesbian stuff, some of it was poetry, the explicit lesbian poetry, explicitly lesbianism in Weird Tales, whipping and lesbians goes together, ruffled a few feathers, Gay Orientaled Stories, Spicy Tales he told, The Dragon Of Kao Tsu by Robert E. Howard, September 1936 Spicy and Juvenalia, Mexico, all over the world, its possible he didn’t even know how to swim, a powerhouse.

Oriental Stories - The Sowers Of The Thunder by Robert E. Howard

The Sowers Of The Thunder by Robert E. Howard

Roy G. Krenkel, 1975 Donald M. Grant Edition -The Sowers Of The Thunder by Robert E. Howard

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The SFFaudio Podcast #640 – READALONG: Wang’s Carpets by Greg Egan

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #640 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Scott Danielson talk about Wang’s Carpets by Greg Egan

Talked about on today’s show:
Greg Bear, its been a while, a story about scientists doing science in a science fiction story, really pleasant, a lot of philosophy and a lot of scientific ideas, establishes themes, distilled, some real questions about the world, many worlds to conquer, sense of wonder, fractals, not conquer, contact is conqueror, very Prime Directivey, a Sterling thing, the Shaper Mechanist stories, biological and technological, parallel lives, they’ve mastered biology, they’re digital, baseline humans, 96 percent of me died, I’m going to mourn that for a while, Borderlands, digistructs, Star Trek, stuck in the buffer, technically this story is really good, not writing problems, digital vs. biological, the CZ folks, there was a reality, not a solipsistic universe, All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein, why Scott is worried (what Scott understood), biological copies, they’re not in a simulation, when they arrive at Vega, another level, one of the reviews, a little bit of Borges, how Set Theory interacts with philosophy, an infinity of numbers, this thing could go on for a while, a bigger infinite set, once you set down this path, interesting to think about what’s going on, rather repulsive, a few shows ago, In The Clutch Of The War God went to Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, the post-human aspect, going post-human, changing your eye stalks, your dad’s third copy of your cousin, sound and fury signifying nothing, the act of looking at mp3 files is copying them, I don’t download I only stream, any actions within a computer are copying actions, going to visit a website is downloading it, big sheets of sugar, it turns out its not alive, turns out its not alive, in the interstices, what’s so interesting about this, kind of like Exhalation by Ted Chiang, these things are going on without us, hard fantasy, its much more like Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott, learning the rules of a game, why is he telling me about the emotional relationships between these characters, they don’t have belt pouches and breakfasts, they don’t care whether it is raining, following robots, these are not a metaphor, any sense why Jesse would have a reaction, the message is sad, the people at home are living in VR worlds, step one set back and we’re looking at a short story, yeah within the story it all makes sense, within the story, the story is meta-questioning, somewhere deep in the center, why the search for life is necessary, suicide and emigration, people are excited to hear about life, if this goes on…, the carpets seem to have their own thing going on, exactly like your world, its incestuous, Wang tiles can’t be mirrored, very depressing, here’s the problem, here’s the solution, the problem is present again, escape solipsism with reality exploration, they’re playing proceduraly generated Minecraft, like LEGO, clunky cubic architecture, making calculators and computers that run programs inside of Minecraft, the logic chain, Redstone circuits, and or gates, Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, like the data tape of a Turing machine, if someone had recorded all of our button presses…, control systems, a series of button presses, home computer programming, BYTE Magazine, Ti 99/4A, most people are not going to have access to this story, The Hard SF Renaissance, Mainly Books And Reading Blog, they have their own private language, a thinking machine, its a person, very distanced from the characters, some of them look like butterflies, post-human stuff, a mirror to the world that they’re exploring, the character of Orpheus, there’s no head involved, Cyberpunk 2077, one of the things you can do in the game is you can modify your character, super-customize your character, purple skin and eight fingers per hand, robot legs, eventually you’re just a thing that was a robot, these are not the bodies of the people back on Earth, the thoughts or the Turings of the people, they have votes, nobody would every consider cheating here, the guy who used to be his own son, it is all about the head, ultimately this is a math story, distinct realms, using math to measure reality, digital vs. analog, digital people living in a digital world, stored in pattern buffers, Carter Zimmerman, exploring the physical world vs. we’ve got aliens, so meta and so Borges, a very interesting crystal fractal thing, alienating, reading about others, there’s so much character work, consciousness downloading, Robert J. Sawyer, Four Lords Of The Diamond by Jack L. Chalker, Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, death is not an issue and the biggest issue that ever could be, suicide, immortality, no more copies, downloading memories, a linear existence, explored, tossed-around, really dense, a lot happening, read and listened simultaneously, a different skill, words that give you trouble, spelling, the philosophical exploration, ideas for life, back to Borges, The Library Of Babel, indefinite, infinite, standing room for sleeping, I prefer to dream, a world (not our world), what are in the books, how the world looks, the world consist of rooms, hexagonal, there is not outside world, it could be a giant circle, it could be a carpet, on that water world, some beaches somewhere, the toxic UV, out of contact with the reality of the sun, Plato’s cave creatures, no sense data, social information, a model of the internet, we could hook up webcams, so full, the naming of the planet (Orpheus), he’s despairing, that’s depressing, not a character story, a bit of nostalgia for Paul, all Paul wanted out of science fiction, characters could go hang, their world is presented clinically, they’re there, we’re distanced – like we’re scientists examining them, legitimate emotions, as much as Jesse’s emotions are legitimate, there’s no difference between actual people and fictional people?, an anthropocentric universe, the young earth creationists, The Star by Arthur C. Clarke, these are the worries, the Fermi paradox, subspace chatter, why aren’t the Cardassians yelling at the Klingons, are we the first?, the only?, that’s what they’re saying, mocking, a cause for happiness, hey they discovered life on Mars again!, because there’s some methane, every fifty light years there’s a plankton sheet, fifty light years on there are ones with eyes, fifty light years beyond that there are ones with brains who worry about being alone, their hope, a twofer, a good old fashioned excuse to point to an article of November 1965 issue of Scientific American, Border Guards, David G. Hartwell, the lit crit pov, science as a symbolic construct of language, that’s part of it, are you gonna live you life playing computer games or live a real life, digital clothes for your avatar, the post-human people, the trans-human people, dump these bodies, we’re going to be digital, buy the books, the hard reality is they’re stuck in a meatbody, Kiln People by David Brin, its a metaphor for books, just shoot annoyed clones, typical Brin, I wanna play Minecraft, I left a me in the fridge, Transmetropolitan, robot slaves, you’ve got to have a plot, Raymond Kurzweil, cryonics, I can become younger, self-improvement, augmentation, nano-robot stuff, we do this, cataracts, what you’re claiming to think is consciousness, Evan Lampe, current Klingons aren’t interested in developing science, Klingons are post-human larpers, new fashion, what’s the difference between that and culture, the people who wanna be foxes, furries, unrealistic hope, you’re an ape that can swim and put on clothes and light fireplaces and collect rings, you’re not a bird, you’re not a fish, you’re definitely not going into a chrysalis and coming out a butterfly, 20 spots left in my harem, the more x chromosomes the better, if you have the fallopian tubes, we’re biological, we can’t fully transform from that, Jesse Simulator 1.2, a mistake like warp drive, that’s just gravity assist, Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton, I liked Sliders too, the farcasters in Hyperion, every room on a different planet, which planet does he choose to poop on, how many classes do we have in this story, everybody is equal except how many generation you are, suicide of emigration, what those carpets are doing, that we know of, they don’t have eyes, we come with assumptions, everything that looks at stuff have eyes, trees can detect light, designed to be depressing, these are not supposed to be humans, would you be cool with being a clone?, your clone uncle is now a butterfly, they have Wikipedia, post-scarcity, trans-humanist space journey, you can drink digital root beer and take digital photographs, another rant, AI software used in photos, HDR, slices of the reality that was there, the mark 1 eyeball, cheating, that lady who restored the painting of Jesus to look like a capuchin monkey, this is what Jesus looked like maybe, Paul’s philosophy of photography, that’s not really what you saw, the bad driving out the good, a weird overlay of reality, a watermark, a fascinating discussion, similar arguments in sports, a valid sports participant, a list of things you can’t do, using technology to enhance a performance, SPVIZ runtime, you never could, the Iwo Jima flag raising, manual photograph, choosing where to put and place the camera, it has always been the case you can’t trust the narrative, media literacy, common sense, The Invention Of Lying (2009), its a stage of human development, if I make a scary noise mom thinks I’m in pain, not everything is real, they can edit their personalities, change their dispositions in radical ways, a totalitarian state, I seem to remember that not being the case, so spotty, so useful, have the focused changed, the narrative, so meta, all those sets, if not deliberately, the story itself as part of the story, levels of a story, wholly artificial, a construction that’s interesting to look at, the appeal of sodoku, a logic exercise, a program that will do it in real time, kind of like dominoes, one sided tiles, good story, depressing story, in the Aurora sort of way, maybe that’s why there’s no photo of him, he might be a butterfly, the fundamental constants changed, the Clockwork Rocket series, what if light bends differently, the Greg Egan way.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #633 – READALONG: The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #633 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, and Will Emmons talk about the The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks

Talked about on today’s show:
Scott’s idea, TBR [to be read], book 2 in a series, standalone, Culture books, a giant black hole, 10 book series, Inversions, culture tech, Transitions, the book to read, Consider Phlebas, Excession, shared universe, unsympathetic protagonist, Gurgeh, is that what we want from a main character?, being nice, reading about unpleasant people doing evil things, horrible people doing horrible things, our very few rules, flawed, spoiler rules, a spoiler and a save it for the podcast, how could you spoil that doesn’t have that content, a moral failing on Will’s part, we’re all healing, the definition of the culture, post scarcity, dangerous, Evan Lampe is very dry, honest feelings he was trying to share illegally, no laws, social customs, sincere, a serious book, not just entertainment, serious ideas, its both, political philosophy, up against a galactic empire, aimed in his sights, the ending, an inferno of fire, science fictional empires are not the target, what ruling class is like, the Epstein stuff, the private island, the blackmail, deviations we want to do, games, if you want a house, with no money and no possessions, gambling, no money or excess money, throughout the book, about economics, if games have options to make the stakes higher Jesse always wants it, Enemy Territory, friendly fire on, one life to live, no respawns, Roguelikes, Ironman Mode, gluttons for punishment, a legitimate game, a game within my own game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the excitement of potential loss or even ruin, a further extreme, good at exploring the topic its talking about, the player is getting played (by everyone), he’s playing himself, a really good book and a really bad book, why people like reading the series, Luke Burrage talking about this series, feeding the wrong part of my brain, the comforting stuff, a utopia, a fake utopia, the Culture is Heaven, everybody has a guardian angel, under the cloak of science fiction, Banks is using rules, lightspeed rules, people without a terminal, they send a rocket to save you, designed to be heaven, ooh its so fun, its like a rot, its a bad apple, its like satire, where we’re headed, so incredibly great, if you one and done it, a little more tongue in cheek, the impossibility he’s playing with, poked fun of, he’s doing it, he’s having his cake and eating it too, everybody who wants to change genders whenever they want to, you can have anything you want, the bullshit is consistent (therefore interesting), book after book set in the same place, Star Trek, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, outside the ship problems, the coziness of The Next Generation, its a TV show, they’re dealing with it in an hour or 40 minutes, this is soaking in it, dangerous, they’re striving, a satire of a goal, Gulliver’s Travels is a satire of us, Gulliver’s Travels 2: The New Boogaloo, make money, its a good book, the tendencies in it are towards series, Jesse can blame Iain Banks, I was just following the trends, a writer’s gotta eat, in the culture he wouldn’t have written other culture books, is the culture a satire of itself?, yes, projecting his own values, what’s he’s good at, what’s useful about this book, criticism of the results of that kind of society, an anarchist or libertarian communist society, there’s no king, the tyranny of structurelessness, they’re benign, this is God, what about when earthquakes happen and babies die, doing a satire, relishing the experience of satirizing, the tendrils, the seduction, like reading Lord Of The Rings, its fun to go to Bree, benignant, conquering vs. toppling vs. annexing, regime changing, because they’re good, Gaddafi is a bad man, they need to be liberated, the drone, the horror that capitalism has wrought, mercantilism, bamboozles, blackmailed, secret police, they tricked one of their pets into doing a show, he suspects, puppetting, annoying, cast out of heaven, I had to steal the money otherwise I would be embarrassed, they played him, snookered, the fun-house mirror of the empire, the empire is more honest, naked power structures, a benign autocracy, he volunteered, the pushing is so wimpy, he wants to get invited to parties, he would lose his status, labeled as a cheater, he would get fewer papers published, he’s convinced to go, it was still his choice, he might kill himself if he was revealed, they’re going to make it your choice, that’s why we’re pets, our own enslavement to them, we’ve done it to ourselves, no civic virtue, a spy service, the super powerful people manipulate the weak people, he’s got PTSD, he lives in a cushion, ground fine, he gets sacrificed, another series that ran way to long, the journey was worthwhile, Ringworld, Louis Wu was tricked into doing what he wants, the luckiest girl on the planet, a big dumb object vs. our contemporary planet, three sexes, really its Earth, customs, a culture, friendly (not an empire), they kill you with kindness, physically worse things, King Midas, he got overexcited about the one thing he was passionate about, what are you gonna do in a society, go into games and live there, living to play, you gotta go build some LEGO, creative work, art, he knows what he’s doing, really smart, like Charles Stross plus Larry Niven plus Olaf Stapledon, well expressed, he ended up seducing himself, why Jesse avoided it in the first place, worth studying, Will has endless time, the whole Babysitter’s Club, Shelfwear, the Starship series by Mike Resnick, lotta good dead writers, Star Trek with Captain Kirk saying fuck the federation, succulent, more like Horatio Hornblower, he can’t keep writing and make me read more of them, the prequel to The Lord Of The Rings TV series, exploration of post-scarcity, this is not achievable, ship-bound, the black black sky, the kids equivalent of ten forward, you want to have your family with you, almost killed every episode, that move is interesting, privileging audiobooks over TV shows, Jesse might be snobbish, novellas and novelettes were the perfect length for science fiction, idea fiction, Olaf Stapledon wrote books not novels, this is a good book, soak in the playing of the game, the meta-game, a lot of gold, books are incredibly powerful, danger manifesting, misunderstanding of reality, this is not a heroic age, the individual is obsolete, no one person can have any real effect anymore, a terrible heaven, you go up into the sky you sit on a cloud and play a harp, he is empty, succumbs to the temptation, Paul’s totally right, they seem a lot like children, university people in our society, neuroses, a new type of brain, change your brain chemistry, a total lack of meaning in your life, an indictment, in the context of Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, useful aspects of socialism, it shares a flaw, both novels fail to consider the emotional political and moral hazards, the polity in the Culture is less naive, a hundred years of thinking about utopias, a response to Looking Backward, our rosy heavenly future, the fringes of the Culture, seems kind of slow, he gets his own ship, drones are like regular people, put to sleep for seven hundred years, I’ll wait a couple years and get Use Of Weapons, the frontiers of utopia, if this was a one and done book, it feels good, some importance, he got seduced, read about series books, Jesse has read a fuckton of science fiction, meta-textual evidence, why didn’t Jesse pick up Iain M. Banks before this, State Of The Art audio drama, Jesse had a feeling it would be what it is, what people are saying about a book, looking for excuses not to read something (to read something in its place), something of value, you’ve heard how that director works, you can suss out what movies are worthy of your attention, 1988, still of value, much in favour of series, coming at it from a writerly perspective, super-smooth writing, more of a grift, Jesse doesn’t want to be comfortable, Looking Backward is lame in many ways, it leaves out race, black people not mentioned at all, huge massive flaw, its not comforting, Jesse doesn’t want to be comforted, I’m shaken to my core, the story, thought provoking, goals, your phone, are they really making your life better, you have a really good time in Los Vegas, whaddaya say wifey?, spoken highly of, highly regarded, go to Rome have a great time, you don’t live in the Culture, a money aspect, more though provoking stuff, audiobooks out quite early, Peter Kenny, a long book, 16.5 hours, a meditation on all games, something to think about, a phenomenon happening under the sun, all reality is a game, by being unknowable, the possibility of change, victory, time is one of the rules, The World Of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt, Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick, what games are and what they mean, Fair Game, sending board games to the Earth, Monopoly, The Game Players Of Titan, real estate developers, stock market, they can do whatever they want, rules for the plebs and rules for us, punished by the emperor, the rules are overthrown, you become the emperor, education and taking tests, help students game the tests, the SAT, how the Chinese government has run itself for the last 5,000 years, something to be worried about, a masterful job, a solid take on what gaming is and the motivation behind it, Elizabeth Bear, Ancestral Night, modern 2020 politics, giving healthcare to everybody, way cheaper, Machine, James White’s Sector General novels, plenty of AIs, taking on Iain Banks, the genre conversation, if this Iain M. Banks goes on…, Architects Of Memory by Karen Osborne, meta thinking, evocative and fecund, psychological realism, when the apex who had made the body bet realized he was going to lose, really fruitful, the kinds of things you do to make the world a better place, a regular dude, somebody’s in charge, that spaceship, surplus from the war, what is Iain M. Banks trying to say here, if you wanted to make an informed decision, spy novelists, supporting a cultural boycott of Israel, South Africa, an international solidarity activist, a political Douglas Adams, his intellect is in the same area, Monty Python-esque fatalism, trying to intellectualize his way out of it, making really solid points, that dangerous word again, Paul doesn’t agree with the word “danger”, Communist Manifesto is only a book, Mein Kampf only a book, interesting but not important, a guidebook kind of, a fountainhead, a prose poem, avoiding writing, it feels like there could have been something more, life in the Culture, amuse yourself for three hundred years and then get shot into the sun by your own choice, no difference in the brains, they’re all people, othering robots, bringing them down to their level, can you have a benign heaven with a god who isn’t smarter than you?, they don’t run heaven, impinging on Scott territory, a secularization of heaven, reading for pleasure is a seduction, what will result if you gave into that temptation, making a reading choice is not political, reading a series is not good, the decline, market forces, realpolitik and economics, not the ideal, Paul is making Jesse’s argument for him, Beggars In Spain is an evil book, Nancy Kress, she’s chosen the darkside, made horrible consequences palatable, a novel like Starmaker, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Jesse’s criticism of series is well grounded, more enriching, widely and deeply, perilous, words are powerful Paul, Paul wants an off-ramp for a first book in a series, lure, feeling this stress, its okay to make it addictive, when did Dan Simmons jump the shark?, Olympos, the analogy, from series lasting too long, compelling you to read more, a nefarious thing, how Lost sucked so many TV show people in, enamoured with his idea, detective books, literary fiction, very impressive, a high complement, why series happen, we elect a really good king, four more year for you King, a few dynasties go by and we’re chopping people’s heads off, at the risk of provoking Jesse to keep going, adverse consequences, Nine Princes In Amber by Roger Zelazny, its the meta-game, a playground in which he can do satire forever, why Tom Clancy is still producing from beyond the grave, ownership, Neil Gaiman doesn’t milk, don’t read the first volume, the horror host, more like The Twilight Zone, Anansi Boys, whatabout this?, you already did that bud, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, break em in half, a reversal, please don’t annex us, we recommend, the dangers involved, he’s ultimately won over to the Culture, choose to become a robot, that’s what people want, how dear he, he’s very wise in his book writing decisions, the paths we set our feet down, make a rule for yourself make a rule for everybody, the categorical imperative, Immanuel Kant, is it okay for me to kill?, is it okay for me to lie to my kids?, its for everybody, a case by case basis, he didn’t want to keep writing the Hitchhiker’s Guide books, you keep using that word, he has no respawn, he got two series, he was a big brain, we’re way over on the tipping scale, all I want is healthcare, what’s the right word? [silence] The Last Dangerous Visions, J. Michael Straczynski, regular visions, vague visions, one last significant work by Harlan Ellison, the executor for the estate, those middle seasons of Babylon 5 were so good, a half-assed 2 actors and a greenscreen.

The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks

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