Lawrence Block – Page 5

The SFFaudio Podcast #501 – READALONG: The Book Of Skulls by Robert Silverberg

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #501 – Jesse, Scott Danielson, Paul Weimer, and Wayne June talk about The Book Of Skulls by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
1972, nominated for…, it doesn’t feel like a science fiction book at all, a small book, The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov, winning author, feels like a Lawrence Block book, the Lawrence Block genre, the same writing system, magazines and paperbacks, a prolific writing machine, four a year or five a week, pseudonyms, erotica, mysteries, a writer’s writer, Harlan Ellison, Donald Westlake, the kind of paperback you read with one hand, paying markets, popular writers, you can feel it, it didn’t keep it up, keeping up the pace, it doesn’t feel like a fantasy either, genre adjacent, secret history, come from Atlantis, can we trust that monk?, anything?, inside the compound, exactly halfway through, another kind of book, the Wikipedia entry, a happy roadtrip movie, a Quentin Tarantino, the route they took, New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Route 66, bildungsroman, American road-trip, Route 666, the TV show, what kind of book this is, no one reads as many old magazines as Jesse does today, ads for the Rosicrucian, the pyramids, astounding wisdom, astral projection, you may walk on the surface of the Sun!, the free book, secret society, AMORC, what secret power did they possess?, Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, a full and peaceful life, power on this earth, primetime for cults, hey baby we’re going to the desert, dropping out, a book about a cult, unadvertised, that kind of immortality, laying out plans, stuck in this vastness, unrealistic expectations, when I get immortality, studying music for 30 years, walk across Asia, Larry Niven’s immortal characters, Louis Wu, a fashion maven, a hermit in a cave, the attraction of this book, stupid guys in college, naive, spew on it, a quest, eternal life, existential philosophy, seeking meaning, personal devils, the rubric, a cosmic accident, worth the risk, significance for your life, underlying outline, couched in the 70s, pretty accurate, when this book was new, time under my belt, he knew his existential philosophy, this book lives and dies on the fact there’s no Wikipedia, Scientology, getting off the bus to Hollywood, some friendly guy, working on myself, help me get jobs, the death wish thing, it doesn’t happen on screen, uninteresting lives, Jesse is Eli, homosexual, no trust fund, confess that later, reality shows and Big Brother, William Friedkin, a horror story, thinking during the book, Oliver, ’70s randy dudes, a lot of sex, not very SFy, cutting edge back then, drugs, pulp sci-fi, my faith wavered, the shrill laughter of Satan, do you think you’ve gained anything here?, the icy future, this image, the desert as one of the poles, an empty blasted world, a strange backsliding, oh god, you felt it to then?, the voice of doubt, the thing that you seek, skull mask, sullen girl, the heavy breasted succubus, the thing you seek, the House of Skulls, a hawk in the blue sky, hawk you will die and I will live, of this I have no doubt, I understand, life eternal we offer thee, a horror story ending, as much as it is disquisition on existentialism, prescribing vs. describing, I reject your victory, are these guys 25,000 years old?, an afterword, tell us the secret, I wasn’t there, ambiguity, the path of existentialism, belief, salvation, if you have a philosophical bent, in to being outraged, problematic scenes, I raped my sister, completely free of any of those concerns, he’s not trying to make it a movie, free love, a less apologetic culture, one review, this isn’t the only way to practice homosexuality, a gay friendly book, not shy or ashamed, never felt preached to, there’s these dudes, who’s telling this story, snarking on each other, getting it right and wrong, a psychological study, four narrators, not buddies, same basic age, hard to distinguish when not talking about themselves, Stefan Rudnicki, they’re the same guy, aspects of the same guy, the skull with the faces, without the flesh on it it is just a skull, each of those skulls had a face, working on a Freudian analysis, flowery metaphor, the right symbol for immortality, not immortality in Heaven, a horror immortality, the ending, in too deep, the sunk cost fallacy, that’s what this is about?, spicy vegetarian meals forever, a really old thing, memento mori, to contemplate your mortality, skulls under our faces, carrying death within us, Lent, from dust you came, Halloween, the Day of the Dead, candy skulls, Hamlet, I knew him Horatio, I kissed these lips, how great a work is man, I’m on a horror train come with me, sorry Ophelia, two fall away two move forward, four confession, the sacrifice and the murder, who is going to be killed?, who is going to kill themselves?, sharp, into overdrive, Oliver was the one, Eli was going to kill himself, a neurotic nebbish, game this out, expectations gone awry, Ariel, Random Walk by Lawrence Block, meanwhile in Kansas, really evil characters, these two forces come together, it is about walking, power walker (racewalker), speedwalking, a sports commentator, the normal human activity, chasing at a leisurely pace, endurance running, human physiology Wayne, local stray animals, escaping predators, getting places, an excuse to get exercise, walking (and hiking) is associated with thinking, meaning comes to him, gaining interest over time, The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham, Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Denholm Elliot, a WWI book, a trip to Asia, I’m a yogi, having meaning, it pisses everybody else off, from their point of view, crime novels, the Bernie Rhoddenbar books, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, Eight Million Ways To Die, the Matt Scudder series, A Walk Among The Tombstones, really good at brutal, Liam Neeson, alcoholism, a philosophy behind him, putting bullets in people occasionally, 1944, a sense of maybe not is all right with existence, ideas of the East, a weird category, not a lot of mystical powers, is there anything in here that is proof of some fantastic element, not good proof, on the razor’s edge between reality and something beyond, Poul Anderson’s Boat Of A Million Years, what does this all mean?, just sayin’, mixed success, the end of chapter nine, Jesse trying to dominate everything, the frater Anthony, go off into the desert and bury your friend, a librarian who keeps track of the local cults, they’re never coming back, when the cops come…, we have two, oh shit, keeping those hands off, their techniques, what are the ladies doing there, is there a book of skulls for women, four ladies on a road trip, a jump forward in time, porridge again for breakfast, skyscars, A Canticle For Leibowitz by American writer Walter M. Miller Jr., a great idea for a novel, quick edit that part out, possibilities, Larry Niven, the flipside of death, the men who live forever, The Draco Tavern, a story for ever vocab work, attaching meaning, ephemeral, a fifth Doctor episode, thing that doesn’t last very long, a three day old newspaper, all these skulls, all the idiots who came to this cult, two for every four, so fucking bored, same society, is Clark Gable still making movies?, Avengers: Infinity War, Footloose, the remake, Flashdance, cheerleader movies, Bring It On, Turn It Up, end of Chapter 9, Richard Nixon, bumptious, the true genius of the race, clerisy, a Lincoln Continental, flogging us towards sundown, a thing writers writers do all the time, a book I was reading not long ago, metaphor, the bleak Kalahari, the realities of the desert, the beautiful one, the clown, the hunter, the headman, Yatesian counter rotating gyres, ideational vs. operational, a stable group, the state, the hunter, the church, the art, and I the clown, a summary of their book in their book, I was reading this book lately and I’ll tell you how shitty it was, Ned and Eli, the shaman, the religion, Ned is the art, the leadership and the hunter, given up the things that connect them to the outside, people who live in the mind, meditating all day long, that makes sense, an existentialist end in view, the church and art, the speculative and self expressing parts of identity, Søren Kierkegaard, personal identity, the father of existentialism, a core value, an actual philosophy, here is a way towards answer, damn this shit is hard, we got to find something to do, Albert Camus, the myth of Sisyphus, life is absurd, pointless futile labour, find your own meaning, The Stranger, The Rebel, The Fall, the only thing left to us is suicide and I hope you consider it, the only practicing Catholic, St. Louis whore sex, the inner thoughts, powerful stuff, this actually happened, four science fiction writers in a car, a very North American thing, the road trip novel, Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, Paul Theroux, Anthony Bourdain, The Old Patagonian Express, Siberia, landscape, flashbacks, Eli is a fraud, they’re young college kids, James Joyce, critical essays, flowery description, bullshit, personal demons, a metaphor for his entire life, his how life was inauthentic, the murder, you can see why, don’t threaten my escape, the part of the ritual, the receptacle, a side benefit, a very well written book, the 9th secret, the rich guy, Oliver, a shameful gay dalliance, denying his authentic self, the non-PC part of the book, the people who are upset about things, a very real cultural attitude, bred for richness, 100 a week, 18,000 years, pride, the tallness that I have, a short book, a slim volume from the ’70s, as always, a preview of Robert Silverberg’s return to Lord Valentine’s castle, Majipoor Chronicles, Dying Inside, The Stochastic Man, Lord Valentine’s Castle, what a cool world, a series back then, a series today, Nightwings, the future city of Rome, the mouth, Hero Of The Empire, Roma Eterna, a young man who wants to start a new religion, keep the empire going, Harry Turtledove, fighting Persia all the time, Through Darkest Europe.

The Book Of Skulls (1979)
The Book Of Skulls (1981)

The Book Of Skulls (1972)

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #428 – READALONG: Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #428 – Jesse and Maissa Bessada talk about Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block.

Talked about on today’s show:
1977, a Matt Scudder book: A Walk Among Among The Tombstones, cut-up women, he most brutal book Maissa’s ever read, sex, comedy and mystery, a treasure hunt, little gems, is that ever cool!, the 2 cassette audiobook (heavily abridged), just under six hours, it percolated along, coffee drinking, word humour and word play, why I love to read Lawrence Block books, 11 books in the series, 4 short stories, percolating dialogue, an Agatha Christie style mystery, Lawrence Block is an excellent narrator, you’re intellectually engaged, turning the horror of crime into a cozy murder mystery, a magician, sleight of hand, false directions, The Purloined Letter, the Blackstone Audio afterword, maybe I’ll try crime, everything you see on the page is Block’s brain, sparkling personality, Bernie doesn’t age, his burglar charms, Ruth Hightower, you can call me Roger, subsequent books, a front for a burglary business, Block’s dialogue and writing, the whole back end, seeing things we’re not allowed to see, what is happening?, the psychology of the character is a mystery to himself, Carolyn the lesbian poodle groomer, Carolyn is the Watson to Bernie’s Sherlock, it always was a parody, that love of books, contemplating a life of crime, Robin Hood, what kind of dog?, maybe a stuffed dog, no shedding, it’s obvious who the murderer is, carefully set like a jewel, a lot is unconscious, Ruth’s the murderer, suspects, some lurker in the shadows, how small New York is, it fits to Agatha Christie neat, that’s the genre, he’s playing totally by the Hal Clement rules, Mission Of Gravity, Two If By Sea, putting all the evidence before us, a particular hobby horse, The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling, Kipling, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, Piet Mondrian, baseball, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, The Burglar In The Library, locked room murder mystery, The Burglar In The Rye, The Burglar Who Counted Spoons, told in first person, Like A Thief In The Night, A Bad Night For Burglars, from this character’s point of view, fitting in to one area of art or collecting, this is the theater one, everybody’s an actor, everybody in the book has another name or a hidden identity, Lauren, the 85 bucks, a burglar code of ethics, “I never believed in overlooking cash”, choices, the cop costume, which one is the real burglar?, they totally switch, Wesley Brill, playing “the heavy”, he’s lost his skill, this is the book where he gets his skill back, writing fiction is a kind of magic, losing the magic, Lawrence Block is always retiring from writing, staying in hotels, breaking into his own hotel room, writers who write for a living, Bernie’s lifestyle is Block’s lifestyle, going through a divorce, moving to California, an amazing soup of goodness, he’s a soup fiend, he’s also the “Man In The Middle”, Russian dolls, why isn’t this book much better known, Burglar (1987), gender swapped, Bobcat Goldthwait, too much in the words, it would make a great comic, imagery, exposition is not great for comics, a Hercule Poirot ending, Penguin Audio audiobooks, Richard Ferrone’s narration, Recorded Books, masks, Roger Armitage, they’re lying to each other, call me “Wes”, John Wesley, oh there you are!, fake names, really recognizable, how you know someone, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, The Maltese Falcon (1941), two guys looking for the bird, the rara avis, the pear shaped man, a pre-telling, Ms. Brill by Katherine Mansfield, an ESL teacher in France, creating an internal life, an active imagination, moth powder, his yacht, a fried whiting, a flounder, a fox stole, honey cake, Maissa misread it, Reading, Short And Deep, Julie Hoverson’s narration of Ms. Brill, a little box room, Lawrence Block were you inspired by Katherine Mansfield’s story…?: No., a brill is a fish, the ermine toque = fur hat, knocked on the nose, everything is reflecting everything else, without even having read it, echoes of brill, Goldilocks, archetypes, Bernie assumes Ruth has a husband, Ellie, cheating, the ultimate woman, Darla Sandoval, he hasn’t cheated…yet, his cop costume, you don’t even need those burglar’s tools, a break in as a sexual thing, the ability to open locks, modelling a life on Bernie Rhodenbarr, locks and keys, how many passwords, one password, power and speed, a ream of keys, access, keys are responsibilities that weigh you down, physically and metaphorically, memorization, having lockpicks, lockpicking, water my plants, his burglary life, Mrs. Hesh, power is attractive, like sexual triumph, tumblers finishing, he doesn’t want it to be too clear, on the tip of understanding, “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here”, Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler, a true consulting detective, Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe is a cogitating machine, perfect recall, fine living, food, a reveal, parceled out, we get all of the story, The Hound Of The Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle getting bored of the form, we are Bernie’s Watson, The Silver Blaze, he totally cheated us, cheating, honest cheating cops, the person behind everything, the second gun, triggering, a real play?, second cabbie, James Garner, “Sound Of Distant Drums”, phrases, things that suggest, suggesting rather than saying, a certain feeling, Block is a master manipulator, you flinched, he charmed me out a lot of money, playing a role from the very beginning, he’s an actor, really great, incredibly enjoyable, examining the furniture, shaking out the books, so much in there, intellectual exercise, whodunit?, if you want to know about Watergate now’s the time to read about it, wait twenty years, a good mystery novel gives you all the facts, I feel like Ray Kirschmann, we were totally cheated, a bed is a bed is a bed, no bed of roses, set apart from our world, everybody smokes, no internet, cellphones, computers, answering services, the world has been transformed, visiting a simpler time, sexism of the period is quaint, slightly askew.

POCKET BOOKS - Burglars Can't Be Choosers by Lawrence Block

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #420 – READALONG: Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #420 – Jesse, Paul, Julie Davis, Maissa, talk about Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Talked about on today’s show:
Philip Morris vs. Philip Marlowe, he doesn’t like to get paid, not the greatest book?, LOVED IT!, randomly starting, a fix-up, obvious joins, Santa Monica, dumped off, odd climax, parts more than a whole, dialogue, description, character, setting, the rest of the Raymond Chandlers, the psychic part, mooshed together, The High Window, dialogue, a TERRIBLE plot, so stylish, the formula doesn’t matter, a matter of style, high style, a mess because of the way it is put together, Philip K. Dick, cannibalizing stories, here we go, worth reading, his best?, The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, The Lady In The Lake and The Little Sister, The Mandarin’s Jade, Try The Girl, The Man Who Liked Dogs, a gambling boat, three main threads, all the movies, overdosing, three audio dramas, Jesse’s dreams, the Japanese version of The Long Goodbye, when is it exactly set?, the 1975 Robert Mitchum story, Germany Invades Russia, Detective Kills Two, The Falcon Takes Over, after prohibition, gin bottles, the soakingest-full-of-alcohol book ever, sodden to the corners and spine, seeing the same scenes, a totally autobiographical novel, the girl with the flashlight, he sapped himself with alcohol, blacking out all the time, Nine Princes In Amber by Roger Zelazny, Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder, driven to drink, no prize, two geniuses, a certain self-loathing, doing terrible things, a likeable asshole, 40s and 50s noir films, suicide, similarities, the writer with the drinking, the crazy wife stuff, running into the sea, a recurring theme, night swim, fully loaded, coming off of prohibition, Moose’s imprisonment, below the surface, timeless, set in Dixon Hill land, the Picard detective, Cast A Deadly Spell, gumshoe H.P. Lovecraft, femme fatale, hard drinking, Sam Spade, self knowledge, Agatha Christie, Mickey Spillane, brutal, his brains were on his face, gut shot, shot up with dope, you’re so great, “Tell me some more”, side paths, a simple story arc, getting lost, too much personality, disjointed, Harry Potter, writing derived from movies, how action movies are made, an opening chase scene, all the elements, the formula, the pulp magazine style and needs, the action figure merchandising method, following and not following, literally dragged into the plot, what is this doing here?, a hard fit, deviations, this is not the book at all, too dark and not noir enough, script problems, a character from a different series with Chandler’s plot, Murder, My Sweet, Dick Powell, Who knew murder smelled like honeysuckle?, it tears your heart out, noir for her, Mrs. Grail is her own femme fatale, shot herself in the heart twice, honesty about corruption, Bay City?, a huge corruption scandal, graft, you wanna see my house pal, Commissioner Wax, corrupt to money, everything goes sweet, the wrong side of money, the way they treat the blacks in the story, misdemeanor murder, horribleness, you’re not clean not even one little bit of you, not a just society, my dad was not on the take, I gave her the dope because her dad was cop, the puppets dancing on a string dance for love or money, Velma says money brings its own problems, a torch singer, “money must help”, quoting on twitter, a coat, a hat, a gun, you’re a tough guy, as crazy as two waltzing mice, do something really tough like putting your pants on, hangovers, a face like a sack of mud, strewn with empty bottles, a complete souse, the lady across the street, she doesn’t hold with liquor, a sad busybody, urban isolation, shut away with our own problems, where are the children?, she leaned forward a little, Julie’s right, Anne Riordan, a nice town, reading-along, on the boat with Red, latent homosexuality, slightly sticky, the wet air was as cold as the ashes of love, deferring hanging out with women, give me flowers first, The Maltese Falcon, different insights, Joel Cairo, Paul’s Peter Lorre impressions, not very cheerful, what it isn’t, the master of similes, all negroes, as heavy as a waterlogged boat, a face that had nothing to fear, why people love reading him, we need to do work, we need to infer what the descriptions mean, “Shinebox, where’s Velma at?”, a theory about Moose, golf ball buttons, “Jus the scram white boy, just the scram”, focused on love to the exclusion of all else, that black pool opened up at my feet and I dived in, one of the effects of heavy drinking is memory loss: Korsakoff syndrome, all he could have in his head, why is he simple?, interpretation, why didn’t she shoot herself in the head?, using Moose, looking for love, she did love him (Moose), a tragic hero/monster, Marlowe’s story, The L.A. Times, who needs Agatha Christie, who dun it, why dun it, who sapped Marlowe, amazing descriptions of the night, sometimes it is for love, the gangsters, the why is the reason for the investigation, that’s a character, if the question is why the answer is alcohol, re-reading The Big Sleep, Sherlock Holmes, real California vs. dream California, secret stairways, Mullholland Drive, strange dreams, the mirror on the wall in the office, Lawrence Block, if somebody made a down-payment, an exchange with Rembrandt, he can narrate his own story, a reflection of Moose above, seeing yourself and then someone else, so good Philip K. Dick style, what they were born to do, you can just feel it, applied to a genre, they are themselves, care-free, that whole scene, try the phone book, just waiting to wake up, Dark City (1998), a true love, The Thirteenth Floor (1999), the world is shit, Blade Runner, a new Blade Runner, Arrival, a beautiful gorgeous job, The Running Man, straying, really read it, I’m kind of cute sometimes, Bored To Death, a humorous take on Chandler’s Marlowe, if Jesse won the lottery, I’ll have the desk, and the hat, the equipment, the Sam Spade phone, what Patrick Stewart does, Ross Macdonald, hanging out with rich people, the experience of a writer, too much from life experience, one of the strangest openings to a novel, who has watched all of Veronica Mars?, so good, so well written, Brick, a father daughter private detective agency, hardcore hardboiled, like Buffy, Mitchum is not Elliot Gould, the Ray Porter narration, the Elliot Gould narration, abridged?, he’s not a dummy, a simpleton, a corpus delicious, laugh on your day off.

BALLANTINE BOOKS - Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #413 – READALONG: The Man With The Getaway Face by Richard Stark

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #413 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Maissa discuss The Man With The Getaway Face by Richard Stark

Talked about on today’s show:
Jesse is not a series guy, excellent book, great book, Paul enjoyed it a lot, why haven’t I read this sooner?, The Mourner, cassette change over points, very nostalgic, the narrator Michael Kramer, a one trick pony, fewer adjectives and adverbs, The Hunter, the back story (before the bandages came off), the wife, The Ringworld Engineers, crime habits, he needs some money, a lot of humor, dry humour, all the characters, I’ll get your face back, Handy McKay, when he buys cigarettes from a vending machine, did he light a match on his tooth?, half-lit, when Westlake makes a character, there are no wallpaper characters, are you Sarah Connor?, Charles Wells, very Westlake, so clean and well defined, they know and do what they want, the book’s structure, easier to read on the page than to hear, what about the philosophy?, more of the same, not wanting more of the same, going for ideas, reading westerns, romance, wish fulfillment, Mike Resnick, digestible dialogue driven storytelling, we like Parker, of course he’s a murderer and a thief, a liar, his real name, his Florida hotel name, utterly transformative plastic surgery, it’s science fictional!, the symmetry, you’re still you, taking on the mob, a kind of growth, how Parker talks about Handy McKay, The Steel Hit, he doesn’t know himself, Alma the waitress (aka the Finger), Skim, funny names, he doesn’t know what he’s done, reflection, I’m going to be a better person everyday, we need to admire, different values, willing to kill for goals, an internal set of rules that he respects, the bowling theory of book writing, Stubbs was heroic in his folly, when his thoughts ran through his mind like they were on wheels, a deep philosophy, The Philosophy Of Parker, epicureanism, pleasure as the greatest good, a hooker, men by paperbacks and women by hardcovers, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, living through the pain that is reality, stoicism, get used to it, deal with it, get past it, increasing the pleasure of the little things, an interlibrary loan from the Yukon, appreciating the local detail, New York, New Jersey, Staten Island, scrubby sandy, set in an area Paul recognized, going with the getaway face, Westlake would winter, a tour of the whole east coast, North Carolina, “hey budd-eh”, a great no-shit guy, he’s not a superhero, he’s canny, how did he finance the job?, he’s lying to everybody all the time, a professional problem, some range for motion, some sort of efficiency, fingerprints, bad hombres, the cop never shows up again, crime seems easy, what’s up with the coins?, Payback is an adaption of the The Hunter, you can’t trust the police, you can’t trust the government and you can’t trust your family, “Trust no one!” Cobra Commander, a mirror face, the podcast went in a weird direction, caring about laws, all about efficiency, why does he keep robbing, owning a bunch of businesses around the country, Parker parked the car, how many reasons for the title?, getting away with the head, The Outfit, the syndicate, Robert Duvall, 13 Dresses, The Mourner, The Score, an Alan Arkin movie, The Jugger, The Seventh, changing policies, he trusted the doctor, I get so few patience, everybody in the world is broken, refining an outlook, Westlake is mad at Stark, trusting Alma, Parker doesn’t need the money, you have to do what you’re good at, The Handle, working in big groups, The Rare Coin Score, numismatists, The Green Eagle Score, The Black Ice Score, The Sour Lemon Score, Deadly Edge, Slayground, Butcher’s Moon, Comeback, Backflash, Flashfire, Firebreak, Breakout, Nobody Runs Forever, Ask The Parrot, Parker has no sense of humour, the Dortmunder series, the Grofield series, Jimmy The Kid by Donald Westlake, excerpts from a fake Richard Stark Parker novel called Child Heist, Gary Coleman, Nine Princes In Amber by Roger Zelazny, an homage to Donald Westlake, clippy dialogue, Lawrence Block, when Westlake quit Science Fiction, the Hard Case Crime website, how I found Westlake and Stark, the one thing we know about readers…, one heist per TV season, Leverage, the Gravedigger webcomic, everybody wants to get in on the action, Fifty Years of Parker, Parker’s rules, any rule can be broken, a guy named Mal turned out bad, “When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell.”, “When the bandages came off, Parker looked in the mirror at a stranger.”, Spearhead From Space, “when” puts you right into the middle of the action, right back to The Odyssey, Parker on a boat, a Casino off the coast of Cuba, high concept, two-fisted action, he’s come back from the dead, winking at you in every scene, driving, compartmentalizing her life, the best opening line of a book ever: “When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.”, and then the murders began, forest fire, a snitch in the game, they need socialization, very modern, in the army during WWII, how old is Parker?, like Archie Andrews, he’s always in his prime, Prince Corwin, like Batman, he’s always with us, his superpower is he’s all about efficiency, seeking out crime, I appreciate you appreciating it, Aural Noir, running two websites that were virtually identical, Block inhabits a world I don’t inhabit, a lucid world, there are always the same people in every job, completely universal, The Breakfast Club, seedy and exciting, Protector, the books were thin and the ideas were long, Stephen King and his success, 175 pages, Leon Uris, 35¢, double features, what does Parker think about when watching these movies, there’s something wrong with him, he lies to everybody except for himself, “self-contained”, unconscious, kind of like an actor, playing a role, Skim, falling apart, the clinic, fear of losing your stuff, so much is falling apart, is it the world, the swampland in Flordia, cellies, trying to have a conversation, there’s no point in telling this guy, a brutal horrible world, a horror not usually expressed in novels, what’s going to happen next action, doing whatever he wanted, it really isn’t about the money, it’s like he’s trying to get rid of it, what he tells himself, the point of existence, what are you gonna do?, Skim is a pathetic version of Parker, it hardened him, a shark constantly moving and feeding, a death wish?, sloppiness, without a purpose, his elevens were up, Charles Wells’ retirement, Lawrence Block is always retiring like Handy McKay, unfinished Westlake or Stark?, writing like role playing, such a high output, Philip K. Dick, Robert Silverberg, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, three months for The Sign Of The Four, a great book.

IDW - The Man With The Getaway Face by Richard Stark

AVON - The Man With The Getaway Face by Richard Stark

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #402 – READALONG: A Maze Of Death by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #402 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Marissa, talk about A Maze Of Death by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
1970, one of Marissa’s favourites, get going, where is he going with this?, ohhhkay, Do Androids and Ubik, Morbid Chicken, similar scenes, the space jalopy scenes, this guy is crazy, the Philip K. Dick fans page, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Conspiracy ’87: “…Robinson came up with some refreshingly intriguing ideas. For instance, he sees Dick in A MAZE OF DEATH, deliberately murdering the cast of characters he has used in his books, and grown sick of since SOLAR LOTTERY. There is a different, new cast after MAZE”, the bevatron, various realities, dying one by one, hating each other for their worlds, that house!, all the religions in a blender, a signpost, The Cosmic Puppets, this far and no farther, endlessly spinning wheels about what God is like, prayer transmissions, the Walker On Earth, Seth has ascended, virtual reality, dolphin people, Kurt Vonnegut wrote that book: Galapagos, cynical, he’s going to bite his tongue off, sea-lion people, Margaret Atwood, Oryx And Crake, an episode: Books Jesse Hates, recycled or re-themed, the tench things: T.E.N.C.H. = tensions, tension apprehension and dissension have begun, Alfred Bester, I can’t stand you ANYMORE!, so depressing, stuck in a bottle forever, a Hell, Seth Morley escapes Hell, suicide, “oh god, that’s life!”, and then we play videogames and read books, Faith Of Our Fathers, which is the reality, overlapping possibilities, the weird gnostic twist, purposely plunging into fake reality, a metaphor, drug addiction, Seth Morely’s apotheosis, Delmak-O, is it too soon to bring up The Matrix?, the machines tried to give humans paradise, you weren’t satisfied with it, acting out, it’s a “dead star” not a “black hole”, right to the edge, it literally would be hell, Event Horizon, frozen forever, the Disney movie The Black Hole (1979), they wished they had had star wars, an R2-D2 character, Maximilian, see the movie anyway, a really fun kid’s movie, Roddy McDowell, Anthony Perkins, the overture, Virtuality, a murder happens, a Civil War world, a holodeck, musician/superhero, sounds Philip K. Dicky, follow me down the rabbit hole, Paul’s guess, “Heading for a lawsuit…”, “ripped off from Joe Haldeman’s SF novel “Old Twentieth”, Frozen Journey by Philip K. Dick (1980), you are in a faulty cryonic suspension, Vanilla Sky, Abres Los Ojos, in Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis, the Walker On Earth as the protagonist, I don’t trust Philip K. Dick, interpretations, we’re all the Walker On Earth, they’re all Dick, I have to sleep with all the men, he really loves women, unrealized motivations, group therapy, couples therapy, so impressionable, empathizing with everybody’s point of view, he’s working out his own psychology, seeing one person’s attempt to reconcile all the weirdness that’s in his mind, H.P. Lovecraft, that’s his psychology, always being honest, this is what fascinates and obsesses them, PKD doesn’t like it either, “this is life we’re all sort of trapped in orbit around a dead star”, “why the fuck did you do that, you asshole?”, we’re so annoying, escaping to heaven, Heaven would be the most boring fucking place in the entire universe, change, coming to appreciate it, they’re all blurring together, The Game-Players Of Titan, haning out with people who are annoyed with each other, Philip K. Dick’s Agatha Christie novel, Ten Little Indians, Murder On The Orient Express, wow I had no idea this was coming!, “click here for a big spoiler”, too dense or too sick, did you realize what was going on beforehand?, Paul started to suspect, is this an Eye In The Sky sort of thing?, red herrings, a government experiment, an oceanologist and no ocean, an economist, their concentrating all the idiots together, a bunch of people with degrees they couldn’t use, a noser, a squib, a punishment planet, I don’t think Philip K. dick knows what’s going to happen, take me to my last destination, this has Printers in it, a hint early on where the conversations repeat, 1977, kind of like this podcast, it’s long and everybody’s babbling away, just like the podcast, you’re thrown a little bit, what is going on?, an author’s forward,

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

The theology in this novel is not an analog of any known religion. It stems from an attempt made by William Sarill and myself to develop an abstract, logical system of religious thought, based on the arbitrary postulate that God exists. I should say, too, that the late Bishop James A. Pike, in discussions with me, brought forth a wealth of theological material for my inspection, none of which I was previously acquainted with.

In the novel, Maggie Walsh’s experiences after death are based on an L.S.D. experience of my own. In exact detail.

The approach in this novel is highly subjective; by that I mean that at any given time, reality is seen–not directly– but indirectly, i.e., through the mind of one of the characters. This viewpoint mind differs from section to section, although most of the events are seen through Seth Morley’s psyche.

All material concerning Wotan and the death of the gods is based on Richard Wagner’s version of Der Ring des Nibelungen, rather than on the original body of myths.

Answers to questions put to the tench were derived from the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes.

“Tekel upharsin” is Aramaic for, “He has weighed and now they divide.” Aramaic was the tongue that Christ spoke. There should be more like him.

what the hell does this mean?, it’s the Gotterdammerung!, this lady’s an embodiment of Freya, that guy’s an embodiment of Thor, archetypes of Biblical characters, the table of contents:

1 In which Ben Tallchief wins a pet rabbit in a raffle.
2 Seth Morley finds out that his landlord has repaired that which symbolizes all Morley believes in.
3 A group of friends gather together, and Sue Smart recovers her faculties.
4 Mary Morley discovers that she is pregnant, with unforeseen results.
5 The chaos of Dr. Babble’s fiscal life becomes too much for him.
6 For the first time Ignatz Thugg is up against a force beyond his capacity.
7 Out of his many investments Seth Morley realizes only a disappointing gain– measured in pennies.
8 Glen Belsnor ignores the warnings of his parents and embarks on a bold sea adventure.
9 We find Tony Dunkelwelt worrying over one of mankind’s most ancient problems.
10 Wade Frazer learns that those whose advice he most trusted have turned against him.
11 The rabbit which Ben Tallchief won develops the mange.
12 Roberta Rockingham’s spinster aunt pays her a visit.
13 In an unfamiliar train station Betty Jo Berm loses a precious piece of luggage.
14 Ned Russell goes broke.
15 Embittered, Tony Dunkelwelt leaves school and returns to the town in which he was born.
16 After the doctor examines her X-rays, Maggie Walsh knows that her condition is incurable.

maybe all this stuff did happen!, other realities, the economist goes broke, that’as another Philip K. Dick novel: The Cosmic Puppets, true in a metaphorical way, he’s playing a game, Jesse unearths a mysterious object, Rupert, stories told in four levels, “In Which Rupert Finds A Lost Boy” rhyming couplets, prose text, leveling of reading, on one level it’s a murder mystery (and science fiction novel), if you play long enough with Philip K. Dick…, a long game, not the book to start with, late Dick but not bad at all, the comedy and the descriptions and atmosphere of the planet, more polished, Three Stigmata, communities of protagonist, reading about a bunch of dickheads, he’s kind of an asshole sometimes, stressing each other out, the original title: The Hour Of The Tench, the manuscript, no revision, no moving things around, no third and fourth drafts, getting it right the first time, knowing how to hit the beats, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, how well the topic can be played out, a cute topic won’t be a great novel, as he was going it developed into that and started playing it up, How I Rose From The Dead And So Can You, forty god-worlds, mot-scientific means, a big clue, a biblical number, rather than revise, interplaneast and interplanwest, Dick loves Germany, Waking Life, are you the story?, he’s living the books, why is he always obsessed with printers?, their all in an insane asylum, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, little cups with pills, where do the pills come from?, when they don’t work properly and make me feel weird, buy a new car and suddenly entropy happens, the fight against entropy, the Printers are cool because…, other writers or Star Trek deal with replication, what will that do to the economy, a post scarcity future, anti-entropy machine: DNA, I make a kid and he’s not a little mini-me, even this awesome amazing thing that is life even it can’t win, every printer we’ve ever met in any story has been a dying printer, like fairies they’re always dying, deep and creepy, the computer is the Bible, the Bible as our programming, everything is decaying but not the ink, he’s taking it from another Bible: the I, Ching, Jesse’s understanding of how church works, throwing the yarrow stalks, don’t do two shows in the row exactly the same, a good fruitful passage, that’s the mystery of God!, Kings 2:4, it’s no John 3:16, Paul the altar boy, that’s the way its going to be, Jesse’s 4am dream, saving the end for the morning of, in a diner in Orange County, living in a Philip K. Dick (played by Antonio Banderas), a 1950s everyone has a special uniform world, cafe/restaurant/bookstore, a bag with two copies of A Maze Of Death, I’m pretty sure the last two chapters are going to reveal something to me, Antonio Banderas Philip K. Dick sort of smiled, just like in Delmak-O, that was only way this book could be adapted, what’s wrong with Philip K. Dick movie adaptations…, there’s no music swelling, A Scanner Darkly, successful, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Philip K. Dick can never be faithfully adapted, Adaptation, it made sense in the dream, a theory as to what’s going on in the book, that’s essentially what the dream is, an internet of dreams, the collective bevatron worlds of this dream, isolated invented worlds, a hall of puppets, Mormonism, experimenting with religions, Roger Zelazny’s Amber, Tickleufarsen, the Walker On Earth is real, he wants to believe in Jesus, stuck on the side of the highway with a flat tire (and helped by Jesus), Jesus Christ is a character (like Batman), Constantine and Council of Nicea, why religious revolutions happen, this Jesus Robin Hood figure, how is Donald Trump gonna go to heaven?, PKD is the Walker On Earth for the characters in A Maze Of Death, inviting a meta-interpretation, a philosopher who uses 1950 and 1960 paperbacks to do philosophy, possibility vs. technology, the Printer is the important part, in a peripatetic Socrates and Plato kind of way, that’s why he (Dick) is immortal, Marilyn Monroe can be reconciled, the coffee machines and the computers, Google T.E.N.C.H., that’s what we’re all striving for, the ink stays, the WORD lives on, 1s and 0s, what really happened, he saved them all, ridiculous but also true, the Total Dick-Head Blog, the cook changes, oh yeah I’m the cook, The Commuter by Philip K. Dick, we knew it from the colour of the couch, new knowledge, the game he’s always playing, it’s so subtle, nice catch!, totally re-readable, we did a show.

A Maze Of Death by Philip K. Dick - illustration by Bob Pepper

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #383 – READALONG: The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #383 – Jesse, Bryan Alexander, and Steen Hansen talk about The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton.

Talked about on today’s show:
1969, before the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, contemporary critics, SF critics vs. mainstream critics, the defense of the ghetto against interlopers, Ray Bradbury, Doris Lessing, a deep feeling, spoiling the book, showing what was wrong with it, getting the facts wrong, interpretation, Luke Burrage reviewing, Robert J. Sawyer, bad writing, had they done nothing … nothing would have happened, the mutation, the Wildfire facility, Star Trek, scientists out for the good of humanity, self-destruct sequences, MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction, every nuclear sub movie, film-like, The Ipcress File by Len Deighton, airport fiction tropes, hyper competent high level government high tech mcguffins, brain-washing, novel -> film, written for film?, ER, picky fiddly science and bureaucratic operation, killed or useless, trusted scientists to save the world, ruthlessly hard science, Hollywood couldn’t make this movie now, restrained, chilly, the gender swap, Robert Wise, Shirley Jackson, The Haunting Of Hill House, Alfred Bester, a document dump, classified material, overloading the reader with verisimilitude, Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, The Thirteenth Warrior, Vikings, Russians and Byzantium, completely bullshit, Mr. Bullshit, regular SF vs. techno-thriller, a yummy INFODUMP, nobody had a definition for life, black cloth, a watch, a piece of granite, pure Science Fiction, Bryan’s mind destroyed at age 8, binary numbers, lasers vs. darts, Larry Niven, 24, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Steen welcomes our robot overlord, high-scale AI, Iain M. Banks, humans as pets, humans as cogs, I Have No Mouth And I must Scream, Prof. Eric S. Rabkin, Dante Alighieri, lost race, the descent into Hell, from red to blue, the harrowing of Hell, a cold war story where the Russians aren’t the bad guys, The Bedford Incident, James Follett’s The Light Of A Thousand Suns, set in the recent past, the shotgun approach, Margaret Atwood, picking and choosing at the buffet table, dedicated to A.C.D., M.D. -> Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle -> Dr. Michael Crichton, “not a new story”, the glowing review in Life magazine, a retelling of The Blob, the Technovelgy, auto-doc, the suppressed cancer drug, Jensen Pharmaceuticals, gut flora, nudity and ass-grabbing, rectal suppository, astro-Tang, coffee, all that cleaning, they’re too holy, the five levels is a gimmick, the leveling, it’s bullshit!, we all know we have to wash our hands, the Wikipedia entry for the Airport Genre

Airport novel(s) represent a literary genre that is not so much defined by its plot or cast of stock characters, as much as it is by the social function it serves. An airport novel is typically a fairly long but fast-paced novel of intrigue or adventure that is stereotypically found in the reading fare offered by airport newsstands for travelers to read in the rounds of sitting and waiting that constitute air travel.

Rudyard Kipling’s fiction was published as a railway magazine, the origin of pulp fiction, The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille, the opening to The Strain, having the reins of political power at your fingertips, in the 2008 miniseries remake, back stories/love stories, a muddy anti-science mess, pre-Apollo -> Watergate -> conspiracy theories, the technical glitch (paper between the bell and the striker), germ warfare?!, the remake of The Manchurian Cantidate, the films and adaptations reflect the times, the 2008 version is super-militarized, X-18, F-4 phantoms, Dracula, the long gothic tradition of found documents, Plan 9 From Outer Space, a cold war document, The Parallax View, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Crichton like Spielberg loves power, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, medical people as superheroes, uber-expert scientists, power fantasy fiction, scepticism of power, image Michael Crichton at a Science Fiction convention, the immune reaction, You are not of the body!, techno-thrillers, why Ian Fleming’s James Bond books became so popular, JFK, Ronald Reagan was a big fan of Tom Clancy, The Hunt For Red October, Reagan based foreign policy of Red Storm Rising, Jack Ryan was a wonk Navy -> CIA agent -> CIA Director -> President, Firefox, political fiction written for a jet-set audience, conservative Heinleinian, Andromeda Strain cosplay?, Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, SF writers save the world from alien invasion, science matters vs. science fiction, the first biology crisis, outflanking the ghetto, the 2006 Worldcon, Greg Benford, Greg Bear, David Brin, thinking up scenarios, if I was a terrorist how would I destroy the the United States, Wildfire, Cold War contingency planning, the Rand Corporation, the odd-man out element, his name was Hall but should have been Corridor, does this make sense?, the odd man is gay?, The Odd Couple, gay coding?, gay men are most likely to turn off nukes?, The Great Train Robbery, timing pacing planning tricking, that roller-coaster spark, opening observation, we are always observing, fun fiction for Henry Kissinger and the jet set, bureaucrats of a class, this function material is reflective, Science Fiction writers are poor, Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake, Isaac Asimov, a biology book, Paul Di Filippo, bio-punk, Ribo-funk, The Bay (2012), The Hot Zone, the wet science, cloning, the neglected science, Coma, Protector by Larry Niven, how electron-microscopes work, crystallography, “it mutated”?!?!?, that was odd, it’s communicating with itself, block-chain virus, deep hurting, The Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, medicine without silicon, the Patriarchy, The Highest Frontier, Blood Music by Greg Bear, a Halo novel, The Wind From A Burning Woman, a “wild” writing style, bio is hard to do, Pontypool, prions, the worst part of The Walking Dead, we’re all infected, a symbol for regular death, Titan by John Varley, a 100ft tall Marilyn Monroe monster, The Satan Bug by Alistair Maclean (1962), where does the techno-thriller begin, a precursor to techno-thriller, The Stolen Bacillus by H.G. Wells, a really obvious anarchist, Wells defused the whole genre for sixty years, The Food Of The Gods, a convincing linguistic maneuver, fawning of technology bureaucracy power and the function of government, a stack of Jane’s Fighting Ships, the Sputnik shock, British invasion novels, Tom Clancy as a zombie brand, special helicopter trip, massive government expenditure for the competent man, an empty jetliner, vicarious thrill, power fantasy, “he’s the most important person right now”, this is our bailiwick!, nice and short, Dean Koontz, Phantoms, A Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, Ghost Fleet by August Cole and P.W. Singer, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child books, no CRISPR, China is no Soviet Union, futurism, education moves so slowly, Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, an X-Box with Paranoid Linux, Reamde by Neal Stephenson, a Kurt Vonnegut vibe, a Welsh Muslim terrorist, like pornography you know a techno-thriller when you see it.