noir – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #605 – READALONG: A Bullet For Cinderella by John D. MacDonald

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #605 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, and Cat Russell talk about A Bullet For Cinderella by John D. MacDonald

Talked about on today’s show:
1955, On The Make, The Girl The Gold Watch And Everything, broken up, Jesse’s back, hardboiled, adventure fantasy, the writing style, the throughline, parallax, Cape Fear, parallels or similarities, a sinister similar story, Deniro, the melodrama, Fitzmartin, a cunning plan, very apocalypse world, the back and forth, before he killed him, you’ve got a character and he wants one thing, he likes killing people, when Tal comes blundering in, one lead or a whole bunch of leads, everytime he goes and talks to somebody, Ruth’s dad, hangin out with losers, one of the dogs died, some blind lady, grade 8 English teacher, organize her photographs, David Mamet, deliberately misunderstanding, we don’t know what he wants and neither does he, the $60,000, find this money, Paul’s only lead, It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), I hate my job, he knew himself better, the three male characters in that Korean War POW camp, mistakes vs. stupid actions vs. smart actions, profiting from someone else’s mistakes, the moral line, very noir, a bullet for Cinderella, surprise, the one wielding the bullet, who is on the make?, and Ruth too, Timmy was on the make, Cindy was on the make, upstate New York, place vs. character, a region of the country, the flooded river and the island, a place called Hillston, out of state plates, California, Delaware Street, a map of the town, what’s missing, do Evan’s role, the ones who stayed behind, the middle classes’ malaise with itself, the Korean War, they had such potential, living the American dream and its empty, the Progressives, the Communist Party was underground in the 1950s in the United States, everybody who survived the camp, a lean man with tremendously powerful hands and arms, a Texan and a Marine, hunt down Fitzmartin and kill him, Fitz was not a progressive, appointed committees, assigned responsibilities, retreads, Jap camps, Fitz refused, an animal instinct, icy contempt, tires, drafted into WWII, in a way, the Cold War, a magazine had done the same sort of thing, refused repatriation, turncoats, ignorant, neurotic, the dead were more interesting, whose judgement is this, a middle class judgement of the communists, I’m writing a book, making the notes, what are we reading, fake it until you make it, seeing through it, searching for meaning, a suit he puts on, a private detective, there’s jobs for white guys in the 1950s, a novel about class, Will thinks everything about class, Antoinette, the cover, full hillbilly, hot hillbilly, racism, white trash, very unsavoury, middle class guy has his romp with the proletarian woman, he uses her as a shield, he hates her, middle class bae, it was unconscionable that he didn’t die at the end, Ruth’s gonna die, everything isn’t going to be okay, this society is still depraved, Blue Velvet (1986), all the betrayals he was willing to do, The Return Of William Proxmire by Larry Niven, John D. MacDonald writes Ringworld novels, the narrator for the audiobook: so good, he does the women really well, the men really well, the radio sound, tones and moods and pacing, Winston Tharp, The Spy In The Elevator by Donald E. Westlake, top notch, he’s perfect, the angry guy, the people at the diners, the cops, a shoutout to Winston Tharp: great job!, your life is lesser by not listening to the audiobook, a different flavour when somebody else reads it, undercurrent, Hell Or High Water (2016), the decade of despair, pay off the reverse mortgage, Blue Ruin (2013), garbage truck detective, professional and causal reviewers, the pov character is “on the spectrum”, autistic detective, he just happens to be weird, the character doesn’t matter, the country’s falling apart, the police aren’t doing their job, there’s something wrong, a business collapsing, he wants to die, hidden motives, hidden from themselves, the simplest character is Fitzmartin, the daughter of the vet, why isn’t she married?, is she just waiting for the hero to arrive, I like reading books, a lot of people were not good enough (intellectually) for her, the absent owner class, the big bourgeoisie, why do we go to the Korean War again, same reason for the Vietnam War, capitalism and white supremacy, what is a military really, a machine for killing people, the average drafted soldier, how he acts in the camp, Tal’s stated reason, searching for meaning, he’s a year behind, an excuse, Ruth was looking for someone to be her equal, his stated goal was to hunt him down and kill him after, he’s a different kind of turncoat, he’s a turncoat on the species, hunting vs. stumbling, he punched him, a narrative, I told them everything except for this, he’s an unreliable narrator, those are the results, he can move on with his life, the sacrifice of Cinderella, very hard relationship, a hard scene, sending money, she was doing her best, Doyle, a lot of pathos going on, a Scarlett O’Hara vibe, all the other Cindys, the gypsy blooded girl, what’s her fate?, she gets away with nothing, totally noir, it aint that happy an ending, it intentionally creates that illusion, middle class normalcy reasserting itself, she likes to read books, I’m not a female longhair, I’m not one of those people, books like this, propaganda, an ideological statement at the end, a door, a possibility, Tal Howard is a Rorschach test, Mark Twain, it’s very easy to have principles on a full belly, Extracts From Adam’s Journal, the apple, break it slowly, Timmy was a less complicated person than I am, on a physical level, it would have been fine for a time, good talk aka podcasts, beer and bowling and sports page attitude, sticking a pin in him, are you Tal?, is the door open, this guy got the shit kicked out of her, Tal has taken over Timmy’s life, it was too easy for him, had he become, Timmy, all you gotta do is dig it up, Tal Howard evolved, he’s the Timmy who grew up, they might workout, Charlotte is for Timmy, endless yak, television, yellow kitchens, the other women choices, Ruth is similar, wiser, less cruel, he’s just in the cycle, they drink, First Blood (1982), A Dark Place aka Steel Country, intellectually disabled, emotionally disabled, Trump Pence signs, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time by Mark Haddon, the chapters are primes, a very very uncool Brick (2005), weirdness and rationalizations, very low ratings, near concern trolling, neo-noir, murder mystery shows, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, plot details vs. this town in the 1950s, hidden from us and yet revealed, metaphors for Tal’s state of mind, all the different aspects of his personality, the lure of being shallow and living in the moment, meaning, she was the treasure, Miss Major, very sympathetic lady, for – personal reasons, he’s not lying, he’s on the edge of immorality, for reasons I do not which to disclose to you, his deeper reasons, he’s obsessed with this girl she doesn’t know, Timmy wasn’t very well when he mentioned this Cindy, those dreadful teeth, the other children used to be horrible to her, they can be little animals at times, the kids today, the science teacher is so philosophical, very ruthless, Antoinette Rasi, after I learned braille, its a graduation picture, a great mass of black hair, half-French half-Italian, her people were very poor, inadequately dressed, a very alive person, across the tracks?, a boat and bait business, the shack is pictured on the cover, she had a black eye, aww, really really good writing, not artificial, who’s reading these books, math, Timmy was gifted at math, everything was too easy, Mr. Leach, not in troubles, federal narcotics people, many collars, criminals of all dimensions, that has the sound of a book, I almost died but not quite, a labour of love, should be treated with all respect, cretins who can multiply two five digits numbers, abnormally normal, creative mathematics, empty cleverness, he never had time, it wasn’t easy at the end, a fellow traveler, this a bad century, one of the faceless ones, something is eating our young, a self-inflicted abortion, those were the good old days, who got the money?, where da money?, everybody should be happy, no technical end, the storm clouds of the sixties, he’s becoming the Tim that should have been, might have been, escape this cycle, be a better man, Timmy represents potential, sleeping with his brother’s wife and stealing his money, this lie about being a writer, John D. MacDonald’s own impostor syndrome?, write to eat, I’m not David Mamet, manipulating figures in math, Fitzmartin uses them as a means to an end, the better person that Timmy should have become, not Macdonald’s first novel, Travis McGee, Lawrence Block, a devoted fan base, colours in the title, Nightmare In Pink, Bright Orange For The Shroud, The Dreadful Lemon Sky, The Cinnamon Skin, Costco, Harry Potter, series books, old books is what we need, Will, The Battle Of Chosin Reservoir, a young back, Evan has a doctorate in knowing stuff, let’s all go to this war, for show, U.N. cover, Taiwan represented China, the Vietnam War, retweeting New York Times, we know the history better than the people of the time know it, seeing it from all sorts of different sides, the job of a historian, reading fiction of the time, what it was like for them, starving in a frozen North Korean prison camp, they’re in it again, motivated by god knows what, he can’t keep his job, the psychology, notice the health, how Tal Howard survived, survivors guilt, taking over Timmy’s role, these three examples of what men can do, be assholes, be apologetic assholes, would you trust those police to help you out, they told him to leave town, private detectives, they were question the authority, the police didn’t do their job, we have a monopoly on violence, a bigger picture, let’s listen to him, good cop bad cop, us vs. them, the anti-communist stuff from this period, $47,000, I can never have too much money, wanting money will kill you, greed is a mortal sin, having money is a safety, The Zahir by Jorge Luis Borges, The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence, there must be money, he rocks himself to death, stuff people want, their drab contrast, I am noted for my fondness for money, I can never have enough, she could have run over and got it herself, is it a death wish?, her boring ideas, he tries on different women, the dangerous one, drink yourself to death, toe on the trigger, which way do you wanna go?, kinda heavy, he doesn’t seem to feel bad enough, nice book you got here John D. MacDonald, he used her as a human shield, they used each other, equal use, we should strive for better relationships, this is to heavy for Paul, worried this was gonna be a podcast rather than a conversation talking about books, by being generous with our conversations, other people wanna hear about books, even if you’re not participating, that was a really good show you did Evan, everything is podcast, all the tweets, all the DMs, all the salacious details, please troll Jesse, a reality radio show about a book club.

A Bullet For Cinderella by John D. MacDonald

Gold Medal -A Bullet For Cinderella by John D. MacDonald

A Bullet For Cinderella by John D. MacDonald

On The Make by John D. MacDonald

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The SFFaudio Podcast #463 – READALONG: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #463 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa van Uden, Bryan Alexander, Luke Burrage, and Maissa Bessada discuss Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Talked about on today’s show:
2002, a pretty good book, cyberpunk continuing, classic film noir detective stuff, sleeving, an old book, the Netflix TV adaptation, 10 years of the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, too heavy, too violent, sex scenes, long and graphic, too much tumescence?, a major part of the book, having partial control of your body, Ortega connection, his dick understands, your biology and your mind, Luke is his penis and his brain, the disconnect, what a lot of this book is, hard to listen to a narrator narrate, not Morgan’s forte, the action, the love of the guns, the sheen of the blades, a really interesting idea book, the second and the third book, the narrator’s pronunciation of Kovach (in book 2 and 3), Todd McClaren’s narration, a causal vs a casual link, Bancroft has Mr Burns (from The Simpsons) voice, thinking about the sex and the violence, a book about the first year of the war on terror?, Battlestar Galactica, part of his identity, a ghost in the book, The Maltese Falcon, Bay City, a setup for the traditional private eye novel, hardboiled novels, the femme fatale, the noir detective, a murder mystery, a locked room murder mystery, a false ending, we are with the detective, proper timing, missing the whole lightness of being, it feels like a first novel, merging a hardboiled detective novel with a real science fiction idea, alien technology, the perennial spoilers are uninteresting conversation, consciousness uploading and downloading, a whole economy that works inside of the technological system, real death, “organic damage”, Prof. Eric S. Rabkin’s “transformed language”, capitalism can go a step further, repossessing you body, mortgaging your body, what the riches of the ultra-capitalist winners look like, Market Forces, Morgan understands global capitalism in a way few science fiction writers rarely do, Neuromancer by William Gibson, when Case disparaging the meat-sack, so much smoking, sleeve-sickness, cross-sleeving, a fourth book?, skip to the third book, Broken Angels, military SF, Woken Furies, Quellist struggles, the ideal series, like Doctor Who or James Bond, what would normally trigger a lot of people, a big backlash?, racism-proof, accidentally funny, whitewashing, not enough of the Asian identity, two different faces in the mirror, Ghost In The Shell (2017), Maissa was witness to the Falcon Heavy launch and recovery, making note of Miriam Bancroft, Jesse tells a story that turns out to be importantly incorrect, loving James M. Cain at age 14 or 15?, a terrible crash of destiny, stories about femme fatales, which Takeshi Kovacs, childhood memories set the program, telling Jesse’s sad stories, feeling betrayed, face punch exchanges, you’re not supposed to hit women, legitimate hitting, resonating for a reason, personality formation, not enough or the right kind of trauma, all kinds of experiences, resleeving and doing the podcast again, weird connections, identical twin problems, growing up and not being a single human unit, Luke and Nathan go to see the head teacher, tedious and annoying and boring, that’s not the fun game, everybody got Luke and his brother mixed up, what it’s like to be your own identical twin, one particular trauma to magnify, how long will it take to be two different people, rock-paper-scissors, virtual, taking the randomness out of it, taking out all the whims, how can they even be throwing differently, quantum improbabilities, slight differences, it isn’t chance, trying to lose, fun sex party, second guessing to win and lose, how attached they were to that life, proud to have been able to have killed himself, a will, the institution of you continuing on after your death, codicils, the A.I. hotel, Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze, the reason for the change, the Hendrix estate, Hendrix was a big fan of SF, the language of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, the sidekick, a second trope, the possessive girlfriend nature of the hotel, a lot more personality, meeting the Hendrix, social graces and hotel service, subsumed inside his job, everybody in the police station has a mohawk, why does Ortega cut her own hair?, an undeveloped plot thread?, she’s Catholic, is it possible she doesn’t have a cortical stack implant?, everybody would have the scar, savoring that idea, when you can live forever and nothing can kill you, less meaning to existence, savouring the moments, never do a show twice, we’re never going to do one again, poignancy, the upcoming Dune show, the holiday lasted forever, permanent memoirs, people re-act, the physicality of the sonic booms, startling emotions, why am I crying?, death is more meaningful, seeing in the background, the first bit of violence, death isn’t final, “we saved the stack”, sixteen real deaths, more meaningful, not just movie violence, Ryker didn’t like mohawks, the default in computer gaming is multiple games, iron man mode, flushing your cache, stuck with the consequences, get to the next screen, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds vs. Battlefield 4, completely different vibes, paranoia sneaks up on you, constant electrical shocks, one life to live mode, all the more meaningful, an accomplishment, the highest highs and the lowest lows, as a game mechanic, thirty minutes in, becoming very meaningful, seeming to rely on neurochem as superhero juice, neurochemicals, if you can control your neurochemicals you can control a lot of your world, dials you can up or down, pouring my coffee is doing the neurochem, anticipating the hit, fight sequences, about the meths, meth now means something else, more relevant, economic inequality, more in the consciousness, about the 1%, eat the rich, Black Man aka Thirteen, the Jesus-land idea, a very different resonance, a just reward for hard work, race and gender, the U.S. Democratic party, still fighting the 2016 election, a dystopia in the worst way, everything we have now except it will never end!, Baby Boomers, Nancy Pelosi sacrificed herself by standing for eight hours, Morgan really knows what’s going on, his wife is Spanish, teaching English in non-English countries, a world book, the quintessential American noir detective novel, not Agatha Christie, the femme fatale wife, the ultra rich guy paying the bills, private justice, the cop who is the enemy and the friend, a tangled romantic past, all backstory, his body has a history, he has a history outside his body, well layered, the Patchwork Man story, Frankenstein, Golems, Neuromancer, just delete me, man, Galatea 2.0 by Richard Powers, Charles Stross, Douglas Adams, Raymond Chandler, his politics, economics, deep corruption, strikingly feminist, strikingly anti-religion, these resonate, the triad boss, it feels like fifteen short stories before it, the pacing, what would you cut, the book is about the sex, cut down the fights, the Thunderdome, Head-In-The-Clouds, kung-fu for 15 minutes, and now a gunfight, fade to black, toggling the text in or out, dial it up, you can’t easily skim read an audiobook, super-aware of the narrator, Jonathan Davis on performing sex scenes, the post torture rampage, time working differently in virtual, the rampage feels lifted straight out of Robert E. Howard’s The Vale Of Lost Women, rampage mode, stack killing (RDs), a very dark Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, the weapon that he is, an important scene, the unicorn backpack is turning into a meme, to film that scene, designed to be a film, it isn’t a Blade Runner rip-off, a different kind of dystopia, we’re going on a run, the visual connections, a cartoon, why can’t all cityscapes, Blade Runner: 2049 as a silent film or a wordless film, plenty of direct links, “freeze and enhance”, Rick Deckard, bounty hunter and mercenary, film noir tropes, the visuals do not come out of the book, let’s play out the same thought experiments, everything is at night in the rain, Dark City (1998), off to the rest of the galaxy, stagnation, why is it so conservative?, the leftovers, Earth?, that shithole, this is not the home planet, quaint and ancient, a lampshading way of saying we’re not going to invent that much more, how hard it is to write near future SF, why isn’t it called San Fransisco, PoCo, IOCO, PoMo, slang terms, more transformed language, Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, Harlan’s World = Harlan Ellison’s world, UBC Museum of Anthropology, mossy and rocky with beautiful forest, mom and dad and sister, not just a rampage book, smoking, what is it like to come back to the homeworld and think of it as a dump?, The Impossible Planet, Wall-E, Milk Of Paradise by James Triptree, Jr., environmental, on the nose, the underbelly, Head-In-The-Clouds vs. Licktown, seeing what it is, Miriam Bancroft, Chinatown (1974), the proposition, ‘it’s all about the money, man’, the puppetry by the rich of the inconsequential, where are they getting all the human bodies?, disposiblity, working to grow your clown, a mismatch between the scarcity of bodies and the plurality of bodies, increasing the number of crimes, The Jigsaw Man by Larry Niven, exploitation, synth-bodies, The Crack In Space, an orbiting whorehouse, Westworld, loving one and not caring about another, feeling a connection, an anti-hero, rooting for the mission (not the man), Jimmy’s story, Poe, a fairly good job at adapting, Dollhouse, body hopping, virtual reality, an almost sexual urge, the show’s appeals, the grandma, exiting Bryan’s brain, bonding with the main character, Luke thinks about his penis a lot, fun to read, such a sad life, a twisted sense of humour, skewering global capitalism, Car Wars, hedge-fund managers play Mad Max, what’s wrong with us, we’re being manipulated, extending life, what about everybody else?, leave the planet, if we don’t treat it as a metaphor, people act as if, this long view of the world, Bancroft has been alive longer than the history of my planet, would you live in this world?, taking a chance, in a sim?, South America, India, dystopia is already here it’s just not evenly distributed, hanging out with Ortega, super-corrupt, Ryker would go around beating people up, torture program, we did that, there are no good cops, seeing the world from the civilian POV, seeing cyberpunk having an extended life, sub-genres, steampunk, alternate history, Ridley Scott, more of that, not that many good ones, Neuromancer remains the great one, a subterranean vibe, a masterpiece you don’t enjoy watching, such a cultural impact, what comes through, Jack Womack, computer gaming, manga, power and influence, to persist, looking back over the years in science fiction, we’re too close, Gollanz Masterwork series, wait twenty years, 40 years for Moby-Dick, we’re accelerated, what is the good movie?, the Best Picture Oscar winners are a photo-negative of quality, hype machine, more than a twitter, good speech takes a long time, short speech is advertising, Mad Max: Fury Road, come back in a new sleeve in twenty years, all the evil corportations are named S.A., the European version of LLC, Tessier-Ashpool S.A., the orbital battle scenes, the client, Miriam Bancroft gets a punch in the face from me, the fist remembers, Annihilation, a long time since Berlin, hiking the hills, Honeybear lives, organic dog damage, does the dog have a person in it, a tiger sleeve, sleeved in a snake, What It Is Like To Be A Bat, qualia, an attempted-masturbation scene.

Altered Carbon - The Patchwork Man

Altered Carbon street scene

Carbone Modifie

TANTOR - Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #448 – READALONG: The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #448 – Jesse, Scott, and Paul Weimer talk about The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

Talked about on today’s show:
1954, a reconstruction of a Norse Saga with Dungeons & Dragons elements, Scott loved it, Jesse found it terrible, and Paul has read it thrice, what would have happened…, Eric Bright Eyes by H. Rider Haggard, idiots and assholes and magic, low magic, striving toward wisdom, the nuclear weapons of magic, Odin, sacrificial Paul, the rules, in the realm of mythology, Beowulf, The Lord Of The Rings, Michael Moorcock’s Elric Of Melnibone, archetypes and gods, greater and deeper, mythic vs. inspired by myth, the language was amazing, Jesse’s not saying much, directly inspired by Beowulf, The Völsunga Saga, an insight into 1000 year old society, The Odyssey, the characters tended to not be very wise, semi-historical, Ragnar Lodbrook, simile nice, toning down the massive metaphors, more about power than it is about ideas, the whole magic sword thing, magic items, H.P. Lovecraft, huge and menacing and powerful and on the edge of our ability to perceive, Skafloc, drawing runes, there’s a demon in here, cursed staves, Dreams In The Witch House, his counterpart (his changeling), screwed at birth, cursed in a Greek or Norse way, more action, not an idea book, all about the ideas, The Forever War, the ideas are not front in center, you can’t touch iron, that’s the rule!, The Magic Goes Away by Larry Niven, werewolves, becoming an outlaw, becoming savage, why is he a werewolf, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, not unlike the world was viewed, the revised edition, Bronson Pinchot’s narration, the 1971 revision (made it worse), Gollanz’s reversion, ‘I welded the Broken Sword back together’, a ‘Book For The Blind’ narration, luke warm, The High Crusade, Three Hearts And Three Lions, a WWII officer dropped into the land of fairy, the plot of the Wonder Woman movie, for copyright reasons?, fiddling, the language in this book, poetry, evocative descriptions, half converted Christians, a ghost tells them, that’s the rules, her brother her lover, that’s the tragedy, echoes, the ending was rushed, Valgard, killed by the device, E.F. Bleiler, noir, doomed from the beginning, the characters doom themselves vs. their doomed because of their destiny, why is this happening?, he calls to the raven, hey there’s a battle down the road, dude!? why did you do that?, James M. Cain, for no good reason, stirring the same area of Scott’s brain, pale recreation of Tolkien, thinking about the meta-aspect, that GRAVITAS, WWII, truth, the eternal verities, the truth of story, poetic truth, philosophers, a truth and a resonance, Dunkirk, its hard to criticize anything that is tongue-in-cheek, the bad geography of Middle Earth (Tor.com), philology, Frank Herbert, geology and ecology, monsters doing monstrous things to each other, what makes them powerful, Marissa, imagine you’re copy-editing someone’s work, fixing a falsity, the Goodreads reviews, the reviews of Beowulf, what’s the Bible’s Goodreads reviews, Gilgamesh The King by Robert Silverberg, the epic vs. the novel, ringing false, is this a high fantasy book?, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, science vs. magic, lets shoot the fireballs at each other, Robert E. Howard, the magic sword mentality, Excalibur and King Arthur, his human thews (though very jaguar-like), the strength of 10-hill giants, a really problematic definition, epic vs. sword and sorcery, about scale and stakes, who is casting the fireballs, “an Atlantean Sword”, the magic is in his manliness, about willpower, born to be screwed, the characters don’t seem to know themselves, they are almost pre-conscious, The Odyssey, I’ve made mistakes – I’m going to make more – and here I go, sticking with the tradition he is writing in, that northern tradition, the Neil Gaiman movie script adaptation of Beowulf, The Saga of Eric Brighteyes, set in Iceland, Henry Treece’s Viking Trilogy, on the PDF Page, Viking Dawn, The Road To Miklagard, Viking Sunset, Beothuk, throw down some quotes, a sequel hook, Ragnarok, the unfinished comic book adaptation from the 1960s, good stuff, a book full of sadness, “whence came you hither, fawn?”, the sacred grove, the dryad screams, The Grove Of Ashtaroth by John Buchan, arbitrary rules, the White Christ, real gods vs. fake gods, who and how much power a particular name has, see American Gods by Neil Gaiman, The Elf-Trap by Francis Stevens, Carcassonne, Kentucky, why are some characters not allowed to touch iron?, that’s the rules, the afterword, a science fiction-y take, when he isn’t being playful, Three Hearts And Three Lions, marrying science fiction with fantasy, how they can intertwine and make sense of each other, when the Devil shows up, Dante (Alighieri), “the White Christ, time and love”, I knew him of old in my incarnation of Loki, things as other things, fairies from China and India, a very old idea, that’s some deep stuff right there, elf girlfriends vs. human girlfriends, mocking eyes, “oh, you’re one of thooose guys”, “like calls to like”, cold mystery, adopted by elves, mythic, Dragon Magazine, some of the cartoons, straight out of Elric (and this), intelligent swords, willful swords, when you’re sword has a higher intelligence that you do, a tragedy, where’s my place in this world, where’s my place in a Norse saga?, sword dances, a novel for Dungeons & Dragons players, “Brutal, romantic and tragic. no cute hobbits.”

Ballantine Books - The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson (1961) fanzine illustration

comic book adaptation of The Broken Sword

The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - Italian

BLACKSTONE AUDIO - The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

Boris Vallejo illustration of The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson letter to Eldritch Dream Quest (fanzine)

The Broken Sword - art by Patrick Woodroffe

Posted by Jesse Willis

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

Podcast

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

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

BALLANTINE BOOKS - Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Posted by Jesse Willis

Review of The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher

SFFaudio Review

The Age Atomic (Empire State #2)
By Adam Christopher; Performed by Phil Gigante
Publisher: Brilliance Audio[UNABRIDGED] – 10 hours

Themes: / parallel universe / urban fantasy / superheroes / detectives / noir / airships /

Publisher summary:

The Fissure connecting the alternate New York to its counterpart has vanished, plunging the city into a deep freeze. The people are demanding a return to Prohibition and rationing as energy supplies dwindle. Meanwhile, in the real 1954 New York, the political dynamic has changed. Nimrod finds his department subsumed by a radical new group, Atoms For Peace, led by the mysterious Evelyn McHale. Their goal is simple: total conquest – or destruction – of the Empire State. Adam Christopher returns with the thermonuclear sequel to Empire State – the superhero-noir fantasy thriller set in the other New York.

The Age Atomic continues where Empire State left off. Some time has passed since the events of Empire State but the fissure has disappeared from the Empire State. Since the fissure in Battery Park is the source of sustenance to The Empire State, the climate begins to edge toward an ice age as time goes on. While this is happening, Rad Bradley uncovers a plot involving robots. On the other side of the fissure in New York City, a mysterious blue woman made purely of energy (I’m looking at you Watchmen) heads up a secret organization that seems to be researching Empire State technology for no good.

It would be hard to comment on this book without comparing it to Empire State. The Age Atomic is a little lighter on the detective noir and heavier on the robots, airships, and odd superheroes. I found the story much easier to follow than it’s predecessor because the plot was a bit more direct and the character’s loyalties weren’t in such a state of flux. I enjoyed the book more because of these differences – especially the more straight forward plot.

In the end, the book was a fun listen, the characters were enjoyable, and I had some serious flashbacks of Watchmen (down to the blue energy character). I especially like Captain Carson/Nimrod as the old-timey adventurer and would love to see a book involving his adventures. I would recommend this book to people who like comic books, robots, super heroes, and detective stories…or at least a decent subset of that group.

As for the audiobook performance, Phil Gigante did a great job as usual. He was easy to understand and did some good voices for the different characters. I also found this book much easier to audiobook than it’s predecessor because of the straightforward plot. I didn’t feel the need to back up as if I missed anything this time around.

Posted by Tom Schreck

Review of On the Make by John MacDonald

SFFaudio Review

On the Make
By John D. MacDonald; Performed by Robert Armin
Publisher: Gutter Books on Audible.com
Published: 31 May 2013
[UNABRIDGED] – 5 hours, 18 minute

Themes: / hard-boiled / noir / crime / mystery /

Publisher summary:

Tal Howard, a disillusioned Korean War vet, breaks away from his old life, looking for answers and convinced he’s going to find them in the small town of Hillston. What’s in Hillston? Sixty grand in embezzled funds that Howard learned about from a dying friend in a POW camp. He just needs to find out where the money is hidden and contend with another former POW who has come looking for it, Earl Fitzmartin–a psychopath they were all terrified of in the camp. Howard soon learns that the secret to the money’s location lies in the dead man’s past, which must be discovered through the women he knew, such as the respectable Ruth Stamm and the sultry and dangerous Toni Rassele.

A reissue of John D. MacDonald’s 1955 standalone novel On The Make was among the first books to be released from independent publisher Gutter Books after evolving from a 7 issue run of the amazing Out of the Gutter short fiction journal which debuted in 2008. Gutter books released to date have included other classic crime reprints, new original crime novels from authors such as Joe McKinney, the anthology Atomic Noir edited by Duane Swierczynski with Lou Boxer, and even a reprint of Gold Medal’s 1950 UFO inquiry The Flying Saucers are Real by former Marine Corps naval aviator Donald Keyhoe. Now On The Make has launched as the first of what hopes to be many titles to be brought to the audiobook format by Gutter Books.

The reissue includes an introductory essay “The Two Sides of John D.” by Martin L. Kohler and a concluding essay by Gutter Book’s own Matthew Louis, both which I appreciate being included in the both the new print edition as well as the audiobook. I do have one slight issue with the introductory essay in that although On the Make was in fact the author’s intended title for the novel, the publishers went with a different title, one that in my opinion serves as a major plot spoiler consider a specific main character in the novel. Therefore my own recommendation would be to save both essays for enjoyment later after listening to the story first. That being said, my understanding is that the mention in the prologue was left intact so as not to mislead any readers who may have already be familiar with the book from the former title.

The hard-boiled 1st person narrative of On the Make is handled well by narrator Robert Armin, whose other audiobook credits include non-fiction, self-help, children’s, and crime titles as well as his own writing. The main character, Tal Howard, is a veteran of the Korean War brought to a small town seeking buried riches hinted to him from the last wishes of a fellow prisoner of war. Tal quickly finds many others snooping around and that other strangers have already outstayed their welcome in the town of Hillston. I’ve personally only read other standalone novels from the John D MacDonald bibliography and based on what I’ve read I feel this novel serves as a great introduction to this period. The essays give a good comparison and contrast from this era with his later and better known Travis McGee series of novels. Also of interest and mentioned in high regard is the science fiction works of the author which have included short stories and a handful of novels. I recalled enjoying On the Make first time around when I read the Gutter Books paperback, and enjoyed revisiting the story with the audiobook. I may have to check out some of the John D. MacDonald series or sci-fi novels.

Posted by Dan VK