galactic empire – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #728 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Ministry Of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper

The SFFaudio Podcast #728 – Ministry Of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper – read by Phil Chenevert for Librivox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novella (1 hour 55 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
Astounding, December 1958, why John W. Campbell bought this story, because psychic powers are real for no reason, a whipping scene for Weird Tales, robots he can take or leave, precognition, a very weird story, a day in the life of the emperor of the galaxy, a galaxy at peace, manufacture churn, a momentous day, more changes today than in the last 600 years, very ossified and stagnant, i went outside and looked at the leaves, maybe things are going to change in the future, the anticipation effect, a protest, maybe he’s going to get overthrown, no, all ginned up, some degree of power was taken from him, he wants to be replaced by a robot, the council of counts, staged a quiet coup, change who has authority, not a Russian Revolution, eventually if this technology works out, faster than light communication, an ansible, possibly time travel, courtiers around power, towards expansion, a lot of theses going on, surprisingly unfocused and yet pretty good for what it is, historical philosophical, Murder In The Gun Room, Little Fuzzy, Space Viking, he’s setting stuff up, parallel universe stories, paratime, very Oswald Spengler, a decadent empire that’s static, engineering fake plots, manufacturing disturbances, too ossified, if you have enough problems the problems solve each other, Wag The Dog (1997), domestic problems? gin up foreign problems!, Roe vs Wade, Paul’s not convinced, there was no application of heat, a tool, Paul’s going to shutup for a bit, a Machiavellian story, strange guy, weird writer, not academically trained, brilliant guy, a self-taught man, smoking all those cigarettes, drinks some coffee, conjures up a whole galaxy of intrigue, he’s our emperor Paul the 22nd, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, neo-barbarians, same kind of thinking about civilization and barbarism, Philip K. Dick, obsessed, imperial decadence, how do we keep a civilization going?, points to the frontier, some kind of disorder, they need to expand, Toynbee, Time Out Of Joint, Ibn Khaldun, dynasties last three generations, when empires begin, decadence inevitably comes in, various empires, how top heavy the bureaucracy is, automation, class conflict, how this student revolt is a sign, institution built up, technologically significant, students upset they fire my professor, A World Out Of Time, snake-cat, hydraulic empires, contaminating influence, they’re old and decadent, too ossified, stave off, the sack of Rome in 410, the tone, he’s having it both ways, very jokey, very humorous, he’s thought a lot about it, Queen Elizabeth died, people care, Caitlin Johnstone, doubling down on the monarchy, Charles the III is the king of Australia, Rodericks and Pauls, 43 generations?, semi-competent, just assumed, the only way to manage a galactic empire, in our own history, he’s having some fun, how seriously should we take all this, the robots, starts and ends with feelings of the robots, it might be silly, treating robots like people vs. treating people like robots, if so many people didn’t act like robots, poor me, i have to Machiavelli people all day long, promote the incompetent, economic systems, industrialization of society, cogs in machines, just a fun story, he’s his own author insert in the main character, he likes to write characters who manipulate, turning rye into whiskey, so clever, the point of the story seems to be they’re in a very fine balance, the solution is to promote the incompetent, he’s having it both ways, this is impossible, over analyzing it?, H. Beam Piper is the working man’s science fiction Tolkien, that makes a lot of sense, potatoes and pipeweeds and saurons, he built elvish, capable of spinning up all this stuff, we’re told he killed himself, he was interested in this stuff and it shows, interesting secondary worlds, how many of Philip K. Dick stories are set in the same world?, 2?, two Doc Labyrinth stories, Nick And The Glimmung and Galactic Pot-Healer, a lot like Asimov, galactic empire, robots, not academicy, a professor of chemistry, Larry Niven, a rich kid, Heinlein: an officer, Piper’s situation, he’s not an officer, he has no authority, I could be emperor, also emperors are silly, engaged with the idea, what makes it science fiction, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, technology never changes anything in Middle Earth, last decimal places, maybe there’s something to do now, some barbarian lands to conquer, galactic geography, China not expanding, shaped like a pork chop, a communications issue, Omnitrend’s “Universe”, expansion beyond limits of communication, a struggle with motivation, what it all means, infected Jesse’s dreams, the central idea, leveling off to a certain level of technology, becoming stable, looking at our own society, technological changes have great effects, birth control pill, social stratification, granaries, there’s no technology trees, the game has run out of ideas, technological change is what changes society, including food, a David Graeber essay, jetpacks, flying cars, going back to the moon, internet hasn’t got us to the moon, where is our post scarcity, Jesse is so close to post-scarcity, the lawyers, the ideology and the institutions get in the way, a Byzantine state, your job is to vote, paid so you can vote properly, the communist planet, he didn’t carry a weapon but if he did it would have been a slide-rule, everybody is the same, a cul-de-sac, stating facts about what’s happening, is it good for the company or is it good for me?, the inverse of Foundation, explode the contradictions, make Charles III the king and see what happens, a very serious book, Claudius The God by Robert Graves, engendering revolt, an accelerationist, silly rules, Messalina’s infidelities, he’ll get assassinated too, a very serious book, people thinking they can control and guide events, smart and lucky, Frank Herbert and Dune, dukes and plans and wheels within wheels, the trappings of technologies, interstellar travel, kings on every planet, a manipulator at the emperor’s level, wheels and airplanes, drugs, physics and robots, still dealing with the effects of life extension, fantasy stories tend to go the opposite direction, new evil coming from the east, Saruman making orcs is a technological change, Bene Gesserit yoga stuff, the cast of magic, nobody sensible, the rise of a god, Slan is the rise of a god species, The Golden Man, eugenics, it even has a map, most science fiction novels don’t have maps, Dune has a map, the tension between lack of technology and the effects of technology, science fiction is about progress and change, the breeding program is at the center of the story, sociology, Dune is science fiction in the same way that this is, at core they’re both about technologies, four shows on Dune, a purer example, very interesting buy every light, full of ideas, his Hyborian Age essay for his universe, we’re grading on a scale here, it isn’t like what happened to the Queen last week, when is the plot gonna start?, all of these things were the plot, a surprising story structure, when the title was going to come in, the minister of disturbance was the emperor, why we need a king or a queen in Canada, she doesn’t visit much that’s good, you need a head of state for reasons, forces of stability, a horrible human being, she didn’t effect Canada’s politics, the personal fortunes have survived European in drama of the 20th century, ridiculous, when you don’t think about it, Charles on my money, the Albertans aren’t going to like that, significant in the media, their wealth, public dole, the emperor is not symbolic in the story, more like Elizabeth I, historians or nerds like Paul, Augustus: not a force of stability, Hadrian, Trajan, build walls everywhere, build that wall!, good emperors and bad emperors, long term stabilizing forces, the ones who show up in the 9th grade history books are chaos agents, Antonius Pious, the most boring reign, no revolts, to his credit, an even keel, Winston Churchill is a chaos agent, commando units, trying to make this war happen, George W. Bush: chaos agent, Wanli (a late Ming emperor), hanging out with the concubines, refused to go to meetings, chose not to rule, 17th century crises, the agenda is full, he wants to take that break, the wife, the kid, he wants a robot emperor, another Asimov story, one of the big three or whatever, H. Beam Piper is weird and odd, commentary from the sidelines, Paul Krugman’s not going to become an H. Beam Piper fanboy, few do, Junkyard Planet/Cosmic Computer, on LibriVox, muting or Jesse talking?, Evan’s first Piper, some of the themes are so simuilar to some of the Philip K. Dick was writing, a connected conversation, Dick would never do it this way, a very tired robot emperor, The Last Of The Masters, all these meetings, really well done, so much going on, if The West Wing didn’t suck, I am a reflection of the reality we wish we had, everybody is still going to be smoking 4000 years in the future, coffee is a technology, cigarettes is a technology, vaping, some sort of reaction to it, engaging with the change of technology, Augustus and Caesar, intellecutal technologies, that amazing move Napoleon made, liberate the rest of Europe from Kings, an imperial dynasty, ideas are technologies, they control your thoughts, they convinced me pumpkin spice latte, people abbreviating: PSL, not all technologies are good for us, eventually technologies mature, Bryan Alexander, matured technologies, the AK-47, between 1947 and today, working on a couple of systems, the AR-15 works differently, coil guns, a slug going down a rail with a bunch of capacitors, its not in the constitution, a fully automatic railgun is not a firearm, ATF, Gauss rifles, internal combustion leveled off in the 1990s, sailboats aren’t radically changing, tech can stable off and robots can’t replace the emperor, a massive revolution, supporting the ministry of disturbance, the reviews on GoodReads, 3/5, hard to review a story like this, a manifesto, these are the things I would like to talk about, Little Fuzzy, seed vs. Foundation, they can’t make fire and they can’t talk, the talk and build a fire rule, Murder In The Gunroom, a locked room mystery, gun collector, gun nut, shot himself with a gun, a lawyer becomes a private detective solving a firearms collector, Omnilingual, Philip K. Dick thinks about how cruel his wife is, mundane things like cigarettes, focus the attention, red herrings, a pleasant fellow, Lord Sugar, the House Of Lords, you scumbags are all jealous, taking pictures of your yacht, scum, all the poors are scum, in 2022, Poul Anderson’s No Truce With Kings, espers, the tyranny of feudal structures, post apocalyptic America, you’re thinking of a sailboat.

Ministry Of Disturbance by H. Beam Piper

Ministry Of Disturbance

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 #417 – READALONG: The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #417 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Maissa discuss The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

Talked about on today’s show:
1993, a sequel to a 1974 novel, a long digression, Protector, where does Larry Niven end and Jerry Pournelle begin?, Larry Niven is the aliens, Jerry Pournelle was the humans and the military, what’s happening?, too many battles, a secret tramline, plot beats, The Mote In Gods Eye is more muscular, a second first contact, the empire is slipping, privileges vs. responsibilities, doing duty, they were shinier, WWII, the least interesting duty ever, graft, echo, the circular spiral of the Moties and the parallels with the human empire, the only difference between the Moties and the men is the differences, codicil to Horace Bury’s will, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, too many space battles, a spacesuit full of watchmakers, kill them with fire, snow ghost, space Mormons, Reflex, A Spaceship For King David by Jerry Pournelle, the Langston field, read the Wikipedia entries before reading the books, a quasi-magic force-field, handwavium, wormhole subways gets stuff done, Babylon 5, He Fell Into A Dark Hole, kinda-sorta, feel and see the Niven Pournelle overlaps, the Janissaries novels, they’re gonna run out bullets soon, murderous centaurs, Inferno, Lucifer’s Hammer, it is interesting, a 70s disaster novel, Oath Of Fealty, Footfall, Legacy Of Herot, Fallen Angels, the Prometheus Award, anti-environmentalist, The Burning City, the Magic Goes Away universe, hit by the Niven and Pournelle hammer, Escape From Hell, sequels,

Jesse’s laws of sequels: The First Law: The second law is a sequel, and thus unneeded.

health problems, who named a planet Sauron?, too obvious, super-soldiers, military SF, war porn with laser guns, it doesn’t change the battlefield, first person shooter games, the whole point of technology is it changes things, dinosaurs, having done The Lord Of The Rings, a 2 cassette abridgement of The Gripping Hand, coffee, mispronunciations, pooping all over this book, Julie Davis, ruined the first book?, a visit to Mote Prime was missing, asteroid civilizations, the midshipman are a dead end, that’s cool!, birth control pills, the guy who invented a condom, Crazy Eddie, lifespan, tragic fatalism, bottled up, the explanation for super-conservative people, I got mine jack, it’s a fools errand…, all boondoggle, many such, 18 different levels of policing, the weed police (bylaw enforcement), just make a new agency after every crisis, anti-Greenpeace books, Cloak Of Anarchy, libertarianism is completely nuts, green crunchy granola, into that basket of deplorables, we don’t need roads, gold extraction as a proven technology, dude what are you doing?, greeners, let’s go the other way, nothing Ayn Rand ever wrote was wrong, Bury didn’t leave the bathtub, poor Kevin Renner, culinary adventure, he was the Errol Flynn of space, a girl in every port, breeding Blaines, motie rats, more Niven less Pournelle, the UK title: The Moat Around Murcheson’s Eye, mote vs. moat, more planets, helmsman full speed ahead, Sparta, the geology and topology, no map, good touches, unfair to Dr Pournelle, agricultural land reserve, mountains and islands and mountains, the Okanagan, reserving land for agricultural, the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Coruscant is just the city world (and complete bullshit), the Fleet Of Worlds has four farming planets, almost worth reading just for such touches, why I read Science Fiction, The Mote In God’s Eye was great, the Xindi from Star Trek: Enterprise, everything in TV and movies has to be simpler, the specificity of it, totally cool, you just abstain, progress since the 1970s, lying liars, abandon all orders, in comparison to Protector, it’s all about fate, there’s very little of free will in a motie, an inescapable cycle, going crazy eddy, less well expressed, where’s our stuffed space-marine in the museum?, publisher’s deadline?, they were hot shit in the 1980s, all space battles, families taking over the legacy of their parent’s writings, firmly make this commitment, one and done Dune, use The Gripping Hand of the Protector, focus on the family, free will, Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers, the Puppeteers, what does this mean when we maximize it?, a second stage, vs., please do not write this book Paul, seeing the world from the master’s perspective, seeing inside their brain, the x-ray laser, the time machine element, the whole idea of crazy eddy is a great idea, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, amazing, or a crazy Bernie, fairy-duster, you must allow the bloat of the military continuously.

The Mote System
Trans-Coal Sack Sector Of The Empire Of Man

Posted by Jesse Willis

Lightspeed: The Way Of Cross And Dragon by George R.R. Martin

SFFaudio Online Audio

Does it matter if what you believe is factual?

George R.R. Martin has an answer here in his very thoughtful piece of SF. The Way Of Cross And Dragon, which was recently audiobooked by Lightspeed, explores the concepts of heresy, blasphemy, faith and metaphor.

Omni, June 1979 - illustration by Bob Venosa - The Way Of Cross And Dragon by George R.R. Martin

Lightspeed – The Way Of Cross And Dragon
By George R.R. Martin; Read by Stefan Rudnicki
1 |MP3| – Approx. 52 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Podcaster: Lightspeed
Podcast: June 2012
First published in Omni, June 1979.

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Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of Blake’s 7 The Early Years – Jenna: The Trial / The Dust Run (Vol. 1.5)

SFFaudio Review

SFFaudio Essential Blake’s 7 The Early Years – Jenna: The Trial / The Dust Run (Vol. 1.5)
By Simon Guerrier; Performed by a full cast
1 CD – Approx. 70 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: B7 Productions
Published: November 30, 2009
ISBN: 9781906577087
Themes: / Science Fiction / Galactic Empire / Dystopia /

The Dust Run – Jenna Stannis has grown up as a spacer, where the normal rules don’t apply. No school, no police, no public imperatives – that’s still all to come. But the situation on Earth is changing and the effects are slowly being felt throughout the Vega system. It’s going to mean trouble for a brash boy called Townsend – who Jenna doesn’t fancy at all. Soon Jenna and Townsend are competing in the Dust Run – racing shuttles through an asteroid field without using computers, making the complex calculations in their heads. It’s dangerous, fool-hardy and really good fun. But they’re playing for the highest of stakes…

The Trial – The election is going to change everything. A man called Roj Blake promises the voters new hope, an end to years of corruption. There are those who can’t let him be heard. But Jenna Stannis is determined to get his message out to the colonies. It’s been years since the Dust Run, and Jenna’s a changed woman. She’s left the Vega system far behind, using her exceptional piloting skills to carve out a life as a smuggler. Blake’s message could earn her a fortune – or cost her, her life.

This is the final two stories in the first Blake’s 7 The Early Years series. First up is The Dust Run. It starts with a framing story in which we see the cruelty of the Earth Federation up close. Under torture Jenna, a young woman, reveals everything about her truant past. Then, in the story proper, we meet her as a charming teen. She comes from an underemployed spacer family, has just a few friends but none of them are particularly trustworthy. For fun Jenna likes piloting shuttles at high speed through a region of space filled with a heavy concentration of particulates. It’s precisely her lightheartedness that sets Jenna up for a fall.

The Trial also uses the framing device but skips ahead in time to the events which lead to Jenna’s incarceration. The problem is that her interrogator also claims to be acting as her advocate! If Jenna is to have any chance of avoiding imprisonment on Cygnus Alpha she’ll have to shade the truth. This episode reminded me of the other great Orwellian episodes of serial SF (like Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Chain of Command” – in which Picard is tortured and Babylon 5‘s “Intersections In Real Time” – in which Sheridan is tortured). The darkness of Jenna Stannis’ Federation universe is equally Orwellian, but, as I’ve mentioned in other reviews of this series it has more than a touch of Brave New World in it too. This new Blake’s 7 series, like it’s TV predecessor, is an intelligent Science Fiction series that masquerades as consumable pop-culture “sci-fi”.

Carrie Dobro, who played a charismatic alien thief in the Babylon 5: A Call To Arms TV-movie and on the prematurely canceled Babylon 5 spinoff Crusade, stars as Jenna Stannis. Dobro has a star-level magnetism in both these productions. She’s sure of herself, a devious and clever power seeker, never fully in control, always seeking it, but at heart a sympathetic survivor. Simon Guerrier and Carrie Dobro have created a worthy back-story for Jenna Stannis. Highly recommended!

Posted by Jesse Willis

Recent Arrivals: Macmillan Audio – Halo: Cryptum by Greg Bear

SFFaudio Recent Arrivals

Macmillan Audio The first book, of a planned trilogy, called the “Forerunner Saga.” The Halo wiki has a quote from Frank O’Connor (the Franchise Development Director for Halo) saying:

“It’s going to be a trilogy. A connected universe that will remain faithful to the scale and mysteries, while exploring the detail and challenges of a VERY powerful culture. This won’t be some skirt-raising exercise in Forerunner populist-ism. Folks know way more about Forerunners than you think, but we’re definitely going to respect that strange sense of wonder and awe that Bungie infused from day one. It will be BIG Greg Bear fiction in a faintly familiar place, but one that’s full of surprises. Think Eon.”

The audiobook also includes a three and a half minute introduction, written and read, by Greg Bear himself. In it he says that he drew inspiration for the trilogy from Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, E.E. Doc Smith, Larry Niven and Robert A. Heinlein. There’s also a sentence particularly about Ringworld.

Halo: Cryptum (Book One of the Forerunner Saga)
By Greg Bear; Read by Holter Graham
7 CDs – Approx. 8 Hours 40 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Published: March 29, 2011
ISBN: 9781427210081
One hundred thousand years ago, the galaxy was populated by a great variety of beings. But one species–eons beyond all others in both technology and knowledge–achieved dominance. They ruled in peace but met opposition with quick and brutal effectiveness. They were the Forerunners–the keepers of the Mantle, the next stage of life in the Universe’s Living Time. And then they vanished. This is their story. – Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting is a young rebellious Forerunner. He is a Manipular, untried–yet to become part of the adult Forerunner society, where vast knowledge and duty waits. He comes from a family of Builders, the Forerunners’ highest and most politically powerful rate. It is the Builders who create the grand technology that facilitates Forerunner dominance over the known universe. It is the Builders who believe they must shoulder the greatest burden of the Mantle–as shepherds and guardians of all life. Bornstellar is marked to become a great Builder just like his father. But this Manipular has other plans. He is obsessed with lost treasures of the past. His reckless passion to seek out the marvelous artifacts left behind by the Precursors–long-vanished superbeings of unknowable power and intent—forces his father’s hand. Bornstellar is sent to live among the Miners, where he must come to terms with where his duty truly lies. But powerful forces are at play. Forerunner society is at a major crux. Past threats are once again proving relentless. Dire solutions–machines and strategies never before contemplated–are being called up, and fissures in Forerunner power are leading to chaos. On a Lifeworker’s experimental planet, Bornstellar’s rebellious course crosses the paths of two humans, and the long lifeline of a great military leader, forever changing Bornstellar’s destiny …and the fate of the entire galaxy. This is a tale of life, death, intergalactic horror, exile, and maturity. It is a story of overwhelming change–and of human origins. For the Mantle may not lie upon the shoulders of Forerunners forever.

Posted by Jesse Willis