The SFFaudio Podcast #800 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Devil’s Elixirs by E.T.A. Hoffmann

The SFFaudio Podcast #800 – The Devil’s Elixirs by E.T.A. Hoffmann, read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (16 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye

Talked about on today’s show:
1815/16, two volumes?, translation, German, not from 1963, way older, the claim about the 1963 version, supposed to be unabridged for the first time, there’s a lot of editor’s notes, if this is an abridged version, what was cut out of earlier translations?, really effects the text, three pages are missing, conked on the head, happens offscreen, it makes the story better, long chapters, the side story about the Irishman, why leave that in, a massive plotpoint, intentionally not put in, makes the story way better, unreliable narration, what makes the story so interesting, gothic novels, Weiland, an American gothic, The Monk, long an convoluted and difficult, Frankenstein and Dracula, taught to watch movies, if teachers knew what was in the text they’re pretending to teach to students it wouldn’t be taught, Othello, the beast with two backs, Desdemona’s house, your house is being robbed, ruffians, lily white ewe is being tupped by an old black ram, race hasn’t been invented yet, the metaphor, elided, minimized, lies on the side by side, learn to read Shakespeare, Dracula is more recognizably put together, from the era of Frankenstein, doesn’t flow with action, 1935 pulp Robert E. Howard story, meandering, very convoluted, re-listen to parts, unreliable narrator, intentionally writing something incorrect, genuinely forgotten his own story, leaving out three pages, the Baron of ____, the big elephant in the room, presume the reason is because Edgar Allan Poe, a doppelganger character, William Wilson, a very short version, different ending, the definitive doppelganger story, all the different spices, counter evidence, a time travel story?, fairly well disproved, told explicitly to set down the text, excuse for publication, what has happened, wearing strange clothes, Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps, post-grad in physics, get outta here ugly, why time travel is impossible, him from the future, every character in the whole story is him, the same scene from the other guy’s point of view, Alex and Cora or Evan, a repeat chapter we skip, bad theory, an explanation given, what makes it a gothic novel, supernatural events explained by weird coincidences, there are no supernatural events in William Wilson, the devil is drink, better explained by mental illness or cognitive schism, somebody gets killed, exact same scar, a series of these sequences, manic phase, depressive phase, non-responsive, catatonic, frenzy and stabs somebody, describing it that way, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, its the same dude, two different dudes, half brother, half sister, main character, did something really powerful, Edgar Allan Poe started writing stories, so many Poe stories are explicable by reading this, The System Of Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether, an episode of the first Star Trek, a Robert Bloch story, trust the science, a lunatic asylum, told of his behaviors, strange people acting oddly, how did I come here?, when could I get out?, haunted by a shadowy double, mental schism, not quite there, an archetype, he can feel there’s something going on there that resonates, an evil brother, periodically thwarts the good brother, what makes it gothic, lack of god in Poe’s stories, angels, his most famous, The Raven, she’s dead, there’s no heaven, the argument that he’s having with himself, as the place burns down, he never talks about god, race, they’re not the focus, completely different thing, science and ratiocination and art, The Man Of The Crowd, he’s a doppelganger for that guy, The Black Cat, a guy who drinks to much, he acts very badly, pious and good and kindly person, best read as railing against temperance, takes their complaint, making fun of the temperance movement, the devil element of this, capuchin monk, cistercians monastery, the coffee, monks, popes, when you read Hawthorne, the devil exists, going on about the Devil, a man with a bad idea, a guy in the woods, sin is a big thing in Hawthorne, class stuff, fellow nobleman, marry this princess, so far down the road, there isn’t a prince in the land, educated and learn your letters, the judge who he pays off, the control of the church is massive, a fugitive from a monastery, critical of the church, scheming dominicans, kidnapped, another devil’s elixir, from a Poe mindset, the dangers of alchohol, a lot of drinking going on, cordial, pours it down his sleeve, withers his arm, a sinster arm and a regular arm, proto-doppelganger stuff, a secret science fiction story, I found the time machine, I took a pill to forget, a book on archive.org, did Poe read or speak German?, Metzengerstein, makes sense as a gothic, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, the German ones, video essay about doppelgangers, available in America at the time, an E.T.A. Hoffmann called The Doppelganger, 200 year old German, would have been tough, let’s just look at the facts, sent to a boarding school, not given enough money, gambles, a bad reputation, all things that happen to him, how come you’re an asshole, lived in England and visited Scotland, people were reading stuff, Blackwoods Magazine was a thing, a literary kid, he would have read something like this, there might have been a review of it, critiquing, know in his period as an asshole reviewer, and an orator poet, making it about god, the demons down under the sea, the guy is insane, the angels with jealous of her and me, having sex with a corpse for 50 years, it’s not about that, contending with our daily reality, set in the 1700s, make it more authentic, any more squeeze out of Poe in here, Never Bet the Devil Your Head, the devil literally shows up, metaphorically or hyperbolically, the painter, I’m back, the devil showed up in disguise, alcohol, stuff that makes you act badly, this undercurrent, the dangers of alcohol, prevents people from getting alcohol legitimately for 10 years or so, one of the scenes, painted all these people he knows, that’s him from the future, he’s become a painter, The Oval Portrait, the chateau into which, one of those fantastic, Mrs. Radcliffe, that’s a callout to Ann Radcliffe recently abandoned, warm food on the table, installs him in a turret, armorial trophies, the frame for the story is huge, a painter who paints his girl to death, a big long clunky gothic novel in 8 minutes, dispenses with silly things, videos coming from Israel today, the devil is real, damning humanity, in a black hood, it was all a coincidence, evidence I should repent, explicable, a step towards science fiction, fantasy as a re-imagining of alternative forms of how to deal with reality, tales of ratiocination, C. Auguste Dupin, the devil did it, not it was an orangutan, Poe’s just done with it, gothics do that, the reason we’re reading this text, write it down, like confession, a series of bad things, turns out I was not the murderer, escaping, the unreliable narrator aspect, an alternative theory, may suck as well, if two drink they become connected, there had been a switcheroo, The Prestige (2006), the handwriting is compared, write in Polish, your grammar is terrible, ridiculous excuse, your spelling is incredibly atrocious, after he kills Hermogen and Euphemia, insane in the forest, maybe he is Medatus, slippage, one body with two inhabitants, a literal spirit from another him, Freaky Friday style, Big, a child wishes to become an adult, a psychical link, mysticism, not a potion made in a lab from a Professor Dumbkopf, The Angel Of The Odd, in conversation with a pile of empty bottles, alcohol is dangerous, alcohol is in every scene, small beer, wine, cordial, and the devil’s elixirs, in vino veritas, are you going to stab me in the back?, blackout drunk, covered in blood, a corpse over there, runs off into the forest, stealing somebody’s clothes and haircut, mein, very rare, chow mein, his behavior is such, his gait is that of a capuchin, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, zeusborn devildung, a metanovel, clothes their origin and influence, transcendentalist, the behavior of clothes upon persons, news socks change your behavior, clothes affect your behavior, long sleeve shirt, rainjacket, a labcoat, Peter Hotez, labcoat to interviews on Zoom, makes him feel like he’s a doctor, bowtie, always changing his clothes, changing who you are, the opportunity to make yourself anew, a suit made for him, somebody tries to sell his clothes, undercooked, dispenses with a lot of this stuff, 16 times the length, not even a novel, Ringworld, a novel from a period when novels looked like this, Jane Austen is the weirdo, Tom Jones, all the parts, Charles Dickens’ bread and butter, refine things out of this, Christopher Priest’s The Prestige, stuff you can do with the medium that is exquisitely cool, the audience has to be receptive, so of its time, a modern editor, run it through spellchecker and see if we can throw in some pronouns, ebook it right to Amazon Kindle, the aficionados of this, Bryan Alexander, The Mysteries Of Udolpho, what is the call to adventure, exploring other people, shoves her glove in his bosom, that’s relatable, makes a pact with the devil, I have all these feelings, that woman she looked at me, a compelling part for a lot of people, people don’t really change, trained differently, different media through which they engage, folksinging, he never mentions any of their names, they’re not important, talking up politics, and news and anecdotes, made a bunch of friends but couldn’t be bothered to name any of them, the physician’s infodump, the prince, the abbess, a mom and a goddess and beautiful, she brands him with her diamond encrusted, is this an attack on Catholicism?, it has to be right?, he indicts by showing, he’s edging around things like that, why does he get branded like that?, for later in the plot, explains a lot but then is undermined, is the time machine the drink?, many characters called Franceso, St. Francis, Fransiscus, she’s swearing by the saint?, why she became a nun, what happens to the girl, time is a flat circle, sir, distinguished, so many Francescos, the spectre who keeps reappearing in a purple cloak, ancient ancestor, god damned him to wander the earth, progeny, descendants, the Wandering Jew, Melmoth The Wanderer, he’s branded, identifiable by this distinctive scar, repeating the same mistakes over again, break the cycle, very time travel, slow time travel, time moves at a 1 to 1 rate, 1.3 x speed, with regard to religion, what is he saying?, explicitly called out, when you talk about relics, add up all the relics in the room, pieces of the true cross to build a bridge across the Rhine, the history of all the relics, this is the author telling on themselves, not true, important because it is true, this relic heals people, he tries to flee the city, he doesn’t like the fame, bullshit, we don’t trust him, way pre-temperance, this is pre-Mormons, getting rid of the idea of alcohol as part of the religion, lowers inhibitions, why Poe is an asshole when he’s drunk, get into a fight with his friend, berserker mode frenzy, Carl Jung’s shadow, a mystical apparition or a specter, disassociating from it, the ureliable narrator aspect, Hermogen’s murder, Aurelia, Euphemia, impersonating, Vittoran, somehow killed, killed in self defense, admits that he murdered, in his darker phases, is he confabulating or is he remembering?, he can’t admit it, he’s absolved for it ultimately, always getting out from under, they got him dead to rights here, deus ex machina thing, the conflict of emotions he has, golden, infatuated by her, compared with Saint Rosalia, can’t admit to lusting, angry instead of lusty, supposed to be an emotionally castrated monk, he has these feelings, idolizing, platonic love, or going the opposite way, sexual or sadistic, engaged to Aurelia in the guise of Leonard, that part was funny, that he gets away with it, such an outward liar, how this looks to other people, wilfully dishonest, fakes it until he makes it, part of the appeal of this style of book, ride with a character, without it being a sin that you’ve done, a prurient, skoptsy, men and women castrating and mastectomying themselves, weird quasi-nunneries, they don’t dominate social education the way they did, a priest or a nun or a brother, secularized that, still practicing this stuff, a teen boy who sees a beautiful girl and wants to be with her but can’t even talk about it, girls are doubly shamed, financial and parental permissions, can’t own property, Arthur Machen’s The Hill Of Dreams, angsty horny young man, spiritual horniness, intellectualized, repression, results in a lot of misogyny, madonna-whore, that’s the thing that Poe dispenses with, religions is replaced with aesthetics, the physical beauty and the emotions associated with it, tools he uses to get to ideas that are not that, unless again time travel, students solving stories with teleportation, we are teleporting to the next sentence, Medatus’ switch, from Chapter 7, she’s having a nap, seemed of unconcious of that freedom, the exquisite contours, I’ll allow it, all better inspirations, all doubts and fears, thou unhappy fated girl, the criticism, he can’t say it, the character can’t either, skirts the edges of it, Melville’s explicit, Bartleby, The Scrivener, Typee, feels like medieval Europe, princes and roadside taverns, where’s the tech?, still feathered pens and coffee being introduced, Boston Whist, drafts, faro, his own experience with the church, repressing sexuality, coming from The Monk, a monk running around making trouble, in the hierarchies and the institutions, being pulled back into the institutions, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Gold Mountain, buying working placer mines, 1928, a leftover of Cockaigne, Cloud Cuckoo Land, different LEGO themes, Prester John, monks doing chad style memes on their version of instagram (illuminated manuscripts), it rains cheese, everyone is running around nude, babies raised by cuckoos, dudes illuminating manuscripts, talented artists, literate, playing a games, making memes while bored at work, not reconciled to that yet, wants to have sex and be a man, sit at a desk all day, university is one of the options they are presented with, these are the jobs available, fun engagement with these ideas, knew that was coming, half-brothers, a non-supernatural resolution to that plot, all a placebo, the devil is real, they go mad because they have problems, the painter who showed up, the most overt supernatural element, a note by the editor monk who is compiling all this, the painter seems to be a real force in the world, supernatural in the end, or time travel, the hobo’s ideas, “cigarette trees and hens that lay soft boiled eggs”, this book is an escape, a cutout, took a sip, disconnected, an entertainment for literate people who probably were educated by religious people, but how religious are they?, the sinister truth of institutions, it doesn’t mean it is what it says it is, policemen are her to help me, put out fires, meet a quota, a kid who had autism, my child is being radicalized by online things, can you help, the police strung the kid along until they turned of age to charge him, rationalize it, justify a budget, you have to have terrorists, the DEA, teaching children to read, people who know how to read, a lot of teachers be catholic nuns or christian brothers, some of them are there, the institution, you had to be an anglican, Stephen Fry, anglican priests who don’t believe in god, a secular country with a monarch who is the head of the church, if you demand people fit into a certain conformity, you will make people say they are those things and not believing those things, religious corruption, there’s so much devil talk in this book, not a Neil Gaiman style devil, Hawthorneian style devil, Solomon Kane, obsessed with this, giving into sin, manifesting sin as the devil, cut off the things that cause me to sin, women’s breast, men’s penises, premises are flawed, on the verge, almost want to read it as a satire, it is not a satire, reading Jonathan Swift, this is deadly serious about these ideas, an unreliable narrator, not keeping his story straight, legit lies to people, lying is sinful in Jesse’s view, not as religiously obsessed as we think it is, wink wink nod nod, we all know president Biden’s brain is mush but that’s not the official line, salacious, soap operas of the 18th or 19th century, a monk in love with the woman, rape in the story, the kind of book where if parents saw it in the hands of their children, devils, casting spells from demons, lawful evil?, the wink wink, much what people want, shudder pulps, people can’t quite admit to themselves, bondage on the covers, wrap it in a detective story, a mystery cult, who stole my girlfriend?, it was probably me, Leonard is a guy in the story, why is he called that?, he had a friend called Leonard, not explicitly engaged with art all the way through, medieval art, 19th century artists focusing on Greek mythology, yellow 80s, symbolists, Mary and obscure saints, Hieronymus Bosch, it should be salacious but it is too big and old for that, the rise of illustrations, they had the printing press, an engraving on the first page, maybe, so many striking scenes, the chapters play a role in switching things up, he is Leonard for quite a while, Da Vinci, the mentor of Francesco, Leonardo artist namedropped, we’re very far from this, talking about somebody from the 20th century, around the 1850s stuff really starter to condense itself, not edited, ironically it has an editor, two points that juxtapose, hilarious, I’m not going to get into details, avoid verbose descriptions, verbose as fact, there’s a lot to say, a letter Aurelia wrote to the abbess, dictates the first part of it that is relevant, so meandering, he has a sense of humour, sometimes hard to know, excised the frame, true of Poe too, a really funny book, a novel about a book review, boring sounded, on the same level to get it, operating at their speed, the older it is, lower humour, Jonathan Swift, I’m big I used to be little, the power fantasy of being giant, pissing on the king’s house, what he thinks of kings, the plots of the books in Gulliver’s Travels, first big, then little, then goes to Japan, floating discs, extracting sunlight from cucumbers, the English, the French, scientists, humans, taking care of horses, noble and better, the humour is more base, like a soap opera, the reveal, turns out it was not, all was explicable, incredibly convoluted, a timeline of events, the wikipedia entry, its own timeline, dispute some of this, have to accept it, if somebody else had done this for me, details the first part, summarize the whole text, people need to understand things and be reminded, original research, uncited stuff, helpful but very wrong, Jesse’s time travel theory, not the best theory, Northanger Abbey, a girl reading gothics, gothic romances vs. gothic novels, girl vs. dude centered, novels for teenage girls, oh my god!, R. Murray Gilchrist’s The Stone Dragon, not discovered, or forgotten, an heir to a fortune, forced to marry one of his cousins, has to pick, reading Ann Radcliffe, is Venice like is?, not for young women, see it from the point of view of a dude, #MailGaze, Red Sonja, hashtags should exist for jokes, great for jokes, to be a smarmy shithead, a little trigger thing, a parody of itself, #Hamas, #Terrorism, ultimately dismiss it, as a comedy thing it is delightful, there’s no comeback to, immediately referencing a whole cultural milieu, “intellectual property”, “the Robert E. Howard estate”, weird monks making memes, “this is fine”, “yes”, not even trying to enforce copyright on these, Star Trek vs. the Orville, a little idea that makes me laugh, the real culture, Red Letter Media, the nerdcrew, a real movie?, issue 80 of Spider-Man [Madame Web], so obscure, tchotchkes on his desk, promoting this shitty Sony movie, that’s the new culture, under the bigger culture of youtube being able to delete channels, an exquisite job, making fun of a specific youtube channel, just shills for Star Wars, so offended, delightful, so distinct, ai art is everywhere now, a ship sailing towards a star, makes no sense, no art for that, low rez book cover, two options, public domain art, has to be colour or nobody cares, renaissance art, it looks alright, often, that’s the problem, random number generator, crafting the thing you’re looking for, a picture of a pretty woman, of a house, a door in the roof, can’t we photoshop these things?, take it and crop it, art from the originals, upcoming audiobooks, interior art from Weird Tales, don’t dismss my [Hugh] Doak [Rankin], addicted to heroin but a good artist, too cartoony, time pressure, a tool they can now use, as a tool it is great, hurt things for some original artists, nobody has any money, operating as digital wageslaves, cameras came in, cameras became cheap, easier to do it yourself, the argument against AI art from a non-aesthetic position, if you go by tiers of who’s got it worst, streaming on Onlyfans vs. Twitch, kids seem to have a lot of money, very similar, parasocial relationship, the precentages, digital beggars for Jeff Bezos, not going to become a famous streamer, kids, being an astronaut but for everybody, people spending money on it and getting rich people rich, accounts are disappeared, disruptive organizations, Uber and Lyft, buses and taxis, going offshore, whoever owns that app, chat GPT that was open source and not for profit you would see laws against it, a torrent like service, you would see legislation being proposed, visual artists, writer’s strike in Hollywood, AI refinements on scripts, if you’re in the disrupting business, paying for AI art, $10 a month, if the money gets big enough, just seeing the tip of it, started last year [2023], so colourful, the pulps, mimicking tons of digital art, fluorescent, fractals, cutesy simple art styles, biggest shills, high end art is a scam, laundering money, pay for play, from an artist’s perspective, commercially, spicy pulp covers, 100 years in the future, algorithm, the self-directed artist, commercial artist, a bit more of a shill, the final level, a complete shill, actively devaluing the art, corporatized, cloud services, if we learn anything from this massive tome of a book, just wait 20 years, Poe had his brain into this book, vibin on whatever was happening in this book, that’s awesome, a great image of a cat putting it’s paws on a miller’s son, The Cat And The Miller’s Son, a Bros. Grimm story, The Cat’s Advice by Jesse, how google works, the more you describe it, options, choosing is part of art too, The Pixie Princess Of Foss, that is our jobs, we are copying machines, there’s a trick to it, fuck that shit we’re human beings we share that, the tools being in the hands of masters, the distributed costs of the inputs, the laws are not for us they’re for them, only copyrighted when you’re in control of the levers, some of these have been removed by DMCA, what websites were removed from the search, an instagram celebrity, playboy.com, talent agency, The Lancet, a medical journal, there are supposed to be consequences to false claims, it’s all automated shit, nobody is held accountable, the personal phone number of that guy, that’s the problem with AI art, different ways to steal from all the labours everyone is doing, using a fake photoshop, powered by torrents or some browser or bitcoin, more money to spend on programmers, just learn to paint, music AI, give me something like Pearl Jam with a little Blues in it, almost exactly plagiarism, everything is remix, everything is taken from something else, always more allusions you will not spot, The Beatles are just original, a very strange upbringing, talent, aesthetic sense, he practiced, he drank a lot, The Undying Thing by Barry Pain, 100 youtubers making Lovecraft, HBO TV shows with Lovecraft in the title but no Lovecraft in the story, Suitable Flesh (2023), The Thing On The Doorstep, Barbara Crampton, looked a little sinister, some aspects, a good adaptation, very funny, the writing could have been better, Judah Lewis, oh fantastic it works, fiction on film, make sure everybody understands, nobody else has read The Thing On The Doorstep, The Call Of Cthulhu is not a good introduction to Lovecraft, The Unnamable is better, The Nameless City, The Tomb, Dagon, The Music Of Erich Zann, the Irishman in the inn, conjuring annoyance, what is this music?, the source of the horror, to slowly reveal it, the thing who would make it scary, much more about gender, the thing that everyone talks about in the book, not fully human, ancestor was half-fish, a reference back to Innsmouth, Mr Jim Moon, misogyny, you missed a reference there, Re-Animator and From Beyond, Heather Graham, more evil than sexy, a limitation of the budget, some horror movies, schlock, Point Break remake, Dennis Paoli, The Evil Clergyman, not really a story, look a new Lovecraft story, that was just a dream, changed the ending, Bride Of Re-Animator (1990), president reanimator, an Italian version is horrible, we have the syringe full of green stuff, ghost and sex, Turkish Star Wars, saw the poster for Star Wars, we need a guy in a helmet, jeeps and boats, remaking Star Wars as a car movie, an old man in the desert, more Mad Max style, convoys, the metaphor breaks down immediately, what the hell is that, the farmboy who learns to drive like a moonshiner, shooting wamprats, a few monstrosities, everything except Star Wars with the name on it, talk about bat movies, not The Batman, talking points, that’s all real, during COVID, Lovecraft Country swag, that’s just a bribe, comic book movies, just complain about them, being in the movie industry, going to see Oppenheimer, the Barbie thing happens, never going back to the movie theater again, a late showing, during the day, there’s no standards, worse in North America?, it will come for you too, the slow corruption takes its time, the products are bad, Canberra, where most of the government is, pretty good incomes, in a bubble, disposable income to spend, a particular movie theater, high class cinema, artsy films, upmarket, the problem for poor people, the problem of a bad experience, the content in the actual theater, Argyle, The
Beekeeper
, Mean Girls, Wonka, Aquaman, Fighter, Poor Things, Night Swim, Zone Of Interest, ISS, Ru, The Chosen, Lisa Frankenstein, Ferrari, Troll Band Together, All Of Us Strangers, Hunger Games, no pee break, Killers Of The Flower Moon, the product you’re selling in the bookstore, old movies that are in black and white, one night a month, the big screen is better, the best movie experience, at a university film club, the Barbie movie isn’t designed for movie people, bums in seats, the filmmaker, a historical figure, opposite movies, The Lego Movie, a defense, pretty good, maybe 60%, only missing 40%, educated on the allusions, where did the name come from, if you don’t pay attention the first time, The Sandman, a really good story, science fiction elements, the most famous short story by Ray Bradbury, The Veldt, barely got any traction at all?, two theories, suppressed?, already been on youtube for years, use the original title, The World The Children Made, recommend things that fit certain criteria, bugbear, punished, more fool Connor, Matt Ruff got Connor, name recognition, if it has a good name, The Hour Of The Dragon, weird old shit, what percentage of people know who Barry Pain is, people in the year 2100 will thank you, some things that are appealing to the public, hope that they’ll stick around, getting trapped, shilling for garbage, pursue the things that make you excited, chasing things you’re not excited about, if you love Lovecraft, the passion is really important, people know his name, every fourth audiobooks, The Crimson Weaver, Tony Walker, Classic Ghost Stories, recommended it to him, The Stone Dragon, is it deep enough, autoscrolling, closed captioning, nice AI art, came out dark, little bit of romance, a bit or romance, goes into trances, humanskin gloves that turn people, an episode of Friday The 13th: The Series, cursed object of the week, a weird incest vibe, got cursed, the curiosity shop, the premise, gruesome and fun, they’re cousins, more Nancy Drew than it is lascivious longing looks, all the aristocracy marry their cousins, this one hour quick story, they listening to the whole 16 audiobook and four hours of talking about it, a little bit of insight into the audience, skip to the discussion, separate shows, people have control to make the file go ahead, when the analysis starts, April, vacation to Tasmania, bring back a tiger, a devil?, devils are still available, a TV show, how many minutes or seconds until Jesse’s out, thylacines, why Jesse doesn’t need to watch this shit, Aubrey Beardsley, 20 novels, none of them are available, nothing on archive.org?, a short story collection, niche stuff, he’s a dude, The Yellow Book Quarterly, did the art, sounds like Alan Moore, good channel, Lucian’s True History, take some pictures of some Australian islands, nobody can live there because there’s no jobs, to homestead?, government job, a TV camera man, looking for thylacines, the rural areas are hard to find work, with Starlink now, setting yourself up for problems, eke out, chickens, online consulting work, info about the climate and such, the other youtube, Connor bikes around, takes so much time to film stuff, cut so much into your day, some unediting videos.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #793 – READALONG: Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

The SFFaudio Podcast #793 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

Talked about on today’s show:
1944, some Olaf before this, Last And First Men and Star Maker, wow, this blew Jonathan away, this is a novel, if you told me I’d enjoy a book about a talking dog, it has that cosmic perspective, in a dog who has no hands, real genuine science fiction, not genre SF, not from an American pulp tradition, in the subtitle, “A Fantasy Of Love And Discord”, a scientific romance, something to say, thinking about dogs a lot, a dog as a kid, a pet person, passed away earlier this year, afraid of dogs, allergic to most of them, Irish setter, what I’m hearing is you’re gay, australian shepherd, Karl Barks, still gay, gay for dogs, city boy, Scrappy, got too big, gave him away, cats, Minnesota, a Labrador and a great Pyrenees, border collie, Corgi, loved to death, the dog relationship, neutral to dogs, like our narrator storyteller, the Olaf Stapledon stand-in, affected emotionally, balling my eyes out, hiking, tears, very powerful, a great book, some good things in the review, very American, wanted the book to be genre SF, Philip K. Dick shows instead of tells, make points about philosophy, attempts pulp, Cambridge educated philosopher, from 2020, another reference point, Dick’s philosophy is more cynical, very different, Stapledon trusts people and the community of people, trusts reality more, even though the community if evil, Dick’s stories are more city, vs. more country, more suburban, lives in a “community”, a very small world for you, the college with the town attached, some London here, rural fantasy, through the novel tradition, such a bad comparison, to bring Philip K. Dick into the conversation, a guy named Jesse, correct to reference Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, a more wholesome, humane take, needs to be with other creatures, a 2015 review, no last name, Odd John, as opposed to a book about super and ultra sheepdogs, uplifted, can you get an uplift without it being biologically heritable, the raising, a monkey in Australia as a farmhand, the fox listening to banjo music, an old English children’s magazine, great pets, famous pets, Farmhand Johnny, a rhesus monkey, follow up tweet, interviewing the farmer, the second monkey in a series of farmhands, don’t go on about your handlessness, super-important, this is not a man creating another man, a dog with a man’s brain, a super-canine brain, the thing that’s adressed a lot in the book, bestiality, incest, how intiate they had become, looks at her body mauled by the dog, as are we, Plaxy, such a weird name, a name that people have in England, Wales, the fornication?, discretion prohibits me from saying, how Jonathan would write it, a man relives himself, masturbating, sexual hypocrisy, a very funny sad and tragic book, deeply philosophical, dog-lover wish fulfillment fantasy, this is a being like me that has thoughts and desires and wants, unable to communicate fully, flagging of tails, bristling of backs, wants to have sex, wants to have a relationship with you, that’s remarkable, exploring this idea incredibly well, what is stopping people writing this today, owning a dog, mischaracterizing all of science fiction: space-fucking battles, what about Harlan Ellison’s A Boy And His Dog, Simak, Lester Del Rey, a lot less incest, go off on Jupiter together, a lot more tragic, this conflict between dog-nature and the human society he is raised in, identify with it as a human being, I’m a human, I fit in, nature vs. nurture, other books that explore, Tarzan, so much imagination, the depths of smelling, describing how the female dogs drive him insane, you wouldn’t understand, the narrator’s really good too, that British hidden humour in these character’s voices, Plaxy is the least understandable main character, we don’t love dogs that way, if Sirius had been a female dog or if Plaxy had been a brother, would it have been a better book, a more pure examination?, reverse those genders, heterosexual animals, a husband describing his wife, going up to the line, creepy, unfortunately very reliable narrator, the things he elides, the frame to get at telling this story, a very funny American trope, super-hilarious, the mad scientist and his beautiful daughter, does not like the father the doctor, unimaginative, his subjective point of view, 100% agreed, being prudes about the bestiality, the investigation is less pure or more pure, the animal and Plaxy’s nature, he’s also investigating women, Enemy Mine (1985) by Barry B. Longyear, Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr. are fighter pilot, beach planet, give birth to their baby, dies in childbirth, dad and mom, reuinite him with his people, Will bait 101, the novella is 1979, Nebula and a Hugo, fewer people voted, not even a 1000 people, such a scam, throwing it out the window, interesting character, a perspective character, Stapledonian observations, the politics of this book, Hitler bad, why is Hitler bad?, a socialist novel, a communist dog at points, a small businessman selling his children, don’t collectivize my farm, typically Kulak, energetic but unfair, pre-WWII communist party of Great Britain, the hardship and oppression, surrounded by the professional managerial class, the PMC, using the PMC, Barbara Enright, the laptop class, people with a 9-5 job who work in offices, do you like it?, not a manager, includes teachers, lawyers, a little priest action, a parson is not a priest in the Anglican tradition?, holy nature, the guy in the front of the pulpit talkin, secular but mystical, for what this book is about, the way this book ends, like the Frankenstein creature he is not himself, just like the creature does, Jack London’s The Call Of The Wild, a dog that becomes a man that becomes a wolf, To Build A Fire, the best novel Jesse has ever read, inside the mind of a dog, a very alien story, some glimpses, doesn’t commit to the bit, Buck did not need the newspapers, inside of a dog’s head, telling a different story, boyfriend/husband, make a sale, interested in the market, a publisher wouldn’t touch it, how many of the books that you’ve read of him are something a publisher would want, things were different back then, H.G. Wells pioneered something, John Wyndham’s career, a new science fiction writer, been there done that, a repeat of Day Of The Triffids, he must have had a dog, the author of this manual of sheepdogs and their owners, to Will and Maissa, border collie video, sheepdog trial olympics, there for him while he’s doing his stuff, the commentators are going wild, that’s the relationship that this book is about, it was thrilling, made Will tired, that much energy, POV, omniscient narrator, Bob is angry, an omnipresent narrator, Bob seemed angry, more of a naturalistic approach, Guy de Maupassant, maybe the character felt this way, describing Sirius, Sirius was this way, jarring, what he restrict, I ate a man yesterday, Plaxy, and I liked it, as a writer it is important to note these things, in Buck’s head and right over Buck’s shoulder, notes, the humans in Sirius’ world, a more direct picture, this big archive of notes, too fat and complacent, wrote one book, The Lamppost, Beyond The Lamppost, a philosophy of things outside of being a dog, humans like to drink thinks, vee dogs and like to emit liquids, I see what you’ve emitted there, went for a walk with his dog, that’s how dogs be, let me right a novel about this, a terrific book, nobody could write this book today, a huge book of ideas, I can take this paragraph from this chapter of Last And First Men and make a 40 book series out of it, Paul is correct, read it again, what does the word completed mean?, the other projected book, in a state for publication, trying to split a hair your not going to split, the center of interest in Cambridge, Sirius does not understand dogs, he’s pretty young, a sad case, a tragedy from beginning to end, his creator dies, he has plans, has finished writing but not completed can never be published, remarkably, why is this set during WWII, an anti-fascist novel, a pacifist, lived a long time, supported the war effort, Wikipedia rabbit holes, fuzzy, when people are bad, they scapegoated Plaxy and Sirius the way the Nazis scapegoated the Jews, people use the word a lot, 20th century view on fascism, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, wait six months for this show to come out, an interesting take, our POV character is a solider and Plaxy is a landgirl, seems important to the war effort, Bomb Girls, what her views about communism and fascism are, she’s naive, communism isn’t the answer, petite bourgeoisie, create something new, I’m not so sure now Plaxy, literally selling his children, drowns some of his puppies, a flawed creator, religion, Brian Aldiss would do it more that way, an unapologetic J.D. Beresford H.G. Wells kinda guy, those books are dreams, characterless, occasional character name, hallucinations of humanity, an actual novel, Arthur C. Clarke is very spiritual, dealing with religion, goes into the church and sings from behind a veil, I know you will be shocked, don’t you want to hear them, the youtube videos of a dog singing along at the piano, the Right of Spring, out of the ordinary, A World Of Sound by Olaf Stapledon, escapes his body and sees a world of sound, moving over a landscape, he’s just slept through the whole opera, the sparking firework display that is Olaf Stapledon’s genius, like Peter And The Wolf, other notes come in, characters are notes and themes, we can tell a story just with sound, that’s what he’s done here with smells, I’ll be your bitch, this is an intimate relationship, going into scents, bite their owners, so rich and deep, what if Plaxy was just a brother, a boy and his dog, sex and raping, about the relationship of humans to animals, part of the household, super-duper rich, moved to tears by this book, never fits in, murdering or killing?, he’s mad, needs to be put down, near human intelligence, back to the demiurge again, a functional being, he lives in Britain, you have the solution in Canada, he’s a flawed creation, he’s not a man and he’s not a dog, he’s alone, had the deep thoughts that he has, invited to say what of man, is man a flawed creation?, the answer is yes, a very cynical view, is it cynical or is it realistic?, he grok fascism, and yet he will sell his own children and drown them, an alien species, kziniti, Jesse has Paul modeled, the aliens from Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, a brilliant writer and everything, a very different use of the ideas, one kzin, in the sequels, the kzinti homeworld on Ringworld, speaker becomes a king, like a Conan story, conquer the map of earth, they’re klingons but they’re cats, officially in the Star Trek universe, plugging Paul’s own game, lamenting the lack of Olaf Stapledon, smart dog novels, demanding, how its coming, the great female kizinti novel (that gets uplifted), she wakes up in the harem, you bastard, Ottoman harems, the power that women tried to wield, the kzinti queen, males don’t get their names, that the civil service says is good, I’m a male chauvinist sometimes, sometimes I’m a coward, sometimes I’m a 300 year old Fu-Manchu, sometimes I’m a lucky girl who gets to spend time with Larry Niven, unfortunately we demanded more books, got any more?, goddamn it, had to be doomed, humans are flawed and doomed, as a species too, leave AI to die, Paul’s Reeve guy’s plan, Elon Reeve Musk’s plan, escape the planet, preppers build bunkers, off planet, to make the air in air factories, this picture of what it means to be a person, a worker intellectual, the intellectual and artistic life, a vigorous physical exercise, really good critique of the Cambridge people, they drop things, talking about the mandarins, cultivate the long finernails, girls too, they’re princesses, intellectual beings contemplating gardens and writing poems with their mouths, denigrate manual labour, the dignity of labour, back to Wales, use his mind to labour also, he can’t be a Conan, conquering bitches, rollicking adventures, because of the landscape, his contribution to the war, I wrote a book about a smart dog, Tarzan goes off to war, Tarzan And The Foreign Legion by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a war corespondent, he thought he was at the center of things, patriotism is crazy, hilarious, go join WWI, go get ground up in the meatgrinder, we hate that, we didn’t want to do that, the cycle continues, alien and sedition act, that goddamn fucking Wilson, divide and conquer, he kept us out of the war, the League Of Nations, what a ringing success it was, return to normalcy, America first platform, Warren Harding, a reaction against Woodrow Wilson, no imperial entanglements outside of the empire itself, alcoholic drank himself to death while in office, sad that he died, why Donald Trump is a teetotaler, locked Wikipedia entry, Teapot Dome where Larry Niven got all his money, Coolidge, Republican presidents, Herbert Hoover, never served in public office, Grecian revival, we got dig him up, traveling across the country giving big speeches, front porch campaign, hide his alcoholism, the wealthiest guy, Hoovervilles, a miner, as usual, to feed Europe during WWI, an extremely popular person worldwide, Secretary of Commerce, one of the most hated and reviled, ran for re-election constantly, pumping money into the economy, a laissez-faire approach, avoided the whole thing, pushing an asteroid, what would president Olaf Stapledon do to fix the world?, major political parties in the UK agreed to a coalition government, forget this democracy thing for the course of the war, Commonwealth, merger between strange socialist, non-state socialism, Christian socialists, willing to contest elections, radicalizing, when they all joined Labour, advocating for a European federal government, a world government, full of good ideas, advocating for the welfare state, Beverage, here’s ghow they’re inadequate, the NHS comes out of that, Churchill, surprisingly he was a conservative, the Left Book Club, an important institution, Victor Gollancz, better known as a science fiction, today, a left wing publisher, they go together, all these great fights with Orwell, stupid and Trotskyist, breaks with the communists, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, world congress for peace, useless things that we shouldn’t use, what a monster, left wing things, development of the welfare state, common ownership of property, socialism on the installment plan, hard to really grok it, socialism and they had no money, everybody got glasses, Doctor Who, Doris Lessing’s science fiction work, a bit shorter, more grizzled, comin out of the 30s, a healthier society, world government, what a monster!, gentle, as a revolutionary, an ideas guy, today in 2023, the experiment performed by the doctor, let’s hear him out, it would be unethical, cloning, impossible to do in real life, tomatoes with trout DNA, monkey man, Dogman, unethical, we’re a very unethical species, the scientific organizations have codes of ethics, that’s not coming up, doing it on the sly, most people don’t believe it, our narrator believes it, the sheep farm, when the dog sends a letter, called out in one of the reviews, we coulda used more like that, that was demonstrative, this novel doesn’t deal with scientific ethics enough, hey David Brin you haven’t had a hit in a while, go retro, lots of scenes where ethics boards are talking to each other via skype, it’s about our relationship with animals, and specifically dogs, nude in front of them, we won’t fart in front of our wife, put leashes on them, and then we’ll have to get you spayed eventually, neutered, not a major focus, where ethics comes into this book, reasons for the secrecy, commercial interest learning about the dog, mass production of this kind of animal, is there a world in which Sirius could have lived, the circus freaks, displaying themselves because of their oddities, seen that book or read that movie, not going to do the deep relationship between humans and dogs, when you pet Plaxy, she goes to make water, the wistle, its time to pee!, how children are, the devastation, the loss, how dare you!, one after the other, marking my territory, more like twitter, completed uncompleted book, enlightening, where they make their symposia, a peeing party, extends his lifespan, a regular dog would have died, they’re the same age, how old is Plaxy in 1944?, early 20s, a university education, we get that date at some point, less realistic, hung up on the wrong part of the science fiction, injecting human DNA into dog brains, this is not actually possible, they don’t seem to be viable, I’ve never made a monkey man myself, it’s possible for human and a chimpanzee to have sex, taboo, a mules, lots of mules, it wouldn’t line up correctly, somewhat mentally challenged, 99% match in DNA, human female and male chimpanzee, caesarean bud, wild conversation, Jungle Jitters, a genetic dead-end, ligers and tigons, one thing we haven’t talked about in this book, Plaxy is a cat, because she has a pussy?, something going on with cats in this novel, silly cat vs. dog stuff, astute observations, they are kind of mean, whenever Plaxy is mean she’s like a cat, to hurt Sirius, sometimes she’s this, somethimes she’s that, gives clues, very catlike, is he making a comment on women as well, should we be cancelling Mr. Olaf, the book is very doggy, the repeated point throughout: she’s catty, the cats were girls and the dogs were boys, when I’m 2, Treasure Planet (2002), hybrid babies, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island in space, humans and furries, related to transhumanism, there are also robots in this movie, it’s good?, fun, when we do Treasure Island, pirates, Paul’s being facetious, A High Wind Over Jamaica by Richard Hughes, trying to grok a scene, he has doggy vision, mystical vision, that supreme moment passed, a new reality, monochrome vision, colours seeing by the eye of the spirit, plain greys of ordinary life, gained a new meaning, their own true colours, suffused, the light of the spirit, the religious tinge, the Great Master, the True Creator, he has limited vision, he’s a young dog, Christian mysticism, probably not the best thing to study, one catty observation, turgid prose, actually turgid, looked it up before, swollen, congested, distended, Paul tends to read to fast, this is beautiful, this is poetry, limited view of reality, where you have to start saying the narrator is unreliable, a similar book, the Moon smashes into the Earth, Alec Nevala-Lee, The Hopkins Manuscript, a chicken farmer, a country seated gentleman, R.C. Sherriff, not petting his penis, it ain’t turgid, be his bitch, smiling a lot, the jokes were very funny, his song standing up, world dictator someday, humanize him with these books, a necessary scene in the novel, three possibilities, mystical gobbledygook, dial it back not dial it in, epiphany, the text comes out and says this is an important scene for you to read, a crisis, three paragraphs later, St. Catherine Of Sienna, he faces the absolute, when he goes to talk to the priests and learned people, these guys don’t get it, god is love, we’re all Sirius, born into the world, circumstances we didn’t create, he is a man, he does manly things, he has manly interests, science and muscularity and religion, a 9 hour book, the relationship that dogs have always had with man, the relationship of domesticating man or man domesticating animals, a man and a woman and a dog, man and dog and other dog, he doesn’t love in the right way when being a king, beaten by the man in the red sweater, he’s lost, ultimately he’s a wolf, this character is broken that requires a tragedy, a flawed creation, a powerful but not perfect creator, you don’t even need the god of the bible, puts us in the bad place, he loves him as a father, always seeking his approval, always arguing with his father, in the title of the book, the love part, the discord part, wherever he goes he’s singing a different tune, Apple of Discord, fuck around with things, smart like a man, he can read he can write he can sing he can make foolish religious claims, bigger brain equals smarter, really cool ultimate point, able to communicate with other beings using language, tantalizingly close to understanding the animals, when Soleks is looking at Buck, desires and goals, pack positional shit, dogs don’t have human morality, they don’t have shame but they can fake shame, it was bred to do that, that’s what goodness is is doing that, make a slave of another human being, program the robots, the revolt of the robots, so deeply science fictional, hormones, it’s not a breeding program, no robot arms, allowing a dog to understand us, science fiction is evil, some professor, on the whole a negative, had a negative social impact, if Elon Musk learned the lessons of Robert A. Heinlein, Nineteen-Eighty Four as an instructional manual, you wanted a hot-take, I’ve studied this stuff, trust me on this, bro, for you feed, are we done with the book, Return From The Stars, Omega: The Last Days Of The World by Camille Flammarion, a chapter missing, very early and very French, all collaborative, a comet that’s about to strike Earth, everybody buys telescopes, the United Nations, the international community, miscalculating things, a near death experience, moratlity, a technological boom, evolving, where Joe Rogan is very stupid, fallback stupidity, we just need to evolve more, man, this human being don’t change, people exactly the same, expresses different, merge man and machine, a very unwise person, almost Stapledonian, a science fiction book, the history of the species, another human species, in real life Stapledon believed, the transhumanism thing, the ability to see the colour blue, a linguistic trick, the wine dark sea, a myth that people believe, the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, a much better claim, the French Revolution with the experience of the French Revolution, what does it mean to be a domesticated animal, slaves, are human beings domesticated animals, school, factory workers, it loses its hair and becomes very social, domesticated apes, the overarching history of humanity, the unifer of the state, domestication is about the home, the family exists without the state, the family is a legal relationship, he becomes their owner, the mom has a relationship with her pups, their nice about it, a wolf gives birth to pups, uncles, an extended family unit, a condor, three little chicks, pushed it to its death, the weakest, the calorie intake I’m able to bring in, marriage is a legal construct, family, brings food to, it does it for a while, more like horses than tigers, make decisions collectively, by following people and leading people away from predators and towards prey, privatized, exceptions to that, the state will interfere with your shit, it should, it shon’t, tell condors how to run their families, we wanna catch that baby bird and raise it up, we never let it go, we’re different creatures than they are, not really possible, women leave their babies in bathrooms, in handbags, they drive them into lakes, are we thinking that’s a bad thing, abandoning babies, embrace that, horrific, you think the state has a place in people’s lives, lots of tutoring, enslave Jesse, hit him over the head, apprenticing, don’t go down that road, if you put it that way, Groucho Marx, the Groucho tendency, Harpo, Chico, very much a Groucho, individualized tutoring, university is still allowed, what Socrates was doing before being cyberbullied into killing people, making fun of people, follow him in conversation, the role of religion, worship Chebu and Sheemish, unequal opportunity, less unequal opportunity, more unequal, who was your best teacher?, he was fired, teaching his own things, an individualized tutor, the answer to this question is more institutions we can refor them, we live in a post-scarcity society, a theoretical conversation, how to improve the lot of black slaves in 19th century, it could be practical, its important that the students take it seriously, what money does, it’s important you gotta learn, kids who’ve been taught properly by their moms, learning is joyful, learning is wonderful, The Other Gods, everything is purposeful, it ought to be read, resonant, by Lovecraft, having multiple purposes in mind, just fun?, the fun came in the joyful experience of being taught, materially, Sirius enjoys audiobooks, don’t buy the product, often don’t, pirate, we live in a post scarcity society, knowledge should be free, no money, everything should be pirated, at no cost, this philosophy doesn’t distinguish, created from knowledge, they are the same, ebooks, your ideal purchasing audiences, commissioned audiobooks, the economic justification, quite interesting, Jesse is not going to make you a lot of money, doesn’t take into consideration, some are doing it to make money, knowledge leaves to the death of knowledge, freedom is restrictive, nobody will write a book, so what is he really saying, think of the long tail, don’t think about that, in 400 years you’ll be dead, sorry, get that Blue Yeti, haltered and faltering, rushes through words, Eric does almost everything, into people’s ears, ebooks are dying, paperbooks are dying, a superior medium: audio, who has opportunity to learn to read, gotta learn braille, sad story, Helen Kellers, most people, Isaac Asimov short stories where kids no longer read, perfectly like people, a disability to study old things, let her read, major disability, sound like a libertarian, argue with each other, Jonathan is more realistic and responsible, wanted to open a used bookstore, neither realistic nor responsible, small property, we’re in a post-scarcity society, make a sacrifice, money, kids are broken by school, learning is painful torture, want it both ways, to get the Jesse service, every middle class professional, be wanting to be there, Stapledonian paradise, post-scarcity spread-around, workers education association, you and an old book are your best teacher, show me one person that had that happen to them, they learn at home or not at all, learn to read in a new language, the family relationship would fall apart without the state to support it, capital, can’t afford to live in your home, sent across the country, a relationship between capital and the state, it exist, it make kids go to school, the laissez faire welfare state, Guardian/Colossus I can trust, how socialist planning would work, an idealistic socialist, planning by the people, a technocratic socialist, educate people into be awake to these things, state forcing people to do stuff is really horror, make the horror less horrible, if Will were president of Planet Earth, two colleges, Hampshire College, somehow you have to pay tuition though, did not thrive at all, Fordham, Jesuit rigid and structured, success undefined, own limitations, what I could accomplish, very experimental temperament, discuss books like Sirius, breadth of knowledge, politics and current events, European history, history of science, Colin Powell’s school, college and university, millions of hours being wasted, regular school, being babysat, always an issue, Paul doesn’t remember school very well, their lives are being wasted sitting in rooms learning nothing, inefficient, obedient workers, edification, lifelong-learning, how much we learn together, having read the book, now we get a great discussion out of it, richer and deeper, a relatively small group, everybody gets a chance to be criticized and drilled down on, we learn more from it, Will goading Jesse into it, anti-vaxxer stuff, bad new definition of vaccine, unable to respond, what can you do?, just do your best?, how the white man discovered inoculation, learned it from African slaves, smallpox, in Africa for centuries and centuries, Cotton Mather, Lovecraft talks about him, he wrote about it, this is a case of witchcraft, put too much pus in there, the new one is gene therapy, polio, defined polio away, the March Of Dimes, Modern and Pfizer, our theory is its going to work like this, 75 years from now you’ll be allowed to look at the data, very very clear, milking the public purse, lousy tech company, that woman who went to prison, Theranos, some people have died from twitter, quit twitter, forcibly having twitter injected into my body, dead virus, spike protein, you might want to read one of his books, you might find it quite moving, what the news said about Olaf Stapledon, [Dr. John Campbell’s youtube channel], pushing Ukraine, provincial health care system, trying to help people, also trying to hurt people, but compared, the B.C. government forced Jesse to get two injections, laboured into, took the hit and was lucky, a workforce issue, some random lady, no one else is doing it, doesn’t seem to be killing most people instantly, six shots, six of any vaccine, not a vaccine, that’s what it used to mean, different stages of protection, white blood cells and t-cells, when someone is listening six months later, teaches medical practitioners, pay attention to this guy, mysterious deaths in your family, doesn’t have an axe to grind, if you really want to know about this stuff, puts a checkmark beside each of things you’re reading, don’t trust the science, don’t trust the Moderna, it turns out that this gene therapy, don’t trust Trump, operation Warp Speed was a great idea, that whole ivermectin thing, propaganda for making billions, sucking money from government coffers and injecting it into private, loss of taste, paxlovid, increased your chance of getting COVID again, attack the body, pressured by Will’s dad, got his doctorate from CNN, brought to you by AstraZeneca, open to the idea, objectively true, Jesse didn’t change the definition, that’s what they changed to, it stops with every person who takes it, reduce hospitalization, reduced the amount of time you have the disease, literal videos, in that one instance, Fauci is the easiest one, the best example, Trump don’t know nothing, they kicked people of twitter and youtube for saying things that were true, banned accounts, deleted video, very nuanced, these are people who didn’t get the vaccine, the median age of people who died of COVID, older than the average of death, 84ish, how is that reconciled with what we were told, to children and babies, before the Tri-City News deleted itself, family court, in favour of the caution of having the baby vaccinated, a lot of excess deaths best explained by people, didn’t work for you either, the evidence of your eyes, a characterization of how the vaccine was promoted, make you less sick, after they noticed getting the disease, they lied about it, big surprise, after the Emergency Use Authorization, in Cuba, China, in Russia, the global conspiracy of not doing science is global, preventative health care, China did these lockdowns, hospitals being built, drones telling people to stay indoors, the ventilator shit, hospital workers, the ventilators were killing people, the disease crystalizes the lungs, weird lack of work, hours and hour researching boring little things, all the other things, David J. West, twitter guys who write books and have good covers, a little more successful than Jonathan, more prolific, a danish dessert locally made in Minnesota, palm oil, soy oil, margarine, glyphosate, not allowed in Italy, celiac disease and gluten intolerance, what possibly caused it, literal weedkiller, lubrication for machines, still available for sale, forced into our foods, find a vegan section, food minus industrial lubricants, we could reform the FDA, new broom, the changing perspective on how the drugs were sold, Will wants change, pump us full of toxic shit for cash, cheaper, pretend it’s fine, try living without these ingredients in your life, The Stuff (1985), this delicious looking thing, like a supplicant, give him money to buy some margarine, homeless person inside a store, some coffee, have to pee to much, hyped up and hopped up enough, in six months everybody will know, potatoes, it makes the potatoes ripen, a big fight about GMOs, literal provincial politics, I wonder if I should be worried about that, in the news, they got their way and now nobody talks about it, genetically modifying plants, sprayed with toxin for killing plants, you have not been genetically modified to thrive on roundup, weren’t as corrupt as they are now, when did you start hearing the words “celiac” or “gluten intolerant”, redpilled on smoking causing cancer, if it makes your body feel good, Canadian doctor, industrial health, smoke breaks, the boss can understand why you want a break, Ulysses S. Grant, skin cancer and lung cancer, maybe stayed out of the sun more [or been in it more], Lovecraft died of cancer, a teetotaler, sad story for Mrs. Lovecraft, didn’t die of bean cancer, you don’t read him for pleasure, a whole collection, circa 2006, a terrible story, people get it so wrong, The Colour Out Of Space, At The Mountains Of Madness, Suitable Flesh (2023), a body switching story, a wizard who’s been switching bodies, it’s a comedy, Lovecraft is really fanny, the film adaptation is hilariously wild, The Unnamable, Mr Jim Moon, hushed innuendoes, the Cotton Mather one, something had caught my ancestor, mixed marks of split-hooves, and many believed him, I saw it – it happened to me, it was it was unnameable, a little bit of gore, not pinhead style gore, a cat that got squished, people get squished, pure delightful comedy, so lucky, what a birthday present, From Beyond (1986), some people can only watch new movies, undisciplined, these comics are somewhat tolerable, reviewing myself out of reading them, a good podcast is better than anything else for drawing out, those don’t make great shows, 100% a criticism of the work, movie-tie in comics, I don’t remember Yoda having 17 arms, Star Wars output in the 1990s, coherent in a way the new stuff was not, we know you like memberberries, we’re bringing Han Solo back, to kill him, Princess Leia and storm trooper get lost on a planet, Starbuck teams up with a cylon, Enemy Mine (1985), a Christmas present, evil humans come to a planet, very Andre Norton but good, a good short story, The Beast Master, a tv show, her father was into “Indian lore”, needed more trauma to be more interesting, there’s trauma in this book, he had a dog die, thinking about his dogs, Navajo, genetically altered animals, a good pulp novel, not a big think, one note villains, the TV show ran 66 episodes, 2005, you hope she made some money, pass away rather than die, you want good things to happen, have their legacy edified, a good word, vacation being sick, complaining about being sick six months later, smarter than to listen to the propaganda, a new car, a new pair of shoes, you shouldn’t take the flu vaccine, hate to hear, shingles, people who’ve got the shingles vaccine aren’t protected from shingles, shingles can be brought out by flu or gene therapy COVID vaccines, I’m protecting myself, allergic reaction disease, another podcaster complaining, shingles vaccine, booster, the brands for the companies pushing the product, NIH, when Joe Rogan was painted green on CNN, ivermectin, public domain, reactivation, assumed to be significantly higher, statistically detectable, hypothesis confirmed, the more ups of your dosage the more chances you have of having this disease reassert itself, above median age of death, it never does come out unless you look at history, trying to hide WWII from us, eventually nobody cares, more and better facts about what was going on, look at these stupid things, still making money off of slavery, do you want to be subject to the slavery?, educate ourselves as best we can, follow the money, a lot of groupthink, go-along play-along people are not scientists, make their publications known, those people get kicked off of youtube and twitter, makes lots of mistakes, likes professional wrestling, he couldn’t watch the show, not happy about it, a pathetic show at the time, cooties all over it, Trump’s you’re fired show, cooties all over it, Survivor, fake tiki ritual, this is fucking moronic, that show continues, not everybody is intellectually interested int he same things, motorcycles, kangaroos, reading NIH papers for fun, I wonder what causes it, instances of people getting it, being phased out, Dallas Buyers Club (2013), the bad guy was Fauci, everybody’s going to get AIDS, somebody’s going to touch your blood, blood transfusion, I don’t want to die from AIDS, only game men and people who got it from blood transfusions, massive puritanical panic, garnered some control, cultural homophobia, who dies of COVID, ancient people, people over the median age of death, 6 month old children, in any reasonable understanding of reality, fear and panic are used to control the flow of cash, if you don’t play along, super-evil and very interesting, send a text message, certain cookware, dog shaped pans, Christmas Archie comics, not a big Christmas guy, like going to the dentist, so personal, Hanukkah, fuck those dreidels, go to the Chinese restaurant, ethnically, philosophically, we ran out of oil but somehow the oil continued, Masada, a good miniseries, stars Peter O’Toole, the ethnostate takes it on as a mythological thing, jews are really awesome, a lot of bad ones too, the Jewish experience in North America, the most Jewish person on the internet is Paul, kvetching, schlemiel, schmuck, sex based on, schlepp, sister lived in Israel on a Kibbutz, came back feral, a lot of cattiness, things that make you cynical, oh the scratches!, loves dogs, can roll with punches, cry cry cry, onto new things!, I’m still processing the trauma, I’m going to learn everything there is to know about cow breeding, how much overspill about border collies, only polite to listen, they need lots of walks, closing in on 5 hours, bagels with roundup!, find some Italian flower, she’s really shaky, nice bread, look at the ingredient list on the bread, that’s why I’m dying, The Cave Girl, easy to get people for Burroughs, a hard time of the year, Terence would have contributed greatly, Maissa is a cat lady but had a dog, everybody has something to say and a different experience to bring to it, the reason we do this, just listeners, beautiful, such an important difference, hear himself reading too quickly, how many people are listening to this from 5 hours deep?, how many downloads, onsite plays, wordpress, the files are hosted on servers elsewhere, most people don’t listen on site, Mike listens and gives feedback, imagine if there’s ten listeners, 50 hours of people’s lives being enriched, how much money it got you, even if you’re hate listening, something deranged about you, gotta dog pans for Christmas, demographics, people like Mirko, Cora (isn’t a listener), Peter, other Germans, Germans are very cosmopolitan, post-WWII occupation, only 8 more minutes.

SIRIUS by Olaf Stapledon

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #404 – Virtuoso by Herbert Goldstone

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #404

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Virtuoso by Herbert Goldstone

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Virtuoso was first published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1953

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #395 – A Literary Nightmare by Mark Twain

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #395

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A Literary Nightmare by Mark Twain

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

A Literary Nightmare was published in Atlantic Monthly, February 1876.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #748 – READALONG: Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast
Jesse, Maissa Bessada, and Will Emmons talk about Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
Anne Campbell Clark, 1967, internal stuff, guess what year this photo was taken, asking about JFK like he was still alive, Teddy Kennedy, the Irish connection, proud of him being president, very few people have read this, a book worthy of reading, noped out, pretty horrific, too sunk into it, a cocoon of singing and countryside, a lovely little book, not going anywhere and not upset about it, almost plotless, not all books need to have plots, spending time with Hobbits in Hobbiton, an old lady who likes to bicycle, red herrings, Will’s first Lawrence Block, the trip to the countryside, all of the lovely singing, I never shall marry as long as I live, really liked this book, who is the audience, Helen MacInnes readers, neither had Lawrence Block, spies with a little romance, romance with a little bit of spies, how smooth did this go down, easy drinking all the way through, it was a formula, the bad guy came around, there he is, why does that priest want her passport, maybe I’ve misjudged him, he’s back, women protagonists, usually a male, page by page, line by line, a little bit much, intoxicated, a 24 year old in 1967, the height of the sexual revolution, chaste for a folk-singer, they get snug and snuggle, she hides her nudity, not so folksy as one might imagine in real life, the scene with the IRA, pastiche-ish, that part never happened when Lawrence Block went to Ireland, a massive amount of violence, let’s go have a party, one of them gets shot and they keep having a party, movie-like, none of the dialogue felt clunky, what kind of folk-singing, Airplane!, lady with a guitar, inspirational songs vs. historical events, WWII essay, WWI, WWI’s influence on Ireland, the Irish Rising, home-rule in 1922, according to Star Trek [The Next Generation] and Mr. Data they’re going to reunite next year, all of us under the British rule, the overlords in Egypt, real bastards, it doesn’t translate across generations as well, gearing up, the ultimate McGuffin, because of the title, back to the passport, easy listening, P.J. Morgan, a lot of singing, male voices too, accents, a really good job, if I was P.J. Morgan and I had finished this book I would be superhappy with myself, a recipe, 191 pages, 5 hours 38 minutes, a short novel, a young lady who goes on a trip, chased across the countryside, a monster, a hero, delivering what women want, nice and smooth, the historical research, enthusiastic about Irish history, great fun, a double checkmark, creepy and scary quite late, when’s it gonna turn, grusome, burned to death, legs blown off, shoots somebody’s brains out, starts with a horrible murder, really violent, a nice guy from Philadelphia to leg cling to, a nice old lady who gets strangled off screen, the German guy with a family, what happened to the kids?, the casting room, spy training school, the woman with the red hair, in the ring?, a nice Londoner, leaving cards together, he’s playing a great great game, I need to tip my hand, when Ellen gets into the car with the priest, you’re just ahead of her, ahead of Jesse, I wish I knew my Irish history better, a really good promoter of stuff on his blog, the afterword, the blog post about Passport To Peril

In 1966 I was living at 16 Stratford Place, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I’d spent a year in Wisconsin as an editor in the coin supply division of Western Printing, and just when it looked as though I might have a future in the corporate world, I realized it was the last thing I wanted. I’d been writing books all along, and I moved east and resumed writing full-time.

My agent, Henry Morrison, came to me with an assignment. Lancer Books, for whom I’d written a few books during Larry T. Shaw’s editorship, wanted to publish a romantic-espionage thriller in the tradition of Helen MacInnes. I hadn’t read anything by Ms. MacInnes, though I knew the byline; her books were published in hardcover, and frequently wound up on bestseller lists. Mine would be published as a paperback original, and bestseller status would be not even a fleeting dream.

I don’t know if I actually read any of the books which were to be my model. I probably skimmed a couple. I knew what was required—a clean sweet likable American girl as the heroine, a reasonably exotic foreign locale, and a couple of people who were not what they appeared to be, including an evident villain who turned out to be the unlikely hero and love interest, and a dashingly attractive good guy who turned out to be an absolute rotter.

I could do that.

And I knew just where to set it. Ireland. Where else?

I’d actually been to Ireland, which gave it a leg up on the rest of the world. In the fall of 1964, a few months after the move to Racine, my wife and I flew to Limerick and spent the better part of two weeks driving around Ireland. We had a day in Edinburgh and a few days in England, but Ireland got the bulk of our business.

Aside from brief forays into Canada and Mexico, this was my first time out of the States, and if it felt like an adventure, it felt even more like a homecoming. It’s clear to me that I spent at least one past life in Ireland. Among my earliest memories are ones of listening to Irish songs on the radio. (There was a girl who sang “Toora-loora-loora” on a local amateur show, and I’m pleased to report that she was the winner three weeks running.) I had a set of the Book of Knowledge, and from it I learned all the lyrics to Wearin’ o’ the Green.

When I had begun selling short fiction and was casting about for a book to write, I decided a novel of the Irish rebellion and civil war might be a good choice. But what did I know about it? I amassed an extensive library of English and Irish history, and read a surprising amount of it. And, around the time that my interest in numismatics was steering me toward the job in Wisconsin, I began collecting Irish coins and tokens and medals.
No question, then. I’d set the book in Ireland.

Ever since the trip, I’d been picking up records of Irish folk music. The Clancy Brothers, of course, but also a slew of Folkways albums on which various singers, some more gifted than others, collected songs of the 1798 Rising and other blighted periods in the land’s sad history. As G.K. Chesterton wrote:

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.

Well, why not make my heroine a folksinger? Why not send her to Ireland to collect songs? There, of course, she could meet the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the sheep in wolf’s clothing, and things would look decidedly dark for a while, but eventually the sun would burst through. I mean, it would have to, sooner or later. As far as we could make out, it was always either raining or about to rain in Ireland, but maybe I could cheat and have a little sunshine toward the end.

I went to New York to write the book. Don Westlake had sublet a studio apartment on West 24th Street in Chelsea; he’d lived there briefly, during a marital rough spot, and kept it as a sometimes office until the lease was up. I moved in, and brought home Passport to Peril ten days later. I don’t know if the title was mine, though I rather think it was. I know the pen name was mine, and I know that forty-five years later nobody else on earth knew it.

Henry knew back then, but I’m sure he’s long since forgotten. My first wife would have known, but I don’t think she ever read the book, and would be surprised if she recalls anything about it. Irwin Stein at Lancer would have known, but would have had no reason to remember. Among the book-collecting fraternity, no one had a clue. This book, and Fidel Castro Assassinated!, are the two works of mine that somehow escaped detection. The latter, written under the name Lee Duncan, was recently reprinted as Killing Castro by Hard Case Crime, and has since become available as an OpenRoad eBook. Passport to Peril now makes its first post-Lancer appearance as an e-book, and I can only hope you’ve enjoyed it.

I read it myself recently to ready it for publication, and I was surprised to find that I liked it. Remember what Yeats wrote?

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave. . .

True too of the Ireland of the 1960s. It was a curious pleasure to revisit the time and place, if in my own work.

the exact same thing, good at remembering how things happened in the 60s, very Lawrence Blocky, passionate about foreign revolutions, a CIA plot to kill Castro, a cheque to the farmer with the dead sheep, what ever revolution is happning in that country, the Evan Tanner series, comedic and silly, almost perfect for what its doing, broader, like James Bond, cartoonish, fun but silly, a Korean war veteran, shrapnel in his head gives him a superpower, The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep, why readers would like a book like this, I become a supergenius, whatever republic that wants freedom from colonialism, participating in their revolutions, joke book, The Canceled Czech, light and fluffy, Tanner On Ice, literally frozen, a participant in the ideas the book he is producing, numismatics, a book on racewalking, walk faster than other people, the Hit Man/Hit List series, cozy, there’s a guy in Mexico who needs to be shot, I like Mexico, observations in a restaurant, really into stamp collecting, an action scene, whatever subject he turns his attention to becomes a very very readable book, can you write a book about assassinating Castro?, technically required to do this, Will material?, not-enough enthusiasm, emphasis and underlining and exclamation marks, Classic Crime Library number 15, how quiet it has been resting, Lawrence Block took control of his publishing, he’s the one, making you buy his stuff, around an participating in his estate, incredible, he’s so good, Westlake through Block, turns out its a real book, Westlake’s highs are higher but Block’s more consistent, a lady on vacation, why that guy slipped, an excuse to have her in peril, an excuse to have a lady chased by spies, maybe she will marry, he was trying to be caught, no one knew, there’s a tip off, out of genre for most of the people who read Lawrence Block, she goes to a movie, something drums, “A Sound Of Distant Drums”, a calling card, or a signature, somebody coming out of a movie theater, that’s cool, his Burglar series, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, topic books, exploring some little niche, standup comedians bits they connect together, researching and polishing ideas, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, the girlfriend is the murderer, settles into a formula, really really fun, passes the time, go have a sandwich, oh yeah one of these, that paperback book industry is where he really lives, take a paperback and enjoy the weekend, a song saved her life, why I like folksinging now, Kumbaya, historical information, how to be, in America 2, here 12, makes you want to drink stout, listen to folk music, the festival circuit, the premise of this book, the state department in real life is evil, spread American culture, money spent on evil not on good, cultural activities, Eastern block, throw money at a problem, Lawrence Block needed to have an excuse, her family’s all killed off, one and done, they’re happy and their Irish now, both green, 2 cigarettes, more cigarettes, they stopped to buy more cigarettes, the new taste, so much smoking, they don’t need food they’re thin and young, dates the book, you could write this book, their sten guns would be something else, Berlin, Ukraine or something, delightful little book, make you say “I’d like some stout.”, Guinness, a wish fulfillment fantasy romance, read the back cover, little tipsy here and there, poignant moments, the songs, the stories, a Brothers Grimm thing, went out to all the pubs, music and stories are the same, all personal histories, probably wrong, music that’s close to the people, in the process of collecting these folk songs there’s some exploitation, selling a record, who’s going to see the proceeds of that record, what is the purpose of this?, to commoditization it?, spread it?, share it?, Stan Rogers, Barrett’s Privateers, east coast Nova Scotia Irish kitchen, a fun song, it has swearing a letter of marque, Sherbrooke, god damn them all, Halifax, the staggers and jags, such a good singer, sea shanty folk song, Montego Bay, sailing terms, incapable of catching a slow moving ship, smashed like a bowl of eggs, both me legs, in my 23rd year, six whole years, War of 1812, while you’re paying attention, similar to The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, a homeless beggar on a pier, the big Coleridge poem, the same story as Annabelle Lee, grateful and thankful, what has Will been doing?, back into politics, a tenant union, a communist caucus in the DSA, COVID last months, 2 and a half weeks, testing positive, not very sick, flu-like symptoms, paxlovid, our medicines don’t protect us or help us, that’s crazy, a lot of cat action happening, a core group of nine cats, stranger cats, a high number of a cats, all feral, the boys that aren’t fixed are both named Brandon, one darker than the other, let’s go Brandon, telling the Brandons apart, laser eyes, that’s the dark Brandon, smaller feet, chipmunk feet, Brooklyn Dad Defiant, a very 90s name that’s a 2020s name, Owen with Gs, beg to come inside, Tobias, to bite toes, a bias towards toes, a negotiation, mother and grandmother of them all, a mean old cat, a sour disposition, the dog will let her, irritable, you can just come and rub up on my dog, mean old girls, on the roof some, Maissa’s fascinating life, editing Ace Galaksi, social media stuff, blogs and newsletters, let’s do an internal podcast, a link on the dl, what is Maissa’s job?, lots of divisions, pr, edit videos, write and produce pr things, listen to the podcast, if I need to know, 15 minutes at most, once a month, reediting a novel for 20 years, middle school, rewrite a billion time, I got out my library card…, regarding that game [chronophoto], everybody’s wearing fucking masks, anytime after 1950, AOC, 2018, an I voted sticker, eerily obvious what year it is, figure out what year that was, talking about Kennedy being president but not talking about Kennedy being assassinated, in county Cork, is the book dated?, no, it’s a period piece, au courant, everybody’s playing with their iPhone 6, bullying each other, only play with a group, a couple repeats, playing PUBG, a faster version of the game, early January, online vs. in person, got rid of some old computers, that to lean on, Scott does the editing for Reading, Short And Deep, 4-6 hours per day, 8 hour days are horrible, and the show’s over, 10 hours per day, send me a secret signal, Burn Notice, a comiccon, Battlestar Galactica, Archer, a throwback, Pulpcovers/Alex, the last of an earlier era of television, problem of the week, and a weak overriding plot every season, he used to be spy, just a premise for the show, exotic locale, it has a car, 80s, A-Team van, Kitt from Knight Rider, Dukes Of Hazzard, the car is the star of the show, an actor based show, Gabrielle Anwar, an IRA terrorist, Jeffrey Donovan, Bruce Campbell is the sidekick, the Evil Dead series, Sharon Gless, Cagney & Lacey, flip phones, 2005-2011 show, a fine show, a comic book, a sidekick on Xena, western shows, The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr., short lived Fox shows, Zorro style, Jack Of All Trades, what you can do while you’re at work, a half hour syndicated action comedy, 1801, East Indies, a swordfighting, masks, Napoleon Bonaparte is character, Mr. Charismatic on screen, bicker in fun ways, a good fun show, Spider-Man villains, Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), Elvis and JFK, it should be an amazing movie, a little long in the tooth, the cylon lady, Lucy Lawless, you see those people together, the Spartacus tv series, Blood And Sand, 300 (2006), the acting and the dynamics, a slave morality show, diaries?, slave folk heroes, Kirk Douglas, what would it mean to be a slave, having sex with the slaves, a great villainess, New Zealanders, Evan agrees, a slave rebellion, the servile war, amazing history, super-compelling on-screen performances, green screen, practical sets, thinking of it as a play, a tool to get stuff done, laidoff, Vikings was a better show, blood eagle, why you don’t want piss the vikings off, doesn’t overstay its welcome, a maori gladiator, sticking to the facts is fascinating, what is it like to be a celebrity slave, I am Spartacus, a consciousness raising movie, also very sexy, they’re sexy too, regretful but should be done, killing the masters, killed in the end, sexy jumping naked slaves, emotional resonance, very underrated show, 39 episodes, 2013, All In The Family, Happy Days, about as substantial, a monologue about Riverdale, too soap opera, just soap opera enough, Twin Peaks, the original, Deep Space Nine, a very resonant show, better is substantial ways, Miles got trapped in the mine for 20 years, extreme amounts of trauma, poor Miles O’Brien, his wife doesn’t love him, his kid doesn’t care about him, the writers were picking on him, Canadian?, Irish movies, the Canadian film industry, Black Summer, a Netflix show, Calgary, that explains it, the old zombie trope, you are the camera, you don’t know why, you follow that person for a while, this is our main character, nope, they’re killed, weird compared to regular television, Z Nation, an art film, the Asylum, notorious for making cheapo rip off movies, a company designed to make money, the coattails of Hollwood, Sharknado, very surprising, going back all the way, April 2019, not a show like Star Trek Discovery, storytelling techniques that have lain follow, basically praise, the endless sprawling suburbs of Calgary, Alberta, The Crazies (1973), worthy of attention, only one trick: surprise!, the trick works a lot, Stephen King’s The Shining, The Picture In The House by H.P. Lovecraft and Pigeons From Hell by Robert E. Howard, White House-style, axed by ghosts of slavery, based on a black person’s story told to him, a traditional slave folktale, pretty scary, a TV adaptation, anti-mystery box show, sparse in dialogue, what the fuck is going on and why am I so scared, The Extraordinary Attorney Woo, sweet and innocent, childlike, well packaged, young and more than middle aged, a broad range of interests, I think you want it to be great, sweet and fun, Korean film and television industry, clips of this autistic lady, The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2013), Yi Sun-Shin, Korean George Washington, defeated Japan, 12 Korean ships vs. 333 Japanese ships, a slog, historical epics, great horror movies, The Host (2006), the Americans pollute the Han river, evil tank juice, a Godzilla movie, lighter than Train To Busan (2016), kaiju, the worst Korean accent ever, A Man Called Ove (2015), enforcing block association rules, boisterous new neighbors, spends half the movie trying to kill himself, when a movie is not so good, theatering?, Avatar 2, beautiful and too long and mostly a setup for the next one, every crew has a crazyass white boy, very satisfying to see giant arrows go through people, a very clunky writer, repeated himself, Titanic (1997) has gravitas, a big weighty movie, Avatar 3 The Way Of The Rocks, the four elements, exhausted its idea, the na’vi won, Dances With Wolves in space, free of his bad body, a trans story, the transgender kid episode of The Orville, too Star Warsy, special effects heavy, the other way around, show the gender surgery working, trying to sell it on an alien, Ezri vs. Jadzia Dax, a funny situation, Macklin?, they’re both boys, hilarious, like Star Trek but funny, less funny, less good, very wrong of them, Obi-Won was horrible, Andor is not shit, Stalin robbing a bank, a heist show, Diego Luna, Star Wars: Rogue One, many boffins died for this thumbdrive, slow paced, beautifully framed, casting is pretty good, Star Wars writing has been shit, hang out with some labourers, smart but evil, political aspect, Blesson Yates, Imani Pullum [playing Topa], IMDB is getting shitty, a fill-in show, The Venom Business by Michael Crichton, Nazis on the Moon, Evan Lampe started a podcast series reading through everything Heinlein wrote, talked him into it, and maybe Mark Twain, Pirate Enlightenment, Or The Real Libertalia by David Graber, he’s been posthumous for a while, I’m posthumousing right now, autistic style take, all the same, his third posthumous book, “enlightenment, liberty, socialism all the same thing”, hey that’s us!, a radical social experiment, The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff, The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick, crawling abortions being run over by trucks, pretty great story, The Pre-Persons, a weird guy, an interview with Ray Faraday Nelson’s kid, David Agranoff, Philip K. Dick: babysitter, Philip K. Dick shows a 7-year old his derringer, why you have a derringer?, what are you thinking?, this is America, man, too American, we just got problem, do something different in this country, Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper, Poul Anderson sword and sandal, Francis Stevens is always interesting, dystopia in Philadelphia, The Heads Of Cerberus, a weird lady, what the fancy people do, Unseen-Unfeared, a few things missing, first published in 1904, Jean Veil, People’s Favorite Magazine, a low rent Italian restaurant, he sells love charms, not tempting, a review by E.F. Bleiler, guy breaks into a house, fights with best friend, a knock at the door, the safe was open, very convoluted, a phial with a stopper with the heads of Cerberus, Dante’s gate, no diamonds in here, what did you do with my cousin, alternate 2018, weird dystopia, no names, just numbers, Mr. Handsome gets a municipal job, a fascist state?, goes in the pit, head of the music department, it’s like the Hugo awards, also stirred up the ashes, seat of her pants, spinning up ideas, opposite of well put together, ideas like rockets going off, Science Fiction The Early Years, Guide To Supernatural Fiction, emdash, 729 pages, a special photographic filter, the soul of a recent suicide, only like an hour, how hard is it to do 47 minutes, we had a good chat, Evan’s been sick, isn’t Paul always at a convention?, socialize, Paul is lonely Libra, Jesse’s just a cancer on society, someplace, pulpcon, money, hassle at the borders, no excuses, lining up for celebrities, Pavel Chekov’s signature, the conversations at the panels are surficial, Pulpfest, 2016, intervening years, a long drive, pulps were more expensive, pandemic prices, Planet Stories for $20, hold it in your hand, oooh look at that ooh!, stay up all night talking to people, if Cirsova were in local stores, Jesse doesn’t want to support Amazon, good used bookstores, lesbian couples are in it for the long haul, a trope almost, they’re bookish, Little Sisters, super-prudes, super-evil, a place of prominence, rent is low somewhere, small town Alberta, a town full of Mormons, an amazing town, Cardston, Alberta, Justice League building, Fortress of Solitude, something out of Ayn Rand, it looks like a bank, cost of living, inflation, $850 for a 3 bedroom and big yard, what does that get you?, giant assessments, working online, the fever has not yet broken on covid, an excuse to fuck everybody and line pockets, definitively its a wash, almost none of the positives are with spreading the disease around, wrecked the industry for in-person tutoring, in person classrooms, kids don’t learn very well online, Paul’s masked up at his convention, the vaccines don’t work for almost any of the people getting them, let’s go back to business as usual, tele-judge, on trial with the judge not in the room, fixed camera, ai shit, a program that you run, that changes where your eyes are focused to make it look at the camera, creepy and interesting, simulated real-life but also fake, no modesty at all, Hawaiian Mormon templeing, nice people, just in this life, Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card is a black name, church homophobia, he’s following his church beliefs, this is the doctrine of my church, and I contribute money to prevent people from getting married, religious objections vs. non-religious objections to abortion, Scott is quite nuanced, say things in a polite way, the same claim about the papists, pushing babies into wombs, bio-ethicists say it is okay to use brain dead women’s bodies, clickbait shit, frustrating fun game, coffee, I can still have coffee, too shaky, three cups max, a catfood shortage, egg pricing, incompetence of a cat named Brandon, personally responsible for inflation, not solving problems, price controls, stick it to the egg industry, milk control board, 59% increase in egg prices, realer food, no-corn in Canadian pop, some breads without soy, Italy has basically real food, pink slime, slight advantages to higher food prices, wrangle some cats, try to find cat food, inexpensive kibble, possums, raccoons.

Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block

Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block (back)

Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block - AUDIOBOOK

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Reading, Short And Deep #390 – Solander’s Radio Tomb by Ellis Parker Butler

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #390

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Solander’s Radio Tomb by Ellis Parker Butler

Here’s a link to the first publication PDF and here’s the reprint from Amazing Stories, June 1927, PDF.

This story was first published in Radio News, December 1923.

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