The SFFaudio Podcast #817 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Last Space Ship by Murray Leinster

The SFFaudio Podcast #817 – The Last Space Ship by Murray Leinster – this is a fixup novel, made from three stories:

The Disciplinary Circuit, read by Phil Chenevert, 1 hour 35 minutes (for LibriVox)

The Manless Worlds, read by Vinny Lerin, 1 hour 43 minutes (for LibriVox)

The Boomerang Circuit, read by Paul Lawley-Jones, 1 hour 57 minutes (for Golden Age Fiction)

These are complete and unabridged readings of the three stories that make the one novel (totaling 5 hours 16 minutes) followed by a discussion of them and it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
the last Terence Blake, the newest, the youngest, The Last Space Ship, a cowboy story, famous in the one genre, some problems with this novel, really loving it for the first third, fell apart, the last spaceship crashed, not literally, William Sky, available on Librivox in three seperate peices, audiobook available, the books are public domain, The Disciplinary Circuit, The Manless Worlds, a good way to sell, lied to, betrayed, The Boomerang Circuit, why am I still not happy with this book, the very end, 2nd and 3rd installment, the problem with series, excited about the premise, exhaust the premise, essentially, a me problem, you could tell it was an unedited a fixup, you can tell it was serialized, repetitions are necessary in a serial, not technically a serial, not intended to be a novel, a series character, barely a book market for science fiction, the fixup became a thing, a guy goes to a planet, summarizes, extremely tedious, his job or an editor’s job, two years after, three seperate “novels”, used to mean something different, in the prechat, novels in Weird Tales, The Man Who Loved Planks, novellete, official wordcount, Lord Of The Rings isn’t a novel, one big volume, it’s something, a weird technical definition, three separate stories that were long, Last Space Ship, the opening segment, not so sure about that, a bite at the end, the mayor of somethingHeim, doesn’t ever get a name, recurring characters without names, Steadheim, the colony organizer, political leaders, good point Will, 1984, Brave New World, political science fiction, and more stuff happens, the premise follows logically, our hero Kim is down there swanning around, a disheveled lady, we don’t need men!, get off of my planet!, the wife handles this, what women are and what men are, funny and interesting, wasn’t well executed, flatly written, repeating himself, over and over, no depth to it, no layers, driving on a very straight line, when there’s an hour left in the story, I’ve heard this a million times, what it turns into is space opera, it starts off with hard SF, not paid off, become suspicious, a transporter space ship, a little Larry Niven-like, Yankee ingenuity statement, Kim’s ability to do literally anything, an ideal subject, men without government, silly, a point to it, went to the beginning of time, it was impossible to get back, wife say something inspiring, that was good, reciprocal, what that can provoke, sexist, too many times, that was just their way, Heinrich von Kleist [“On the gradual formation of thoughts in the process of speech”], near random conversations, from a philosophical pov, the competent man can’t change a paradigm, but nobody’s ever thought of this, a German romantic, a book setsup expectations, subverts expectations, breaking its own rules, the worst rule that this book broke, that’s a deforming balloon of a spaceship, to trick other spaceships, but they’re building them, it still works as a title, matter transporters, public transportation, forgive the setup, this book is trying to be political, knock this out of the park, We, ultimately if every planet in the milky way galaxy has an evil dictatorship to get girls, let’s kill all the men, that does sort of fit the origin through pulp magazine route, comparing to Blake’s 7, anarchistic criminals, unconvinced of what the right thing to do is, the liberator, liberate the galaxy, soma, framed with pedophilia charges, brainwashing, ends in noir, betrayed and destroyed, there was no next season, cultivate some garden, get some kids, get off the pill, really sleep with you, a horny book solution to the problem of men wanting to hoard women, he doesn’t have the intellectual heft, quite interesting for five pages, Michel Foucault, great idea, we just cut your access, social credit in the popular news, cut your access to your bank account, can’t travel, used or sketched out, he couldn’t follow through with that, space opera fantasy with a few dollops of science, the electron telescope, he’s not perfect, it plays a lot like hard sf in a lot of places, hafnium is a real element, if we wear it on our wrists, plutonium, a secret until 1948, somebody’s fucked up, a secretive process, anybody can make it, in 1946?, pretty impressive, a plutonium planet, a good description, Ringworld, bluffs to get to places, make comments, women and men and lions and sheep, this is an analogy for guns, Americans often have a positive relationship with their guns, varmints, disciplining natives, reasons for having guns, if a mass uprising, if you are a state with nuclear weapons you don’t get invaded, if you are a state without nuclear weapons, Ukraine: no nuclear weapons, North Korea: nuclear weapons, things would be different, more dangerous to break into a gun house, bluffing, creating uncertainty, South Africa gave theirs up, France, the US and Russia, thousands each, how many does it take, really?, if we live in a society with the disciplinary circuit wired into their brains, fucked by the police, this is not new, a strong sense of ambivalence towards a monopoly on violence, this disciplinary circuit idea, to make everybody conform, shepherded to that path, from a Jesse pov, wool over their eyes, so cowed, fun with the radio, a most noble lineage, it’s good that we have this king that’s going to come in and save us, let’s rebel for a bit, guys who don’t ever get a name, frontiersman, bearskin cap, standing realm, sketched out stuff, that’s why it sucks, the promise of the premise is awesome, we all have to have guns in our houses to threaten the government, Jesse would like this book, free society, people from Ades, Jesse-like, every man for himself, every man as himself, voluntary, government but not really, worried about the economic system, didn’t care, above it, what is Kim?, a man who knows a lot about science, skilled tradesman, a technician, a reader really interested in things, extrapolate things out of a text that aren’t there, more destructive to give beginning readers texts like this, not as much here, of two minds about it, philosophically interesting, a point to be made, a free society, only so much they’re willing to do to protect other people, a technical fix, when Donna gives the metaphors about the scoop, a pile of grains, sparked, makes this book have a shape, I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for everyone, Jonathan Maberry acting wrong, bad for everyone else, encouraged by the economic system, H.P. Lovecraft is weaponizing his IP, generously sharing that, entirely being out of copyright, that kind of thinking, so deep into the capitalist system, exploitable and exploited, it should have been just the first story, tempted to continue, Leinster pronounced LINSTER, not even his real name, discriminating against him, such a workhorse, stuff from the 20s to the 60s, 1918, The Mad Planet, his skyscraper story, deeper, despite the flaws, it was Arthur C. Clarke-like, mind blown, a smear all over the sidewalk, in the way that Olaf Stapledon would do, zeroed in on very specific, the last city on earth, what people are like now, all about art, random algorithms, fully born, out of existence when they become bored with their art, a non-conformist, he’s strange, no families, emitted from a computer, doing science fiction ahead of where the system was, the disciplinary circuit is coming guys, by other means, the stupid brute route, Elon Musk brain chip, 5g brain chip, seeing a change in students, a ticktock video, she did a final, bored or boring, pretty competent, skibidi toilet, a short vide, riz isn’t even hard, neologism, what?, No!, rejected!, we’re having trouble making sentences now, ask Phil Chenevert, human headed toilets, electronic devices for heads, sounds like art, if David Lynch made with the series, heiling Hitler every five seconds, they’re indoctrinated by memes, talking to the chat, hey chat do you agree with this, hilarious but worrisome, youtube and twitch are corporate, reading long things, new things develop, not fighting against the corporate control, whole youtube channels and twitchstreams are deleted, skibitoileting themselves into a prison, negative reinforcement, locked in your apartment, locked out of your clothing receptacles, positive and negative reinforcement, the internet, it’s not the internet, done the other way around, this is a thing we want to push, fund channels, we don’t like this, delete things, being shadowbanned, being delisted, the circuit causes pain, dopamine, how the internet traps people, animal videos to Miassa and Will, what they do the sender, Jesse did good, a problem with the whole system of government, incentive, that’s what ideology is for, harnessed to a mule, the planet Kim escapes from, believes in it, planets where everybody gets 1000 women, no more free than the ones being subjugated, what’s the difference, touch on the radio drama, he’s making another point, relationship, sketched out, I appreciate you, why didn’t you come get me, he hears a radio drama, weird, strange, pretending men never existed, obsessed with this idea, Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s Herland, art, drill down, art shit, trans lady is talking about her 9-5 job, transcribing the sentence, this is art, an hour and half, buying a nice mouse on amazon is the way you stave off depression, that’s art!, Brass Bra is a thing, there’s another one, maybe see something come out of it, tropes or habits, life in Athens, the plays of Aristophanes, musicals based on movies, insight into that world from so long ago, pretending men don’t exist, still wearing veils, what are you gonna do with this, how disappointed Jesse was, prolific writer thing, just whipped em off, 300 million inhabited worlds, nothing was different about any of them, The Mad Planet, humans have involved into lesser creatures, also there’s mushrooms, bye, strange or strangely, what makes weird fiction good, the wikipedia entry on plutonium, wartime secrecy, a weird element, lots of different forms, strange qualities, Pauos 3, no atmosphere, worked five thousand years, plutonium mines, how plutonium on earth is still around, the relic of a relic of a relic, every time you hit that half-life, decays and decays, a whole planet made of plutonium?, it doesn’t make any sense, the big problem with this book, written to be a gee whiz space opera story, a Thrilling Wonder Stories problem, a pulp magazine question, should I just put up the Disciplinary circuit, Jesse can’t decide what’s good for people, they won’t understand, voiced their concern, lampshaded, there’s a problem in this story, now I like it, 3 hours into our discussion, shine a light on it, hypocraphl?, about Bewitched, apocryphal, Dick Sargent Dick York, I Dream Of Jeannie, the wrong husband, you look different, a new haircut?, aren’t bewitched and I dream Of Jeannie the exact same show, Bell, Book And Candle, Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart, the problems are the same, there’s a mother in law and the wife can do anything, the costumes, one’s in the airforce, a businessman, hijinks, his wife is a succubus or whatever, a djinn, dark eyed houri, mind drifting away, killing all of the men on the planet, a bigger version of what happens in world history, is Murray Leinster anybody’s favourite science fiction writer?, how well read, how competent he is, interesting again, whole first third, gold, a really good story, what are we gonna do about this thing, Prison Break, they broke out of prison, a popular show, had to go on, on the run, Lost but more competently handled, tattoos all over his body, they knew it was gold, they had no plan, that kind of storytelling is ultimately bad, forgettable fluff, we have to be better than that, when we liked the Fall Guy (2024), Cry Macho (2014), nice old fashioned slow paced storytelling, the least plausible part, how enfeebled he is, a skeleton, still a good actor, he’s too old, Jersey Boys (2014), that’s impressive, in charge, in control, attentive to every single detail, majorly talented, good if not great, a boy and his chicken, his rooster, some meanness, so much heart, based on a novel based on a script, Arnold Schwarzenegger, clearly not him riding the horse, die soon, tributes, is there a guy who’s bigger for longer, Francis Ford Coppola, spaghetti western man, TV show guy, any which way but loose, Woody Allen, canceled himself, Polanski scandal, nobody denies it, the received opinions or facts, starting to doubt, was the president of El Salvador, commenting on the fashion, science fictiony clothing, didn’t even recognize the flag, Biden administration not as offended, cracked down on gangs, all male population in prison, 78,000 people, 6.5 million, 3 million men, gang age people, proved a point, the guys standing behind, brothers, sticky-out ears, related to each other, we can work together, uh-oh, 2% of the entire population, what’s the percentage for Canada, the UK, the USA, China, Moon over Parador (1988), the same plot as Dave, Sigourney Weaver, the good Kevin, liked grabbing men’s crotches, just twinks?, insult word?, Jesse said “twink”, a funny word, manic pixie dream girl, the girl from that comic, Scott Pilgrim, Elizabeth Town, Zoe Daschanelle, Katharine Hepburn from Bringing Up Baby, gay slang, every boy bang from Korea, twinkie, twinkle, Richard Dreyfuss is asked to double a president, central america, evil dictator, fake Spanish accent, Raul Julia is his advisor, Teri Garr?!, Sonia Braga, Brazilian, Caviar For His Excellency by Charles G. Booth, Mark Twain’s The Prince And The Pauper, a latin dictatorship, whitehouse competency porn, Frank Langella, Ben Kingsley, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, 2016, extra homework, The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, an earlier precursor, the little girl who’s the grandaughter of the cafe owner, restaurant, tamale place, randomly deaf, every part of that movie is well put together, every person who has screen time, solidly put together, masculine tenderness, cowboys, a very elderly mountain man, as a person from Alberta, a signed book, real genuine people who are not horrible, lucky, Memoirs Of A Mountain Man by Andy Russell, 1984, sleeping in a teepee, smoking a pipe, wearing his cowboy stuff, Will hasn’t taken up the pipe yet, hasn’t taken up the scanner, the tools of the trade, tools of a Kentucky mountain man, one good cowboy hat, a little too good, paid too much money for it, a dress cowboy hat, 2009 priorities, a relic from an earlier period, a range romance, regular western book, Will could do it, Rangeland Romances, he’s ketchup she’s mustard, an idiosyncratic, less sensational, the colour, red shirts, a red shirt, a classic science fiction, The Ship Who Sang is public domain, Anne McCaffrey, and Terence is no longer with us, on internet archive, very short, it’ll make you cry, going to a high tea, bring your pipe and your scanner, anything interesting to say?, really solid, Paul was really down on it being public domain, really good, an SFFaudio drinking game, one of the drinks is when Jesse mentions Paul, drinking games are bad, a Raymond Chandler novel, every time Philip Marlowe takes a drink, expanded into a fixup, then a seven novel series, here’s a hint, this story is a juvenile, why the ship who sang is public domain, April 1961, no such filing exists, a photo, note in 1989 there was no renewal, new matter, expansion and notes, a renewal for the fixup, a fatal flaw?, mistated the year, somebody got the wrong magazine but the right year, an attempt at a renewal, a mistake shouldn’t be punished, scrivener error vs. deliberate fraud, the caveat here, would you like some legal advice?, don’t talk to the cops, life advice, also don’t talk to the reporters, repeat 1 thing, longer than 2 words they’ll take it out of contest, Robert Silverberg story, Stellar Audio, Sundance by Robert Silverberg, corporation from earth, mental problems, sentient aliens, rebels against the company, native american?, navajo, well documented, still around, beothuk code talkers, they’re extinct, are their any beothuk left?, one guy or lady is dying, the last beothuk speaker, to tell you your wrong, how is the name pronounced in English, first decade of the 19th century, Shanawdithit, transferred people, moved around Nova Scotians, moved around New Brunswick’s stories, Viking’s Dawn, The Road To Miklagard, Viking Sunset [by Henry Treece], from the illustrations, fun names then they get killed, Eric Brighteyes, really, sophisticated lady, she’s a witch, a high falutin language, H. Rider Haggard, resident expert, 10 or 11 books by him, She, King Solomon’s Mines, Ayesha, 1885, LibriVox, John Nicholson, 10 hour book, when Maissa’s gone, he writes long, The Aeneid, a non-public domain version, August 4th, known to be flaky, The Green Girl?, The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair, first Princess of Mars pastiche, Frank R. Paul, brings modern tech to King Arthur’s court, a meditator on Earth, falls in love with a princess, renaissance era society, in the body of a dead guy, plotters against her, makes all the modern weapons, powerful merchant prince type dude, ends on kinda cliffhanger, Palos Of The Dog Star Pack, by juicy?, J.U. Giesy, will is super flakey, somewhat flakey, Will gets cancelled all the time, Cora has parents dying, The Cave Girl, question marks, struck through, transfixed by this stick, judgements made upon me, you’ve got a super flakey crust, dandruff shampoo is probably bad for you, it would smell strange and probably, favourite kind of pie, pecan pie, hard questions, blackberry pie, a bold choice, strawberry rhubarb, when you buy the ingredients for you pie, cheese pie, ricotta, a meat pie, eggs and sugar, saying goodbye, bye on the pie, a chess pie, a transparent pie, just sugar and eggs, the people of this region, healthy choices, taking up the pie, sugar pie, what else is it tho?, all pies, fruit pies, prone to make rhubarb pies, adds strawberries, rhubarb is a little strong, black currant, banned in the United States, the plant had a rust or something that effected some other plant, banned for 7 decades?, a major flavour, fruit markets, a lovely thing, when in Britain, red currant, life without black currant would be horrible, go to planet and black currant won’t grow there, second galaxy, with all the planets out there, some nice natives veggies, only marginally habitable, some fungus growin on the grown, barely wanted to move, everything makes Will think about Jesse, sort of a stalker affect, people thinking about Jesse on other continents, seems dangerous, interested in Kentucky, Appalachian Aesthetic, abandoned buildings, rustic ruins, Michigan doesn’t seem interesting, with regard to the upper peninsula, Kansas has The Wizard Of Oz, make a list of states that frighten you, frightened by cold western provinces, cost of living, a shipping container, full size, a window, drywall inside, when am I moving in, there’s no toilet in there, container life, not much of a thing, #VanLife, so sad, the roman villas, central courtyard, indoor place safe from bears, bears in British Columbia, black bears, spirit bears, a black bear that’s white, a genetic advantage, white foam, a hypothesis, Kermode bear, they’re not albino, cinnamon bear, Anmore, rainforest, berries, garbage, salmon, where is the most wild places, Antarctica, Kamchatka, about as wild or more wild, mountains, small, elderly mountains, Eastwood mountains, very remote from commerce, the way the roads are built, cut the tops of many of the mountains, doesn’t have access to the interstate system, railroads, what fucked up Kentucky?, coal takes everything away and gives nothing back, any other commodity, demand and value, European levels of labour militancy, pitched battles with company agents, a bomb dropped by the police, probably not from airplanes, hey look the BC government isn’t completely incompetent, renewable resource, on crown land, revenue goes to the province, taxing corporate extraction, control the resource, stopped listening to CBC, getting angry, one of the worst feelings a person can have, in Italian or Russian, Ford bros., she’s muted, asshole of the East, highways through forests, land that’s supposed to be protected, stopped taxing, for votes, hiring his friends, big for profit, detrimental on the land from which we live, Moraine Lands, re-elected premiere, his brother was, PC, Progressive Conservative, hybrid names, we’ll have it both ways, we’re the forward looking conservatives, when the brother died, was it really scandalous tho?, guy likes crack, when a rich person is using crack, people are saying Zelenskyy’s on regular cocaine, BC is surprisingly competent, getting very cynical about politics, Enbridge, B.C. Hydro, a free air conditioner, that’s a good thing, not killing them is better, build up to not killing them, the invisible hand in the velvet hand in the iron glove, for the shortest time, Rachael Notley, Social Credit, the Liberals are the business party, municipal party politics, they can’t really do anything against dog, provinces have tons of control over municipalities, the suburbs put them in there, $1 beer?, steamroller, candy, these things flow from that, they can never win federally, reverse engineer a political party, CCF, put a finger on, the United States controls Canada, a tepid party, why can’t other provinces get their shit together, New Brunswick is run by the McCain family, Idaho, Canadaland, not going to talk about Gaza, this is violence against my people, indefensible zionist shit, local newspapers, they suck, gotten worse, death spiral, no longer using dating apps, copping to eating a mountain of antidepressants, that is not a newspaper article, not paid much, brand his column the first ever Weird Tales dating column, very endy timesy energy, not directly involved, that Haiti thing, convinced the Kenyans, when the US dollar goes, what’s that going to do to the fake Canadian money?, gold guy, under the container, the skibidi gold toilet, scared of skibidi toilet, willing to embrace it, the thing to embrace by the young, past the point of existential despair and are enjoying their time, school is basically optional, what’s the point of this, there’s no future for me anyway, debilitating despair, in Greece for a month, fuck it all, why not forever?, still got to make some money, to pay the rent, with the land reform bill, fabricating Kalashnikovs, Temu, Aliexpress, off brand Lego, that exists, realistic masks, once you click on a realistic masks…, a mask of somebody’s fist with a middle finger raised, your head is a giant fist with the middle finger raised, hang loose, the final face for the apocalypse, the V for Vendetta mask, the mask is the true face, circling the drain as the ship sinks, you have to hang out with a teenager, 9 year olds too, Reddit is a horrible place, super controlled, the moderation is evil, my little brother, how do I do this?, raging on meme video, make the system happen, the kid is culture jamming him, skibidi doesn’t mean anything, toilets are allowed, boobs and penises aren’t allowed, tweak the system, maybe it’s going to bring the whole thing down, freedom stones, a nonsense phrase, not the the future Jack London envisioned, load your runcible plastic like this, a way to go, what will the revolution look like afterwards, pamphlets, owning the non-communists?, NPC style memes, you crying bro?, impossible to save them, China putting the last emperor to work with a broom, when being invaded, trying to reverse the revolution, you have to do something, an anecdote, Toussaint Louverture, Haitian revolution, German mercenaries were deemed black, the slaves are revolting, kill all the white european colonizers, recognized as black in the Haitian constitution, quaker dwarf, Barbados, Dominican Republic, admin, to the DR on the DL, St. Lucia, Cuba, Jamaica, California or Mexico, rah rah rah thing every year, have to go also get to go, mandatory work thing, oh yuck, when they filmed Sorcerer in 1977, Rafael Trujillo, Toronto too, for the Caribbean, a little man with big ideas, dwarf wife, a little bit older than him, lives in a cave, vegetarian, abolitionist, Stephen Leacock, she makes her own clothes, The Retroactive Existence Of Mr. Juggins by Stephen Leacock, one of our best, a big deal, a humorist, like the Canadian Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, described as a parable, this saw needs to be filed up a bit, fix the grindstone, make a carpenter’s bench, that Carl Sagan thing, James Burke’s Connections, still alive, very interesting, go into a fugue state, kings and contest, he was working on that other project, learned everything and nothing, The Trigger Effect, no excuses, if you watch it on Brave, the power blackout of 1965, the invention of the plow, five or six shows like that, PBS, TV Ontario, interviewed by Dan Carlin, a history guy, the biggest podcaster, Scott Miller, Joe Rogan, Lost-Sci Podcast, he lives in Costa Rica, his wife is Costa Rican, just reads them, TV broadcaster, his dad, still doing a show, very good audiobook narrator, some of the popular people, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, Ray Bradbury, little 30 minute story, its great, about the ads, A Cast, uber for kids, you can hire people on linkedin, health insurance for poor people, different ads, generic corporations, ads for other podcasts, audio dramas, its gonna die, podcasting networks, never launched?, never happened, Stitcher, defunct August 2023, what led to its downfall, youtube controlls what goes on youtube, u controll what goes on your podcatcher, provide the hosting services?, the business of podcasting vs. podcasting, podcast network, remember Night Vale?, headgum, CBC radio, BBC, Al Jazeera, Earwolf, preserve having a job, let’s do a podcast, for HQ, sales network, there’s nowhere that isn’t podcasting now, TWiT, 14 shows hosted on the network, this week in whatever, thousands of episodes, Jerry Pournelle, this week in security, so weird, almost four hours now, the day slips away, time slips away, [Maissa slips away], The Not-World, Cirsova’s not available, #Sad, even if assassinating bad presidents, the anarchists tried that, [William] McKinley, propaganda of the deed, made sense in Imperial Russia, a competent manager, a condo, want to complain? have you tried volunteering, so fuckin boring, outsource this to Colossus, the colony organizer, the bearskinned mayor, the guy in the second galaxy, dishevelmed woman, jealous of Dona’s appearance (and man), weird reactions, mad for no reason, president of the woman planet, in charge, clothes are mussed up, disorganized shelves, can you be shevelled?, old French, about your horse?, about your hair, hair uncovered, hence disorder, kempt and shelved and my shelves are very scruffy, helping the children?, volume 4 of the Nancy Drew books, Hardy Boys, two sets of Nancy Drew, what a deal, need that fore Heinlein, Glory Road, age appropriate?, he’s a Vietnam vet, have sword will travel, Paul had problems with it too, nope out of it, some scene that happens, rape scene?, why do people not like Glory Road?, sexist piece of shit, trite, some classic fantasy, Stranger In A Strange Land, boring, painful, this stinker, starts on a nude beach in France, meets a fairy or elf princess, a dwarf hires him, an alternative universe, so PTSD he’s down a rabbit hole, Silverberg’s an interesting guy, which of my eras do you want to talk about first, a healthy sense of himself, robust, stay humble, doing pretty good, he could die and still be doing pretty good, he’s in his 80s, very 80s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1969, The Rag Thing by Donald A. Wollheim, Margaret St. Clair, talk about the underdogs, a kleenex that gets sneezed on, dropped behind a radiator, gets sentient then gets revenge, all over the board, wants to exist, succeed for a while, It would have been all right if Spring had never come, thrifty and not too clean, March is a tricky month, last November, like Frankestein but with a rag, nice and short, making some time to finishing the Damon Knight Futurians book, what Donald A. Wollheim was like, bosom chum, John Michel, young communist league, stuttered horribly, what does stuttering mean?, everybody studies sometimes, Eric Idle, John Cleese, for laughs, a voice like thin paper, not thick paper, grok it out, weren’t robust in certain ways, John Milius is robust, does a robust man need a gun?, if own a gun, big collectors, very interesting technology, very important, you can’t dismiss it away, what Mao said about guns, all political power flows the barrel of a gun, group of enough people rebelling against the circuit, the cleverness of individuals, special attractive and brainy and useful wives, you’re too useful, trying to compliment her, chosen the wrong word, your ability to have guns, ability to read the situation politically, gain guns, print em up, machine shop, the Sino Soviet split was a bad mistake, caused the caused, what caused the end of the Soviets, bad read, the beneficiaries of the system stopped belieiving in it, thought they could do personally better as capitalists, kleptocrats, decadent, didn’t happen to China, China was nimble, Poe is alive, age corruption is not sound, elderly but fine, the age of the country, Canada is youngerthan the United States, a whole bunch of different dates, when did British colonization begin, 1775, 1776, 1780?, a moving target, pretend Canada is a little younger, we’ll be as corrupt, as big, as much, politics in Quebec, very very corrupt, Yukon, not so corrupt, as old as Ontario in a certain sense, younger in another sense, Australia, drill down, what corruption is, works how it is supposed to, the federalist papers, not supposed to change, supposed to stay the same together, demarcation line, rhymes back in time, Poe, vote rigging, 1840s, setup to be corrupt, 2/3rds of a man, heady words, some claims made, rapidly decline, Paul doesn’t think the Businessman’s Plot was real, Roosevelt was allowed to continue in office, massive popular support against his enemies, the NRA, fireside chats, threaten his enemies trying to overturn his rule, personal corruption in John A. MacDonald, not fake news, not even playing the game anymore, is Trump a political prisoner now?, walked away, smiled, too ridiculous to answer?, is it a ridiculous question, all prisoners are political, that deep, put someone in jail, seems unlikely, trying to annoy him, death by 1000 cuts, he’s invincible, visceral anti-corruption, not in the way that everybody else is, come back, they dont seem to be doing the assasination thing on him [this podcast recorded June 2, 2024], the murder industry, holding back weapons from Ukraine was a sin, somebody’s got to get his bread buttered, elites, deep political conflict with Russia forever, competent leadership on the other ends, accidents that happen, pumping the money out of the US government into the hands of the people controlling, dissatisfaction, Trump’s base, transitioning, they them gendered, an activity, they’re feeling it too, they don’t know what to do with it either, a certain level of corruption, faith, for the system to go on, Jonathan was on to something, people hate each other now, divide your enemies, divide your subject, opposed to the military industrial complex, ending foreign wars, reduce military spending, the Trump coalition, whoever supports trump, didn’t start any new wars, more strident supporters, Galaxy not Astounding, this is garbage to me, H.L. Gold, so silly, a military guy, blames Joe Biden for leaving Afghanistan, hemmed in by traditional beliefs, he reads the wind, more than anything, being popular is more important, he actually makes decisions, up close and personal, its different here, liberals more insufferable, “lefties”, conservatives, don’t put any thought into it, that’s bad, bad takes, hate Trump because they see himself in him, projection, he has tiny hands, Donny tiny hands, not even true, not freakishly small or large, a reference to him having a small penis, fat and weak, okay to body shame that guy, slightly orange coloured, not enough, badly cut suits?, a unique style, hair is on backwards, reverse stapled on, Biden’s bald, the part that never goes bald and move that to the top, rogaine that fails out, a weird appearance, accusing him of what he’s going to do in the future (that you’re doing now), fun to think about, denying something that’s wrong with you, a baby low level way of dealing with problems, drinking game players, feel comfortable, Paul doesn’t really listen to the podcast, people that I lie to, a thing about the middle names of people, only people he doesn’t like, middle names are funny, doesn’t have one?, Catholic, non-solid memory, Donald John Trump, 45, presidential number, Biden just gets one, Obama only gets one number back to 45 again?, Grover Cleveland, I heart New York, 34 counts guilty, the New Republic, insurrection and national security, stunning guilty verdict shatters his aura of invincibility, not stunning nor shattering, won an election, lost an election, is this invincible, masturbation for the people who hate Trump, alleged crimes, they didn’t bring again any guns, “storm”, Trump fans, show their grievance, verbed in the capital, agent provocateurs, an organized tour, theft of national security documents, even if he gave it to China without any personal profit, the deep state is not legally in charge it is just actually in charge, bad at filing stuff, like Hilary’s emails, deleting her emails, private server, hide her horrible emails, an extremely serious offense lurks beneath, he’s invested in it, The Terminal Man, made a mistake, Matt Yglesias retweet, the Civilization VI equivalent, he likes games, he’s getting gamed, viscerally triggering, he let his guys do that, he can’t be shamed, when Will was a kid, serious religious thing, lost to Obama, tricked, options on the table for most people, Obama or John McCain, that’s the trick, shoulda voted McCain, not a wise man, Obama at least was smart, too smart for all our goods, smart for his good, compromise his way through, a horrible thing, that’s the horror, willing to do things you shouldn’t do, I am what I am, not how the sizzle was sold, hope, stay on your parent’s health insurance until 26, so hot to talk about health care, Bernie Sanders noise, medicare for all, not perfect, not like what they’re saying, you get cancer, you get treatment, waiting list, its free, literally and actually free, the CRT television, the wifi’s free, not enough doctors, walk-in clinics, pharmacists can give your drugs directly, tryna solve problems, election coming up, debate about health care gone, only about Trump, killing in Gaza, horrible videos, Paul is a nice person, not willing to be mean, the national security question, a lot of deference going on, you don’t need a zap of punishment of pleasure, against leadership, management is not leadership, being the quartermaster, disbursing takes, let me finish, I did, Terence doesn’t talk enough, good at talking, this projection idea, look into the shadow work, what was sad about the conviction, how excited people got, pathetic, 34 counts how do you feel?, is it going to stop him from being president again?, don’t cut deep with Will’s mother, different relationship, much more sympathetic to people transing, trying to be nice to people, are they not wrong?, too nice to Jesse about, weirdly preoccupied, what is Jesse projecting, want some boobs, grow boobs on your own, are these boobs good enough, very interested in trans stuff, Day Million, Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, one ought to be interested, important, its bigger than other such things, more controlling, more of an earworm, Blondie songs, running around inside your head, saying Blondie stuff, Heart Of Glass, Blondie is the band, Michael Jackson was very big an effected people’s dress, crazy to think about, Elvis, behavior at concerts, more correct, Elvis upset some people, because of hip movements, hormones to look like Elvis, its important, its happening and non-reversible, tattoo vs. cut off parts and hormones, haircut is very easy to reverse, give it some time, those boobs aren’t going to grow buck, people don’t know what they’re getting into, problems caused by brains, input output, hormones in your body, data input, an error, consider chemically composed, put chemicals into your brain to change it, jungian, kids are very subject to being not unpopular, isolated and made freaks, in school, yes, the Korean kids have this thing going on from home, they generally go along with it, top down influence, wishy washy, you should do good things and not do bad things, opinions or facts, hang out with some people and see what’s going on, hangs with them, patients or clients, the trans phenomenon, similar views, very wrong, only know so much, in general terms, clients who are trans, different, cultural and religious ferment, student coming, a book by Barret Brown coming out, American journalist and essayist, snarky in trouble with the government, arrested by the FBI for threatening the FBI, in prison for 63 months, reporting on Anonymous, against the US government, My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous, heroin addiction, 2011, Barrett Brown, transparency movement, clever and hilarious, institutions are made of people, entertaining and illuminating manual, CPTSD, fucked around with, nice relationship with his mom, harassing his mom, not many people know who he is, Scott has a podcast with Julie, to be continued on the hormone conversation, coffee, talking point, don’t care about the truth, only about winning, some rhetoric and some sophistry, ad campaign, what does Will have to gain?, chopping our children’s dicks off, oppo research, have a good time.

The Last Space by Murray Leinster

The Last Space Ship by Murray Leinster - GALAXY NOVEL 25

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings and In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings (read by Mike Vendetti, 55 minutes) AND In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl (read by Edmund Bloxam, 52 minutes). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (1 hour 48 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
[Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings – from Terror Tales, May 1938 and In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931] that narrator, LibriVox, like to not listen, performing, distracting, a noble effort, everbodys got an accent, Trois-Rivières, a cultural, 30 years watching news reports, CBC generally gets its pronunciation right, the main character is an American, the half-breed Indian, Beaumont, a New York lawyer, take it too far, way too far, two miles from Manhattan, US states, the geography is so bad, giant book showing different continents, they don’t even know where they are on the map, maybe geography is a useless thing, from one tube enclosure to another tube enclosure, maybe it doesn’t matter, you need to understand geography in order to understand anything, a geology a little bit, from the Libertarian convention, use its military to defend itself, from what?, giant moat on either side, defending Hawaii, you don’t need a sixth fleet in the Indian Ocean, Nevada, Oregon, accents?, more than accent, Iraq, Iran, hearing about it on the news, the correct pronunciation, say it in Spanish, all these tourists, east coast politicians, it doesn’t need to be set in the orbit of Saturn, not as good as the other Starzl, E.E. Doc Smith, more compact, starts deep into the action, we’re in the middle of a battle, holding cells, dialogue happens, we’re done, fairly good for being fairly bad, published in the October 1931 issue of Astounding, the Clayton era of Astounding, having trouble following the action, put on a really big smile for your videos, the muscles of your face, practicing to be the joker, he’s really selling this, in seven months we’ll know if it was all worth it, Sword & Scandal, with that great art, very solid, character names, Quarl Finner?, Coerl?, Black Destroyer, Braniac Five from the Legion Of Superheroes, Lenore, character from Poe, Moby Gore, Lt. Burroughs, Captain Strom, he’s not shy, Mark Twain, a newspaperman, family newspaper in some midwestern town, its good, real things that happens, engaging with real stuff a little bit, her brother dies, dies from pneumonia, daughter of a capitalist, a capitalism in space story, the eugenics pirate, a good noble man, a man without a planet, engaging with the materials of the times, the Burroughs thing, make it about Romance, he doesn’t solve it, the IFP, the interplanetary flying police?, pirates infiltrated by east Indian company agent, sexy redhead pirate queen, a depth to it, for how short it is, a lot of time hating, too simple, a super good example of pulp that doesn’t suck completely, not enough beams, a cloaking device, I’ll parole you, new laser beam, ray of some kind, a little ethical back and forth, working for the fuckin cops, tremendous amounts of concentrated energy, the energy becomes sentient, weird juice, for the amount of plot and backstory, something in a series, ISFDB, seven of these stories, The Earthman’s Burden, very depthy, another Starzl story, Madness Of The Dust, he’s on mars, he has martian slaves, martian dust makes him go crazy, Against All Flags (1952), Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, off the coast of Madagascar, a political dissident, party now because there is no afterlife, mythological pirates, historical pirates, crook, of the golden age of piracy, still pirates today, the Horn of Africa, not British naval slaves, their backstory is different, a really good movie, the Mad Max novelization, Stone (1974), Satan worshipers, very beautiful, very artistic, by looking at pirates, land pirates, living life free from societal law, Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, patch him in and patch him out, harassing ransom people, Pirates Of Venus pirates are not really pirates, Gully Foyle, Alfred Bester, a positive spin, write the pants off, very early in the history of magazines, by the early 30s Weird Tales is getting good, Science Fiction isn’t as mature, willing to pay relatively good rates, the writing of both of this, Ray Cumming fuckin sucks, The Girl In The Golden Atom, this is a fun story, Cat-Woman, flies by the seat of his pants, bad stuff in here, as a relatively short weird menace, shudder story, so similar much better idea, serums that transform you, a lot hornier, more idea filled, Sam Moskowitz on Ray Cummings, went downhill, never evolved to keep up with the times, formulaic, 1938, Ambrose Bierce, this genre didn’t exist, a story about glands, the science of glands, 1910s and 20s, the gland doctor in France, put this in a novel, mad scientist in France, a cutting from testicle from a young monkey, Bobby Derie’s blog, wealthiest men in Paris, complete nonsense, great scientist, have they retracted the story yet, the little touches, there was a magazine, that magazine had the formula, I never found that magazine, maybe she is a cat-woman, very meta, lurid covers, ladies being tortured, fed into machines, when they get nude, delivers on all fronts, exotic northern Quebec setting, palpitating breasts, her heart is beating so hard it makes her breasts beat, palpitations, am I fighting a drug or am I really sleepy?, can see out, writhe around on the animal skin rugs, jumps out the window, bad planning, four characters in this story, made no sense, masturbating in the corner while she dances around on the rugs, terrible plotting, terrible, horrible, a grindhouse 42nd street horror movie, very entertaining and over the top, entertained, trouble visualizing, so very visual, a floorplan of the cabin in the woods, needed to be in the same room as her, wakes up, girl dancing around, a big mirror thing, now that she’s my wife, she looks in the mirror, saw him as a cat, then a literal cat shows up, why does it have a baby in its mouth?, unburied baby?, the cat after all, badly put together, was fixing this story worth Ray Cummings’ time, pulp fiction factoids, Frederik Pohl, bulldoze Pohl, wearing a cravat, almost unusable stories, your standard pulp author didn’t write a second draft, after editorial notes or revisions, how Weird Tales worked, make some changes, I like money, I will not accept payment, my words are perfect, something in common, Lovecraft needed money, scrip harder, he wouldn’t work, he couldn’t work, rich as a child, grandfather was wealthy, wife taking care of him, sending cheques, artists need to be supported, inheritance money, residual stuff, lived with his aunts, rent and food was cheap, three suits, not buying a lot of stuff, editorial revision business, Edison’s laboratory assistant, Edison’s philosophy, Thomas Edison, mix these chemicals together, shrink ourselves down, looking through a microscope at a piece of gold, become very small, just a matter of looking in your cupboards until you find the right chemical, great men before corporate, Elon Musk, emerald mine, get a bunch of guys working for you, a patent troll, Musk isn’t as a bad, E.E. Doc Smith, invented powdered sugar, manufactured it industrially, revised it, space opera, doesn’t need to be set near Titan, a tour of the solar system, protect the whole solar system, as an ideas man, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Diamond Lens, covered in mirages, fun, stupid, fun, from the text, forays to the faraway undisciplined Pluto, colonial thing, tropical Venus, Aryl, stupendous and neverending mirages, Jesse’s Paul hat, his anti-Paul hat, mining anything near Saturn, too fuckn cold, nuclear power all the time, radiation, make it into heat, energon cubes make no fuckn sense, purple, pinky purple, I eat energon cubes, to sell cars that transform into robots, disguises, you think I’m just a boring, my uncle was in the Navy, a mcguffin to chase after, if Jack London had written this story it would be way better, lab assistant, Wells was the lab assistant to Huxley, learning shit, science teacher, The Star by H.G. Wells, Goliah, a device that zap people out of existence, blackmail the capitalists into obeying him, you don’t need it to be set around Titan, wanting to change reality using his tech, more science fictional, when E.E. Doc Smith solves problems, we can’t restart the warp engines cold, the mechanism of the plot, somehow do the thing that is impossible, during the battle they invent technology, Borg shit is fake science fiction, nothing real and tangible, to engage in a new relationship with reality, bad science fiction vs. fake science fiction, pretty different, what makes something a western?, Outland (1981), sean connery in space, High Noon (1952) in space, a western in space, is this story science fiction?, just cuz the guy wants to do eugenics, the invisibility shield, small details, invented from not used, prevents them from having an incident, we have nuclear weapons in our cargo hold, had them, didn’t use them, the combination, trying to change the world, bad at his job, a plan to do so, a new race of humans, rich, capitalist, large mine holdings on Titan, visiting dilettante, hostages for money?, science fiction but not good science fiction, the gland formula, moving the goal posts, weird fiction possibly by science fiction, werewoman, also possibly, the narrator turns into a cat, it could be it was a science fiction, I lost the documents, undercutting it on purpose, read the end, secret formula in a published magazine, Frozen Canyon, Jeanne and I, glorious vibrant young body that nature gave her, she is normal, a scheming criminal half mad with lust, had never seen the French magazine she mentioned, there was no such magazine, the product of a deranged mind, she disrobes, gazing at her beauty in her bedroom mirror, the grinding maw, for you see sometimes a strange lethargy, cat naps, gleaming green and yellow, my mind is tottering, the watchful eyes upon, like a cat watches a mouse, the ambiguity, doesn’t impact the rest of the book, is there any supernatural activity in this story, half-breed French Canadian in the north, Franklin’s motivation, wait until she gets her money, gotta see her naked, you can’t wait five minutes to see her dance nakedly, nice and ambiguous ending, are we reading a diary entry?, if you go back early enough in the story, undercuts his whole story, if we drank milk we’d all be like cows, the doppleganger one, real science fiction, Mike Vendetti narrated, what supernatural thing happened? what scientific thing happened?, dosing with something apparently, spanish fly, masturbation talk, to perform for her guardian, doesn’t deliver, buy your thesis, precluded from science fiction, breed a new race?, white man’s law, given the period, philosophers have said, atavistic, ray weapon, primitive urge, the great simians who he resembled, a south seas story can be science fiction, Island Of Dr. Moreau, A Thousand Deaths, dogs and disintegration, The Monster Men, amnesia, therefore worthy of the daughter of the scientist, memory returned to Quarl, orderly procession of the stars, the artificial gravity, very early, pre-Heinlein, very interesting, as the ship rotated, a thick swathing of bandages, peaked face, rotten, a portable apparatus, progenitor, this will work, an agreeable warmth, a great lassitude followed, filled the blouse, tunic, blue trousers, gold braid down the side, clothing talk, one of the chosen, the chosen race, an out and out damned pirate, what else?, inscrutably melancholy, the idealism of a poet, many means, disguise one’s purpose, for instance, felt himself redden, Strom was a zealot, prompt penetration, the point is he wants him to join the team, breeding a new race, takes generations, Hitler’s plans, it won’t work, the fiction part, because it was real, trying to do something science fictional, before Hitler, not running his race programs, everybody loved it, homegirl, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, sterilize, its a good story for what it is, how short it is for the amount of material that is in it, romance stuff, an outline rushing through the material, get to the ideas, who in this group is fun to hang out with?, the author more than the characters, genuine science fiction opening, faltered in her course, stockholders, visitors, aware of a cessation, bad sentence beauty, parts of Cat-Woman, badly worded, fictitious gravity, main salon, the entire midship section, to flounder in helpless confusion, they’re being attacked, skipped past, not a good story, interesting and kinda fun here and there, trouble following it, poorly written, omniscient, first person, a character narrator, more economy there, how to tell stories, 1st person, 3rd person, close and far, really important, detective novels told 1st person, Sherlock Holmes, 1st person from the 2nd main character’s point of view, Watson’s POV, very easy to follow, if he did see it he didn’t observe it, 3rd person, tightened up, Ray Cummings masturbating while writing this story, sexy stories, the girl here is terrible, how she is behaving makes no sense, aliens who come to Earth to kidnap all the women, not writing in the first half of the 20th century, explorers, our universe is an atom in a larger structure, make themselves really big, you’re blind, why are your blind, my eyes don’t work, why don’t you just replace your eyes, execute him, more ethical than we are, had Heinlein written that, a 10page philosophical discussion, elemental and frenetic, and then this happened, why it has a bad reputation, Lester Del Rey writing really short stories, three book series, good stuff as well, more detail, more sweat put into it, Jonathan as a the new Paul, shownoting a show with Paul, invite him back, email Evan, Cora couldn’t show up because her mom died, reschedule for sometime in the future, other plans, I honor my commitments, arguing himself into something, Paul makes the show worse, talking over people, not all being in the same room, a delay, distracted, bad for the listener, Paul can contribute well but often doesn’t, “comps” is what they call them, bad thinking, being worried about spoilers, bad modes of thought, why are other people interested in spoilers, fundamentally misunderstanding, ladies in glass cylinders coming to earth, 7 minute story, aliens kidnap all the women, research projects, spiderwomen, an excuse to read it, beef with this story as a cat-woman story, made her a pig, wildcat, mountain lions, didn’t do any research, remote or something, not thinking it through, care about ideas more than writing, nice writing, experiencing the story sequentially, the end is the most important part, two exciting novels, Donald E. Westlake crime novel, new Ace Double, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, no Alex?, LibriVox, set in Florida, good noir opening, Murder Mistress by Robert Colby, “Scott Daniels is a washed up showbiz announcer who hit the bottle a few too many times and blew his big chance.”, three and half hours, a lady drowning in quicksand as a sex fetish, mud, this is a new time, naked on a bed, I could read that, crime and mystery stories, more interested in the phenomena of these horny novels, naked woman on the bed pointing a gun, pink unmentionables, green negotiables, Killing Time by Donald E. Westlake, Ben Tucker, Smith will squawk, the small town aspect, Westlake is really good at his job, eating a ham sandwich, I’m looking for a guy named Smith, heavy browed, hand painted and too wide, front name, this is your lucky night, nice prose, painted ties, vintage 1961 feeling, Westlake is awesome, 4.5 hours, zoned out again, check in, a push notification, something stupid, addicted to the petty bourgeois, small freeholder, yeoman?, the dopamine, 46, pick up from you, it is good to get out of the house, enough to pay minimum wage, it is good to have hobbies, put a scanner somewhere in the middle of that, give it to the world, even just covers, archive.org’s custom scanner, ones from China, funky, wanting to preserve the book, designed for bound books, you can’t crack the spine on a sewn book, reams, come loose, quasi pornographic, Lost City Of The Damned by Alec Rivera [Charles Nuetzel], horny science fiction novel, sex, excitement, and the unknown, terrible in all the right ways, John Kendrick Bangs, Bangsian fantasy, like Beetlejuice (1988), The Good Place, A Houseboat On The Styx, inspired Riverworld, collaborative, a sequel, four books in the series, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Inferno, ghost stories, it just goes on, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, so cool, he doesn’t know where it is going, offered him $100,000, Thorne Smith, person turning into a goldfish, The Stray Lamb, Topper series, a navy, nautical fiction, supernatural, when a book that’s falling apart, there’s lots of things I could do, an unassailable defense, E.W. Hornung’s Raffles, the gay response to Sherlock Holmes, not being gay enough, Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, Bunny, a burglar, unbelievably gay, the lady in the mud puddle, in mud puddles?, why is this a thing, high heels, Barrett Whitener, mild mannered, Cary Grant, ok?, 1937 film, the novel is public domain, a few TV series, 78 episodes, Eric Idle, Transformers: The Movie (1986), Roddy McDowell, Bettlejuice sequel that nobody asked for, curious, what was left to be said?, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), an imperfect novelization, something really cool, a lot of infodump, an excuse to explain, depopulated Australia, shot without permission, one week at a time, in terms of story, reading it through a novel, more action and is simpler, incredible astounding wonderful, dog dies in both, Mel Gibson, [he has a monkey in the third one], 4th one is not good, 5th one, worst kind of idea, go watch the backstory happen, a very unnecessary film, 7 minute standing ovation at Cannes, just because a movie gets a trophy, Eisner awards, a popularity contest, a lady doing the petition, more like the nebulas, people campaign, understood the process, how to get into comics, Maus, not entertaining for kids, better than other homework assignments, leaves his burner on, wants to save on matches, a very long term view of this show, Jesse has an ideology (campaigning for certain things, campaigning against certain things), very hesitant to ever give Amazon any money, most people go along, get along, bootstrap, the PDF page, to try to get more shit on Librivox, hasn’t worked out that well, LibriVox won’t use Jesse as a source, they use Project Gutenberg, Haithi Trust, why it takes so long, very precise, Canadian and Australian ones, FadedPage, Scott Miller [of the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast] is great, his agenda, to record unrecorded stuff, make a little bit of money, he likes this stuff, doing a ton of work, 200 episodes out, three times a week, he wants to mix it up, things that people request, ads in his podcast, the ones on youtube, on the other hand, an imperfect system, Mike [Vendetti] recording for Audible.com, he has other names too, The Last Spaceship by Murray Leinster, the mushroom world, The Mad Planet, Clifford D. Simak, more packaging?, mutual on twitter, stuff for fun, used to be Jesse’s job, a tape gun, very precise, do things fast, Halloween costume, against store bought costume, diplodocus?, cardboard costume, you can model things up out of cardboard, homemade costume, a standing desk, so unergonomic, way too low, no warehouse, fairly small objects, so lucky about media mail, guy from Britain, copies of Analog, Children Of Dune, $40 shipping, silly, Connor can’t get anything in and out of Australia for a reasonable price, New Zealand, horrific, a person in the world today, internet, worst shithole countries, tweeting from Gaza, delivery of things, if there was ever a case, start with mail, an essential service, what makes a country, parcels and letters and things across the place, what made the Mongols an empire, without getting Mongolized, the postal agency, the main job of the government, insurance and mail, universal coverage, being Westlakian, make that explicit, before eveveryone dies, he goes down so smooth, he’s a good guy, The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block, the purported author, wanted to join the CIA, gets recruited, assassinating the president, love the premise, suggest both, five political figures, one man with a gun is enough for the job, a man who’s sole life function, Miles Dorn, he’s so good, the one set in Ireland with a folksinger, hung out with Maissa, Passport To Peril, Reading, Short And Deep short Lawrence Block stories, wonderful narrator, very powerful, good with the openings, professional newscaster, sidethings, horrible ads, normcore, Apple podcasts, regionally targeted, government health insurance, Uber teen accounts, big city thing?, am against, not invented something new, 88th birthday, surrounded by the elderly, dangerous, they can cut you in their gangs, make friends with young people, work at it, make em come on your podcast, meeting young people through science fiction, one pulp fiction friend younger, a year younger, everybody else, fifty is pretty young, aint that young, conversations with people, the whole point is the side benefits, a lot of time looking at books you want to read, help kids pass tests and get better marks in school, let’s do something that will help in the future, don’t lose money at it, shovelling money out the door is unsustainable, maintaining, spend time around cool paperbacks, real conversations about books, most people don’t read, they gain in value, an insight into that period, 1931, 1938, investigate more shudders, weird menaces, weird fiction, Weird Tales is still being published, dude, trolling Jesse, this ideology, only share things that can be shared, worrying about the terminator gene, monsanto’s plan to destroy farming, doesn’t affect your worldview, support illegal things to stop the terminator gene, watch a minute of it to see the BC legislature, Edison Motors, response to Tesla, as a guy, electrifying logging trucks, powerful youtube channel, we better pay attention to this, invited called the Green Party, a third party, pretty small in B.C.’s legislature, a bill to change funding for vehicle subsidization, election’s coming up, very different from American politics, not wholly incompetent clowns, so much clownage is happening, spread everywhere, clown world now, more enclownified, Kentucky legislative proceedings, seeing the room, special costume, threw off that yoke, judges don’t dress up funny, tradition is all we have left, a gavel, Alien Nation, tv series, main white guy, main human guy, alien girlfriend, the way they do the show, there’s aliens, pull out some fact about Mr. Spock’s physiology, builds up lore, lore is the most serious problem any Star Trek has, moved all her stuff in, I see you put up the clowns, paintings of clowns, we do not have clowns in our culture, cirsova, mental maps, no massive overlaps, new fiction, imagine if you were going to open a restaurant, not allowed to use food from after a certain year, recipes are not copyrighted or trademarked, secret recipe, formulations vs. recipes, why do recipe books exist?, she wants to try new food, the creative art, I should write a book, like their poetry, a reference book, not supposed to read it cover to cover, ooh we could make that, get up the courage to do one of the things in there, look at my art, the cookbook is kind of a dead art because of the internet, youtube channels, food algorithm, instagram, twitter, I’m now going to talk about god for the next couple of minutes, preface your conversation about god, why Jimmy Dore quit pot, a Jungian analyst, funny and interesting, spoilers skip ahead, fuck off, they think they’re supposed to, people are very copying, Seventh Victim, you really need to sell it, when they go to read Sheckley, unwreckable, a visual display, lots of money being spent, go to work and feel happy or sad, the narrator explains, hailing, cars going by, a weedwhacker, on a porch, in a room, a novel about cars recorded in a car, doesn’t edit it, how ratchet that is, so charming, can’t even call it pirated, never going to come into, he wanted to read this book to you, he’s a human being, the ideal form of being, people telling a story, another person enjoying that story, and talking about that story, a really good pitch, Louis Rossmann, laptop repairman philosopher guy, right to repair, not everything should be a subscription service, the right way to go, not getting a lot of traction, no money behind it, individuals trying to be ethical, something like a movement, Rossmann has a billionaire backer, leverage political change, leveraging their youtube channel to get a government subsidy, can’t find a place to build their factor, they’re a municipality, Merritt, B.C., other countries are courting them, moving farther north, less investment taken, idle land, investment property, vocal complaints, we want government to be somewhat responsive, Apple will fuck it up on purpose, past the pain point, Starbucks getting shit on for Israel, Nancy Pelosi’s friends kids were killed, Starbucks gave $3 million, special beans, be on the phone with Nancy Pelosi to get shit happening, two gift cards, Tim Horton’s ones, Starbucks, big corporate now, its fine, donuts, Starbucks’ food is very expensive, $3.60, cheap for their products, an expensive part of the world, in terms of land, hard to find housing, a city but suburbs, unhoused, hobos, houseless, tentless, half a duplex, half-housed, housing many animals, some raccoons, big swollen teats, some babies, what racoon milk tastes like, the science of racoon milk, latch on and give a little suck, made redundant, life in rural Kentucky, mixed up with weird apologies for Joe Biden, Trump Derangement Syndrome, sniffing kids, blatant lying, confabulating memories, gross children grabbing, Astounding, doesn’t know he’s on camera, nobody calls him on it, his daughter’s diary, she left it somewhere, like the son left the laptops, woman sentenced to prison for stealing and selling Ashley Biden’s diary, going to therapy and telling the therapist her dad was having showers with her, pretty damning if true, Hunter calling his dad a pedophile, to hurt it his dad, pawing children, hand on a girl’s breast, evil that he gets away with that, a lot going around, what percentage?, double digits?, a survey, look around, just in your own life, it’s not zero, Biden paws girls breast, video distorts, granddaughter, here’s the apology for it, Natalie Biden, Beau Biden’s daughter, a Biden who’s not allowed to be a Biden, John Snow, what Game Of Thrones is about, politics, titillation, perverted sex stuff, Scott liked it, George R.R. Martin, huge entourage of women, Freya Stark, women’s brains, not a handsome man, got money, an attraction to the storytelling, for women, something to him, the first book is in the show, why people are into it, so much of it, the media stuff is not reading, people like talking about things around the watercooler, Americans are very prudish, HBO would have a little bit of nudity, traditionally verboten, high drama, reversals, responding to Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth is escapist, Martin’s vision of Westeros, trying to be realist, got dragons, war of the roses, infighting between royal families, bottom up characters, when you see a princess get raped, that’s dramatic, girl mind mentality, they’re different, common core, women are weaker than men, shorter than men, things growing inside your body for 9 months, women care about health more, watch Alien Nation with Meg, watch the pilot, cheer for schooling, the Ruby Bridges story, desegregation story, govt. agents, sit in a classroom by herself all day, very TV dramatic, how fucked up American morality is, prudishness, the names are so funny, the original 1988 movie, a family drama done as a buddy cop show, got punchy, funny names, Sam Fransisco, low level humour in the background, another baby, needs to find a binnaum, Albert Einstein, you’re gonna let Albert fuck your wife?, be in the room while the partner is being cuckolded, Heinlein style violation of norms, this is all biological, made up to tell stories like that, to break down prejudices, so lefty feelgood, genuine SF, little details, weirdly sexy show, sex stuff on Fox TV in 1990s, cancelled, brought it back, reshoot the final scene, set in 1995, highly rated show, second to last episode: child sex slavery with politicians, nothing stays in print anymore, Netflix shows removed from Netflix, lost the license or embarrassed, not vertically, horizontal, vs. spherical, own the mines for the raw materials for your cars, marketing and movie theaters, merging with competitors, productions that it greenlights, Quentin Tarantino will own Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) in 20 years, a Star Trek movie, see you next week.

Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings - from Terror Tales, May 1938

In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #813 – READALONG: What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown

Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown

Talked about on today’s show:
how to spell Fredric, mostly famous for a short story [Knock], The Star Mouse, The last man on earth sat a lone in a room. There was a knock on the door., a story stub, the basic premise, For Sale Baby Shoes never used., people who are really into science fiction from the 40s from astounding, from Planet Stories, Startling Stories, September 1948, some differences, 1 issue complete novel, 1949 hardcover, Lawrence Block had written this new Burglar book, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, a writer’s writer, Donald E. Westlake, dead much longer, Anthony Boucher, great, pretty good, before its time, multiverse shit, a little annoyed with it, overwrite, overexplain, sense of disorientation, conversations about bug-eyed monsters, when the women were dressed like this, the crowd chanting for Mechhy, stuff we’re missing, a review of the new Fallout show, a review of the review, a criticism of the show based on its a videogame that got turned into a tv show, enjoying it for spot the thing, fanservice, oh look a callback!, servicing the audience of Startling Stories and the like, early postmodernism, self-referential, woman wears the brass bra, green bikini-top, the space-girl uniform, B.E.M. is a deep cut today, 1950s with movies, kidnapping girls in film, up to the 80s, space girl uniform, when you’re in outer space, we have spacesuits, are they thin clear plastic?, girl in bikini in space, she needs to have a pressure suit, a plastic bag so you can see her legs, the art from the original, our hero fighting a bug-eyed monster, clouds, he’s asleep, fitting into a tradition, Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee, a representation of Surprising Stories, Earle Bergey, the father of the brass bra, bad at bug eyed monsters, great at girls, in this other world, he’s much better at doing bug-eyed monsters, venusians, arcturians, moon creatures, human models, good logic, a fun and funny book, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), tired of, a non-Marvel Marvel movie, has actual emotional resonance, the phenomena that happens, shit on then becomes mainstream, has to hit the official checklist, a science fiction movie about multiverses, guy who snaps his fingers, Thanos?, not official channel, groupthink, indpendent film that got made and blew up, as a science fiction movie, a family that’s struggling with itself, a science fiction device, what it’s like to deal with each other, the phrase, “above the mental level of a comic book”, nobody would accept this plot, it’s too low level, artistic contempt rolls down hill, comics at the bottom, Planet Comics, this is in the book, pulp magazine editors calling their magazine’s books, being aspirational, low social standing, what this whole book is about, semi-respectable, jobless, a lowly writer, a plagiarist, most important robot in the universe, his version of earth, now he’s the publisher, most sexy girl on the planet is now his wife, the angst of being a writer in 1940s, be respected and respectable, the girlfriend of the nerd, Rocket Talk, social strata, also true in our world, commercial product, Multiverse Of Madness, Spider-Man version, the most mainstream version of a lowly science fiction thing, official approval, did the Christopher Reeve movie, stupid comic book shit, stupid comic book shit took over, Disney+, main theme, having fun, reflecting, a roman-a-clef, story with a key, match characters for real life people, going to visit an author in upstate New York, paid for a novel but hasn’t started it, Theodore Sturgeon, interesting factoids, one version of Surprising Stories, very graphic on the cover, the Mecchyverse, the cause of all this later stuff, fun, when Heinlein did his multiverse stuff, ultimately where all of this ends up, an interesting case, basically one story [Make A Prison], all literary allusion to one poem, taking metaphor, that’s not how normal science fiction operates, if he’s finally doing that, maybe it’s going to be good, the prose is really solid, there were things that didn’t need to be there, a fairly short novel, slightly changed, titles of chapters, words here and there are different, he explained everything, science fiction pulp concepts with logical explanations, even the moon has an atmosphere, set in the future, published in 1948 but set in 1954, cold war paranoia, East Berlin, shoot you on sight, McCarthyism, a preview of that, ahead of its time, everybody is looking for spies, so cool, a time travel sort of story, doesn’t know the rules, the history, good insight into the book, a legit bug-eyed monster science fiction future, how their world became that much different, the world of Winton, no major differences other than a rocket to the moon, capacitor explosion, completely disintegrates one person, a future that didn’t happen for the United States in 1955, doing so many things at once, making fun of science fiction magazines of the 1940s, the fan was at the bottom of the pool, the best fan, the editor wants fans to write in, a shit disturber, makes jokes and fun, more addicted to the magazine, see your name in print, what we see as youtubers wanting subscribing, need engagement, asking questions, just a youtuber was bad, real media, feeling you’re a low level guy, the fan wants to be the best fan, the publisher is gone, all of it logically follows, everything is explained, the levels of meta, the universe a grown man imagines would be inside a 14 year old boy’s imagination, an impressive feat, not-super-super memorable, not-very science fictiony, The Number Of The Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, Lazarus Long says to Heinlein: look there’s Dorothy, L. Frank Baum, writers who write other universes, detailing 666 universes, already tired of it, seems like it was new, the twist is the multi-verse aspect, he holds off until the very end, precursors, Sidewise In Time by Murray Leinster is from the 1930s, a hand stand-in characters, E.E. Doc Smith, Zap Branigan style Doppleberg or whoever, space aliens doing spy stuff, we have to shoot the people on sight, multiverse, 1895, philosopher/psychologist, all plasticity and indifference, the etymology, comes from stuff like solipsism, you’re the only thing that’s real, doesn’t get you very far, coffee later, even if hit by a bus, all solipsism are true, the stupid wrong way to go, my truth, there aren’t private facts, the private language argument, Tolkien had a private language for a while but had to start sharing it with some elves, telepathy, graduate thesis out of being just a hack writer, a girlfriend who will respect him, Doppel, made himself French, he doesn’t know anything about it, the Winton editor who looks like him a little bit, she looks even better, all very fun, why did those two characters swap, so plot could happen, a narrative that swallowed itself, interesting philosophical implications, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, what is real, post-modern rabbit hole, Rick And Morty, six episodes is probably enough, took the whole thing of Futurama, hasn’t fully established, handful of tropes, hasn’t worked out all the kinks, he’s the publisher now, does he have the skills to manage a publishing empire?, invite your editors to your mansion in the countryside, Hearst, Patty Hearst’s story, money to feed poor people, robbing a bank, caught or burned to death, sentenced to prison, commutes her sentence, president pardons her, what was going on her mind?, things are mean, your grandpa is a horrible person, I like my grandpa, FBI gets here, grandpa says I want her out, I’d like my granddaughter to have a pardon, yessir, main character syndrome, comic book level, that level of corruption, if it has any point at all it is about that up and down contempt, night gangs, an awesome sequence, get robbed, robs a guy, moon-drugs, space-planes, well worked out, looking up and looking down, good thinking on Jesse’s part, pulp magazines: 10 Story Book, Fantasy Book, a different etymology, contempt, folk tales as opposed to fairy tales, massively blinded, Remarkable Story Of Chicken Little, how good it is, so simple and so good, finding new insights, in it, washed over a million liters of water over a million years, this beautiful rock, using tricks and an idea, trying to fill page, a grandma, tell them a story, it gets inside of them and comes out later when they’re older, meme idea of story be what’s most different about humans as opposed to other animals, contempt for Little Red Riding Hood, kids’ stuff, what is it good for, for understanding skepticism, how do you know it, so girls will respect and marry you, Jesse is right about all of this, Will hates to say it, work that comes after it, Philip K. Dick novels, sudden slipping into another reality, the tenor of it, when it happens in Dick, Dick always undermines, he sets up a thing to be skeptical about, another rug under there, bewilderment and bemusement, not a great novelist structure, make an argument for the sake of argument, something being said about the nature of contemporary society, one’s ability to perceive reality, there’s great pleasure in reading his discombobulated stuff some time, doesn’t feel that way when you read Dick, Solar Lottery, chosen at random, an interesting idea, there’s a lot of running around, when he’s writing longer pieces there’s a lot of running around, bad for the story, liking the experience of living in a universe, the action set pieces in this book were incredible, driving through the darkness, dead reckoning, twitter, postmodernism and nihilism, a little bit of nihilism in this book, if an infinite number of universes, making all the possible choices, nicely dismissed by Mecchy, you’re you, alternate universe Jesse, mirror universe, not very dark, very joyful read, bemused, the coins, the questions, when he’s on the train, the cots, regrets that instantly, mist-out, if that’s his worst sin, first Fredric brown, Arena, he likes his parodies of reality, near the end of WWII, man from earth is locked in mortal combat with a big red monster, USA vs. Japan in the Pacific, retelling current events with a wink and a nod, man vs. Japan man, fields of technology, the idea of Star Trek in the first place, the klingons are the mongols, the romulans are the soviets, Roddenberry’s philosophy, come let us reason together, humans won’t be racist, Scotsman and Japanese man African ladies, guy from Iowa, Soviet guy, mystery and crime stuff, The Case Of The Dancing Sandwiches, Lawrence Block wrote a little bit about Brown, multiple layers of reality, continually subverting his own story, replicant, very internal, Maze Of Death, playing a video game, weird book about prisons and planets and not knowing where you are, a derelict ship in space, a collective hallucination, The Days Of Perky Pat, colonist on Mars or wherever, dolls, barbies, The Sims, the kids are shooting bugs for dinner, where it comes from for Philip K. Dick, super horny guy, super thoughtful guy, playing with barbies, tries to participate, what does this mean?, many stories about games (Monopoly), Roog, a dog’s psychology, garbage men come, the aliens come and take the offering urn, the dog goes crazy, that dog is barking too much, were they aliens?, there’s no answer, is that post modern?, Overdrawn At The Memory Bank by John Varley, go inside a lion’s brain, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Total Recall, Dick would have inverted it, likes pulling the rug out, the twist is he didn’t know there was a twist there, blogpost from 2011, Fredric Brown, 1958, Trapped Detective and Guilty Detective, New York Mercantile Library, pennies a day, freshman year, roommate, The Wench Is Dead, the Merc, a Friday, a bottle of Jim Beam, bourbon, Murder Can Be Fun, dangerous, Agatha Christie, the book barely half finished, a printer, The Fabulous Clipjoint, Ed and Am Hunter, Martians Go Home, and abundance of short stories, every story he told, read the first paragraph and relax, Night Of The Jabberwock, Louis Carroll enthusiasts, 1972, the day came when it was too late, clean engaging prose, you know you’re in good hands, very easy reading, smart, supersmooth, the nostalgia, the 40s pulps, as a writer now, self-publishing, there’s no market where a writer can live by his pen right now, self-publishing, in 75 years when the internet is still around, listen to this podcast, when did twitter become x?, you can’t be nostalgic for things that happened before you were born, paperback anthologies, digest magazines, the letters section, some of them do, the number of pages devoted to letters, where Lovecraft got started, fiction and poetry, shitposting is a huge percentage of what’s going on in the letters’ columns, in anthologies, they remove the art, they remove the context, rupture easers and Rosicrucians, the rosy crescent folks sent to Wayne June, stories evolving and devolving, fan demand, a meta-story, writing stories in the story, plagiarizing himself, if written today it would be insufferable, family of Chinese people who are upset with each other, where everybody has a beard, self-promote, Will’s review of Galaxy magazine, not a great cover, one of the best science fiction magazines, Galaxy Science Fiction, Alfred Bester, Arthur C. Clarke, Gravy Planet, The Stars My Destination, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, the power of editors, pushing vs. servicing, John W. Campbell, Horace Gold, a thesis about how science fiction should be, not his first thing, good ideas, interesting ideas, got the magazine out there, he was making the magazine, subservient to the publisher, the important part of this book that’s not right on the surface, whichever Hearst, your ancestor’s legacy, a good producers of science fiction, the real turn, super hilarious, a bug eyed monster, Alan Moore, everybody’s into pirate comics, stories set in the universe he came from, a really famous author, ripping off Asimov and Clarke, agree and disagree, ideas are cheap, it’s the writing that counts, good short stories, getting good ideas to fit together vs. novels, the one you bang out on the weekend, two covers paper in the middle, not exactly a novel, Jesse’s definition, the platonic idea of a novel, something Stephen King wrote, that’s the thing that will sell right now, Suzanne Collins?, Rick Riordan?, used to be Anne Rice, slice of time, Danielle Steele, Agatha Christie, mysteries not novel, mysteries can be short stories, the word “novel”, “romance”, an acceptable thing you can do if you are in the acceptable class, sleeze books, cultural, socioeconomic, want to subscribe to the New York Times but can’t afford it, I’m above these people, defining class by ideology, a set of ideas in people’s minds, it’s not the editors, it’s not the owner of a particular magazines, your editor is now your employee, the last powerful editor, Arianna Huffington, there’s no editors though, Anthony Boucher suddenly flown into our universe, Neil Clarke, make money?, not enough to live on, sells a lot of books, how the website supports itself, 10 cents a word, it’s horrible, Peter Watts, too much new science fiction, what’s good or not, Clarkesworld, a firehose, trying to keep up, January 2010, The Things by Peter Watts, 14 years ago, hate reading, doing some research, this story’s just like this other one, someone taking down Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations, the Helicopter one, the N.K. Jemisin one, you’re a fucker, the killing of children is ok, we need a police state to stop you from thinking bad, post-post-modern, the best analayis, when somebody accuses somebody of doing something, accusation coming from a place inside, right wing memes, retweeted some Tucker Carlson interview, projection, they’re killing children at the border, where is this accusation coming from, classic projection, unconscious, accusations are true, the lady who killed her puppy, never heard about this lady, might be a vice president, bad team, the word “puppy” rather than “dog”, oh what happened, the quotes they like to pull, I hated that dog, there’s always context, there isn’t infinite funds, city life, killing involved in farm life, hunting for food, they’re not willing to look at the circumstances, big hate on, a USA today article, she put this in a book, advance a political career, support with people who’ve, guy goes to sit with dog in a pound, the reality, is this a horror stories, the most horrible part of this story, a poor political instinct, central part of the United States, a decreasing number, farms are consolidated, not getting invited to Mar-a-Lago, [Malcolm Nance], Jonathan predicts J.D. Vance will be Trump’s VP, pretends to be a hillbilly, Hillbilly Elegy, quasi-sociology, that whole region, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, why did he pick Pence, governor of Indiana, midwest, come back north, the most disturbing state, an uncomfortable, the KKK, Indianapolis is fine, how many states?, enriching, eastern seaboard, traveling has dropped out, a roadtrip across the country, pre-pandemic, Michigan is nice to visit, a certain item that is legal there, partakes, beaches, great lakes, shopping, go through Ohio, Bloomington, Indiana University, Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, a dynamic person, some king od laughing stock, contempt for him, a lot of contempt, Alaska, Sarah Palin, who the official fool is, Saturday Night Live, Gaza protesters, good to figure out where the liberals are, Michael Che, Joe Biden, wouldn’t laugh or clap, Colin Jost, suck off his old man balls, father of the nation, Mommalla Harris, annoying uncle, weirdly young father, when the Queen was alive, she’s an lady, lives in another country, how fuckin retarded are you people?, the parents for the country, the competent killer dad, he’s gonna hit you with his belt, whoever’s running the show, Xi memes, reaction, looks like Winnie The Pooh, competent manager, if we have to have this whole thing managed, a weird election, RFK, Jr., be assassinated, a tradition, if he makes the debates, how can there be debates?, one guy can’t debate, in court during the debates, the court case, after the election, indicted for many things, the perception, more in the public eye, the last poll, the intent, no good strategy, if you’re cheating, physically unable to campaign, there’s media though, Truth Social, when shitlibs are reacting on twitter, more cynical, WWI in prison, Eugene Debs, compare, campaigning, alien and sedition acts, not actually against the war, which war, improved since them, Lyndon LaRouche, ideological straightjacket, everybody calls you a nazi, everybody calls you a fascist, a railroad that goes all around the world, incoherent, his followers, almost a cult, coherent but hard to understand, be very skeptical, Jimmy Carter says he has lust in his heart, brain or crotch, memories in my head, prominent conspiracy theories, why do you think that’s a slur?, the origin of conspiracy theories, collateral damage, the popular phraseology, the phrase infects people’s brains, vaccine denier, controls you, the best memes are the ones that are obviously untrue, the really dangerous memes, national anthems, we’re all part of this melting pot, you got tricked, the internet gaslights you, take screenshots, child drag queen contests, drag story readings, what’s going on, one picture shared over and over again, any time a claim is made, drill down, Howard Hawks is the greatest American filmmaker of all time, Hitchock is from Britain, any claim that somebody makes is potentially acceptable, a positive thing, closer to reality, floating in the sky above, on the internet you’re sit with so many claims, processing a whole magazine, only in politics mode right now, how many followers to following, Scott is back on twitter, Victims of Capitalism, Paphlets, Ahoy Comics, Garth Ennis, Tom Peyer, summer just got better, Barrett Brown, Appalachian Aesthetics, Edison Motors, that’s a crazy take, Trump Derangement Syndrome, creativity, the internet pushes you to conform, work through one idea, pushes you towards other ideas, massive defense mechanism, be creative, a tool, three cards from a deck, just a tool, ad hygiene, 765, there are valuable things to pay attention to, the mute button, a boomer tweeting about how Trump is bad, a little bit useful to know what this age and class group, a lot of time for twitter, the class basis for both parties, older boomer, retired with a house, Robert Kroese, Basedcon, trad writer, indie writer, what does successful mean?, sells books, really into ai, he thinks it’s good, gaslit into thinking its good, the main character is the same, dive back into, emdash, hot water once again, uncommitted crimes, roped, bad writing in there, carpool buddy, android assassins, Syd Mead, trademark wit, guy who’s trynna make a little cash, what percentage goes to Amazon, freakin out about bitcoin, understanding vs. making money, gold speculation vs. a gold miner, a visceral reaction, a new basis of an economy, trying to wreck as many industries as they can, worried about ai, a real possibility, the last generation that writes books and make art, people don’t make art to make money, the whole point is people write to make money, if this was written today, the archaeological experience of finding out about a society from long ago, old stuff teaches you more, even in a bad story from a long time ago, you kinda already know with what today is like, destitute in New York, you plagiarize, making money and art, art existed before money and will exist after money, I don’t know if people will exist but some robot will be in a cave spraying paint from its mouth onto a cave wall and then finger painting some robot animals its gonna go hunt later, you owe me five male deer, is Stephen King an artist, sometimes result in art, what is art anyway?, what you do when you aren’t doing money, poetry is art, very elitist, to show their disdain for money, Robert E. Howard was not disdainful, Lovecraft wrote poetry to make fun of people, what is beauty, hot girl on a cover of a pulp magazine, Allen Anderson, that’s art, also commercial, you know art when you see it, it’s like pornography, Weird Tales authors writing poetry, housewives, Clark Ashton Smith, marketable skill, The Black Diamonds by Clark Ashton Smith, doing other things, sculpture, 1911 story, The Mahout, an elephant driver, 20 years later, The Justice Of The Elephant, written for money, to prove to himself that he was a professional writer, sold The Black Cat, Jack London, once you know who you are you can be happy, having edited so many magazines, how art intersects with commercialism, an essay by Sonia Green (Lovecraft’s wife): Commercialism The Curse Of Art, art is separable from commerce, designs and sells hats, capitalism fucks things up, his letters to Weird Tales, philosophy of story telling, this is what he said, why Weird Tales became good, they’re tied together but not the same thing, how come you’re not paying me for the stories, a farmer of chatGPT shit, Jeff Bezo’s sharecropping platform, King Nihilism, why upset, not upset, he should know better, larger follower count, he sells books, t-shirts, partially live off, A Scammer Darkly, Aye, Robot, clickbait, Starship Grifters, a lot of reviews on Amazon, he’s popular, 289 pages, 1,336, A Grift Too Far, isn’t this guy a Christian?, Jonathan doesn’t strike Jesse as a Christian, the Mormon church is basically a communist system, excommunicated, mutually supportive, for you career you should convert, Scientology, very nice people, the Celebrity Center, scientologists on bikes with guns, they want you to do well, more than a tithe, voluntary, they got their shit together at this point in the religion, he’s not a threat, how’d you know my name, better than the FBI and the city police, they all have audiobooks, what would be the advantage of reading it?, unless its awesome, not doing an audiobook, talked Jonathan out of it, cigars and their history, goes back to the Spanish conquest, what’s the etymology of cigar?, Mayan, cigarettes are female, little one, frails, rap terminology, usherette, racquette, rockette (a little rocket), narrating substack posts, robot versions, better than nothing, too long, cooped up nothing to do, reviewing counts as art, criticism can be art, recording reflections, some feedback, a would be art dealer in New York, the industry is a scam, big time art dealer, look at this awesome book, Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson, the premise is awesome, a planet of girls!, a government of girls, a swaggering and roistering navy of girls, the social message of it, fear governments, a lady riding a bird, a lasso, lasso our hero, they’ve never seen a man, deformed girl, get you, its true, he does look like a woman, both have nipples, bipeds, Robert Silverberg, The Woman You Wanted, Future Science Fiction, excellent cover art, a story by Weinbaum redone by Silverberg, gestalt something, driven by art, on a streak, a few novels, The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair, the audiobook is done by Mike Vendetti, closed mouth in terms of judgements, that was a good one, only four hours long, Second Ending by James White, so much new content, good job!, Live Gold by Robert Sheckley, crime/spy books, a John D. MacDonald, Collision Course by Robert Silverberg, 2 novels by Samuel R. Delany, The Star Pit, no interest in character, The Einstein Intersection, [The Hemingway Hoax], mind changed, less-new wavy, Babel 17, doesn’t make me racist, Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, need excuses to not read things, the most charitable explanation, excuse providers, an obligation to read any science fiction writer, winnowing, excuse, no more excuses, Nice Girl With Five Husbands by Fritz Leiber, Scott Miller [The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast], The Abandoned Of Yan by Donald F. Daley, If, March 1963, After her husband left her…, she had no family, going up ramp to say goodbye to the children, what the heck kinda world is great, some heavy stuff, five pages long, Imagination, he’s good, he has the right aesthetic, Philip K. Dick requests, people like all the stuff, hear a story they didn’t know existed, for commercial purpose, an enthusiast, also not for a commercial purpose, horrible ads, ads are horrible, Ursula K. Le Guin, ads are telling you lies, what do English majors do?, use you powers for good: art, use your power for evil: ads, how do I help people, adblocker, people are conditioned to tolerate ads, they’re teaching you what they want you to be taught, David Currie, Pamphlets, 10 things that Stalin did that were wonderful, doesn’t say ended famines, ended feudalism famines, a student locked out of his Microsoft account, why do you think Stalin is bad?, defensive of stop interacting, the leader of China in 1780, some emperor and empress, the last emperor, put him to work with a broom, what they did in Russia, an expedient way to solve a problem, and yet…, there’s a story behind stuff, George Orwell, being anti-communist, trotsykite conservative flow, Max Shachtman, mainstream figures in the AFICIO, supporting the Vietnam War, Christopher Hitchens, you have to always be humble and go back to first principles, how do we minimize that, AOC one is much funnier, eat the rich dresses, a workin lady, no principles gets you to whatever will allow you to live in that ecosystem, one of your magacommunist people, cosmonaut, 1. fought the banks, 2. drained the swamp, pro-purges, killing the royal family, killing the not good bolsheviks, mostly metaphors, you have to do a lot of unpacking, a reference to D.C., this is like a hype, not literally true, study the purges, jumping ahead to 4., the whole soviet people, Canada sent a boat, he’s not running for office now, before the war with the Nazis, what do you mean by best?, the war with Finland, running Trotsky out of dodge, Eisenhower was a colonel, they needed a good manager who made good decisions, defining what makes a good soldier, Napoleon seems to be a really good general, Rommel, and a good general and good man myth, The Desert Fox, propaganda on both sides, a standard technique, as a metaphor it fits, this is targeted, this is a cartoon for children, people know the phrase, massive conspiracy or killed lots of good people, that he died in office he did a pretty good job of purging, how Khrushchev got elected, just enough quorum, the political culture had become deformed, a tentative step, Stalin brought to his height and responsible for it’s end, homelessness, prostitution, Soviet democracy is way more democratic, Chinese democracy, meetings are fucking boring, not a lot of fun, grandmas and grandpas who have opinions, something you want to do, a young person, a Philip K. Dick novel, The Man Who Japed, the anticommunist case: look at all the meetings, “restored” is not the right word here, saved Europe, liberated eastern Europe, raised literacy, seems very plausible, turned Russia into a nuclear superpower, got Russia nuclear weapons, prerequisite for peace, the mainstream media tells us lies about Stalin, it wasn’t about personal aggrandizement only, treats, housing, almost a nationalistic patriotic fervor, transnational people, tariffs, ultracapitalists, defending your country from invasion, your nation’s resources, replace them, that’s a nationalist movement, the threat that Napoleon was, everybody has to have public education, pretty apt, power through a popular revolution, what happened, competent general, did Stalin fight in WWI?, Trotsky led the army, Stalin had a blue pencil, 10 Days That Shook The World, Trotskyite is the slur, Trotskyite tankie, in the comments, is this a parody account?, how would one know?, where’s the lie, Hitler built roads too, when did you stop beating your wife, liberals still mad about Molotov-Ribbentrop, roads just tell you where to go, easier to traverse than bushwhacking, banned by other things, whataboutism, questions about the restored part, regime or whatever, Nicholas Maduro was elected locally, elections everywhere, where don’t they have elections?, elections in North Korea, almost like he’s a king, his dad and grandad, a liberator, that steady hand, where don’t you get free and fair elections, more local, start worrying about Singapore, why am I worried about this?, who’s the bad guy here?, his southern neighbor for 70 years, are nuclear weapons good?, no, are nuclear weapons necessary?, yes, Cuba, the people will reject it, it doesn’t fit with the brand, a fight you can’t win, they have to kill everybody, a Gaza situation, a mask off of what they’re willing to do, Joe Biden is helping commit a genocide, also me wearing the sunglasses, Luke Skywalker, the special room in the White House eat from vending machines and pretend they’re journalists, doing the right thing, people can be so wrong, he doesn’t need more work, why does he believe it?, he’s old?, doesn’t see the videos?, tested a long time to realize something is bad, early trauma?, not willing to doublethink, a comfort level, maybe Bono is explained the same way, Sean Penn gave Zelenskyy his oscars, most people don’t participate at all, a minority that goes to vote, more non-voters than supporters of either party, big on twitter for one party, conservatives on twitter, people who are dumb as rocks, is Tucker Carlson a conservative, a spiritual and radical sickness, you can be a Christian and do a good interview, watching is the weird part, listening makes a lot of sense, not a Putin-liker, they never said Xi-puppet, literally a communist, transstuff is not communist, xi-communist, Chinese students, I can’t have housing because of socialism, understanding a lot of material, they might bulldoze your house but you get an apartment, housing is not the problem, more buildings than are needed, did really well in China and foreign invest it here, a tax on it, capital like land, the way to go, capitalism with a little spice of socialism here and there, mix of public and private, a rigorous control, international business, the party ideology is for a purpose, not just to make personal cash and reward your friends, what it’s for, a question in Chinese socialism, deviate towards great power chauvinism, a big country able to push around littler countries, the relationship to Vietnam, in the news very recently, China has invaded Vietnam, that was all pre, other than in Israel, we just want to control everything, China liberated Quebec/Tibet, come liberate British Columbia too, who are you liberating us from?, from the Americans, a liberation for the people, an abuse of the term, weird misunderstanding, Tibetans involved in the liberation of Tibet, back to monarchy, we don’t question the Dalai Lama, pedophile Fu Manchu who works for the US government, but not as cool, game respects game, threatens to not reincarnate, is there Dalai Lama in exile and a Dalai Lama local?, gulags archipelagos and Solzhenitsyn, a , more people incarcerated in the US than ever under Stalin, Jesse’s cookie problem vs. Will’s smoking problem, we’re not talking about me right now, it’s insidious, talk is what we take in as reality, words read with eyes or ears, what the chatter is, I heard covid is really dangerous, this one is very deadly, I’m feeling better, the test is available, you have covid?!?!, not a novel virus, a very tame virus, the chatter, the lady who sold Jesse her comics on Thursday, never stopped masking, dudes at the post office, how much traffic they have, how much they shaved, security blanket, used to think about sunglasses a lot, hats used to be a big thing, hats are okay, baseball caps, sunglasses and a hat, makes me look less bald, the sunglasses make me look cool, inappropriate sunglasses wearing, punctuating feelings, Only Angels Have Wings, always smoking/never has matches, an exchange of emotion and authority and empathy, cigarettes are a way for people to be generous to strangers and friends, a bunch of outcasts, always relying on those people, sharing a lighter, sunglasses are not as addictive, there’s a reason, an Apple watch, it’s an Apple watch, it’s a nice piece of kit, her phone, her heart, blood oxygen, regulated by the clock on the wall, a new tumbler from Starbucks, wanting to own it, take a photo of it and share it, it’s not for that, when you have too much money, unconscious unthoughthrough, I have to associate with the other team, wanna get dates, not answering your own question, universities investing, seeing dead children is traumatizing, in solidarity, exercising some sort of moral principle, those bad things are fake/necessary/what you get when , Destiny, Costco water is Hamas, Edward Snowden, dig it out root and branch, start with Madison Avenue (google/facebook), the stories of the stories of Madison Avenue, girls on parade, freedom sticks, ladies shilling cigarettes, the history of smoking in the United States, indians smoke, didn’t licoln smoke a pipe, not just a gay metaphor?, was Lincoln a pipesmoker?, Robert Abernathy’s Grandma’s Lie Soap, unable to lie, toothpaste, the world has changed, looks a little long, C.C. MacApp, chess player, And All The Earth A Grave, Darkness by Lord Byron, editorial introduction, there’s nothing wrong with dying, prospecting with his donkey, a new bookkeeping machine, blew a cog, humour all over the place, sell coffins, the big Christmas hit, Cabbage Patch Kid, coffin ports, automobile garages, a rich mahogany number, two black dots, the old prospector and his burro, Adams, some remark to the beast, Denver, skinny packrats, unburied coffins, Martians?, they’re gone Evie, we gotta start over, mild reproach, married to a jackass, The New Yorker, barbs, vintage New Yorker, its the thing, coffee, blast some meme, finish another Silverberg, podcast edits, prep for the next one, might even have a game, hunt for that dinner, Barry Convex, Cronenberg’s sells eyeglasses, surrounded by three teams, hide in the back of that car, everybody is getting killed, back of the car, don’t engage, hide, stay alive, he had a lot of fun, hiding is fun, simple adult version of hide and seek, save that cigar?, cats are smarter than that kind of thing, the texture, my cigar got eaten by my dog, do dogs eat tobacco, monkeys smoke tobacco, gorillas too, a bear that smoked, tourist encouraged chimp, North Korean zoo, in the Guardian so it must be true, associated press, the Big Book [atlas], South Korea produces clothing, counterfeit cigarettes, ip piracy, the important part, smoke the real thing, that the brands be honored, chimpanzee licking its fingers, Pyongyang, lights her own, just like us except for they’re ripped, she doesn’t inhale, monkey doing, monkey being, do not inhale, the juice, through skin, innerdermis, outerdermis, tissue, not an anatomist, human anatomy, Isaac Asimov’s Super Quiz, broke my clavicle, never broken a bone, skiing, uncoordinated, impressive, what about a bicycle, everybody just gave up, swim classes, fewer options to break your bones swimming, not be terrified of the water, interact with it in safe ways, horseback riding?, like fencing, how much you gonna use it?, looks cool, practice involved, other people with swords, household kitchen knives, practicing rumbling, seems kinda extreme, a knife that didn’t get used, never stabbed nobody with a knife, women debating, have you seen it?, punching fight?, that’s not a debate, women are capable of the violence necessary, a violent subtext to debate, you have to be in the same room, slap, challenge to a duel, why they get them up on the stage, two online youtubers, disconnecting, debate class, debating women, imagining Stephen Hawking in a debate with Trump, you can’t punch a guy who can’t move his limbs, you moderate, debate bro Destiny, overtalk the other person, drown out the other person, you better respect me, soibros, soiguys, walking around the world, are you serious?, you need to moderate your response, a physical threat there, what is the debate about, what should we do, what should be done, swaying the group, corporally control you, Edgar Rice Burroughs set on Venus, obvs. the Burroughs stand-in gets to be captain, the team that is against that is a strawman, just defect, another way of solving it is to get physically violence, be it resolved that…, trying to sway the audience, my learned colleague, the house of parliament, ungentlemanly behavior, distinguished gentleman, the sergeant at arms, enforce the will of the speaker, ejected, and or the mace is there, a way of preventing the debate from getting out of hand, the insult stage, a physical threat of violence, hands can be turned into fist, realized and recognized, why they had to ban dueling, wasting your team for killing the enemy, secret dueling, in the context of protestors at UCLA, the protestor’s response is to build barricades and fight back, are these people having a debate, protesting is I object, the speaker is the cops, or a vigilante, just as bad, worse, the occasional crazy person, life has meaning now, the paid operatives, zionist brownshirts, thug, are protestors peaceful or not, an organized protestor, a good idea, infiltrators, you organize the infiltrators, a committee, security culture, end up in a bad place, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Detroit PD and the FBI, pre-revolutionary communist movement, discipline, one of their best workers, parliamentarians, ultimately a cop, when do they become the Patty Hearst and join the workers for reals?, murderers and surveillers, after a certain critical mass, pain involved, incompetence, it’s falling apart, kids are not being taught how to read, reading is overrated as well, an important concern, if you cannot read well, the crazy part, they gotta get that money out now, turn to Russia, one things they never accuse him of is mismanaging the economy, spot fakers and call them out, your not even really voting for Biden, examples of public or private incompetencies, solve homelessness in California, if by solving…, money to friends who run organizations, voted up, lot of salaries, any kind of regulation, mergers, banking, find some area where things are doing well, Amazon is working, a monopoly that is consolidating, subsidizing from government contract, conservative Christians who want to be published, Costco’s membership model, the price is not so horrible, the return policy is really good, above industry standard, the return policy is important, extended warranty, will Best Buy around in five years?, appliances, decor, Lego, what bookstores, selling soap and candles, Barnes & Noble, floor space to fill, they don’t have used cheap books, what are books even about?, another dog collar store, another skin salon, people think Amazon is the place to get books, ABEBooks, Amazon is eating everything up, Audible, Brilliance, buy out your competition, very anti-Amazon, Amazon Web Services makes a profit, their business model, Elon Musk’s rockets, carbon offsets, twitter is not a money making concern, Prime is now putting in ads, now $3 more, we’ve just reinvented cable television, different sets of billionaires, the owners of the new media, capitalism is constant struggle, fitter-away their money buying skins, clogs to clogs in three generations, too cute, clogs to crocs?, Office Space (1999), clogs with flair, Andy Two Locks, just flair, school is by a Starbucks, upper middle classes, can afford tutors, Jessism is not a popular philosophy, controversial, Willism seems to be more happy, nobody calls will blackpilled, doomers?, a civil war in Will’s lifetime, no possibility of reform it seems, the TLDR, keep it the same forever, 2nd amendment, militia to kill indians, whatever the security of a free state is, free in many ways, unfree in many ways, an interesting person, mentally modeled, Netanyahu and the university’s presidents are out of control, once you plagiarize your way into a job…, lack of opportunities, reduced pay, some good instincts, Joe Biden could stop this genocide from happening, two problems, he’d have to go rogue, can’t read the teleprompter, Edward Wellen’s Mind Slash Matter, programmer/screenwriter, a president could stop it, if we’re being real, the people who run him, cut off funding, the key to stopping this thing that is going on, his own political party is largely responsible, two things holding him back, if Trump comes back to father, lotsa evidence for that?, CNN, watching CNN all day long, Hamas is this all powerful energy, Home Depot is Hamas, core ideology, willing to sacrifice all other principles, a delusion, isn’t ideology a delusion?, a concrete example of an ideology, liberalism, free exchange of ideas will lead to…, marketplace, soon we’re into metaphor, seeing metaphor as reality, words are magic, sounds like a metaphor, part of your brain says that’s interesting, words have magical power over people, magic is not a real thing, magical control over people, magic is real, how to explain to a dog why a man is staring at a piece of paper for 17 minutes, books are the thing that the man holds, they can read with their noses, reality not mediated through the word tart or pooey, that girl dog, they can get it unmediated (as close as possible), we can get tricked by words, undergraduate degree in black studies, Africana Studies, as somebody who took 10 classes at an elite university, the process of knowledge creation, knowledge production!, you can get confused by mistaking the map for the territory, useful human expression, it is a metphor, and yet it has an effect, monkeys don’t seem to be affected by words, associating words with behaviors, sentences seem to be off limits, Koko is a little more legit, Alex the parrot, the bird knows more than it does, what matter, using the voice of the trainer, even funnier, seems like Koko has ideas, dogs and cats, and birds and monkeys, dogs have ideas they want you to understand, walkies, we can get confused by the words, not know as much about what me mean, the words are [NOT] our thoughts, babies have ideas too, jumbled up in the map and not the territory, question mark, not get trapped, killing people bad, it bad, what about that guy, High And Low (1963), Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa, Ed McBain aka Evan Hunter, the cops finding the criminal, 87th Precinct books, he’s compelling, a podcast on 87th Precinct books, reversed New York, resent New York, the center of the universe, kidnapper, death row, something he wants to say but can’t articulate, a very good movie, Heaven and Hell, very powerful movie, amazing on screen, cooler Humphrey Bogart, more manly famous film action star, serious Kurt Russell good with a sword, Hell In The Pacific (1968), Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, Enemy Mine by Barry B. Longyear, stuck on an island in the pacific, Arena by Fredric Brown, they fight each other Gorn style, Lee Marvin was in WWII, they know what they’re doing, ability to make movies that are really good, not experiencing that is a shame, almost all Godzilla films, levels you don’t have to experience them, Independence Day, a big cast, a big disaster, H.G. Wells is largely responsible for setting that stage, Yojimbo (1961), Clint Eastwood, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai, a very Conan-y story, A Fistful Of Dollars (1964), a western set in Japan, very Japanese but very familiar, a good place to start, archive.org, with English subtitles, an hour 52, a Conan story, an independent man, a masterless samurai, a weird social class, the weird ideas of their class, the empire and all that stuff, the military got out in front of the government, a rubber stamp, various competing militarizes running the show, sometimes helps my career, loyalty to the state, patriotism, my country right or wrong, you can see it as honorable as misguided, Nazis versus Wehrmacht, listening to authority, a flaw, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Trump whistleblower, the Trump Ukraine scandal, a liberal hero, just playing himself, it’s basically just Seinfeld, RFK Jr.’s actual wife, embarrassment, a sensitive topic, no politics, liberal people on it, 100 million percent sell out, pretends to do journalism for movies, MSNBC boy, Chris Hayes!, reacting to the news, Conan O’Brien, these are all the people who will do anything to get attention and be whores, readers of material, that’d be cool, when they do that for movies, lends negative credibility to everything that came before, Walter Cronkite, Cronkite-stan, how about next week?

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Startling Stories, September 1948 - What Mad Universe

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #811 – READALONG: Exiles To Glory by Jerry Pournelle

Jesse, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, Alex (PulpCovers), and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Exiles To Glory by Jerry Pournelle

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in 2 issues of Galaxy, September and October 1977, a paperback, Jerry Pournelle by himself, YA in the style of Heinlein, here we are, is it true?, Heinlein style YA?, demented reactionary Nazi guy, garbage, fun to analyze, worth the bother, upset Goldwater was defeated by Johnson?, the worldview is demented, just disorder, a fundamentally reactionary worldview, all controlling government is terrible, actually create something, not be weighed down by the systems of the earth, the civil rights bill, hated every minute of this book, makes the same mistake, takes some Heinlein tropes, a crazy person, flights of fantasy, not enough incest, Starman Jones, a similar story, more synthetic, near the beginning, silly annoying things, the infodump, these rich people who own corporations, dumped with, why, why do I care?, a good chunk of notes, three main characters, significant characters, Kevin Senecal, ask me about my name, Jacob, diabetic computer guy, Ellen McMillian aka Glenda, the good which, Larry Niven, because the inherited wealth, the dedicee of this book, Dan Alderson, was diabetic, the roman-a-clef to understanding this book, a theory, cynical, pretty obvious, the Norman French origins, a steward, runs a household, a granger, chief of staff, John Wyndham, the children with the weird eyes, The Dunwich Cuckoos, the guy who goes around to all the local plebs and demands rent for the lord, all names can have meaning, didn’t pick this name randomly, heroes, they’re trynna save the company, by saving the company they’re saving earth, a comedy, they get married at the end, shouldn’t feel this cynical, very Shakespearean, Much Ado About Nothing, sparking on twitter in dangerous ways, saved it for the podcast, there’s something here, disappointed and annoyed, writing partner, question their continued relevance, dangerous, lock you up on a moon, a stack of Heinlein juveniles, science fiction in the Gernsback Asimov tradition, his focus, the rocket Galahad, effort into that, doing a lot of math, math about something that’s made up, an eidetic memory, by being rich, raised in a weird cult, Futurians, the ideological framework, a very timely book for the late-70s, stagflation, capitalism in crisis, an issue with hard SF in general, all this thought into how the tech works, a technophile, everyone is against technology, social structures, how government works, how political movements work, delusional, the rise of other economies in the world, seemingly endless growth was coming to an end, more of what Johnson had in mind, tried that in France, a welfare state forever, Marxism 101, far left vs. right, the modern administrative state, autonomy from capital, from the great Depression forward, a reactionary like Pournelle, opposed to capital in a fundamental way, more power than capital, governments are more short sighted than business, elections vs. shareholder returns, investment vehicles, privately held companies, the audiobook business, an audiobook producer, the only exception is Amazon, a monopoly in multiple, an acquisition company, Blackstone Audio, weather the storms of management school ideology, some family, learn the business, doesn’t always work, some heir fuck it up, what this book is about, a book about politics, useless and helpless, the STATE, they’re nothing, the actual enemies are other corporations, she’s a spy, corporate cops, kind of interesting, the cop who wants to have a beer, steals a beer, a person stuck in a horrible institution can do, too many other things on their mind, a broken system, the good ones leave, can’t just muddle through and take the orders, leave the earth to solve the problem, the solution to problems is running away, hints early one, some sort of secret society, did the cop nail the cat to the door?, what’s going on here, the Futurians were set up, global conspiracy, a weird book club, the early Earth stuff, The Rolling Stones, Grandma Hazel with the kids on a scooter, that anoxia thing, clay under her boobs, never pays off, Quixote, straight out of, The Turner Diaries [by William Luther Pierce], is there any evidence for that?, have you ever said anything about Africans, lifted off of that book, what’s it doing there?, the kick off the earth, motivated to leave the Earth, buckle down and get a job, a lot of people’s goal, your life sucks, had the sense to make the character a female, a healthy young man, a nerd who played football, trash can lid, loving the Society For Creative Anachronism, pandering to nerdism, a serious problem with the politics early on, 2020, beat up by gangs in the 1970s, The Warriors (1979), Escape From New York (1981), Death Wish (1974), desperate gang violence, Crips, muggings, Monica Hughes, the company is the bad guy, the people who work at the company are all bad, double agents and spies, that one company is good, he can’t get in the guild, do you have any pull with one of the unions, protesting groups, the cynicism about academia, fairly forward thinking, a lot of people a lot less enchanted with the university systems, there’s a column in Galaxy, giving his speeches, excited about his ideas, we don’t have to have zero population growth, where in here is it really really right wing, helpless in the face of black masses, police not enforcing laws, massive rioting, Black Lives Matter, not enforcing the drug laws, doing heroin in the streets, academia being unable, you’re never going to get out of this university, never separately, before he died, interested in tech, growing up during WWII, Italian POWs, not exactly a contemporary of Heinlein, the next generation, he’s on to something in here, how is Earth going to be better off, a competent manager, engineer their way, cheap energy, cheap food, the plot of the Fallout tv show, fetch quest fun twists, factions and themes and big surprises, cold fusion, help everybody, a comedy cynicism, you’re the naive one going into the world, giant eyes, artificially increased in size, the fun juxtaposition, super-mutants, coming out of Plato’s cave, puritan ethic, underdeveloped cult, parents are rich, a junior associate of the cult, part of her secret identity, her regular identity, loose threads, some other books, easter eggs or callbacks or fanservice, first and last Jerry Pournelle, not a terrible book, disappointing, the solution to one’s problems is to marry a rich girl, Horatio Alger, getting Bs in his courses, the prerequisites, when they tried to grade you, previously had gotten As, not politically conforming, walking around campus, the first one to stop applauding when Stalin gives a speech, zero-growth, pro-tech, variant, doesn’t matter which one you join, one of the officially approved protest groups, feels extremely 2020s, every time a new party won the White House, become entrenched, the Deep State, anti-Trump, didn’t make a lasting impact, back story in this, what was happening before our story began, too late in the book, hidden from us, there was the Watergate, a new third party, People’s Alliance, populist, one would hope, we’ve given up on Earth, we haven’t given up on humanity, princess of mars, brain implant, her story is much more central to this book, he’s the POV character, she has Daddy’s money is going to fuck me up, gravity is hard, stupid gravity, told from the male pov, Heinlein YA, you’re a boy who’s writing the book, general audience for this kind of book, not that many female engineers as a percentage, they buy her being a prostitute, rich girl who rebelled against her richness, the prodigal daughter, well done, what we expect, more mining, getting the load home, the criminal CEO type was doing most of the mining, Starship Troopers except mining instead of the military, Asimov not Heinlein, regular girl, believable or not?, from moment to moment, interesting character beats, I’m into you, let’s shack up, the near future, still normal for people in their early 20s to get married, a very wealthy woman, addresses that, things going on on Earth, Invitation To The Game, kids can’t find jobs, free housing but not jobs, improve themselves as a group, a VR, playing colonists on another planet, they are actually colonists on another planet, like Ender’s Game but with farming, Tunnel In The Sky, the people on Earth are fucked, steal back the unobtanium, make earth a garden, what is the ideology here really, cultivate your own garden, good and honest, find the lost boy in the woods, find a new home, good at heart, do your own thing, chaotic and disordered, how reactionaries see the world, only force can restore order, no institutions, the Mexican government is more competent, Baja, California, The Children Of Men, V For Vendetta, we’re holding firm, the whites in the south who oppose civil rights, if we move against segregation, to keep the fundamentally unstable force at bay, white civilization is under threat, reformed by liberal governments, fundamentally incapable, welfare to education, worsening the problem, only the market or a strong force, reactionary views, there’s too much strong man that’s trying to tame the world, crack down on the gangs, it’s Oregon, everybody’s in their clique, what recent happened, the drone strikes, Nancy’s Pelosi’s friends [worked for that group], killing 100,000 children is fine, I live in a gated community, amongst my peers and friends, I’m getting phone calls about my friend’s children being killed, if you’re in a union, you don’t want to fall, the judges, these guys have rights, fallen, a strata between, the haves and the not, the gangs tend to be strawmanned, what do gangs really want?, autonomy, unity, a means of a survival, official sanction, selling himself into indentured servitude, he meet cutes with, Gaza, the settler colonial project, informed by this very argument, the Algonquins, a chaos we need to bring order to, being driven out, Hungarians and Germans and Ukrainians, the French, the Irish, convinced to go to settler colonialism, you don’t have emigration, Americans being driven out, why did you make that choice?, professional, an American historian of Atlantic history in the Pacific, they’re looking for jobs, there’s no tenure track anymore, people are feeling this pinch, made examples of, the same university for 25 years and had perfect scores, declining rates of profits in the housing industry, capitalism doing that, disorder in the world, emigrating from the United States, keeping from leaving the U.S., tax season, retirees, under the cut-off, how international this book was for an American book, a very American writers, most SF writers who exist, does Sci-Fi still get written?, Ted Chiang, written vs. read, looks like it would be science fiction but is is not, science fiction in awards won, once we’re in space, the Mexican detour, Heinlein has stories set in Canada, very unusually, if it is written by an American, the Earth, Africa, mining companies, a lot of Switzerland, what African country gets mentioned, Canada is a huge mining, zero, Africa is not a set of countries it is a set of places to be mined, Isaac Asimov’s super quiz, which country controlled Angola, Portugal, Madagascar, Ethiopia, why Africa is uniquely interesting, didn’t really care about settling there, and Kenya, most violent decolonization movement, Rhodesia, Mau Mau rebellion, as a possession vs. its resources and can change the government, border crisis, stop fucking up those countries so hard, let them run their own things for a while, most people don’t know, they live in shithole countries, the reason those countries are shithole countries, the recent history of Ecuador, don’t get couped every couple of weeks, the claws and the snakes, where is the right wing part of this, white kid attacked by a black gang, you’ll be the one in trouble, the text is more focused on they’re kids, they’re minors, imperiled children, young people as a threat, strong families and strong parents?, the racial quotas, pretty explicit, a lot of class stuff just below the surface, the ending was largely about that, anxiety about diversity, a positive thing in his works, trigger Evan the most, the Malthusianism, population growth has destroyed the earth, need to eat bugs, I need you to eat bugs, my $300 subscription ice cream, your $15,000 refrigerator, a specific Nancy Pelosi meme, one job per household, restrictions, not going to use any resources, managed poorly, sexism thing, girl in space, that’s sexist, it is, fine with it, evolutionary sex roles, damage done to people’s bones, women were definitely put to work, some war not a lot, hunter gatherer society, have we evolved, humans never change, the things that infect their heads, institutional stuff, our capacity to transform nature and ourselves, ecology of nature, change our relations among ourselves, marriage is a totally unnatural thing, a development, many software updates, some occasional firmware updates, squishy/country, evolution happening slowly, domesticated apes, we’ve certainly lost a lot of hair, lobster stuff, Jordan Peterson, we have the enlightenment, not Pournelle, big heavy infodump late, the very end, his punishment is we pay off your debts, he murdered several people, very realistic, if they don’t just kill him, jurisdiction in space, wave a stack of cash, he would get himself killed, with the lawyer, incredibly satisfying, Pacifico, the Disney villain death, what made him bad, hoarding, embezzling, misallocation of resources, spy books since Ian Fleming, a free on Audible, corporate espionage book [Paranoia by Joseph Finder], at a phone company, basically Blackberry, a double agent, all of that being said, when the stakes are two companies against each other, android vs. apple, the tech that soldiers wear on their head, American vs. Chinese, China steals everything, patents, copyright, cheating at a game where there’s no rules, a layer of cope, the 10 commandments of the company, a lame cope, the reason is china is bad is they take our ideas and implement them, getting the unobtanium back, cheap fertilizer, all the babies in Africa and India and Bangladesh, cynical, the remarkable, a sense of humour, Niven’s sense of humour vs. sense of fun, playful, Ringworld, everybody’s motivation is about sex, Louis Wu just gets sex naturally, Speaker, Nessus, with the hindmost, Teela Brown, luckiest girl on the ring, a low stakes book, personal issue, where the cats were getting murdered, drowned in a toilet, nailed to a door, kill his own cat, pictured in the Galaxy illustration, why is that cat doing Jesus, Stephen Fabian, the cat being crucified on the door, drawn a lot of boobs, my audience for Galaxy really needs to see, Will couldn’t abide that, a Heinlein guy with regards to cats, unlike Jesse, more interested in editorial policy, hoping to grok science fiction through editorial policy, the reason H.P. Lovecraft is, editorial policy creates stories, idiosyncratic bird, market this book to specific audience, artists doing their weirdness, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, makes her own magazine, wrote everything in it, The Yellow Wallpaper, mainstream publication, Herland, women were oppressed in the 19th century, women are people too, some sort of allegory, largely autobiographical, the history of medical treatment: horror everywhere, not wrong to be interested, you have to go to that casino, see that Star Wars movie, capitalism, that’s pretty much everybody after a certain point, kill yourself like Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, drunk, why are you kind of a drunk?, everybody gets there eventually, hopefully, editorial policy at Galaxy in the 70s, James Baen, a different era, J.E. Pournelle, back in the day, a broad array of ideological perspectives, Spider Robinson, he’s a hippie man, Joanna Russ, a woman resisting pregnancy in an Adam and Eve scenario, publications existing today, no general audience, fragmented audience, oppositional ideas, being part of the choir, literally Futurians, as being a right winger, this book sucking at the end, the setup is awesome, allergic to the idea that the right wing even exists, thinking about Paul, he thinks right wingers exist and they’re bad, this policy and this policy, endless foreign wars, tribal cleavages, a woman’s right to choose, she does it anyway, does that make him right wing?, advocate for rational self-interest as a motivating principle, if this book were running for election, where you sit in the legislature, vibes, interested in science and no sense of humour, the fuck yeah science tribe, Andrew Yang, superficial, no depth to it, a surface level description, describing the physics, government and interactions between people, mechanical, not really a right wing or a left wing, ideological differences in these systems, a West Wing, deliberately insulting, doesn’t believe in basic human equality, conservative ideas, what do you mean by right wing, a relative thing, explain Jesse then, ideological incoherent, will self-identifies, focused against and focused on, radical centrist, what Alex was, circumspect, challenging political provocations, a political position, the self-immolation dude, did both, it was for Trump, the new TidePod challenge, finding out the hard way, 70s bombings, disaffected teenagers got into school shootings, ideological different, a left leaning populist, the vax stuff, loves Vladimir Putin, the Syria stuff, riding a bear, holding a cat, Jesse’s gullible, what a tankie is, militant opposition to capitalism, Stalinist, many British communists, a general meaning of supporting anti-imperialist, tankie shirt, defenders of anti-American leaders, pro-Russian narratives, Russo-Ukrainian war, soft-peddled, our politics don’t really matter, you run our country, doctor/dentist, everybody in the middle don’t, early on in this book, The Island Worlds by Eric Kotani and John Maddox Roberts, narrator was ok, Wyatt Fenner, squeezes his nose, hard earned money, before Will was born, born in 1986, so new, a flying Porche, a flying car book, asteroid mining, some Conan, alternate history about Carthage beating Rome, not DAW, MP3-CDs, follow up on this, Thor Taggart, a political party to take over Earth, colourful characters, corporate shenanigans, same tradition, Charles Sheffield, Nive and Pournelle should start looking over their shoulders, came out and bought it, somebody has these books, used bookstore, a NEW book, decent covers, actual science fiction books, the last gasp, John Scalzi’s obituary on Jerry Pournelle, he wasn’t Heinlein but he didn’t kill anybody, he borrowed, are liberals left or right wing, that circumspect laugh, generally considered left wing, John Locke: left wing, Hobbes is right wing, nasty brutish and conservative, pre-French revolutionary, old money and new money, The Economist: a left-wing publication, Adam Smith, more libertarian, libertarian as a subset of liberals, free things up to get more new money, if you’rre not pulling for the Holy Roman Empire…, always conservative, skinsuit Roman Empire, the old joke, achieved peak podcasting, The Worlds Of If is back as a skinsuit publication, Neil R. Jones, The Jameson Satellite, this asteroid road, with a flying porche, Australian ebay seller, the Romantic poets, Keats/Shelly, Coleridge: degenerate, agents chasing Coleridge around, Keats is more conservative, pining for a lost golden age, pretty active for a lord, the Spain of the day, was his club foot left?, arts movement, Tolkien very conservative, a revelation about Tolkien, look at the evidence, who are the rich people across the water, proudfoots, all the Hobbits who are rich indicate they used to be robbers, proud of being footpads, a thing he put in, Brandybuck, they’re buckin’ something, Took, it’s right in the name, I’m baggin’ that, “this is y Gandalf knew Bilbo was a natural thief, it’s how his ancestors got rich!”, it’s that amazing?, an excellent undergrad paper, where riches come from, hobbits as Englishmen confirmed, come home an build castles, sit back, and smoke pipes, ideas on abortion, some right wing stuff on the Spanish civil war, against lining nuns up and shooting them, pro-lining nuns up, line the anarchists up, marry the nuns to the anarchist, have a mixer, the liberal solution, there’s no losers under liberalism, educate people into the middle class, robot janitors, big roomba, you’re kids are janitors while they’re studying at interviews, work study program, older adults to tell them what to do, management was staff, liberal institutions, make kids do work, depends on the context, make other kids do work, old money new money, we’ve been making money this old fashioned way, universities are liberal because they maintain the system, meritocratic, people are starting to tip, pre-French revolutionary times, give it a few decades, how many decades can you have of incompetent government, incompetent government doesn’t really effect most people, hungry, deprivation, Lenin wrote that book, What is to Be Done?, when the system is failing, the Chinese Revolution, national unification, peace, haven’t had starvation in 70 years, famine forever, the Soviet famines were a manmade, all the famines are manmade, localized famines caused by droughts, it takes communism, socialism, communism is never achieved, a list of famines under British India, Pulpfest, all of July?, became a lawyer, among the better end of Conan pastiche, non-Robert E. Howard ones, alternating chapters, some ghoul lady with cold flesh, she’s a zombie, sex with a zombie, Conan The Champion?, a guy writing about Heinlein books, cracked the code on incest in Heinlein, there’s no incest at all, one of the pros on this book, conflicted, the problem with this book is Jerry Pournelle is not a crazy person, The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest, with Conan, very much like hardboiled detective novels, a problem, a solution, Conan doesn’t have an office, one quirk or the other, Sarah Hoyt, a big claim, breasts, yoga, a female lead character, there was nothing else going on, make it stop, Heinlein’s crazy, one’s a legal term, the guy had a stroke or something, his books got weird, they were weird before that, bizarro fiction, childrens going down slides into buckets, idea based vs. gut based, before sputnik and after sputnik, satire, cynical, the Russians getting to space, very selective in your books and timeline, Starman Jones, getting off of Earth, the United States often doesn’t exist, American ideals in space, Canadian so confused, Jesse you’re balding, okay fuck you, more balding than Canadian, is different later on, older and demented, cognitive decline is real but not equally distributed, one Heinlein juvenile left, the most juvenile of all the juveniles [Have Space Suit, Will Travel], Rocket Ship Galileo, too dangerous to kill the Nazis, the stark difference, they’re fuckin Nazis, corporate guys trying to outjigger each other, corporate entities battling each other, Philip K. Dick, an older paternal knowitall, Professor LaPaz?, shepherds the younger man, the revolutionary girl, liberal and conservative at the same time, big claims are being thrown around, American ideals, Tom Swift, get to it spirit, extremely American exceptionalism, a reaction to a series of Young Edison stories, imagine today someone writing a successful series of novels about young Elon Musk fighting crime with inventions in South Africa, Jonathan’s going to get some money, Horatio Alger, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Jack London, does Bellamy have American values, socialism is German man, being obtuse on purpose, subaltern American values, the real america, making America great again, not particularly concerned, if we just wait 15 years of space mining, horrible mines, an environmentalist book, cares about the environment, ignorant fucks, undermining their own goals, nuclear energy bad, nuclear energy dangerous, exploding moons, nuclear positive, managed by corporate interests, those corporate interests are controlling their protesting groups, Bloomberg giving to the Sierra Club, the non-profit industrial complex, willing to do anything for money, you can make it sound good because we’re gonna do good, follow the money, read Pournelle’s dissertation and master-thesis, when did the book split in the magazine, archive.org, what kinda glory do they get?, married glory, a part of Galaxy Jesse is not super-familiar with, Stephen Fabian is a pretty awesome artist, the cover art was on its way out, not a bad book at all, pretty coherent, missing craziness, what’s hard to understand?, Jack Higgins’ Sheba, everything was on the nose, dragged on and on and on, the champagne of beers, miller high life, the serial picks up on page 73, chapter 12, Aeneas Mackenzie’s real luxury, when they get to the belt, right after the exciting cliffhanger, Star Beast, the functionary UN guy, interplanetary diplomacy, goes down a lot smoother, unearned, unprecedented, hearing the professor on a phone call, ooh mystery, the remainder of the book, the bad guys have no problem killing people, strand them on an asteroid in a mine, gestured broadly at, if they’re gonna kill him?, everybody gets forgiven in the end, main character syndrome, if they killed off the main character, our diabetes guy has to sacrifice, this is good art, jumping from capsule to capsule, the image of the cat being killed, in the shownotes, I’ve seen better crucified cat illustrations, inside front cover NUDE, nude Fabians, Kitty Cat Massacre by J. Manfred Weichsel, The Door Into Summer, the labour saving technology, she ages naturally, the grooming book, is grooming left wing or right wing, cryofreeze, a manipulable character, she sticks with it, some deep mind fuck, it fits with the theme of the book, what is time but aging?, a mismatch in the people’s ages, ususally 100 years ago, great grandmother, Timerider, Up The Line by Robert Silverberg, Heinlein’s pervy-self, The Lazarus Long stuff, hanging out with old men who’ve lived a long time, the immortal guy, Highlander: The Greatest Film Ever Made, Taladega Nights, double feature, they get in a fight, power fantasy about sleeping with his own daughters, smart and had issues, ability to produce text, Heinlein is weird, less pejorative, insane is a silly word, Jerry Pournelle is cute more than weird, wargaming, come on, that’s cute, Star Trek was one of the wargames he was playing, he’s a nerd, political opinions, both amused by people being enthusiastically wrong, procure a copy, the audiobook is no longer available, MP3-CDs, under DRM you’re fucked, used bookstore, let’s race, 2009, Baen’s still going, Clyde Caldwell, Boris Vallejo cover, Larry Elmore, can you compare, pretend it was written by Heinlein, worse than Rocket Ship Galileo, in the tradition of, the JPL stuff, the appeal of space, the commonality, an axe to grind, grinding to a point, more like a Tom Swift book in that way, a framework for a young man to have an adventure, Pournelle had a bad time in the 60s, sexual politics?, positive trends of the 60s, movement towards racial equality, social organization among students, students can get condoms, speak their mind, more chaos and disorder, degeneracy, he seems to not be a huge fan, they were fooling around on the ship, just finished embracing, left to the imagination, a lot of complaining about the lack of privacy, “lovers”, a remarkable magazine, hands, how do we prove this?, not a sexually liberated book, a honeymoon there, having sex in the subway, couldn’t bring himself to describe that scene, she’s on the pill, Heinlein couldn’t wait, Tunnel In The Sky they make babies, Time For The Stars, The Puppet Masters, nudism vs. sex, hate psychics, used to communicate between ships, torchships, any transgenderism in it?, talking to his niece, she’s the grown up, planet of the furry collectivist society, she goes native, another interesting contrast, a long clock, we do have microphones in America, not dedicated, Blue Yeti, need to buy wargames, to play on your computer while you’re in space, a trash can lid, really big in the 70s among people who wrote science fiction stories, Avalon Hill, chits, Panzers vs., Battle For North Africa, card games, Magic was so huge, when did Magic start?, the early 90s, what made it so big, as big or bigger than World Of Warcraft, a 20 year old game, reserved, propose a story, don’t have a gender, when Evan gets to I Will Fear No Evil, and interesting idea, long, a good book, Friday is better, man brain, woman hormones, more womany, good theory, hard to test, templar cigar, fine, more focused on the audiobook, not a pipesmoker, pipe curious, big long clay one like Sherlock Holmes or Gandalf, found in a midden, too long to finish, sunroom, sundeck, so you don’t stink up your house, the longer your stem the farther away the stink is, tend to stink, fezs and smoking jackets and cravats are all designed to prevent stinkage, chewing tobacco would be the worst, seems pretty gross, putting teabags in your mouth, chew on that beetlenut, khat, roadside penis enhancer, social traditions, stimulant effects, working class people take it like coffee, splotch on the ground, betel nut, implies that, Jesse is LSD, dreams getting solid, the themes coming right out, increasing your ability to dream properly, makes you not noisy?, high blood pressure, wake up a lot, keeps Will sleeping, one of the things that [Fallout] has, hacking minigame, the sense of humour, the show is funny, the game is funny, the VATS system, why Fallout is so good, it’s a FPS but doesn’t feel like one, stealing, dialogue trees, the storytelling, side quest sort of thing, science fiction, different morality, corporations, a lot of time spent pre-Nuclear War, the bad guy from Justified, comparing the politics from the world of Fallout, the New Red Scare, retro-cars, it’s not really our world, looks nice, almost extraordinary, a lot less shooting than the game is, a sensibility of a sense of humour, a hyper-reality tweeked up, Andor, the least Star Warsy Star Wars, bullion to pay its troops, don’t have direct deposit, goldbugs wrote it, the emperor would have created a fiat money system, why aren’t their mines, a thread about disabled people in dungeons with wheelchairs, a wheelchair accessible dungeon, there’s too much magic, the same healing system, the game mechanics, stimpacks, radaway, a walkthrough but shorter, Bethesda games, Skyrim, same shit, Fallout 76, the settler system, just tedious, extract story, the NCR, the Vegas one is slightly better, the lore is sort of given to you explicitly, Elden Ring, a list of things to do, make lists, hard in a frustrating way, the game teaches you to stop sucking, 1997, cheating, single player storytelling, isometric, Shady Sands is in Fallout 1, set in Los Angeles basically, the NCR, on the border with California, they never steal anything from any of the games, the organizations and history are all the same, a meeting of communists, everybody should pirate this show and watch it, and now it was two, Time Is The Simplest Thing, good things about it, the cover art from Astounding, The Fisherman, the pastoral, rural ruins, rustbelt America, Clifford D. Simak, died in 1988, a lot of 80s and late 70s, America is not what it used to be, academia, jobs, picture of the dudes by the truck, the premise of the book is very good, very Alfredy Bester, pack your pipe, need to read City, insofar, Philip Jose Farmer’s The Lovers, how most people have taken it in, down for more Simak, seems like good guy, the number one thing on the list, John W. Campbell, I don’t know about you, made a lot of people write a lot of bad books, it’s because you’re right wing, choose a team, Horace Gold, Anthony Boucher, fantasy, escapism, editor versus writer, creatures that live in the desert, Mr. Lupescu, the bloody Benders, family of serial killers, Kansas, 1871-72, a story by Margaret St. Clair that follows Kate, commonlaw marriage, the Oregon trail, kill, maybe eat, 11+ victims, They Bite, man-eating somethings, very Anthony Bouchery, The Compleat Werewolf, a mystery guy, issue of Unknown, Jorkens story The Club Secretary by Lord Dunsany, his editorialship at F&SF, a connoisseur who dabbles in the low, too high is too bad, open to the idea, fiction without those things, the friend and adviser to Philip K. Dick, Roog, dog upset, all humans may die, no dog murder, either the garbagemen are aliens or the dog is wrong, the dog does get to a farm tho, the aliens/garbagemen, Philip K. Dick is great, his first sale, an editorial by Boucher, Anthony Boucher, Theodore Cogswell, a real mistake to differentiate between fantasy and science fiction, Unknown and Beyond, wartime paper rationing, not wholly overlapping, the audience for fantasy, talking to Eric [S. Rabkin], mens magazines, women’s magazines, Omni, Chatelaine, really likes science, out of the 40s, get going in the 50s, evolved from Blue Book, a theatre magazine?, high end fiction magazine, When Worlds Collide, Tarzan, a Superman guy, after WWII, leaning into the adventure, well into the 70s, Argosy does a similar path, the height of the mens magazines, 1959, 130 competing titles, beat up by something like private equity, go into the barber shop, women had the hair salon, legacy with us, the dentist, Consumer Reports, thin volumes from 10 years ago, the sweats, on the cover there was a guy covered in weasels and it said ‘I ATE MY SISTER!’ and ‘I WAS FORCE TO MARRY THE CANNIBAL QUEEN OF MADAGASCAR!, who was reading these magazines, boomers coming out of WWII want to read about Otto Skorzeny, reading tiktok?, observing tiktok?, experiencing tiktok?, a Guy De Maupassant story, Cavalcade, a pretty good fit for this magazine, Today’s Woman, choosing to do it, it fit, great art to illustrate it, rather than shaping stories, by changing endings, curation of what’s available to them, a lot of psychic shit, selling it to a guy who thinks telepathy and psi-powers are possibly real, a huge fuckn blindspot, a bug, that magazine survived all the winnowing, you have to subscribe, newsstands, two legacy magazines, F&SF, Asimov’s, that’s pretty fucked up, scrappy startups, Wizards With Guns, 3 guys in their garage, now they have a place to put that stuff, times have changed, Horace Gold, extreme PTSD, what did he see, man?, the trauma, predisposed, unable to leave his apartment, Frederik Pohl came over, overwhelmed, a Mrs. Horace Gold, hit by a taxicab, imagining experiencing the 1950s indoors, the life of Horace Gold, an episode of Deep Space Nine, Mercury publication, Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, NPC Conan reviewing, The Worm Ouroboros, a crude failure, The Lord Of The Rings, translation of The Garden Of Forking Paths, a pretty dynamic guy, from Pohl, a weatherman, he did see five bombers get shot down, flaming wreckage in the sky, Masters Of The Air, a throwback, old fashioned, Cora got really mad, glorifying the bomber pilots, being machined gunned, I’ll never forgive them for that, a show about bombers, glorifying, no, not condemned in every scene, night bombing, any time you’re dropping bombs on people, a tankie position?, let’s try to avoid airplanes dropping bombs on people, drones killing other drones, going after human beings, main point of drones, it always starts with defense, embrace genocide, that situation in Gaza, really horrifying, follow the right accounts, made of bones, children missing body parts, does the dog do okay in this Roog story, the dogs and cats in Gaza are not doing well, homeless dogs, pets and feeds and cleans their eyes, Sitting with Dogs, people can do good on pretty small levels, how these dogs ended up there, the family had to move, but why did that happen, why couldn’t the dog come with them, couldn’t afford their house, moving out of country, you have to move for your work, not just rich family wanted a dog, bad cirucmstances for the human caretakers, homeless dogs in 3rd world/developing countries, humans doing their best of twitter and youtube, being forced to move, the border problem as being a political football, the place where they are is not conducive to living, natural disasters, Haiti’s problem, no-infrastructure, U.S. history notes, French history notes, the problem of the day, really cut-off Israel, probably can’t anyway, not a good reason to do it, they don’t have to be interested in winning the election, a little bit of interest there, hyper-incompetent, largely losers, a self-own, winning is losing for them, the hidden story inside today’s book, how did it get that way, how come the judges are insular from their communities, surface, girl is rich, boy is convenient narrator, The Soul Of Man Under Socialism [by Oscar Wilde], some coffee soon, a little coffee, Joe Rogan’s 4 hour podcast, conversations are largely dettermined by how long it takes before someone needs to pee, non-profit diversity training, poor boy, poor man, before entering into some conversation with any kind of stakes, physical needs, a checklist of science fiction thinking, when airplanes were invented, out in the lake, drop your paddle, if one of your wings falls off, human psychology needs such things, other things on that list, frameworks for thinking about expression, whether you can beat the shit out of the person you’re having a conversation with, a check to reality, can you have a debate with her, Destiny and Vaush having a debate on the internet, man-cave/gaming rooms, reading wikipedia entries and nitpicking particular words, approximately your peer, elderly frail man in a bed, a girl acting like a man, that’s not cool, guys shouldn’t beat up girls, some codes of behavior, they have not lived in the world long enough, one against many is not cool, two guys beefing it out in the street, take it outside, not make it contagious, thinking through this through, under the surface, moderate your words, handshake, let’s get a beer together sort of talk before or after, you can’t really debate on the internet, model UN, leadership class, violence, why Fidel Castro wore military fatigues, Kim Jong Un, Wretched Of The Earth by Frantz Fanon, overthrowing the French, fond of Krushchev’s pounding his shoe, space rockets, in the editorial right after, Iran bombing military bases in Israel, Iron Dome being ineffective, hypersonic missiles, really fast stuff, falling behind in tech, all corrupt, milking, F-35, Osprey, Boeing, short term profits good, everybody’s in, get on the gravy train, those two things are not compatible, things are incompetent on earth, the whole mining industry, I need to be a miner because that’s where the money is, dwarves love gold, or mithril, The Hobbit, the dwarves in the Hobbit, more focus on dwarves, motivated by dwarf wanting to get their estate back, never read The Hobbit, Justin fucked all Canadians, servers in North Korea, maybe not the best at advertising their services, insufficient Korean, a lot of different opinions, a reenactment on the whole of the war on the peninsula, one tiny UN unit, reacharound in Inchon, right up the the Chinese border, why did all that happen for, why?, still hard to understand, domino theory, we have to stop the bad people from invading a sovereign country, everything they say about them is what they’re doing, how come Isis never attack Israel?, Isis attacked the mall in Moscow, why did Isis do that?, why Isis is attacking the Russians?, I wonder why, could it be because it is funded, even the people who are taking money to oppress their own people are turning on the oppressors, hold out hope, can’t will this war military?, mowing the lawn on a bigger scale, the border shit, convincing countries to take refugees, lots, enmasse after some sort of horrific slaughter, very common, people appear on the borders, criminals, the Chinese are doing it!, much more direct about what they’re doing, what the IMF is offering us, would you like us help us exploit, an incompetent boob appointed by a demented man, children of this class, they’re not geniuses, their parents had their job before them, there is dissatisfaction building, great moments, Barnard College expelled 1% of their student body for protesting, autoworkers in Chattanooga, endorsing Biden, standard union crap, these are our plans, he plans to be a millionaire, a massive strike for the first time in decades, the auto industry, the Teamsters kicked UPS’ butt, top tier contract, $100k, to buy labour peace, an interesting period, he met with Trump or Biden or RFK, Cornell West, Marianne Williamson, the airy fairy stuff was it, that’s the totality, massive ignorance, if magically president, Obama acceded to everything, subsequently Libya was a mistake, imma think about it while I sip my tea at my estate, encapsulates Obama, stop the NBA from going on strike, favour for a friend, these are friends of mine, none of the players are saying, work in a strange job, highly compensated for their height, you’re embarrassing my family members and my friends, not a stack of dead bodies, a particular person in that stack, that’s just claptrap, you’re paid by Russia, she wants the FBI to look into this, literally lost his faculties, same thing happened to Reagan, it wasn’t on full display, we tell you he’s fine, there’s no question, why did Paul quit twitter?, cybertruck having to be recalled, why are you tweeting this, owning Elon Musk, that’s where we are, so partisan, willing to deny, no he isn’t touching his penis to your face, he’s fine, no he’s running things, but Trump, seeing it and failing to accept it, they refuse to see it, they’re the same picture, you hate Trump a lot, objecting to congressional republicans voting against funding the Ukraine war, Putin sympathizers, I’m not a leader of a post-Soviet state, he’s not demented, caught up on this dementia thing, you’re caught up on this guy flopping his penis on your forehead, it doesn’t matter who is the figurehead, how we judge a person, how many people did Anthony Boucher kill, Carter seemed to kill a lot fewer people, Reagan, more in Iraq, Afghanistan, just raw numbers, Obama, Trump, Biden, killed zero people, Lincoln killed more Americans than anybody, and Lakota, Vietnam War, George W. Bush, Trump is objectively better than Biden and Obama (going by the numbers), make a chart, what you’re grouping and counting, let’s get out of Afghanistan, happened under Biden, we got Ukraine on the back burner, the numbers do line up, Carter was the least killy, after WWI, westward expansion, you can get lost in it, this whole East Timor thing, no war declared, better than Johnson or Nixon, a preliminary way, Bush’s gulf war, Clinton, Kosovo, yo, many many times, no fly zones, Trump didn’t star a new war, we never had a boss, a documentary about Jean Chretien, do it without the U.N., limited rubber stamp, the guy you’re differing to, I’ve never been to a Thai restaurant, a mental patient or demented, whispering in his ear, question this relationship, it doesn’t matter, that didn’t happen, you’re a Putin puppet, a Trumper, or MAGA, a problem unlike other problems, deferred to his vice president, answer questions, how far can the farce go?, is there a parody beyond this parody, summoning that parody into existence, this is not the same man, body double, physically degenerated, lost muscle mass, thinner skin, a CGI of him, de-aging the CGI, AI voice, like the Luke Skywalker, they can’t crank down the decoherence, definitely AI, unbelievable silly, AI Biden replacement, still better than Trump, exposed to liberals pretty much constantly, Facebook friends, into Biden, meme about how Biden is a genuinely good man, get banned, pictures of Palestinian children, that’s just deep fake, is Paul wrong, he’s wrong, it’s unpopular, also focus their energies, wasting our resources, in a trap, the Elvis trap, a hate trap, the hate for Musk is to do with Twitter, Musk is very hateable, he thrives on it, Tesla is not a good company, people thought it was, an American car company, a domestic thing at least, all the people in my doctor’s office drive them, hydropower, being locked down, a little less locked down, a youtuber who reviews phones, found the schematics online, semi-open, not horrible on every issue, people get triggered, that was a bad one, that was embarrassing, that was creepy, this is an old person, not in touch with what is happening, still watching CNN, ABC nightly news, he’s not that old, of the same cohort, an enigma, fairly predictable, Alvin Toffler, he’s the futurist, Future Shock, there’s no jobs in the future, where exactly do all the components come from, more of the late 70s, deeply unsympathetic, a visceral reaction, he’s pretty hard line on some things, his hatred for empire only extends in certain directions, obsessed with America, the strain of American ideals that is inline with, border police, harassed at the border, authoritative at, taking shoes off, I’m not going to put up with your bullshit, fuck it, not going to participate, it’s fuckin retarded, I don’t want to be involved in your security theater, concerts, this is what I thought it was, mob violence, being in a group, submitting to a direction, a holy experience sort of thing, I gotta go dance, don’t submit to some sort of collective group mind, a prophetic leader standing at a podium, is being a college protester good for your career, helped Bernie a little bit, Dave Weigel protested for the Iraq War, money in organizing, what does good at your job mean exactly?, Kamala Harris, can’t get the AI to work, imagine Kamala Harris is in charge, if they though he was doing a bad job, perception, waggling his penis, oh I want that, seduce you, sniff you and forget where he is, Caitlin Johnstone, a girl wanting her legs back, Biden would like the taste of child legged flavoured ice cream, grandma was demented, I don’t know who you are but I recognize you, she still enjoyed chocolate, a lot less depressed, this is still happening, there wasn’t enough family to take care, the economy is fucked and people can’t afford to live anywhere, they 1970s government seems ideal, Jerry Ford probably was not that good, the Great Society, clapback, double down of stuff of the 60s, anti-poverty programs, Reagan and the welfare queens, that’s coded, the government was doing more for more people in the 1970s, the high tide of organized labour, they were planning for the metric system, you can’t even get that done, one little thing, all it takes is rolling it out through the public schools, they can’t get anything done, everybody hates daylight savings time, it would take a little bit of political capital expenditure, there’s no interest in that, massive priorities of cash, guiding signs, Canada will not change until the U.S. does, you didn’t pass the checkpoint, the Baltimore bridge, milking the fucking money out, to the Moon in 10 years, Nazi bridge builders, the Soviets did it without as many Nazis, North Korea is interested in building rockets, interested in billing rockets, a little scandal in British Columbia, a trucking company in Merritt, British Columbia, 18 wheeler Tesla truck, logging trucks go up a hill empty and come down full, hybrid, diesel for range, all the easy trees have been cut, a bill written specifically for them, rejected, consulting services, charge 20% of whatever they get, how do you become a lobbyist, throw away your morality and start sucking on that cock that’s lying on your face, 1 to 1 corruption, BC government voted against inquiring into it, some measure of non-corruption, reversed that decision, its buddy buddy, Alberta’s domestic politics, international shit, doubly evil, moderate little tweaks, all very nice, New Democrats runs British Columbia, Social Credit party, they’d run the province from 1950s-1980s, Miss Willis, secretary just assumed, not massive corruption everywhere at all times, suspicion of the collective, you see what happens without hands, can become corrupt in the process, sunlight and whistleblowers, soviet democracy, one long meeting, kinda what we have here, not much threat of violence, gesture more, not super-Italian, bang the table with my shoe, putting all out in the public record, making strong the ability to expose, secret meetings is not healthy, people should be having arguments as to what to do publicly, good feedback from people not in your group, allowing people to tune in if it gets exciting, firey thoughtful people, the Party For Socialism And Liberation, no outward facing disagreements, that’s why nobody cares about them, a thousand, high barrier, a candidate period, easier to get into the Hells Angels, if the party is doing its job, want to overthrow the government, a public domain, as a concerned non-Canadian, this mess that we’re in, Tsleil-Waututh, old pulp magazines, provincial and federal taxes, HST, GST/PST, based on estimations not on receipts, anything that’s not universal is really fucking stupid, tax codes, a graduated income tax, tariffs, fixing old people’s teeth, middle aged people’s teeth, built out, how medicare started, almost semi-innovation, people aren’t that upset about marijuana anymore, Biden’s new promise, you’re student loan money, the way you did before?, this is what he means, accidentally tweeting from Biden’s account, folksy vocab, c’mon man, Corn Pop was a bad dude, 2019, who is Trump’s VP gonna be?, pretend Biden won, Democrats are ruthless not clever, willing kill people, the FBI or the CIA to assassinate Trump, what is he a threat to?, he’s going to ruin the country, he’s got choose somebody, that’s going to be your next president, old enough to die in office, not a drinker, doesn’t smoke, a health freak, enjoys golf, he’s no RFK, offered the vice presidentship, ostensibly a Democrat, it’s tribal, the tribe kicked him out, he could come back, he’s not gonna be the VP, some nobody, Pence was a nobody, president material, Indiana?, Trump might know, Kamala Harris is Biden’s running mate?, Gavin Newsom, by the time this podcast comes out we will know, we don’t know what the next, he’s anti-popular, literally affects their lives in some cases, tuned-out, as they should be, if it isn’t boring it is dangerous, the ship is headed to the waterfall, captain knows what he’s doing, I was captain before, I hate this ship, how do you get off?, Evan are you on the ship?, no good jobs available, they don’t have great jobs anymore, American emigration over time, 29.3 million in 2005, 40 million in 2019, google from prior to it being useless, a lot of internal migration, a lot easier, they speak English, one big free trade zone, 40% of women would like to leave the United States, not organized this way, how about the 21st century, more Americans that are civilians overseas than military, a 2018 estimate, 9.4 million a year emigrate, you can emigrate to Israel without a passport if you are a sex criminal, media mail, a legacy, US copyright law, American government is better at getting shit done in other countries than it is domestically, Trump changed NAFTA, the US government can get shit done in other countries, the Federalist papers, fair but a mistake, how important geography, students don’t want to use the water from the pipes in the bathrooms, students can’t watch movies from 2023, you have to have some sort of training, when did you start becoming a reader, pick up the habit, pretty strange, deprived of videogames, sick in bed, what caused that?, movies are quite long, you need to be trained to do that, a feature length silent film, it’s really hard, you have to learn everything, kids up to mid20s, fuckin bizarre, how they were raised, in a nanny society, feelings and not facts, appreciate this art form, a standard gen-xer opinions, tictok is more addictive, colour for film is better, maybe 3d movies are better, allow more options, sometimes is appropriate, Schindler’s List in colour, objectively harder, we have to be trained to somehow, the same pipes, drinking from bottle, see that mountain up there, there’s no mines, no tailings, it tastes like nothing except, even in the bathroom, a cup of ice water from the sink in the Starbucks, we should be going to the bathroom with a cup, system?, the finishing end of this process, a lot changed during COVID, a form online, how many assignments are outstanding, ambiguous questions, you want me to fulfill a job, what’s the job?, marked online, no wonder they’ve given up, a seriously broken system, this is the good version, there aren’t lots of suicides, oppressive evil, hearing reports, what I’m hearing is we’re fucked, their ability, have you every ridden a horse? yes, have you ever driven a car?, no, musical instrument, they’re being driven, she’s unlikely to be riding a horse, cute and interesting, the level of wealth, they’re all here, have enough money to get out, it’s crazed, a reactionary, stuck in his head, what is it like in Taiwan, the rest of China, pro-Taiwan, an anti-China view, who cares which Chinese master is running you, building socialism over the next 50 years, middle class, working class jobs, roads, hospitals, convention centers, harbours, building is somehow valuable, a lot of capital, surrounded as it is, better off in the long term, an invisible barrier, a big offshore banking industry, Caribbean islands, Kentucky problems, our mountain region doesn’t have good infrastructure to get in and out, industrial parks, the land is flat so this is good, it’s not great, with the floods that came through, historic flooding, housing stock got destroyed, people getting forced out, rural communities, jobs at public institutions, the mayor of this small town, works at a hospital as a janitor, local Methodist college, the alternative, call center will drive you to drink, skeptical of AA, a debt collector, set-up payment plans, a sign of horrible government, if there is not a natural disaster, people like where they live, it is stressful to move, what are you gonna do with all those cats?, all these books, almost a full scan of Galaxy, printed enmasse, good covers, two copies of the one with The Fireman, time and friendship.

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Exiles To Glory art by Stephen Fabian

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #808 – READALONG: Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein

Jesse and Evan Lampe talk about Starman Jones by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
1953, interested in the centaurs, get off my chest, read the juveniles in order, the first 6 are humanity’s juvenile guy in space, Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, The Rolling Stones goes the farthest, Podkayne Of Mars, Starship Troopers, the themes are more adult, all about the parents, family, 18-19, Between Planets, takes the ring, Time For The Stars, Have Space Suit, Will Travel, all set in the solar system, The Star Beast, the Moon, intergalactic space, the 7th one, interstellar space, invents FTL for this story, assumes it, different tech, Time For The Stars, only asterix, pooping on these boring boy characters, he’s a hillybilly with a stepmom, stepstepdad, Sam thief/mentor, truck driver mentor, some other mentors in the ship, super-noticed, found it here, they get lost in the woods, always getting lost, gets people out, the hero boy gets the lost people out the bad situation, what happens in space, becomes the captain, very boy-wish fulfillment, astrogators, had to be the captain, annapolis, the math guys are in charge, memorized the logarithm charts, I could be captain, junior officer, I have the training I have the knowledge, a really really good book, when were they and how could they get back, a time warp, whoever wrote the dustjacket, Tunnel In The Sky, pleistocene, the girl, tomahawk effect, back on the farm, a fun conformity, he achieves these great things, it’s situational, still just a student, have your own colony, didn’t he prove his way, a field commission, Wesley has to go back to school, the main split Jesse has with Heinlein, reject the things that are bullshit, good value in corruption, the Sam character, gets martyred, the earth culture we got a very small peak of, guild heavy, Lester Del Rey’s Badge Of Infamy, leave the earth and go to mars, he likes that idea, meritocratic idea, a governing principle, the role guilds and unions had, most-scientific management, a fantasy of the good old days, workers could work their way up, showing the corruption, the truck driver, Sam stole his book, rejects the last meal, the diner, hops the fence, guy says fuck off, mouth watering, pride prevented it, help me cheat my union and the rules of the road, two drivers alternating, the first time that happens, other cheating earlier in the book, the same thing happens, below decks, known but allowed to happen, the stills, interesting relevant, the Baltimore harbour ship crash, the company has been cracking down on whistleblowers, drinking on duty, things are not being maintained, maintenance issues, report whistleblowing through the company, free ride plus meals, the teamsters union, aboard ship, the canny one, bribe your way through everything, how did you even learn all this, why were you rejected from the astrogator’s guild, if I ever become captain, I’m going to use that to change things in the guild, we can reform this, this whole society is corrupt, his inheritance is stolen, your half mom, pay his fines, his attitude towards the American project, when I was a navy man…, nod and wink, get your graft, an undercurrent, the flex you need to make any kind of institution work, a little bit of graft, slight tweaks,nothing can be perfect, benefits to this system, the economy seems to be going, alternative, the corruption goes all the way down, Max’s dad’s farm, 400 years, not allowed to sell it, the Agricultural Land Reserve, engaging with the idea earth is going to run out of places to grow food, making food scenes work, the big breakfast, huge American breakfast with a big stack of pancakes, the diner, bring me an egg, nail it to the wall, on the ship as well, kidnapped with the girl, high tea, a really good writer, its the same formula every time, circumstances, distinct enough, young male characters, pretty terrific, distinctive characteristics, Luke Burrage’s The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, Moby-Dick, what the book is saying, I’m Ishmael, riding over his shoulder, no personality, twins, transgender is in here again!, more than once in more than one way, spider puppy, I’m a boy, I’m a girl, misgendered, you bring out the mother in me, very refreshing, his prudishness is non-existence, all sex all the time, not being worried as being perceived as gay, freedom to tell stories, Butler, Missouri, guys who grey up on farms, time around animals, sidemeat, cook the eggs, he’s bringing real life experience, theoretical and very grokkable future vision, very famous science fiction writer, a solid solid book, lie and cheat, come clean, moralism, make sure you talk to your parents first before going to the moon, role models, his uncle is his role model, interacting with adults that are not your parents, the maturation process, you see the themes get more heavy, more adult, adults facing adult issues, slavery, a little sister, an inversion of Podkayne, the most popular of all of the YA, dad was an English teacher, the one he chose for his students, the babiest, Tunnel In The Sky is fairly adult, sex in there, hidden in the house on the honeymoon night, a boyfriend back home, a class dynamic, hypercompetent for a girl, 3D chess, pretending to be dumb, characterizing girls, the girl is more interesting, our viewpoint into this world, super-readable, Glory Road, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, the mother thing, a little bit of Lovecraft in there, the Yest of the YAs, Rocket Ship Galileo, boys adventure, 1958, building spacesuits then, excited about building spacesuits, abducted by aliens, accessible Heinlein, the earth setting: terrific, the quasi-dystopia happening outside of the farm, the tunnel technology, slidewalks are mentioned, talks to a cop, runs into an alien or two, refrigerator, the electric stove is broken, wood shavings for tinder, a lot of the country didn’t have electricity, a woodstove is more work, plan your meals out a lot more, not having the dinner ready, sleeping around, a foreign unicycle in the driveway, self-stabilizing unicycles, 60kph, how did he carry that woman home, a second seat?, really great writer, the starship works great, matter converters, just does enough work, decks, gravity changes, turn off the gravity, Haven?, Charity?, the planet with the centaurs, we haven’t seen centaurs before, the Venusian fauns, panisci, elections, a marriage by the mayor, bio-tech, a trial, a judge, an old centaur, use an electrical eel on him, Max is trying to learn the language, being tied up outside with Elly a lot, a thread there, more about a first contact situation, the bad astrogator guy disposed of the note, the rebellion on the ship, Orphans Of The Sky, another repeated plot point, the mutiny, the same tricks, good revolution, overthrowing a corrupt government, Heinlein had a twin brother born in the UK, when they meet they’ll disagree about the same things, he believes in the American project, we need to be circumspect, justifying the house of lords, strawmans, his solution to problems, the stepstep dad is a nogoodnik, a layabout, a bad version of Sam, the astrogator who is bad at his job, missed the captain’s error, destroys the documents, an Iago for our hero, never fully grokked by Heinlein, never goes that extra step, allows them to be bad, why did Max’s father choose this woman as a wife?, Farmer in the sky, the father marries a wife, a new sister, son, something from Heinlein’s own experience?, a lot of feelings in there, let’s go join the navy, at a boarding school he gives up his horse?, Between Planets, has to give up a lot of stuff, drawing from his own life, having a pet that you can love a lot that you could talk to, back to back, huge American breakfast, gotta save Lummox, at the diner, bring me an egg, nail it to the wall, make him captain, high tea, toast, a really good writer, it’s the same formula every time, changes the circumstances slightly, young male characters, the first six are rough, young men are not that interesting, Luke Burrage’s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, Moby-Dick, I’m Ishmael, has no personality, the themes, twins, transgender is in here again, more than once in more than one way, the spider puppy, I’m a girl or I’m a boy, the talking pet, Willis, Lummox, misgendered, you bring out the mother in me, twice, separate scenes, prudishness, propriety, the editors holding him back, all sex all the time, not be worried about being perceived as gay, really interesting, allows a lot of freedom to tell stories, some issue with families, Butler, Missouri, grew up or are on farms, sidemeat, could be pig, sidemeat fat to cook the eggs in, real-life experience, grokkable future vision, very famous science fiction writer for a good fuckin reason, lie and cheat, maybe I need to come clean, moralism, Rocket Ship Galileo, make sure you talk to your parents about going to the moon, role models, interacting with adults who aren’t your parents, interacting with adults as equals, you would see the themes get more heavy, more adult, adults facing adult issues, Citizen Of The Galaxy, Have Space Suit, Will Travel, an inversion of Podkayne, dad was an English teacher, the one he chose for his students, the babiest, Tunnel In The Sky is fairly adult, sex in there, honeymoon night, a cute shipboard romance with Eldreth, a class dynamic, hypercompetent for a girl, pretending to be dumb, characterizing girls, the girl is more interesting, winning a contest, Glory Road, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, an adult who is acting childish, the mother thing, a little bit of Lovecraft in there, the Y-est of the YAs, boys adventure, boys and girls can read it, building spacesuits then, the middle 60s, everybody is going to be excited about building spacesuits, accessible Heinlein, quasi-dystopia outside of the farm, the tunnel technology, slidewalks, stuck on the farm, checking out books from the library, a refrigerator, the electric stove is broken, wood shavings for tinder, a lot of the country didn’t have electricity, more work than turning that knob, not having had the dinner ready, gone for the night, sleepin around, he’s got a unicycle, unicycles are huge now (self stabilized unicycle), the laws don’t know what to do with them, stepstep-dad’s unicycle, spinning up visions of it, doesn’t need to wholly explain every piece of tech, matter converts, decks, gravity is working, turn of the gravity, Haven?, Charity?, Charity maybe, two legged fauns, Venusian panisci, Tunnel In The Sky, they find houses, elections, a marriage by the mayor, associated beings, bio tech, a trial, a judge, an old centaur, an electrical eel, a whole other book about that, Max is trying to learn the language, being tied up with Elly a lot, they play chess, could have gone off in another direction, put in a cage, the note is not found on him, disposed of the note, the rebellion on the ship, another repeat plot point, Red Planet has a little bit of that, good revolutions, mutiny, challenging the leadership on the ship, Heinlein’s twin brother born in the UK, interested in the same things, the American project, the British Heinlein would end up justifying the House of Lords, strawmans, set her cap for him, good cook, property, a bad version of Sam, an Iago for our hero, how did they get to be like that, why did Max’s father choose this woman, Farmer In The Sky, a lot of feelings in there, let’s go joining the navy, at a boarding school and he gives up his horse, Between Planets, drawing from his own life over and over again, a pet you can love and you can talk to, transgenderism, big breakfasts, parents losing a wife, incest was left out, later books, certain themes, Heinlein doing Heinlein, a great listen, the guild thing, science fiction stories with unions, Gentlemen Be Seated, positive portrayals of unions in science fiction, the fat union guy has to sit on his ass, a good union man, I’m getting paid to be here, a positive portrayal, a sense of government, some sort of agricultural land reserve, space tourism, farm animals, workers, six females on the ship, just the passengers, well aged, past point of normal fertility, the annoying passenger, in Red Planet too, being uncharitable, the authority of the captain and the rules, that Lester Del Rey boo, Badge Of Infamy, in our world, corporations and stockholder, United Fruit sends the Marines to Guatemala, the President signs off on it, American people aren’t doing that consciously, explanations come after, Heinlein’s really awesome, how to operate within the system, rebellions there, disentangle the premises from Campbell, with The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, its a prison, expand, as a juvenile, a transition out of that, Friday, the last great book?, harks bad to this era, not fully human, escape to the stars, all the problems that are going on post-break up of the United States, Heinlein’s my guy, I Will Fear No Evil, am I transgender?, what would it be like, am I doing a good job, what makes me not attracted to men?, rape, as you know we both being women, the big muscles that men do, there isn’t a mistake in it, these keep getting better, kind of amazing, is the peak?, becoming a better writer, more complex, of the official juveniles, which is the best?, Star Beast or Time For The Stars, a tier list, not one boy, Hazel steals the show, more comedic too, playful, the courtroom scene, a bad movie where everyone cheers at the end, a space opera about space opera writers, when he dumps the parent characters, on his own, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, Starship Troopers is a poem, M.I., book recommendations, Skybeasts, engage with the centaurs, wanting to play with the babies, almost a shame, alien ecosystem, that lost in the woods subplot, is he just being lazy, what makes you a hero is saving people rather than killing people, bad writers, put a girl on the tracks, kill the villain who put the lady on the tracks, very moralistic, it’s about saving people, it’s about being truthful, a very boyscouty guy, shoe a horse, cook a meal, bring a woman’s pregnancy out into the world, conn a ship, combining the math is important, Jesse, is there a kid who doesn’t have to study math, one likes history, math is true and it helps you, the big gimme, Max Jones has an eidetic memory, its a trick, smart boy, doesn’t act arrogantly because of it, the doctor, you better act morally because you need to sleep at night, remembering details, acted badly, lied hurt people, being a psychologist, shame a twinge, a physical injury, not being cruel, cruel and mean, characters say things, Eldreth, even a girl like Eldreth, she’s dirty, he’s stinky, not being the prettiest but having a good brain, a cruel remark, engage with this at the Bifrost Lounge, Asgard, being cruel to people, being perceived as cruel, our Max character confesses at some point, Marilu Henner, I ordered the fish, how memories are formed, a system of forgetting that’s built in, a genetically useful thing, some people have that turned off, sitting under the stars looking up at space, he could navigate them home, get them out of the woods, he takes the time to look at the stars, this is actually a curse, allows him to become the captain of the ship, a more common human, he’s wrong about stuff, how does he solve the space problem, same way as in Gentleman Be Seated, sometimes you just have to sit around, he’s a wise man, they’re lying to themselves somehow, this is a man who taught Jesse a lot of stuff, a bunch of other things, setting artillery cannon calculations as your main thing, never was disabused of that, we have engineers, way too much math to students, most of us don’t actual need it, you need to learn Icelandic, a fine language, uncharitable for math, malthusian stuff, kind of implied, for calories, the torch ships, jump gates, weird FTL, very blinkered on where Earth can go, can’t imagine fertilizer, I use the government fertilizers, this land is played out, Heinlein’s using that to bootstrap the excuse, he likes to go to space, a lot of Earth stuff, science fiction set on earth vs. science fiction set on alien planets, basically Mars, there’s nothing there, it aint gonna happen, not with the tech we have, he can’t describe a whole ecosystem, floaters, subhumans, almost Jonathan Swift, expressionless faces, a solution or a plan, rooting for the centaurs, a settler colonial spaceship, you killed one of ours?, very in the news again, kidnapped, amazingly horrific videos, officially censored on most things, tiktok and twitter, even tiktok is censoring, not a foot stepped wrong, he’s our vehicle to get to where we need to go, could have worked harder on that, more than just lets again be lost in the woods, lost twice, a little subplot, after a certain point in the book its almost all dialogue, a lot of writers, the shape of a guy’s mustache, he has a cap, changes his shirt, rumpled looking, stuff that isn’t description of the colour of the deck plates, Heinlein just gets to it, 7 hours, Paul’s been nominated for a Hugo again, Hugo Nominees, the new novel, Ancillary Justice, alternate pronouns, an AI that had its consciousness downloaded into a robot, tea-ceremonies and head kicking, a big long series that shouldn’t exist, really good and nice and short, Ann Leckie, that premise from 11 years ago, 409 pages, double the length of this and the first in a series, that’s something else, it is set in space, some science fiction ideas, it has something to do with what you’re reading the books for, escape or uplift, in the fifties it was the pulps, cheap paperback novels, for better or for worse, there are good series, 200 pages, don’t describe the deckplates, what is the haircolour Ishmael, people who are interesting, a Stephen King guy, physical appearance, repetition, in Connie Willis as well, getting to the thing and getting out, studying ecology that’s Dune, this is something else, we can be done with stuff, get someone else’s take, complaining about a book series, Heinlein’s awesome, even when you’re disagreeing with him, spending the whole book joining the truck driver’s union, a little lesson in physics, the pressure on the metal roads, trucks vs. trains, Evan’s readthrough of Heinlein, lost in space, you’re not supposed to read this book back to back, go crazy with Elmore Leonard, eventually they get bad, big but under control, a lot of sex stuff, implied, a pretty solid first person narration story, a retelling, Dave (1993), Moon Over Parador (1988), House Of Cards, Double Star is barely science fiction, hypnosis, a down and out actor, a good actor, is there a difference between me and the guy I’m acting as, The Prince And The Pauper, swap clothes, Richard Dreyfus, Caviar Of His Excellency by Charles G. Booth, fictional south American president, dies of a heart attack, Sammy Davis, Jr., we get to see our Martians and water brothers, same Martians, a princess of Mars, a princess in this book, a magnate, her boyfriend, upperclass twit names, fun fun book, Evan shows up sometimes, gonna have Will, Easter, last minute facebook memes about Jesus, a day of transgender awareness, trynna get votes, Easter something, March 31, 2024, more woke holidays, eliminate the boring holidays, thanksgiving, created by the people, Halloween, opening day for baseball should be a holiday, Taiwan baseball, colonized by the Japanese, Sun Yat-sen, Game Of Rat And Dragon by Cordwainer Smith, his godfather, kinda like Tolkien, same thing but for space, all the other wars he was involved in, not everybody is going to get this, a Chinese expert, pre-CIA CIA guys, on team China during WWII, there’s a really good documentary Cordwainer Smith, a Chinese name, largely about cats, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, humans fighting dragons in space with the assistance of the partners, they like fish, time spent talking about psychology of cats, Rediscovery: The Lives Of Cordwainer Smith, the national father, revere him, Taiwan has so been Taiwanized, 10/10, the 1911 revolution, 113, a lot of them aren’t aware of that, very science fictional, the statues everywhere, the propaganda letter bombs, to surrender properly, the tragedy of communist victory in the civil war, a guy who is deeply in love with China, uses his powers for evil, uses his powers to spin up stories for himself, stories about empathy, the dragon and the rat, what the dragons look like Chinese animals, very different, creatures of water, long and sinuous, not hoarders who need to be slain, harbingers of bad luck, before famines, space is painful, who come out of space, people I helped crush, really likes Beowulf, focus on that, meatgrinding, reduce this to US imperialism, British war, the China lobby, inform government policy, China was still struggling against imperialism, Henry Luce, raise money from the foreign exclaves, free China from western imperialism, so affectionate, wife was a Christian, soft power, American foreign policy towards China, you do your part, can’t be a good thing, why people write fiction is weird, art, therapy, money, Heinlein was good at it, it was fun for him, a failure at everything else, James Tiptree, Jr., not interested in having kids, not interested in going to conventions, intellectual exercise, using pseudonyms, don’t want to be in the limelight, not doing it because you’re trying to get rich, a hobby, they’re weirdos, how people’s brains work, some sort of deficit, they want to be famous, a little power fantasy, getting a job sucks, who makes it writing, very few, they’re delusional, small business, you give yourself a job you’re your own boss, we’re turning off in store business, that’ll kill it, working for someone else, bad ideas thrust upon you, make work, busy work, writing is a way to do that, escape an identity of being a job you don’t like, a big theme in The Sopranos, they’re having fun stealing things, crass miserable fucks, we enjoy their misery, the framing being about therapy, exposition, ultimately it is almost dropped, there for exposition, the backstory, panic attacks, the Game Of Thrones moments, throwing everybody under the bus, what makes it interesting, watching the decline of this lifestyle, cultures get eradicated, relentless narrative of decline, that incident with the bridge collapse, so on point, may take up to 10 years to rebuild this bridge, it was built in 5, how fast would China have a bridge up?, extracting value, the puppet strings, milk it properly, the competent government, when the government could actually do something, they did that war so efficiently, how many tanks were built, we’re running out of shells to give to Ukraine, we can’t do two genocides at once, the of pilots vs. the number of aircraft, they take 20 years to develop, the transfer of hardware manufacturing of tanks, 1950s cars, civilian aircraft, make civilian production, needs for housing, we can have a boom, for a long time, something goes wrong, do stuff without having to have a war, let’s do hospitals, how is this possible, not having graft being the number one thing they do, what the progress is on the Francis Scott Key Bridge [repair set to begin 2025], economic impact, a thicker base, more and more misallocated, investing way to much in housing, foreign investment housing problems, the houses empty in China, better that than tanks and bombs, when they get to 30 aircraft carriers, a land invasion of Canada, probably have some ideas, same with the regular federal government, we did really good on this, Heinlein influence, fleeing to space with your physics skills, even if a bad book.

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Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #805 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Lucian’s True History by Lucian of Samosata

The SFFaudio Podcast #805 – Lucian’s True History by Lucian of Samosata, read by Terry Kroenung, translated by Francis Hicks. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 22 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
True History, A True History by a long dead guy, this is science fiction, not very effectively, “the first known text that could be called science fiction”, histories of science fiction, deep roots, little conversation, Frederik Pohl book, niche interest, mainstream?, a lot more like Star Wars than Star Trek, a social science fiction, it’s something, modern readers from the 1600s on consider him an atheist, monotheistic religions at all, he believed in truth and common sense, the molecular theory of matter is hilarious (but also possibly true), making fun of all those people, his mode was irony, dripping with it, planets and stars, wouldn’t it be funny, could this fit into Planet Stories (no), no Mars, we go to Venus, we go to the Sun, the Moon, the translation is wrong, Lucifer, the light bringer, we went to the morning star, that’s Venus, thinking they’re two separate stars, a journey through the solar system, inside a whale, the land of dreams, the afterlife, a journey into other places (besides space), where do we get the title from, A True Story, it should have true in it, it’s all lies, it’s about truth, this place like Hell, Odysseus goes to Hell too, Hades, the plot is a greatest hits of silly ideas, Gulliver’s Travels is more science fiction than this, philosophers rather than scientists, Jonathan’s point, Philosophers going cheap, ironically poor manner, the punchline for each one, to perform manual labour, you can clean my floors, mythology too, a poor view of mythology, people who believed it were just idiots, Xenophones, reviving the pagan tradition, the 2nd century, 3rd century Platonism, critical of this, a lot of Christians don’t think about the story because they didn’t read the book, a reference to Genesis, all new to them, a participant in a religion with no one fixed text, this is not a straight up history, this is a parable (as mentioned in the actual story), the more you drill down into it, they weren’t there, I heard this from a dude, this is hilarious, one of the most popular writers of his time, survived all of the fires, made by hand, what’s the technology of reading, [Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years by Tom Standage], a scene in I, Claudius, manuscripts copied, they all want it and we can sell it, a roomful of copyists, The Aeneid, state sponsored, collectors, the ancient world, books we know exist, excerpts, a checklist, ancient Greek/Roman culture, lost to us, this is how we know about them, the amount of material lost, Menopus, jokes then reconstructed, people who were dead showed up, get this joke out, are you sure you wrote that joke?, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, new at the time, every joke is a joke from the stone age, the same body parts [until the early 21s century], boobs, screwing, special stuff, trying to keep track of how many men he started off with and how many came back with, lose two guys to vine ladies, vaguely paid attention, start subtracting after a certain point, straight narrative, on his way home, jump back in time, by the time he gets home at the end of the chronological narrative, mostly they’re dead, for the messaging if there is any, trynna be pretty funny, houseguests: how to be one, how to not end up as one, the Calypso letter, about lies, why you gotta avoid lying, the opening introduction material, The Pathological Liar [Lover Of Lies], the sick friend, Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, symposium, weaving those stories in, but the first of more adventures like this, find my woke hat, doesn’t fit me well, very fashionable hat, a lot of genocide in here (amongst other things), let’s kill them all, ah whatever, very casual, go to the island of these women, jobs as hostesses, what you got under that kilt, right out of The Odyssey, there’s nothing there but water, this island isn’t as good as we though it was, satire, 1640 something, the Paul Turner translation, a much bigger emphasis on the genocide and making it funny, in the whale, casual and breezy, they live alone and they’re unarmed, the most logical thing to do is to kill them all, have it be a lot funnier, the 1958 translation, a thousand at the very least, unless you count fishbones, all the latest equipment, everyone agreed to this proposal, more blunt, funnier, digging out the nuggets of goodness, what the narrative is actually saying, they buried their dead inside the whale, what does that consist of exactly, doesn’t even feel that he’s on fire yet, making it really explicit, seems more literal translation, more relatable style, a nice short book, modern translation, took things literally at that time, writing it literally, a translation as you would for a menu, jokes in menus, all the illustrations, ladies and men various places, all the men, the king says, I’m gonna give you guys all spouses, but you only have men here, a subset of men who reproduce differently, riffing on pederasty, what if there was a planet where all there was, shownotes, wonderful illustrations that very much enhance the story, there is gold in this book, when they made peace in outerspace, much funnier than the way it is put, at the first meeting, rejecting them out of hand, in the following document, the Sun people and their allies, the Moon people, the Vanquished, not to make war in future, pay the Victors annually 10,000 bottles of dew, not so different from us, when you read these really really old books, on and on, didn’t have the colour blue, the wine dark sea, that’s not what it means, strange beings that are not like us, cultural circumstances and particular languages, sex parts described in more detail, weird birthing, Malo, think about this a little bit, Hippomyrmices, Phaetons, great gnats, turnips, anoint their bullets with the poison of mallows, weapons made of vegetables, privy members, rods made of mallows, plucked a root of mallows, make my prayers to that, lupins, nor to come near a boy past 18 years of age, come to the island again, the final instance of mallows, only by women, yay!, attired like wantons, long mantles down to the foot, Cabbalusa, Hydramardia, my heart misgave me, the bones of many men, any stir, taking the mallow into my hands, present perils, a scene from Circe’s island, stabs the water, marshmallow, that’s where they grow, the flavour of marshmallow, a reed, is this a symbol for something, root beer, a botanical significance, this might be a traditional penis enhardener, a lot of this stuff is like this, a repeated theme, we don’t understand what this is, a lot of classic works, directly parodying, reading travelogues, going to India, maybe he read a book where a guy went to the Moon, the opening, just beyond the Western Ocean, Hercules and Bacchus, carving their own record, a structure here that works, missing way too much, The Iliad, it’s really tricky, lots of boats here, the movie, it was actually good, The Aeneid is the same way, in reverse order, 50,000 heroes vs. 1 hero, a lot easier to understand, the way you would tell this story, some rich guy’s house, you sing for your supper, focus on that particular Ajax, a handy index, in order to focus on the local hero, grokking a good chunk of this book, half-ignorant, not fully able to appreciate, the context of Lucian, this Hellenistic world, lingua franca, Hellenistic schools, travel and people moving around, drawn from life, the diversity of the region, a society that was falling apart, Hellenized, Syrian, living in Rome, a greatest hits of silly ideas, Dialogues Of The Dead, feasted with them, went to Homer, a pillar of berylstone, the safe harbour, Lucian did once attain to see all this, a Lucian was here, Kilroy was here, carves it on a monument, making fun, what travellers do, a high mountain caves, Jonathan loves Samanthan, used condoms, old beer cans, that Penelope might not see him, Calypso, if it were our fortune, bent upon other employments, might be easier to make a list of places he doesn’t go, the whale scene, into depths inside the whale, pretty much incredible, the size of everything, wringing every bit of satire, the main character is the author, good days weather, with the frame, what are we supposed to make of this?, ethically against lying, definitely entertaining, passed around to their friends, advocate for entertainment, for entertainment purposes, great literature, things can be true on more than one level, former clients, as a story, true within a story, how to construct stories, set something up and didn’t pay it off, why is this story powerful?, truth within that structure, to the nth degree, more exaggerated than everything in Gulliver’s Travels, going to Japan, increasingly ridiculous, sets it up in such a way, Sir John Mandeville’s travels aka Mandeville’s Travels, ignorant or familiar, thinking of Christ as Batman, materials, Zorro, the Black Bat, in the hero pulp, a sidekick girl, Robin Hood’s cap, a ripoff of a particular Shadow story, beat for beat, this is the true facts about Batman, works great for Superman and Spider-Man, what would Spider-Man do in this situation, with great power comes great responsibility, I believe in Spider-Man, my brother in Christ, a mantle you put on, get closer to God, is bizarre, utterly bizarre, a philosophically funny work, three cards, a book, a bird, and a boy, three b words, 6 lines in 7 minutes, on a branch above the tree, this can’t be a true story, it starts with once upon a time, the boy the bird and the book disappeared, the end, nothing about it is possibly true and yet we continue to read it, everything that happens is 100% true, our default mode as humans, take in sense data and say this is true, further experimentation and mentation, forces itself upon you, not a mental rape exactly, it doesn’t stop it, focus our attention on, fairly copiable, from The Pathological Liar, elucidate some of this Philoclese, prefer lies to truth, mentally deficient, Herodotus, Homer, not content with deceiving their contemporaries, the most beautiful poetry, the castration of Uranus, birds and bears, chimera, very fascinating to children, alright in poetry, the Cretans point out the grave of Zeus, grew out of the soil like vegetables, plant men who germinated from the teeth of snakes, any sane person, drove threw the air, carried off by the North Wind, a blasphemous idiot, how powerful lies can be, national myths, patriotic motives, all the official guides would starve to death, merely absurd, a manifesto, that translation seems very modern, a little annoying here, not earnest in his reporting, to call him a liar, picks on Plato, is Plato not earnest?, is Plato a liar?, the Myth of a Cave, bootstrap us into a particular position, The Matrix (1999), this looks cool, the idea, it’s a fiction that gets at a truth, how do you know what truth is?, engaging, the [Christopher] Steele Dossier, the Hillary Clinton campaign paid a former M16 agent to dig up dirt, they didn’t want him to find nothing, pee tape, largely lies, demonstrably, there’s no basis for this, tautological, when you pay Stephen King, opposition research, it’s weird to believe it, Domino Theory, Paul went to Vietnam, don’t think it’s weird, State of the Union, back Ukraine, domino the rest of Europe, some thinktank came up with in the 1950s, demonstrable evidence that it’s bullshit, it needs to be true to get the result that they want, from a particular worldview, just asking for rumours, same thing for Herodotus, a collection, collecting stories, father of history, collected all the histories, and rumors, the true history of the United States and the mythological histories of the United States, the Blue Bull, Johnny Appleseed, our current standards of methodology, rather than Evan Lampe, the Dunning School historians, demented by their racism, mad dog, biting other people various phobias, sick of psychic phenomena, antidote truth and common sense, take it with a grain of salt, a very important message, we have the internet, everybody and their spies, broadbased lies and mistruths in the past, read the newspaper for an hour, pay to get lied to, more people actively at work than ever before, so many people actively working to lie to us, and getting paid to lie to us, not their job titles, actively editing, according to the lies Jesse believes, drill down into any Wikipedia entry that is locked, you’ll find active participants employed or paraemployed by governments and thinktanks, very true, not some YouTube video, this one on peanut butter not locked, not the way corporations get upset, candidate being damaged possibly, an orator, reading their writing out loud to large groups, an attorney before he was a satirist, The Life Of Brian (1979), like Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, the people shouting probably had slaves, what class of people were the philosophers drawn from, your latest book of lies, become a houseguest, a new workout, a party guest thing, ancient vs. roman, Epictetus was a slave, of this period, a cult, a leader, following the leader, go stand on the street corner and speak my philosophy, the cynics, the skeptics, the stoics, the Christians, a big soup, a blanket condemnation, hate the internet, nothing but liars, sociological people, pathological people, sociopaths, gather flocks of followers around themselves, just a bunch of liars, atomic theory of matter is hilarious, so stupid, even when Lucian is wrong, when the liars are right, all over the place, fall into a rabbit hole, get stuck there, do away with the whole thing, genocide thing, the whole nonsense, common sense makes me reach for my phaser, vow of silence, very hard to make lies without words, the sky is purple tonight, not true when you’re young, get old, get dumb again, get tricked later in life, the concept of senility to a sociological level, outsourcing your knowledge, we’ve had this talk before, impossible not to do this, the rabbit whole we’re in here, doomer edgelord, get tricked again, if Jesse slacks he’ll get tricked again, keep up with studies, listening to lies on YouTube is your study, every history book ever listed, Liminal Spaces on YouTube, this is a story I read, getting facts wrong, this is what it meant to me, lies are very tricky things, this weird kind of lie: fiction, imposes upon, on YouTube or out in the real world, on Facebook!, Canadian government ads, looking at her phone skeptically, who are they doing that for, words and speech shape reality, it is very hard to lie without words, deception is wonderful (but not the same thing as a lie), keep a score chart, the Paul Turner, great notes at the back, this wonderful thing about the internet, Bobby Derie, a Lord Dunsany story finds out her mother was a bicycle, read it for myself, a blessing, what’s uniquely twitter about that, Jonathan’s hate obsession, because fuck you, that’s why, good facts drive out bad fact, track it down and read it for myself, Jesse doesn’t trust etexts, a paper scan, radical skepticism, not able to communicate or have a discourse, limits what we can know, do your own research, doesn’t really solve the problem, climate change research, we have to rely, do we have to do climate change research, Jesse can solve this one, dentist’s expertise, you can’t do that work yourself very easily, you can cut your own hair, Bryan Alexander talking about climate change, start noticing details, as school is wont to do, a poem for Biden’s inauguration, a really horrible poem, what causes climate change, carbon dioxide, methane, the biggest human release of greenhouses gases ever, do I need to care, opposition to climate science, literally Jesse’s point, a gas fireplace, what should Jesse do to reduce his carbon footprint, Naomi Klein, if you really wanted to stop it, recycling garbage better, is this something I need to care about, know it by its signs, you will know him by his ways, no impact on public policy, Aaron Bushnell had an effect, the South Vietnamese govt didn’t fall because of Buddhist monks lighting himself on fire, mentally ill, repost pro Aaron Bushnell, a great example of why you shouldn’t believe in lies, he believed a lot of lies, lionize him, make him into a hero, a martyr, a value judgement, a particular kind of hero, if you watch the video, guy in a tower with a rifle, made a recording of himself, people are allowed to be towers with rifles, douse themselves, become celebrities, celebrity status, making heroes out of people who commit suicide, a bunch of soldiers burned their uniforms, in favour of suicide, something you can actively do, not all the time everyday, when necessary and appropriate, it’s courageous, a horrible situation for everyone involved, good when the morale is low, would you like the armed forces to have high morale, against his orders, show up for duty, a much better duty, to the question of lying, are we telling lies about his suicide, he put the lie to the idea the United States isn’t involved, he communicated information, not in the official papers of record, if there are such things in future, reacting to an official lie, a value judgment against, can value judgements be false?, maybe it was a juvenile, even the bad ones, we are involved, we’re trying to start a peace process (when you’re not), that wasn’t so bad, a thoughtful people, lady with a fidget spinner stock photo ad department, really horrible, a black lady is looking at her phone like its shat on a bed, Roger Waters, all American hero, take heed of the dream, Mr. Social Responsibility, why are you so against suicide?, numerous things people do, being a soldier, a chance you’re going to die, being a police officer, all forms of self sacrifice, the Grand Army of the Republic was full of heroes, objecting to seeing it in your timeline, glad able to see it, a false characterization, would stop people from doing more suicides, terrorist video discourages people from doing terrorism, a video of a guy blowing up, actual example, screaming Free Gaza, school shooters, Columbine sparked many copycats, why are you against suicide, against suicide, people killing themselves is cool, not cool, stressful, not the same thing as killing other people, The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the right side of history, just look at the videos, there seems to be something bad happening, whatever this is is very very bad, asked to participate, let’s genocide them, fairly modern word, the case of Columbine, that was caused by school, force people to do things, this institution was difficult, we all know school is prison, a metaphor but also true, a kid brought a gun to school, that’s power, a solution to problems, mimeticly interested in copying each other for attention, the answer isn’t to ban talk about school shootings, Uvalde, how fucking incompetent everybody is, Weird Tales poems about suicide, suicide is scary, let’s talk about it, that’s pretty rough, the suicide bombers, can’t use the message of the media, take other people with you, Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999), institutions, conforming, a vicious cycle, Columbine is getting revenge, Bushnell is doing the opposite, the video and what he said, they’re not flattering to the powers that be, a cognitive estrangement from what Jesse saw in the video, as a musician vs. his politics, music is dangerous, suicide not dangerous, The Wall, John Taylor Gatto, Mark Fisher, also other things, this truthy book, how do we best address lies?, position of extreme skepticism, they’re all liars, try never to lie, practice deception, feeling stupid is bad, try not to call people on their lies when they’re weak and young, biggest dangerous liar ever, NFB documentary about Canada’s involvement in the first Gulf War vs the second, Laurentian elites, involved itself in the Afghanistan war, a NATO obligation, the best friend to the evil bully, if it were to happen again today, Justin’s in charge, things have changes, former prime ministers of Canada, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chretien, people are noticing, pushing the lie hard enough, how do you deal with lies in the world around you?, skepticism to a lot of things, don’t trust, trust is a bad word, access to the calendar, that’s no way to live, you have to trust things, if you study things well, do your homework, that’s not trust, take it for what it is, this isn’t immediately my sense perception, prove to me that Lincoln lived, was Joan of Arc a real person, a ticket to France, a photograph of a girl riding a horse, why did the British burn her corpse, to make her as fictional as Jesus or Batman or Spider-Man, theological reasons, she’s a witch, Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc book, seems reasonable sort of, lies in the narrative, an ideological opposition to the concept of trust, when a person behaves a certain way, certain traits, continue on, an unstable person, making a model of your mind, the word trust is the problem there, read something in the New York Times, like all the Hamas rapes, omitting part of the story, perspective, interests, shape a news story, a Jimmy Dore video, he’ll literally say anything, willing to say anything, about hair dye, I just decided it was time to stop smoking weed, need to make a video about it, not a pothead, he’s got this guy [Kurt Metzger], he’s like Johnny Carson’s sidekick (Andy Richter), writes the jokes, if he started to disagree, laughing and nodding and agreeing, selling subscriptions, during COVID he stopped pushing subscriptions, people stopped taking their boosters, he’s not a messiah, makes him a businessperson, some really good videos, a lot of his videos have been demonitized, he’s richer than me, small socialist podcasts and Maissa, literally doing it for the money, that’s a theory, he’s angry, that’s what drives him, he has a right to be, nothing sincere about him, both sincere and untrustworthy, both insincere and untrustworthy, the untrustworthiness, down on the populism, they’re not incompatible, socialized medicine, very exacting of issues of race, radical republicans in North Carolina, lowest common denominator, we need people to think hard, not unique to any ideology, a modern hate for populism, Will’s opposition to populism, makes movements happen, Martin Luther King as a populist, abusing the term, he got people other than black involved, Malcolm X, different plans of execution, a moving target, both got shot in the end, both on the right track, a leader of organizations, part of an institution, the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, more like Leninist party, fairly hostile to the idea of the truckers, some Albertans are strangely attracted to the Texas story, a rebelling symbol for Canadians, resentment towards Ontario and Quebec, what you saw was people waving confederate flags, a Nazi flag (probably planted), all the Canadian flags, Westerners trying to get a meeting with the country, Fuck Trudeau flags, an illegal war measure’s act, a non-violent civil protest, a lot of brown truckers, not a white only tiki torch parade, Trudeau called them white supremacists, the Coutts border crossing story Alberta, the story is dissolving, the excuse, the inciting incident for the War Measures Act, not factions, CBC and CTV and Global, political goals, a tactic, their goal is to promote a war in Ukraine, honouring a Nazi in the House of Commons, believing this propaganda, they did that, there’s video of it, still obsessed with, different versions of reality, the other factions, don’t have the introspection, forces that tell lies, all factions lie equally, the story of Ukraine briefly, the Maidan coup, the good guy, the bad guy is the United States, lot of Soviet backstory, Sevastopol, everything was inevitable, invaded that country, defensive, is it conquering, definitely invaded, take over or take back, the 12th century, fight and defend that national identity, that’s the story, opening the door to iridentism, that’s why Putin tried to explain the history, there’s this country that’s trying to add members, why does NATO exist, makes sense, extend control, is that irredentism, Victoria Nuland, there’s a thing going on, Russians who live in Ukraine, Nazis in Ukraine, negotiation possible here, Boris Johnson was flown in to cancel a peace deal, who’s the bad guy?, which one is which?, they just canceled elections, this is not Putin bad as usual, been to Russia, December 2003-2004, cutting off their gas supply, going on for decades, he got turned back, stuck on their lines, the annexation of Crimea happened right away, conquer in steps, defeated, that’s not what happened, how strong the Ukranian army is, reading the Russian narrative, when the Bolsheviks take over, the useful idiots, Stalin killed a lot of people, the Soviets themselves, crushed by the Bolsheviks, the anarchists, believe blindly in the cause, Will does not endorse Jesse’s views, can spot a lot of propaganda, very passionate, the tell, when they get emotional about it, detached from the horror that’s happening, how can people watch this, there’s no chatter, last day to nominate for the Hugos, we’re never done with the Hugos, why am I following this person?, strong opinions about the Ukraine war, do you know the Maidan coup, did you hear the Nuland phone call?, the English language German propaganda channel on YouTube (Deutsche Welle), she has a different take on it, watch Jimmy Dore all day, watch opposition, Deutsche Welle on who blew up Nordstream?, rented a boat maybe, events are still unfolding, not like a super-secret mystery, we will end it, rumbled by methane gas, maybe there’s another story, when you investigate, take information you learn and then check on it, what does this drug do?, not trust, verify, she just likes to google, check up on the animals, things happen, and you like them, Jesse’s theory of truth, discern something close to the truth, Jonathan: common sense and if people are emotional it’s probably propaganda, disconnect because he’s in history, Evan expert opinion, Will is epistemologically humble, learning something, that’s actually really good, trust me I’ve read Heinlein, you can just read Scalzi, the worst path, trust this lady, Our Opinions Are Correct, the authorship of The Loved Dead, that’s what Bobby Derie said, almost all Lovecraft, Eddy saying can you help me write a story, a lot of Eddy, very little Lovecraft, Lovecraft influenced for sure, withhold judgement, his influence on Weird Tales, they lived in the same town, almost all the revisions, strong documentary evidence, some themes, feel these were useful idiots, read Soviet history, what is to be done?, historians of the Soviet Union, are you going trust Stalin or your own lying eyes, Stephen Kotkin three volume biography of Stalin, being impartial, somebody on YouTube who has an agenda, good science, what would happen if we put this thing in the press?, Beyond The Press, that’s science, how the world is flat, Wacky Jacky does PUBG science, doing the science, literal science, the stakes of truth, high stakes, fun stuff, Ivermectin as a cure for science (cancer), the NIH website, a powerful effect, resources, person hours, a generic, try not to go the pharmacy, don’t trot that out, too soon, the horse paste tweet is still up, pushing Ivermectin is horse paste, c’mon man, they had never heard of it before, a very popular drug, super-safe and super-effective, the one worms episode of House, M.D., medical funs, very hard to overdose on it, public domain anybody can make it, maybe Jesse will make his own, the medical industry should be socialized, just made a deal, the NDP made a deal with evil Justin, already solved in BC, still working on the dental stuff (kids and old people), super-evil, in this particular time with his limited amount of seats, no news like that in the States, all the horrible news, Canada funding Ukraine, a lung cancer vaccine in Cuba, Venezuela, a trade embargo with the US, 2016, you think they’d like to sell a product they’d make some money, their fault they’re not selling it, immunotherapy treatment, small cell lung cancer, go follow that person on twitter, after a few tweets, do your own research, if everybody had a twitter, accidentally tweeted using Biden’s account, reading is dangerous, almost always leads to believing a big lie, exactly the point he’s making, he’s Jonathan, mythological adaptations, influenced by Lucian, parody it, Atalanta, good Atalanta book?, a woman who wants to run, the huntress, equal in weight, Arcadia, the Argonaut, allied to the goddess Artemis, a bunch of fun stuff, Jason turned her away, hence her name, takes place after, Meleager, got the hots for this chick, so furious they kill Meleager, the Golden Apple story, Beyond Lies The Wub by Philip K. Dick, a retelling of the Circe story, Out In The Garden, the Zeus one, Zeus action had happened earlier, regular Zeus action, Philip K. Dick and Robert Sheckley don’t disappoint, some adjacent things, Not Far From Eden, sold twice as much, special knowledge, boring, not exposed to it anymore, Go The Fuck To Sleep, so relatable to so many, Samuel Jackson, a synergy, not a great book, very little to do with the quality of the material, an artist, commercial and an artist, commerce and art intersect, 20 Books To 50K, debunked all the time, pyramid scheme, still gonna buy their time shares, The Man In The Iron Mask, you need that man in there, Who by Algis Budrys, Library Of America put it out, the original cover, smoking, robot arm, WHO?, the bases of base kinds of ways of reading a story, a film starring Elliot Gould?, a kidnapped physicist, cold war stuff, transhumanist stuff, transhumanism as a horrible idea, available as an audiobook, Grover Gardner?!, up Jonathan’s alley, ideas, sex and violence, 60s early 70s, experimentation, the pulp stuff, a bad book with interesting ideas, you did it, Will’s taking responsibility, DMing Jesse, Dorsai!, military SF that starts a series, rather read the shorter version, The Genetic General, revised into a longer book, a one-off, modern horror, The Slob by Aron Beauregard and Talia by Daniel Volpe, a lady photographed liking a knife, Godless bookstore, Drew Stepek, satanic imagery, modern horror, three year anniversary, transgressive literature, Carry On Puking by REEKFEEL, gold amongst these hills, transgressive but is it good?, reading classical stuff, rounds and rounds of criticism, reading newer stuff, culture happening right now, underground culture, the letters, The Dead Inside by Chandler Morrison, supporting suicide, 5 hours basically, love horror and love gore, body horror, the book had no plot, words on the page written just because, belittling my intellect, propaganda, emo wannabe teen, the most revolting things they could think about, yay!, dead females of all ages, scarfing down a dead newborn, you already know how the book ends, just put 2 plus 2 together, cannibalism etc., most helpful, set aside a whole day to process what you read, staring at the ceiling, at the clinical scene, laughing like a maniac, no idea who I would recommend it to, map of my mind, 6 hours 32 minutes, a disgusting house of horrors, the shudder pulps, fought tooth and nail, fled the disastrous situation, sinister seed, blossom, stomach churning, strives for normalcy, shine through the darkness?, splatterpunk, Son Of The Slob, gross out, are they cannibals, Stories Of The Stone Age by H.G. Wells, The Valley Of The Blind, doesn’t need to be as long as it is, 15 minute story, gross out horror, 1 star reviews, gore for the sake of gore, glorified torture porn, men have no business writing women, incredibly transparent and predictable, like in Heinlein, credulity, first instinct, slasher flick, genres have cliches, if it weren’t for the character is brutally SAed, sexually assaulted, magically pregnant by her assailant, what the issue is there, stay away from this book, Jonathan suggested it, many positive reviews, good to know about, this group exists, do I need to be one of them, science fiction is about science, sometime the science is loose, kind of a science, books about geology, more geo-SF, a horror writer, Scott Sigler’s EarthCore, mystery box story, mining, not science fiction, more like suspense, the geology is just there to get in the way of getting to the mystery box, humans play in a galactic football game, giant alien football league, the story of Wool and other stuff, a bad example, he looks like science fiction but he is not, the guy behind Stranger Things, Bishop’s Assistant, two episodes of Joe Rogan?, mentioned him, Kevin James and Joey Diaz, podcasts on IMDB, pathetic and weird, monetize their fame through podcasts, something you gotta do now, Prince Harry and Megan, the Obamas, no skill for it, Russell Brand is a pretty good streamer, celebs with nothing to say, Obama did one with Bruce Springsteen, famous people like to meet other famous people, had something to say at some point in his life, a 26 minute one, not like this lengthy beast, this wonderful conversation, the slightness of the material in some respects, a mental map of our listeners, Mike Nowak in North Carolina?, David Currie, being a conspiracy theorist, what’s the conspiracy theory Jesse believes in?, a catchall, ancient aliens, fascinated by them, the CIA killed JFK, the big book, The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot, we don’t have the video of Allen Dulles up on the grassy knoll, all circumstantial, 25 hours, take JFK’s assassination out of it, calling it the CIA vs. a particular subset, pick a year, this is how they operate, because we say they, start digging into the history of Guatemala or any country, really something, still parts of it are redacted, you can see what happened on the ground, a tier list, untrusted countries, if you start backwards, reconstruct the pyramid, how much money goes to Egypt, Gibraltar still a thing, Sevastopol, the Bosphorus, why geography is important, ismthus are important, look into geology, nitty gritty of which particular person, we can know by learning, geography is so important, really useful, Jesse’s model of Jonathan is not really robust, the emotional content, a disconnect, a real strong connection to horror, connecting to emotions in a disconnected way, a plastic skull, go back to one of the graves, if not thinking about death daily, think about death the just right amount, meditate and not have intrusive thoughts, intrusive negative thoughts, what are those negative thoughts about, a mustache that doesn’t grow the way I want it to, vanity, your pretty but you’re not as smart as you think you are, being ugly, kinda average, looks like a dude, no he’s smart to, fuck that guy, young smart handsome, fucker, in good shape too, too much time writing and recording, goddamn him, make him my friend, no alternative, lucky it didn’t stare in the mirror all day, Narcissus, both in water, when were mirrors invented, animals, dangerous, very dangerous, some of them need to be shared, big cats, caracal, what the hell is that thing?, is that me?, Dungeons & Dragons displacer beast, horrifying, lion videos, exhibit behavior, mountain lions, pumas, african lions, russians wrestling bears, probably unwise, lifestyle, culturally relativistic, a poem about a caracal in a coracle, one of Jesse’s finest pieces, two fishmen coming out of the sea, teaching the children about literature, constructed it well,

Picnic For Two by Jesse

Down on the beach, a couple lays food
On blanket and plate (in amorous mood).

Up In the sky two gulls play, dive, and laugh
Singing for supper (each bird will get half).

Stealthy, out from the waves two Fishmen arise
Carrying wet nets to seize and demise.

The Fishmen have nets! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
The Fishmen are fishing (for husbands, for wives)

The couple are running as hard as they can!
But Fishmen are quicker: catch woman-catch man!

The gulls now descend to blanket and food.
Laughing and eating. (They were quite shrewd)

triangular mimetic desire, french guy, lusting after a hot dog, looking at the guy lusting after the girl eating the hot dog, making people want things, Cirsova claimed that Burroughs mad him jump, be jumpable, an adventure book, wish fulfillment, it’s something else, a subset of a weird hobby, a subset of fiction readers, intentionally made itself irrelevant by focusing on science, big hits, a mimetic desire thing, social contagion, thinking your a girl when you’re not a girl, Tommy Patrick Ryan had Harry Potter tattoo, a Lord of The Rings tattoo, schoolbooks, books set in schools, less said about her the better, still on about her being a TERF, the Salvation Army is bad on trans issues?, what does that have to do with anything, Amazon’s really bad, nobody seems to care, store our data there, do bad things, an ethics to storing your data, for technical reasons, giving Amazon money, Strange Studies Of Strange Stories, say something really stupid, busy with wives and kids, not deeply invested, stand with Ukraine sort of stuff, sending money to Israeli bombs, crazy, a video of Ukraine mercenaries in Gaza, the pay is better, being in the IDF is a little bit safer, for a minute there, bizarre but predictable, the wrong take on it, we’re not going to show because…, for the purposes of their purposes, allowed, allowed by whom, just an excuse, advertisers wouldn’t not like it either, looking at himself in the mirror, the water is still, a leopard looking at a caracal with a meercat underneath, how humans work, The Great Train Robbery, installing a ruin, Sean Connery is boning his wife, the worst aspect, egregious example, big long action movies, Michael Bay, Independence Day (1996), people watching a TV, the proxy for the audience, a group of people siting in front of a screen, you’ve gone to far, continue as you were, but no screens, layer one deep only, you can’t show the screen, it’s two much, the escher painting where the guy is drawing himself, post modernism, a mistake is what it is, basically over now, post-post-ironic, it’s called decline, been subsumed, just not there anymore, Orhan Pamuk, Madonna, very orange hair, the building is leaning, strangest nationality, Canadian-American, most evil nationality, write speeches for George W. Bush, Semiotics, a very bad man, David Frum, very horrible, Barbara Frum, Conrad Black, [Barbara Amiel], axis of evil, house of lords, convicted of stealing from his own company, [Barbara Amiel] columnist in MacLeans, an art to produce a lot of words, what she’s saying is not good, style ideas, taste ideas, who cares about that?, believed in Canada and the Queen and Jesus, a lot more sympathetic to it now, very scary, a great Wikipedia note, a campaign volunteer, The Gulag Archipelago, right to jeer at him, why did his mom give him a copy of that book, a very popular book, why was it popular?, exactly, an examination of a prison system in a foreign county, promoted to demonize another country, Nobel prize winning book, Animal Farm, forced to read it, a much better book, a lot of movies, strange things, dollar store Goosebumps style books, copy of Dune, breezy easy for an adult, makes you wanna read it, each chapter starts with a future historical document, shit all over John W. Campbell as much as you want but something good out of it, less deranged, Jesse fucked that up, who the fuck is Barbara Frum, fucked up the Barbaras, almost as bad to have claimed, Altered Carbon, elementary school punch, always in fights, always the new kid, subject to predation, punch your way out of being a bitch, predated upon continuously, kick the shit out of them, she’s on your team, all the snitching and all the horrors, the violence, high school violence, grade 9, committed not had, weekly there was something, you should pick on big people, older kids, don’t let people trash you, fuck them up, there’s no violence on twitter, that SFFaudio guy is an asshole, telling people things they don’t want to hear, confusing Hugo Book Club with another Hugos There, multiple Hugo accounts, this is not anything, stalking horror, a youtube video, true crime is so fucking evil as a genre, lots of women are into it, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, a non-fiction book that’s a novel, a whole bunch of things that don’t make sense, what the fuck can you learn from that?, random shit can happen?, lock your doors?, criminologists, interesting things to know about crime, innovated, eloquent prose, stuff Jesse doesn’t think about, H.P. Lovecraft, be about something, exploring an idea, fictionalized scenes, no witness there, a Lawrence Block book [Not Comin’ Home To You], very short, ops, a lot of the art shit is ops, Iowa writer’s workshop, a media figure, he took Harper Lee with him, childhood friends, To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), Gregory Peck, Boo Radley, Robert Duvall’s great, Guns Of Navarone (1961), Pulpcovers, set in Yugoslavia, Richard Kiel (Jaws), Force 10 From Navarone (1978), a sequel that came out 9 years later, Robert Shaw (the actual Jaws (1977) guy), being on the Indianapolis, young Harrison Ford, Edward Fox, Franco Nero, Carl Weathers, young and handsome, special ops mission to blow up something, Alastair MacLean, probably won’t love it.

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Lucian's True History

Picnic For Two

Posted by Jesse Willis