Reading, Short And Deep #398
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Cat Killers by Donald E. Westlake
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
Cat Killer was published in Shock—The Magazine of Terrifying Tales, September 1960
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Reading, Short And Deep #366
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Elephant Earth by Manly Wade Wellman
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
Elephant Earth was first published in Astonishing Stories, February 1940.
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The SFFaudio Podcast #710 – Black Amazon Of Mars by Leigh Brackett; read by Fred Heimbach (for PROTECTING PROJECT PULP)
This unabridged reading of the story (3 hours 4 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.
Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, Alex (Pulpcovers.com), and Cora Buhlert
Talked about on today’s show:
Planet Stories, March 1951, Protecting Project Pulp, Fred Heimbach, inchoate, martian names, very enthusiastic, is Jesse going to like this narration?, this excellent work, enthusiastic during high tension, calm and collected, the way its told, the cover on Planet Stories, Allen Anderson, a signature under the Van Vogt, spoils the story, black and white again, Eric John Stark, her costume, there’s no helmet, she’d lost her helmet, boob armour, shakes the hair out in slow motion, use the trope, Jirel Of Joiry’s gender, gorgeous red-head woman, the interior artist, spoil it twice, it doesn’t actual mean, this is advertising, anticipation, enjoyment, you will get a cool woman with an axe, give us the quarter please, Future Science Fiction, before and after WWII, a meta-analysis, chained or unchained, brass brassiere, covers sometimes illustrate stories within, Amazing, Frank R. Paul covers, best story for this cover gets $500 bucks, The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick, background, the gates, gate of death?,a floodlight, a spaceship, the magic sword, widening the aperture, a guy in red, a guy in blue, chained to her wrist, it sells, the interior art makes more sense, dead guy’s hands, the frozen lands beyond the gates of death, the language, a writing technique, focus on particular words, background fundamentals, “burden”, the relationship between Stark and his dying buddy, fulfilling a death quest, The Road Warrior, the ending’s different, the magic quest, inspired by Black God’s Kiss, C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett knew each other, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, sidequest, The Sowers Of The Thunder by Robert E. Howard, Red Sonya, out of nowhere, suddenly the lord is a lady, a stand-in for sexual assault, a convenient portal to the underworld, a cursed kiss, a bit extreme, decking Eric John Stark, “oh, a woman”, a spin-on it, a happy ending, structurally, strong warrior woman, get together, regrets in the very next story, a different genre, more Conan inspired, the Burroughs for the setting, a Tarzan, semi-sentient Mercurian apes, El Borak, planetary romance, some magic item, a lost city in the mountains, a Cossack raid, the gender politics are C.L. Moore, very Planet Stories, Eric John Stark and a beautiful lady, always two women, a young innocent child like woman, a femme fatale, a dangerous woman, noir films, axe-weilding martian warlord, Leigh as a female name, why they are so different, some of the details, the viewpoint character, the female characters have a very interesting relationship, claiming citizenship, the Thanis, Tanis, thanatos, the names are pretty good, Conan-ish, proto-gaelic, defiant, late into the story, our focus is on Stark, more female, black Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep (1946), crackles with good dialogue, hardboiled crime, the social justice warrior of Mars, oppressed indigenous people, evil imperial colonialist, the Terran Exploitation Company, anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, solar rays made him black, George R.R. Martin, Queen Of The Martian Catacombs, a holy-war on Mars, a failed uprising, dying-buddy, frees some slaves, Enchantress Of Venus, never enslave the hero of a pulp adventure story, darkens his skin in a photoshop?, is she just trying to distinguish from John Carter, is she trying to make a point she’s not allowed to make?, insulting words on Mars, the terrible offending word, couldn’t be printed today, character of colour, trying to make a point, Citadel Of Lost Ships, evil colonizers, illegal immigrant (aliens), Rediscovery: Science Fiction By Women Volume 2, the whipping, skins, a palate of skins, our skins too, bed of skins, wearing skins, trappers, I’ll save your skin, she flung aside the cover and rose, white skinned, narrow loins, small virginal breasts, a wildman, play, Brackett has an agenda, almost all action, escape and rest and conversation by noble and different groups, pacy action, Howardian style, Edgar Rice Burroughsy, third in the series, little connecting tissue, Simon Ashton, one of the good Earth police officers, the Skaith trilogy, The Ginger Star, Reavers Of Skaith, The Hounds Of Skaith, interstellar space, planetary romance adventures, Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, John W. Campbell, Galaxy, Venture Science Fiction, a paperback industry, Ace Doubles, The Dickhead’s Podcast, The Big Jump, Rich Horton on Twitter, 1964 Ace Double, blonde hair, a double Brackett bracket, Queen Of The Martian Catacombs, the name, nude, strong in German, not a muscleman, Eric is leader or ruler, conquer the rest of Mars, the end of Red Nails, re written from Kiara’s point of view, seeing Eric through her eyes, he’s not a prince, he’s not a royal blood, I have my father’s blood, the authority of her ancestry, a bastard, she’s pretty grumpy, retelling it from her point of view, top down rather than bottom up, Eric John Stark is a friend, steals a mount, thieves, steal the sword, he’s a thief, he’s not a royal guy getting back his crown, the same story told the other way, that story retold from an outsider’s point of view, a rival knight, he’s not a lowborn, S.M. Stirling’s The Sky People and In The Courts Of The Crimson Kings, A Princess Of Mars story flipped, the setting, playing in an existing sandbox, playing to the tropes, why we’re focusing on Eric, a pulp science fiction shared solar system, unjustly persecuted, strong female characters, #LegCling, a lot of good stuff in Planet Stories, Ray Bradbury, Frederik Pohl, Manly Wade Wellman, good stuff, Philip K. Dick was in there too, iconic for Planet Stories, well written vs. learned anything, lost civilization, ancient planet, ice monsters, Fantastic Adventures, the coolest covers, terrible badly written, the premise is minor, at the heart of it, the duty to his dead friend, his debt, incompetent or semi-competent high-born nobles, 100% pulp, I can tell stories, it doesn’t feel like science fiction at all, it practically is a straight fantasy, girdle, the belt buckle with the hidden talisman, the polar cap girdles the norlands, dressing and undressing, a writing exercise, extract meanings and ideas from individual words, very basic, there aren’t that many players, the brother and sister in the city and some frozen guy, an episode of He-Man from the 1980s, Skeletor Beyond The Gates Of Death, Conan with a recolour, laser guns, pulp science fiction put through the blender, Clark Kent or Shazam, People Of The Talisman, looks a little bit like he-man, that belt boss, possessed, psychic psionic powers, a true magic item, science you don’t understand, a thing that was lost, a thing to rally the troops around, a way of unlocking things, someone from the past possesses him, an Excalibur vibe, this object can rally people, how it is important to the city or to England, the legend of frozen ice-guy, Harlan Ellison, Charlemagne, El Cid, Barbarossa, come back in Germany’s hour of need, a Welsh character, he did not prevent brexit, Little, Big by John Crowley, Olaf Scholz, The Last Defender Of Camelot by Roger Zelazny, both episodes of The Twilight Zone, George R.R. Martin’s adaptation, you got your money’s worth, one of the most consistent, Astounding has a lot of terrible stories, the most consistently good were Weird Tales and Planet Stories, pass a few minutes very pleasantly, some silly heist movie, what makes you go back to the movie theater, complaints about the quality of their stories in the letters, old-fashioned even then, 30 years after the 1920s, a throwback, 1912, Akira Kurosawa movie, WWII bomber run movies, Dam Busters, 633 Squadron (1964), Mosquito Squadron (1969) movies, blow up some movie with a big ball bearing, Star Wars, propaganda movies made in other countries, just watch Star Wars, look there’s a y-wing going down, people writing this sort of stuff today, the second one’s the best, fun, lost cities at the pole, divinity being a scam, conforming to the scientific knowledge of the time, vaguely based on the astronomical knowledge of the time, Weird Tales mostly pays on time now, hard science fiction, outright technobabble, telepathy, writing something that is accurate vs. being fun, a fantasy story set in a world happened to be called Mars, Eternia, 1944 stories, accurate prediction, Clifford D. Simak, robotic lawnmower, Legoization of planet stories, bubble helmets, most of them were science nerds, retro-illustration, the bug-eyed monster, an 80s night, spandex and Miami Vice, Stranger Things doesn’t look like the actual 80s, frumpy clothes, very brown, fake wood paneling, legwarmers and big hair, big bubble helmets and metal bras, EMSH will do the cover, all of these things are symbols, #LegCling is a symbol, a spreadsheet, very Frazetta, covers are meant to sell magazines, scantily clad women, monsters, Margaret Brundage, maybe there’s sex inside, guides to what you’re going to get inside, swinging axes and male-female dynamics, when Frazetta gets his oils, a very Frazetta move, buttcheeks, Cosmos Science Fiction, classifying spaceships, Futurama, The World Of The Future, The World’s Fair, a talking robot, men are tied up and whipped, bathing suits, evening gown gloves, high boots, locking things up, clones of each other, this is bad, but is it that bad?, maybe they want sex-slaves, death by snu-snu, Doctor David H. Keller, modesty because of head covering, grandma’s bathing suit, women in peril vs. women in charge, amazon planet, tied up, maybe that’s why we’re here?, this is the 1950s, everything makes sense, Algis Budrys, Philip K. Dick, telling you about the people of the period and what is attractive to them, covers today, Frank R. Paul covers for Amazing, technology and grand engineering, those planets give us possibilities on how we can live in another way, a Baen cover for Virgin Planet, very Baen, the same effect of the pulps, Joust, Teucan, Jerome Bixby, Star Trek, copyright length, life plus 70s is way too long, patents are very short, Cora doesn’t have a congresspersons, even Paul and Alex don’t have congresspersons, copyright law is super-national right now, use a VPN, Thomas Mann, reason to punish an entire country, Of Withered Apples by Philip K. Dick, boots and gloves, set on Earth, a fantasy, these are really good fashions, asymmetrical brass bras with belts, don’t gender shame me, uncomfortable to wear, Flash Gordon, Margaret Bras, Return Of The Jedi, brass cups, what it’s supposed to be, this is interesting, sandskiffs, Mars, it has this history, cosplays, modern cartoons, recreating in LEGO an entire Planet Stories cover, you can put some silk under there, Queen Of The Black Coast, only wearing a belt, terrible sunburn, pale pale skin, incredibly strong sunblock, yet another, Leia is pretty passé, an episode of Chuck, Our Flag Means Death, am I crazy or is he wearing The Road Warrior (1981) costume, he’s not wearing a crescent wrench, crazy throwback callback, a wanderer, cowboy, its cosplay, how many things am I missing?, A Princess Of Mars, inspired Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress (1958), Enchantress Of Venus, E.E. Doc Smith cos-playing C.L. Moore’s North West Smith, Han Solo, Mal Reynolds, badly whipped, a loving description of every single scars, scars make you manly, a loving sexy description, obviously sex in the air, all the right ingredients, stories recreating the adventures, the actual story, as cool as it is today, sometime this year I hope, Planet Stories Podcast, bubble helmets and brass bras, a sled with some lady getting kidnapped, dying, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Yondu, scantily clad woman, rocketpack, Nelson S. Bond, Ray Cummings, women having eyes closed, woemn can see to you know, Marilyn Moroe’s lost science fiction movie, saran wrap, an ongoing thing, tanks for holding the oxygen, space accident spacesuit, form over function, in a red bathing suit, the design, these artists are amazing, a metal belt with snaps and such, brass armour, this is beautiful, the colours of these pulp covers, put this on my wall, falling from behind her, her helmet is broken, Elisabeth of Austria, Allen Anderson, so much detail, pink eyes, hatching out of, the pistol, a six-shooter, a western in space, Wagon Train in space, somewhere in Vienna, Archive.org, a scene in the magazine, not quite as pretty inside, evening gowns vs. practical pants, shocking pants, Genevieve Cogman, marvelous museums, hair decoration, Captives Of The Thieve-Star by James H. Schmitz, A Tale Of Two Clocks, target audience, Demon Breed, a real shame, sad story, the entire Protecting Project Pulp archive, Riders Of The Spaceways by Henry Kuttner, The Game Of Rat And Dragon by Cordwainer Smith, The Tree Of Life by C.L. Moore, The Waters Of Bowlegs Creek by J. E. Grinstead, Sex Slaves Of The Dragon Tong by F. Paul Wilson, The Hand of the Mandarin Quong by Sax Rohmer, Prominent Author by Philip K. Dick, a joke story, Child Of Atlantis by Edmond Hamilton, Captain Future, along with Star Trek reruns, Space: 1999, and Time Tunnel, Virgil Finlay throughout, shipwrecked on their honeymoon, The Shunned House, Power In The Era Of Post Human Capitalism, economics, Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, Red Plenty, Strawberry Spring by Stephen King, Ghostland: In Search Of A Savage Country, The Thing In The Woods by Harper Williams, Bobby Derie wont don’t podcasts, he needs to be forced to do it, a prototype for The Dunwich Horror, Goodreads, the few racist remarks, the werewolf is never clearly seen, the W word, in our story saturated world, The Great God Pan, smiley face, good for a rainy day, a good endorsement for a book, a quoka, a wallaby, marsupial, The Dark Man by Robert E. Howard, a statue of Bran Mak Morn, the weird Robert E. Howard stuff, I want Skull-Face, in The Garden Of Fear, Almuric, The Curse Of The Golden Skull, Kull of Atlantis, very short, read a book, mow a lawn, Nanny by Philip K. Dick, planned destruction, literally trying to murder your children, a robot uprising, evil robot nannies, programmed by evil corporations.
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Reading, Short And Deep #344
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss At The Bend Of The Trail by Manly Wade Wellman
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
At The Bend Of The Trail was first published in Weird Tales, October 1934.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #651 – Jesse and Alex talk about Appendix N: The Literary History Of Dungeons & Dragons by Jeffro Johnson
Talked about on today’s:
Brandon Porter, complaints about the audiobook, missing footnotes, appendixes C and D, Dungeon Master’s Guide, 1979, page 224, who the hell are these guys, there’s Tolkien, John , Andrew J. Offutt, Fltcher Pratt, Face In The Frost, The House With A Clock In Its Walls, reading ideas, Paul Weimer, opposed to Castalia House, John C. Wright, chips on both guys shoulders, misplaced chips, not wanting to participate in some books, Jenny Colvin, Reading Envy, Oryx And Crake, too stuck up, complaining the whole time, authors we want nothing to do with, oh you’re a genius Margaret!, Jesse hates her, a book of book reviews, a Christian, Margaret St. Clair, “milieu”, halberd, when you learn things from books, as a professional narrator, names in fantasy books, not having pronunciation in mind, apostrophes, Tolkienesque words, all the role playing games, Gamma World, Traveler, Pathfinder, The Call Of Cthulhu, Car Wars, GURPS, the core rule books, modules, more time reading the books than playing the game, his thesis, Dungeons & Dragons isn’t just Tolkien and it was never meant to be, fundamentally misunderstand the game, how clerics show up, Galadriel with cup of healing water, organized religion was missing from Middle Earth, the Hobbits don’t go to church, Denethor, heathen kings of old, worshiping, he’s a dictator, one of many inspirations, quotes, the Conan section, pastiches, Gary Gygax, the original Howard Conan wasn’t available to Gygax, people kown Conan, most people’s views of Lovecraft are just wrong, The Shadow People by Margaret St. Clair and The Sign Of The Labrys, inspiration, my love my father showed when I was a tad, cloaked old men who could grant wishes, dauntless swordsman, E.C. Comics, the Satanic Panic, juvenile delinquents, ample helpings of fantasy, Andrew Lang, the Brothers Grimm, of particular inspiration, pluck kernels, good reading!, DeCamp, Pratt, Jack Vance, A. Merritt, these will help you make your gaming better, the original AD&D, a collaborative storytelling effort, dice rolling and stats, min-max munchkin play, you have to have read a bunch of stories, things you should be building on, the players limitations make the gaming less good than it could be, most of these books were on the shelf in the 1970s and 1980s, Jack Williamson, publishing, the changing media, talking about movies and TV shows and computer games, pop culture is POPULAR, Stranger Things, True Detective, True Crime, locking a kid in the closet with no books, D&D has become its own incestuous thing, Forgotten Realms, wide open fantasy sandbox, engines to make other games, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Pool Of Radiance, Pool Of Darkness, Wizardry (on the Apple II), Fallout 3, step out into the wasteland, dependent on a really good Dungeon Master, adventures around every corner, the dialogue tree comes out, I wanna save this farmer, I wanna steal the farmer’s pants, the immaturity of the players, DMing is a skill, like Frisbee, cooperative, THACO, Star Trek Voyager, Naomi Wildman, a kid’s adventure holodeck program, nerfed, magical forest, Neelix, the creatures of the forest recognize Janeway, the ideal form of Dungeons & Dragons, your inventory, torch schedule, Darkest Dungeon, you have enough torches, the rope store, Fallout‘s inventory system, the creativity and the flow, how do we let our players have that same kind of adventure, domain play, tier 1 play, a town or country you kind of run, spouses and retainers, a bigger magic sword, New Vegas, post apocalyptic, stories around every corner, bottlecap currency, what we want is the story, whatever mechanics are there, leveling up, new spells new attacks more attacks, achievement unlocked, a real scholar now, awards, you’re a real boy now, army promotions, Eisenhauer is needed, a false understanding of what we’re here to do, the sense of awe, the first time playing Dungeon & Dragons, lead figures, carrying about what colour dice they have, getting a glimpse of Tsathoggua through a keyhole, console games, computer games, like reading a really good book but completely different, I killed a demon, I am a demon, a more advanced version of cops and robbers, go down to the basement, these dice say I hit you for double damage, FPS, all shooting games, Portal, it breaks what you thought was possible, The Long Dark, making mittens, zen meditative, achieving balance, murder hobos, wilderness adventure, one dungeon, not a lot of dragons, two dragons in twenty years, what we need to do as dungeon masters, what players need to do as players, can I stab this or set it on fire, a character with massive charisma, make friends with the monsters, combat oriented, the epic moments, inter-dimensional travel, you can become a god, Leah Libresco [Back Again From The Broken Land], intelligence, wisdom, strength, in real life, we don’t have the player character sheet at all, keep it under the hood, extra speech options, you are less involved, do you even lift, bro?, a suit of armor because suit of armor, Age Of Conan, I got a dagger, a fur diaper, and maybe some boots, a flagon of wine and a girl, World Of Warcraft, mount armor, change the world, Knights Of The Old Republic, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, guilds, all these titles, oh you wanted to buy bread?, the game doesn’t care, when games are capable of caring, an anti-perk: gravedigger, the orc said: I know you of old…, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, a one way gate to the Pliocene, exporting criminals to the past, giant toadstool forests, megafauna, visiting aliens with psychic powers, almost all based on Julian May’s interest in geology and history, the Wild Hunt, accommodateable, straight sci-fi, all through the lens of Tolkien, Greyhawk and Dragonlance, Krynn, kinder instead of hobbits, dragon people, Vancian magic, you don’t understand the building blocks, to have the internet back then, so much is public domain, a blogpost in 2014, so much of it has never been republished, what is actually great, what’s being pushed by a publisher, the cult of the new, nothing from before 1987, The Professionals (1966) with Lee Marvin, Dave Arneson, self-enforcing mythology, Charisma Zero (2013), a player is getting divorced, the hipster is way to cool, what made him a loser, some genuine reality going on there, its a lifestyle, live and breathe Dungeons & Dragons is kinda sad and kinda amazing, the first modules, GenCon, where’s Wisconsin, Tomb Of Annihilation, a meat grinder simulator, Jason Thompson’s D&D module poster maps, 37 species of zoogs, the dreamlands, there used to be kinds of stories, it can’t be done without irony anymore, no-one can write it that way anymore, subverting expectations, a lack of planetary romance, August Derleth, The Trail Of Cthulhu, more of what you had, a magic wand, take what you can get, sad puppies, the Hugo Awards contest, John C. Wright, the popular clique, your ability to get into people’s hands, a list of old books, old fiction, some of them sounded pretty weak, Nine Princes In Amber by Roger Zelazny, cigaretty voice, World Of Teirs by Philip Jose Farmer, Gardner F. Fox, a really innovative way, a very small organization, I want more people to read Gardner F. Fox, connected to comics, Crom his Conan ripoff, old-school pulp author, only five?, Walter Gibson and Lester Dent, The Moon Moth, The Dragonmasters, Planet Of Adventure, a kind of depth to his worlds, a plaster castle held up by two by fours vs. a velvet tapestry with a stone wall with grout made from goblin bones, sketching out a world with a few lines, footnotes, Jorge Luis Borges, granular detail, Philip K. Dick wrote a lot about spies, Mr Jim Moon’s show on Piper In The Woods, set in the pacific during WWII, Seabees, I’m a plant, how dryads reproduce, Typee by Herman Melville, a garden of Eden, it takes 20 minutes to build a house vs. pull ropes and get hit with the lash all day, Poul Anderson, The High Crusade is so fun, The Broken Sword, Three Hearts And Three Lions, The Moon Pool by A. Merritt, Dwellers In The Mirage by A. Merritt, vikings at the North Pole, ragging on Michael Moorcock, why people liked Elric, navel gazing, so sad, I murdered a bunch of people now I’m sad about it, Stanley Weinbaum, Jack Williamson, Manly Wade Wellman, A Martian Odyssey, fabulously science fictional, spaceships, a virtual reality story in the 1930s, totally inspirational reading, Andre Norton, read this list as inspiration for your own campaign, the concept of this book, the foundations most people don’t realize are there, this is where I got some ideas, ruleset, where do all the other rules plug in, the monks were added because kung-fu was so popular, illuminating a manuscript vs. a Shaw Brothers character, more books like this, as we discussed in October, a book of Star Trek literary references posts, Arena by Fredric Brown, microphones for eyes, Darmok, Gilgamesh + Arena, Picard would, post-scarcity communist future allows us to read Gilgamesh and archaeology, lifts from literature, lifts from themselves, that idea worked, lets do our version of it, Stuart J. Byrne, he Kirked the computer, V’Ger, The Changeling, Nomad, his influence shows up in the first star trek, The Doomsday Machine, Fred Saberhagen, the Berserkers, hey I read Tolkien and I have a elves and goblins in a forest, break out of that mold, Portal 2, the Logic Bomb, this sentence is false, the cake is a lie, it becomes more of what it is, Doom and Wolfenstein and Spear Of Destiny, its short, literally out of the box thinking, it’s amazing, things can be different, a tavern with an old man giving you a mission, Lord Dunsany’s The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, The Book Of Wonder, gnoles vs. gnolls, Jesse’s favourite kind of Dungeons & Dragons, Thief, old game books, like choose your own adventure with dice, play honest with the book, the gap between the two, a regular novel is completely linear, game books, told in second person, we are so luckly right now, scanning books, finding them and buying them, way more of this and a lot less Tolkien ripoffs, a late 80s, really grimdark, Between Planets by Robert A. Heinlein, you can just read Scalzi, you don’t need to read Heinlein, 2,000 pages of his inspired by Starship Troopers book, Farmer In The Sky, every book was different, why do we have to have another series?, that publishing drive, a sequel hook, advertising a one-off book, “listen Larry Niven if you write just one more Ringworld book we can bring Ringworld back into print”, from 1979 onward, The Martian by Andy Weir, only four or five years old, these things did happen, thinking along parallel lines, the requisite map, you just told me you know noting and I don’t need to read you, that’s just geography, picking up these cues, treating it like a science, arbitrary rules, Lost, what’s in the hatch?, that Sullivan guy, just good set dressing, J.J. Abrams has not content, M. Night Shyamalan, Heroes went nowhere, Star Wars and Star Trek, we as readers need to be chintzy with our attention, where are your bonafides, that’s not how you pronounce Suleiman the magnificent, Shadow Of The Vulture by Robert E. Howard, egret vs. eaglet, we’re conjuring up things with our mouths, a Savage Sword Of Conan plot, Finnish Eskimos? The Summi?, favourite campaigns, a buried dead god they’re trying to resurrect, a turn based dungeon crawl, a quasi-medieval setting, the sanity system, confronted by trauma, gain a mania or a depressive problem, prayer or tavern or wenching, all narrated by Wayne June, The Ancestor is evil, from The Rats In The Walls, Darkest Dungeon 2, computer games tend to get better, becoming more what they are, a hybrid experience.
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The SFFaudio Podcast #647 – The Picture In The House by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Mike Manolakes. This is an unabridged reading of the story (21 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Trish E. Matson, and Connor Kaye
Talked about on today’s show:
The National Amateur, July 1919, written in December of 1920?, published in mid-1921?, dates, 1589, November of 1896, its real debut, 1924, March 1937, pretty funny, fun, hinting at ominous things happening, the longevity of the old man, a fun little horror story, not particularily Lovecraftian, The Hound, people who like horror a bit too much, obsessed with the macabre and the dangers of that, the frame, we could strike out the first 3 or 4 paragraphs, why we should think that rural ruins are more horrifying than Egyptian tombs, Frederick Heimbach, The Horror In The Museum by Hazel Heald and H.P. Lovecraft, the structure vs. the sentences, prune and collapse, the structure is perfect, this is Lovecraft’s philosophy, the worst thing that can happen to a person for them to degenerate, a basket of deplorables story, unworthy of my attention or pity, a home invader, a good thing, stand your ground, welcoming and kind, dinner just walked in, playing this for jokes, maybe he really does want to talk to somebody, since they took the stage (coach) away, the neighbours he’s been eating, the lake, upstairs there’s a dead body having been butchered, the kitchen upstairs, not all houses are put together in the same way, just killed somebody up there, the blood seeping through the ceiling, caught in mid murder, why he didn’t answer the door, this whole thing that didn’t happen at all, a house memory, our traveler would have heard it, light Lovecraft, Will is making fun of Jesse for being a cannibal, anthropophagi, The Rats In The Walls, Captain Norrys, The Lurking Fear, the local cannibal family, backwoods, a lighting strike, all the ghouls stories, a ghoul dream, really hungry on a ship with no food, cuz its funnier, incest is a bigger taboo, wrong reason, The White Ape (aka Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family), a gorilla great grandma, cannibal curious, in one reading he is a cannibal, Dagon, mental illness, the HPLHS’s Dark Adventure Radio Theatre’s adaptation of The Picture In The House, Connor’s find of the short film adaptation by Josh Deane, like Lovecraft Country but actually good, pretty sure that’s what it means, from Arkham vs. from Boston, Miskatonic Valley, making a judgement, tied to a theme, Bad Medicine, the same core, The Shadow Over Of Innsmouth, the closest to body horror, The Horror At Red Hook, Re-Animator, physical body chopping, since blood is good for the body, a theory of immortality, if Evan was here, the same story, a little shorter than most, a jokey tone, looking for a friend to have dinner with (rather than of), let me tell you how I feel about this picture, it gives me a tickle, a villain speech, the resident, being treated as deplorable, tri-racial isolates, not pure blooded, they’ve let themselves go, tainted by madness, genealogical research is for the elderly, bad genes, bad blood, the consuming horror of HPL, actually related to our narrator?, the big twist, the guy he got the book from, they have common connections, the horror that he sees in the other guy’s visage, no wife to nag him into putting on socks that match, he went wrong, he’s always very careful, his suits were taken, presentable in society, the only thing standing him between him and destruction, eating your beans, a particular human’s psychology, the n-word, the uneducated and illiterate cannibal, he ate his schoolmaster, a dynamic that’s still around, the rural/city divide, Calgary, caked in dirt, a weird accent, he doesn’t care, thinking as yourself as superior to people not like you, prejudices, where the rednecks or hillbillies, the hosers, rural areas, a farming area in New South Wales, Crocodile Dundee, a caricature, Northern Territory, its so distant, what Lovecraft is horrified by, worse than having a great grandmother being a negro, I’m going to be a frog man!, what the dreams were telling him, whatever it is they say last is the real ending, how it actually ends, the open book lay flat between us, the picture is staring, rain is not red, a small red spattering, the horror of the engraving, stopped whispering, the ceiling, the room, the floor, allowing us to picture it, loose plaster, wet crimson, even as I viewed it, the equivalent of fainting, especially in Call Of Cthulhu games, the thunderbolts, the oblivion that saved his mind, amidst whose fury, a smoky solitude, if he was ever in it, very simple, somewhat unusual, this also happens in Cool Air, something that actually happened, it was freaky, he includes it in his stories, Poe is obsessed with beautiful dead women, Lovecraft is obsessed with houses, what does he care about, grammatically strange, searchers after horror, nightmare countries, Lord Dunsany, people like horror movies, horror fiction, whose they guy who kind of invented it, Romans and Greeks were tourists in Ancient Egypt, Maupassant, Goya’s in that business, sensation, a reversed subject, they climb to the moonlit towers, Rhine castles, in Asia, The Nameless City, the true epicure of the terrible, the ancient lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England, unutterable secrets, The Colour Out Of Space, it wasn’t his father’s fault he got syphilis, they didn’t know, stay modern with the furniture, he trades horses and slaughters sheep, the meat packers, the worst places, catacombs and mausolea, a memory of the house, personification of the house, the windows stare dreamily, the house is the villain, to save it it must burn, merciful to tear down these houses, they must often dream, the title, the picture in the book, the picturesqueness, hplovecraft.com website, why isn’t it called the Portrait of Dorian Gray?, a distancing effect, the vision in the house, what was about to happen, the master of tingling himself with horror, tickling his blood, its creepy in the film adaptation, a real human face, we see him arrive, why houses are important as monuments to human civilization, the same excuse that every Lovecraft narrator has, I’ll tell you why I’m afraid of cold [Cool Air], I’ll tell you why I’m afraid of tall buildings [The Horror At Red Hook], I’ll tell you why I’m afraid of subways [Pickman’s Model], a whole Arkham Asylum full of phobias, the game mechanisms, this a guy who went looking for it, its all made up, Jesse thinks it’s funny, the violation of the host guest relationships, The Odyssey, eating his cheese and drinking his wine, it is rude to eat your guests, Circe’s Island, Calypso’s Island, how this story is told, a homeless man comes to your house and trades a song for a supper, Penelope’s suitors, house rules, violations, home invader vs. guest eater, what being a gentleman is all about, keep it in your journal, a gentleman makes judgements, neither character is ever named, is the narrator male?, The Outsider, males as active agents in the world, male writers writing from a male perspective, if we gender flipped it, if we gender flipped the host, a wicked witch and Hansel And Gretel story, The Tomb, that ancestor is coming back through him, they promise me when I do die, Jervas Dudley, why we think these guys are related, you can’t eat your own family!, one level worse, ritualized cannibalism, keeping them alive within themselves, the body of Christ, Sigmund Freud, the universal taboo, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad-cow disease, prion disease, weird proteins, Mark Twain’s Cannibalism In The Cars, the honorable member from Arkansas, a time of food abundance, mass starvation in Germany and Ireland, no Costcos to break into, where Hansel and Gretel’s horror comes from, the children are too expensive, exogamy vs. incest, the Royal families of Europe vs. the Royal family of Hawaii, coming from pre-genetics, how many stories are out there where a twin inseminated a twin’s wife?, our levels of taboo are odd, coming from the genetic level, an instinctual repulsion from these acts, cultures where the genetic father doesn’t matter, adopting kids, what humans do, values and stories, you want someone to take care of you in your age, in welfare-ish states, dogs suckling cats and cats suckling dogs, quasi-mammals (marsupials), a wombat in a kangaroo pouch, experimenting to do, Filippo Pigafetta’s Regnum Congo the book inside the book, written in Latin, Thomas Huxley, H.G. Wells’ boss, Evidence As To Man’s Place In Nature by Thomas Huxley, the source?, our bearded host, didn’t realize the antique printing couldn’t represent dark skin tones well, black Africans, not represented well, lost white races, Opar from She, false ideas being propagated by a printing limitation, plate 9, a zebra as drawn by someone who has never seen one, those look like oxen or antelopes, half-monkey people, alligator with wings!, a dinosaur?, droopy leaves, banana leaves, two levels, a game of telephone, interpreting, quaint, the butcher shop is a market stall, almost childish interpretation, what’s happening all over the place, actual impression, we’ve seen what a zebra looks like, an extant or an extinct creature, a vulture, weird animals, a bear with mange, hairless dogs and cats, spirit bear (white black bears), white foam, designed to fit, a black swan incident, cooper’s hawks, cougars are more often seen today, bears are browsers, injuns, the elephants look pretty legit, komodo dragons are not small, Evan Lampe‘s podcast, kinda dour, the ocean and the sea and transatlantic trade, he died in the War, always seeking immortality, The Alchemist, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, the Deep Ones, we’re afraid of death, distracting, romance novels, making podcasts, making podcasts spawn other podcasts, we have this within us, to exist into the future, interrogate my own psychology, intimately tied to thinking about the past and the sea, England or Ireland or Africa, that’s what makes it so good, if its not very deep or I don’t see if it is deep, something deep within us, shallow stories and deep shadows, where did this rock come from, grapple with the reality that’s in it, you put it in my hand, this is the bloody knife I used to kill your mother, she died from neglect, its probably good even if it is badly written, reading in a foreign language, harder to access, harder to appreciate, the book of Lovecraft Country, great (from what Trish has heard), Lovecraft’s fear of the other, interesting and pitiable, shock and horror, more horrible than anything, ridiculous, they never fell because they never rose, our northern ancestors, generations of strange people, seized with a gloomy and fanatical belief, treeland turned to a farm, free from restriction, the dismal phantasms of their own mind, so deplorable, the strength of these Puritans, morbid self-repression, Nature (the enemy), cold norther heritage, how can it be there are white trash, sew the suit back up, a personal psychological problem, his parents taught him racism, an exchange between Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, taught them there place, I applaud you sir, a bicyclist, this actually happened, visiting somebody’s – where do you keep the books – they don’t have a book, THE HORROR!, engaging on a level we think is important, constantly struggling, his self esteem is based on his genealogy (and living up to it), make it always fit, his inability to go to university, reading pulp magazines, running himself down, taking pride in something is a mistake, he had a hand in some bad stories, a gift, studying, when people wrote to him he gave them advice, Brown, whatever scrap paper was around, professional writers, Jesse can see this in himself, getting the math answers right, phd at Harvard (I’ve created a monster), the requisite shape to fit that thing, Adolphe De Castro, The Automatic Executioner and The Electric Executioner, letters to August Derleth are terse, not intellectually interesting, maybe people appreciate you, not a hater, part of being a gentleman, a Lovecraft explainer that calls HPL the king of the all the Karens, a slur, the automat, shallow work, Connor Kaye delves deep, YouTube has a problem with explainer videos (an industry on hot topics), bad incentives in podcasting (and YouTube), worth struggling through the mess, sensitive ourselves for what is junk, why Jesse loves Evan Lampe so much, nautical stuff, the original oil industry (whale oil), Evan’s YouTube channel, sex stuff, the body is in the bedroom, one of Leslie S. Klinger’s annotations, sexually repressed, theories that Lovecraft was gay, you have to reconcile with it, gay bashing is a real thing, Jeffrey Dahmer, repressed sexuality, he’s not married, kind of bear like, not a twink, femme, Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, big beard and weird, if Alan Moore played the host, Robert Black, the H.P. Lovecraft stand-in figure, a series of sexual encounters, Asenath Waite, her father, an ancient wizard, an alien, literally a transgender character on some level, the sexuality of all of these relationships, traumatized in the rain, the Lilith figure in The Horror At Red Hook, full of sexual imagery, letters where he says he investigated that stuff, disgusted or disappointed, aromantic, his weirdness, a very dutiful husband, there are many such around us, all kinds of ways to live, one lives on the land one lives on the river, husband and wife who live next to each other, the serial killer amongst us, a modern Lovecraftian trailer, The Shunned Trailer by Esther Friesner, The Terrible Parchment by Manly Wade Wellman, a whole bunch a sticks and a camera The Blair Witch Project, Manly Bannister.
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