The SFFaudio Podcast #830 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: A Witch Shall Be Born by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #830 – A Witch Shall Be Born by Robert E. Howard, read by Phil Chenevert for (LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged audiobook (2 hours 4 minutes), followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, Cora Buhlert, Jonathan Weichsel, and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, December 1934, not dead at this point, 1.5 years, the comic adaptation, a few surprises, interesting stuff going on, Jonathan sent Salome, the narrator is wrong, the sandwich meat, a historical character, Biblical character, famous for doing a striptease, the head of John the Baptist, a silver plate, the severed head, stories based on other stories, the real world, made up out of whole cloth, an orc who opens a cafe, in Howard’s time, opera, Oscar Wilde’s play, two Salomes, Herod’s daughter, women weeping at the crucification, going to visit the grave of Jesus, Mary, Mary’s mother, Mary Magdalane, religious education teacher in school, an amazing conversion story, no idea, years later, two different women, there were only 4 names for anybody, Salome III, the daughter of Herod’s wife, the feminine version, step daughter, for a lot of the middle ages, religious education teachers, bible questions, that’s my Salome story, so fleshed out, not a lot of detail, an excuse for a sexy dance scene, slowly slowly over time, the internet exists, almost all of these conan stories are set in analogues to places, our city, Khouran, equivalent of a crusader state, on the border between two civilizations, the ruling class, a mercenary army, Antioch, roving bands, Cossacks, Shemites, Conan comics, Belit is a famous character, a Shemite, the people of this place, hawk nosed and curly black beared, semite, one of the sons of Noah, legends about these people, third Conan, The Phoenix On The Sword, first and late, order of publication, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, the king limits you, Robert E. Howard annoys me, get to the Conan, Conan is a supporting character, more important, how everyone relates to him, Beyond The Black River, captain of the guard, feels like a sequel to Black Colossus, scenes not in the story, when Conan is up against the henchman, Man Eaters Of Zamboula, the chick is being tied up, Xuthal Of The Dusk, brutally whipped, great torment, a little piece of satin, the barbarian and the civilized person, nailed to your spine, they’re still in here, arm instead of neck, Ukrainian, Cossack, Turan is Iran, the Vilayet Sea, the Caspian Sea, one big mega continent, a regional name in Northern Turkey, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the descriptions of the people, crusader states, near Cyprus, Turkey, Lebanon, we have to, the sister appearing out of the window, lights out, lights on, when is Conan coming?, Velarius, killed so many dudes, 5 deep in dudes, Conan on the cross, the highlight of the story, him in the tent, casually takes command of the army, a side of Conan that doesn’t get touched enough, over the course of 7 months, fake siege weaponry, hidden knight regiment, smart and strategic, charismatic, army or pirate ship, the crucifixion scene, how audacious the writing is, everything that Conan does, the exact opposite of whatever Jesus does, spits in the eye of his nailers, instead of dying, if I could cut myself down, pulls his own nails out of his feet, read it very slowly, exactly right, an inversion of Christian ideas, four riders in from the east, the birth scene for Jesus, three kings from the East, an extra horse, on twitter, the cucifix is an X shape, the Tree of Woe, a literal tree, later done as an X men, Wolverine is a northern barbarian, very tough to kill, wild hair, crucifix cut down, trying to distinguish it from the original crucifixion, Y shaped crucifix, not have their cake and eat it too, the parents might notice, Robert E. Howard wants to make this a thing, wrestling with God, a Nemedian scholar epistle by pigeon, plot is happening in the background, engaging with this religion thing, Robert E. Howard vs. Christianity, Jesus is doing it wrong, his father, an amateur bible scholar, biblical history, discuss the bible, get down from that bloody cross, makes Conan the anti-Christ?, a fake Christ, King Clovis of the Franks, my battle axe, Cimmeria, (simmeria or kimmeria), Ireland, the Celts, (seltics or keltics), her I go, the official Del-Rey audiobooks, he’s running with this idea, this ultimate hero, the toughest guy, the smartest guy, shadow versions of Conan, monster Trog, Constatious is the anti-conan, he’s got a mustache, what evil Robert E. Howard would do, nationalistic, the twisted version of Conan, Olgred, if he dies he dies, should we give him some water?, that barbarian philosophy, Conan is the moderate best version of all of these guys, Taramis and Salome, identical except for the birthmark, sister raped, I like good things, she’s not wise enough, Conan takes one look at her, he’s seen between her boobs, he didn’t just like intuit it, normally covered up, over her heart, in the Comics version, secret lover, captain again, People Of The Black Circle, sidepiece, I need to be in another story, great sex probably, you know it is great sex, given a girlfriend, the poor queen is going to have look somewhere else, what makes our evil Salome so evil, good with it, orgies at the palace, virgins and young married women are being debauched, too many parties, too much raping, ill-management of the kingdom, selling people off into slavery, high taxes, the monster in the basement, embarrassment, pops up for two seconds, a screw you to Lovecraft, barely clad women, Margaret Brundage, Farnsworth Wright, sex sells, Seabury Quinn stories, a cash bonus for the cover, the most famous scene, Salome whipping Taramis, wears one of the only brass-bras described in text, technically gold, good honest brass, furry loincloth, Teela?, an alternate Teela, blonde, in the comic book adaptation, on the original Savage Sword of Conan, a Marvel Treasury edition, No. 23, first time in color, Savage Sword No. 5, almost 2 and half comics, rotate em north, why is she blonde?, Hyborians, aryans who are not blonde, such as Mr Hitler, a change because it makes a startling contrast, real Conan stories, The Black Stranger, silk breeches, never furry, regular loincloth, tropes needed for the visualization, for the first time, no idea except for the story, she’s a jew, too greedy, that’s why they die, set in the biblical, old testament, part of this is the new testament, they even changed the religion, not worshipping Ishtar, Mitra, Herodotus, where she learned her evil, in Kitai, China, too petty, stupid witch, Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet, not dead at the end, left out in the desert to die, don’t leave someone in the desert to die, Oedipus was left out in the desert to die, exposure, Greeks and Romans, a curse, take this baby out, compassionate guard, an old couple in the woods, very Snow White, at the state fair, gypsy fortuneteller, doesn’t even go home, haughty guy on the road, she’s very attractive, that’s this story with parts shaved off, the most important parts have been shaved off, good and evil twin think, woman twin thing, Maria Montez, Cobra Woman (1944), a volcano god, could be a Conan story, set in France, The Acolyte, Howard didn’t invent this trope, slow down and read the crucifixion scene, shows up late, a certain effect, Weird Tales, is this a Conan story?, this reaction, a Sherlock Holmes series hosted by Vincent Price, Jeremy Brett, in the opening, starts with Watson, I was getting married, then the client walked in, the two Watsons, the best Sherlock Holmes, showing the mystery, that is a storytelling convention, a teaser, how television is structured, James Bond movies, not the Bond novels, specifically a mystery, trying to solve the mystery, The A-Team, Matlock, the hand with the glove on it, Columbo, mess around, collapse, extended the monster fight, because it is a comic, looks cool, what makes Roy Thomas doesn’t change anything, copy and paste, slightly less nudity, nipples, contact with Conan, Hour Of The Dragon, vintage Lancer edition, bad and violent, being blonde, changing it is a mistake, rewriting this story, better at it, the seven months, the fun Conan stuff, how to be in the world, the heart of what’s going on here, great writing, you can see what he’s doing, agree with it, let is pass over you, a heavy cross had been planted, iron spikes, naked but for a loincloth, limbs and body, burned brown, the perspiration of agony, tangled black mane, an unquenched fire, I’m sorry captain, your delicious queen, incessantly back and forth high above, finally in the story, were it not for them, live on the cross for days, I am leaving you unguarded, flayed alive, so firmly established, so long as anyone is near, these desert vultures, he needs to setup, he’s not going to be saved by his followers, he’s fucked, and so brave captain, farewell, when Taramis lays in my arms, mallet like fists, spat savagely, wiped the saliva from his gorget, living flesh, eyeless, brutal, horrible, everyone’s fear, what makes Christians so excited about Jesus, in the garden earlier, a supple erect figure, burnished armour, a faint rising of dust, the one touch of sentient life, less than a mile away, existing in another age, Conan stared blankly, the fertile meadowlands, miniature in the distance, a silvery gleam, sandy desert, away and away, the old joke about Jesus, Peter, I can see your house from here, a horrible joke, he can see, fixed in place, giving us the experience, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, to stretch away, empty wasteland, as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky, the city had betrayed him, a hare nailed to a tree, a red lust for vengeance, curses, all of his universe contracted, his great muscles quivered, his graying skin, driven deep, the knifing abysmal agony, a surge of helplessness, shutting his eyes against the aching glare of the sun, drawing Conan, undefeatable in battle, there’s no leverage, and yet, a keen beak stabbing at his eyes, he shouted, wary circling, spat at the salty taste, no water had touched his lips, as a man in hell glares, white water he had breasted, jacks of sparkling wine, bellowing, the sun sank, a lurid ball in a fiery sea of blood, unreal as a dream, he licked his blackened lips, the shadows crawling up from the East, attacked by the vulture, kills it with his mouth, the three kings from the east (and a 4th guy from the north), the reverse at the end, this is the opposite of turn the other cheek, reading it, howling with laughter, make fun of religion, Letters From The Earth by Mark Twain, audacious writing, The Roads by Seabury Quinn, a Christmas story, so reverential, so irreverent, not mocking, defiance, in opposition, something that you just don’t do, not then, maybe today, radical stuff, more pious, Ben-Hur, biblical novels, supplementary, a Civil War general, maybe Cora should read it, a story of the Christ, willing to do that book, great story, great movie, subversive, oppositional, he’s not trying to undermine the story of Jesus, he’s rejecting the story of Jesus, an ironclad rule, horror movie, old Hong Kong movie, a butcher, grinds them all up, delicious dumplings, howling with laughter, considered taboo, subverting expectations, Howard did, Doctor Who, the Doctor goes to see the crucifixion, 61 years, the BBC always says no, taboo, that’s also England, a Christian country, it has a king, Jesse is confused, Canada is more Christian?, more religious, significantly less, playing weird games, an official organ of the United Kingdom, programming which no one watches, The Myth Makers, the Trojan War, the ancient world, not interested in ancient history, alternating, another planet, Robert E. Howard is obsessed with history, engaging, shocking, yeah, I see what you’re saying, attacking H.P. Lovecraft and his argument, and his fiction, barbarism vs. civilization, ancient evil, stab at it or shoot it with arrows, he might make a nod, let me write a story and show you why you’re wrong, this guy I know, pretty silly, twitter is for shitpoasting, banned from twitter a bunch of times, poasted an egg, Hitler, Churchill was the villain of WWII, David Currie, ladies imagined you went back in time to meet Hitler, the great man of history aura and rizz, hatred and respect, one ball energy, pure ick, nobody knows who Hitler, do an Anschluss, none of this is funny, shitpoasting should be good, literally wrestling, the United States, rural Texas, how do you fight against this, most people don’t read, people all go to church, reverent to the point of obedience, you have to fight for yourself, oppressive, a button ending, a series character and needs to continue, Red Nails, the adventures will always continue, why we’ve got this power, what any of that meant, what Jesse likes about Conan, Conan’s worldview, not even a revenge, captured in the original Conan the Barbarian movie, not the strength of your body, the strength of your will, very Nietzschean, once you’ve been maimed, Thulsa Doom, literally a snake man, the reason he’s evil, a cultish personality, uses it for evil, girl kills herself, Jonestown, early 80s stuff about murderous cults, too young, religious education textbook, Moonies, mass weddings, Jonestown dead, black, discoloured by the poison, the difference between a cult and a religion, many times before Jonestown, Mormons, free the Holy Land, the second coming, locked in a cage, every woman in the city has to have sex with me, as a person how do you escape that?, you can be trapped by circumstances, embittered, ecce homo, behold the man, you can buy into this, you’re a physical mortal being that has limits, that refusal to make a noise, refusal to give satisfaction to your torturers, the Nemedian section, interwar period, Theosophists, L. Frank Baum, Swedenborg, Swedish Christian, talked to Martians, Mount Shasta bigfoots, questioning all of that, permeated into rural Texas, a broad horizon, conservative Christians, writing, reading and correspondences, rejecting submission, Taramis has it happen to her, rejects tears, what would you say, she’s a girl, she’s allowed to cry more, you’re not going to get any relief, hah!, bye, the hard nut of this story, other stories to be told here, comes back at the end, maybe it would have attracted too much attention, sell more magazines, #StrategicPlacement to cover it up, a pure example, The Vale Of Lost Women, literally fights a god, comes away unbowed, the illustrations for Sword And Scandal, concepts, an action scene, static, put Conan on the cross on the cover of the magazine, a crucifiction, the anglo idea of the scrawny Jesus, buff muscular dude on the cross, a Roman catholic thing, treasury edition, green fur diaper, a famous painting by Corben?, Frazetta?, different enough, it’s not the T, legs apart, Boris Vallejo, comics, engagement with and a defiance of the Christian central image, the symbol of their punishment of their savior, a little skull on your desk, a reminder of death, a symbol of triumph, a Mexican church, Jesus don’t look so happy, in Bavaria, a crucifix in every public building, other flavour of Christianity, a Catholic university, crucifixes all over the place, choosing to wear them, students, told about it, stuff they should know, church is a book club for people who don’t read, a social gathering, babysitting, community, somebody telling you, God is watching you, people who read the book, that’s scary and hard, rural Texas, responding in a way most people didn’t read the Bible, the name Solomon Kane, his poetry is full of biblical stuff, not for money, Song of Solomon, not in a way of belief, Lovecraft’s not a Christian, an atheist, why is this crap in the bible, why didn’t the editor throw it out, Edgar Rice Burroughs was very hostile to the idea of religion, Will’s take, why is it the way it is?, something going on here, Howard philsophy, this unbowed thing, the invictus philosophy, I am the captain of my soul, I’m the master of my soul, a sports movie, life is rough for the barbarian, city people vs. rural people, what is a barbarian, someone who lives on the frontier in Texas, Jon Voight is walking, Urban Cowboy (1980)?, Midnight Cowboy (1969), Acadians, not the city, the keffiyeh, these are village people, the river Jordan is there, the place that betrayed him, doesn’t sack the city, I don’t know what Conan will do buy I think he’s honourable, he’s a barbarian, always not raping women, a little handsy, the evil Conan stuff, not cruel to be cruel, a negotiation scene, always in the cards, cut him down I like his spirit, two different ways of being, hijacking, distilled the essence of Conan’s barbarian philosophy, a foreign land, we never see Cimmeria, we never see another Cimmerian, only the bad writers do that, chased The Frost Giant’s Daughter, the Vanir, the Aesir, Norse mythology, Hyborian Age Scandinavia, Aquilonia, 15 year old Conan, civilization isn’t his thing, Herman who kicked the Romans beyond the Rhine, Battle Of The Teutoburg Forest, Beyond The Black River, my ancestors were the picts, Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

a bit simple, notice he’s a captain, very similar philosophy, he loved poetry, he must have read it, it has all the things, death is the end, we even have a scroll, not being under the sway of another, not being submitted to another, better to rule in Hell?, Milton, better to live on Earth, what is Conan’s alignment in dungeons and dragons, Chaotic Good? [Chaotic Neutral?], I got a horse, Hour Of The Dragon, a king has certain responsibilities, he makes the laws, Lawful Good, not a Paladin, a successful, to drink life to the lees, Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson, a rewrite of a Kull story, Exile Of Atlantis, a quieter character, more cerebral, what’s real, who am I, more a Philip K. Dick character, gazes into mirrors, talking cats, a different mode, Conan like superman, the wrong Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, more celestial or cosmic, combines both, all the good Weird Tales authors, flavour and depth, ineffable, from a Nietzschean perspective, in the poems, Weird Tales poems, lots of other writers too, get at stuff in poetry, more monster, the monster was the weak part, deleted the monster?, talked up, just came out and got killed, that was his role, scary for half a second, a bunch of arrows in him, the Kozak camp for seven months, join some band, a lot of savage sword is filling in that detail, takes over somebody else’s gang, the one with the pirates, we all know who you are Conan, filling in the corners, this story is set six months, when Queen Of The Black Coast is adapted issue 59 to issue 100, The Lost Valley Of Iskander, The Man Who Would Be King, Conan The Destroyer takes the names, Taramis and her sister, that monster is more Roy Thomas, Taramis is the bad one, oh no she’s evil, Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, the protector of the princess’ virginity, the Red Sonja, Sandahl Bergman, plays the evil queen, a Red Sonja movie, the assistant is The Beast Raban from the original Dune movie, not a good movie, Conan is not called Conan, all fucking public domain, tricked Arnold into doing it, owed Dino De Laurentiis, full of philosophy, one of the best movies ever, he’s taciturn, Pumping Iron (1977), it’s not Conan, blended together, the riddle of steel, everything about it is awesome, Max von Sydow, a huge Howard fan, Ming The Merciless, in the Solomon Kane movie, in Star Wars, he was in Dune, the judge of the change, geeky movies, Ingmar Bergman movie, theater kids stuff, Three Days Of The Condor (1975), Judge Dredd (1995), Niki Lauda, good career going on in Sweden, asked again and again, not forced to do these films, no you really don’t, Seventh Seal (1957), ripping off foreign art films, how can I transfer this look to my movie?, no one has time to watch more than one Swedish movie, if you’re going to see one Swedish movie, only an hour and a half long, Scenes From A Marriage (1973), tv miniseries, Flash Gordon (1980), Sinews Of A Toe, cheesy, great actors directed to death, Timothy Dalton, looked like a football player, Edgar Wright movie, Hot Fuzz (2007), cast for his looks, cartoons, the one who faints all the time, Brian Blessed, Topol, the original serial, a james bond movie girl, Belinda Topoff, Christopher Lambert has one good movie, Highlander (1986), Subway (1985), The Highlander The Series, let’s go to Paris every six months, I chop off heads in Vancouver, the lead singer of Fine Young Cannibals, Roger Daltrey needs his head chopped off, this Buffy thing, pre-Buffy, even Cora’s mom loved it, the sequel series, Highlander: The Raven, raped by Bill Clinton, Elizabeth Gracen, Evil-Lyn, Eva Lynd and Steve Holland, in a cowboy hat, The Man Of Bronze, the 70s Doc Savage, James Bama artwork, bulked him up a lot, posing in the ripped shirt, Walter Baumhofer, the widows peak helmet hair, explain it, inexplicable, weird 90s humour, the stupid actor, you can do it, Rob Schneider, also in Demolition Man (1993), Dredd (2012), laserdisc, Judge Dredd, 2000 A.D., the Judge Dredd audio dramas, they’re great, Strontium Dog, an alternate Marvel Universe, all the actors are British, excuses to got to Britain all the time, deleted in two minutes, this work links now, the Big Finish ones, BBC doesn’t do audio drama anymore, never started up again, recommending to Maissa, meta, Sam Spade style character, the whole world of 2000 A.D., American superhero fiction, Judge Death, reptile dinosaur judge, making fun of the United States, Americans don’t get it, already a parody, makes it a little more serious, play it straight up, simple, Circe Lannister, very good, a good role for her, a gangster drug lady, scars, Beetlejuice movie, Tim Burton, mixed up, Willem Dafoe, Danny Devito, how to find content, books to review, Black Gate, way leads onto way, the poem by Robert Frost, seven months later, Survey Team, public domain for years, everybody like Philip K. Dick, Legends & Lattes, obviously not public domain, artwork, fooling around, The Demon Breed by James H. Schmitz, author photo, dog, a savage guy in a tree with a giant ferret, oh wow, didn’t like animals, you are an animal, trawling, what’s new on LibriVox, best of James Schmitz, The Witches Of Karres, another classic to match, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, wait six months, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes by Anita Loos, so good, Confessions of An English Opium Eater, drugs, latest releases, 80 pounds is still a lot, talk therapy?, cognitive behavior therapy, Grave Danger by Frank Kane, Ben Tucker, a crusading newspaper, a maritime insurance company, stranglehold, literature, you understand books a lot, a renewal of copyright, a translation, Peter Weller, read by RoboCop, William Gibson books, Hermann Hesse, psychedelic drugs, drugs are you in your head, external drugs, meditation, Planet Of Transients, Steppenwolf it is your culture, translate it back to German, collaborating with Ray Bradbury, Henry Hasse, weird stuff, a dirty link, November, probably the only one who could read it in the original, high level German speaker, three novels in a row, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, What Mad Universe, overload yourself, so late in the year, take some time off, deleted a line, pre-Christmas periods, Christmas market, ctrl-z, harder to commit, David J. West, twitter friends, Sword & Scandal, a little bit bitter about his divorce, good dad, similar taste in jokes, of all the twitter authors who submitted stories he’s the only one, these twitter authors, wipe your forehead, a classic comedy setup, a thief is hired by this guy, my girlfriend is in this harem, a half moon, pointing in the wrong direction, A Choice Of Gods, spread the Simaks out, next year, The Jameson Satellite, suddenly, so mysterious, a background actor in movies, standing around not listening to audiobooks, socializing, has to do with evolution, vocal gestures, autist, about status, becomes the alpha, The Status Civilization, The Journey of Joenes, novelist, all very interesting, no end in sight, Sirius, Odd John, regional election, evil right wing guys, far right, conservative guy, a rather plump social democrat, organic farmer, right wing dude, Cora is fine with these results, the mayor of the county, we call them judges, county councellor, a human mutation, awesome and frightening to behold, a new super-normal species, like Slan but not written badly, anti-Slan, Slan and Counter Slan, a special one for Will’s birthday, December is always iffy, stuff going on in the real world, neighbourhood garden parties, Russian rice dish, a stack of audiobooks from Mike [Vendetti], Beatnik Wife, So Long Sister by Hugh B. Cave, who is Hugh B. Cave, pulp guy, Abe, booktuber, lived to 2004, a less known Hugh, sources differ, I name thee Cave, Island Ordeal, Strange Tales, Weird Tales, wrote for the Spicys, Lawrence Jannifer and Donald Westlake, The Man Who Conquered Age, The Quick And The Dead, 30 Seconds by Roger Leslie Bellem, Spicy Adventure Stories, Corpseless Coffin, weird menace story, Corpse Girl’s Return, Dead Drunk by Frank Kane, Dark Vengeance by Fritz Leiber, between the early period and the mid period, the wilderness years, a good one, Suspense was short lived, based on the radio drama series, Claws From The Night, quite a few Fritz Leiber stories, The Black Ewe, read by Scott Miller, Bob Silverberg’s take on beatniks, Robert Silverberg is looking for unrepublished stories, that’s hilarious, author lost track of his stories, pair things more, Waterspider, providing too many choices, The Pause by Isaac Asimov, sent him an email once, takes vacations with his wife, live in your podcast booth, 74 items, The Futurological Congress, like Lem, popular con, toy collector con, bread and butter, toysplosion, 2 and a half hours by car, drinking habits, Coca Cola, Zevia, stevia, type 2 diabetes, in Hurleys, American pop is really horrible, Mexican pop, high fructose corn syrup, way less shit in it, read the list, carbonated water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavours, beyonade, Bionade, speciality retailers, citric acid, stevia, natural flavours, the artificial colours, bio neutral or bad for you, metabolically different, acts on your craving in a different way, no bottom, cutting out one thing that is bad for your, all the colours is clear, as a drink, diet Coke, probably on Amazon, exploded into the mainstream, organic, preservative, offbeat flavours, elderberry, upstart company, Spirit of Georgia, weird flavours, a good root beer, cream soda, Dr. Zevia, more exotic flavours, 60 cents a can, carbonated is very nice, I used to not be as gross, the cigar is probably better for you, life corrections, mouthwash, destroying the oral biome, big leaps, heart problems, what products are advertized vs. what products are not advertized, when they were selling it to people, for different purposes, to kill, deodorant and antiperspirant, picked your brand, cigarette companies went into food, Frito Lay, products that don’t exist in nature, stab and put on your plate, marketing, Cheetos, flavoured styrofoam, eating your own death, it is not food, what is a Cheeto?, peanut flavouring, they’re made of corn, everything is made of corn, plowed into food products, niblets, potato, shelf stable, where the branding comes from, buy potatoes, there’s no potato brand, Doritos, anything with a brand, different kinds of apple cultivars, you don’t want to read Robert E. Howard fiction written not by Robert E. Howard, same with food, nobody has the patent on steaks or beans, what forum would they be in, tv spots for mouthwash, you’ve already formed the habit, Listerine was pushed really hard, a hair product, for making things surgical, making you pure, genetic purity, physical culture magazines, work out, Listerine is a brand everybody knows, your dentist pushes it on you, Odol, consolidated, three hundred years ago no such products existed, marketing and fads, masking protects you from death, Worldcon in Glasgow, mostly Americans, no one in Germany at cons wears masks, 7000 people, self reported, long meandering way, what killed all those people, heart disease comes from tooth issues, antibiotic mouthwash, you shouldn’t be antiseptic where you don’t have a wound, microbiome is good for you, alcohol, more expensive, what are they putting in there?, nothing good, one of those things you really don’t need, just like shampoo, deodorant is totally unneeded, change your shirt, have a shower, teenage years, spray cans, roll on stuff, eczema, allergy, allergies are new, the 1919 Spanish Flu killed everybody, the people who died were often killed by their doctors prescribing aspirin, fills your lungs with fluid, every British historical drama, died at 16, traumatized, people died of diseases, we’re sold on a bill of goods, is there a causal link, we are sold on these lies, maybe mouthwash is bad, chlorhexidine, making up chemicals from natural products, on our in our bodies, water is not the problem, natural flavour is a catchall, grape pop, good bacteria, bad bacteria, nitrates to nitrites, evolved to help you, don’t trust anything with an ingredients list you don’t understand, the selling is the problem, probably okay off a tree, where are you on toothpaste, fewest number of things in it, the same toothpaste for 40 years, no longer produced, you could be a toothpick guy, use ashes from a fire, fluoride, fluoride pills, it is not food so you shouldn’t eat it, whitening toothpaste, probably a bad idea, the amount of research you have to do, sodium laurel sulfate, don’t swallow anything is a poison, don’t put poison on your body repeatedly, animals don’t have allergies in nature, the food is adulterated, called for burned bread, dragonsblood, a resin, from something you stab, arsenic, lead, radium toothpaste, that healthy mouth glow, minimize input, give an animal a potato chip, you know it is bad, it tastes something, licking fabric, cleaning the tongue off, the toothless cat, clawless?, auto-immune disorder, normal cat food, cost, a whole bunch of pets, cheap food, can’t afford this caviar, better medical care than others, more shots?, some cats you can’t catch even if they have a limp, them knowing better than you do, bit by ticks, ivermectin is good for a lot of stuff, parasites, treatment for COVID, how did they not understand it?, for horses, designed for humans used on horses, mammals are pretty similar, doses, horses are pretty big, scabies, spread by insect like things, scratching, spreads in nursing home settings, pesticide, a bad name, a useful medication, they did it at the time, low doses and dosed late, has massive effects, hydroxychloroquine, skeptical, weird infectious disease fear, paxlovid, still patented, taking that stuff like candy, patented vs. public domain, Meg bought a Peacock to watch the , They Live (1988), seems true, longer than it needed to be, after he beats up his friend, always wonder, the aliens come and kill all the revolutionaries, ask me in six months, we should watch, the short story is good, the movie is better at doing it, the story does it through hypnosis, the physical sunglasses, though a glass darkly, more directly to Plato’s Cave, 7 minutes, goes on and on, an extravaganza, the opening is great, the homeless people, the ending is no good, The Thing (1982), Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China (1986), a western, Yojimbo, what is it for, the rebellion is crushed, destroys the transmitter but he dies, he’s crushed, you are Rowdy Roddy Piper, lizard people fits better, they’re not like us, hating on reptiles is wrong too, skinless and ugly, it looks like they’ve been flayed, blue, post-radioactive, the ghouls from Fallout, they’re the masters, and cops, watching it with commercials, Dirty Work (1998), Norm MacDonald, Artie Lang, so many guest stars, Don Rickles, Chevy Chase, a great movie that nobody loves, open a revenge business, stupid as hell, $50,000 to get a heart transplant, medical testing for food, hallucinating and itchy, Gary Coleman driving the car, Chris Farley, it is not about the plot, just to get to the jokes, rape jokes, hilarious, some guys come over and want to rape him, shame on you, devolves to, old people talk about old movies, eventually they’ll enjoy it, movies from before I’m born, Luke Burrage, nobody should listen to podcast past 10 years ago, how did that come into your head?, that’s what people say?, don’t trust anyone over 30, the most charitable, CIA or FBI op, an authority figure, anti-cultish, pro-cultish, don’t read anything past 10 years ago, wait 10 years then read about it, left undone, a big translation, find a movie that is worth watching, the new Kyle Gallner movie, Strange Darling (2023), cell phones and cars and insurance, Dinner In America (2020), Alien: Romulus (2024), done with Alien since Alien 3, Reagan (2024), big discrepancy, fan base of some kind, conservative Americans, low budget, independent, stars nobody, viscous murder spree, mystery/horror/thriller, The Sixth Sense (1999), it has a twist, a punk band, the cops are after him, semi-retarded girl or something, a pet shop, abused by her boss, regular home family, they fall in love, we don’t use the term, autistic, an acceptable term, everything is CRTs, the movie is amazing, it all fits together like a beautiful puzzle piece, really talented, tight movie, no major budget needed, killed by COVID, torrent or buy it, if you watch the trailer, he’s on twitter, Red Letter Media, Emily Skeggs, her highest rated thing, a theater thing, a lot of work, not a movie star of the Hollywood kind, Veronica Mars, Bones, independent movie star, things that are older than me, Metropolis in the theater, channel surfing, find a lot of good stuff, pet food, just chicken, making the switch, eggs, yogurt, cheese, dogs like cheese, omnivores, cooking for animals, easy bake oven life, such an easy animal, when a cat is affectionate, they’ll let you know when they don’t want to be touched, it is nice to be liked by cats, like to be liked by cats, liked or licked, Tommy says hoping to find some time this week, edit podcasts, coffee, how to steal movies, exporting bodies, elderly Germans, a weird menace story, never see the bodies, most to the middle east, buy foreign bodies, Qatar, a secret trade in German bodies, I consent to be cut up in the Middle East, the dead body is given a covid test, death certificate, tiny print, useless information, every German state has a different format, data protection, so you can’t sue people.

Marvel Treasury Edition 23 Back Cover

SSOC A Witch Shall Be Born

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #807 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Game Of Rat And Dragon by Cordwainer Smith AND The Dragon-Queen Of Jupiter by Leigh Brackett

The SFFaudio Podcast #807 – The Game Of Rat And Dragon by Cordwainer Smith (read by Tony Addison, 38 minutes) AND The Dragon-Queen Of Jupiter by Leigh Brackett (read by Edmund Bloxam, 40 minutes). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (1 hour 18 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
Cordwainer Smith, Leigh Brackett, after Terence, before Terence, because the guy said it, which of these stories is worse than the other, one respect, more like the cinematic idea of science fiction, resolving the problems, back into the mainline of written science fiction, The Martian, engineering, conceptual all the time, higher level science fiction, it’s fantasy, engineering concepts, most of good science fiction takes place in the head, both definitions are current, a pretty picture, visually very interesting, characterization, near the worst, interesting psychological ideas, psychic cats see it as a rat, interesting setup, Instrumentalities, dystopia, neither was satisfying, formulaic and sad, sophistry, the French Foreign Legion on Jupiter, none of us using our right names, dismissed said Captain Smith, the story of the foreign legion, Alamo, Tex is in there, the first narrator, anxious about making choices, a LibriVox guy, Gregg Margarite, Phil Chenevert, Edmund Blocksam and Tony Addison, special effort, gives everybody an accent, most of them are from Venus or Mars, the Martian guys have a canal accent, extra effort, his correct interpretation of the text, that’s the French Foreign Legion, a 5 year stint, they give you ID, some French guys in there, mercenaries from other countries, safeharbour, practically a swipe from an adventure magazine, the Berber princess is a Jupiterian Queen, a fort they gotta defend from the Mexicans, every French foreign legion story, the Tex connection there, the North West frontier trope, red serge, driving a dog team, magazines like Adventure and Argosy, just French Foreign legion stories?, many movies of it too, a recent Netflix movie, [Siege of Jadotville], pyrrhic victory, a very sophisticated technique, but what did he say?, die for colonization, this is a really bad story, set on exotic planet, also titled Dragon Queen of Venus, isfdb.org, list of the changes, the Planet Stories version, Tex stirred uneasily, the heavily Jupiterian fog, the Venusian fog, Jupiter is a virgin planet, Venus is a virgin planet, 1941 Jupiter is a gas giant, not good at astronomy, a titillating queen of Jupiter/Venus, Earth and Mars are running out of food, lebensraum, lamest fucking excuse, Fort Washington, she’s bad at what she’s doing, the description of the lady on the dragon, she identifies with the native people, the heroes are the colonizers, kinda jerks, wins by luck, this thing with rust, taken with the images, we don’t get to know anything about the Dragon Queen Of Jupiter, maybe these horrible colonizers will be so entranced they’ll go over to this side, Jesse, why are you so stupid, there’s no time left for that, it just can’t happen here, wasn’t up to it, badly constructed, sometimes the oafs win, Alpha Centauri Or Die!, a fixup, native chick, there are these outposts, such a fuckin obvious lie, the reason we’re here colonizing Jupiter, the Indians on earth, kinda terrible, slow low pitch pablum, glimpse of a pretty girl on a dragon, hashtag sad, make the colonizers grotesque, sitting in a pot being boiled alive, something to this story, two reasons why this story sucks, ideology of this story is interesting, civilize these people by killing them, manifest destiny in space, a cultural document worth examining, mainstream American ideology 1941, really bad science fiction, the thing with the water coming out of your body, stupid, we can see that science fiction can be bad, saves this story, what’s extraordinary about it is that it’s a genre mismatch, some detachment, the government mandate of Mars/Earth, countries team up to extract from other countries, not self-reflective, there’s no pushback to the narrative, Hertford’s Jungles Of Jupiter, Alice In Wonderland, swamplands [of jupiter], animalcules, absorb all water vapour, dormant during the rainy season, attempting an ecosystem to explain dragons, a shoehorned idea, elsewhere as well, Spain has a foreign legion, an interesting but bad story, allowed, Jesse’s right again, a movie called The 7th Dawn (1964), the documentary on Cordwainer Smith, hagiographic, designed to serve a political agenda, a we love Cordwainer Smith movie, looking thin, his service during the Malayan Emergency, how many other movies are set during the Malayan Emergency, had they called it a war the insurance companies wouldn’t pay, rubber plantation guys are running Malaysia, WWII is over please fuck off, the British and Australians and Cordwainer Smith all get around and fucking around and finding out, heads cut off, text chat, The Rediscovery, local Malaysian girl, political satire, from a movie poster, this horror must end, holding human heads and hands, a very strange duck and a very strange bird, what if this!?, psychic powers, telepathy, Bester has a good book on it, John W. Campbell bullshit, ruminating on the relationships between humans and their partners, cats, everything is symbolic, what are the dragons, what are the cats?, they’re women, not even submerged, seas of rotting fish, different relationships with different cats, this entity out there, the enemy of people and cats, cats view rats as an enemy, viewing the enemy as a predator vs viewing the enemy as a prey, totally political, do some comparisons, why is he such a weird animal, another CIA person, ideas about womens’ place in the world, The Screwfly Solution, mens’ place in the world and vice versa, Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, all about here, all about him, Tolkien’s all about Tolkien, cats, cats, the cat element, I can see why Will is attracted to Cordwainer Smith, he had 11 cats, telling himself, what he’s doing for a living, one of the incidents, help surrendering Chinese soldiers not be killed, a very nice story, what did he do during the Malaysian emergency, working for the bad guys, how much he loved the Chinese people, the tragedy, the word genocide, the Great Leap Forward, little tidbit, deep in his bones, his opposition to communism, without suffering in the world humans can’t strive, socialism will remove suffering, suffered a lot of physical trauma, the eye, always being sick, pull out his glass eye to punctuate his lectures, take Heinlein, Tolkien, science fiction in space, but not so much about science fiction as it is about human possibility, a sensitive writer who write about people and their ways, personal in so many ways, a European dragon, a Chinese dragons, in European mythology, they’re evil kings, they’re hoarders, dragons/rats have a monopoly on space, Orson Scott Card, a pocket version of Edner’s Game, certain cats in your house are telepathic, destroyed at will, dreams infected, understanding this very strange man, “my boat of institutions are bullying to only one side” a key to understand, soaked in that story, when does Ender’s Game exist as a book, why do people like it?, Starship Troopers exists, any adult person and what they’re response to war is, humans have been making a kind of mistake, what is your relationship to war?, turns it inward, personal experience of war rather than the philosophical relationship to war, how we ought to relate to the state, why I support the Vietnam War, Tolkien’s response to WWI, trynna dunk on me, guy thinks there are no good kinds, Aragorn, a guy who was a king who didn’t do a lot of bad stuff, the Romanoffs were really nice to their children, Cordwainer Smith liked his cats, Hitler had a dog, he liked his dog, Psychological Warfare, rationalize it to “I’m helping”, Sun Yat-sen, revered by nationalist and the communists, riven with European and American exploiters, Korea, there’s a genocide, that war of foreign aggression, seems small scale, that’s sophistry, propaganda is often sophistry, tricking, a fantasy of escape like Tolkien, but done via a mode of Starship Troopers, this guy was a freak who liked cats, Heinlein vibes, little girl and middle aged man, fighting in subspace, light explosions, everything is symbolic, the psyche, experience as a spook, Tolkien was in WWI, it isn’t “no more kings”, it’s retreat into the fantasy, an apolitical response to a political situation, political quietism, why Tolkien didn’t like Dune, what makes the Harkonnens bad is they’re too hasty, the Atredies are wise and kindly masters who wage Jihad, we can do better than this by leaving earth and going to a secondary world, Dungeons & Dragons wheelchairs, they had wheelchairs back in medieval times, why wouldn’t they use magic to cure disabilities, what’s fictional, what’s real, famous Leigh Brackett story about green aliens driving a car in the South, giving them, what’s the C word?, about humanity, that’s what Star Trek does really well, you know what it’s about, why Cordwainer Smith is never going to be a mainstream guy, making Paul the good guy at the end of Dune 2, liking Paul as a hero, Paul mopes around, who is Zendaya, Chani, how the Japanese get Cordwainer Smith, the anime where the cats are doing Game Of Rat And Dragon, they also like E.E. Doc Smith, one novel, The Skylark Of Space, a good series, space opera, whenever Scotty has a problem on the Enterprise he’s channelling, character continuation from book to book, they age approrpriately from book to book, what a series should do, inventing tech on the fly during space battles, Scotty’s role on Star Trek, finds a way to break the laws of physics, make this shit go lightspeed, slaps it on the dashboard, Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love, Heinlein doing Doc Smith, unless Akira Kurosawa it is impenetrable, doing it in a science fiction setting, cats are a dead end, can’t have babies with the cat, can’t relate to women, quick beyond all dreams of speed, undemanding, women demand things, where can you find a woman or a man or a friend, compatible with you at the animal level, culture, a bit like the woman nurse at the end, big and strong and beautiful and proud, stroke a cat, it’ll let you know, sidle up to your wife, put my slippers on to sidle up silently, literally talking about cats, almost 55 years ago, can’t quite remember what’s in this, magical in Cordwainer Smith’s style, sharp scientific concepts, everything, perspectivism, the fans are slans theorem, the cats are part of the escape, it’s a dead end and not true, Lord Of The Rings is a dead end, Christians on the internet, Theoden the steward, wants to throw himself on the fire, Christian symbology in there, life lessons, a beautiful fantasy, a quote attributed to Robert E. Howard, ‘one day you people will hope for a man with a sword’, circumspect, a piece of art, he shows you it’s a dead end, the horror of loving something you can never possesses, love is a dead end, you can’t find that with other humans, animalicules, sveltness, can’t find it in a woman, castrating nobodies, a woman with a strong personality, willing to go into rut and the right time, speed and grace and whatever alogical components of emotion that can be honoured, people who don’t understand him, the intensity of the war, the battle, like a computer game, in the title, a haunting title, divided up, turned everything into game theory, a piece of art, not his last word, green and purple, and counted ships, pinlighting, I’m cranching right now, Tolkien and Herbert, the thumb for the Andromeda, the ring finger, the thumb of the other hand, lost as people realized, planoforming, flatted yourself down into two dimensions, like nothing much, a sore tooth, a painful flash of light around the eyes, sitting in the Fighting Room, ticking around inside his head, for a second or a year, loose in the up and out, pimples on his telepathic mind, somewhere in this outer space, Man had never encountered, the light of the suns, drawing on Lovecraft, a lot of physical pain always, why?, a guy who physically felt a lot of pain, pleasure in ideas, pleasure in cats, what is he escaping from?, a bad man, a bad lady, working for the bad people, making art, the culture of the CIA in the mid20th century, culturally very liberal, Jackson Pollock, they know they were wrong, art by escaping, rock music, I like it, Laurel Canyon and creep around there, that’s bad, to serve an agenda is bad, woke up in the morning and told themselves they were good, the beautiful art they were making, Tiptree, Jr., Philip K. Dick was very bad, reported them secretly to the FBI, the way H.P. Lovecraft was bad, the life of someone to their creation, you could imagine in his psyche, inside him from a very young age, and lots of other things, a concrete application, that’s the bad step, so called good, not automatically tainted, can work in either direction, we write what we know, we know things that we’ve never experienced, from previous lives, me from a long time ago, something he knows, mediates that through his experiences, mostly reading, travels to places, does things, writes what he knows, does it symbolically, he does know what war is, saw how bad it was, when Leigh Brackett writes about the French Foreign legion, dressing up in a costume, wearing a sword, from a result, a different plane of existence, he was in the game, so symbolic, disagreed with American idea, disagree with the American ideas, eventually disagree with it, what do makes you a bad person, not what you think, the means are bad, justifies, any other reckoning, if we’re trying to figure out why Cordwainer Smith was acting like a CIA man, an American who can help people, the same job, probably not getting paid for it in the normal fashion, agent for government, why it’s called the emergency rather than a war, its about finance, working for United Fruit, stockholders back in America, rubber plantation owners, why those heads are gettiing cut off, we gotta extract because we want our money, twists himself into knots, become enlighten, savages civilized, a lady who’s not as sophisticated, fun but it aint got any intellectual heft, much more like Frank Herbert than E.E. Doc Smith, the Lovecraft comparison, Space Lords, very dreamy, very weird, fascinating, nothing that’s hidden, he’s not explaining anything, her most vivid one, nothing but depth, nothing on the service, both have the word dragon in the title, relationships with women, what?!, more thoughts about that, written by a woman, the woman dragon queen as this sort of ideal of beauty and savage beauty on a pedestal, but she loses to the oafs, a ruse instead of her wild power, married twice, especially his second wife, the women that are shown are silly, sterotypes, they don’t understand that he’s risking his life, the cat is sort of what a real woman would be, so heavily symbolic it’s made unattainable, hence he needs to write more to get there, The Ballad Of Lost C’Mell, strawman a woman?, mythology and classical stories, Joan of Arc, what is this based on where does this come from, with regard to this one, you get in an airplane, a frail guy with a lot of pains, you travel, you pet your cat and then you do your business, ruminating on this, two people take a bus trip, focused vs. unfocused experience, four people do a podcast together, the words are recorded, no way to get inside the experience, capital I idea, say it a different way, the American Hypothesis, the ideology, the other hyponthesis beside it, sometimes you’re a cat, transitional space between me and my interlocutors, a fuzz and a blur, not even an I either, the neuralink patient to write a tweet, read books through neuralink, absorb books, possible, just another input output, getting by appeal or electric shock, absorb it linearly, captial S for solar system, they don’t hit punctuation, I read a book, you can’t see the font therefore you’re not reading it, might not be listening, reading is an active activity, hooked up to computer at a recieving end, how do you compose a tweet, go back and fix, different kind of fixes, always not capitalize i-s or beginning of sentences, fix mistakes, a little trick, leave of the e in the, what does reading meaning, somehow through their brain, in science fiction, brain uploads, The Matrix, I know how to do kung-fu, upload dreams, sell dreams, experiencing it linearly, two different, try to recite the plot of any particular doctor who serial, The Brain Of Morbius, that’s not writing not reading, remembering and reading it are not the same think, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale?, conflating memory and experience, replacing pages in my old paperback, don’t grok them, not the way you learn anything, you don’t own that word, get it into your brain in multiple ways, you don’t remember how to ski you learn how to see, reading with your fingers, using braille, hard to figure out what it actually is, before there was punctuation people were telling each other stories, the primary way people, every word has every meaning it sounds like, bad good guy, good good guy, Jorge Luis Borges, how great English is, such amazing vocab, Spanish is very simple, not as rich in poetry, a man who did his own translations, with an English in mind, he knew English really well, the best translation, pay too much money to renew the translation, Death And The Compass, The Zahir, The Rejected Sorcerer, The Babylonian Lottery, Funes The Memorious, amazing what we can find, he wrote a Lovecraft story, There Are More Things, The Book Of Sand, equally monstrous house, published in 1975, as an insult somehow, a work of hack or pulp, pulp art can be beautiful, what she’s done here is bad, him doing his own thing, a mode of science fiction, he’s very different, Philip K. Dick is more mainstream, a run of PKD movies, they took the concept, very different from the novel, Hollywood, doing a genocide over there, shitliberal mindset everywhere, take the best I can out of documentaries, distracted, they thought it did, casual racism, in this day and age?, people are best understood in their time, the CCP, multiple genocide, aka the government of have, they clearly have, where have they committed the genocide, show me the videos, look up Nakba, i did but there’s conflicting reports, not a handwritten bill, a paid for poster behind glass, you can see them on twitter, children burned alive, parents holding dead children, show me that video for anything that’s going on in eastern China, they have phones in China, some trumped up terrorism, aka CIA, knife attacks, pits full of dead people, a cultural genocide, didn’t we do that in north america, that’s not happening and it didn’t happen, uyghurs, search it up, it’s not like it’s hidden, is there video, buried with bulldozers, the people who are pushing that, anti-Chinese government, Epoch Times, falungong newspaper, a very good paper for news that’s not related to China, the exiled billionaire Chinese guy, one accusation at a time, important for Paul Linebarger, kick out the emperor, a patriotic thing, Sun Yat-Sen classical Chinese garden, a public park, stickers everywhere, lampposts, Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza, condo’s movie theater, that makes it true, an authentic thing, astroturf, when the Ukraine signs were up, wealthy people’s lawns, B.C. Ferries, establishment stuff, Canada’s sending weapons to Israel, Canada does what the States wants, a stern talking to, that’s what happened with the Truckers, threatening the American economy too, come to the table, sad an pathetic, Time Is The Simplest Time, another dragon, Midnight Pulp, very interesting, total propaganda, they did a Lord Of The Rings, The Tale Of Tsar Saltan (1967), the more political one, Ilya Muromets aka The Sword And The Dragon (1956), defending Kiev, Jesse loves the idea that Russia owns Kiev?, cinemascope, brown skinned people, both live action, romantic fairytale type, Camelot stories, knights, epic, technicolor romantic, Ivanhoe, the 1939 Robin Hood, Ray Harryhausen fantasy, a different culture, the propaganda in both of those, very nationalistic, regional, satellite states, tell that to Stalin (a Georgian), after the time of Stalin, Khrushchev, he’s not that good a guy as a king, he’s a Welsh king, any [Andrei] Tarkovsky, big Hollywood movies, Spartacus, the Michael Bay movies, the Navy and the Marines, the Army puts them in there, the Chinese military, hardware, helicopters and airplanes and trucks and ships, Come And See (1985), a stock character, courtly stories, Chinese knight stories, marshall stories, so young, also haven’t watch a lot of movies, Bylina and Bogatyr, Will do you love movies?, the tiktok generation, movies? that’s not really a thing, not liking tv shows, microphone being weird, who even watches tv?, movies can be art, something else, you actively participate in movies, this is a presentation, a new film, like we treat plays, mostly we don’t do anything about them, what is this, Shakespeare, community theater is for actors and family members, youngness, films are important, a medium you can see amazing things, there are some great films, a treat for you, a period where they’re obsessed with one thing, that’s the autism, girl in her early twenties, every single episode of Bewitched, Bell, Book And Candle (1985), Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak, wait til he finds out Dr. Dre got his doctorate, everybody is dunking on him, not very creative then are they?, this sample came from here, this is called art, plagiarism, when they delete their tweets your jokes don’t have context, sheesh, looking for attention, he’s thirsty, didn’t do any original research, there was lawsuits about this decades ago, everything’s a remix, not new cultural idea, there’s no problem at all in putting together this comparison, we’re talking about it, the best way to get the write answer is to give the bad answer, Boyce Watkins, PhD – Wealth is Power, my friend Jonathan, the key to understanding propaganda, more like masturbatory purposes, is he gonna make a living from that?, he didn’t write all that much, Leigh Brackett is doing it for money, Black Amazon Of Mars, a richer text, individualist vs. settler colonialism, literally have settlers, Malaysia Emergency, money from these supervisors, control and extract from the land of Malaysia, Canada started off as the first kind, Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company, for secondary extraction, on a planet that’s already been colonized, faceless fruit company on Earth, she’s not really there for that, she’s much better at it in Black Amazon Of Mars, hacky but not total hackwork, The Halfling, furries in it, this sounds good, a novelette from 1943, she likes both fortresses and citadels, rats are not predators, Chinese mythology, suss out the meaning, magazine author renewals, but the other narrator, and other stories, hard to get people to do novelettes, quite long, hard to appreciate stories, the story about the furries, Citadel Of Lost Ages, 1950, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Virgil Finlay Thrilling Wonder, a version sold on ebay, Hertiage Auctions, interestingly composed cut and paste, layered, as a colour artist, very distinctive black & whites, his line work, Darkness, nothing else, painful to thus aroused, the secret of an icebound cave that holds the key to the future, last week is a long time ago, Test-Tube Frankenstein, a race memory story, the Palisades, a good ending, very solid, listen to this, My name is Fenway, he told the voice, Central Park in the morning after the rain, I need a project, the one listener who’s listening right now, Hi!, where he lived at the end, big action scene, cliffs that overlook the Hudson, gruesome, weird menace, shudder, an extremely rare book, Fred Olen Ray, b movie director, Hugh B. Cave, 1994, just woke up, edit an anthology, self-published, Attack Of The 60 foot Centerfold (1995), Mike Vendetti things, People Of The Dark, Fafhard and Grey Mouser stories, Corpseless Coffin, Silverberg, William Sambrot, The Door by David H. Keller, short non-fiction, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, How Can You Be Reading This?, a bunch, 2 is a good number, When The Banshee Calls by Wayne Rogers, emdash, gruesome crypt, weird bizarre menace, on the one hand, more guys, let’s do one Wayne Rogers, one new guy, Will can take responsibility today, the scales are balancing, Ed Earl Repp was Jesse’s mistake, some sort of provenance, just so happened to show up on LibriVox, complementary to it, out in five parts, another banshee story, banshees are interesting, screaming ladies from Ireland, banshee related, a Cinemax show, gun violence and sex, Elliott O’Donnell, nonfiction, an essay, what’s the opposite of weird menace, you get to save the girl from a fate worth than death she will be generous with her body, what the lady looks like, Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings, the table of contents, the Starzl for that one, when Terence isn’t here to confirm, good to pair, pulling the rug out from under him, not about fault, proper behavior, not at all, Terence is quite delightful, always honest, you shouldn’t trust, easier to coordinate when people are here, Time Is The Simplest Thing is a novel, Attitude by Hal Clement, 2 or 3 hours, Spicy stories?, turning Mike onto Spicy, Spicy-Adventure Stories, 30 Seconds by Robert Leslie Bellem, the art is awesome, art continues, a dull squishy plop, unyielding asphalt, Dr. Zarkov, Count Zaroff, Planet Of The Apes?, The Most Dangerous Game, The Unveiling by Alfred I. Tooke, puny and weak undernourished the Bolsheviks didn’t kill him, disturbing art, a retelling of [Pickman’s Model] with a different focus, perfectly fine, too cliche, Ravenoff, russian names in early 20th century pulp literature, look how beautiful Jesse’s PDF is, all the words are bolded, Jesse is awesome at this, The Black Thing Walks, The Brazen Bull, the table of contents page, a ghoul, a bunch of judges, very funny, lingers on the things, danger and sex, parapet, a lady lying on a divan while men fight, stabbed between the boobies, a lady stabbed in a pillow near her bed, a little drunken when he parked the car, the sinister old cottage, a lot of whipping, this one has racism, you love racism, I love racism, get the black thing off our minds, whispered loved words, the tender softness, to feel those breasts, her halter straps crushed against my heart, page 37, a grotesque shape blacker than night, sensationalist, turn to page 103, my sudden blow toppled, gun in his hand as he punches a cultist in the face, so good, great science fiction hidden inside a shudder pulp, an exploitation piece, strapped to the device, and she seems to be enjoying it, metal bars up and down her legs, a little more advanced before we read this one, pretty hardcore, Cannibal Holocaust (1980), a problem, becoming more boring because of it, curating stuff for people, there’s a lady in Port Moody, talking up her virtues, she needs a computer, buying cheap ThinkPads and fixing them, happy to help out a blind lady who’s deaf and can use it, a concern you should have, a parasocial relationship with my friend Will, a little bit of both, try not to overly concern myself with, the download numbers vs. being available, the business, an anti-businessman, the business of playing the business game, you shouldn’t play a rigged game, which games aren’t rigged, they don’t always start that way, the levers and tricks to running that game, becomes corrupted, be on the periphery, a gas station in a small town, towns don’t sustain, extract value, Facebook marketplace is the new Craigslist, in the selling business, the tutoring business, the strawman in The Strangest Secret Book by Earl Nightingale, the very first self-help, first spoken word record to go platinum, ran a sales floor, what’s the point of trying, ok if you are in certain industries, the laptop game, institutions pump and dump, our hero Mr. Pulpcovers, they sell businesses on a semi-regular schedules, recycling is a huge scam, reused/resold, the recycle sells those, stores like London Drugs, refurbished laptops, great profit possibility, the secondary market, if you’re in the right part of the scam, what do we mean by scam?, blue bin recycling, probably better off without it, generic everything else, put in a landfill, sort your recycling, clean your recycling, glass is often redone, maybe it is better, metal recycling, that whole industry is propped up by government mandate, it’s okay for us to consume, how deluded they are, they’re basically decorating the landfill with washed garbage, find ways to navigate it properly, not a scam at all, how do we know it is public domain?, what is the strangest secret?, the secret it every self-help scheme, pretend Will is an alien, no original ideas, this one stole the other one, [Rhonda Byrne’s] The Secret, pure lies, Jesse only really cares about public domain stuff, a tick, Jesse’s autism, 1966, 1970, gold record status, wouldn’t you, Brewster’s Millions, Some Like It Hot, for historical reasons, the idea everywhere, making a lifestyle about it, Jonathan just uses chat GPT to write all his tweets, investing emotional energy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, the narrator is very good, a ditzy blonde, March 16th, it would make a book, a whole row of encyclopediacs, my favourite recreation, besides think, he is in the senate, all a blank, it was a diary, too late to begin with January, the wholesale button profession, the button king, interested in educating me, see how my brains have improved, sounds very Jonathan, like a cartoon come to life, book some shows, a mere 3 hours 34 minutes, a professional lady, a pseudonym?, book us up, two shudder pulps, going to Pulpfest, doing research, near Pittsburgh, it’s fun, Mars, Pennsylvania, driving distance, not rich or anything, guy walked from Philadelphia to New York, I’ve got a train to catch (back to Philadelphia), walking distance, get a little cart, the rag and bone guy: “pulps and paperbacks”, not very well run, looking for authors to attend, modern pulp, listed as a guest, a weird coalition of people, all the disappointed people, new pulp authors, lots of indie authors there, the dealer’s room is the place to be, Philip Jose Farmer people, guess again, between 2 or 3 dollars, author copies, Scamazon, Elantris guy, used his leverage to get a slightly less worse deal, selling his digital product from their servers, close to 70%, a 70 – 30 split, a pretty horrible chiselling, Jeff Bezos’ gazelle strategy, kill the weakest ones in the herd first, the only publisher, that’s the actions that have happened, the FCC lawsuit against Amazon, required testimony, that’d be the place, let’s go democratize the middle east!, undemocratized publishing, the history behind it, the reality behind it, the only game left in town, exclusivity, a sweeter deal, pay to play, Godless, one guy in Los Angeles, most of Jonathan’s book sales, that’s where the people are, Google is closing their podcasting system, itunes was the directory, also-rans, all gone now, big competitors like Spotify, directing everything to YouTube, a gambit, sucked a bunch of people in and now being redirected to YouTube, not going to get the downloads, not getting scammed, just as long as you know the game is rigged, I’m gonna make money by doing this gambling, what about your losses, gambling is not a good way to make money, invest in a casino, not the same thing, u know you’re getting fucked, a nice salad bar, spend money, a scanner, Firestick is pretty good right now, other than scanners, they’re 12 bucks, laziness, in small towns people have really good thrift shops, Goodwill, what’s destroying thrift shops, fast fashion, flippers, Crocs?, the companies do that too, flippers, massive extraction, too expensive to ship, an amazon link to one, money or attention, moral quirks, stopped buying books from Amazon, Uline (packing material company), they sell everything, massive catalogue, everything you could ever want for shipping, used bookstores, Half-Price Books, the smart move, in the industry for shipping, everything you could have in a warehouse, phone book sized colour catalogue, what’s changed in the tech, an affection to warehouse, things that are small, massive storage at a very cheap rate, a huge covered area, protected from rain, if we were really serious about the homeless crisis, why it’s not being done, the unhoused, as a temporary measure, we do not choose to use them, a great technology, you can put everything that you need to, big building, protected from water damage, retain heat, against the wind, a tech, a space or something, were invented, a cave, slabbers, living elements of culture, representative art copies, not a good medium for it, very few copies for preservation purposes, in case the warehouse leaks, both good and bad, evil but without watermarks, a lot of things are evil, what is something in the world that’s evil other than Jesse, confusing good and bad with good and evil, a bad movie vs. an evil movie, Birth Of A Nation (1935)?, evil intention, a distinction there, Bill Gates evil, Trump very very bad, murders and rapists, people make mistakes, words are dangerous, do hate liberals, do enjoy his jokes, grade on a curve, very unevil compared to most, on the evil curve, a sharp distinction, very useful, something that’s evil in the world, other than Trump or Jesse, almost the opposite of evil, bad to call things good, other things are bad in comparison, payday loans are evil, usury is evil, flipping real estate, the way a lot people make their living, it’s been encouraged, talking about how to make money, a small business owner that doesn’t make any money, capital is very important, you need to have pencil crayons, people breaking pencil crayons, coloured pencils, colouring pencil, cultural difference, Laurentien pencil crayons, used packs, $50, $60, the shit that comes from China, some decent ones, a tool for making art, making beautiful art in the world, you lose your capital, capital is absolutely needed, stuff to get started doing things, factories, artisanal manufacture, mass production pencil crayons, scanned and printed, see them cheaply, makes people’s lives as they should be: easy, relaxing and fun, going on hikes, hiking away from a bomb zone or a forest fire, we should encourage forest fires at some points, be smart, how the rain can damage things, printing press, quality control, we have solutions to these things, a mimeograph machine, quite stinky?, technology in the 1930s, making t-shirts, printing up leaflets or comics, coulda bin a printer, should be an insult in Canada, the Laurentian elite, $249 pencil crayons, a nice consistent colour, now $80, overvalue things, the old fashioned way (digital), not a young man, patterns in children, everything gets broken, everything is disposable kids, rich kids, sew it back together, non-care, short term thinking, not thinking about capital as capital, $1.50 a book, sell for $9, when Jesse is the government there will be fewer laws, a vague haze, the withering away of the state, thinking Biden’s not withering, Whosit? [board game], guess who they are, are you in a blue room, are you smoking?, do you have a hat or a helmet?, doing it with Jesse sensibilities, NPC, the guy from twitter, Wojack, Santa Claus, Robin Hood, jokers, the copium one, Pepe, the dog in the little room, is your room on fire?, the this is fine dog, are you taking copium?, a cannula, genocide in China, why do people say it?, it’s repeated, actual genocide happening in Gaza, not on Facebook (Jesse assumes), way more people in the streets upset, fake outrage, Facebook ads, American Israeli, students suing Harvard for anti-Israeli sentiments, the Gay lady, trying to hold firm, President Gay, the amazing cope, whatever the rage of the day, almost a noble stance, exposed as a fraud, plagiarizing other people’s works, as opposed to remixing, dissertation have any value?, breathing mask, make a game, uncancelled, parents could get mad, they’re lucky they’ve got me, a little too desperate, waiting to meet people, high turnover, “I am the business, 2006?, 2016?, Jesse’s the capital, the sports team with the mascot, put in some hours, the book keeping, the recruiting or the sweeping up, the reliable standard, the business would die, grade on a curve, very low level, too old makes it hard, your country, education system in Korea is superfucked up, politically fucked up, bad systems, fleeing from it, sending or bringing their kids, the genocide of the Korean people done by the U.N., not even a topic, Jimmy Dore says Americans are the most propagandized people on earth, know the score a little better, PUBG, people in China and Africa, all over the states, a serious marijuana problem, fill bowl, retired guys filling bowls with cereal all day, made me paranoid, playing with randos, not always legal everywhere, a marinjuana store, buy it from the official government store, BC Cannabis Store, bizzare an appropriate, 18 games, no dinners, “carry me”, a squad based game, interactions with humans, some people are very good at getting dinners, this guy can carry us, he’s going to bring us to a dinner, makes good plays, by avoiding fights, you expend fake capital, expend your life, it makes noise when you shoot a gun, “third partied”, don’t take any fights you don’t have to, a good strategy for live, wise Kung Fu guy, the blind guy stealing a pea, a pebble, got better at having eastern philosophy, doing research, raised in China, that’s fine, hung himself in a closet, photos or it didn’t happen, Robert Carradine, died in Bangkok, Death Race 2000 (1975), a satire, Cannonball Run style, clicking on death, Thai police, autoerotic asphyxiation, disputed discuss, the scoop on the Clinton Crime Family, he knew who murdered Seth Rich, not taking the official line on Jeffrey Epstein, not knowing is not evil, flipping books, ripping off old people for their collectibles, a pawn shop, are pawn shops evil?, superior to payday loaning, give up things they could give up, old people who have big collections of shit they’re trying to get rid of, a big pile of old junk, take it to the dump, try to sell it, a mugs game, try not to lose money at it, a meticulous spreadsheet, a premium on curated books, a humbling experience, to break the spine of an old book, it’s like killing something, you every part of the animal, food that will feed forever, a bad outweighed by great good, going hunting, the right part of the world for it, it will change you and make you wiser, usually with fish, with mammals, they want to get it done, not having the time, people who took time, don’t worry about it I’ll do it, take a paperback, start tearing it apart, to lovingly preserve it, take the cover off, how traumatic it is, as a guy who loves books, change your relationship with the books, the words and the pictures rather than the object itself, a treasure that gives forever, the guy who did it loved what he was doing, trying to preserve the art, along the same lines, a hoard of treasure, that is a good, destroying books that are never going to be read again, obvious evils in the world, not operating in the world, deaf and a bad lip reader, very long text messages, what a great deal she was getting on her printer, the printer subscription service is a fucking scam, she doesn’t have a car, she’s blind and deaf, having it delivered is a great good, busy doing her degree, telling the mechanic what a good car your are, printers soon, shipping label printer, Louis Rossmann is a good man, a businessman who wants to share how he’s been successful, liking music, oh my, teeth and hands are dangerous, not to animals, generally, lyrics are very dangerous, go to the post office, Pirate Ship (postal service), little piece of wisdom, the Wisdom Podcast, all profits are temporary, Raincoast Books published Harry Potter, better, different, big demand, by the tonload, non-book store buying a lot of books, Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker, competitors, fucks around with the algorithm, things start going bad, lot of physical objects, way cheaper than regular mail, a good policy decision, production of printed goods, shipping water through the mail, live animals through the mail, small animals, chicks, can I ship live chicks through the mail?, yup, Canada Post, isn’t that interesting, something like a retailer, an online retailer, in 6 months, “send will twitter public to see if twitter still exists how his book business is doing”, wow this is great!, exhausted all the topics, pretty good, very good.

The Game Of Rat And Dragon by Cordwainer Smith

Dragon Queen Of Jupiter - Virgil Finlay cover

Dragon Queen Of Jupiter by Leigh Brackett

Posted by Jesse Willis

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 #795 – READALONG: Such Men Are Dangerous by Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast #795 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Such Men Are Dangerous by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
Reading, Short And Deep, 1969 novel, Paul Kavanaugh, only one other Lawrence Block, a blowjob under a table, a pretty late one, the finest gift was Donald Westlake, a fine fine gift, so good, in that same territory, a little uncomfortable, a psychopath?, dangerous, killed 19 innocent people, a similar quality, they’re paperback writers, tweeted about this book, Lawrence Block doing Richard Stark, a darker Westlake, Stephen King’s darker half, Richard Bachman, the main character’s name is Paul Kavanaugh, kills a bunch of people, betrays the United States, sets off nukes, in the drugstore getting your cigs and malt, this is a true story, at what point in the book, a whole lot, pre-Watergate, very Watergatey, Vietnam, in Cambodia for 10 years, little brown men chasing after him, a super-competent crazy man, he has no idea where he wants to be, encounters with women, the colonel’s wife, she’d kill herself on the way home, psychotic?, we keep learning that, things seem to be going more smoothly now, nope, this is our man, Small Town, 2003, older guy getting into a relationship with a woman, a meditation on New York, much more like a mainstream book, a weird exception, Tom Wolfe or Mario Puzo, The Man In Full, Lawrence Block short stories, Scott edits that, recurring characters, a bunch of series, he resists it for quite a while, editors were demanding series, twins in ability, they were friends, sharing keyboards, co-authored stuff, publishers would be asking, exclusivity, The Hunter, give me three of these a year, two more, a difference, the second one, The Evil That Men Do?, travelling around the USA, Not Comin’ Home To You, free and white and 22, killing spree, two dudes, Natural Born Killers, Woody Harrelson, real life dad was a serial killer, may have been involved in the murder of JFK as well, a researching rabbit hole, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, the Clutter family, the short lived writing career of Paul Kavanaugh, Maissa Bessada, the first Burglar book, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, 1977, it’s a cozy, a hardboiled alcoholic detective living in New York, like Agatha Christie, much more Poirot, models on the Raffles books, brother in law to Arthur Conan Doyle, explicitly modeled on Sherlock Holmes, a burglar and his gay lover, dress up in women’s clothes, country jewel thieving, identical to Holmes and Watson, the lover tells the story, the enigmatic one, homosocial, no sex on screen, a lesbian sidekick, a dog groomer, a Lawrence Block hobby book, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams, if you can only handle the soft, Matthew Scudder novels, trying to get dry, an older man, aging with Block, The Autobiography Of Matthew Scudder, the writing on this, effortless, listening to it, not a chance on this one, very smooth, can always listen to a Westlake, velvet prose, easily page turning, kept being surprised, goes to his island, makes his rules, back and forth to get his eggs, that came out of nowhere, we’re living in the shire and Gandalf shows up and he’s got a handgrenade, he says the thing I was thinking, you are me and I am you, what’s the difference between Paul and George?, not all there either, his Minnesota exams, go any places, we’re in Paul Kavanaugh’s head, his face or his back, all the decisions he’s not going to make, Lawrence Block doesn’t have a complete skill set but he hides it so well, M-14, Thompson, the new guns in Vietnam, sketch-it lightly, it isn’t a gun book, he doesn’t know anything about the army, his brown skin, his hard muscles, he’s the master at the paperback, the length, 10 hours at least, James Lee Burke, his books are twice as long, Lee Child, the Reacher books, he’s working in the 2020s, writes for the market, you can write books that way, extra stuff, the story doesn’t get better by being longer, the lady he almost marries, he’s thinking about her, I wonder if I should go think about that, think about the rules, as insane as he is, he’s smart and he’s good at his job, went to his bed, puts the pillows under the sheet, we know it was coming, so good at distracting us by not hiding things, after the colonel’s wife, he did some weird stuff there, turning the sheet inside out, he gets his eggs, he gets his sausage, the shopkeeper, here’s your paperbacks, a whole philosophy, that grenade went in the sea, inconsistencies on my list on my island, I kill you!, you came to my island, you’re the one who started this man, a PTSD book, really good at observing, on a bus, he reads the newspaper, makes some sausages and eggs, thinks about a relationship, if he were a different kind of person, Laos, the maps on the roads, heist books, Dortmunders are soft and fun and funny, there’s something wrong with Parker, that’s not efficient, he has to go, once they lie to you, having one the guys not follow the philosophy, authors get tired of series, makes it about baseball cards, Humphrey Bogart, pretty obscure, people are just trusting Lawrence Block and buying blind, translate to movies really easy, Eight Million Ways To Die, Whoopi Goldberg, Bobcat Goldthwait plays the lesbian dog groomer, gender flipped it, A Walk Among The Tombstones, My Blueberry Nights, short films, there was a script for this, happened and happens a lot, soon to be a motion picture, Up Your Banners, another marketing thing, get the paperback before you watch the movie, goes to the movies, goes to the drugstore, he really needs a dictionary, define everything perfectly, he won’t be insane, very very well structured, a super-instinctual writer, lucky, incredibly smooth, the first Scudder novel, The Sins Of The Fathers, 2 cassette Penguin Audio, on sale, these will be good, running a bookstore by day, reading a character reading a book, a real book, I’m sold, knew each other well, the tight tight crew, Silverberg, Block didn’t write much science fiction, Block was just not a science guy, Make A Prison, doesn’t know a lot of science, careful observation of society, Block loves short stories, used to be Ellery Queen or Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Writer’s Digest, Block has couple of writing books, he’s the writer of them, a bunch of short stories, a fixup, just doing novels now, Hit Man series, then he surprises us, White Plains, New York, the mob, Des Moines, describes all the people, goes to a Pizza Hut, goes to a hardware store, we’re in the bedroom, a nice vase, then he murders the guy, so soft, it’d been six days since I had any work, then I got call, can’t hold it together, so level headed, murdering people for a living, interviews with Block, he has a vivid imagination, he gets bored, why did you write this book, short on cash, what if I became a burglar, sat down at the typewriter, stamp collecting, Lawrence Block is a stamp collects, the hobby of kings and king of hobbies, so many, riches, the cover has What Mad Universe, 2022, a Subterranean Press with a really good cover, a writer’s writer, Jim Roberts, Martians Go Home!, Arena, the Star Trek episode, two sentence story, The Last Man On Earth Sat Alone In A Room. There Was A Kock At The Door, can you be more out of fashion?, he’ll make it good, Harlan Ellison, not magical oh I must write, The Inklings, the difference is class, Oxford Dons, my next book is about Jesus but he’s a lion, a fawn with no genitals, porn stories, that would be great book, a non-fiction book, possibilities out there, Hard Case Crime, Alex Nevala-Lee style person, Rick Jackson, Wonder Audiobooks, The Fabulous Clipjoint, super-readable, a writer’s-writer, worshipped at the foot of Westlake, trauma they’re working through, insurance, different results but the smoothness is the same, go to Clarion, hubbub, get my awards, a very different writing school, the Oxford Don worked out, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, comic books, big little books, radio drama, Paul di Filippo Lost Pages, also Donald Westlake, The Outfit, a heist, an armoured car heist, The Man With The Getaway Face, designed to be ended, fundamentally change the character, a revenge story, angry that his girl stabbed him in the back, adapted to movies 3 or 4 times, good news, a movie seroes and television series, John Wick, a ripoff of Payback, John Wick movies, they killed my dog, gun-fu, a club, everyone is wearing neon, Face/Off (1997), like an opera, married now, no ability to emote with humans, he has rules, don’t bring the stuff home, this is a guy out of time, driving a Toyota Avalon, still smooth and still good, a testament, look at that Westlake, listen to them, they tell you truths, why have you said writing a novel is like going a distance to take a small shit, jumped the shark, how many novels?, zero?, all in his early career, the training school, efficiency, hotel room away from their wives and girlfriends, in a weekend, get to the point, filling pages yes, have people buy the book, they’re capable of doing something with it, when it is is not science fiction, Ringworld is a great book but it’s not much of a story, getting home, that tantalizing thing, I could do it again I guess, diminishing returns, not true with crime books, what makes this book not science fiction, nuclear mortars, Aural Noir, exploring the idea, so paired with science fiction, crime is an alternative way to view society, not right towards the CIA, won’t take orders and do them blindly, not a patriot anymore, you need something to do, you go crazy and have to live on island away from everybody, drown em a few times, why you must die in the end, there are other ways of living, what is my relationship to the bank, floating through our lives, doing chores, distracted by this, you didn’t see it coming, what if somebody robs the bank, how would I rob this bank?, different outlook on reality, being impinged upon us, yeah, what about that?, Silverberg don’t know much about science, I like Joseph Conrad, a riposte, immortality through my books, that one will make me immortal, in a different setting, crime and mystery fiction, make us think about reality differently, what did you learn?, why is this a good book?, entertaining, passed the time, just personally compelling, what did I learn?, a heightened experience, a mode of being, a psychology book but you don’t know that, experiencing somebody’s psyche, how does Block do that, the unconscious coming out as plot and action without telegraphing it, there from the beginning, their sex books, not designed for that, very very tame, how tame is the sex, no nipples, he aint shyin away from it either, the literary crew, classes for analysis, defying analysis by just being so good, super-readable, when in doubt put on one of these, good page turns, a book is a companion, a book is a friend, on Vancouver Island, you came to my island!, you wouldn’t hesitate to recommend except, highly inoffensive, a lot of moral horror, he half accepted she wouldn’t make it home, thumbs on jugulars, plays his politics close to his vest, wise?, aloof?, Stephen King is not playing close to his vest anymore (if he ever did), annoyed, Trump in his novels, triggered, Blaze by Richard Bachman, one of the bad guys saying how bad the Republicans were, Lenny and the bunny, a retelling of Of Mice And Men, the Smurfs, a good book made worse into a bad book almost, meddling triggered hands, minds broken by Trump, Harlan Ellison get TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), politics are important, time of assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, dressed to the nines, take whatever you like, a product of its time, time travel back in time raid the drugstore spinner rack, good reads, a Saturday, What Mad Universe, March and April, them types, a scheme, a Burglar book or two in between, goes down so smooth, girlfriend gives you Campbells soup, hoping to book a show with Connor, The Devil’s Elixirs, Paul might want to be in on that one, used to read Fredric Brown, the church stuff, at its most active, January through Easter, Richard Stark’s The Seventh, 2000 year old books, Passage by Connie Willis, the Titanic, what it’s about is a little complicated, timey-whimey stuff, The Book Of The New Sun, talking about it as we go, one of those big jewels, Catholic guy, queen mother, coldly interesting, looking at a Rubics cube, on kindle, its a series, broke it up into four small books, so much going on in it, telling me something but I’m not sure what it is, a New York Times Cross Word puzzle, books written about this book, Charles Bronson movie, The Triumph Of Evil, from Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare:

Caesar
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
Mark Antony
Fear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous,
He is a noble Roman, and well given.
Julius Caesar
Would he were fatter!

pushups and sit-ups, not fat and happy, five key political figures, Miles Dorn, a fast paced thriller, a similar short length, book it?, good men do nothing, misattributed to Edmund Burke, alleged quote, thinking makes it so, you can tell by the backwards grammar, Hamlet, generative AI, remark known to have been made, John Stuart Mill, bad need nothing more, pretty close, thoughts on the cause of present discontents, an unpitied sacrifice, Alexis de Tocqueville, digging into Heinlein quotes, Robert A. Heinlein, from novels, something always off about it, women and cats, rooster crowing, Tanya Daviti, will do as they please, men and dogs should relax, the word that triggered Jesse is: relax, Farah Mendlesohn, alternative claim, game show host, 1896, for plain women only, beautiful woman can do as they please but a plain woman must do a great deal, The Present Profession OF Robert A. Heinlein, Expanded Universe, attributed to Lazarus Long, has never dealt with a cat, protocol, almost correct, Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse, fake and garbled quotes, a huge thread, Glory Road, a quote inside a quote, it means, attributed to Heinlein, translated from another language inside of a fantasy book, people collect quotes and put names attached to them, a pathology, an addiction, gut punch, it hurts so bad, make some pushes, otherwise good men won’t do anything, just hang out on the island eating lots and lots of eggs, reading paperbacks, rowing, took the title and then he wrote the book, a dangerous thing to do, a great pull quote, Othello, the language man, the beast with two backs, unbelievable, amazing, what a hero, negative capability, The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury, accept uncertainties, John Keats, 1817, am intellectual confusion, the writing style of Block and Westlake, they’re in the typewriter, make some coffee, grew up on computers, Arsenal lost some nuclear weapons, the best name for a sport team that has ever been equipment, they don’t even use their arms, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide radio show, he captured something there, a really good read, of late, a few months here off, The Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast, In Our Time on Edgar Allan Poe, SFBRP, Heinlein, hasn’t listened to Luke in ages, the fever has broken, the latest Martha Wells, this is kind of shit, why this doesn’t work, saying mean things about other people, lots of really good things to say about Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman, British humour, extinction credits, Juliane, a way to keep up on the torwave/squeecore, ok modern books, say high to the chickens and the cows, everything with four legs or less.

Such Men Are Dangerous by Lawrence Block

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #425 – The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #425

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The One Who Waits by Ray Bradbury

Here’s a link to a |PDF|.

The One Who Waits was first published in The Arkham Sampler, Summer 1949.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #770 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Progeny by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #770 – Progeny by Philip K. Dick, read by Mike Vendetti. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (45 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Mike Vendetti, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
IF Worlds Of Science Fiction, November 1954, we’re bringing it back, Worlds Of Science Fiction, IF, it’s IFfy, the tagline, a tier below, a tier above, James L. Quinn, early in IF’s run, 3rd year, Evan Lampe’s podcast, the Philip K. Dick review website, John Taylor Gatto State Controlled Consciousness, schools created to create utopian visions, close to Philip K. Dick’s perspective, the story about the autistic kid, not really autistic, a nurture story, the thesis of the story, raised by robots, kids in it is very unusual in actual science fiction, 9 at the end, Theodore Sturgeon, a good handful, Tony And The Beetles, The Father Thing, comes up every time, something that happened to Philip K. Dick, the hospital, the mental institution, typing on his keyboard, you know what we need is more science fiction stories about kids adopted by robots, Nanny, menacing, how menacing this story is, body horror, sweat and smells of the body, the aftermath of the meeting with the father, The Last Of The Masters, hairy sweaty man, girls boobs, almost connect that to AI, newspaper article through AI, a Promethean moment, Ed is left out of it, he doesn’t participate, channeling Eric Rabkin, the robot doctor, a sandwich, in fairy tales, a science fictional fairy tale, sharing food means you love that person, the squirrel accepts his food, Pete’s doctor/boss/trainer, I’ll eat at the cafeteria, pop the question: will you come and be my son, I don’t like to buy in the diner they skin you, six hundred employees, this is menacing, sentences that go unfinished, training to become a bio-chemist, a messiah for the robots, a go-between, what does the smell of his father remind him of, laboratory animals, a contemptible smell, I can’t place it, just like when he was a baby, Dr. Bish, the automatic heating system clicked on for the night, the smell as the experimental animals, the promising young boy, the boy smiled, awkward and humane, a secret private smile of complete understanding, evil emotions, you’re son’s deformed!, my god, what does it mean?, what about that first wife, a secret that he’s telling us over and over again, a secret Philip K. Dick child?, a waveshot of his head, talking about himself?, sociologically going on, there’s no manual telling you what to do, Dr. Spock, let the kid cry themself to sleep, the worst thing anybody’s ever done to Americans, ADD, needs a lobotomy, icepick lobotomy, one of the Kennedy children became a vegetable, you have to trust the doctor, towards that, that exchange, did he try and pick up the child, a circumcision or something, feel the weight of the child in his arms, sanitary, antiseptic, oedipal complex, and today, sex studies from the 50s, Kinsey studies, living back there, oh my god I’m a homosexual, I had no idea, lies and wishfulfilment, sweeps the nation as a fad, weird instiutional problems, you’ll be happier when you join the institution and follow the rules, Dick likes twists and layering of twists, a systematic distortion, growing up with the robots and imbibing their ideology, all the paperwork, the consent forms, what does see mean exactly?, the laws, math, age, why I was 19, sneaking into the rocket facilities, I was twice your age when this happens, more tired and sweating and balding than he was before, didn’t have a kid at this point, Beyond The Door, a wife cheating on her husband with a cuckoo clock and a boyfriend, whose Pete?, Mrs. Peters, this name, Ed Loyce, Ed Doyle, figures in his life, Pete might be him, the father became extremely busy, coming back, here I am I’m your dad, his dad lived in DC, a serious character flaw, when he’s 18, comes back on the delivery day, expects to have a say, he doesn’t get that, writing to his mom, boarding school, mom, send my pills, non-nervous pills, full of anxieties, nervous breakdown in high school, he takes their answers seriously, is that really true?, he writes about it, the robot is an institution, institutions replace parents, the doctor is not a human, fleshy cover over its arms, two robot taxi drivers, a strapping late model robot, they’re replacing Ed, the doctor adopts the child, talking about himself, these amazing psychological conditions, this unfeeling monster, the child didn’t need to be touched, these things are in the air, 1928, the abortion truck story, children hiding in thornbushes, The Crawlers, The Pre-Persons, the father agrees to go into the abortion truck with him, maths, 1974, the ability to master algebra was the test for having a soul, animal soul, authority says this, what happens if that’s true?, the neuroses that I have, served by robots in a cafeteria, being raised in a boarding school, mandated to join this army, a really bad consequence, keeping the baby with you at all times, Jesse is very talky, primarily about institutions, how institutions sell themselves, what was best for the kid, she trusted the institutions, being inhuman by not wanting to bring the baby to her breast and smell it, she’s not sad about it, I was chatting with the doctor, she’s smoking, people aren’t sad sending their kid off to public school, the entire ideology of the system, a sexual thing, smoking with the doctor, fantasy sex with the doctor, the post coital cigarette, a cuckolding going on, push psychoanalysis a tiny little bit, the biological becomes an institutional complex, 1986, your kid has ADD, your kid needs amphetamines, there’s a biological thing, the calf comes out of the cow, literally happening, how much culture and institutions erode, she is a monster because of it, we’re all monsters, a more primitive part, Dr. Bish what is this weird white liquid running out of my breasts?, he’s an idiot, what a moron, the internet is full of misinformation, an institute, Los Angeles Central Hospital, late for the birth, infodump, we don’t touch our son, when do we get him?, the waveform says he’s going there, another institution, once he’s fully grown up, his brain is no longer plastic, when he’s an adult, molded into what the institute wants, the mom is out of the picture, they’re divorced, Ed Doyle’s alternative, the frontier theme that Evan so rightly picked up on, no squirrels, Pete’s dad’s job is the plumbing, his only job is to supply the sperm, Star Trek, high end jobs, build and maintain those ships and those systems, in the end you still need infantry, pushed away his wife, away all the time on the frontier, a traveling salesman, as a result Janet leaves him, something really important, the gendered nature of labour saving technology, Philip Dick doesn’t get this, Evan’s Philip K. Dick readthrough, hostile to washing machines, microwave, refrigerator, who raises kids?, mostly womens work, the bullshit of raising kids, making the lunch everyday, stroll in from alpha centauri, the wife is making the rational choice, shitwork, Dick really has this problem, after a certain point in the story, son come with me, this is going to be our business, there’s a lot of things that need doing out there, out beyond Prox, nature, self-fulfillment, won’t even accept his sandwich, extrovert with the nerdy kid son, eat hamburgers, sitting at home, making plans to destroy humanity, make them less smelly and more docile, Sales Pitch, commuting through space, replacing body parts, have your colon replaced with a plastic tube, no more sweatglands, make everything antiseptic, just make sure that children are clean at all times, the runny nose, he needs to go on a boat and learn the ropes, the mom’s instinct and the dad’s instinct, when the answer is the institution they’re both wrong, giving up a lot of power to the institutions, Mildred Clingerman story, an automated kitchen, about 7 Ray Bradbury stories, Catharine Beecher, bastion of their power, use science and knowledge and education to rationalize the domestic sphere, a viewpoint, a little glowing breast, spray on glowing, she’s glowing because she just gave birth, baby needs milk, not enough baby formula, baby formula is bad for kids, you could use a breast pump, giant reliance on artificial milk, convenient, maybe its because you’re at work, factory or office or school raising other people’s children, bad marriage, the menace is unstated, maybe the Oedipus complex is worth it, not just corporations, government regulated facility at the very least, public private partnership, a legal person, not a caring person, not capable of caring, that’s what his waveform says, he’s going to be a rocket jockey, the son doesn’t even understand the question, he smiles, you think desire has anything to do with it, the robots and the man all have emotions, maybe he’s not the best boss, as close to lying he gets, designed to be sympathetic towards Ed, propaganday, why do we trust this institution, a photo of his plastic brain, bio-chemistry, they’re going to fuck around with humans, the alternative is the queen living West Texas planet, emphasizing the cleanness, unpolluted, smoking, drinks a brandy-frappe, what’s best of the child, she’s been reading all the books, Gayelord Hauser for nutrition, parenting books, how they sell of these things to parents, no shopping, no clubs, no social life, the optimistic part of the story, Earth is going to Hell, Dick was an optimist, Hello, Doc!, the event has happened, a top-level robot, it had fooled him, Dr. Bish appeared plump and well-fed, is the robot married, diamond-tie clasp, simulated manicured nails, a pinstriped shirt, white collar vs. blue collar, just the baby daddy, rushed in from the airport, have you seen a squirrel before?, leaned on one way, we can’t trust this, trusting it is the bad thing, we agreed to this, they were intimate at some point, to determine the gender of the child, he’s only gone six months, natural sex, a lady with boobs so he fell in love with her, she’s a monster because she trusts the institutions, yes I am, H.P. Lovecraft, that amazing transformation thing, regular successful businessman, not hairy, the robots becoming too human, Isaac Asimov’s Let’s Get Together, a critical mass of robots, Herbert Goldstone’s Virtuoso, learns to play the piano, music is supposed to be hard, somethings shouldn’t be automated, AI art, two robot taxi drivers are acting like robots, literally human beings who are obeying instructions, turning them into robotic people, ROTC, failed the first day, twirl your rifles, get a haircut, his robot stories are so different, fixed it, could have easily been a chapter in The Humanoids by Jack Williamson, serialized vs. novel, earth vs. an alien planet, expanded novel version is really good, an answer to any objection, a really important concept, any word you don’t know the meaning of your are subject, bleeding under your dura, doctor I know exactly how we fix this, subjecting ourselves to their ideologies, sometimes that’s a good thing, look both ways before you cross the street, a hard concept to get across, when we read these stories, wow that’s really powerful, but why?, escape valve, the place we can run off to, frontiers exist, a perceived option, go west young man, where do Americans run off to?, Taiwan, to Vietnam, not an option, Miss Columbia, propaganda, plant a flag, government giving you an outlet, free real estate, shaped politics for most of American history, pick up your stakes and go, everyone moved to Saskatchewan for free land, then everyone moved to Vancouver for jobs, the dust-bowl, the dirty 30s, 3 million people were displaced, we don’t have the language to describe it, people moving out of California to Texas or Florida, internal movement, region in this, State Controlled Consciousness, every utopian movement, Sunday school, propitiate your ideology, Dr. 2G-Y Bish, bishop, kids put into religious orders, designed to break up the family, outsourced to religion, keeping doctrine, interesting idea, not very many characters, Janet, Ed, a big jump, takes him out into the country, Los Angeles, go back to the city, a general experience, Evan’s generation, the first generation to go to college, those Thanksgivings, those times back are a little weird, at least four or five years to orient back to the working class culture, academic sorts, we gotta get this fence fixed, inspiring and interesting stuff, intellectual stimulation, trying to communicate that, it doesn’t translate very well, rebalance how you talk to people, most people don’t read books, unless youre constantly building up, Jack Williamson, Gilles Deleuze, cows, chickens, horse, chicken business, cow business, the second dimension, initiated into a more bourgeois culture, the double gap, so rich, fairly obscure Philip K. Dick story, following the 9 years, Paul sings the classics, Cat’s in the cradle and the cradle’s on fire?, kill his father and marry his mother, it doesn’t come from the Greeks, Sigmund Freud, is it true?, not exactly, recapitulate the relationships you are trained in, animals training other animals, interacting with other humans, any of the seven times I’ve tried, maybe that’s not true, a structure, he likes older women, where is the libido?, the attitude of Doctor Bish, looking at Peter the baby with a look that was greedy, in Anti-Oedipus, the bureaucrat caresses the forms, Anti-Oedipus by Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, bottom of page 71, creasing the edges with his nail, plugged his desire into rules and regulations and forms, go to the police, see if there’s a detective on duty, it gives them something to do, he’s not like Mr. Spock, sinister and evil and aloof, like Data, Data had curiosity, satire, embodiment of authority, an evil twin (Lore), psychoanalyze Star Trek, the Lore Data stuff, gave him a twitch, Lore made Data have a twitch, there’s a twitch here, a libidinal twitch, different educational institutions, Hampshire College, Fordham University, unstructured to structured Jesuit university, post-modern to classicist language, a whole different language, small economically depressed town where half the stores are closed, an aversion, they were hit with books at school, lame TV too, a reality TV show was cool, marriage counselor reality TV show, what is it on cable?, therapy, if that was L.A., a level beneath, an aversion to reading books, the struggle, Peter Camenzind by Herman Hesse, goes back home, his rural town was better, a spiritual transformation, stained with sweat, page 74, he brought out his pipe and tobacco, a big sulfur match, murmured, this is a good pipe, 25 years ago, do the math, only about twice as old as you, a WWI veteran, WWII guy, at a certain point in life every man starts smoking a pipe, filling and lighting a pipe, old fashioned stuff, that ritual, sucking on a pipe, casting smoke out of their nose, a little bit interested, lost in his reverie, if he was a little more skillful they could’ve connected, he had the right instinct, what makes it a tragedy, when dads fuck off, there’s a problem, wife, institution, capitalism, we could work together, how long it is, almost nothing happens, a walk, a hospital scene, episodes over 9 years, backfill, infodumping, 3 scenes, permission, fill out these forms, the ride in the car and the walk, the last scene, off with Doctor Bish and Peter, the key to Peter’s reactions, emotional, that’s interesting that you think we can connect, oof, anthropological look at the father from the son’s POV, distancing, broken sentence, when you will…, quite right, the backstory talking, bumming around town, outside school rightly, sneaking into the rocket launching yards, hopped over to Mars, a hasher, Ganymede was all sewed up tight, space freighter, worked his way out to Proxima, workaway, I found what I wanted, swelling with pride, little retail and service place, everybody needs a plumber, a good job, the best blue collar job, the pay is very good, when the water starts flooding you need a plumber, building communities, he sounds very free, like a rolling stone, not an appealing life to someone who’s a part of the institution, she doesn’t leave the earth, she likes being under the system, you could go off, there’s fear involved, there’s the comfort of the institution, institutions can’t love you, fill out your forms, ivy coloured walls, drifters, cafeterias, you have money, an efficiency you don’t get at home, living in China, didn’t eat dinner, new job, cafeteria lunch, where do you wanna eat?, doesn’t the food just kind of appear?, where to eat and what to make, drops from your mind really quick, elementary schools in France?, fancy lunches?, 20 years in a highshcool, 2 hours or longer to come back home, sandwich, all sorts of good things in it, presence of the outside inside the institution, “I’m not reduced to the institution, I have my sandwich”, taco Tuesday, people get excited about the rotation, a crazy thing, homemade food, ketchup classified as a vegetable, school lunches program, the healthy food pyramid we just made up, at the top is a greedy corporation, like am institutionalized restaurant, weird hot things, hot lunch and cold lunch, 2 cafeterias in the same school, Cold Lunch Paul, bologna sandwiches, hot lunch for free, against the rules, a person who hasn’t been completely institutionalized, get you hooked on the hot lunch, back to bologna sandwiches, like the place, baloney, 70 liters of chili, more efficiency, the prices start creeping up, adulterating the materials that go into the pot, corruption, let’s have a daycare, a hired person, paying money vs. taking turns, we can lower the quality of the care here, just not loved, all in this little 46 minute story, chat GPT, it can do my homework, I can fire everybody, charge subscriptions, hire somebody to do this, you still hire dishwashers for restaurants, an open version of chat GPT, answer emails from other robots, an efficiency there, students are into chat GPT, grunt garbage work, pedagogical value of repetition, they’d much rather cheat, painting class, if they’re into it they’ll do it, most students don’t want to be essayists, kids doing their homework, punishment, if you get low grades you need more attention from the government forms, chat GPT can be really educational, dialogue with it a lot, The Three-Body Problem, Chinese TV series of 30 episodes, suggestions and prompts, analysis, no that’s not what I want, good ideas, some creativity sparks, Rossignol, better and better, The Ash Grove, makes you cry if you let it, makes children emotional, as a corrective, analyze Philip K. Dick’s story, Progeny, a search engine that’s weak, that’s not enough, you have to work for 20-30 minutes, write some John Adams Thomas Jefferson boy love romance, oh yes you’re right, you overestimate, most teachers can’t even get the assignment clear, make sure you have a period at the end of all your sentences, formatting problems, what this is perfect for, autobiography or memoir, just answer the question, a sophisticated text prediction, good grammar, less important for students, the facts don’t matter that much, formatting is really important, this is a lie, how they get good grades, cheating the system, a good solution to a bad problem, easier for the prisoners, abolish the prisons, new ways to punish students, make other kids do their homework, what chat GPT’s revolution, read this paragraph and reorder them, take out things you don’t like, living in an affluent area, I’m a governess, there’s a scary man, young Tommy is very bright, essay about thermodynamics, describing some of Jesse’s job, same advantage that rich people’s job, it doesn’t help them, how to understand great poetry, a bunch of assignments that are due, parents hire a ghostwriter to right a novel, ivy league school, Rebecca Black’s song Friday, I like sitting in the front seat sometime, super-well produced, something to make their kid feel like a superstar, chat GPT same advantage as the rich kids, we’re pretty conclusive, Pirates Of Venus, north shore of Minnesota, overseas, NSA work, top secret, Evan Lampe is gonna step up, Farnham’s Freehold, 12th – 23rd, Sailing To Byzantium by Robert Silverberg, solved, feeds and resources, podcast schedule, the music under it, crazy, a youtube thing, people don’t know, people discover that audiobooks because of youtube, excited for them, any sign of a ghost is excitement, it’s youtube vs. books, Arthur C. Clarke, past The Colorado Kid, Alex from Pulpcovers was censored, an appeal, after careful review…, sooo careful, a lady might not have any pants on, jealous losers on twitter, White Trash, HOE REPAIR, just exposure, what Jesse likes about Jonathan (he’s read a whole bunch of books Jesse hasn’t read), the guy from Switzerland who had nice handwriting, an autobiography of a character’s soul, a German genre, fake autobiography, Bohemian Europe in the 1890s, talking to farmers, dude, common for some people, fake and phony and putting on airs about intelligent they are, literary circles, don’t read anything past 10 years ago, Scalzi has replaced Heinlein, they say they believe that, keep current, you don’t have time to read both, most of everything was crap, harder to determine today, hasn’t withstood the test of time yet, debating how to pronounce Weichsel in 100 years, first hit rap group, recorded their songs here, hit song, fun catchy song, walking around the town, they saw the sign, that’s it, 50 years from now, this town has not accomplished achievement, absolutely amazing, on the ferry, CTV News, CNN for Canada, tell Americans, the shitty Justin Trudeau government, an extra bunch of money to poors, they want to get reelected, full blown Social Credit, a tax rebate, 19.8% commercial space empty, 50% is much more common in a small town, all for the sake of posterity, chat GPT teachers marking chat GPT homework, dead town, it’s just awful, hang out at the bus stop, hang out at the convenience story, kipple from Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, all the non-losers have left for the off-world, the world of the book, same world as Progeny, everybody is replaced by robots, squirrels are dying, institutional pollution, fill the ocean, thesis proven, same setting, same ideas, not literally true, working the same mine, working the same ideas, Nick And The Glimmung, Galactic Pot-Healer, a stepping stone to get to that other idea, androids, robots, three weeks from now, a really good one, Sheba by Jack Higgins, in response to people not liking Dial Of Destiny, the legendary temple of Sheba, put me down, Indiana Jones tanking is kinda bullshit, poor box office, in what period of time, one of the most expensive movies ever made, we didn’t need the first one either, we wanted it, now we don’t want them so much, two versions of The Warriors (1979), available as an audiobook, an excuse to watch it, comic book inserts, less real and gritty, Ship Of Ishtar by A. Merritt, work to do, editing this anthology, for secret operations, bunch of authors, substack, cool public domain stuff, Moon Tomb, the moon and death, Misha Burnett needs to promote better, some salty interesting points on twitter, great cover art, he’s problematic, jealous?, when you get famous enough people become jealous, Poe was a third rate writer, why did they say that?, because its true?, shit all over Lovecraft, lob a grenade and leave and close the door behind them, Edgar Allan Poe, who’s a better poet from the United States?, start making your list now, Annabelle Lee is popular and it’s good, The Song Of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mark Twain’s parody of The Raven, Bugs Bunny, controversial, that’s Heinlein in extremis, alcoholic mother and the lawyer father, bridge party, people are not asking for an adaption, see everybody explode, skinny dipping, the young black kid, see you on twitter.

Progeny by Philip K. Dick

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