The SFFaudio Podcast #158 – READALONG: The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #158 – Last week’s podcast was an unabridged reading of The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth. This week Jesse discusses it with the narrator, Mark Douglas Nelson!

Talked about on today’s show:
SciPodBooks.com, the SciPodCast, The Syndic by C.M. Kornbluth, The City At World’s End by Edmond Hamilton, the virtues of democracy, Oath Of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, H. Beam Piper, Space Viking, a wealth of ideas, Frederik Pohl, the story as a straw man, Robert A. Heinlein, telepathy, witches, dystopia, utopia, polo played with jeeps (mounted with 50 caliber machine guns), the syndicate vs. the mob, Ireland, Iceland, libertarianism, the Prometheus Unbound review of The Syndic, polyandry, an economy run on alcohol, sex, and gambling, laissez faire capitalism, monopolies, robber barons, taxes vs. shakedowns, “a real mess of a book”, should a society compromise its ideals to save itself?, is the joke on us?, a velvet gloved invisible hand, The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, the children’s crusade, WWII, rule by mob vs. rule by mobsters, Ron Paul, the sustainability of a war based economy need not much concern the arms manufacturer, Isaac Asimov, The City At World’s End has a real plot, disaster stories, new ideas trump big flaws, “writing by the seat of your pants”, space opera, E.E. “Doc” Smith, respect for science and scientists, Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, LibriVox.org, Riverworld series, rolling ships, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, the problem of endless series, StarShipSofa, The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman, A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, “philosophy, philosophy, philosophy”, it starts with a séance, C.S. Lewis, Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves And Wooster, Leave It To Jeeves, LibriVox’s new funding (from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), Orson Scott Card, Harlan Ellison, Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, Gregg Margarite, Lone Star Planet by H. Beam Piper, Kevin J. Anderson, Principles Of Economics, iambik audio, Wonder Audio, All Or Nothing by Preston L. Allen, The Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi, Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa, High And Low, Netflix, Sweet And Lowdown, One O’Clock Jump by Lise McClendon, A Is For Alibi by Sue Grafton, Talents Incorporated by Murray Leinster, goofy, the William Woodsworth Microphone Showdown, do expensive mics make great narrators?

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Anti-Gravity Room – a tour of Harlan Ellison’s secret comics stash

SFFaudio News

The Anti-Gravity RoomHow cool would it be to get a personal tour of Harlan Ellison’s secret comics room in his home in Sherman Oaks, California?

It’d be really cool right?

Yup, you’d be right! I know it is cool because I saw this video on YTV back in the early 1990s. It was produced as a segment for a fondly remembered TV show called The Anti-Gravity Room.

At the time Ellison was producing a comic called Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor. Sadly my collection was burglarized. I should have had them in a secret room like Harlan!

But now, come to think of it, his secret room now has, somewhere inside it, a CD copy of Scott’s SFFaudio interview with Ellison!

And the interview is also available as episode #066 of The SFFaudio Podcast |MP3|.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #146 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG – Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #146 – Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson, read by Gregg Margarite. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (16 Minutes) followed by a discussion of it with Jesse, Gregg Margarite and Ray Nelson himself!

Talked about on today’s show:
This story was suggested by a listener [thanks], Eight O’Clock In The Morning, a terse procedural aspect of the text, Ray is a fan of bare bones writing, alien forks and knives, inspired by flies, a new adaptation of Eight O’Clock In The Morning (on IMDB), John Carpenter’s They Live, occupy wall street, the 1% aren’t just mean, one of the best short story adaptations, Nada = nothing, a traitless character, a modern fable, The Twilight Zone, sowing a distrust of television, “Work Eight Hours, Play Eight Hours, Sleep Eight Hours”, Ray co-wrote The Ganymede Takeover with Philip K. Dick, Gregg likes it, The Ganymede Takeover has been translated 15 times, Ray and Phil are a hit in France, Edgar Allan Poe owes his classical status to Baudelaire, the short story form itself, Again, Dangerous Visions, Hillside School in Berkley, CA, Ray went to school with Philip K. Dick and Ursula K. Le Guin, France, 1950s, Harlan Ellison, Jean Paul Sarte, book smuggling, Henry Miller, Ray gave Phil acid twice, Philip K. Dick’s acid trips (and flashbacks), answers vs. questions, public and private realities, Ray loves radio theatre, the new audio drama, Tim Heffernan, The Drama Pod, The Cosmic Circle on KPFA, live broadcast, live TV, Saturday Night Live, Your Show Of Shows, Mel Brooks, Woody Allan, Larry Gelbart, the last unsafe TV show was Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, anthology series, The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, Carleton E. Morris, radio drama in Canada, Carleton E. Morris, Prairie Home Companion, appointment radio, X Minus One, Dimension X, Escape, Suspense, I Love A Mystery, BrokenSea’s OTR Swag Cast, The Temple Of The Vampires, Bill Hollweg, The Quantum Door, Gregg gets to be Rod Serling, Jake Sampson: Monster Hunter, Egypt, Texas, Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, paperbook publishing is tough, we want ebook and audiobook editions of , iambik.com, $0.30, William Blake, Laser Books, pseudonyms, RayNelson.com, cartoonism, American Window Cleaner Magazine, “Inflate my girl James … the Viagra is kicking in.”, the propeller beanie, Flying Down To Rio, the 1939 Worlds Fair, The World Of Tomorrow, Elektro the smoking robot, Treasure Island, Hitler’s swastika farm at the world’s fair, The Old Beatnik, Herb Caen, how the beatniks got their name, Jack Kerouac, a synchronistic view of the universe, theology, the University Of Chicago, my Edgar Allan Poe drawing, why don’t people draw more often?, every little kid knows how to draw, essay writing, the death of newspapers, the smell of a used bookstore, How To Fuck Like The Stars aka How To Do It, drawing, writing and smuggling pornography, the Wikipedia entry on Ray Nelson, “Push where it gives”, singing black spirituals in a cowboy suit in Paris, Ray “Tex” Nelson aka Tex The Singing Cowboy, Jeffrey Lord’s Richard Blade, Harlequin Books, Slave Of Sarma by Jeffrey Lord (read by Lloyd James), California Ray, Allen Ginsberg, “I wrote verse. I wrote verse and verse as I went along.”, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Howl, the San Fransisco Renaissance, Sex Happy Hippie, Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, Donald E. Westlake, Marion Zimmer Bradley, I, Lesbian by Lee Chapman (aka Ray Nelson and Marion Zimmer Bradley), copyright, fanzines, the smell of a mimeograph machine, Ray Bradbury, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Weird Tales, H.P. Lovecraft is more like a blogger than a 1950s writer, Farnsworth Wright, Astounding Stories, Pickman’s Model by H.P. Lovecraft, extraterrestrial monsters, cosmic horror, L. Sprague de Camp, H.P. Lovecraft in a dress, flipped his lid, the Fascinators are fascinating, the adaptation of They Live, Frank Armitage, scripting They Live, the sunglasses, the venetian blind glasses, Blade Runner, Total Recall, John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Thing From Another Planet, John W. Campbell, John Carpenter’s music, Roddy Piper doesn’t look like an everyman, the five minute fight scene works great!, Keith David, Seeing Ear Theatre, Tales From The Crypt |READ OUR REVIEW|, Eight O’Clock In The Morning is a kind of Lovecraftian tale, The Lurking Fear, “anything includes everything.”

Eight O'Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson

They Live - based upon The Story Eight O'Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson

Got A Light Buddy?
The Children

They Live - Indian poster art

They Live - illustration by Jeremy Wheeler

THEY LIVE poster from Printed In Blood

Posted by Jesse Willis

SFBRP #152: Time Travel Special, part 2 – Isaac Asimov’s – The End Of Eternity

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast Episode #152 of The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast is a discussion of Isaac Asimov’s The End Of Eternity. It’s also a follow-up to the previous time travel episode (#151). Luke and I discuss the book and related time travel tales.

|MP3|

Podcast feed: http://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

Discussed on the show:
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, a flexible chronology, Luke’s first Isaac Asimov review for SFBRP, Robert A. Heinlein, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov (and Robert Silverberg) is bad, Isaac Asimov has ideas to spare, the Wikipedia entry for The End Of Eternity, “what clever idea can I use, in time travel, that hasn’t been used before”, time loops, time barriers, “are you your own grandpa?”, Poul Anderson’s time corps, bureaucracy, how does time travel work?, time travel is discovered, eternity is a place outside of time, powering a time travel technology is easy if you can time travel, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, the “kettle”, Ray Bradbury’s A Sound Of Thunder, A Gun For Dinosaur by L. Sprague de Camp, time lords?, Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick, Back To The Future, remembering the works of culture and developments in realities that no longer exist, 13 different versions of the complete works of William Shakespeare, the academic background of professorial jockeying, are there two different endings for The End Of Eternity?, being outside of time, “the outside of the inside of eternity”, the malleability of reality through time travel, a limited butterfly effect, the inertia of history, killing Hitler, William The Conqueror vs. King Harold Godwinson, Genghis Kahn’s descendants, computers (the vocation) vs. computers (the devices), technicians don’t get any respect, “They feel an unspoken collective guilt which causes them to scapegoat the ‘Technicians’, the experts who actually execute Reality Changes by doing something that will alter the flow of events.”, a caste system, Minding Tomorrow by Luke Burrage, making changes by setting your mind to it, Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Harlan is a bit of a dim bulb, Demolition Man, time travel as a secret (paralleling magic as a secret), The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, mutable realities, the grandfather paradox, unmanipulated reality, alternate history, Sidewise In Time by Murray Leinster, later Heinlein novels, unrestricted freedom in multiple realities can be extremely disheartening, Groundhog Day, infinite universes are boring, By His Bootstraps by Robert A. Heinlein, All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein, making a knot out of your own timeline, giving a young William Shakespeare a copy of The Complete Works Of Shakespeare, motherless objects and motherless ideas, giving your younger self an object (or advice), multiple timelines, “if that’s possible then that’s not possible”, time traveller’s convention, BoingBoing’s time travelers (I and II), European Juggling Convention 2003, Time Travel #2 Advanced Time Travel Techniques, Paradoxes For Beginners, Harlan Ellison, Murder At The ABA by Isaac Asimov, Darius Dust (dry as dust), Tales Of The Black Widowers, sexism, women are not suitable time travelers, an apocryphal tale of the Obamas, energy bodies, sending a message from the past to the future, you have an energy body but paper magazines?, a future vs. the future, The Door Into Summer, Escape Pod’s recording of All You Zombies, Asimovian characters, The End Of Eternity is about Earth, House Of Suns by Alastair Reynolds, something so big and so mind bogglingly complex, SFFaudio Podcast #073 George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides, “Gregg Margarite and that other guy (Jesse) are losers”, batshit theories, Eric S. Rabkin, Adam and Eve, fairy tales, sex, “the unconscious does exist”, Luke’s original fiction, “we do these podcasts for ourselves”, interesting bullshit, Luke’s Creative Podcast (with Gregg Margarite), “make your own podcast if you don’t like one.”

Ed Emshwiller cover illustration of Isaac Asimov's The End Of Eternity

FAWCETT The End Of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Twilight Zone Podcast: interview with the creators of Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man

SFFaudio Online Audio

The Twilight Zone PodcastBack in August 2011 Tom Elliot, of the terrific The Twilight Zone Podcast, posted a wonderful interview with the makers of Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man. Jason and Sunni Brock talk to Tom for 45 minutes, it’s great stuff!

|MP3|

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheTwilightZonePodcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis