Tag: drugs

The SFFaudio Podcast #749 – READALONG: The Venom Business by Michael Crichton

The SFFaudio Podcast

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert talk about The Venom Business by Michael Crichton.

Talked about on today’s show:
John Lange, the worst Michael Crichton novel, the worst of the Lange books, the number one problem, it is too long, badly padded, random sex scenes, compared to Easy Go, no sex in Binary, it’s annoying, the characters are horrible assholes you don’t want to be around, thinking of the money, who are we supposed to sympathize with?, our hero, nobody is likeable, very ambitious, a big book, fast and simple and cool and delightful, a murder mystery where you’re waiting for the murder to happen, when are they going to kill this fucker?, shortly before the end, starts awesome, terrific, Mexico stuff, Edgar Wallace, Indiana Jones, Walter Matthau, German actors, weird sharp turn, as soon as he’s off the plane and releasing the snakes, goes to the party, Richard Pierce shows up, one of the worst characters, full of resentment, hoping he was going to die, they waited to the end, an Agatha Christie before the detective comes in, the plot is gonna get cookin’, where’d this black guy come from?, the cats shit, a snakehandler, a smuggler, Richard not Rupert, The Prisoner Of Zenda, a layabout, Channel Tunnel, 1964, typical UK move, Paul’s high-school teacher, never, England shouldn’t be part of Europe, a weird way, this whole Brexit thing, laughing, the terrible teachers live forever, a math teacher in her 80s, a lady in her 70s, teaching in the 1930s, fast track program in the 1930s, died of shock, bullied her poor daughter, the lead character in Easy Go was named Pierce, Binary is such a clean book, Barnaby is our equivalent of Black here, rich elderly guy introduced later, he likes the name, his first name is Dick Pierce, hence all the sex, this is horrible, a lusting machine that’s abusive, why did he make him so horrible, rooting for his death, Gunter Sachs, Brigitte Bardot, sex dispensing machines, Michael Crichton knew somebody like this, doctors in this book, a little bit of psychology, a psychiatrist, a surgeon, more human venom than snake venom, later chapters, backstory, adopted father, a lot of contradictions, the terrible wife, he’s relating real experiences, hanging out with rich people with trust funds, Charles Renault, our main character, multiple names, failed out of Yale, the army, awesome hero character, also flawed, psychology all over the page, Easy Go, the journalist and the archaeologist, the incidents that happen, it fucks you up, the relationship between power and money, make people do what they want, adopts a friend’s son, adopted father, lampshade, his father, adoptd when he was 6, parents died in WWII, two or three years between, wouldn’t give him a child, resentment there, genetic competition, weird psychology, everybody is trying to fuck each other over, a horrible book because all the characters are horrible, away from the main character for much of the book, trying to write a big book explaining to himself, we keep shifting to other people’s points of view, visited by the step-mother, a dream-sequence, way too ambitious, his version of Moby-Dick, it fails, almost 12 hours, three times longer, the plotting was bad, his ambition was too much, somewhat more redeemable, Charles pistol whips a lady, double cross, he could have tied her up, violence, trying to kill people in cars, hung out with people like this, school friend, something that really happened to him, who is he other than Charles, a sequence where Charles goes to a party, one of them is a medical student, sticking himself into his own book, I can make this a novel plot too, studied in Harvard, Cambridge in the mid-60s, expensive cars, whores, drugs, so good to start, it settles into a horrible vest of vipers, spitting venom all over each other, that’s why I don’t hang out with those people anymore, Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann, glitzy, those books, at hour 11 and a half, that was last week, last week?, it feels like five years in this hellhole, every couple of days he renegotiates his contract, no-fun, the book he started writing, how great this book started, the first hardcover John Lange, Drug Of Choice leans into the cats stuff, removing part of the brain, drugs to control people’s behavior, a Philip K. Dicky book, I’m interested in interesting things, fucking, alcohol and lording it over other people with their fancy new Maserati, sex is nice, interest in science, history, archaeology, cat surgery, rich people being terrible is sadly popular, Succession, Dynasty and Dallas, cars and clothes and fancy cars, fancy furniture, swinging sixties, over-descriptions, critical reviews from the period, overlong, encumbered, grubby collection of opportunists, too many subplots, too many dames, too many men and women, annoyed by interchangeable women, Dominique, Vivien, unimportant disgusting behavior, chasing after sex, we didn’t need that, he gets it every time, cruelty towards his Italian fiance, chaste until marriage, being there with those people, snake pit, stock deal, not completely terrible people, covered in venom, sacrificial virgins thrown into a snake pit, a horror, the author at the part is John Lange, bombastic literary figure, Truman Capote, conned into running these parties, a literary figure, this is the worst Crichton book Jesse has read, later period ones, Airframe, Disclosure, Prey, State Of Fear, Congo, intelligent apes in Africa, Rising Sun, Japan’s going to take over the world, Jurassic Park, which book is which, The Great Train Robbery, The Andromeda Strain, ossified, the script for Westworld (1973), Reading, Short And Deep, Alfred Bester, tuckerized, The Unseen Blushers, a poem by Thomas Gray, unknown Shakespeares, writers group, no editors allowed, an idea for a story, the new Shakespeare is a pulp, who would this Shakespeare be from this period of time, documents go missing, pulp science fiction writers, better or worse or equivalent of his period, he was not for rich people only, writing old tropes, Isaac Asimov, fart jokes for rich people and high brown literature for poor people, sea stories, he mumbled, a tropical disease in the Navy, throat cancer, he uses his friends to tell a meta-science fictional science fiction story, Bester is a superstar, Astonishing Stories, his power is amazing, stories that sparkle all over the page, make bad old ideas good new ideas, snip out that beginning of the book, it turns into a nest of horrible, after the party everything turns to shit, rich guy dilettante, he’s horrible in this book, from life!, Pickman’s Model by H.P. Lovecraft, horrible yucky, please tell me more about the gas chambers, soaking in the venom, Holocaust kid’s novels, endless terrible scenes, commit suicide, terrible, survivors accounts, historical value, as a catharsis, these things happened, sounds horrible, bestsellers, is this titillation?, go at it for the sex, Harold Robbins, rich people being terrible, we should wash our hands of this, Zero Cool, back on the horse with a good one, Odds On, critical path analysis, a lady kissing a man holding jewelry, Scratch One, A Case Of Need, the ebook, paper is preferable, even shorter, an American doctor goes to Spain, a conspiracy to obtain a jewel, not horrible sounding, arms shipment, a quote from Benjamin Disraeli, the horrible taste of this book, April, the writing vs. the plotting, a biography of Bester’s writing, seeing Alfred Bester interviewed [FANAC], you mean counterplot?, what went wrong here, three counterplots, as soon as he gets to Paris, the girl with the gun, the setup, a minor minor part of the many counterplots, Jane Goodall, Jane Mitchell, the Congo book, only gold up to this point, too venomy, pissed off, snake business, snakes as a subject, poison vs. venom, arsenic, hours of terrible pain and stomach cramps, building up a tolerance, a myth, Crichton knows, Black knows, he’s lying, idiotic nephew, sedatives or something, the poison of choice for murderers in the 1960s, sleeping pills, e605 [parathion], how did Jane get her gun from Mexico to Paris, he’s a smuggler with his own plane, they don’t search you bags, metal detectors in the 1970s, hijackings, airplane bomb, upping security, 1955 airplane bombing [United Air Lines Flight 629], this guy really hated his mother, macabre grindcore, Sinister Slaughter, 1949, Canadian Pacific Airlines 108 bombing, Albert Guay, tree stumps, timing pencils, acid eating through, glowsticks, advanced chemistry class, and then they had a rave, 1944 plot, Claus von Stauffenberg, Harry Turtledove, the world is terrible, WWII could have turned out, two evil powers, venerated in Germany, glowsticks go bad in 1-4 years, Re-Animator (1985), drug experiments done by the government, fucking around with brains, especially when the government does it, did not meet expectations, if he’d written the book he started to write, editor: give me a bunch of unlikeable monsters and make it long please, also dream sequence, baby born in an abbey, fast forward 30 years, people being horrible mode, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Basil Fawlty, trans-Atlantic tripe, everything we would hate to be in ourselves, a snob, hilarious, we didn’t need any of them, wipe them all out start again, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, 10 Robbins books after he died, Tom Clancy, V.C. Andrews, Tycoon, Sidney Sheldon, mysteries, thrillery, furious at it, hugely popular, miniseries on TV, why do you have that thing?, you never even question it, wallpaper, why did you read John Lange?, looking at people’s bookshelves, judging Paul for his bookshelf, jettisoned ARCs, can’t hold everything, showing off or showing shelves, Jesse is judging them, this person is wise, this person is trash, organized by colour, youtubers, 2 books in the whole house: sad story, booktubers, not showing off enough, greenscreen fake bookshelf, how to make everything look really great behind them, fake blurred background wallpaper, organize your wall, judge your bookshelf, faux leather embossed hardcovers, videotape cases, leatherbound hardcovers, Subterranean Press, luxury books, a signal, drill down on this, a symbol of a rich person, the x the y or the z, a decanter, a tub of ice nearby, no decanters at the liquor store, rich people would go to the vineyard, buy a giant cask of amontillado, pour the liquor into the decanter from the bottle, its the legacy of the leftover of hundreds of years, which makes more sense?, why do we do the second one?, trying to cosplay being rich, the accoutrements of being rich, Mercedes is a car for taxis in Europe, the unconscious mimicking of rich people’s behavior is super-pathetic, measuring the books by the foot, Folio Society books, Centipede edition, not knowingly, more money than brains, secretly refilling from a whiskey bottle, cheap brandy in a pricey bottle, a basement full, a box with bottle openers, old liquor in the basement, Dundee cake, underground tunnels, Cora’s bakery, flower shops and gas stations, everything’s open everyday of the week, open shopping Sundays, an excuse, better in what sense?, LEGO art, action figure photos with Christmas lights, fake votive candles, lasers and glowsticks, can I have one, ubiquitous, dry ice is supercool, dry ice fog, makes for nice pictures, panicky about carbon dioxide, magnesium ribbon, potassium nitrate, blow up a model of the school, match heads, wax mixed with blackpowder, Chaos Day, Cora blew up her school once (and a volleyball net), two teenage girls, bad books happen occasionally, no indication, started off great, which book are you talking about, tall people die young, he would be 80 now, died at 66, this one was terrible, five or so, the first bad one, Grave Descend, Pirate Latitudes, Jurassic Park, Disclosure, State Of Fear, a lot to discuss it, climate change, carbon dioxide bad, terrible people, big evil oil companies, financed by the oil companies, the other end, a very complex system, we only have the one example, much warmer and much colder, climate observations from the 19th century, he’s interested in history and he likes the Caribbean, plenty more to read.

The Venom Business by John Lange

HARD CASE CRIME - The Venom Business by Michael Crichton

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The SFFaudio Podcast #723 – READALONG: Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert talk about Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
John Lange, 8th published, 6th under the pseudonym, 1970, finished San Cristobal, 1969, he’s on the island, pretty cool, year wrtitten, Back In The U.S.S.R., song title chapters, 18th Nervous Breakdown, we’re getting the idea here, very late 60s, Hard Case Crime, art in the audiobook, proposed adaptation, Robert Forster, “High Synch”, happy ending, a warning, Elliot Gould will ride the tiger, an announcement of the movie, Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty, an uneven filmmaker, Coma by Robin Cook, a 1978 movie based on a 1977 novel, very similar, a lot of similar scenes, anesthesia tanks, cops are out to get you, a 70s movie theme, The Parallax View (1974), if it was not definitely not written by Michael Crichton…, too well put together, Philip K. Dick is exactly correct, surrealism, unreliable to himself (and to us), the narrator is mad, he gets on the plane, blacked out windows, I think I know where this is going, oh it was!, waking up in the hotel room, bad food on a bad serving tray, so Philip K. Dick, Norman Spinrad, everybody is on drugs all the time, the world is awful and horrible, The Congress (2013), Stanisław Lem, a pill, crapsack world, blissful reality that’s not there, people turning on aluminum foil, the Philip K. Dick novel…, Time Out Of Joint, lemonade stand, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Severance, Paycheck, drug and hypnosis, losing weight, all the work that they do, sandpaper for a skinned knee, expensive, massage a couple of things, the setup, this blue pee thing, House, M.D., vacation, the chase, the economics of this island, the company is going bankrupt, Philip K. Dick would have gone whole hog, you’re our solution to this, The Matrix scene, ends in an insane asylum, a nurse who flips him over, the bang big boom, blow everything up at the end, Stephen King, Reminiscence (2021), living in his own memories, retreated into his dreams, Abres Los Ojos (1997), Vanilla Sky (2001), the story of the song, Paul McCartney, Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, those Ukraine girls really knock me out, attacking the idea of nationalism, a reflection, the premise for the song, returning to the Soviet Union, the west isn’t that great, there’s no place like home, you would never want to go back, stay in Canada or wherever, East Germany, people of pension age, full bags of goodies, in a previous podcast, translations of books available in the East, Tom Sawyer, Stanisław Lem, Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, Masters Of The Universe are not East German, Coma has that scene, Michael Douglas, a very modern film, a therapeutic abortion, cut up for parts, a really political interesting film, they show the abortion on screen, they cut up her brain, the German dub, up in stirrups, all references to the Vietnam War cut from Magnum, P.I., evil Nazis, sick of Nazis, Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber becomes Jack Gruber, he’s a fake German, fake terrorists, character actors, that guy fought Bruce Willis, listening to the radio, blend in like a member of the staff, a critique, why are they doing this, save a little money, a mind palace, its for control of people, propaganda and drugs, in both, part of the scheme, Sharon Tate, we’ll never know, Scientology, set in Los Angeles, Chicago, a vacation to the beach, they’re contemporaries, both doctors, the modern medical thriller, Cook was bigger, Disclosure (1994), Dick and Crichton were both married five times, the hotel is their laboratory, a money making scheme, travel agent, coprophagia, you can do anything there!, Westworld (1973), Futureworld (1976), James Brolin, replace people with androids, controlling with drugs, very plausible, a science fiction novel, a drug dealer book, a thriller, techno-thrillers from the 1970s, it doesn’t look like one but it is one, the floating people, the major difference, Cook is about the medicine, Crichton is about the ideas, Binary, gases!, tanks full of gases, mixed in carbon monoxide, to steak organs, no one notices?, well explained, notable changes to the skin, part of the plot, a good poison, not a bad way to poison people, rewatch it, a pretty good movie, pretty crunchy, Michael Douglas and Geneviève Bujold, she would have been a good Kate Mulgrew, Peter Benchley, the casting couch section of this book, our hero is in Hollywood, an agent, its all there (not the focus of the book), he worked in Hollywood, he put it in the book, not an expose, women are being exploited, this drug effect, done to our hero in the white room, white gas, sensory deprivation, become compliant, faking?, gets out through dreams, the backstory for the company, to control people, to make people see what their owners want them to see, They Live (1988), we know there’s something wrong, we see all the homeless, joblessness is up, until you put on these glasses, or you start eating that trashcan, we’re being controlled by lizard people or aliens, Robert E. Howard’s The Shadow Kingdom, serpent men are replacing us, Doctor Who, The Silurians, The Sea Devils, Zygons, practically a Philip K. Dick idea, A Scanner Darkly, his drug book, bent by drugs, a drug picker, zonked on his drug, a metaphor and a reality, drugs are super-pushed, all your ads are for drugs now, forbidden to advertise prescription drugs, cream for vaginal dryness, Vagisan!, a trigger, Trump!, eventually those boys grow up, patients, doctors, he gives in and does, a drug rep, of course it’s addictive, heavily pushed, Vicodin, nasty stuff, nasty stuff in the basement, party at Cora’s house after the podcast, neoliberalism is coming to all the other countries, way too much, ouch!, fuck those pills, the word ouch, an instinctive, utsch, forearms in icewater, swearing and saying ow ow ow, they can last longer, reaction to being touched, words of pain as a prophylactic against pain, are you ok?, everybody needs attention, band-aids can be psychosomatic, hoping that it would hurt, words, a dopamine reaction, what they think is a bad word, they threw a grenade in the room, what the effects of drugs are, change your brain, change your reaction to reality, a dry run of what they can do, what you can do to your employees, they hijack him, compliant with the drug, a cheat, spectacular success, very very different writers, a better ending, the dark ending, an apocalyptic ending, the beginning of The Matrix (1999), Crichton’s ending, we’re all deluding ourselves, three games of tennis with Sharon, he broke his tennis racket, that is what happened until it didn’t, the confabulatory experience of reality, live in the mountains for three weeks, come home to a nice hot shower and a brunch at Denny’s, life is wonderful, derived from sexually transmitted shark disease, a random Crichtonian bit, a fashion for sharks, random, a rare orchid, the biography of John Lange, a marine institute in Florida, a fake bio, Lawrence Block wrote two Paul Kavanaugh books, The Triumph Of Evil, Lawrence Block wrote a spy book, Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, Ibn Fadlan’s expedition to the northern lands, a retelling of Beowulf, J.K. Rowling is a terrible TERF, a fake biography of Robert Galbraith, pretending to be in the military, always fake, magical dream, ordinary housewife, writing classes at Brigham Young University, she knew what writing was, I was inspired by Jane Austen or whatever, Fifty Shades Of Grey woman, her husband is a screenwriter, they probably have a golden retriever, The Cuckoo’s Calling, a good mystery, what a lot of great writers do, Richard Stark’s story, Donald E. Westlake, The Hook, the book promotion industry, the number 1 writer in the world, is it me?, my name?, the Harry Potter thing?, by the author of, solid midlist, BBC TV adaptation, Killing Eve, self-published, theatre critic on the side, the story of Crichton, this John Lange is doing pretty good, John Norman was John Lange, the Gor books, 1966, Stephen King, the Bachman books, Seanan McGuire, John Brunner, why Westlake left [science fiction], Brandon Sanderson, too much of a living, outliers, George R.R. Martin is mostly the TV guy, Sanderson is only books, he could live just on his books, always on the stands, barely started his career, crazy numbers, people will pay you to write books, wasn’t made on the fact he wrote the last Robert Jordan books, Tor pushes Sanderson heavily, they push him because he sells, The Wheel Of Time books, one of those Salt Lake City guys, creative writing class, Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, a know quantity, the one he’s mined the most, people who wrote sequels by other hands, Douglas Adams sequels, Tom Clancy sequels, Garth Nix, what a lot of people want, James Patterson, doesn’t write his own books anymore, not everybook is for everybody, doesn’t fulfill the promise, this is a thriller novel I gotta blow things up, if this goes on…, we’re not living in a simulation we’re living in a stimulation, early Michael Crichton, nice and tight, period pieces, well written, delivering me the story, ideas injected, no impurities, a resident doctor, a bit of an everyguy, dating actresses, an author insert, not mentioned to be six foot nine, nobody says “how tall you are, sir”, semi-autobiographical, to finance medical school, a writer that couldn’t help but do it, he studied a lot of stuff, almost nobody is like Michael Crichton, screenwriter, writer, doctor, film director, almost nobody is all of those things, not a normal guy, super-interested, thinking about drugs, speculative, psychoactive drugs, general interest, trying to understand reality, how many Stephen King movies has Stephen King directed?, I will fix The Shining, I will improve on his work on my book, Physical Evidence is not a good movie but it is entertaining, well put together, and funny, The Great Train Robbery, one of the best movies of the 1970s, virus from space, The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man was serialized in Playboy, about electronics, if he wrote nothing else The Andromeda Strain would stand on its own as a great book, let’s blow it all up at the end, basically a science fiction novel, Hard Case Crime ventures into science fiction, attractive woman on fire, she’s hot, she’s a starlet, Sharon Wilder, glow girl, plastic dresses, Binary, multiple women in it, there’s nothing to cancel in here, it doesn’t say the casting couch is good, everybody’s now going to be subject to the casting couch, Hollywood is a drug, virtual vacations, we’re all working for the drug, that’s the ending of A Scanner Darkly, propagating the plant that makes the drug, it is supposed the plant is propagating itself through people, a Philip K. Dick move, this early Michael Crichton kick, very 1960s and also so modern, manufactured pop and film stars, The Beatles, the Hollywood hills, as fake as The Monkees, all of your music is all fake, just as fake as our music, what makes it an old book: he goes to a travel agency, third world and immigrant communities, Easy Go in a few weeks, George Segal, Mike Hodges directed it, his violent seizures, violence now triggers a pleasurable response, they put some wires on his head and give him zaps, on the The Lack podcast, an Anthony Burgess novel called The Wanting Seed, they misunderstand me, the movie of A Clockwork Orange, Malthusianism, world is overpopulated as usual, encouraging homosexuality, start wars, canned food from the bodies, an angry scary sounding book, 1961, A Long Trip To Teatime, Puma, anarchist conservative?, weird British conservatives, Quest For Fire (1981)’s language, J.H. Rosny, Year One (2009), prehistorical romance, DMR Books, niche, Robert J. Sawyer neanderthal books, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, giant horned creature, went extinct 10,000, always the passive voice, we ate them, who killed all the large creatures?, we probably, Earthshock, Adric killed the dinosaurs, traveler, cheering for Wesley Crusher, Wil Wheaton is a really cool guy now, bad writing, genius kid on a ship, the giant essay on SeaQuest DSV, nobody is trying to reboot it, Shaun Duke doesn’t like Jesse, it itself was reboot, Irwin Allen’s Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, submarines are cool period, submarine adventures and warfare, a pulp series, Das Boot, Black Sea (2014), The Hunt For Red October, Roy Scheider, Blue thunder, Michael Ironside takes the lead, he wasn’t a villain in V?, Robert Englund, Jonathan Banks, the heavy from Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, glorifying drug dealing, its about capitalism and people trying to find their place in it, make some coffee, black tea, Ceylon, Frisian Blend, Earl Grey, Prince Alberic And The Snake Lady is next, Connor is doing fine in Cassel, cheap train tickets.

Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton

Overkill by Michael Crichton

Coma (1978)

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

Podcast

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

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

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

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

Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Zizek

Ghostland by Edward Parnell

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #705 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #705 – The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson; read by Connor Kaye

This unabridged reading of the story (43 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye

Talked about on today’s show:
1911, 1903, previously published?, Jack London’s The People Of The Abyss, Ibister & Co., this folk horror thing, researching folk horror, when did these tropes actually start?, secret pagan cults, Connor was naive at that time, some folk horror tropes, a proto-form, the fingerprints of the sources and inspirations, Connor’s youtube version, American and British, The Wicker Man, what is American folk horror?, evidence of religion that came before Christianity, native American nations, The Wendigo, skinwalkers, a Christian worldview, demons and devils or witchcraft, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown, The Minister’s Black Veil, Faith, his beloved signing her name in the book of the devil, a devil worshiping cult, Anerican folk horror is within the christian worldview, secretly in league with the devil, persists to the modern day, the Satanic Panic, Pavlanvs, evangelizing, your new religion is not gonna catch on, this is a wild place, we need wild gods to survive, Lovecraft spans the divide, The Unnamable, the context of Cotton Mather, the witchcraft trials, these things are older than humanity, being an Anglophile, The Moon Bog, the horror from before, Robert E. Howard’s The Lost Race, set in bronze age Cornwall, bandit chief, a secret mission, to which he was used, crude hospitality, a pure Briton but not a pure Celt, a giant cat, a lion and a wolf, he picks a team, they approach it completely different ways, a Christian fairy tale about how Britain become Christian, ancient massive axes to grind, Beowulf, to be Christ-like, Robert E. Howard rejects religion, a Catholic priest, all storytellers and all writers, an intellectual issue to be solved, the movements of people and race mixing, 1927, willing to be a martyr, how good the Christians come across in this story, extremely likeable, tainted opinion, Cornell West wants people to be better, the most charitable position possible, my brother or my sister, bombing people to death, calling out the horror without condemning them as humans, a pre-Christian ideology, if you are a murderer, popish armies, I read about this guy named Jesus, the “good news”, now you don’t have to rot forever in the gray lands, Valhalla for the brave and the good, the promise of Christianity, converted after death, a present evidence of that ancient religion, who doesn’t want peace and love, reverse folk horror, a christian man goes to an island full of pagans, to make him a martyr, its awful vs. there is this awful horrible thing that can be cleansed, more relaxing approach to living your life, hopeful, anti-folk horror, a fear of regression, The Wicker Man (1973), a throwback to what we would have seen before everywhere, proto-folk horror, showing us, The Ritual (2017), worshiped as a duty, a tax, Woodlands Dark And Days Bewitched (2021), a documentary, We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide To Folk Horror by Howard David Ingham, fear of regression into more superstitious time, where there is not covenant with god, recent Christian converts, Abraham and Isaac, I ain’t like the other Gods, we’re going for a walk, God’s like jk, no more literal holocaust, what we need instead is for you to understand, Christ is the fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament, I’m the Prince of Peace not the Prince of Vengeance And Judgement, Cornell West, the vigorous, Spider-Man is a real guy, the stories of Christ, a good story, there’s a guy who came here to teach us the error of our ways, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, second layer of thinking, talking in parables, heaven towards our sisters and brothers on the planet, why we like Paulanus so much, offering a hand of friendship and comfort, converted and forgiven, transmuted, the answer to folk horror’s cynicism or worries about human nature, man against man, beast against beast, the cycle of violence, to become the priest you must kill the priest, the breaking of that cycle, the turning of the cheek, the monster is dead and buried, they turn it into a Christian school, the foundation of the new church is on the bones of the dead religion (that nobody really liked anyway), violence, this bloody big monster that’s going to kill people, our priest of death tells his own story, I killed my own brother, the story of Cain and Abel, Cain is marked by God, he is under My protection, that’s the guy who killed his brother, isolated and shunned from society, no option for forgiveness, down the path of horror, live in death, here comes Christianity to save the day, you’re never beyond redemption, a being that deserves respect, seen as irredeemable, a pariah, do not go into the forest, why is he doing this?, I know who this is?, would you like to know more?, would you like to go through the door?, he always says yes, that’s his mission, which race succeeds which race, a reaching out to those who are mistaken, brother let me show you the way, I would like you to live with me for a time, that sounds dangerous, I will, we don’t see the emotional change inside his head, this is gratitude, relief, relaxation, almost grace, you haven’t seen the real me yet, the plank, foggy, shrouded, dark, there is this literal monster caged up, as big as a horse, when it dies we can find another way now, a bizarre god, it sounded like Pan, an idol in the temple, half-goat half-man, The Guide To Supernatural Fiction by E.F. Bleiler, 729 pages, densely typed story summaries, Nemi, he merely held the spear and it killed itself, in the face of Christianity the old religion killed itself, how Christianity came to Britain, no residential schools, how it was done in North America, becoming Catholics by default, how Ragnar Lodbrok became a Christian, that show (Vikings), we don’t know what the priest knows, his fears, his worries, legitimated, I got something in the back room that scares the shit out of me, when the beast breaks out of its cage, a square island, a moat, pens, a temple, a hovel, weapons, ancient weapons?, far away in time or space, he puts down a club, this god who have a half-man half-god to be sacrificed, a sophisticated weapon/religion, story attraction, how strong can your god be if he died on a wooden stick, that’s interesting, just give obedience to that guy over there with the fish hat (the pope), fairy tale structure, William Hope Hodgson, no scroll being uncovered, fairy tale timeline, him as an old man, a one to one, he lived happily ever after, omniscient, the description of the beast, as huge as a horse, his small head was laid back on his hairy shoulders, his red mouth, it could be a lion, a giant wolf, a giant man, its up to your imagination, a series of rough hewn gates, the forest, drawbridge, sheep, a great statue on a pedestal, half-man half-goat crouched to spring, the beginning is interpretable through the end, Cernunnos, the horned god, Herne The Hunter, the Green Man with horns, the merging with man with his primary prey (deer/goats), pre-Christian religion in England is murky, per-Christian Roman culture and religion, The Golden Bough by James Frazer, comparative mythology, the priesthood of Diana, the goddess of nature and hunting, sacred grove, a certain tree, a drawn sword, set upon by an enemy, a priest and a murderer, such was the rule of the sanctuary, how you become a priest of Diana, The King Of The Wood, if A.C. Benson was interested in folklore or mythology, he could have read the first page and got this idea, a Christian Roman, an ironic cyclical thing, what Caesar says, they like sickles and harvesting oak moss, druids, that song from Spinal Tap, nobody knows, they’re strange, Diana of Nemi, conflated with Artemis, Lake Nemi, according to the legend, the Tauric Diana, the myth has it, the temple of Saturn, sacrificed on her altar, a milder form (of human sacrifice), a scared grove, a carved cult image, archaic and Etruscan in form, go to their danger, her priest will hunt you, page 13 (of 36), Paul <- Paulanus, a transformation on the road, the way of Christ, so it is this that is taking hold of the world, women and children in fair houses, the god who made these woods, he loves death and darkness, a brutish sort (of love), the sharp woes and agonies, death sweats and cries of despair, your simple easy-going god might dwell within them, beyond the memory of man, I should be content if it had victory, go to sleep, a nice story, I wish it were true, I’d like you to live here with me, don’t you want to see the scary god in the back shed?, all externalized, a good religion for middle class people with good incomes, the grinding horror of this forest, my God is patient, things will work out in the end, a strange way, hey, you’re not the priest, your god killed him, he goes through the whole story, it’s all about the story, maybe you should be the teacher and replace that temple, how Christianity got its grip on this island, a way of solving the question: how did it come to be?, how did Christianity come to the British isles, this isn’t a colonizer, a fiction, a wandering disciple, it feels Biblical, the language of it, particular style, a good choice, the story of Paul, the messenger of Jesus, that transformational character, apostles vs. disciples, Judas is forgiven too, Tarsus, the apostle of the gentiles, where the most success there is with Jesus, non-Jews become Christians, through personal revelations, post-ascension Jesus, a post-prophet, neither Connor nor Jesse are not a bible expert, contemporaneous but not present, he is the guy who converts non-witnesses, how the the Latter Day Saints do it too, so your religion spreads, to model the behavior, the Good News, Jews don’t prosthelytize, an appeal to it, like Christianity and Islam, god not having to be seen is more fitting, what colour Thor’s armour is, we don’t give his real name, let it be to your imagination, some churches, Jesus embodied on the cross vs. the cross without a Jesus, intellectual strategies, we’re all brothers vs. crusades style, more Jesus centered Christianity, the oldness the art, the discipline, monks, nunneries, self-denial, self-abnegation, literal news, you don’t have to do it the old way anymore, modelling the behavior, acting the Christian, why it works as a really good story, a very strange story, we wouldn’t see the appeal of the change, preachy and judgemental, the way of love and peace among brothers, a whole new world (not being worried about being killed), an insane method of succession, propaganda, Julius Caesar’s accounts, pre-Christian religions written about through and by a Christian lens, human history, the blood eagle, to wield power, to intimidate, the way Genghis operated, the Romans were brutal, openly and ultimately corrupt, cool takeaways from Nietzsche, take it like a Christian, seeing that, they seem to have a conviction that we don’t have, there story is an inversion of ours, submission and peace and willingness to suffer, a judo flip on the mind, a weird flex, Constantine, hey we’re all Christians now, a politic move, literally leading an army, all of that considered, a more mentally healthy worldview, murder or sacrifice, human sacrifice doesn’t seem that cool, there is a textbook, apocrypha, the King James Bible, Jesus wants you to support the war in Iraq, when somebody was accused of adultery, having literacy, a subset of Christians, these are our brothers and sisters we need to cherish them, it doesn’t negate bravery, act as if you believe because you hope it is true, why people believe things, a kind of discipline and rigor, codes of behaviors that need to be served, he doesn’t have a book with him, spreading the word based on what he has read or what he was told, this is how you read, you can read it for yourself, the power struggle, controlling who can read, be rich and hire a tutor, send your kid to be a copyist, minor nobility, acquiring wealth, roles for people even if they can’t read, when the printing press comes in, Koreans who became Christians in the 19th and 20th centuries, analyzing through angles, nothing is in a steady state, a story science, like science, an ice-core sample, as early as 1903, through the other data that we know, folk horror is still with us, our first urban legend for Reading, Short And Deep, urban legends don’t have a first publication, Rapunzel, Lucy Crane and her brother, High Beams, The Killer In The Back Seat, my cousin heard this from her brother, this is a story that can only exist in the 20th century, coming out of a context, working with a specific text, who told it to who in what context?, a document frozen in time, we can infer some things, what A.C. Benson may be doing that we didn’t notice, the Greeks and the Romans were from peoples that had these things, they might have their version of Pan, we can trace a lot of it, Google Books scanning, the two things, a connection there, drawing those connections, use an index, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Caliban’s mom (Sycorax), Setebos, Solomon Kane, The One Black Stain by Robert E. Howard, Patagonia, a reference to Magellan, Antonio Pigafetta, that’s the same god!, a contemporary book, deep archaeological extractions, we can be wrong but we can always go back to the original sample, people like to fiddle, like chain of custody, reading old stories richer, who cares if a book references Trump now, the golden haired dunce, they just assumed people would know what they were talking about, 1921/7, Randall’s Round by Eleanor Scott, it’s obvious when you know, new volumes of The Golden Bough, here in the future where we are, all we see is the racism, they’re so sexist back then, how randy 1950s Americans were, going steady, the 1950s slick magazines, sex habits of teenagers, we think they’re so repressed, you’re only getting part of it, there can be nudity, why women should get married younger, a vague memory of your parents or grandparents, the actual archaeological stratum, the fossils of the culture, they have skin and put on makeup, recording history, leaving out bits of information, holding yourself accountable, humans are self-centered, when recording history, print media sources, what were the gossip rags talking about, Victorian England as prudish, venereal diseases, orphans in Dickens, public prudity and private indulgence, The New Accelerator [by H.G. Wells], all the drugs, heroin at the grocery store, hashish, poppy smoking clubs (opium dens), heroin was a product made by Bayer, give it to your kids, moral panics over coffee and tea, kill lots of people to get tea or rum cheaper, deploy your soldiers with rum, the Rum Rebellion in Australia, an act of rebellion against Governor Bligh, hiding under his bed, a government overthrown, the trucker rebellion in Canada, a Boxer Rebellion is china, not just religious mania, twice, famously he had mutinies under him, reading about 5 or 6 times, as many stories, historical significance, it has a literal monster in it, folk horror that contains monsters and monster-free folk horror, werewolfy creature, the symbolic part, at the center, the reason it is locked up, how native people dealt with criminals, paddle you out to an island, we don’t want to kill each other, governments make us kill, a committee, why the hangman wears a mask, a faceless thing, indigenous Australian criminal justice, a free shot, go back to livin, it’s hard when it’s murder, a chaotic person who can’t be controlled and is dangerous, anthropology in uni, much like Julius Caesar, like JFK, royalty from the society, they disaffect from the royal line, punishments come from the community of power, rogues, the philosophy of love, “take care of it”, whack em, so many metaphors, synonyms for words that has massive taboos, euphemisms, obscured behind layers of meaning, execute means do, to carry through to the end, executive power is the power to do, he gotta get done, gotta get got, a murder who wants to be forgiven, all people are good or can be,
the breaking of the cycle, the priest’s brother is like that, what are the options, a much harder story to tell, asking for forgiveness (rather than permission), talking to little kids about Spider-Man, he’s a do-gooder, in a punishment society, make a virtue of thinking through , what would Jesus do, N-Law launchers to blow up tanks in Ukraine, don’t send weapons to death squads, chickenhawks run the society.

The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #347 – The Stroller by Margaret St. Clair

Podcast

Reading, Short And DeepReading, Short And Deep #347

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Stroller by Margaret St. Clair

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Stroller was first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1947.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #701 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #701 – The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen; read by Mark Nelson

This unabridged reading of the story (7 hours 3 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
1907, semi-autobiographical novel, he kills himself at the end, the Lord Dunsany introduction from 1954, narrating audiobooks, a writer of note himself, surprisingly lucky in a way that Machen was not (not just being born a lord), Machen made his money as a journalist, editor, a job here and there, inheriting money from relatives, that allowed him to write, how else do you get the time to write, Lovecraft’s struggles, walking, The Silver Key, ancient Greeks and Romans, The Watcher By The Threshold, the veil, the secret world behind the veil, the colour of that world (is red), the furnace and the fire, light and colour and emotion, a very odd book, this book is a real trip, maybe Machen’s masterpiece, bigger in scope but also very intimate, take out all the parts about the struggle of writing, if condensed down, what makes it into a novel, bounced off this book, what is going on in this book, no clear plot at the start, not having anybody support that, Mark Nelson: fantastic, Mark Nelson has good taste and picks good stuff to narrate, Machen is a tough writer, he’s dense, floating on a river and sensations happen, Mrs. Gibbon and Annie were more important than we thought, the faun on the hill, by the end you understand, the first reading through, the focus is strange, Ambrose Bierce is perverse, Mark Twain, the least understandable way is the best way, this book has its own reading list, Dream-Land by Edgar Allan Poe, this is my guy, Poe and me are best buds, making gold out of letters on pages, even Lovecraft is easier, Lovecraft doesn’t throw us red herrings, a series of red herrings (the troubles of life), significant as a life trauma (not a plot point), incidents from Lucians life, The Cosy Room, a lot of rooms, he really knows place, exhausting your body walking and coming to a space, he can’t look at certain things in the room, the level distance from the harsh realities, I’m an alien, I’m much higher above looking down, a nice coping mechanism, boys torturing insects, they don’t feel pain anyways, the puppy torture scene, kids are like that, Out Of The Earth, bloodlust of children causing WWI, strange connections, put on the button that says “current thing”, Russians are evil now, very interesting but very difficult, get your trigger warning out, how disassociated Lucian is, I wanted to shake him, he didn’t do anything, talking about it, he has to be aloof from these things, so disconnected from what was happening around him, considering the rest of this story, he is the puppy, he feels, he is a victim, the owner of the puppy, she is the one who comforts him, the girl that becomes his religion, the puppy scene is incredible,

The leader saw the moment for his master-stroke. He slowly drew a piece of rope from his pocket.

“What do you say to that, mun? Now, Thomas Trevor! We’ll hang him over that there bough. Will that suit you, Bobby Williams?”

There was a great shriek of approval and delight. All was again bustle and animation. “I’ll tie it round his neck?” “Get out, mun, you don’t know how it be done.” “Is, I do, Charley.” “Now, let me, gwaes, now do let me.” “You be sure he won’t bite?” “He bain’t mad, be he?” “Suppose we were to tie up his mouth first?”

The puppy still fawned and curried favor, and wagged that sorry tail, and lay down crouching on one side on the ground, sad and sorry in his heart, but still with a little gleam of hope; for now and again he tried to play, and put up his face, praying with those fond, friendly eyes. And then at last his gambols and poor efforts for mercy ceased, and he lifted up his wretched voice in one long dismal whine of despair. But he licked the hand of the boy that tied the noose.

…

the core problem for all of us, we are the ones who inflict pain, monsters and boys, trying to be kind to everyone, in the city, that quality of generosity, the most beautiful, Annie, a servant girl, Master Lucian, when he meets her in the lane, reverse double leg cling, she caresses his head, the published book with stuff stolen from his book, once something is published, no one wants any of that, something we both do and something that we do to others, it’s amazing, here read my book, they cant see the garbage that they’ve written, they can only see , why would I bother that something isn’t published?, the worst baseball player ever, keep going johnny you can do it!, the cultural movement, late 90s, the rise of self-help, you can do anything, every person can be the best at something they are capable of being, liking to run, long legs and pain inside that can only be healed by having a gold medal around your neck, a horrible reality of the world, a coming of age story, realization of your own limitations is coming of age, a painful aspect, the pain of sexuality, the horniest boy ever, his fellow kids, him alone spinning up his own theories, lusting after almost ethereal objects, highly romantic sense of the world, working class people who don’t give a shit, let’s get trashed, the 12 year old and the 15 year old, going for long walks, idealizing women, under the surface, we don’t know him that well except where his actions bubble up against reality, there is feeling there, when he tries to share his book with people, do pretty flowers, some people are trying to help him, unwillingness to deviate, he’s gifted, he knows he’s gifted, a lot of alchemy symbolism, words are magical, the ability to provoke and control emotions, making people more subject to what they are, mostly used for evil, when he first sees that book with his stuff published in it, validated, apathetic, he’s proud of it, making it all about money, he needed the validation, a stage that a lot of authors get stuck in, the ideas are going to be stolen, Armageddon (1998) and Deep Impact (1998), you gotta sue, a Guy De Maupassant story was totally ripped-off, sold to weird tales, The Tortoise Shell Comb, An Apparition, a cavalry officer, comb my hair for me, if you were Guy De Maupassant, Banksy?, give your mom a book you wrote, a dishonesty of the known relationship, do the esoteric stuff not the commercial stuff, the anti-Edgar Rice Burroughs, kind of suceeds, it’s a victory?, a lot of Lovecraft in this character, the young writer, the particular personality type, unbending, committing to a vision, not compromising, he got that book, a funny line they always say about Lovecraft, so many beans, accentuates the victory, we can’t even read the fucking thing, and yet it’s a victory, who is it a victory for?, a victory for Lucian, overdosing on morphine, Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater, ladies of sorrow, horror movies, Suspiria (1977), a bestseller, How I Smoked Crack And Lived To Tell About It, that French guy who loved Poe, Les Fleurs Du Mal, Suspiria De Profundis, Charles Baudelaire, insight into his mind, an unreliable narrator?, he’s hiding something from us, he has the shakes, smoking a ton of tobacco, overdosed, an addict, emotionless, he probably doesn’t want to masturbate, doesn’t have the materials, burying thoughts in physical weariness, piercing his own body with burrs, a recognized mental illness symptom, cutting, hare shirts, impure thoughts, the fetish, unhealthy, complex organisms in a complex society, get a real job, follow my advice, very real, who’s to say they’re not right?, the middle road, Lucian chose complete dedication art, bending like a reed in the wind, no goals, getting you killed, going along with the current, part of the problem for individuals, living in a society with mass hysteria, why do we have to have that war on another continent, an alliance treaty with France and Russia, white chicken feathers, the current thing, almost a statement, Trevor Towers, Celephais?, sleepwalks off a cliff, a triumph but only from his point of view, capitalism’s threat: knuckle under or become homeless, peruse artistic endeavors, Machen survived where Lucian didn’t, another way he could have gone, this is what could have happened to me, idealistic, circumstances were slightly different, early 2000, Richard K. Morgan, conflict investment, Market Forces, caught up in Netflix deals, ultimately the opposite of the Stephen King/Lovecraft route, success can be something that can hurt you as well, The Bowmen, jotted off in five minutes, the Ghost of Kyiv, the Angel Of The Mons, attestations, Bryan Alexander, Colonel Tomb laughs at this from his grave, just has to be true stories, Vietnamese fighter pilot, Colonel Toon, WWII, Panfilov’s 28 Men (2016), War Thunder, how dare you say that, it’s important!, bullshit made of wholecloth, the rolling thunder of this truth being needed, if Machen had any kind of cultural impact, debunking it, it’s true that it would be good for morale, Rape Of Belgium, these brave Belgian boys, we need them to be hard done by, raped by the pre-Nazis, ginning up anger, encouraging recruitment, a fundamental lie at base, there’s a veil between reality and how we see reality, the veil is real, willful blinders, the noble lie, telling truths, from genuine situations, confabulating slightly, Philip K. Dick’s characters are autobiographical, Horselover Fat, A Scanner Darkly, putting himself on the list, sometimes we slip through, a very odd book, John Steinbeck, East Of Eden, magnum opus, frustrating and meandering, not page turners, ethereal feeling, the veil between reality, The White People, The Great God Pan, monologue about what is reality, investing the time and energy, it feels pretty long, Charles Dickens is very engaging, floating down a river, Machen loves his descriptions of nature, at the fort on the hill, descriptions of the trees and nature, crafted, did this actually happen to Machen as a boy?, ecstatic experience, on drugs, what makes you go back there, how small you are, connection, he tried it with a novel, alcohol, the invention of gin, counter-reaction, massive social impacts, China’s reaction to computer games, a three hour limit, internet games, solo game disconnected from the internet, single player games now require an internet connection, Civilization 2, Roblox, Minecraft, set in its period (late 19th century), love of literature and great texts, 18th century authors knew what was going on, Kublai Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats, knight vs. wight, Tolkien leftovers, because it’s archaic, a horny young man and an idealized woman, a femme fatale story, it destroys him, dissociates, his ideal woman, Annie as a person, as a part of his imagination, the Roman fort, being a Roman senator, the Roman temples of D.C., we are just as great (corrupt) as they were, a false reality, I’m wearing a business suit, folk horror, how women are depicted in folk horror, pagan motifs, witchcraft, blindsided, when Miss Gibbons died, a very fairy tale scene, he’s the wolf, Annie was a witch, unholy wedding, explicitly magical aspects, seduction, the magic is in the men, brain chemicals, the shapely waist, her skin, the Platonic ideal, in the air in the period, Mr. Skelmersdale In Fairyland by H.G. Wells, I’m ruined now, transformed him, it isn’t played for laughs, The New Accelerator, The Invisible Man, comic possibilities everywhere, bittersweet, a triumph as a tragedy, a silk purse of a sow’s ear, lemonade from lemons, the slippery idea of the ideal world or woman, when we read Lovecraft that’s the absent part, Edgar Allan Poe, the ideal woman is the dead woman, she can never be limited by reality (growing old, not being smart enough, fighting), the Baudelaire way, beautiful cruelty, life is cruel, damaged people managing their trauma (in ways other than alcohol), a moment later, joy and happiness, drunk on love, bronze hair, come for a walk with me, a statue, very Greek, his visions, there was death in the woman’s face, she had indeed, the brink of utter desolation, a sex scene too, the carpet matches the drapes, a very sexual novel for a guy who’s so chaste, he falls asleep on the hill, none of them are real and all of them are, is this kid mentally ill?, the end of Dagon, he’s seeing the thing he’s fearful of in himself and not recognizing it, a troubled kid, maybe it’s like he has down syndrome or he’s autistic, kindness, the world is retarded and not him, he’s so extreme in his uncompromisingness, expressed as greatness, isolation, pushes him to the brink, again he was astray in the mist, splendid as Rome, terrible as Babylon, the place of eternal gloom, ring within ring, circle within circle, high writing, the sanctuary of the infernal right, wresting, muscles that could throw down mountains, a flaring street, naphtha fires, pure poetry, dusky figures, a noise like a chant of the lost, orgy, bronze hair, a gulf of darkness, all symbolism, precious robes, the room!, a vapour of the grave, horrible caresses, the matted thicket, the desire rose up like a black smoke, amazing, she lures him, he forces himself upon her, she turns into a very bad trip, exaltation to pain and torture, the elm tree was riven, Lucian is a good name, the tumult and the shock came as a sudden murmur, he overdosed, is he chasing the dragon?, are all of these dreams on the hill?, his dependence on tobacco, a symbol for a later addiction, walking to get rid of his energy, thick black tobacco to cloud his mind, he chases her across a landscape that is not a city, a difficult triumph, no one else is wealthier for it, a vast silence overwhelmed him, Ex Oblivione, dissolving into the Realm of the Forms, a temporary escape from reincarnation, The Novel Of The White Powder, going to seed or dissolution, a continuous issue, Lovecraft was a teetotaler, the other way you can go, morphine?, The Green Meadow, ecstatic states, walking to exhaustion, a difficult topic, there’s truth everywhere in it, sloppy racism, the primitives being in touch with sensations and sense, barbarian hating civilization, Robert E. Howard, nine times, barbarians, pleasantly, prigs perfected, joyous manly young fellows, raped?, devious backstreets, the respectable inhabitants are barbarians, The Lost Club, a Weird Tales reprint, The Lost Room by Fitz James O’Brien, places that go missing, The Music Of Erich Zann, The Lost Street [by ], a strange experience, experiencing weirdness, N, a more definite divide between fantasy and reality, a magical world intruding upon London, The Wonderful Window by Lord Dunsany, does he go through it?, Golden Dragon City, Game Of Thrones, the only guy with HBO in 1902, Dunsany had it much easier, a crazy man confronts Dunsany in a restaurant, I just make them up you see, the story that is described is one Dunsany wrote, as extreme as Dunsany gets, not quite on the level of Guy de Maupassant, rigid principles, flowery words and a suit, a lifestyle that could so endanger them, is N unfinished?, a warning story, prurient interest in seeing how far one can descend, reality TV shows, I’m not that depraved, morbid curiosity, not edifying curiosity, The Cosy Room And Others, Hippocampus Press, The Ancient Track: The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft, nothing of Lovecraft is copyrighted, you don’t know how many letters he wrote where he put a poem in for a newborn baby’s birthday, so nested and so rich with vocabulary, a werewolf story, Psychopompos, exhausting a sonnet, more time invested in reading Clark Ashton Smith is a good thing, if this is Machen’s worst I want to read more, difficult, The Shining Pyramid, tiny details that fly by, The Unknown World, May 15 – June 15, 1895, Robert E. Howard wrote way more than H.P. Lovecraft did, the vastness of his other work, popular for his supernatural stories, Robert W. Chambers flips a switch, the opposite of what Lucian does, The Secret Glory, The Three Impostors, a fix-up, chasin a dragon out of the window, spent it all on insane asylums, The Horla, Maupassant rented a hot air balloon to promote a book, before airplanes, The Troop by Nick Cutter, trained up and fought a poet to promote his book, Uwe Boll, Ed Wood, completely talentless, maybe he just got past it, self-awareness is a stumbling block, Ed Wood (1994), found family, he has an eye and no talent, as innocent as a war veteran could be, a go getter, $5, Golan Globus Theatre podcast, the Tijuana Bible, historical records we need to have preserved, what Julian needed (was printed pornography), Conquering Goddess, it needs to be fully illustrated, BDSM, Robert E. Howard, nudy pulps before Playboy, the first Playboy with Marilyn Monroe, weird repression, Penthouse, happening but hidden away, human nature never changes, more evidence that this is how we have always been, embarrassing, left out in the woods, pre-WWII, this is somebody’s great grandma, challenged one of his critics to a boxing match, if he won the boxing match, you won the fight therefore, dueling, humour was our way of escaping bullies, laughter is disarming, intellectual overpowering, more than halfway through (life), a very thinly veiled autobiography, drawing on his own experience, a lot of philosophy, writerly philosophy, more about writing than it is about mysticism, why Maupassant wrote weird fiction, Maupassant’s career, A Piece Of String, A Ball Of Fat, a Star Trek episode [The Galileo Seven], hypocrisy, my servants are stealing from me, I am my servant, these terrible experiences he must relate, very healthily not on Twitter, No Man’s Land by John Buchan, Esteban Maroto, Australian youtube audiobook narrator, Steve Parker audiobooks, simple guy: likes audiobooks, iPads, Randall’s Round, you should always record, The Wind In The Portico, The Temple Of Death by A.C. Benson, 23 temples, spread out the Buchan, doing the same authors but not back to back, The Horror Horn by E.F. Benson, a yeti story in Switzerland, The Inn by Guy De Maupassant, the horror of being alone, afraid of a lot of stuff, The Terror, Who Knows?, the little shop dwarf, his homunculus, “oh monsieur, all your furniture is gone”, this is alarming, the furniture is the faculties of his mind, all metaphorical, symbolist, a good discussion of a complex book.

The Hill Of Dreams by Arthur Machen

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