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The SFFaudio Podcast #599 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Hawks Of Outremer by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #599 – Hawks Of Outremer by Robert E. Howard; read by Connor Kaye. This is an unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 5 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Trish E. Matson, Alex, and Connor Kaye

Talked about on today’s show:
Oriental Stories, Spring 1931, Weird Tales, Boom Studios, Mark Finn, Savage Sword Of Conan #222, “freely adapted”, did Connor say Conan?, square cut black mane, lightning blue yes, iron thews, a very unConan conclusion, “sheer weight of numbers”, man against man, Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, characters get in the head, ultra-brain damaged, punch drunk, his father was bastard, half norman half celt, a very special story, really interesting, super fun, very manny, Robert E. Howard nerding-out about history, historical references, who was real and who was not, Robert de Vale, Richard Lionheart, Saladin, Mark Finn’s essay, rewriting history in the guise of fiction, the markets are too scanty, if I twist facts too much, my stories center entirely on my conceptions of my characters, writing to a point, pooping on Lovecraft, Howard’s racism, England’s fucked up, Ireland’s fucked up, France is fucked up, religious zealots on a conquering spree, A Means To Freedom, the peopling of the British Isles, anthropology, its all migration, the Normans, two generations away from Vikings, civilization and barbarism, he’s obsessed with it, the German’s the bad guy, entrenched in the blood and the soil, Lovecraft doesn’t really care about characters, we remember Robert E. Howard characters, the themes are always the same, manliness vs gentlemanliness, a character up against them, The Black Stone, Lovecraft couldn’t or didn’t do that, the Saladin movie, Kingdom Of Heaven, Bertran de Born, 1140s-1215, Dante’s Inferno, Gustave Dore, jousting, He nicknamed Richard Lionheart…”Oc-e-Non” (Which translates to “Yes-and-No”),a translation of one of his war poem/songs (by Ezra Pound):

“…We shall see battle axes and swords, a-battering colored haumes and a-hacking through shields at entering melee;
and many vassals smiting together, whence there run free the horses of the dead and wrecked.
And when each man of prowess shall be come into the fray he thinks no more of (merely)
breaking heads and arms, for a dead man is worth more than one taken alive.
I tell you that I find no such savor in eating butter and sleeping, as when I hear cried “On them!”
and from both sides hear horses neighing through their head-guards, and hear shouted “To aid!
To aid!” and see the dead with lance truncheons, the pennants still on them, piercing their sides.
Barons! put in pawn castles, and towns, and cities before anyone makes war on us.
Papiol, be glad to go speedily to “Yea and Nay”, [Richard Lionheart] and tell him there’s too much peace about.”

this is hardcore, yo, the spirit inside of Cormac, war-madness, Apocalypse Now, he’s a ghost, a skull on his shirt and his shield, the West is open, Heart Of Darkness, Cormac is the crazy one, “My most somber character”, an unsalable version of Conan, the story works perfectly without any sorcery (without any sword), spartan in the backgrounds, Joe Jusko‘s covers, an eight page sequence which is almost completely wordless, arms floppin’ off, Medieval castle in Outremer, his hand swelling up like a glove and then exploding, crush the vertebrae, not for the faint of heart, quite vivid, Conan The Salaryman, “the giant”, his catlike slept, pantherish movements, so formidable in battle, he is a fool, a lot of backstory, Robin Hood is running around, the timeline, killed about a people burned a castle, took a sword from a sea-king, a ‘magic’ sword, his true beliefs, he swears by Satan, a symbol of the craziness that is the crusades, Richard is a fool (admirable), I would have you among my men, acting in honour to obey a blood debt, historical fiction, a tiny interregnum between another crusade and another betrayal, everyone is becoming free agents, craft their own little kingdoms, all these bastard sons, what the title means, a girl at the center of the action, a death wish, he’s like The Punisher from the 1190s, a war on crime that will never end, he’s a vigilante, he goes looking for trouble, you broke him, at least one more adventure, Richard Lionheart died in 1199, Saladin’s rule, unhorsed in battle, an Arabian steed and an English warhorse, Saladin was a Kurd, break up the two teams, united in their religion, dismounted?, a french she-knight, a belly fat German, throwing battle axes and lances, that impossible grip, bending the iron bars, this unstoppable Punisher plowing through people, going everywhere trying to make trouble, makes friends with people who are getting into trouble, Howard is so different from Lovecraft, H.P. Podcraft, The Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Oscar Wilde defeats you using nonsense logic that sounds great, rhetorical flourish vs. rhetorical substance, enough words, time to move, an experiment in manhood, why his stuff is so incredibly powerful, buffin’ up at the gym, military warriors, uncles and advisors and friends, unsurpassed for what it is, walking down the street wearing a time with a notebook and thinking about the stars, the boxing ring, wrestling with what it is to be a man, King Kull is a lot more philosophical than Conan, A Man Returns, were he a total caricature, he thinks its a trick, not just a walking sword, what Europe is like, a feint, betraying fealty, friends betrayed, Queen Of The Black Coast, a big long moral lecture, cleaves the judge’s head, manly loyalty that gets you into wars, the same kind of mentality, the thin blue line, I’m not a knight I’m a lord in my own land, running around in bearskins, philosophizing in fiction about what it is to be a man, the women in the stories are there for addressing men’s duties towards women, ideals of masculinity, a love letter to Saladin, a compeletly different way of being a man, a charismatic chivalrous civilized man, Saladin and Richard, fresh fruit, eat this get better, Joppa, prisoners of war, a Kurd among Arabs, I’m gonna prove you wrong, a Mary Sue, writing about the man he wants to be, strong and chivalrous, kind to his friends and cruel to his enemies, male fantasy,

Cormac glared at him, tensing himself for a sudden leap that would carry the Kurd with him into the Dark. The Norman-Gael was a product of his age and his country; among the warring chiefs of blood-drenched Ireland, mercy was unknown and chivalry an outworn and forgotten myth. Kindness to a foe was a mark of weakness; courtesy to an enemy a form of craft, a preparation for treachery; to such teachings had Cormac grown up, in a land where a man took every advantage, gave no quarter and fought like a blood-mad devil if he expected to survive.

Now at a gesture from Saladin, those crowding the door gave back.

“Your way is open, Lord Cormac.”

The Gael glared, his eyes narrowing to slits: “What game is this?” he growled. “Shall I turn my back to your blades? Out on it!”

“All swords are in their sheaths,” answered the Kurd. “None shall harm you.”

Cormac’s lion-like head swung from side to side as he glared at the Moslems.

“You honestly mean I am to go free, after breaking the truce and slaying your jackals?”

“The truce was already broken,” answered Saladin. “I find in you no fault. You have repaid blood for blood, and kept your faith to the dead. You are rough and savage, but I would fain have men like you in mine own train. There is a fierce loyalty in you, and for this I honor you.”

Cormac sheathed his sword ungraciously. A grudging admiration for this weary-faced Moslem was born in him and it angered him. Dimly he realized at last that this attitude of fairness, justice and kindliness, even to foes, was not a crafty pose of Saladin’s, not a manner of guile, but a natural nobility of the Kurd’s nature. He saw suddenly embodied in the Sultan, the ideals of chivalry and high honor so much talked of—and so little practiced—by the Frankish knights. Blondel had been right then, and Sieur Gerard, when they argued with Cormac that high-minded chivalry was no mere romantic dream of an outworn age, but had existed, and still existed and lived in the hearts of certain men. But Cormac was born and bred in a savage land where men lived the desperate existence of the wolves whose hides covered their nakedness. He suddenly realized his own innate barbarism and was ashamed. He shrugged his lion’s shoulders.

“I have misjudged you, Moslem,” he growled. “There is fairness in you.”

“I thank you, Lord Cormac,” smiled Saladin. “Your road to the west is clear.”

And the Moslem warriors courteously salaamed as Cormac FitzGeoffrey strode from the royal presence of the slender noble who was Protector of the Califs, Lion of Islam, Sultan of Sultans.

that’s the author talking, a lion like roar, Richard the Lionheart is the other lion, wasting all these lives, Robin Of Sherwood, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, maybe their religion aint that bad, reading Howard in comics, its never Cimmeria, interacting with not nice people, he comes from the north, that wanderlust, a lack of the gigantic mirth, that being towards death thing, in search of a calling, he’s clearly looking for someone, we want him to go there, its corrupt, decadence, Bêlit is probably supposed to be Jewish, she’s a Shemite, hawk-nosed Shemites, was so passionate her love, she’s a psycho killer, corruption everywhere, this person is not corrupt, a romance of the westerners towards this history, the propaganda is that he was exceptionally good, Howard inspired by history stories, his themes are not shallow, redeeming features to the latest Marvel Conan?, Conan the Gambler, it just carries you along and you hardly notice the philosophizing, he is so skilled at writing the prose, the dialogue is used in the Boom Studios adaptation, Roy Thomas era of Conan, text boxes, virtually no text boxes, losing all the sidelights that Howard is throwing, it feels like a novel’s worth of material, two major flashbacks, he storms two castle, a really strong workout, a lot of the tension came from Howard’s writing, it ends and you almost want to cheer, Two-gun Bob, His Own Barbarism by Mark Finn, he saw suddenly embodied in the sultan, the Frankish knights, his own innate barbarism and I was ashamed, he’s literally a werewolf, semi-mythological metaphors, Smaug, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien rewriting the Saga of the Volsungs for his own children, Thorin becomes the next dragon, a representation of turning into a dragon, a wolf-like figure, there’s too much peace around, a dead man is worth more than one taken alive, ransom, the butter and the sleeping, propagandistic: let’s do this fucking think, a hype-up, flex contests, let’s get this war on, fuck the money, it feels so fucking good, PUBG, trench warfare, become a wizard (like Evan), become a lich, ways of winning this manhood game, Connor is so lucky to be young and have Jesse giving him his wisdom, Mark Finn, Robert’s relationship with Doctor Howard, I got a $120 for that story, Blood & Thunder The Art & Life Of Robert E. Howard by Mark Finn, Connor’s narration, the voice of Cormac, really fun to narrate, The Blood Of Belshazzar, more of the same?, Magic Carpet Magazine, looking east, Orientalism, the interest in the east, Connor’s big Hippocampus Press purchase, R.H. Barlow, W.H. Pugmire, Clark Ashton Smith, The Tindalos Cycle, John Ajvide Lindqvist, The Black Diamonds by Clark Ashton Smith, a Boy’s Own Adventure by a kid who didn’t know what he was doing, ridiculously fun, an enthusiasm, Lovecraft seems to be a fanboy of Clark Ashton Smith, that prose that is a painting, the reds from Robert E. Howard, Scarlet Citadels, Red Shadows, it was a colour but I can’t describe it, four issues on Archive.org, 33 stories up on the PDF Page, The Sowers Of Thunder by Robert E. Howard, set in Otremer, an Irish crusader with a troubled past, maybe Connor’s got another project, talking about manhood, Lovecraft is more correct about the status of masculinity in the 20th century, Lovecraft knows the future is going to be libraries, academics, Lovecraft’s Roman dream, a fantasy of the working class, Wastelands by W. Scott Poole, it doesn’t matter how much you train, what it is to be a man and what it is to be masculine and what it is to be an adult, trophies, the female gaze upon the muscles, female characters who are wimps, the Indiana Jones second movie, Willie Scott’s job is to scream, The People Of The Black Circle, The Hour Of The Dragon, Zenobia, Red Sonja, Valeria from Red Nails, she’s a companion, not a plot object, the exact same plot as Iron Shadows In The Moon, the stupid squire character, Zula, Grace Jones is great, a little horse battle, Conan: The Destroyer is garbage, N’Longa, I need you, I’m yours, if Will were here, Tonto to The Lone Ranger, fifties square, Jay Silverheels, rancher’s daughter needs rescuing, range romance on the edge of civilization, Beyond The Black River, Conan fighting Indians on the frontier, John Carter, Tharks, not having magical element, sword and sorcery, didn’t need an evil wizard, Hashshashin, other than being really strong, Sharpe’s Rifles is historical fiction, that axe-throw was borderline, Harold Lamb, Adventure (magazine), it doesn’t really matter what he applies his writing to, The Tower Of The Elephant, he steals from the best, the puzzle solving, the pathos of the elephant, Almuric, and here’s some fragments, a description of a real town, how the houses loom, those sentences are still him talking, the natural storytelling, a jigsaw puzzle and a protractor, the soul of a poet.

Hawks Of Outremer by Robert E. Howard

Joe Jusko - Hawks Of Outremer

Cormac Fitzgeoffrey by Chris Schweizer

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #597 – READALONG: Sargasso Of Lost Starships by Poul Anderson

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #597 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, and Mary Jo Escano talk about Sargasso Of Lost Starships by Poul Anderson.

Talked about on today’s show:
Planet Stories, January 1952, October, March, February, hell ya, there’s no men on the planet, World Without Men by Charles Eric Maine, nice and trashy, a bit dated, that’s now it actually happens, Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson, Charles Eric Mayne, pruple heair and green eyes, yellow irises, purple lipstick, dyed breasts, pasties, a dead corpse on a dissecting table, lavender lipstick, sclera, garment, the best cover ever made, the world of 5,000 years from now, babies, mass deception, the struggle to recreate the male sex, the world of women, a truly unique novel, slanted for the intelligent adult reader, Nineteen-Eighty Four and Brave New World, a physical copy, serious thanks, the sound effects, weird pronunciations, Woka, Wocha, Basil Donovoan, Vulduma, captured the atmosphere, italicized, a ghost transmitting through your brain, now there is only death, the Sargasso of the Black Nebula, audacity, Garage Band, the Doctor Who adaptation, The Brain Of Morbius, a brain in a jar, Solon, the Sisterhood of Karn, cultist of immortality, Frankenstein, immortality juice, a dingy planet that’s a Sargasso of Space, alien ant-man, Kondo, an Igor type, Solon stole his hand, Universal Monster movies, taking our time, circle around the black hole, #SIFP, resist talking about it because its so important, Sargasso Of Lost Starships Rehidden by Poula Anderson, gender flipped text, Valduma is a man, Valdoomo,

Basille Donovan was drunk again.

She sat near the open door of the Golden Planet, boots on the table, chair tilted back, one arm resting on the broad shoulder of Wocha, who sprawled on the floor beside her, the other hand clutching a tankard of ale. The tunic was open above her stained gray shirt, the battered cap was askew on her close-cropped blond hair, and her insignia–the stars of a captain and the silver leaves of an earl on Ansa–were tarnished. There was a deepening flush over her pale gaunt cheeks, and her eyes smoldered with an old rage.

Looking out across the cobbled street, she could see one of the tall, half-timbered houses of Lanstead. It had somehow survived the space bombardment, though its neighbors were rubble, but the tile roof was clumsily patched and there was oiled paper across the broken plastic of the windows. An anachronism, looming over the great bulldozer which was clearing the wreckage next door. The workwomen there were mostly Ansans, big women in ragged clothes, but a well-dressed Terran was bossing the job. Donovan cursed wearily and lifted her tankard again.

it changes the story, it changes the story, but why?, there’s no feminine form of Earl, it brings to light preconceptions, Captain Helena, call me sir, workwomen, the point of it is to provoke you a little bit, it makes you think, an interesting literary technique, The Pirates Of Ersatz, a romance, who is betraying what, we’re going to raise children on your planet, his lips, his title, looking for approval from somebody, drunk in his cabin for weeks, I wanna have twelve kids with him on his holler planet, a product of his generation, swiping him to the left, Galactic Empire, Flandry, James Bond in space, he’s alt-right twitter user, drinking again today with my loyal slave, one of the least likeable Poul Anderson protagonists, written overnight?, there’s nothing to him, there’s levels to it, he’s not a hero, he’s a Han Solo figure, Star Warsy, the setup is straight out of Firefly, Alan Tudyk doesn’t like it, Takahashi, a product of his market, a male market, he’s the reader, Valduma can’t give him kids, the flavour of the month, she didn’t kill him the first time, infatuation, not a lasting relationship, one or both of them is going to die, the light side or the dark side, dug deep, he sides with the Empire, he’s a triple traitor, not a good person, the novel happens to him, he barely makes choices, why am I kissing her?, deeply mentally ill, a depressed guy with PTSD, psychological realism, she bites his lip, it’s kinky, it’s about power, power grooming, it’s hard to pay attention to what Basil Donovan is doing, because plot needs to happen, hypnotized, a new Amazing scan, a giant woman, a cowboy looking figure, A World He Never Made, Science Stories, April 1954, French Canadian voyageurs, a reversed image, a doll sized regular human, this is really what the 1950s are all about, now were friends with the Germans, the Japanese, coming back from our war, all the women are different, they’re wearing pants, they want divorces, I need to drink more, John Hamm with ads, Mad Men, they’re drinking all the time, WWII, sorta what we’re doing, on the losing Nazi side, American Civil War South, slaveholder, you’re on Team America against the Soviets, love that info-dump, story elements that make the story richer, a butt tonne, the Technic History series, rolling up and down through history, Will’s breathing, a real podcaster, a Blue Yeti without the boom, sonic disruption, the two covers, he looks like a cowboy, when you gender flip a story…, I think is physically embodied, women are becoming more powerful, my readers will buy this issue, stories are a way of understanding what’s going on, if you could only have one Astounding or Planet Stories, Planet Stories are fun, the psychology of the period, the spaceships are powered by atomics, the planets were bombarded, the spaceport was full of radiation, all the windows are blasted out, seeing Berlin after WWII, how is the occupation going to go, so clear to us looking at it, what our stories are about right now, the value of reading a trashy Planet Stories story, the science is not really the point, “She was the Lorelei of space”, a siren that lures their men to her death, a whole dark empire, the Black Nebula, the good an wholesome Empire of Earth or the Dark Empire of bitterness, No Truce With Kings, freedom, choice, we all have to work together, evidenced by the crew, all humans, all together, a pan-racial world, and Wocha’s really fun, the Woola, a dog that can drink beer, two H. Rider Haggard characters: Khoi-Khoi, Umslopogaas, a racial side-kick, unsavory, Solomon Kane, N’Longa, Tonto, the shownotes for She, Trish, Irish racism, not fully sentient, he’s reading children’s books, we love dogs, a giant monstrous child, mouthing the words, kinda simple, Captain America: The First Avenger, Dum Dum Dugan, The Howling Commandos, racialized characters, tokenism, its not mean, it’s inclusive, members of the community might not feel, DC comics too, Jonah Hex, Scalphunter, Power Man, Shang-Chi, Fu Manchu’s son, who’s making that decision, this person doesn’t like it, if it is a low culture thing, comic books or pulp magazines, coming from high culture, who shaped this story?, the readers, we don’t know all the things that go into it?, Helena riding Wocha into battle, that’s amazing!, space helmets, is this cover representative of one of these stories, a whole bunch of crashed spaceships, that’s Helena on the cover, why is she blonde on the cover?, that’s an amazing cover, the artist Alan Anderson used this pose, she’s black haired on the over covers, Wocha has an axe in his left hand, she’s on his horse, a horse dog talking companion character, looks like an ape, his ape face split, gorilla, he’d eat six times as much as a regular person, he’s isn’t a Nick Fury, WWII was segregated service, the most offensive thing is that he’s an earl, the class stuff, blood, the class stuff is racial, because he’s an earl, bigger than himself, the best right he can do because of who he is, he doesn’t really do anything, the viewpoint character, as soon as somebody kisses her she’s off her horse, this palooka, the title, she’s the captain of a starship, you’re mine now, the wish fulfillment of men coming back from WWII, worried about race when they should be worried about class, people are slightly different drives within us, producing babies out of our bodies, conquer the universe vs. play house (on the mud planet), please boss get us an engine for the town, a politics story, WWI, England and France are the bad guys, Austro Hungarian Empire (Jesse’s not a fan), ultimately the bad guy is Wilson, Germany not being a unified country until the 19th century, colonies vs. territories, the Philippines, Hawaii, the reason this story feels so rich and deep, drawing from the history of European colonialism, quite a bit about nebulas, a white dwarf, other galaxies, a Lovecraftian paragraph, the depths of space, its all meaningless, huddle around the fires and not think about it, the stew, it doesn’t feel like it is two hours, we appreciate that, The Queen Of Air And Darkness, space elves, regrets, the long-tailed greenies, Scotland, Shanghaied, blackmailed, we don’t need that part of the trip, Planet Stories (not Spaceship Stories), a sword and spear battle for technical science fictional reasons, sword and planet, they can control bullets, psychic energy, continuous field distribution, Asnarians, theorizing on their racial intelligence, how to run stuff, they’re a backwater because they’ve been fighting amongst themselves, decadence, his idea of women, they don’t have the patience, their crutch is so important to them, manipulating matter at a distance, psychokinetic, they’re really good at baseball, they got too big for their britches, kind of like Vikings, they Danegeld all their neighbours, diminishing elves, wreck my mud planet, you can be insular or you can expand your empire, grow or die, magic vs. technology, their power spoiled them, right here right now, why their planet is so desolate, The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven, why humans are so weird compared to other animals, Jesse disdains his animal, what makes humans different, curious monkeys, we’re the meta-animal, that animal has really big ears I bet I could make a tent out of that, mammals vs snakes, pass on the knowledge, they’re more like whales, they don’t have the hands, shelving and collecting and arranging, spaceships, engineers, Minecraft, computers inside of Minecraft, make a first person shooter style game inside of a game, it’s like LEGO, a sandbox, a survival simulator, somebody’s beautiful sentence, this is an interesting thought, why Wocha is the way he is, kinda like a kid himself, all of this stuff is in this story, what kinda science is it Jesse? super-science, the causal FTL, drink yourself, mother can I have his skull, a northern European version of the Sirens, they didn’t choose to be that way, nature just made Vulduma an immortal child, do you think she loved him?, she was using him, that’s her way of loving, that’s how she loves that mouse, you gotta love cats even though they are killers, our curse, the animal nature of humans, c’mon now act like a human, a capybara, they’re cursed, Valduma is doomed, their trapped, its biological, submits to the biological urge to kiss that scruffy dude, Basil’s trauma is out on the page, we don’t need to apply psychological realism to her, she didn’t want to be the leader of the Earth battalion, we don’t know how the empire appoints officers, Helena and Basil are both losers, supported in the text, did she say 12?, needing to be nursed, once the babies are baking, she is now the earl stay at home, very confusing, a Conan, A Witch Shall Be Born Once More by Roberta E. Howard, magic birth control, going around from town to town dropping kids, Conan’s not around when the baby’s cooked, she’s trying to miscarry, Conyn, she’s been nailed to the Tree of Woe, her mighty neck muscles, Conan’s covered in scars, unlike Kull, tough guys like Rambo, for men scars are like trophies, evidence of their manliness, the Lorelei is a dude, young Tarzan kidnaps a child, Tarzan Of The Black Boy, sharp cannibal teeth, when men fall head over heels, he’s acting alluring, Mal from Firefly, Errol Flynn, a Nazi in real life?, the lesser evil, in the real world it would be communism, Captain America fighting the Communists, one of the oldest superhero characters, photoshopped Bucky off the cover, socking Hitler in the jaw, before the United States are *in* the war, Stalin, Commie Smasher, beast-like hands, see Captain America defy the communist hordes, a belt and boots but no pants, John Romita, that’s hilarious, Cap was retcon.

Sargasso Of Lost Starships by Poul Anderson - from Planet Stories, January 1952

Sargasso Of Lost Starships illustrated by Allen Anderson

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #553 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Elf-Trap by Francis Stevens

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #543 – The Elf Trap by Francis Stevens; read by Josh Roseman.

This unabridged reading of the story (51 minutes) comes to us from the Protecting Project Pulp podcast is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, Terence Blake and Fred Heimbaugh

Talked about on today’s show:
Argosy, July 5, 1919, Fantastic Novels, Virgil Finlay, elvish or trappy, a fizzy wine, the colour of the wine is golden, yellow, gold, fin de sicile, The King In Yellow, the 1890s is yellow, the Yellow Peril, Yellow Journalism, the Gilded Age, yellow road, yellow mud, white robe, honeysuckle, very image based, the blue of her scarf, her brother is Elfo?, the invitation, white and silver, signifies for the opening and the closing scenes, the effect of the nested narratives, an outer outer outer narrator (Francis Stevens), old wives’ tales, recrudescence, related by a well known specialist in nervous diseases, the doubling or tripling, Dr. Locke?, prescription for me?, Wharton is the inner narrator, Theron Tademus, a listener, a comedy?, why don’t you read this to me?, Locke is a fool!, I don’t need to hear any more of this, the best part is coming up, a sex story, pretty chaste, two roads diverged, the negro caretaker, a yellow track and the other goes to Carcassonne, a Carolina mountain road, a confusion in his own mind, the gypsy camp vs. the artist’s camp, a tripling of reality, two Reading, Short And Deep podcast, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, The Rutted Road by H.P. Lovecraft, a very sly and sneaking poem, written for a friend, walking tours of England, the power of a poem, everybody has Fred’s take, everybody else doesn’t understand it, being playful, close to the message of The Elf Trap, he met death (or something), his physical form is destroyed, very Lovecraftian in the non-tentacled way, Celephaïs, The White Ship, happy or sad ending?, happy in the way people joining a cult are happy, evil or good or other, categories that can truly escape the good evil polarities, a valedictorian speech, I took the harder path, me looking down my nose at the snobs, career choices, very meta, more gloomy, Terence has heard the podcast on it, La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats, 1820, Marissa is excluded, a gender queer fluid, they’re elves, that line from Aliens (1986) about Arcturian poontang, John Waterhouse, an interesting name, the best social interaction he’s ever had, so striking how, racist sounding, a bit of a dick, ripe for the picking, science vs. romanticism, he’s a microscopist (a cytologist), setting you up, life and feeling and warmth, science is basically a dead bug pinned to a card with a latin inscription underneath it, the limitations and the ugliness, the blindness of his scientific vision, the simplest interpretation, there’s a trap, the iron trap vs. the silver trap, it can re-get ya, a community, crafts (vs arts), a bit of fun, bringing an easel on a manhunt, hilarious, he could have been taken away by either group, the “rural ruins” kick (#ruralruins on Twitter), old wooden barns, collapsing barns, the appeal of melancholy ruins, now is the time to start photographing them, Southern Michigan, ex-urban, cornfield, the southern exposure, Minnesota, a going native story?, if Evan were here…, Typee by Herman Melville, beautiful clean, the white ivory flute, tending his disgusting grandmother, clean beautiful people, pretty colours, he needs somebody to break him out of his crabbed world of scientific examination, his passion for science, a tension, a fit of pique, she’s racist, terrible relationship, you’ve got to stay with me forever, that yellow dog, cur, mutt, mongrel, wearing the elf-glasses, a silver bell, everything that’s inviting him in is yellow, everything turns to gold instead of yellow, honey wild and manna dew, roots aren’t sweet, root beer tastes like medicine, it tastes like Chinese medicine, the etymology of drug, Buckley’s Mixture, relish sweet, this switch, everything that’s horrible becomes wonderful, he doesn’t have thought in his head, uh huh, and how much can you sell it for?, there’s something fundamentally wrong in his life, his Doctor’s name, how important names are, John Locke has the most beautiful signature, freshwater goldfish, dysteria, out of the loop, he almost escapes, his racism, their skin is whiter, he sees them in this white way, science sobers him, he’s very unwell, there’s something unwell in science at this time, mongrelizing, everybody’s suffering from Russia-gate-ism, how many rubles did you get paid?, here’s Nazism in 1919, racial theories and breeding programs, it was in the water and everybody was drinking the Kool-Aid, Irish travelers, the black servant, the airy fairy artist community, the sheriff with a posse, if Mr Jim Moon was here, midsummer, a nightwalk, a misreading, a morning walk, up all night, instead of through telescopes he’s looking through microscopes, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, Pygmalion’s Spectacles by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Wonder Stories, June 1935, Galatea, The King In Yellow story that’s the opposite, Robert W. Chambers, The Elf King, belle epoch Paris, Virgil Finlay, he put on the glasses and fell in love with a dream, A Martian Odyssey, Fitz James O’Brien, The Diamond Lens, super-racism, The Atlantic (1858), the best microscope ever, falls in love with a little tiny lady, SCIENCE!, “Dysteria ciliata. Dysterius giganticus”, his love for the microscopic world, what the painter sees, seeing things as generalities on the surface vs. details in the lens, clumsiness, largeness, the anvil, Tolkien elves, frills and paisley, the blending of crafts and arts, William Morris, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, a reaction against science, poems about butterflies, you can love science AND poetry, William Blake, double vision, Auguries Of Innocence by William Blake, behind that is a veil, a hidden life of their own, Theron learns double vision, the elves inside the gypsies, a whole world, there Elva is blind, twofold vision, monsters that want eat him and liberators who want to free him, what does he bring to the table?, culture and community, 37 year old professor, infertility, outsiders, his charismatic attitude?, he brings novelty, something fresh and different, an Elva shaped hole, time is different for her, telepathically grooming Wharton, soulless, he’s lost his soul, big clumsy hulking brutes, an outsider without a soul, indeterminate, maybe they trapped him because he was trappable, is she a Scientologist, Projecting Project Pulp, Mech Muse, too early in podcasting?, more audiobooks, if Fred follows through, Unseen, Unfeared by Francis Stevens, spiritual themes, blogs are good but suppressed by Google, Tellers Of Weird Tales, Terence E. Hanley, death dealing shells, light over darkness, dark fantasy, a 21st century and academic conceit, one of the simplest of Stevens stories, built like a puzzle box, relativity, analytic cubism, where lies reality, a happy ending?, a pleasant reading experience, could have been written only by a woman, a deeper meaning in the man’s name, Jesse’s theory, Theron Tademus, tall?, hunter?, animal, tadpole, mouse, tall tailed mouse, mousetrap, she’s playing with it, pointing, the hunter and the hunted, not necessarily a happy ending, we praise thee oh god, he trusts science, he trusts her, he loses his last name in her world, they need some tall genes, one good name was good enough for one good person, a coordinate system, binomial nomenclature, Carcosa?, fantasy engaging with science fiction, Brigadoon, he has never danced or loved, beyond the veil, the deeper reality of the spirit, love and art triumph over materialism, the sky blue scarf, you’re all alike, you love is for gold (or freedom), she enslaves people, saved from science, his red notebook, looking at flowers in the forest with your girlfriend, beckoning him, driving Jesse mad, Carcassonne is a famous tourist trap, a medieval walled town, the tabletop game, it’s a trap, traps can be beautiful, a Florida based Star Wars Disney park, $40 light-saber, the rural ruins of Star Wars, tourist ruins, dinosaur ruins, South Dakota, Rapid City, north of Mount Rushmore, the Blue Ridge Mountains, there is in Kentucky, about as rural-ruiny as it can get, did she go there?, is this a true story, Carcassonne post office, a train stop maybe, America is filled with failed towns, Carcassonne Road, Carcassonne Community center, trampoline and a pool, an unincorporated village, if you squint and take off your classes, once every hundred years, if you’re Blakeian enough you can see it, there’s a guy who saw things differently, angels in the fields with the workers, something pagan about Elva, the Cathars, Kingsport, took the train into Asheville, something happened, I want to believe, Thousand Sticks, Mount Blackmore, American flag, Google Maps was magic, guess where in the world, the signage is in Spanish, we have magical powers our parents didn’t have, in the per-internet age, the state library in the capital of West Virginia, wait for the internet, lost and suppressed by google, if you know the address (the magic word) you can find it on the WayBackmachine, Protecting Project Pulp, Friend Island, a male reporter, women control the world, the grim and gritty sea-side tea house, an old sailoress, the only ships are trading ships or peace ships, shipwrecked on a man on an island and the island is female, Mother Nature is angry, funny on purpose, we need a president, Margaret Thatcher wasn’t that good, Hillary Clinton, policies and intentions matter, what is he basing that on?, hello Keats, much more arguable, male gazing, if you read it as a subversive ending, femme fatale, Black Widow (1987), Bound (1996), if it were written by, squamous squalid, not enough degeneration, love of place, very subtle, entertaining, so well put together, this story is cool, all that nesting of reality, it doesn’t tell you this is what happened, something artificial about the outer narrator, why do you need these characters, Edith Wharton, to make it seem more journalistic, framing stuff, The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe, about 60% is framing (and its all front framed), a turreted room, armorial trophies and portraits, falling in love with a portrait, there’s no outer frame, all set-up, Jesse cant remember the name of Henry James, The Others (2001), The Turn Of The Screw, take it as journals like Lovecraft, My name is Jervas Dudley, framing as throat clearing, imagine this was true, we’ve been trained, The House On the Borderlands by William Hope Hodgson, Rene Girard, triangular desire, scapegoats, mimetic desire, taking on the object of desire of someone else, aggression, Trump, Peter Thiel, advertising and Facebook, this is how their manipulating, writing about advertising, they use it all day long, I wanna be like them, BMW ads, projecting yourself into the vehicle, “ultimate driving machine”, the object of desire, we keep changing sympathies, I have a story to tell, he had a story to tell, he tells it to another guy, lampshading, who are we sympathizing with, that complication, perspectivizing through, filtering through, Rashomon effect, three visions of the dog, The Blair Witch Project, Scooby Doo, the whole point is the Gothic explique, gothic time!,

THE chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe.

Jesse’s amazing news, The Garden Of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges, change the trend, if they’re so impatient, if you don’t hook them in the first paragraph they’re going to walk, the perception in publishing, a whole bunch of readers who liove the slow build, the publishers are enforcing that rule, its anti-science fiction, Inconstant Moon a line only written by Larry Niven (or Jerry Pournelle), that ending line, Footfall, the humans are more conquery and tankie, giant elephants, The Tower Of The Elephant by Robert E. Howard, an adulteration, why are we being told this, changing microscope magnifications, micrometer, a blurry chaos becomes crystal clear, The Outer Limits, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Wondersmith, How I Overcame My Gravity, What Was It?, a haunted boarding house, smoking opium in the backyard, an invisible creature, plaster of Paris, The Horla by Guy de Maupassant.

The Elf-Trap by Francis Stevens - Illustrated by Virgil Finlay

Kingdom Come State Park near Carcassonne, Kentucky

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The SFFaudio Podcast #547 – READALONG: The Angel Of Terror by Edgar Wallace

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #547 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Julie Davis, and Terence Blake talk about The Angel Of Terror by Edgar Wallace

Talked about on today’s show:
1922, mean and bad people who all look very pretty, act so sweet, physically beautiful, even the ugly people are distinctive, surprised, Julie has read it three or four times, Terence read it in two sittings, the LibriVox was too slow, he wrote a tonne of books, super-popular, very exciting, you read it as fast as he wrote it, he dictated his writings, he roared through them, Kevin J. Anderson does the same thing, very extensive Wikipedia biography, aha!, he used every part of the buffalo, stuff that happens in his life, he’s the bad guys, they all go to the South of France, he wrote King Kong, the best way to approach him, using themselves, churning out a great adventure, more complete, the angel and the other woman, you can’t like her but you can admire her, she’s so complete, Lydia liked her, Maissa enjoyed it like candy, the author loved her (the angel), so nefarious, Jack O’ Judgement, Batman/Joker character, what genre is this?, suspense, is she going to get away with it?, will she do it, it wasn’t suspenseful, armchair interesting, interesting jumping, that style of writing/thinking, working the plot out on the fly, putting out a novel in three days (with no editing), he’s got magic, breaking it down, funny lines, Terence’s neighborhood, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Nice, San Remo, the true reason they go down there, he has to get rid of his money as quickly as possible, you can’t drink and drug that much, the best way to get rid of money, very exotic, a few sound problems at the beginning of the audiobook, we open with the conclusion of a murder case, how can we get our client off even though he’s been convicted, the lawyers flout the law, family loyalty, they knew she was guilty, she’s his white whale, will you please just take these steps?, falling under the sway of a charismatic personality, unrelenting naivete, Edgar Wallace is the main character, he was working for a newspaper, how many times he got married, there was dictation, To Catch A Thief (1955), a very strange taffy-pull, a reverse Les Misérables, off to North Africa, Edgar Wallace plot wheel, what kind of Edgar Wallace plot you’re in, wheel of blind trails by which the hero is mislead or confused, planted clues, false confession, document forged, go around the room, having those prompts, watching Jean have to improvise, somebody is going to get Lydia, double plans, “oh great, the chauffeur’s in love with me”, when Lydia’s being shot at on the raft, there’s something funny about it, things become more and more far-fetched, A Series Of Unfortunate Events, Jesse’s mom read him a book for Christmas (A Peculiar Curiosity by Melanie Cossey), the reason that book exists as it does, trying to make everything right, he’s much more like Elmore Leonard, I don’t know anything about diving, go find out about that stuff for me, dialogue driven crime sort of stuff, that external research, Civil War reenactors, “farbs” they’re in it for the weekend, it’s just what we do, Alexander Dumas, set in London, John Buchan’s The 39 Steps, less he-man, Wallace was in love with his villain, this malignant disease, forgotten to say her prayers, a broken moral compass, damn!, it’s natural to her, I fear life without money, the cold mutton of yesterday, the people reading these books, she’s a sociopath, deep into his biography, when he joined the army, Edgar Wallace is named after Lew Wallace author of Ben Hur, religious as an undercurrent, the premise is uniquely interesting, her debts are because she’s so moral, some rando stranger somewhere on the internet dies, we’ll marry him off, that hook is so important, ooh hey!, this wide eyed innocent but quite competent lady, can she compromise her moral values and the plot is rolling along, did Jesse doctor the audiobook’s speed?, some sort of weird forced marriage?, by any means necessary, genre expectations, Brewster’s Millions (1985), a false tension, George Barr McCutcheon’s novel Brewster’s Millions, new clothes, new place, she IS a fashion plate,

The novel revolves around Montgomery Brewster, a young man who inherits 1 million dollars from his rich grandfather. Shortly after, a rich uncle who hated Brewster’s grandfather (a long-held grudge stemming from the grandfather’s disapproval of the marriage of Brewster’s parents) also dies. The uncle will leave Brewster 7 million dollars, but only under the condition that he keeps none of the grandfather’s money. Brewster is required to spend every penny of his grandfather’s million within one year, resulting in no assets or property held from the wealth at the end of that time. If Brewster meets these terms, he will gain the full 7 million; if he fails, he remains penniless.

Edgar Wallace’s dream, the house always wins, whatchu gonna do with that money?, the kind of plot premise that starts off this money, she marries a murderer, he’s suicided, she’s an heiress loose on the goose, study with the Italian masters, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), our anti-hero is a “femme fatale”, she cuts the guy’s hand, your handkerchief please, she’s a monster, a very attractive monster, brought to justice?, she hoodwinks one more guy, it’s for the wildlife, you don’t want to hurt a dolphin, she’s met her match, Jesse got the sense the cycle was going to repeat, she meant it, he’s an interesting man, the last line, five million francs, money did not interest her, a sphere of might and power, an intellectual is somebody who has discovered something more interesting than sex, he was likeable, he loves her anyway, simpering, saving Lydia, love was more important, chose something good at the end, fooled by Mr Jags, the train station, he’s gonna follow her, because I have a criminal mind, a wholesome respect for the law, Jack Glover = Jag, who was the angel of terror?, at no moment does she inspire terror, Jag is the Hyde aspect of Jack Glover, the two angels, she conducts terror, she feels terror, Jean might corrupt Lydia, a first class criminal, born 600 years to late, Lucrezia Borgia, Dexter, a do good framework, did Edgar Wallace know Jags was gonna be Jack, the character shift is pretty massive, a very good fellow (illiterate and speaks amazing French), I wouldn’t mind a pipe, a disguise, Julie agrees with Terence, too much weight on the dictation?, a flow of consciousness, increasingly outlandish, he knew and he didn’t know, fiction writing, seeing connections, plots in opposition, a twist that inverts, deliberate, trying to hide identity, Carmilla, Mircalla, an acronym of your own name, a tribute to Edgar Wallace, its hard to tell, this is a job for Superman!, from a writer’s perspective, he was there the whole time, one alternate title: The Destroying Angel, a quote from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, maybe both are the angel of terror, disguised, her beauty is her disguise, lookism, I’ll get you my pretties!, the opening of Chapter 2, the writing is “choice”, mmmm yes,

Lydia Beale gathered up the scraps of paper that littered her table, rolled them into a ball and tossed them into the fire.

There was a knock at the door, and she half turned in her chair to meet with a smile her stout landlady who came in carrying a tray on which stood a large cup of tea and two thick and wholesome slices of bread and jam.

“Finished, Miss Beale?” asked the landlady anxiously.

“For the day, yes,” said the girl with a nod, and stood up stretching herself stiffly.

She was slender, a head taller than the dumpy Mrs. Morgan. The dark violet eyes and the delicate spiritual face she owed to her Celtic ancestors, the grace of her movements, no less than the perfect hands that rested on the drawing board, spoke eloquently of breed.

“I’d like to see it, miss, if I may,” said Mrs. Morgan, wiping her hands on her apron in anticipation.

Lydia pulled open a drawer of the table and took out a large sheet of Windsor board. She had completed her pencil sketch and Mrs. Morgan gasped appreciatively. It was a picture of a masked man holding a villainous crowd at bay at the point of a pistol.

“That’s wonderful, miss,” she said in awe. “I suppose those sort of things happen too?”

The girl laughed as she put the drawing away.

“They happen in stories which I illustrate, Mrs. Morgan,” she said dryly. “The real brigands of life come in the shape of lawyers’ clerks with writs and summonses. It’s a relief from those mad fashion plates I draw, anyway. Do you know, Mrs. Morgan, that the sight of a dressmaker’s shop window makes me positively ill!”

at the end of this chapter is a review of this book, Philip K. Dick, the promise of the book:

“Since when has the Daily Megaphone been published in the ghastly suburbs?” asked the other politely.

He saw the girl, and raised his hat.

“Come along, Miss Beale,” he said. “I promise you a more comfortable ride—even if I cannot guarantee that the end will be less startling.”

a nice turn of phrase, Mrs Cole Mortimer was a chirpy pale little woman of forty-something, descriptions of the south of France, my soul has been in a hundred collisions, she had no sense of metaphor, page 52, waiting for the detective to arrive, picturesque dressing gown and no-less picturesque pajamas, to impress, the staging and artifice, hoodwinked all the way through, the ability to surprise while we’re in the know, cotton candy, it’s very old, on LibriVox, Lee Elliott was a good narrator, getting professional about our amateurism, Terence is sounding good, our show, Terence’s sound is terrible, content is king, sometimes narrators have really good taste, Phil Chenevert does tonnes of science fiction, narrating a novel is a huge commitment, “yup I’m doing another one for money, Jesse”, the narrator of Weiland (Karen Joan Kohoutek), Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore, almost like reading a super-old style comic book, this mysterious cloaked and masked character, no one knows who he is, Moon Knight, a minor Marvel character, The Joker, The Riddler, youre almost on the evil guy’s, The Shadow, Orson Welles, a giant prosthetic nose, Wallace didn’t live that long, proto-superhero magazines, the foreshadowing of that, The Spider, Doc Savage (the guy with the big shiny muscles), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Buckaroo Banzai, failed MCUs (Marvel Cinematic Universes), an aspect like the Watchmen, Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, the evolution, James Bond, superhero-like stories, going in blind, understanding the phenomenon, we couldn’t quit reading, on his writing process, Brian Aldiss, you begin with a striking image, a crazy robot on the moon firing into the void, he probably began with the beautiful evil woman, there is a huge unity to the story, imagistic unity, Jack and Jean’s story, there’s this 1971 movie, nope it’s not that, conventions stuck in the period in which it is set, House, M.D. works much better, differential diagnostics, he’s a consulting doctor, what Arthur Conan Doyle really did, very Agatha Christie territory, to see the actors chewing up the scenery, set it after WWII, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, get some colour, Jean would laugh at Dexter, you’re wasting your talents!, as any flapper would pick up any nut, proto-feminism, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scarlett Johansson as Jean,

Edgar Wallace plot wheels

Edgar Wallace plot wheel blind trails

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #546 – AUDIOBOOK: The Angel Of Terror by Edgar Wallace

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #546 – The Angel Of Terror by Edgar Wallace, read by Lee Elliott.

This UNABRIDGED AUDIOBOOK (6 hours, 27 minutes) comes to us courtesy of LibriVox. The Angel Of Terror was first published in 1922.

The next SFFaudio Podcast will feature our discussion of it!

The Angel Of Terror by Edgar Wallace

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #540 – READALONG: Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography by Laurent Queyssi and Mauro Marchesi

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #540 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, and Evan Lampe talk about the NBM Graphic Novel Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography by Laurent Queyssi and Mauro Marchesi.

Talked about on today’s show:
NBM Graphic Novel, we gotta do this, H.P. Lovecraft, as fascinating as, Evan was disappointed, it’s not Philip K. Dick’s stories, major things missing, the meeting with Ridley Scott, I have my reservations, Dick’s opposition, understanding and insight, who is the audience?, if you know the Easter Eggs…, who is it for?, documentaries about Philip K. Dick, somethin trippy, the visualization of Point Reyes, happy little Philip K. Dick with his science fiction magazines, the chronology, the flashforward, seeing the buildings, the architecture, we’re the audience for the book, so much missing, could it be improved by making it a lot longer?, an outline of events, a primer, a skeleton, the Thoreau one!, being in nature and being self-sufficient, you learn everything about Beethoven, [The Value Of Giving: The Story Of Beethoven by Ann Donegan Johnson and Steve Pileggi], an outline of Marie Curie, [The Value Of Learning: The Story Of Marie Curie by Ann Donegan Johnson and Steve Pileggi], Einstein For Beginners, Marx For Beginners, handing Lovecraft stuff to little kids, Philip K. Dick has teenage ideas, Jesse appreciating seeing the spaces, a secret, really well done, Jacen Burrows, the architecture, a real sense of the neighbourhoods, him at his typewriter, so cool, the very first page, pages unnumbered, December 1981, showing up at some airport with a new girlfriend, Evan is more worried about the script, in the screening room, everytime you turn the page there’s a black ceiling, the last page, March 2, 1982, a model of the neighbourhood, I think Ursula (K. Le Guin) was right, Small Town, living in a set, The Days of Perky Pat, that zoom out, then it’s the world!, every ceiling is black, attention to comics paneling, he was in town when Jesse was conceived, Willis, the skylights look like windows, something you can do in film or comics that you can’t do in a text biography, white, the Platonic thing he’s always thinking about, January 26, 1929, Phil, white space, the symbol for the platonic realm, that white page, outside with Mr. Tagomi, the graphic narrative, the colour, really beautiful, that whole posture and expression, they’re calling my name, Meemaw hiding in the bathroom, footnotes, quotation marks, exact dates, details, no androids, why isn’t there a spider in the mug?, three stigmatic, the same syndrome, focusing on Dick’s late stuff, stealing his mom’s pills, spray, big references vs. smaller stuff, Ubik, Exegesis, she would know he had a lot of wives, 18 year old Tessa sitting on his lap, drawn to the wordless panels, the dialogue was on the nose, stilted, engage and interpret, a little dry, outside of Art Music, better than a photograph, and yet, no TV repair, too short, more of what we’re getting?, Vince, the driving lessons from the FBI agent, you would have some questions, did this happen?, Solar Lottery, that’s a metaphor for his trying to get respectable, the New Statesman, H.G. Wells’ legacy, Tono-Bungay, dissing H.G. Wells was a bad writer, Philip K. Dick was a bad writer, clunky, The Variable Man,

even before the term “SCIENCE FICTION” existed the elites were shitting on SCIENCE FICTION and the people who read it (and the guy who basically invented it)

the literary books, important books about divorces, did he think it was really important – or did he want to change class, pettiness in spending time in his actual life, feeling ambivalent, totally could have happened, maybe that stuff is good, subtle things going on, a scriptural problem, how to solve it, the excitement on Philip K. Dick’s face, the latest issue, A.E. Van Vogt, my kingdom, Return To Lilliput, Gustav Mahler, social anxiety, the judgement of the friend, the average person, appreciating it on a visual level, Jason Eckhardt’s illustrations and the framing device, a show, a stageplay, more information about Lovecraft’s life than we do about Philip K. Dick, our job isn’t to market the book, the Lovecraft biography was densely packed, his interactions with other people, internalization of events, a giant metal face in the sky, these two pages work incredibly well, the lines on the road, a modern setting, running to the shack, the connection, going to visit the father, a real incident, the ex-wife and the kid, Harlan Ellison, these things gotta be explained, who knows what Dangerous Vision is?, Riders Of The Purple Wage and Aye And Gomorrah, fan service, mutual success destroyed, how many scenes when he sits on the couch, sitting at the desk, we just don’t know (about his dad), this isn’t even fan service its just facts, a spit-take, a meet cute, it’s a fact we know about his life, the visualizations of the physical spaces, we don’t know the colour of the couch (unless its a plot point), the visual element, not one of us!, maybe Paul is the audience for this book, his personal life, the general outline, filling in those facts, an interesting visual language, Philip K. Dick’s house, google street view, the post-script, the big shock, stubbled face, standing in the glory of the his 1952-4 publications, The World She Wanted, Science Fiction Quarterly, Jack Vance and Isaac Asimov, Sir Francis Drake Hotel, a real hotel, Out In The Garden, ah ha ha haw, the idea that Sir Francis Drake got as far as these places, Dr. Futurity, time travel, that kind of detail, a little spike of “wow! that’s amazing!”, hey I’ve read your stuff, I guess we have to do that, going out to that shack is terrific, wives leaving him, a lot from Anne’s biography, a lot of letters, how funny he is isn’t in here, this is not a comedy it’s a tragedy, a little bit to self oriented, about his internal stuff, going to a Chinese restaurant, a 1949 store, the weirdnesses’ of H.P. Lovecraft, abbreviations, the snob in Jesse, what’s going on with his mom, yo?, a homosexual hangup, why is his dad absent, because you’re weak, like who?, is his dad gay?, a hidden biography, absent from this book, fatherless, surrounded by women, as a WWI veteran he had a gas-mask that might have frightened Philip K. Dick and sent his mind going, what the authors think the people care about, a good contribution if they could have nailed the later weirdness, those Valis novels, a set of ideas he was playing with, a bit opaque, Philip K. Dick wearing a cowboy suit, a lot of lying in that bed, that focus on the end, lying in bed dying of colon cancer, regular nightwalks, the value of seeing what those houses look like, Steen went to Philip K. Dick’s gravesite, why is he buried in Colorado?, an incident in Vancouver, his whole life is California, two trips to France, Ghost World (2001), Daniel Clowes style, the same kind of lifestyle, hanging out in the suburbs, about some weirdos hanging out, older men and younger women, a slice of the Ghost World comics, Steve Buscemi, that California aesthetic, a vibe that’s different, it’s its own thing, beautiful images, Cleo storming in, a few months later, Cleo what are you doing here?, you promised you’d bring me the car title, going to workshops for him, she’s walking toward the house, a green glow around her head, Jesse reads a lot of comics, if the art is terrible, a very delicate balance, a really good audiobook narrator cannot save a bad book, a number of problems, audience expectation, you should pick it up, you’re welcome!, Evan appreciates the daughters in this, the gun, visiting him in the hospital, when Nancy leaves him, the estate, they’re frauds, everybody is an asshole at some point in their lives, the portrait of a highly complicated man, friendly and difficult, he’s got his demons, I was sexually molested as a child, he might be wrong, that phenomenon, the McMartin trial, Tessa Dick’s YouTube channel, your eyes are closed to your son’s birth defect, to the doctor immediately, I’m in shock, I can’t even drive, this sort of thing is not a sign of divine revelation, bad recollection, Jesse’s recollection about who exactly he’d punched in the face, magic thinking of the horoscope kind, here’s another incident of that, delusions becoming reality, either he infected her or she infected them, a Folie à deux, [Heavenly Creatures 1994] Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick, the trials and tribulations of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, now when what we talk about what Chelsea Manning was doing, she was doing this when she was in the army, they all agree, when we all agree, weird dontcha think?, furry costumes, I’m really a fox, just really weird, a weird guy and a person who isn’t an immune, anti-creativity, the thing kids have that we lose when we grow up, so late in the day, falling out of the immersion, Paul makes a very meta move, a richer character for a life, on the couch a lot, what’s so fascinating about him, how his friends perceived him, tension and conflict, not consistent in real life, really cool, hairy back, that hairy monster, a good book.

Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography by Laurent Queyssi and Mauro Marchesi

NBM Philip K. Dick: A Comics Biography (art from the back cover)

Posted by Jesse Willis