Philip K. Dick – Page 23

The SFFaudio Podcast #430 – READALONG: The High Crusade by Poul Anderson

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #422 – Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Paul Weimer talk about The High Crusade by Poul Anderson

Today’s podcast is sponsored by Hotspur Publishing’s Dr. Dimension Master Of Spacetime Raising Mullah. Written by S. Ron Mars and narrated by Fred Wolinsky, this is a comedic Science Fiction audiobook available now on Audible.com

Talked about on today’s show:
A Canticle For Leibowitz, the framing, a thousand years later, the manuscript, make a universe as a playground to play in, feudal Englishman running rampant in interstellar space, appreciations, Eric Flint, David Drake, Greg Bear, rollicking, Astrid Anderson Bear, a rollicking romp of medieval mayhem, fun Catholicism, A Case Of Conscience where the conscience is a little lose, the horrible movie adaptation The High Crusade (1994), it could make a good movie, Monty Python And The Holy Grail, George Pal, no budget, no script, no director, John Rhys Davies, the trailer, a really good trailer, blue skin, Quest by Poul Anderson, this seems to be the Holy Grail, here’s a story where they tried, a little too sloppy, a gaming system, Ares, Poul Anderson wrote a ton of great stuff, paperback reprints, an upbeat ending, grim or ambiguous, a different tone, The Broken Sword, Three Hearts And Three Lions, Philip K. Dick’s Waterspider has Poul Anderson as a character, Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson, Avatar with fewer explosions, following in a line with Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, our knowledge, awesome mistakes, no defenses, lucky Scott, fun, super-entertaining, history, a healthy respect for factual history, not technically a lie, Babel, an undercurrent of humour from charging knights to launching nukes with trebuchets, historicity, the fall of Rome, barbarians, the Roman Empire, the creation of the dark ages, their own past and their own future, fiefdoms, the church, practicality, stiff armour costumes, almost a complete retelling of what’s going on in Europe, a local chieftain, keep the system going, pastiche, we have to buy so much, rusty axes, pretty hard to buy, a light touch, undeniably well working, L. Sprague de Camp’s Krishna novels and stories, looking for princesses, green skin aliens, an Easter egg, all their conquests, the crusades, the Wersgorix, defeat the horde of Englishmen, Saracens, ripe for a fall, what made Alexander The Great so great, technical definition: a shitshow, sacking Constantinople, attacking the wrong people, loose collectives, a charitable term, mercenary motivations, the sack of Alexandria, they too the wrong turn, the Northern Crusades, the French Crusades, Baltic pagans, holy wars, Christian jihads, radical extremism combined with mercenary avarice, he must speak Latin because he’s a demon, sharp knives and tortures and laughing, it’s all fake, not being horrified, the entire town from Lincolnshire goes to liberate the Holy Land, an enjoyable romp, edible, digestible, enjoyable, nicely, lightly, briefly, reconstructing scenes, reliability, circumstances, third hand, it’s wonderful to be an Englishman, his declensions are atrocious and what he does to irregular verbs can not be mentioned in gentle company, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison, Celts in the stars, Catherine Asaro, Mayans in space, Star Trek, space Romans and space Nazis, the Traveler RPG, Traveler 3000, seeding wolves and humans, plenty of little planets, plucky humans, star empires, elves, wolves in space, building empires, dying in character creation, The High Crusade tactical board game, chits, Avalon Hill, flaws and strengths, tactics, dry ’80s-style war games, actual battles, great cover art, the idea of primitive technology defeating higher technology, Ewoks vs. the Imperial Storm Troopers, Return Of The Jedi, buckskins (Ewok skins), a comic light touch, different kinds of swords, gladius -> longsword -> rapier -> no swords, the heraldry, to learn how to run a spaceship, you don’t even know how to read to learn, ignorance, history, they’re not knowledgeable enough to think they can’t win, hand-to-hand, contrast, thrall army, fort destruction, ionic storm, heresy, playing the heresy card, history, religion, science, space battles, awesome, scenes and jokes, the workings of the physical universe, an inversion, knights with holstered ray guns, laser guns, the English learn quickly, never give up the horses, poor Ansby was left almost deserted, the loading of the ship, a Noah’s Ark story, a good idea, a lot to swallow, so much sugar, worldly goods, what happened to this village?, everybody’s gone, all the cupboards are bare, there’s a story there, “almost deserted”, I’m not getting on this thing!, other races, clever but nuts, the opening framing, a document vs. a novel, The Green Meadow by H.P. Lovecraft and Winifred Virginia Jackson, the most preposterous story ever, alien summer night, socio-technician, modern languages, creatures, thunder and blow-up, hard to believe, no rest for the wicked, impressively ancient, uncials on vellum, a prosaic typescript, home was a long way off, a mystery, pretty cute, they did well, still there, an English Empire stretching down the spiral arm, 2300 A.D., has the Holy Land yet been liberated?, a funny funny book, this book can’t really age, the alien technology of the ship feels very 1950s, their navigator is called an “astrologer”, The Enduring Chill by Flannery O’Connor, Stephen Colbert, a comedian should narrated this novel, John Cleese, the Book For The Blind, massive archives, there has never been a commercial audiobook release of The High Crusade, The Broken Sword, collections, Brain Wave, Tau Zero, Three Hearts And Three Lions, dealing with elves and trolls, Icelandic and Scandinavian myths, Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp, The Man Who Came Early, dark ages Iceland, Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, split time-lines, everything’s short, 180 pages, a big impressive story inside a few number of pages, packing a bigger punch, Harvest Of Stars, these science fiction writers in the 1960s and 1970s were doing idea exploration, The Broken Sword is a classic, Paul will wind up crying again, catharsis, faking us out, “these creatures”, the Owain treachery, the same thing in Quest, double jointed knees, more faithful than everybody else, a planet named Lancaster, there was hardly a peasant who hadn’t been knighted, Alexander’s generals, regional governors founding dynasties, hay stuck in his hair, very strange very funny, the promise of all series novels always offer, all the adventures happen between the page turns, Sir Roger’s cunning, the Wersgorix had no special affection for their birthplace, King John (and the Magna Carta), the rule of law vs. the rule of the word, “don’t you wish you had a plan?”, siege-craft, “when I had been picked up and dusted off”, no simpletons, to reap so rich a harvest, winning with cunning, courage and brute strength, a little pope, the younger people are not careful, Parvus means “little”, my nickname when I was a kid, a good catch, can we trust this document?, of course we have to trust it 100% because it’s cuter that way, why would it lose to anything?, another religious novel, a different kind of humour completely, a very dry humour, what else was nominated?, Rogue Moon by Algis Burdrys, Deathworld by Harry Harrison, Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon, The Longest Voyage, the Tor Double, To Marry Medusa, Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer, mini-tyrannosaurs rex, Galileo, a telescope, his “planet”, Poul Anderson’s inspiration, making marvelous wonders, a great story to build on.

The High Crusade by Poul Anderson - illustration by H. R. Van Dongen

The High Crusade - illustration by Larry Elmore

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #427 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Hansel And Gretel by Bros. Grimm

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #427 – Hansel And Gretel by Bros. Grimm; read by Julie Davis. This is an unabridged reading of the folk tale (16 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Julie Davis, and Maissa Bessada

Talked about on today’s show:
a folktale, a fairy tale, a lot of magic, a lot of animals, a lot of birds, strange phrases, a cat, the bird episode, Grimm’s Fairy Tales translated by Lucy Crane with illustrations by her brother Walter Crane, the gingerbread house, candy canes, the family’s house, too nice for a starving family, how can you not love this story?, spawned a whole industry, Jesse’s the worst son, no respect for his mother, indirect approach, a Philip K. Dick story, Jesse’s inside, The Cookie Lady, a suburban fantasy, a Hansel and Gretel story without Gretel, Bubber, the woman he visits after school, oh Philip K. Dick!, all the street names, Pine Street and Elm Street, why are the two stories so different, she’s not a regular witch, absorbing the life energy, a fat little boy who loves cookies, she’s young and beautiful, the wind is blowing, just a tumbleweed there, a horrible version of Hansel and Gretel, recognizing that you have to have help, both the children are contributing to the welfare, taking turns, wiser vs. cleverer, a Deep Space Nine episode, Jake Sisko‘s muse sucks the life energy out of him, the Star Trek universe is suffering from population decline, a little girl in Star Trek: Voyager, as soon as possible, bad writing, Wil Wheaton, o father I’m looking at my little white kitten, you young fool, sunshine on the chimney pot, a pigeon, why aren’t they eating the cat and the pigeon?, we ate your cat last night!, a strange story for modern kids, going without food, a famine in Germany, cannibalism, who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy, is the dad horrible or just weak?, he’s convinced, step-mother, his wife and his two children, I pity the poor children, different translations, slippy, how she went away, she “died”, is she’s the witch?, and then the witch says almost the exact same thing, the same pattern, the wife being gone…, we can read it the way kids read it, no subtext, how we’re supposed to read it, if you’re reading it to Jesse…, strength against adults, ganging up on the kids, if the mother is a witch…, it takes a little while, sexist!, once a man gives in he has to always give in, close reading, power relationships, giving into authority, keep the faith, math class, the wife would listen to nothing, “he who says A must say B too”, is that the logic?, if a man yields once he’s done for, more concrete in your face, like a cigarette, I already spanked my kid I might as well kill him, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, the nice monster, how do children see their parents?, as we discover…, the part we all understand, I want it now!, what are these stories for? what is their purpose?, at the end of the day kids need to go to sleep, something to chew over while they sleep, how do you choose what story and who to tell it to?, the circumstances for the telling of Hansel and Gretel, the story gets past your defenses, you’re a team against us, how do we steal from mom?, together rather than apart, how to forebear against…, a different message for a different person, where the story resonates, poor little Bubber had no brother or sister to save him from the excesses of his desires, Julie’s first thought, stories adults told, little girls now big girls, too lively?, a dinosaur, interactive storytelling, revelations, The Robber-Bride, for grown ups only?, knock knock the Grimm Bros. are at the door, here are the stories we tell, nothing else going on, the whole purpose, learning to stand up for yourself, imprisoned, she comes into herself, we’re going to ride separately, we each of us stand up for each other, do it yourself, a lot of the parents would be children, as we learn these mythological stories, an oral tradition, an illiterate population, children as the protagonists, a super-interesting story, On Golden Pond, they’ve already gained the wisdom, for children or for everybody?, Cinderella is of marriageable age, a young person, YA, Rapunzel, that prince was not as noble as you may have thought, dark, levels of development, children’s tales, suitable for children?, when you have no other entertainment, really believing in witches, talking animals, if I ask her she will help us, on your nice white back, questioning things, the theory, the house that they find is not the house they started at, crossing of water, a long way around, a symbolic crossing, Gretel as a silly goose, the theme of the birds, Eric S. Rabkin pointed out that the birds are fed by Hansel, making a sacrifice, rewarded, you can eat all the animals, you can feed the animals, eggs, glinting flints, reminding the duck, do the kids know how to swim?, the pearls and precious stones, the food that the witch ate from previous visitors, where do dragons get their treasures?, he that can catch her, a very large fur cap out of the skin of a mouse, a distraction on purpose, the relationship between humans and animals, the iconic image, it’s just the wind, doing what kids do, they eat us out of house and home, we’re starving to death, getting rid of the kids, the next wave of the famine comes, sleeping by a fire, sleeping under a tree, the third sleep is under the roof of the witch’s house, want some candy, endless candy, I don’t care about money I want some candy, witch’s pancakes, eating the roof, nibble nibble like a mouse, ok duh!, the boy gets all the best food, repaid, repetition, get up lazybones, becoming thin, eating the shells of crabs, thinking too much, eating children for their energy and their youth, the stepmother is the witch thesis, not just to keep the man, meals for her, come eat me, a sign of her wealth, a disinterest in making babies, eating children makes you immortal, the cautionary tale to the parent, do the right thing, parents don’t get any names, her name is a description of what she looks like, rampion, who the audience is, wish fulfillment, money can be converted into food, the kids as the heroes, horse and cow stories, mulling over the story, talking about the candy house, the lesson gets past your defenses, everythings safe and wonderful and you’re powerful, you come back ahead, a lot bad relationships, I’m mad at mom right now, the only chracters in the story do a job, the stories are so washed by the river, a pretty well-polished stone with some duck feet paddling above.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #425 – READALONG: Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #425 -Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa, and Maissa talk about Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang

Talked about on today’s show:
1998, Arrival (2016), Ted Chiang has lost it!, you’ve pulled it off again, the vast sweep of history, the space of my life, Jesse doesn’t hold with modern writers (very much), savouring his stories, a technical writer, smart, wise, and young!, let’s sell out write away, he’s all ages at once, wisdom, his themes, Stories Of Your Life by Ted Chiang (the collection), too much chocolate, Tower Of Babylon, Liking What You See: A Documentary, style and tone, it’s right there in every sentence, when I talk about this on the podcast…, falling into place, in giant swaths, blocks, blocks of ash backwards and forwards, how memory works, changing memories by looking at them, heptapods, could they have done the movie any better?, a thoughtful science fiction story, more graspable, the rogue Chinese general, weirdly flowing hair, they’re doing it!, “oh gawd, Hollywood, what are you doing?”, which order is better?, movie first?, the future not the past, the clay figure, a breakdown, pieces building up, flashbacks, the house was so empty, past and future tense at the same time, movies do that all the time, less literary and more show, the movie-ish elements are not in the story, scale and stakes, Understand is a power, Flowers For Algernon, a meta-human super-mind, Hell Is The Absence Of God, a hilarious ending, too much dark chocolate is overwhelming, Seventy-Two Letters, The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate, The Life-Cycle Of Software Objects, he’s too wise, stories like bonsai trees, her first dream about her daughter’s death, where he puts everything, just the right spot, very Hollywood, so much more tragic, more mysterious, the writers sitting around…, the lady has to be younger because…, we’re going to give a 45 woman a movie?, how would they film that?, and how’s she gonna die?, incurable disease, nothing the mom could say or do could save the daughter, thinking about what the audience is thinking, outrage!, she seems to have more choice in the movie, an action sequence, she saves the world, the floating hair sequence, it doesn’t work as a memory, timey-wimey, a propagating wave of memory, it doesn’t work within the logic of the book, in trying to make it easy to the audience they’ve broken the logic of the story…, too dumb to understand, more rewarding and more hollow, is this a Science Fiction classic?, not at all, total brilliance, the whole movie in that sentence, my favourite second, our bar for science fiction movies is quite low, it’s legitimately science fiction, playing it up, fiddled with the aliens, a visual treat, a blockbuster, against the grain of the short story, the kangaroo, everything in my life points toward the fiction we’re going to discuss, Cognitive scientist explains why perceiving a false reality is beneficial, the duck that’s also a rabbit, the duck-rabbit’s direction, a complex reality we don’t need to know, whatever reality might be, the tiger would eat you, why do people have babies, “wanna make a baby?!, my kid’s gonna die, absolutely!”, all babies die, fearful of death, always looking at that end point, thinking about death is comforting, everybody does know the future, Robert J. Sawyer, any time now!, death is absolutely inevitable, outliving your friends and family, fragile and tiny, why daddy looks at me strangely now, Jean Paul Sartre, everybody lives forever, your forever has happened, that was your forever, giving it the forever life, the death of a child vs. the death of a 99 year old person, her “accident”, why the name change from Flapper and Raspberry to Abbot and Costello, the audience wouldn’t buy it, it’s very movie, Sam and Diane, definitely its, a thematic pair, classic comedy, highly neat, a weird theory, in the context of the movie logic, memories with the daughter, pointing at the problem of the movie, there’s no deciding!, it’s everywhere, talking for the sake of ritual, actors performing the lines, you have to read it on the page to grasp it in the theatre, seeing Shakespeare performed, to see an actualization of your experience, a positive story (a horror), not testing them limits, delivering their lines well, he’s improvising, I need a bowl like this (in order to hit my daughter in the head with it), choosing not to learn it <-this doesn't make sense - does it?, it's the written language, most people don't read, language ability, would you?, going to psychics, no one would go because they know it's bullshit (deep down), those who've read the book of ages never admit to it, conversations about certain topics because they're not read for it, good old days of forums, yelling against the wind, work it out themselves, a lesson from getting things right, you don't want to waste time, Fermat's most efficient system, you wanna be that way soon, computer games, no unlimited quarters, taking the ferry, the Sunshine Coast (British Columbia), riding the Queen Of Nanaimo, my Tron story, a clone of Defender, a side-scroller, demo mode, “insert coin”, a weird phenomena, at what point did I lose control?, computer games, Battlefield 4, the same kind of frustration, when you’re in the “zone” where time flows differently, your brain chemicals are elevated, it’s like I’m on drugs, where frustration comes from, why the ancient Greeks are all about fate, errors are going to creep in, in a certain sense it’s all scripted, dealing with this theme more explicitly, the one with the button, what to make of all of this?, a creepier sense of this poor woman, what a horrible existence, I cherish every moment, it’s only when things don’t going according to my script, even better!, only a lack of knowledge is upsetting, however we’re supposed to perceive it, it doesn’t make her upset, euphoric in the flow state, a logic defeated by the film, there’s no drama like that in the story, our realization of what Ted Chiange has done with that two hours of text, very Borgesian, a science fiction writer’s version of Borges, the text fixed, all the contents are immutable and yet we continue reading it, Big Trouble In Little China, Galaxy Quest, knowing the end doesn’t distract from the movie, is there a word for a fear of predictability?, do things unexpectedly all the time please, such a horror, he’s also Lovecraft, barrel shaped, At The Mountains Of Madness, The Shadow Out Of Time, an experience that the narrator can’t do anything time, if Lovecraft could ever write about a mom…, a professor who has a strange experience with an otherworldly creature, unavailability and a horror, a slow build up of tension, the whole bomb sequence, the alt-right talk show Alex Jones character, the latest series of Homeland, is in the death process, they knew it was coming, the spray (of shit?) all over the screen, their writing reflects their perception of reality, their speech doesn’t reflect their perception, from the end of the Mist, that’s just how we perceive it,they don’t really look like that, big pieces of silica, 12 vs. 112, why only 12?, this is a math problem, only one pair of aliens in all of those looking glasses, time fracture, all-time/no-time, there might only be one alien, when you’re perceiving things differently, why did the aliens come to visit?, we need reasons when we walk out of the movie theater, the 3,000 years thing, at the moment I was satisfied, Fermat and the light, for teleological reasons, knowing where it’s going and where it’s been all at the same time, we think of cause and effect, the universe is a book that can be read a couple of different ways, in a story vs. in a movie, we’re so conditioned, getting mad at the movie, are they just scientists?, the Strugatsky brothers, Roadside Picnic, animals, we are come and creepy like that, animals are almost never interested in having conversations,

The universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological.

the rabbit is ready to eat, the rabbit is ready? hungry rabbits vs. hungry people, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana, fruit doesn’t fly, fruit stays still – like bananas, free as in software not as like free as in beer, FREE BEER!, free software is infinitely copyable, grammar allows for multiple meanings too, parallels with Contact (1997), a little bit like an homage, complete with the religious nuts, a cult, Heaven’s Gate, a nice metaphor for our current times, what the State Department is going to think, a clown show, nothing they do matters, clearly filmed before the Trump presidency, could you film it now?, somehow Trump makes it more realistic, who would do that?, a big tantrum, stop talking to them bigly, the score and cinematography, the same director and composer, I’ve seen the future don’t be so excited, moderate your expectations, dreaming about hectopod unlocking future memories, seeing snatches of the future, it rewired Paul’s brain, really affecting stories, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, TED Talks, a TED Talk talking point, linguistic relativity, stories are what come out of language, stories that resonate, when she’s reading Goldilocks to her daughter, you’re not telling it right, threefold magic, that’s all you need to know, always the same reaction and always a different reaction, the three chairs, the bowls, the three beds, somebody’s been sitting in my chair, somebody’s been eating my porridge, somebody’s been sleeping in my bed and there she is!, being able to retell, this is how Homer’s stories are designed, rosy fingered dawn, memory cues, hhmms and hawws, the epithets, tools and tricks evolved naturally out of us, Maissa enjoying Galaxy Quest again and again, Seth McFarlane’s The Orville, a whole series?, In The Mountains Of Madness by W. Scott Poole, I Am Providence by Nick Mamatass, the subgenre, Murder At The ABA by Isaac Asimov, mysteries set at mystery or science fiction conventions, authors writing what they know, Winter’s Tide, Lovecraft Country, Goodreads.com is good for satisfying hate-ons, here’s my position: I’m better than you, you with your Lovecraftian tentacle shirt…, the opposite of Ted Chiang, some sort of ethos or ethical system, there’s not just going with it and seeing how it goes, he has something to say, crafted not rushed, awards are wrong on the grand scheme, Parsec and Nebula awards, if you’re aiming in that direction…, moving through the universe and collecting awards by accident, Hidden Figures (2016), why are they stopped there?, whatever…, should I call a tow truck?, “no, I’ll just bypass the starter?!!?!?”, what the fuck are you talking about?!!?!?, smart women engineers, you can’t bypass starters, IBM, come on!, now you’ve ruined it Jesse, the only reason that exists, they ruined it, they need the sequence, a movie supposedly about science and engineering and then they focus on what makes it actually interesting, an establishing character moment, their so smart they can do magic, for trailer moments, Kevin Costner smashing the bathroom sign, I want to be manipulated, Da Vinci’s Demons, an amazonian parrot in the time of Da Vinci?, we could use african greys, perfectionists and people who don’t care, every word is perfectly placed, he’s clear, every word is carefully place, actually it’s him doing Borges, a much finer point, brains and minds, Exhalation, you can’t use your mind to look at your own mind, doing experimental surgery on his own head using a mirror, The Electric Ant by Philip K. Dick, this is a master at work, everybody in there, he’s a wonder.

TANTOR MEDIA - Stories Of Your Life by Ted Chiang

Arrival by Ted Chiang

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #421 – READALONG: We Can Build You by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #421 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa, and Bryan Alexander discuss We Can Build You (aka A. Lincoln, Simulacrum) by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
1972, Amazing Stories 1969-1970, a quasi-mainstream novel, Puttering About In A Small Land, get out of this horrible relationship with the woman who might be part of your imagination, tangled bad dysfunctional romance, Anne Dick, the lunar moon stuff, funny bits, a strange book, Nick And The Glimmung, the foundation for a great novel, an almost prequel to Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, written in 1962, I’d love to put some Dick in it, we’re beyond those jokes, The First In Our Family, A. Lincoln, Simulacrum, Ted White’s last chapter, Chapter 19 in the magazine version was written by Ted White, a pale shadow of normal Philip K. Dick, Dick’s end redeemed the book, A Scanner Darkly, make it explicit, hallucinatory experiences, Wilder Penfield, the tragic drivers, business failure, a Hollywood ending, White’s ending makes explicit things that shouldn’t be, paper-mache and matchsticks, seeding doubt, a big old info-dump, the dad character, “my dad”, his brother is a cartoon character (an upside-down face), your entire family is a construct, the Lincoln, the Stanton, the Booth, virgin black sheep wool, Pris Frauenzimmer, beautiful sentences, without a thought for me or any other thing, damaged, why Galactic Pot-Healer kicks ass so hard, Valis, The Divine Invasion, The Transmigration Of Timothy Archer, Martian Time-Slip, the emphasis on small business, Eye In The Sky, Team Of Rivals, a little paper unicorn, why Dick dissed it, Ted White’s response, the theory that Pris is not real, all his own life, the tiling scene in the bathroom, a Freudian reading, Bryan channels Eric S. Rabkin, how dear you, Magna Mater, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Rats In The Walls, Lovecraft is racist but Dick is fucking dangerous, when Philip K. Dick stayed with us, one in nine people is in an institution in this book, Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, Solar Lottery, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Robert A. Heinlein gets a shout-out in the dedication,edition issues, my delicious one, two different DAW dedications, Marissa’s Instagramming, the falsetto’s effect, told in first person, telepathic first person, being a point of view, until the dam breaks, unsalable, Ted White’s ending tells us too much, The Electric Ant, Pris’ story about killing ants, ooh that’s horrible, we can feel the sand pouring in, the only time we see her having empathy, the precursor to the Voight-Kampff test, real psychological tests, what does the proverb “a rolling stone gathers no moss”?, we’re all failing this test, Dick examining his own personality, if you watch enough Jimmy Dore…, like oxygen in a non-oxygen environment, if you live in crazy town…, gaslighting, maybe this person with a strong personality who runs the government today, Black Mirror, the more you think about a memory the more you re-write it, Facebook is automating a story about Bryan, Google Photos, having perfect or total recall, the universe gets more Phildickian every day, neural lace, as artificial as a memory, capturing a memory, preserving the framed erases the self, photographs overwrite memory, presenting evidence, those beautiful tomahawk missiles flying off into the sky, almost never any images in Dick, feeling and jokes and dialogue, planetary ships landing in the desert, finches in the grill, beer bottles and junk in the ditch, kipple, waving like a child, he’s stuck, a profoundly sad book, lead by the kids into the clinic, you did it through the door?, classic Philip K. Dick twisted/blended reality, a passionless sex scene, all of this is very educational but not illuminating, two short stories in the Dr. Rupert Labyrinth series: The Preserving Machine and The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford, Mozart and Bach, shoes that come alive, Borges, reactive, the mentally ill are more real or more human, she’s driving the plot, she’s driving the car, Pris as the “dark haired girl”, Sylvia Dvorak, Upon The Dull Earth, the Qwerty girlfriend vs. the Dvorak girlfriend, The Odyssey, Beyond Fantasy, cross country car trips, roadside diner, the girls in the clinic, such good writing, everybody is PKD in this novel, the drug blinders of being in love, she’s a monster, she’s under a rock, Pristine Womankind, totally Freudian, Lincoln as a father figure, Pris as a mother figure, why the Civil War, the centennial of the Civil War, an explosion that didn’t happen, we don’t think of Lincoln the way he actually was, let me tell you about Lincoln…, Dr. Futurity, Edwin Stanton, poor J.S. or J.F. Sebastian, robotic and monstrous and inhuman, Frankenstein, everybody is kept in the incestuous nest, from Anne Dick’s book, abortion, The Pre-Persons, sluggy babies, killing a nest of yellow-jackets, nothing like any science fiction novel published by anybody, so quotidian, slipstream fiction, mundane science fiction, a metaphor for the U.S. War in Iraq, an experimental book, Nanny by Philip K. Dick, planned obsolesce, Philip K. Dick you never change.

A. Lincoln, Simulacrum by Philip K. Dick - illustration by Michael Hinge

Philip K. Dick's bathroom

Posted by Jesse Willis

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

Podcast

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

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

BALLANTINE BOOKS - Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #415 – READALONG: Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #415 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa, and Jenny Colvin discuss Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler

Talked about on today’s show:
Asimov’s Science Fiction, Mid-December 1983, longer forms, the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, Bloodchild by Octavia Butler, the Patternist novels, the scene on the bus, Parable Of The Sower, Parable Of The Talents, Kindred, Sisters Of The Revolution, The Evening And The Morning And the Night, disease, bio Science Fiction, the virology labs, Xenogenesis trilogy, aliens, breeding humans, public transportation science fiction stories, Philip K. Dick, Los Angeles, The Commuter, Ray Bradbury, The Pedestrian, interacting with the public, The Chrysalids, The Day Of The Triffids, The Walking Dead, how this world got to be how it is, slowly interrogate, her central thesis: civilization = communication, how does the bus driver get paid?, what percentage of the population died?, a normal route, one guy is the bus system, how does Obsidian get paid?, paid in sex?, post-apocalypse reveling Jenny, the creepy smelly wordless cult leader, how many women could speak?, right handed men, feminism, creepy men creeping on women, play dumb and pack a gun, our zombies are different, unique special snowflake zombies, body language, was it the Soviets?, you think you’re better than me?, a perfect nightmare of Hell, the law of the jungle, Obsidian is mentally impaired, if there ever was going to be a TV adaptation they’d call it “The Silence”, au contraire, standing spear-carrier, a swapped languages Vietnam War movie [subsequent research turns up no evidence that this film exists], everyone else is an alien to everbody else in this world, romance as opposed to SF, not certain of her own impairment, memory, they just needed audiobooks, jibber-jabber speech sounds, it just meant nothing, dah dah dah, could you still speak?, when the deaf speak, if you can’t speak can you understand your own thoughts, strokes, aphasia, communication by singing, Oliver Sacks, the afterword, visiting her dying friend, popular science of the 1980s, a science fiction epidemic, being a lefty or a righty, the rage, so primal, primal instincts, you’re all hairless chimpanzees, pre-human, the one element of humanity is your name, book-cart or book-truck, books as fuel, cake or oven, a teacher and protector, Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, it was language that turned her around, savouring the words, society in general, The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, The Iron Heel not the Iron Fist, limited intellect and language, the Red Death, life before the plague, the breakdown of society, pandemics empowering the lower classes, a liberation from the burden of history, chauffeur, taking on a harem, reconstructing the low being brought up, The Walking Dead, scavenging silently, a Garden Of Eden, so messy, blow it up and start fresh, divine retribution, like the Tower of Babel, bulldoze 2017 and start again, the toddlers are immune, the story is unfinished and we have to finish it for ourselves, the Rosetta Stone, deciphering Linear B (the language of the Minoans), how important illustrations are, Aztec and Mayan hieroglyphs, The Riddle Of The Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by , talking to other book people, Reading Envy isn’t Reading Rage, transcribing music without the western music notation system, what happens next?, the music analogy, a hopeful story, a hopeful ending, book people are focused on the reading, burned abandoned buildings, sex in public, highly depopulated, women seeking protectors, maybe he’d meet someone else, sadness, if this was a TV show, how would deaf people be affected?, isn’t sign-language simply another language, H.G. Wells’ The Kingdom Of The Blind, is the gesturing center the same as the speech center?, fMRI, Letters To [Octavia] Butler, Letters To Triptree, bias and prejudice, how can people think like this?, using words in ways they can’t be used, using words as gestures, Twitter as the aggressive gesture, big ideas in a short space, a conspiracy that’s happening (long names on Twitter), seeing metaphors everywhere.

Speech Sounds by Octavia E. Butler

Posted by Jesse Willis