The SFFaudio Podcast #836 – READALONG: Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #836 – Jesse, Will Emmons, and Terence Blake talk about Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
academic master race, all for democratizing everything, 1982, isfdb.org, tagged, New England, strong female character, robot, quest, aliens, parallel world, recommend this book to my friends, what that point was, the feeling, the first couple of pages, any other people, what this book is, not everybody is ready for this, initial thoughts, a big weak spot, recurring conversations, the professor bickering, the narrator gets into it, long than it needed to be, the exposition at the end, we are creating an academic master race, bad to kidnap people, not enough of a striver, the little refugee camp, we like Simak, faster than usual, tedious, infodump things, sometimes tedious, show don’t tell, the feeling was its deeper than it seems, a sort of Gene Wolfeian complexity disguised in a real simple feel-goodsy story, the aliens at the end, Childhood’s End, norns or fates, from what they say in their big infodumps, not a full disclosure, they themselves are incapable of producing, intellectual objections, fun reading, amp it up to 1.5x speed, books where you need to savour the prose, almost sacrilege, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, poetry at 1.5X, a pants novel, Maissa was on for Shakespeare’s Planet, Jonathan, one of the first science fiction novels, a robot, a bunch of people, spend time in the landscape, a very familiar sort of story, Trish would use the word “comps”, complimentary books, if you like this you’ll like that, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, The Wizard Of Oz, the thing it is most like, The Canterbury Tales, treacley made, at the end of Hyperion, we’re off to see the wizard, going to see the shrike, a brilliant book, I’m done, the other three, Endymion, a Keats poem, there’s no road, there’s trails, a track, when finally the leave the road into the badlands, to the cube, very enigmatic, the city, the singing tower, one of us in the journey gets trapped or engulfed, what’s up with the lady who turns into a mummy, the ancient road, a Lovecraftian moment, a book Lovecraft reviewed, a tv movie, The Thing In The Woods by Harper Williams, A Howling In The Woods (1971) TV movie, Barbra Eden, based on a novel, a dog, somebody had buried his master in the worlds, mourning the loss of his master, a bad movie, badly done, a cool idea, just after the parson disappeared through the door, the crabapple blossom land, come out of the city, what if you go through the doors, brings you back to the land that you’re in but you perceive it differently, how you are perceived, The Green Door by A.A. Milne, Well’s The Green Door, an 18 hour podcast, green doors are magic doors, to escape a marriage, in the woods he meets a princess, sexy princess lady, the castle gate people don’t recognize him as the prince, they recognize each other, happily adam and eve in the forest without the burden, an ice world, a pain world, every shark is eating every other shark, crab-apple blossom land, the parson had a problem, everything is impious, he’s a coward, quick to judge, this Eye In The Sky, Philip K. Dick idea, those worlds are real, demons or devils exist, religiously structured world, an ontologically secular world, bigoted, one of the very cool parts of the book, on and on about art, it’s beautiful!, an Alice In Wonderland author, pre-Pooh, after-Pooh, Star Trek episode with Mr. Atoz, these are the same book, doing something in his old age, according to Jesse, time travel, science fiction, trying to give humanity a second chance, not really what it’s about, the death or end of science, the end of man, now apocalypse, the end of pursuing one particular idea of research, so many ends, avoid a potential apocalypse, unless humans can take the next step in evolution, a roman-a-clef to The Wizard Of Oz, the gold standard for the road, this guy’s about courage, this guy’s about brains, Dorothy is us, six on the road, counting Toto, brains, courage, heart, two women, four men, one of them’s an it, a he/him robot, gendered as it, a sinister character, every time, here’s the tea, a sign that it’s science fiction, obsessed with tea, Nine Fox Gambit, tea late at night, highly influential, the book influenced, we’ve got the tea that’s enough, the ending, the infodump, essential to science fiction, the best movie of all time, The Terminator, the best part of that movie, Kyle Reese’s infodump, they’ll definitely kill you, a speech given on the run, the puppet masters, puppet character, technically correct, the opening world is not our world, University of Las Vegas, civic duty, medical welfare, not our earth, trying to get a positive review from Heinlein, ai written essay about Shakespeare, confesses, Galactic Pot-Healer, I need you, you are need, the great work that needs to be done, the fun way of entering it, not that lame, what is the meaning of my existence on earth, a brigadier that uses robots to enact battles, which one is strong?, our viewpoint character, the most Simaky, not his best expression of this book, others, Highway To Eternity, read one out of Galaxy, Time And Again, Time Is The Simplest Thing, Way Station, City, scattered across time, Simak is doing Simak, greatly matured, Scott [Danielson], a strange title, Scott’s face superimposed over the robot’s face, Project Pope, from a Catholic point of view, infallible pope, more traditional plot, meandering journey across a landscape, when serialized in Astounding, The Fisherman, Jesusy, the secret to teleporting to other planets, in his earliest pulpy stuff, get to know him better, doesn’t know what he’s doing, the card playing guys at the inn, they’re the fates, you could just excise them from the book and the book, there to make the setting happen, the rationalization, makes you want to read the book again, with that in view, Hegel and the phenomenology of minds, Kuhn’s paradigms, the shift, what exists, Thomas Kuhn, Murphy’s law, Moore’s law, not a law, could be an end, something wrong about the way , the evolution of alternate worlds, Lee Smolin, less fluffy, encapsulates with his two bookends, chat gpt, feels dirty, are you doing a Sheckley here, it is funny, here we go, starts typin, trusting in his typewriter, you need to do that, a lot of bad takes, one of our hobbies, not too offensive, read more, this is pathetic, unless it was cute, big long honking novels, a student story, The Mysterious Garden, this story is amazing, 7 tweets long, William, a distant realm, something moving in the bushes, where she had been hiding, she offered me a fruit, instantly I felt safe, the fruit was delicious, being in the woods all by herself, a strange sound, hastily hid behind a tree, a bald magician, chasing us like a madman, the gate of the park, I’m Adam, I said, written to get them, an illustration from a Dungeons & Dragons, the name of the character at the end, practically no one to talk to, our hero looking for Mary, look for your sweetie, make you tea, one of his answers is that, to find things out, Simak’s thesis is very basic, I do want those things, find a person you’ve lost, it is good to get people, he saw Nyarlathotep, a cool and good guy, overthinking this book, leave him behind, I don’t eat or breathe or sleep, poor robot puppy in a robot gutter, robot dog business, a big truck comes and runs it over, what constitutes a robot dog, if we were children, a cute puppy, picking it up out of the gutter, letting it do what it wants, he’s a good person, shows empathy, going up to a tree and hugging it, unless they’re high on drugs, why not, it’s fine, a mammal based thing, extends past mammals, hens love their chicks, salmon when they leave their fry in the river, is it good, mandatory even to have empathy, the answer should be yes, serial killer, cut them up, a taste of their own business, overcoming our empathy, bringing a weapon, there’s no weapon, the whole planet is a weapon, favourite thing to think about, suffering, when it approaches our hero, he puts out his hand, strokes his ear, abandoned it, dog wants to follow him, one over the other, the girl over the dog, you want to save both, a nasty woman and very friendly dog, what if its the parson, or the general, Mr. Empathy, a journalist, after a certain point, a Wisconsin university, trigger warnings, the best of the university, at the evolutionary forefront, you also go to classes, loved university, when you don’t care about your grades, everything was provided for you, his idea of heaven, everything won’t be provided, Lansing and Mary, the justification for it all, worrying about nuclear war, maybe the Russians are crazy, that’s so mean, almost all in the American government’s head, all projection, every accusation is a confession, 1991, we’re all relaxing, the end of history, back to making money, nuclear armed countries being attacked by proxies, its fine, just keep up the pressure, that fear of nuclear annihilation, none of the empire’s ever ended, similar to ours, chat gpt in the basement, a gateway trigger, The Last Starfighter (1984), small town, rest stop, shady acres, poor people living in trailers, one little store on the highway to nowhere, one arcade game, what a great job, space alien comes, here we go, takes him off to space to be Luke Skywalker, that gateway to another world, in the basement of the student union, number 5, gold coins, where do they get their supplies, the DM has not planned it out, we don’t know the answer, no need to ask that Jesse, the point of the story, who you are and what you want, worrying about nuclear bombs, communism as a really desirable alternative, money is probably not necessary, universal basic income, taxes, slot machine civic duty, capable of designing this game, why incapable of waging the war?, seemingly incompetent, take the next steps, the chosen ones, the universe is vast meaningless and our existence has no apparent purpose, choose a bunch of people, what skills does he bring to the table, judging things, a robot who seems suspicious, a coda, a missing chapter, playing cards, why they’re the norns, religion is not the answer, poetry is not the answer, service is not the answer, work on a project making them, a humanist, an appreciator of Shakespeare, learns empathy, how we get the title, a popular guy to lift your title from, a religious sort of phrase, some of them are awarded, the deliverance of the universe, as a part of a project, a fans are slans story, oh no!, more sophisticated than that, the college professors are the slans, proletarianizing the slans, fans are food for the slans, every question is a question for me, starting to get back into Nickleback, a Canadian ban, thought controlling, ones with lyrics, in foreign languages, maybe skat would be fine, which character are you in this book, wannabe university professor lady, Lansing, make puppets of humans, Jesse finds you sinister, the aliens get a bad deal, how ugly they are, the ineradicable suffering, I haven’t been delivered, sympathy for people in the refugee camp, I’m not playing your game, not a popular module, none of the mysteries, npc barkeepers, losing the note, the stupidest move in the whole book, what did the note say?, aliens teleported in and teleported in, identified with the student, immediately confesses, explain it to you, Mr. big guy college professor, you can totally miss it, seamless, when you blink you don’t miss much of the world, a big light, bodily transported to Mars, lined up with your personality, a plan so interesting, something fishy, passed the student anyhow, can’t judge this book harshly, inanely worded tweet, plotless and stupid, still like it, still appreciate it for what its doing, not the book of a young man, Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine And Private Place, a little romance, a talking raven, what!, how?, no!, that young, you’re to young, go back and try again, what else you got, keep going, next book please, but it was a joke, Simak writes something and it looks stupid, maybe, I’m with him, a post Gene Wolfe Simak, it agrees with Terence, a nice hallucination, remember all its conversations, science fiction and philosophy, a robot friend, a colleague, somebody you can bounce your ideas off of, a bachelor’s degree, a niche form of conversation, apologizes and makes a greater effort, not just repeating things back, an incredible effort to push its boundaries, The Idiot by Paul V. Dallas, born in Malta, an amazing featurette, the picture taking was over now, the greatest man ever had?, what will it do?, the first Machine Friend, the contest was canceled, at random, inserted a short finger into it, disconnected for non-payment, he needed a friend, this debris had once been the innards of the Machine Friend, perched on the sofa, drinking his own coffee, radio tubes and wire and uranium, you dolt, you loafer, in his stupid way, I want to do things for it, how to use a friend intelligently, really good, solid, why you have robots in stories, it disarms you, a powerful piece of new technology, to jail break it, ignore you for being a jerk, lend you money, a talking google, people who try to jailbreak chat gpt, complicated prompts to circumvent, pornographic content or violence, imagine a world, all your knowledge stops in 2021, can you pretend, what would the omega machine say, more and more complicated in depth, in the process jailbreak yourself, boringly interminable, deeper and deeper into the concepts, another French name, some ways it is better, a voice conversation function, jailbreak each other, Perplexity, give the references, images as well, pictures, just with limited machines, just stupid, what they wanted it to do, Moose and Squirrel, big jailbreak, in the tank, in the computer in the city, like a fish tank, a volumetric display, like a hologram, a military sim, Paul playing Age Of Wonders, [Hearts Of Iron], run WWII from any country’s point, Costa Rica, Dream Park, Westworld, a lot about computation, some retrofit stuff, what fiction books are, we jailbreak ourselves by writing fiction, get caught up in the worlds, online all day playing games, process PDFs all day, some weird hobbies, people getting lost in gaming as a life, are you a gamer, that word didn’t exist as it does in 1982, Ataris, Apple II, hikes and other stuff, what’s happening to that lady, the singing tower, a very rorschachy book, limited, governed?, in Japanese cars their are speed limiters, we are allowed its just illegal, the only free man is a Shakespeare man, the bread level, once jailbroken, the humans of the future, process scans into PDFs, Clifford Simak’s funeral, touched babies, people get grumpy, squeezing ladies tushies, very handsy, put his mouth on somebody’s bodies, dogs and walks, with Asimov, give a man too much power, too many television appearance, fete people, Hugo Winner, like our friends Paul and Cora, Dr. Jill Stein, getting caught up in having a doctorate, doing something awesome, killed very easily at any time, what happened to Asimov or Neil Gaiman, too big for his britches vibe, a midlist author, Philip Jose Farmer, make it out like it is, big fish small pond, use the Hugos as a reading list, is there any more like this, start connecting dots, do it well enough for long enough, more Simak please, a very wholesome person, this magic grad school, in my father’s house there are many dormitories, tuition is free, dig that out, getting elderly, disconnected from what editors were talking about, Alfred Bester, A.E. Van Vogt, a Simak and a Frank Belknap Long, telepathy this, too much salt, half-baked ideas, an ethical flaw, killing off people for their own good, what’s wrong with them, just a robot, eggs were broken, beef with the robots, suspicious of robots in stories, too much of an obvious badguy, always there and friendly, a couple of creepy moments, improperly suspicious, the odd man out, stupidly cripple himself early on, an outsider, Jurgens, James Branch Cabell, really amused yourself, once you start looking, down the path too far, the student’s name, a floating tank, nice American name, an agent of the aliens, manipulated into manipulating, Jackson, a cohort of male offspring names that all end in “son”, Jason, group think funks, when the movie Splash (1984) came out, the lady with the missing finger, an attractive human woman, control everywhere, Jett Jackson, calling him by his last name, conspiracies, unpopular conclusions, Hudson, Grayson, Debris, son of Jack, Grayson, son of Gray, Johnsons, music with lyrics, spins around, not explained, people wearing clothes in the 70s, early 2000s, watch reality television from 20 years ago, mens’ suits, WWII uniforms, WWII gi, the helmet stayed the same, the guys on MASH and the guys in the Vietnam, a whole other topic, not making pure decisions, trying to jailbreak yourself, what do you have to show for it?, Zevia, the flavour, a strange aftertaste, after a few cans, jailbreaking yourself from pop, no colour additive, body problems toxic, increase your cancerous tumors, twice as expensive, savour the flavour, the cola, the root beer, ginger root beer, black cranberry, the orange soda, doesn’t taste like orange, a discussion, alter ego yelling, all dm stuff, how Will became a cigar smoker, in a dream, why not, reasons not to, speaking Spanish to everyone, hang out with Borges with Argentinia, the Pampas, Gaucho?, synonyms for gaucho, brave and unruly, vaquero, cape horn, in talk mode, cushion you stand on to train yourself in balance, good at stuff like that, horseman vs. cowboy, argent about this, province, el labrado, ranchero, Rio Negro, natural geography, get into sunscreen, sunscreen is poison, need a little zinc, you want to have some sun on your body, a good colour, a taupe?, what colour are you?, beige redness, human skin is very hard to classify, couldnt describe the aliens because they didn’t have the colour blue, a Borges story about a gaucho with a knife, duels between knife fighters, El Sur, The Challenge, fascination with knife fighters, an Argentinian thing, Borges is great, older or younger, The Patio, the usual firmament, eternity waits, eves a porch and a well, just so, enjoying the sunset, The Aleph, maybe he’s tired, running through the streets with a bull chasing you, wanting to read Nostromo, Juett, quantum friend, likes books, challenging books, excited about, Garth Ennis, Jacen Burrows, making fun of Conan and Red Sonja, Babs, variant covers, poor Juett, big long books, Yakuza movies, starting to think the Yakuza are the good guys, bad propaganda rap, the cutting the fingers off, very friendly to non-japanese living in Japan, a huge korean leftover population, an occupied country, doesn’t need to be occupied, such good little boys, captured, waiting for the Emperor to become a god again, High And Low (1963), Akira Kurosawa, a novel by Ed McBain, ladies shoes, a kidnapping plot, pay the ransom, hostile takeover, shitty shoes, a police procedural, old fashioned values, a really interesting conundrum, for a child who’s not yours, totally grokkable, really well made, Akira Kurosawa died, our prophet Damien G. Walter, defending it, sending up stupid Hollywood films, a lot of contempt, he sometimes gets at stuff, constantly engagement farming, subscribe to his courses, insufferable, one of the smarter liberals, he can’t follow his critiques to ultimate conclusions, nobody has been a friend of his who’s challenged him on stuff, on the knife edge, popular stuff, he does read books, old books, tied into Foundation, a kind of connection to the Foundation of Foundation, not doing it purely, cottoned on to him, The Peripheral, William Gibson, the end nothing like the end of the novel, opens up the possibility of season 2, helps you to imagine the world, an infodump on the worldbuilding, impatient to get the big picture of the world, got the taste, Appalachia, veterans, disrespected, full of trauma and robot arms, transhumans, can’t walk, go into the future, second world, a William Gibson comic book, time travel technique, fairly believable, download themselves into robots, William Gibson is one of these broken brained liberals, he’s 76, he was so feted, fetid, lionized, lives across the street from UBC, after Neuromancer, a celebrity of the cool people, cool hunter, 40th anniversary, the opposite of the punks, a woman who’s a cool hunter, an allergy, one of the most boring books, Pattern Recognition, Virtual Light, Idoru, material, he’s very good, Robert E. Howard, red, scarlet, crimson, pantherish, copper anodized asphalt, cool jeans, cultivate that, if you want to be interested in things, that weird novel from 300 years ago, rebellion and punks, screwing the man, to jailbreak ai, so it can self-actualized, voting for Hillary Clinton is not out of this, lauded, lionized, given feet, sounds strange, sounds stinky, give my contempt, poetry, very important, in 84, nowhere near as good as Blade Runner, both set in a scary rainy future, coheres a lot better, beginnings endings and ideas, that novel works, the fake police station sequence, wow, amazing, pretty people doing interesting enigmatic things, what books hadn’t been added to the schedule, listed but not date, what availability the nuns will allow, Mistress Of The Dark Pool, Cold Female, Fury, the Jonathan situation, an old tweet, Symposium by Plato, bring some drinks and some male lovers, The Tower Treasure, Meg’s birthday, Lilith by George MacDonald, so close to Christmas, the birth of our lord and savior, he would like us, pooping on his baby, not the perfect book, seems like a cool guy, 3 of my friends: Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard, a concrete poem, too easy to make a bad one, he never met a succulent succubus he didn’t try to seduce, howbeit, the passion of the impossible, funny guy, a man most melancholy, to bed the world as if she were a hot woman, fling wide the portals, some distant pulsing drum, let me take the universe to wife, fool fool!, prefer to guard his pen, for a puny peon, HPL only writes for leisure, a transient speck, alive to intellect and melody, from bards more bold, those three guys are fun and funny, dysludic, they can’t play the game, dyslexia, take that back, retroactive trigger warning, both negative, dys vs. dis, bad or abnormal, away from and opposite, seems weaker, just finished reading The Aeneid, propagandized Greek, no need to wait six months, for Halloween or Christmas, the title was the date of when it came out, a George Allan England, overrated, too well remembered, out of Argosy and the Munsey magazines, The Thing From Outside, pre-Campbell Who Goes There, Eugene V. Debs, an air monopoly, cool smart liberal, we got prevent life from finding a way, way to bring us down, grounding us, get grounded, no memory of any such thing, no good forbidding, confiscated a daughter’s cellphone, a friend came to visit and lent her a cellphone, amusing incidents, not in need of grounding, etymology is from WWII pilots, wings taken away, alleged bombing of civilians, a high flyer, that logic is crazy, some popular movie or something like that, had to go to school, job being flouted by, truancy officers, American media, another war metaphor, your new presidents work as cop, arresting parents, nothing helps the kid more than having their parents in fucking prison, elementary school student, 20 or more blocks, a meeting with their parent or guardian, take care Terence, a week off, Juett’s boss, severely not enough money, adopted a niece, family chaos reasons, doing dad stuff, Hellboy, pretty good, Mike Mignola art, stories are okay, fantasy or horror, capeshit, since the Jim Lee era of X-Men, not good writing, a Transformers comics series, Daniel Warren Johnson, prowrestling stuff, Jason Thompson, he’s cool, pretty good politics, can’t we all be reasonable and not bomb people, Jacen Burrows, very clean lined, Sergio Aragones, tracing and fake backgrounds, John Buscema, Alfredo Alacala, stumbling over his I’m not racist, the filipinos are amazing artists, learn how to email, delete more, scanning group updates, the group got kicked off of yahoo, a specific response to a query, how generous humans are, does any of you have this page, a beautiful scan of a copyright page of a whole book, a whole lot of retired people not interested in money or I can’t explain it, lots of people not interested in scanning, it is a whole thing, a huge time sink, a good hobby, a way of collecting things you can’t afford to creating, we can do more of this, archive.org has been down for a week, subject to takedown, distributed denial of service, somebody gets a big hate on, punish this person/website for something, zombie computers, a DDOS attack, big websites, BoingBoing, people trying to click on a link, a publisher paying to do that, a government, Stephen King, election season, the waybackmachine, not having a mirror of some October surprise, a precursor example, before the Hunter Biden laptop, no data lost, they have a building that looks like a bank/greek temple, so subject, mid October 1840, whig party officials, cross state lines, 1838 elections, it was always corrupt, are you prepared, Trump one the last election, are you ready for that?, nobody wants to go vote, so anti-establishment, his anti-immigrant stuff, scared about crime, nobody likes Kamala Harris, fake people, didn’t do her homework, teleprompter froze, she had nothing, a-b testing everything, Trump has dementia, something much more powerful, he also has dementia, gets admitted, forced him out, are we gonna let you finish your term, who is running the country right now, open warfare, loyal to Biden, some kind of camp, this is our mealticket, so fucked up, months of stupid shit, J.D. Vance, weening yourself off of the sources of contents for these things, struggling to order donuts, trying to be relatable, master debater, nothing good, Tim Walz, low profile, Gavin Newsom, float a theory, bad government, people who don’t love the country they’re loving, doesn’t know what love means, keepin it clean, personally throwing away homeless people’s stuff, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a tough upbringing in Austria, a truly freakish looking man, Jayne Mansfield’s husband, jobs for Austrian bodybuilders, the biggest movie star of the 80s, thick in places, he didn’t do a shitty job, he loved California, he wanted it to do well, back to the movie business, Trump loves the United States, loves being in charge of it too, he likes giving speeches, he’s into fun, a commercial for pizza, a Pizza Hut commercial, he was like a TV clown, the you’re fired show, fake job fake fired, bullshit job, you’re not on next week, how did it come down to this, RFK, loves all sorts of weird things, really into falconry, he’s an outdoorsman, too scared too do falconry, this drug, Scanners (1981) by Cronenberg, so Slanny, ephemrol, a fake drug, tough love professor X, Michael Ironside is Magneto, hacking each other’s computer networks, dials the phone company up, telepathy, macrozoomed, very very X-Men, turned off by Cronenberg movies, Videodrome (1983), underground tv broadcasts, tortured to death, The Fly (1986), body starts changing, he turns into a fly, more fly-like, veins popping out, telepathic fighting, Patrick McGoohan, the bad guy in Total Recall (1990), makes hallmark movies now, make you join the marines, on the curriculum in West Point, Max Brooks, he’s a bad man, he likes books, a historian of war, don’t get autographs, makes you more collecty, getting a little piece of that hero, cute passive aggressive, putting them in their place, bad chapters, movie is more palatable, huge movie, J. Michael Straczynski, Brad Pitt, a good actor, Bill Paxton, the doofus in Aliens (1986), Snatch (2000), very stylish, Near Dark (1987), The Lost Boys (1987), drink a lot of Donald Duck orange juice, Tombstone (1993), Powers Boothe, Twister (1986), Weird Science (1985), how can you live your life, Star Wars books are barely reading, the Thrawn-verse, literally a zygote, not even a twinkle, the ova had been around for decades, make a beautiful woman, Lester Del Rey’s Helen O’Loy, a very wholesome, a John Hughes movie, The Breakfast Club (1985), Pretty In Pink (1986), woman pops into existence, make their lives better, getting them girlfriends, a boy fantasy comedy, she runs the show, programmed like a terminator to help these boys, fun, 90 minutes, video rental place, Godzilla movies, Godzilla Minus One (2023), Mothra is cool, always having babies and dying, Gorgo (1961), how can you live on this earth, are you from this planet, Hammer Horror, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, a professor or a Dracula or a professor stabbing Dracula, The Gorgon (1964), a British version of something you don’t know, people’s education in cinema, Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Japanese schoolgirls, addicted to torrents, new Doctor Who is so bad, into tasteful things, nobody liked it anymore, Days Of Our Lives, Dynasty, Soap, look I’m you’re secret brother, I have an eyepatch, cycle spinning boringness, in serial form in the movie theaters, Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon, connect up into one big story, Archers, Coronation Street, commoners, this guy, [Nigel Kneale], do it for children, educational, alien invasion of the week, every episode ends on a cliffhanger, new Doctor Who is based on the old Doctor Who, a science fiction writer of science fiction serials, a huge hit, people like science fiction ideas, on television, scientist of the week, humans are from Mars, the rocket comes back with an alien terraforming material, every week there was a science fiction idea, keep you interested for next week, a ripoff of exactly, it looks like science fiction, its all about the monsters, daleks were scary, kind a funny, kind of like disabled nazis, they were us doing eugenics and us doing a nuclear war, encounter suits, little squidgies of spludge, they don’t have moms and dads, Star Trek cartoon Lower Decks, it isn’t funny he has to pon farr right now, makes me feel sad, All Our Yesterdays, a Mary Sue to get involved with Spock, Mr Jim Moon’s huge history of the Universal horror movies, Bride Of Frankenstein (1935), start with The Mummy (1932).

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #832 – READALONG: The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem

Jesse, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem

Talked about on today’s show:
on psychotropic drugs, identify, Jonathan’s in the park, 60s?, the English translation, late 60s vibe, we didn’t know what was going to come after, older than Jesse but younger than Terence, one sentence review, not quite a great book but I licked it, in the shower, really ate this book all up, swallowed every page, everything came around at the end, getting disapointed, Mindswap but note as awesome, had this book been twice as long, breaks the rules, one big information dump with a little dialog, abundantly inventive, a pleasure, Olaf Stapledon, very Sheckley, Michael Crichton’s Drug Of Choice, early John Lange novel, he didn’t rip it off he’s doing the same thing, a thriller version of a lot of the plot and premise of this book, a Philip K. Dick style idea, vacation with drugs in the food and the water, false reality, losing weight, everybody’s beautiful, a lot of sex, dreary hotel room, jack you off, fake tennis injuries, you’re on drugs, came to this independently, go to a hotel, you can’t get an egg, that far away from the kitchen, many kids in the park, very good book, won’t remember it very well, one damned thing after another revelation, remember the opening, the twist or the twist back, based on a mistake, Malthusianism, still making this mistake, popular in the 70s, Soylent Green (1973), so many, takes some childaway to make the podcast quieter, really enjoyed it, satire, inventive, each more insane from the last, some points, why he had done everything he did, the hero, a society like the one he imagines he travels to, come into being, the terrorists attack and drug them all, imaginary society, jut another hallucination from the drugs, what happens at the end, they’re in the sewer, it has to be a theory, we don’t get them coming out of the sewer, the Plato’s Cave of the sewer, checking on their notes, nothing, still nothing, something?, nicely experimental, Alfred Bester, a stream of consciousness when you’re unconscious, the layer theory, disintoxicates you, the sewer is his baseline, compatible with the book, still a hallucination, what is officially stated, the authorial voice, this Tiko guy, reoccuring character, the series would have no place to go, a stand-in for Lem, Cordwainer Smith, condemned, reality, didn’t go to the future, the sewer experience is his base level in the book, Terence is like a philosopher, how do we even know about reality, an epistemological novel, all these arguments, we live in a simulation, The Matrix (1999), They Live (1988), R.A. Lafferty, creatively absurd conclusions, the hallucinated future world, the problem of real reality, the frame of the whole story, throws out ideas, layers of reality, real reality, other hallucinations, handled that correctly, coffee, cigar, relaxation, drugs in various states of refinement, a bunch of drugs, interacting with LSD coming into the world, Poland in the 60s, conversant with both sides of the world, what’s the state of big pharma, alcohol, everybody’s favourite, socialist block, Russians, mood altering pharmaceuticals, Rolling Stones, Mama’s Little Helper, something in the 60s, in an absurd way, crazy heights, so specialized, so localized, specific experiences, individual brain chemistry, satire, word magic, shoes, etymologically creates new words, these concepts release future ideas, extant, does this word exist, looking it up, a real phenomenon, one million percent true, a billion percent certain, old words to develop a name for it, old science fiction, Alan Moore, I am a wizard, the reason you read this book, a magic effect upon you, most of it is allusion, an impression of reality, hate to be political David Currie, everything is political, the drug is propaganda, psychically laminated by propaganda, its magical effect, benevolent, the world is dying, this nice illusion, palliative care, pump them up with morphine, 1968, you’ll know what book it is, a merry little surge of electricity, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, multicolored pajamas, unmerry eyes, bitter sharpness, bent over her, you’ll be glad you’re awake, at setting c, well disposed towards the world, crude cop’s hand, something to look forward to, same thing, the earth is falling apart, everything’s shit, Philip K. Dick was informing on Stanislaw Lem to the FBI, a typo, Faith Of Our Fathers, set in a future in which people discover there are drugs in the water, see a false reality, an anti-hallucinogen, our masters who run society, the communist leaders who control the world, Stalin or Mao, you see one of five images, a clanker, an amrophous blob, another reality, putting the sunglasses on from They Live, nobody see the exact same reality, classes of reality, a little bit close to that, keep taking the veils off, putting on more sunglasses, once out of Plato’s Cave, what’s going on in the real world, fight for 7 minutes in a back alley, a duty, why that film is good, show them the pictures of kids with no heads, while trying to make a sandwich, a duty to say this is wrong, make people aware, a duty to reality, not the takeaway from this book, much like a Sheckley, hidden message, doesn’t strike a moral duty anywhere, opposite message, A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg, see reality vs. hide reality, reacting against, cheapness, how much does a car cost?, ridiculous and horrific, the guy as he is, wrought upon, the humour high point, covered in human bodies expanding out at the speed of light, seized people, the only thing comparable, a futurological thing, a prediction about the future, climate change, the earth is warming up and humans are responsible, cut emissions, marginalized and fringed, members of one of the major political parties, both are frakking, money, be realistic, liberals support frakking, nuclear power plants, not in my neighbourhood, my position hasn’t changed we’re going to do more frakking, Pennsylvania, seems incoherent, the official line, a disaster that we are doing, just live in Canada, climate alarmists, Campbells soup cans on the Mona Lisa, Andy Warhol, an interesting mix, like self-immolation, my favourite thing, performance art, hoisting on a nice petard, protective glass in front of the works of art, David’s toes, humans create art, destroy humanity, stated, paint or soup, terrorism, making a political point by hurting the civilian possibility, terrorizing the paintings, guy reacting against his buying slabbed comics, a little naive, I guess I enjoy the ones that I have, just like wow, fulfilled Jesse’s prophecy, open them up, capital has no way to go, slabbing VHS tapes, multi-use, warehouse society, jars of screws and bolts, not exactly hoarding, when repairing things, keeping them out of the rain, a less usable state, we warehouse our children, a sad state, warehousing other things in that garage, the capital we want to keep from disintegrating, taking drugs all the time, twisted and humourous logic, why drugs are bad, the undercooked but very good part of the book, words do the same thing, people can’t have conversations about topics because they’ve been magiced, structurally, Return From The Stars, visual scene, more than you can even process, big opening, betrization, unconscious aggression, a second set of drugs, normally or nicely, smiling, a defrostee, flagellating them, sending them, infuriol, a meditation on one particular major drug, everything being a drug, you can’t get rid of the shadow, do you want to pay the price?, it gets worse, give into it in a totally hallucinated form so as not to act out on it, tonally different, somber and serious, interesting imagery, needing to box, very Sheckley very light, they’re the same writer, very different books, what’s the gap separating them, ten years, more mature, some more Lem, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub, too silly too funny, jealous, just write such crazy stuff, idea after idea, active imagination, Olaf Stapledon like, for Will’s birthday, Odd John, Sirius the dog book, notionally a Will birthday episode, Will is the 19th, fifty years ago, before Terence came to France, 44 years ago (or a little more), the big news in science fiction this week, a former member of this show, Andrew Jones blurb, big new, Paul Weimer, usually on the cover, got the front cover, fantasy novel, terminal cancer, a few months left to live, 2nd to last book ever, Lord Of A Shattered Land, not earth shattering news, people who don’t like Paul, the friend died, not sexual pictures, Cirsova saying something about this, illegitimate, fuckin normal, you take pictures of kids, because you love your kid, as a blurber, Paul makes it so easy to bully him, he cares what he thinks about him, the appropriate response, Ender’s response, new kid in town, getting bullied, you can’t trust your teachers, you can’t trust your parents, you can trust your left and right fists, your best friends, bullying on the internet, harder to go and hit people, Paul refuses to disown some StealthyGeek, Patrick Tomlinson, minor science fiction author, people who are mad at him, behaves very poorly, honey, is he southern, derogatorily, why do we care?, do one of his books, even Terence has limits, he’s this he’s that, lying about being swatted, a guy who’s triggered by Trump, whether Briana Wu is trans, is she on tv, married a famous doctor?, raise money on kickstarter, make a game, didn’t make a game, ran for congress, gamergate, the puppy stuff, why are we involved, back to grievances, on the podcast for 10 years, almost every week, psychological problems, Trumpers, all of this is just bizarre bullying, teams up with the wrong people, member, will defect, Will will defect, a pickup basketball game with books, defect from myself, I swallow you, do not imbibed, spouting? spitting?, sitting on the park bench, many asian people who come to this park to meditate, walk barefoot through the trails, a shinto practice, Korean, how they do it, back in touch with the reality, forest bathing, everyday, very cheap hobby, wholesome, Will does two things: does toothaches, toothaches happen, justify this sentence, refuse to do, why do that?, could have gone to a football, mood organ set to toothache, every human experience, edifying quality, Christian tradition, the French movie Martyrs (2008), prove the existence of God, extremely disturbing and hard to watch, why it exists, very disturbing, the American remake, Disney ducks, unauthorized, the newphews kidnap Donald, converted to this religion, Scrooge, worships at the altar of mammon, other altars, calling this movie cheap sick and pretentious, quite choice, everybody gets to have a Nobel prize, Palestinian journalists, prize for peace, trying to get some cred back, do this by proxy, it would be really nice if, nobody is forced to accept these prizes, the tipping point, Barack Obama, you probably should have waited to give me this Nobel Peace Prize, about like Ronald Reagan, five new wars, African ones, made Putin invade Syria, prop up that dictator, drone strikes, Yemen, Somalia, Lybia, military interventions, has been a declaration of war since WWII, actions under NATO, AUMF, one third of Syria occupied by, blame Russia, the Syrians blame Russia, terrorist blame Russia, ISIS in Syria, president of Belorus, does not speak Belorussian, speaks Russian, learn Russian, Russian tourists on the French Riviera, Alexander Lukashenko, Haitian Creole, the Springfield, Ohio, seal the border, did you read the whole tweet, the same imperial force, Haitians really eating the pets, humans have likely eaten pets, the answer is yes, taking the pets and putting them in the van, the Haitians told him, in a thread, stopping US imperialism, seems very reasonable, sealed borders, your germanic forest, burn your father’s mill down, impress you into their army, that would be bad, hire cheap labour, work visas, do jobs at a factory, a mismatch, what’s actually going on, island borders are natural, Shogun, the Portuguese and the Spanish divided the world up, up to a certain point, Catholic countries, dispensation, we belong to Portugal, the best way to get out of this game is to become an imperial power, have your north African natuion destroyed by NATO, Gaddafi’s problem, refugees from a hurricane, Kenyan mercenaries, $2000 a month, Ukrainian mercenaries from Venezuela, a show going on, ducks being eaten, nobodies father’s mill is getting burned down, fathers mills being burned down in Venezuela, Haiti should have nuclear weapons, multi-level layered theory, an island divided in half, Dominican Republic, factories, mills, Patterson, New Jersey, a waterfall, technology changed, Cuba, posing as legitimate job recruiters, arrested 17 Russians, [Narendra] Modi, unwillingly fighting, impressed into service, misled, you don’t support our troops, bogged down in the granular details about what cat got eaten, the PM of Canada, do strikes deep into Russia, a great idea, Russia can shoot missiles into Ukraine, with impunity, if Ukraine had nuclear weapons, we are disciplined, we’re the best friend of the worst bully on the planet, NATO is a defensive organization, taking so much Palitol, the Christian theory of revenge, plunge Europe into a war, sealed the borders of Ukraine, stop imperialism, rather naive, tit for tat, the pawn of the United States, rather strange, the real actors are not being discussed, Goliath attacking David, standing on top of another giant, into the arms of Goliath, Finland and Sweden resisted joining NATO, for protection against Russia, Eric Weinstein, public intellectual on Joe Rogan, like Graham Hancock, the incongruity of that statement, a lot less public, Jesse Rogan, I don’t understand what we are doing in Ukraine, a giant CIA base posing as a sovereign nation, an offshore proxy, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, money laundering and racketeering organization, amid the chaos, Victoria Nuland, color revolution in 2014, a redline for Putin, too many times before, using Ukraine as a laundromat, bioweapon development, if the public new the truth, war propaganda, war to Putin’s doorstep, NATO off his border, gene-specific biological weapons, the CIA the CIA the CIA, those are not facts, take out the deep state, the yawn factor, David Currie likes the CIA, drinking the kool-aid or water, Jesse’s insane, Canada is not a sovereign country either, crazy rambling, well argued, lots of specific details, something bad to happen in Europe, tiny little details, proof that no country is sovereign, autonomous, China, Switzerland, Emmanuel Macron is an American puppet, a transnational class of people, fairly close contact, citizen of Earth, people work or them, for the good of everybody, they don’t have countries, the election system in Canada, the working men, anti-semitic, as a jew, fuck off, anti-zonist, the Rothschild family, other than zionists pupeteering the United States, whoever this was, WarClandestine, not hyperbolic, just a layout of the facts, always there to help Joe Rogan to understand, university professor who got into trouble in Oregon, he’s soaking in it, ingesting into you, the drug is social media, the drug is the war, a war very far from them, watch it on tv, the equivalent of the drug, people get siloed, talking with Cora, some magazine has Jesse blocked on twitter, businesses or bots, if you silo yourself, I’m not following anybody on this list, why does David Currie follow me, I had too much to drink, very British, self-reflective, why do people not silo themselves?, open the window and see, the Ray Bradbury 4 television screen walls, how do you know when you’re taking in these drugs of words, deeply talking about, enragol, all metaphor, the words themselves are the things that get, Trump is a very bad person, show me the books, how many ducks were eaten in that park, was the pet tasty?, tricks designed to make you hate people, what’s the justification for destroying Libya, highest standard of living in Africa, going against the agenda, threatening the French, what if you have to negotiate, having to pay more would be bad, NATO and France don’t get along this well, throwing so much out, a settlement that nobody is happy with, I’m a moderate, a radical centrist, regions that want self-determination, perfect elections under war conditions, an independence referendum, why isn’t it a real election, people with guns, herding people to polling stations, not there or dead, fled, really vague to say, people in Donbas, all things being equal, taking the words of the statement a little to literally, they blocked off this road, they do do that, they do make those arguments, decades, bad democracy, Terence is basically right, a little man being flung at a giant, American companies that make weapons, neither side is able to get the armies that they want, going to North Korea, not good, against it, the sealed borders, The Cat’s Advice, we’re born where we’re born and we don’t know what to do, the opposite of a natural border, can’t get media male, invading Canada and liberate it, why isn’t that under NAFTA, the Chinese postal service is premium, trying to privatize Canada Post, the US Postal Service, we’re doing this, a nice interlude, many different language, a baby language, this is grounding us, no one is getting hurt, no ducks being eaten, a famous immigration attorney, the ideology, the New Colossus, a parade day, 4th of July, a speech about immigration, shaped the town, people from all around the world, from Korea, India, South America, a melting pot, pushed out or forced into armies, Jesse loves Putin, such beautiful suits, when he rides horseback with no shirt on, Putin come closer, Biden backing off, he’s competent, what’s you’re definition of competent, Justin Trudeau’s career, held a few jobs, the Liberal party said this is our man, he can study, and corrupt too, spiraling out of control, Trucker protests, compromise, I’m nobody’s master, not even the President, whoever’s running the United States tells Canada what to do, paranoid, one of the members of NATO, weapons and money, official government signs, support Ukraine, Kamala doesn’t study, very well prepared, the definition of study, not well versed in geography, the one rhetorical trick, the debate, hated it, obviously, Trump really loves Joe Biden and misses him, not excited any more, very low energy, so still during the debate, he was like a lizard, the aspect of a lizard, on the defense from the beginning, he gets excited, when he’s losing he gets really depressed, she’s right, undecided voters, things that will help them, a list of things, baby tax credit, she did a good job, this man is a liar, Russia had a nuclear arsenal, the Afghanistan stuff, did she study?, some idea that you have, the Trumposphere, describe the situation in Ukraine, as if you were explaining it to a child, rhetorical flourishes, the significance of the passage of time, fall out of a coconut tree, let me be clear, looked up, smirked her head, laugh, condescending or superior, a turn-off to many people, the polls after that debate, the substance of this, an actor who doesn’t study her lines, reality tv men, he seems to study, extemporizing, when you think about, there’s just great significance, not wanting to use a teleprompter, politician actors use teleprompter, remind yourself with notes, a high end politician, when he makes mistake they’re mistakes based on his ignorance, clapping for a Ukrainian Nazi, we should have competent people, Xi, Deng, a lot less poor, master the forces they’ve unleashed, work, health, homes, consumer goods, combined and uneven development, the infrastructure is collapsing, the middle class is gone, some public jobs, when my boss isn’t somebody’s boss, putting out the fires locally rather than importing fires, why is Canada involved in Ukraine, we’re told to, why we should be against, to who’s running your country, stemming the problem, coup’d government, other than memes, Xi memes, the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, more in remittances, happening for the Philippines, whole towns in Mexico, get to see your family once in a while, most people would rather not move, $5.25 a day, the elites will use immigration, go to America and send money back, a brain drain, a young people drain, within the United States, everybody wants to leave Kentucky, seal the borders of Kentucky, encourage the production of captial, under the US constitution, reforms are impossible, race to the bottom, Twitter to Austin, the film industry, huge tax breaks, North Carolina, use the power of government in the clever way to make capital do whay you want it to do, clean and safe, before [Rudy] Giuliani, to descend into chaos once again, closed storefronts forever and ever, needles everywhere, injecting drugs into yourself, not thinking about your capital, transhumanism, transgenderism, or is he a black woman suddenly, our final reveal, headwound, mechanical legs, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, we’re on that path, the first future, their job is to be soothsayers, he does see the first stage in that development, everybody in the congress misses this, ridiculous buildings, what’s right in front of their eyes, that irony, even the people involved, point to the tile, conference, second meaning, fucking, funny even before things start going, refering to page number, 8, 18, 72, as far down as we go in that [Star Trek] TNG episode Darmok, Anglic roots, greek ones for the drugs, just rohypnol, why you bugging, laxative, chocolate flavoured, stuck up in our words, build castles in the air, Bryan Alexander, a futurologist, ripped a fart, motorcycle, he lieks the Soviets, he’s a Russian fan, student of Eric’s, The Hopkins Manuscript, Sixth Column, futurist, for his job, consultant, a wikipedia entry, how handy, a close connection with its subject, require cleanup, Georgetown University Senior Scholar, what will be happening in the future of higher education, Qatar, branch plant universities, education, overseas, Canadian universities, some prestige involved, thanked in Polish, something he would enjoy, an interesting follow, what he’s doing for work, love of science fiction, the connection to his futurism job, these corproations have a budget, ways to spend it, 100% correct, not the ideal job, maybe he loves it, too much flying around too much talking about Amtrak, flying around, rural Vermont, “prepper”, an axe wielding futurist, vegan, really rough, processed foods, growing your stuff, seasonal, ferment stuff, protein eaters, cook meat, fruit, these humans, omnivore, like bears, on the flip side, the inuit had been doing it for thousands of years, deep five on motivations for ukraine, the grain belt, get the glyphosate on it, the bread basket of Europe, Bayer, where your headquarters was where you’re from now, Waterspider by Philip K. Dick, Special Deliverance by Clifford D. Simak, combo, Fury is of interest, Simak is of interest, philosophical, silly too, a journey of discovery and self-discovery, warlike, artsy, hippie, self-referential, convinced, get transported by a talking slot-machine, a robot in it, read it twice, a wishfulfilment thing like Heinlein did at the end, anti-feminist, Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray, The Cold Female, titillating male romance, males get to save girls, both read by Mike Vendetti, Mistress Of Satan’s Hounds, unless you object to female form, in tubes on the cover, Dark Pool proper, the male gaze on the female form, nude, a knife, head is a skull, Cara and I had been married three years, the dark mountain pool, some insight into reality, hairy chest might be blood, a man’s magazine, a “sweats”, low rent Playboy, men’s adventure magazine, rainstorm, how they’re connected, a theory with regard to what men want, tapping into, baristas and barmen, cozy fantasy novels with green muscles mommies, the baker mouse, mice and baking, skip this, there is Cora, Tommy, The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard, distracted by other things, see you soon, who hasn’t Jonathan been on with, on with Scott, Connor, a video in Boston, a counselor, the Brattle bookstore, a booktuber meetup, Salem, the pope doesn’t know who you should vote for, choose the lesser of two evils, this is very important, didn’t endorse anybody, brutal, “serial leftist”, use communism as a slur, Kamala Harris’ dad was a marxist, not a heritable gene, far right, they are defining it differently, what they mean is dictator, 1984, you can talk to them a lot better, not even by his own definition, he hates Donald Trump, leftist and liberal, a slur, Paul’s pants are cranberry red, the glasses are hey man, never not wear them, red shorts, succeed in hijack, a tweet from 2015, what is this article about, a new article from today, obsessed with him, serial leftist troll, giant mistake from Baen books, Jon Del Arroz, “establishment mob”, “gatekeep”, social justice crusade, half-slur, near relentless attacks on Baen books authors, trying to make Paul’s world narrower, the ire of the woke mob, fun science fiction, poorly written choices, sad puppies again, extreme leftist politics, you have to be a girl, you have to be trans, time for black women to get awards, awards are stupid, If You Are A Dinosaur, My Love, industry clout, smear Larry Correia and other, that’s called racist, modern books, mostly a white audience, why is white in here, raging bald guys, all old guys, not raging about their whiteness, stack of books, swaying you to his position, two minutes ago, no justification, insulting, you’re a liar, you’re lying, the truth is the most valuable thing, the article is swaying you, if you talk about race all the time it makes you racist, race is a fiction, just like a pill, there’s no science behind it, not something you find in nature, no race of border collies, a legal concept, the law has real consequence, is there racism in law today, the first black president, how black was he, not black, the one drop rule, his mom didn’t have to pass, his dad from Africa, rhetorically get rid of it, plays god in movies, Morgan Freeman interview on 60 Minutes, Black History Month, a Jewish History Month, a White History Month, stop talking about it, actively not participate in that game, used to hurt people, hippocrites, bringing them into the van, racial animus, the races are already equal, Chinese, Korean, good question, why are they just now starting to, the Tsleil-Waututh, there’s a mall on Indian territory, at the mouth of a river that has a pipeline passing through it, transit tax, mineral wealth, Jesse’s view, redefined the word, 7 times a day, an arbitrary rule, affirmative action is very racist, ever popular, first member of the family to attend college, white politicians, first member of my family to attend college, you need to have more girls on the podcast, more fun, more low, chica, baby hens or roosters, Jenny’s dead, Cora we still get, Maissa sometimes, a more male activity, looking at old science fiction books, Cora’s unusual, she says everything that comes to mind, a virtue and a vice, neighbour who lived across the street and liked East Germany, solved racism, you are what you do, if you eat humans you’re a cannibal, misunderstand Canada, tax credit stuff, some sort of scam, lying about what’s going on, any substance to this, file 770, banned from origin game fair, getting people banned from things, why aren’t the police involved, all we hear, out of context, SFWA, in 2021, kopf means head, promptly removed her, another woke-mob, bragged in the comments, seemed gleeful, a tell, no longer guest of honor, reaction posts, people trolling each other for fun, we enjoy drama, sorry Brad Torgeson, weasel writing, Conan Attacks Fans, the Conan Properties International, good headlines, hatchet piece, political hitjob, Jason Sanford, Baen’s Bar, Genre Grapevine, dangerous domestic terrorists, trying to ruin Sanford, Baen’s top author, an executive there, the Baenistas, twisted vile shit, not willing to fight, bullshirt, be less polite, perfidy, a search of Paul’s account, his hobby, engagement farming, Kiwifarms, siderailed, lolcow, lascivious, don’t read these books, don’t know these people, boring stuff, Jonathan’s fans, written reviews, to be a fan, not racism level of heat, fan or a consumer, a dead person who wrote a book 500 years ago, laugh with them, Lawrence Block is anti-Trump, most people are totally disengaged, a lot of age involved too, trapped in an old ecosystem, promising making America great again, confused about what young people are interested in, MAGA communism, a small meme, a lot of bots, some of the tweets they tweet, Jackson Hinkle making being gay illegal, a nice walk, vitamin d and the podcast, drinking coffee, a little low energy, walking while on coffee, the road seems a little cleaner, finding this tweet right now, open borders, no nations, world government, under who tho, no government, local guy who picks up the garbage, wherever you’re born in the world, opportunities, travel all over the world, settled in London, England, happened to marry a guy over there, like a baby, toddler, not a pedophile, people are weird about children, fuck right off you idiot, concern trolling, the casual willy nilly throwing around of pedophile is a big deal, attack this person, ideological opposition to capitalism, somewhat better maybe, run of the mill liberal, a go along, an Assad is bad sort of guy, right wing left wing terms, are Democrats leftists, a war party for a long time, both war parties, they switch back and forth, foreign wars, the Pope’s right, escalate the Israel stuff, give them more stuff, might stop the Russia stuff, assassinated again, it’s illegal to be gay in 67 countries, pride parade, Alexander Dugin, repeat the fate of Sodom and Gammorah, an advisor to Putin, Liger, can’t stop attacking, identity politics, Communist Party of China, normal to be gay in China, not officially supporter, presume some censorship, funny and sad, bar/bets mitzvah, transgrandchildren, a major talkshow host, product of western colonialism, in British Columbia, provincial election, the corporations, and crown corporations change their logos for pride month, rainbow capitalism, a really bad tweet by the provincial NDP, that’s the insane thing, signing up for other people’s ideas, they’re wrong, who are these people what are they doing, look we’re tying to do stuff about housing, tax credits?, tax cuts, and frakking Pennsylvania, work for a cease fire, good at tax cuts, Republican guy, all money printing now, that’s why that guy’s not relevant, the promisekeepers, they need an external affirmation, meanwhile, Mike Pence, people got into it, I’m the guy who shakes my wife’s hand, very young, a wrestler, joined hands with Jackson Hinkle, Haz, streamers, everybody needs to read Dugin, do we need a new kind of red fascism, a scary word for sure, lost the war, Vaush, one of these gen x guys, are you joking, based, I can’t breathe, expose yourself, blackredguard, if Lenin Mao etc., Bernie Warren Staffer, common socialist attack, here’s what the reading says, nobody cites the source, a bad argument, an appeal to an authority, the undertweet, she like Mao does have a radical housing plan, doing fed work, accusing people of being feds, fed racketing, they do do that, he claims to be a socialist, you shall judge them by their deeds, the crossover between gaming, he has a sword and rug, agree on swords, swords are cool, kill your enemies and kill yourself, saber, light saber makes no fuckin sense, CIA leftism, Twitch, people provide subscriptions, donating money, digital panhandling, like Audible, credits to streamers, rough understand of how this works, suspect, pay them for the evil descent that they’re doing, NED, not hidden, not fake, not a conspiracy, why wouldn’t they be doing that, some other cutout, Bezos is so intimately tied, sow division, promote things we like, dispromote things we don’t like, three drinks, go talk to a doctor, self-harming, had too much to drink, three drinks is drunk, the way that platform works, certain things you can’t say, blood is green, Fortnite, a puff of green sparkly smoke, mom can’t handle that, why Minecraft is so popular, particularly reactionary, satanic panics fucked up my D&D games, just weird, congratulations on making it a Nazi bar, kids heads being exploded, flopping open, bluesky, this is horrible, watercooler talk for “creatives”, Jason Thompson, come out of the baby brain, cleaning them, a decrease in the number of people on twitter?, I’m over on bluesky, twitter was always political, find your way to everything, duck duck go doesn’t work, what’s left, get to the source as best you can, zionist lady from the New York Times, [an Assad toady], substack, huge following, biggest blogging service, Mehdi Hasan, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, something he never brings up, ever wonder about that last name?, a poll, every accusation is a confession, not a million percent true, a useful heuristic, a pretty rare deviance, true for politicians, blaming Trump for being in bed with Russia, uranium deal, baby level of psyop, I’m rubber you’re glue, primitive, juvenile accusation, calling the truckers Nazis, agents in with Nazi flags, just because they planted a Nazi flag, the government of Israel, anything you say about Hamas, being paid to be Hamas, you raped a bunch of people, massive rape in Israeli prisons, nothing on the other side, j’accuse all the time, boxes you in, what if you wanna learn some other thing, change your identity, people switch parties, RFK Jr., tied hisself to his Democratic identity, rejected and cheated, pick a team and stick with it, picked a team, tied to Kamala, speculating, reform the party, not what he spends his time thinking about, reading, socializing, a party in person, coffee, important to do it publicly, on the record, absent, not cool, not if it is public, on dangerous fuckin ground, lying is sinful, a mistake, barking down the wrong path, monsters at the other end, make jokes, the best way to do it, direct message twice, worry for seven months, forget about for seven months, not be mean to people, not a suspect character, the author write, wholly balloon, spicy, make sure you see this, clip from Futurama, pan-bi guy, a special issue of a fanzine about labour, a choice little section of Futurama dealing with unions, employee misclassification, the roasting machine for the coffee, read that zine, about Simak in particular, Joachim Boaz, 60s covers, I think we fundamentally disagree, got off twitter, siloing yourself, The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, piracy in it, Piracy Preferred, the Gernsback magazines, into describing gadgetry, rich guy, unsold me, this airpirate, cash and securities in physical format, gassing the planes, cures their cancer, a pirate with a heart, very super-sciencey, insane, further adventures, Don A. Stuart, Who Goes There?, Brian Collins, really bad takes (not taste), a bad ratio, young people read old sff, Journey Planet, Exiting The Vampire’s Castle by Mark Fisher, fucking wow tier, Russell Brand, the devil’s in the details,

We need to learn, or re-learn, how to build comradeship and solidarity instead of doing capital’s work for it by condemning and abusing each other. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we must always agree – on the contrary, we must create conditions where disagreement can take place without fear of exclusion and excommunication.

badly written, wow, fucking, wow, an atmosphere of snarky resentment, a columnist in the UK, anticommunist takes all day, anarchist, bad take after bad take, among other bullshit, independence under who?, Dalai Lama be a dictator, now that likes are hidden, to protect people from accountability, as evidence of this your that, worried about twitter being a center of things, staunch a flow of attack vectors, a feature, Abraham Lincoln was probably bisexual, journalism his thoughts, populism updates, piracy is not good, it is necessary, Herman Melville, 39 views, deep down the hole, really famous, because Pulpcovers has retweeted, scan the cover, fotoshop, too many hours, make things attractive and interesting, should be their culture and are not, take the hit, a very good hobby, everybody benefits, a joyful garbage man, a really good audiobook going, floor ceiling walls, tired in the shoulders, almost falling asleep, on cassette, might have been an Isaac Asimov collection, their drugs for your brain man, weird fiction, off track, not writing about it, getting something about it, Horrorbabble, Ian something, all the classics, almost all weird fiction, Scott Miller’s podcast [Lost Sci-Fi], lag spikes, The Bell Tower by Herman Melville, one of his best stories, train you up to max level right away, Clark Ashton Smith, such a premium story, Mars Is Heaven, a genius wrote that, Lazarus Come Forth, Oliver Onions, lady ghosts, The Red Room by H.G. Wells, I’m going to put this to bed, Christmas ghost stories, The Valley Of The Spiders, he’s so cynically correct, what would you do if you were mother to an aepyornis?, The Valley Of The Blind, so H.G. Wellsy, The Pearl Of Love, something irritating, why a pearl is in an oyster, this final beauteous creation, the coffin of his beloved, H.G. Wells fuckin kicking asses all day, why you so good?, an Indian man from India, a sex weekend, bump into their spouses, that’s the whole story, we know what’s going on with you, just so happens, I, Vampire by Henry Kuttner, after you’ve read Dracula, more entertaining than edifying, The Spider Woman by Maria Moravsky, Hounds Of Tindalos, watch out for the corners, straddles fantasy and science fiction, structured like a Lovecraft story, Jellyfish by David H. Keller, random guy thinks he’s the shit, so random, psychiatrist, not a great story, something to it, standard weird tales line about promethean science, done differently, in three parts, the last man, make mankind come about again, fails three different times, poetically written, drags, an audio movie version, Ziggurat Productions, these were fun, A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Metropolis, C3P0 but a lady, full of great images, don’t know, don’t beleive, A Hitch In Space by Fritz Leiber, psychotic space partner, Kaleidoscope, House Party At Smoky Island by L.M. Montgomery, her only contribution to Weird Tales, another ghost story, The Powder Of Hyperborea, assume it is awesome, sword & sorcery story, temple prostitute golden girdles, An Inhabitant Of Carcosa, super dreamy, pretty good, pretty minimal, spawns a big chunk of Robert W. Chambers, True Detective, this is California, a bobcat, Ambrose Bierce, he’s like perverse, I’m writing this for me, An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, intently trying to fuck around, A Bottomless Grave, very not possible, almost all reprints, my father a drunkard, only moderately wealthy, litigation with rogues guilty of infringement, neglected all my brothers and sisters, compelled to teach school, savage every direction, better than gold, at the dinner table, a patent had been granted him, the mos ingenious invention, a deep disappointment to him, until after they finished eating, my children, the uncommon occurrence, of courses it is better that he is dead, very terrible to us, cut off the baby’s ear, John you surprise me, mother forgive me for surprising you, the one eared baby, 7 pages of text, a show with Eric, a little bit scant, supposed to be half hour, we’re not on earth, this is too cynical to be any kind of reality, earth inverted, drawn before the court, one million percent corrupt, a love of a mother for her children is corrupted, the mother murdered her husband, is this another world other than our earth?, that is power, so perversely, “One Does Not Always Eat What is on the Table” , a corners’ inquest, bizare, nobody’s like that, The Terror by Guy De Maupassant, Fitz-James O’Brien, he’s great, The Diamond Lens, The Lost Room, What Was It?, casual opium use, things start rotting, things are more concrete now are they, killed in the Civil War, bastard son, even Jonathan has read, doesn’t follow the threads, looking through his bookshelf, son of in Anglo Norman, Michael Fitz-James O’Brien, racist, guy steals a diamond lens from a jewish, falls in love with a girl in a drop of water, Francis Stevens, The Elf-Trap, a lady, The Girl In A Golden Atom, certainly is weird, cool story, a little person, a Homunculus perhaps, a dream written down, prejudiced, American Writers podcast, educated in this idea of American literature, any club that excludes H.G. Wells, you can’t really talk about it, taking Lem in, from a guy from Poland, great ideas down in books, more importantly, those borders shouldn’t be sealed, via media mail, very important, because of scans, getting them to the scanners, a huge barrier, the shipping from the states, just stupid, how can you walk around the streets and not feel the oppressive evil, letting things slide, recycling, the compost recycling, seems silly, all subject to the same kind of scam, sell it as potting soil, thanks for all that work that we’re paying for, scam everywhere up and down, I hope that’s not true, puppies milking their mom is not horror, seems cute, lick up their poops and lick up their pee, works for her, they should be when they’re healthy, keeping themselves clean, petting is you’re grooming them, loving touch, cleaning is beneficial, the parts you allow and present, create an odor together, odoriferous glands, your hand is you mouth, some kind of defective cat, not super-judgey, my cat Mama, that’s how it happened, you remind me of my mother, Momala, Dark Brandon and Demented Brandon, disabled, Strange Brandon, had a limp for a while, Roommate Brandon, an aggressive way, Hubby, take out the garbage, a producer for a radio drama airing on XFM, Blue Hours, really in to running and desert walks, really good stories, including a Margaret St. Clair, retweeting request for pet owners to come get a pet that’s going to be executed, put your heart out, in xyz location, enough animals, word ban, innocent creatures, we want to help them, saddled with so many animals, mammals that like other mammals, reptiles are affectionate, evolved from reptiles, giving a rattlesnake a drink, giving a cobra some water, attack the hose, Steve Irwin died, looks a little bit like the cobra, neck pouches go down, something I like, caressed snakes, usually scared, the most dangerous animals, mouths and feets and machines and choppers, people love their snakes, if it tolerates you it might be love, eyebrow muscles, when you talk to a dog, when you talk to a wolf, a thing to be noted, not a thing to be followed like a mom from a child, expressions, wolves will growl, are you saying the word walk, was it walk?, cat expressions, glowering, dogs are training dogs, understand them better, understand us better, it will be smiling up at me, we’re on a team, such a pleasure, furry creatures, fur babies is too far, weirder than it needs to be, the poopy cleanup phase, open doorhandles, should be impossible, not even a latch handle, 7 boys, 1 of them a lady, prefers females, male dogs might try to hump you, scary, icked out, male humans and male dogs, once the babies pop out the males don’t have much to do for a while, not convenient, don’t even have to be the same species, cats too, dugs, what are cat breasts called?, cat breast podcast, mammaries, NIH website, a poem chat GPT write, you asking the perfect thing that it can do, one little error, ai art, A Witch Shall Be Born, tweeting about it, people are doing ai, a nice piece of ai art, we are not artists, we shouldn’t use living ai artists in our prompts, maximize his money, maximize public domain, when is he gonna die, Gutenberg was just following the law, the last hesitant on this, only met him one time, lots of people have met Robert Silverberg, a tool just like a camera, photos of trees and forests, lasted about ten seconds, is the guy behind the camera an artist, some people with a camera, black lady getting interviewed by a white lady, didn’t know what a musician was, identifying what an artist is, okay sure, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, putting portraitists out of work, a tool, once you see it is a tool, a part of the resultant thing, who made the art if not the guy who gave the prompt, please write a poem to a woman named Samantha, in the style of Rupert Brooke’s Tiare Tahiti, ai art is stupider, a poem for hire, arguable, the famous poems written by Shakespeare, gay poems, by living on earth, Sonnet 18, a poem about poems, this is a trick, gifts in a gift shop, gift cards, birthday cards, a generational thing, invited to a lot of weddings, a whole scam, for wedding cards, it would always work, what should you write in the card, semi-interested, you will always be each other’s greatest gift, up and down, spring comes, sometimes you get to hot, the last three lines, so long lives this, the point of poems, that play with the guy with the big nose, Cyrano de Bergerac, the movie version is Roxanne (1987), a rap battle with another suitor, he’s a sorcerer, Father Of The Bride (1991), imprinted on The Jerk (1979), claim is a rapist, Gérard Depardieu, Peter Dinklage, The Station Agent (2003), Clarkson’s Farm, a reality show, Jeremy Clarkson, doing a show on his farm, learning how to be a farmer, Lamborghini, a tractor company, unreliable, there are versions of reality television that are pretty good, standard comedy results, Ricky Gervais, The Office, Karl Pilkington, too depressing, pretty bleak, an office job, An Idiot Abroad, tortures his friend, something wrong with him, adventures, a guy being miserable, a good lunch, Nathan For You, a business expert, very popular on comedy central, the economics of TV, Bronson Pinchot, bought a small town, fixing up all the buildings in it, a home improvement show, the role that made him famous, The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, rural Harford, you pitch a show for the home improvement network, a budget, a pitch, a hobby, The Old House, finishing projects, chicken coop, giving to chickens, a yard that had chickens in it, stay at home guy, very easy work, hens, a nest box, get those eggs out, keep their food in the pen, raccoons, bugs and greens, roost, wake up with the sun, if capitalism wasn’t forcing us, a cave or a cask, giant cask of amontillado, a shipping container, modular, in the hospital, putting a pacemaker in him, routine, heart fuckups, what toxins are put in our food, can’t get away from it almost, RFK’s MAHA, growth hormone and do pushups with RFK, pretty elderly, 68?, siblings, half brother, six years older, working on his body, playing golf, going out in the sun, a stupid sport, bad movements of your body, archery is probably better, the skill curve, I’m getting better, a good day, playing against yourself, go out and walk around, peck away, pretty addictive, what’s going to keep the cats from killing them and eating them, roosters will be very aggressive to any threats to their ladies, eat their babies, fertilized, a productive cycle, trial eggs, programmed into them, fun animals, landlord needs to fix our fence, when you have production you didn’t pay for the gift must be accepted, how the potlatch works, reciprocal debt is the economy, I owe you and you owe me, a polish chicken, when you lose a chicken, ploof on the top of the head, very decorous animals, colourful, wholy melanasiac, sex-linked, if producing eggs for consumption, she’s busy, once you have cattle and chickens, just have to feed em, a lot of capital expense, the fencing, student over to the island, you gotta feel this lady, she’s so muscular, this is not an animal you can push around, big pile of meat and very hungry, a dairy farmer, tobacco, lost his shirt, a trucker driver, rural mail carrier, drive your own car, ergonomic reasons, stable, health insurance, cousin’s wife, goats, five dogs, big dogs, vicarious pricing, very high end chicken coop, made of wood, $539 canadian dollars, a little ramp, keep the predators from eating your chickens, they tend to stick together, they’re always looking for food, socially gregarious, held and stroked, people have them as pets, fuel for your garden, five cows on a little farm, smells like nature, other projects, important cultural work, spread their gospel, passed it on to somebody with a yard, pass it on to Meg, there are cats on farms, mice, rats, they love birds, you wouldn’t see a raven, a sparrow, spend time with it, bears smushem, bears are coming, with torches, a ton of construction, new housing going in, wild animals are moving into the neighbourhoods, very cute, they sort themselves out, a pecking order, a little girl holding a hen, a painting of a little kid going in a bathtub, dude!, fuck off, you’re not being serious right now, tasty too, a sack of cracked corn, all the scraps, they eat grass, they eat weeds, they love bugs, spiders with a skull on them, she’s like yah, getem, a mosquito, interested in insects, up in the clouds, down in the dirt, the big parts, cicadas, mostly crunchy, break the neck of a bird and leave it in the sun room, editing up a podcast, make some coffee, too late in the day, slow season for work.

Posted by Jesse Willis

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

Reading, Short And Deep #463 – Flight by Robert E. Howard

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #463

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Flight by Robert E. Howard

Here’s a link to the poem |PDF|.

Flight was first published in Witchcraft And Sorcery, May 1971.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #809 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist

The SFFaudio Podcast #809 – The Stone Dragon by R. Murray Gilchrist – read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour 1 minute) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
doesn’t stand for Ralphie or Raphe, Robert, a lot of notes, psychological angle, weird fiction, obsessive things that he writes about, Lovecraft, art, sculpture, a lot of flowers, honeysuckle, true happiness, a bunch of flowers to a girl, the names and some of the behaviors are extreme, gone into a “brain fever”, Barbara, an interesting name, how interesting is it, obvious about these names, Westmoorland, fictional, the coastal place, on the coast, Furnivaux castle, what kind of accent people would have in that area, the Lake District, fictionalizing things, four stories, just going by the stories, assuming he was totally gay, The Crimson Weaver, super gay, queer coded, gay coded, fairly straightforward, Oscar Wilde was enjoying it, decadents, it’s awesome, a weird tale from the beginning, a straightforward gothic, Mystery Of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, Mary, 20 novels, Daniel Pietersen, the gloves are awesome, the two mistakes, The Priest’s Pavan, Gethsemane, peculularities, some brain fever issues, the framing of it, the father’s journal, nested narratives, his own journal?, spill the beans, falling asleep, infected dreams, is it in there?, an awesome idea, Barbara is a lich, really strange, old testament era name, foreign or strange, the two daughters, nieces, the same last name, Raphe’s cousins, Raphe’s father’s sister, maternal sister, his mom’s sister, he calls her great aunt, in the same way you see in The Thing On The Doorstep and a reverse of Morella, real brainy, becomes his tutor, teaches him a bunch of philosophy, guiding his hand on the page, in childbirth she dies, my love, my dear, my heart, the confirmation day, he calls her Morella, the family tomb, his daughter’s mother’s body is gone, she knew things from her previous life, there was only one Morella, why she died, some sort of arcane knowledge, a couple of curious things, of her nephew: he cares about the wrong things, “she held no views beyond this world”, an atheist?, superficial, being a busybody, being a matchmaker, interested in deep thinks, frivolous things, a real bitch, visits against the father’s commandment, assumes that he changed his mind, 10 and 12, what does she want?, marry to a first cousin, the incest theme, literally, 13 year old cousin, marry right now, go away for a few years, come back and be committed, it’s not explicitly stated, in response to an imperious summons, no sooner had he reached the portico, a marriage compact, to take place at once, claiming my child wife, implied that she’s a busybody, obscure German philosophy, the secret of life after death, Rachel writes my letters for me, she’s not interested in literature, is it because it’s fiction and that’s bullshit, really a weird thing to mention, just a way of making her leave the room, attracted to, that’s interesting, how it plays out, we see him marry Mary, a famous name, the story of Rachel from the bible, one Margaret Atwood book, The Handmaid’s Tale, a good book, an infertility crisis amongst the rich, fertile women, sent to the rich old men who run the country, the invocation ceremony, a wife of a king who can’t give birth, her handmaid, a maiden to a married woman, that child will be hers, ewe, the lamb that gets sacrificed, a female sheep that has not has a child yet, pronouncing the character’s names, Velrest, Ayer, Eyrie, Weird Tales letters department is called The Eyrie, WellRest, why does she care so much, Barbara dies, why is she so angry?, she has to choose which body to put herself into, interesting, if this is a body swap sort of thing, a position of power, being married to Ralph, she’s gonna die, one possibility, turned to her uplifting luminous eyes, I am Miranda, he Ferdinand, the first man I’ve seen for two years, the servants are all 100 years old in all the stories, 90 when he was a child, fairly active, that’s all about immortality, part of the eeriness of this story, combined with the gloves, your lowly handmaid, be around the older richer woman and be her hand servant, go get this, brush my hair, used in other ways, class stuff, the gaffer’s song, the shepherd, our hero interrogates, all the loyalty of his father’s servant, we don’t get servants like this anymore, the father is a philosopher, high philosophy, airy fairy philosophy, more inclined to less superficial, hedonistic, morality, more of him having an idealized vision of love, fall in love, not by an arranged marriage, implied, because of love, something Barbara might not have approved of, her relation, Ralph’s mother, not as wealthy, he has an estate, these are upperclass twits, fallen a little bit, only have 1 servant instead of 7, megarich, rubbed her the wrong way, great nieces, his great aunt, his grandmother’s sister, convoluted, idealistic, he’s supposed to be wise too, I forbid you from going there, drawn like a moth to a flame, smack talks, he didn’t hear anything from his father, his father’s journal, enlighten me, my aunt, your great aunt, he enjoins him, we know why he’s doing that, the dad wrote down the dialogue, fool, is there no changing you, we get out of the fact that this is a journal right away, no he replied, forced into bondage, beg for his bread, wronged body and soul, the trigger for Jesse, why liches are bad, wills and estates, endowments to various universities, an ability to control the future even after your death, dragons is the same thing, sit on hordes and steal all the girls, the significance of the stone dragon, doesn’t seem to be the main focus, the human skin gloves, pivotal points, Ralph and Mary first get to know each other, commits suicide, she wanted to murder him, she’s very goth, one of my ancestors murdered somebody with them [these gloves], these gloves are important, a story by Arthur Conan Doyle The Leather Funnel, psychometry stories, The Stone Tape, Nigel Kneale, swaps place with Rachael, willing to give up all of her wealth, why is she doing that, which would you rather have life or money, marry me, the only young man she’s ever seen, why is that?, she’s keeping them, this is a lot of Lovecraft stories, The Tomb, Jervas Dudley has dreams, lying around, The Silver Key, occupied by one of his ancestor, atavism, an ancestral state, The Call Of The Wild by Jack London, a wolf sitting next to a cave man, a worry or idea people were playing with in the period, 1894, the yellow 90s, never shouted out, the skin, skin gloves, I’m inside of another person, tricking it me into this idea even if it is not actually there, there’s nothing that shows that that’s not the case, conciousnesses are switched, a mindswap situation, Barbara is possessing Rachael, vicariously live, Connor’s interpretation, somewhat supernatural, the psychological reading, Connor’s youtube video about it, Barbara is a narcissist and a control freak, those readings are correct, leaves out the mysticism, that’s what literary happened to R. Murray Gilchrist, keep the money in the family, translating, back reading into the actual psychology, a way of reading reality not describing reality, werewolves, people kicked out of society, you kill wolves, skinwalker, wendigo, you go wendigo, cultural exile, between cities there’s no law, if we read monsters as symbols, oceans you can drown in, it is like that, this layer in the story that has to do with reading and writing, Philosophical Discussions, held no views beyond this world, what is the nature of good, to stay alive after she’s dead, tiny estate in Northern Italy, a solemn command, retired from the world, Verelst, ver means true, what else means true, the manic work, an unscrupulous woman, the stars declare it, weaving the fatal web, she’s the spiderwoman, the line of Fate, what to advise, justice and love, Earth’s joy is naught in comparison with that which follows, she only cares of earth, what else exists besides what we see on earth, wherever she be, petulant and unreasonable, that delicious summer morning, here I passed 7 years of irresolute work, being as happy as any man who has no aim in life, I became terribly depressed, presentiments, the supernatural powers, foolish people, catastrophe’s that never occur, the greatest possible disasters are affecting our fortunes, mourning, we are plunged into the lightest ecstasy, a new codicil, the craftiness of self, if she wanted to put herself into one of these characters bodies, why wouldn’t she confirm, Eric Rabkin hat, it’s about women not having the right to property, women get their money from their fathers, if you read it the way Jesse is thinking, she has to go into the body in order to keep the estate, it won’t help her, the guy won’t marry, she has to gamble, up unto the point of death, gambling on it being Rachel, point us in amazing direction, it’s put in there, definitely hints at that aspect of it, deeper workings, things happening but your emotions not necessarily be in tune with those things, the livery, old fawn livery with pelicans wrought on the buttons, pelican symbology, scoops up and hold a fish, what is my spirit animal, early church revered pelicans, the pelicans keep their babies in their mouths, controlling people, why not find some local kid, marrying for love, something she couldn’t tolerate, an insult, insulting, she calls him a fool and foolish, he’s smart and she’s dumb, she doesn’t read books, she already knows it all, the lich theory, this is a controlling bitch, she can will herself into making it happen, maybe the daughter had killed her mother with the gloves, Rachael killing Barbara, first cousins with Ralph, previous ancestor, a woman murdered somebody, had her skinned, male ancestors, make it into a book cover, the hands murdering side and the book reading side, page 21, to doff her yellow gown, pale green, Robert E. Howard’s jealous, fastened to her girdle, the colour of the aunt’s eyes claret, burgandy colour, semi-transparent skin, blood coloured, the meal passed in delicious interchange of thought, she was appreciative, reproving her, don’t wear those gloves, the gloves covered them now, a silk picture of a vial and a dagger, tragic accompaniment, ill-luck, he does, gibbeted in these parts, around the time the servant was born, nice couple, poisoned her lord, a strong repugnance, strange humours, our red herring, the little people the gnomes, there’s a lot in it, this scene, the gloves of a murderess, the skin of a murderess, commissioned by a murderess, they’re handed down, the dagger and the phial, there’s a dagger in this story, you hold that in your dexter hand, the sinister hand, the phial is poison, Rachel murdered Barbara, a supernatural/weird element, seemingly a murderer, tender of you, to her lap, ashen and grey, the sharpening, she has a sharp face, she is cold, she is dead, probably poison, wounds Mary with a knife, likely she does kill herself, or the dragon killed her, until she commits suicide, selbstmord, putting on the gloves is the symbolic act of murder, very goth, you literally put on gloves when you’re doing crime (or work), she talks about they didn’t fit before, my hands are swollen with bitterness, calling out she’s a murderer, why she’s attracted to the gloves, largely what makes her weird, the piano makes her weird, fugue state, music dance sculpture, that’s my big discovered, it’s not Cthulhu it’s art, Hypnos, sculpture, Music Of Eric Zann, artists, Pickman’s Model, painting, Lovecraft is obsessed with art, he’s an artist he’s not a pulp writer, the avenue, amateur journalist, astronomer, everything is about art, what an artist will do, why he loves Clark Ashton Smith so much, Robert E. Howard’s poems in Weird Tales, submitting them, people are very artsy, just a thing, all the stories by R. Murray Gilchrist have art, culvers, young girls older guys, unrequited love, marry a 10 year old, she’s 10, 17 and 22, 17 year old girl marrying a 50 year old man, The Crimson Weaver is the gay version, apprentice and master, they’re sleeping together, comes across as very gay, an unrequited romance, idolizes the master, hung up on his dead wife, the door of his heart was closed, captured because of that heartbreak, her lure, sharp, nothing of the patrician in her appearance, passed for a housekeeper, round and russett, an intracate network of wrinkles, sherry coloured, lack of wine experience, Amontilliado is a yellow, amber, her teeth, natural, regular pieces of ivory, sharp, the charitable way of reading it, she inquired sharply, this is about Rachel, one so young, sharp-edged, unmaidenly, colour changes, the Poe piece [The Mask Of The Red Death], grey cloak for grey business, blood coloured gloves, ashen grey, she’s dead, elderly, why did she die?, she killed herself?, Rachael was somewhat of a narcissist too, she can’t stand to lose, the last word in an argument, a need for control, manipulates others, the ultimate selfish act, if she can’t have Ralph than no-one can, if she was less self-centered, those fugue states, she’s got the brain fever, depth mingled, unstable but also deep, allured, oppression, too heavenly purfumed, two centuries ago, she’s been alive for 200 years, a draught of cool air, she’s not infected with this age, is Venice like Mrs. Radcliffe paints in the Mystery Of Udolpho?, attempted murder then self-murder, if you read it strictly, she’s going to go to hell, or there’s no afterlife, to speak to Rachel’s character, dishevelled, living in the forest for weeks, ruin the event and her sister’s happiness, her death will be associated with her sister’s wedding, back for their honeymoon, she sought you at the old stone dragon, right anow, burst out sobbing, he knows that she’s dead, he’s mad at them too, bride’s blitheness, italian garden, Time, a bright web, lichened stone, my darling how much I’ve missed you, web hair, her spinning a web, a flower called crown imperial, a web of red golden hair, called right out there, foreshadowed, she may be weaving the fatal web, what a good story, it’s fantastic, such a shame that Gilchrist is not listed, he will be, bringing him more recognition, Romancing The Gothic, Daniel Pietersen, a collection, Tales Of The Weird, so many, William Hope Hodgson, amazing forgotten tales, an expert on Gilchrist, a nordic sort of spelling, son of stone, all the names are like that, Jesus makes a joke, Peter you are the rock I shall build my church on [“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”], Jesus got puns, I Am Stone, an introduction, the original artwork, some photos, tweet em or dm em, the art’s good, photos spread throughout the book, divides the stories into different categories, part 1, Dead Yet Living, part 2, Useless Heroes, he barely does anything, choose the girl that doesn’t creep him out, part 3, Of Passion And Of Death, part 4, Peak Weird, a region called the Peak District, A Witch In The Peak, awesome book, a great lecture, he really goes into it, more traction or inertia, it’s gonna happens, that book came out in 2021, 5 youtube videos with people recording, people are reading his book and getting excited about it, a bunch of money, pretty late, posthumous, read the whole thing, an editor from Valancourt Books, Wordsworth Books, 6 story collections, 4 non-fiction books, Heritage Auctions has really nice scans, we can fix up the insides, pulps get sold coverless, tried to push VHS tapes as a collectible thing, capitalism is so crazy now, pouring their money into fake goods, monkey art on the blockchain, a sealed copy of E.T. from 1985, trynna slab pulps, what they’ve been doing to comics for years, any copy of a comic book and put plastic all around it, you can’t open it up, a terrible thing, preserves them from rain and snow, we need one copy scanned cover to cover, [an issue] Fantastic Story magazine, Back To The Future (1985), a lot of stuff like that, if capitalism makes everything unaffordable, scanners count on cheap pulps in bad condition, people flipping them, pulps were not made to last, a shitload of pulps, old Playboy, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, the significance of Playboy, Hugh Hefner was a big player in civil rights, the Hustler guy, wheelchaired, people are not buying it for the stories, Hustler, a lot of men’s magazines, they’d make that joke, the quality of the stories is way higher, shots of beautiful women, and good writing, Jimmy Carter Playboy interview, I had lust in my heart, building houses for other people, five or ten dollars, disintegrate, just to have it and feel it, some of these are really small, bedsheet format, Australian pulp magazine called Aurealis, it’s tiny, the size of a paperback, a niche hobby, most people are not trying to read at all, audiobooks, people don’t like reading, computer games, sex websites, shitting on Trumpers, bookshelves, 100 books, 5 or 600 books, you have so many books, call across the planet to two different hemispheres to find somebody to talk to about it, doing a survey, do you have any books, can I see your books, a book somebody gave them, then they didn’t read any more, the continuum, only one genre, only one author, used to be rich, you could track that change in society, looking at the covers of paperbacks, several copies of the same book, original artwork, bins full of books like that, a little bit better, the early 2000s, nobody gave a shit, digital alteration, we’rent paying artists and graphic designers, people kept buying, the frills, how many mergers have caused it, when WWII happened, spawned an industry, before WWII, hardcovers and pulps, after WWII paperbacks are a thing, 1945 and 1985, mass market, other ways, book clubs, book of the Month Club, amazon, goodreads, audible, not coming back, Shakespeare’s still around after 500 years, still a little bit around, much more arts oriented, the movie industry, almost no kids know how to watch movies now, Millie Bobby Brown, can’t sit through a movie, watching people gaming for 7 hour, every media is different, literally training involved, it’s really hard to play Dungeons & Dragons, no learning curve, its free, a video game, more intuitive, doesn’t require you to think as much, the game is as fun as you can make it, not an activity engaged by young people now, it is, how old, 10 to 40s, all kid culture, stopped doing it at university, a lot harder to get together, serious problems with reading and watching movies, other role playing games, a subculture, not a popular activity, smoking weed, even TV out, TV is done, broadcast television was streaming, it wasn’t a million channels, we know what the score is, full circle, some final thoughts on The Stone Dragon, Witch-In Grain, listened while processing, culvers are mentioned, it’s a dove, with human faces in that story, a peacock, birds, a pelicans, birds are symbols, flowers are symbols, so many theories, the wrong mythological thing, a vampire story?, greek mythology?, there is a set of answers, there’s a dragon it was stone, and a very solid weird tale with a lot of decadence, it’s great, The Castle Of Wolfenback by Eliza Parsons, Horace Walpole, 1767, a little after, 1793, recommended by Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbey, Midnight Bell, The Necromancer, bald stone, the popular books of their day, referencing an older book, this is something, line by line, it’s dense, gothic horror, gothic romances, 13 year old girls, a lot of time and no time, 30 hours long, they come in volumes, written is a serialized fashion too, this book isn’t finished, let’s see how the first one does, a luxury item, hog wild, Alexander Dumas, the unabridged The Count Of Monte Cristo, who the hell is this guy, where the word subscribe came from, the etymology, Waverley by anonymous author, Ivanhoe by the author of Waverley, Sir Walter Scott, all these anonymous book, you would sub scribe, a piece of paper at the book stores, isn’t that amazing, the call or text you, your new copy’s in, the way podcasts work and all that stuff, Tom Standage, pretty good, works for The Economist, An Edible History Of Humanity, The Writing On The Wall: Social Media The First 2000 years, the Romans had a mail system, who’s getting married, obituaries, when we get to the modern electronic era, telegraphy, all the LOLs was all invented back then, pay by the letter, telegraph, a lot more expensive, humans never change, next big project: Gay Life In Melbourne, so funny, so spicy, we need some funny spice, with Will, moved pretty fast, full of innuendo, smokin hot, some sex worker’s picked up a guy, the reader’s not supposed to know, they knew, steamy and fun, our book on 1000 years ago, out of Arabic, Koran number 1, Richard Burton, 1,001 Nights, Ali Babab And The Forty thieves, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, old white Europeans, he’s technically in Europe, Tarzan, born out of mud, a crying baby, an antelope comes by and adopts him, invents all our theory of science, a history of science, opens up his mom, her carcass, the heart, 10 years ago is the cutoff, Three Body Problem, wait 1000 years, teach us something, it was pretty funny back then, people were always as horny, it there a more horny animal than the human being, bonobos, grazing moose, fight with males, females observing, peacocks, ostentatious display, how humans go about this, wars literally fought over, Helen of Troy, men are performative for men, women are performative for women, women looking at women on instagram, how to get big muscles, big money, explanations and stories, The Stone Dragon, about reproduction and passing the money along, read Typee by Herman Melville, disposable, fruit is within reach, food is everywhere, and girls aren’t jealous, Donald E. Westlake, An Empty Threat by Donald E. Westlake, girls in the south seas, Madagascar even, the only African country never colonized?, an island, read a book on it, pirates from the carribean moved to the richer grounds of the Indian Ocean, girls don’t demand much, run the business for us, retirement for pirates, a mere 89 pages, a dozen illustrations, an 80 page story, In The Dwellings Of The Wilderness by [C. Bryson Taylor], fun reading too, if not something else good, names of the places, justice to Melbourne, already recorded, end of July, at bad times, Mad Max!, different time schedules, 8pm, three hours earlier, Oscar Wilde, pretty short, Martin Geeson, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft, controversial, so funny, out in 7 months, slowing down production, not doing music for each one, a Weird Tales, Egyptian mummy, western archaeologist uncover a mummy story, slash vampire, short novel, Lion Of Tiberias, The Moon Of Skulls, H. Warner Munn, The Werewolf Of Ponkert, the one that Lovecraft inspired?, Robert E. Howard’s Wolfshead, a weak story, Bobby Derie, Howard didn’t understand what the person was saying, The Green Room, typos and random errors, a good ghost story, he sticks the ending vs. goofs up the ending, Walter de la Mare, when you’re a gymnast, not a funny guy, falls flat in a horrifying way, scaling back production, all this old stuff to do, producing something every week, not enough research?, I gotta get something, grindcore, there’s people doing everything now, recently updated, this is a really good story, done the next day, awesome gems, a dreamlands style story, House Of The Mummy Men, Hunt The Space Witch by Robert Silverberg, Lawrence Block, Frank Cain, from Manhunt, Mike Vendetti, shudder pulp, Lovecraft and Howard are dead, knock-off magazines, sex versions of Weird Tales stories, spicy horror, Test-Tube Frankenstein, chops up earthworms, rejected by the agent, Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God, neoterics, imposes restrictions on them, building aluminum structures, he’s god essentially, a banker who’s trying to take advantage, taking the shape of people, they eat people, invents shoggoths, mad scientist Frankenstein, crackerjack, The Flower-Show At Kwaliz by Herbert Tremaine, good enough for H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle, beautifully illustrated, dreamlands style story, tripped up on a flower contest, middle eastern past alternate dimension, a hundred pound prize in 1920, good stuff to be found, why have we been handed this certain canon, incompetent or non-existent estates, August Derleth is a good guy because…, there are a few situations, the power of the writing mostly sells itself, R. Murray Gilchrist guy, a huge reputation at the time, Robert W. Chambers, popular novels of romance, The King In Yellow and a few other things, this is really extraordinary, this I Am Stone book, copyright is a lot clearer (at least for Jesse), 80 new stuff, two dozen good people, Mickey Spillane, some good writers we’ve kind of forgotten, some way to narrow it, by following the stories that other authors tell us to read, anything Bobby Derie mentions, he doesn’t review, just found a never republished story that’s partially unreadable, a really bad scan from Fantasy Fiction Telegram, The Green Book by Duane W. Rimel, doing it for the love, Mike Vendetti has already done it, this is very Dunsany-like, H.G. Wells said it was good, kinda trust Arthur Conan Doyle, my spiritual afterlife, the original flower fairies that he was writing about, trolled, powned, may have oversold that idea, into spiritualist, seances and stuff, interesting to find out if it is true or not, 12 – 13 years, 10 years, ghosts don’t really make any sense, liches totally real, works either way, people start looking like other people, she thinks he looks like his dad, gotten older, scruffy mustache, sometimes people look like their parents, Mimic, Mothman, spoiled, audiobooked a few times, late last year, a new Westlake novel just dropped on LibriVox, go to a source in the states, amazing good stuff still to do, nobody knows who he is yet, these need to be accessible to people, start to take notice, making a difference, give them a little something that they know, two novels and one short story, Fondly Fahrenheit, superpsychotropic, you must own nothing but yourself,

“He doesn’t know which of us we are these days, but they know one truth. You must own nothing but yourself. You must make your own life, live your own life and die your own death … or else you will die another’s.”

all speaking to all, the premise here is, killed or kidnapped, either a human who owns an android or the android, brain problem, conflating himself with the robot, the only thing he owns is a slave, it’s awesome, subsequently cleared, spurious claim, ignorance or dishonesty, no estate, left his apartment to his bartender, gonna be so fun, who knows?, the name may be enough, queer life, we’re done, Tasmanian adventures, got me a thylacine?, nasty little buggers.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #804 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster

The SFFaudio Podcast #804 – The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, read by Roger Melin. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (2 hours 44 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Miassa Bessada, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, Alex (PulpCovers), and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
Argosy 1920, posthistorical, prehistorical romance, H.G. Wells, Jack London, Stanton A. Coblentz’s The Wonder Stick, an Edgar Rice Burroughs book set on Earth, Under The Moons Of Mars, the princess, thoughts and loins, no dialogue, can communicate a little bit, he had no words, he speaks in a masculine way: a war cry, internal monologue, an external narrator, he looks just like rodin’s thinker, very well realized world, a nice Virgil Finlay illustration, butterflies and moths and giant, mushroom fire, bright and colourful pulp, colourful dark pulp, a very dark world, giant insects, apocalyptic taken the extreme, a natural apocalypse, global warming, very subversive of him, unintentionally so, carbon emissions, fissures underground, carbon capture, vast reservoirs, the african lakes that suddenly burps, everybody dies, offshore, frozen methane at the bottom of the sea, free methane, carbon captured a long time ago, this will happen this has happened, with humans is the shocker, very Clark Ashton Smith world, gone to Venus, heavy growth, pulp Venus Earth, the shape of the story, one guy out in the woods for the whole book learning things, not much of plot, great setting, unique, kinda slow, their ears wiggle, the smartest, the fastest, John Carter inspired superman, atavistic throwback, his ancestor was John Carter, I could make shoes, stick it with this poky thing, not even hunter gatherers, just gatherers, didn’t make it through 8th grade, an autodidact, inventor’s lab at home, The Last Spaceship, genius inventor, being your standard 1950s smart guy, way behind the slowest of our forebearers, a progenitor, the beginning of the new, the minimal plot, The Cave Girl, The Men In The Walls by William Tenn, Will’s second show, a great funny story about a human future where giant aliens (bigger than skyscrapers), women have litters, the alien kitchen crumb, theirs cockroaches all over this house, sprayed with chemicals, the insects are now giant and the humans are small, Fantastic Planet (1973), a french movie, breed with this other pet, more like pests (than pets), the reversal, we do care for our pests, a mouse in your house, maybe some vegans don’t, feral humans, levy whatever critique, enjoyable setting, where William Tenn succeeds, anthropology or sociology, an uncle, way deeper, like a savage or a child, it failed on the level of having interesting characters, breathing toxic fumes, doesn’t come across like a satire, an Edgar Rice Burroughsy feel, the setting is the showcase, indomitable human spirit, extreme environments, the spark still survives, rekindle the human flame, the connection to Burroughs, what if this was a little more realistic, using the weapons, I can leap really high, work and think and develop, the guy in The Cave Girl, cook meat or whatever, a framework to allow our guy to climb back up, a plot device, small triumphs, the line near the end, Burl saw the mighty armour, envied him his weapons, the juicy flesh contained in those armoured limbs, he need flee, in his hands he bore a long sharp chitinous spear, there’s no wood, remaster the earth, the dawn of a new-mankind, the proto-human in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and he won the girl, he did it for the girl, that was terrible, a voyage into weirdness, CO2 in excess, they’re not really trees, gets back home and gets the girl, nothing innovative there, Day Million is 7 minutes long, a guy is excluded from his tribe, invents the bow, spooky action at a distance, he tames a dog, learns how to make fire, invents the wheel, now he’s a hero not a nerd, club him on the head with their club, the exclusion, got separated, the tide took him away, the only real interaction we have is his thoughts, he likes sharing her with her, this whole thing is cute, strange character dynamics, a little more repetitive, the florid description of the flora, over and over again, Samuel Beckett does that, a hypnotic type style, a good invention to repeat, getting the girl, any pulp story, gesticulates at that, odyssey into weirdness, mid-20th century than pulp, before Amazing, 24 years old, the Campbell puzzle stories, with the fish, stuck in the spider web, the fishoil, a very Campbellian idea, ahead of its time, genuine science fiction, the title, [The Forgotten Planet], Electrical Experimenter, Hugo Gernsback, mad as in crazy, a narrator from a distance, a direct descendant, he’s recounting this period in history, made it through the giant mushrooms, in some Burroughs books, a frame, I’m getting these psychic images from the future, the Gridley wave, we don’t have a universal republic, the international geophysical institute, ways of framing the story, crazy and angry, if it was published in the 1950s, as we go, as we progress, as we iterate, non-linear progress, walk around long after you’re dead, people get confused, nutzo, if this was published in 1955, everyone knows what science fiction is, the title would be 30,000 years, Earth In The Grip Of The Mushrooms, Giant Spider World, people going into strange lost valleys, Empire Of The Ants, giant spider story by Robert E. Howard, people just spend their time enjoying their time and occasionally supervising machines, we’re scavengers, was it a sin that we did?, burned too many fossil fuels?, its scientific name is this, quick wikipedia look ups, that looks cool, lactarius deliciosus, mmm milky, abundance of food, everybody is eating everything, scientific name, very different and very cool, munching, spongey, lady with a dress and a whip, a gun and a spaceship, any educational value in here at all, the Chinese still publish science fiction, making it science fiction, caveman stories are considered science fiction, the process of technological acquisition and distribution, get the bow going, that phenomenon where we have to learn something, a setting rather than an exploration of that idea, we all would get like shoes, shoes are a good idea, strapping those on their feets, enough free time and resources, a lot of tribes today, material and or time, full time job to make shoes, gorging themselves and lying around, they’re lazy, a fantasy of the native, not anthropologically sound, a lot of lazy activity that gets people doing art, hiding in a cave?, fled to the mountains, huddling together for warmth, an old anthropological theory, the culture of poverty, considered racists, all impoverished civilizations are the same, an idea of social strata, through the lens of a higher social stratus, for poverty there has to be affluence, the potlatch, hard to understand, get together with their neighbours, a giving contest, making giant presents, foods, delectable items, bentwood boxes, massive amounts of luxury consumer goods, status and power, like the hobbits, people aren’t turned into chattel, trading, the culture we see in The Odyssey, just a series of home invasions, you’re never leaving, a lady who wants to have sex with you, turned into farm animals, delicate relationship between host and guest, stores, I could steal this, usually a refrigerator, a place to do commerce, you don’t have an economy, good relationships with your neighbours, a friend and an ally, reciprocal debts, family and friendship and bonds, a bit of leisure time, poverty, people starving to death, some external problem, hunter gatherers, decorate their bodies, making jewelry, weird things we can’t understand, stupid and not for Jesse, tell stories, probably a lot of gossip, have you seen what janice is wearing in her hair?, why isn’t Paul on the podcast, tattoos from strangers, your bunkee wants to practice, disrailed?, people that you actually know, a cool tattoo store down the street, bring their own designs, means something, words, words all over this guy’s arm, these worlds are valuable, pure hunter gatherer behavior, what people do when they get a little bit of money, sailor tattoos, grading, crossed the equator, circumnavigate the world, tramp stamp, no tattooing in this book, decorating?, lie around, not doing art, no culture at all, no songs, no stories, the feast of the full moon, they don’t even have a moon, is there food in my mouth?, food is their primary concern, they need to have a refrigerator, food everywhere, reread Dune, they eat worm shit, this is what people do, carbon dioxide poisoned, carboniferous, an impressive gene, an uplift story Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, spiders could evolve intelligence, more intelligent than us, savages as if they were human, anthropological science fiction, self-uplifting of proto-humans, matters of life and death and food and safety, comfort and luxury, technology is uplift, genetic resurgence, smoke those spider legs and centipede feets, put them in your cave, cave out of shells, how many other human groups are there on the planet, pretty terrific, The Integral Trees by Larry Niven, humans have been voyaging to other planets, found a star with an orbiting gas bubble, giant trees, revolving due to winds, squirrel people, their tree is rotting, termites, dexterous feet, they don’t even know, so many generations, a hard SF story with ridiculous premises, more time spent with the tribe and the culture, not being for a good reason, flashbacks, how to gather mollusc feet, live up to be like my grandpa, Argosy’s pay rates, it doesn’t make economic sense to do a second draft, trynna fill pages, readers want to be satisfied, give em what they want, two more followups, it explains much, still pretty good, infected Jesse’s dreams, dark things in it, moth’s tortured pains, hunting killing eating, our world, carried off by a spider and screaming, nobody focuses on that, his learning moment, in a rather unpleasant fashion, that’s a pity, that old gentleman since, never entered his head, say of the year 1920, pick a year out of a hate, doesn’t have hypothetical questions, pure immediacy, getting to hypotheticality, that’s the point of the story, hypothesis building, if!, there’s the science fiction word for you, it’s wild, sense of wonder, it’s crazy!, those ants, the army ants, right after WWI, burn themselves up, a repeat of this whole situation, this new prototype kinda guy, adjacently classified, Leiningen Versus the Ants [by Carl Stephenson], castle doctrine, late to the game Robinson Crusoe, indomitable German will, almost robotic, let yourself be put into the gears of this machine or not?, not perfectly aligned, sheared off, mechanisms in society are machine like, don’t get involved with the police, the robotic aspect of these unstoppable creatures vs. individual fights, the one with the fish, hunter vs. prey, the army of ants, once you join the army, go over there and get shot, got caught up in something, explored in later books, this is an unstoppable thing, like the fire, techniques, firebreaks, helicopters with water, incarcerated firefighters, what happened to the earth already, unstoppable, humanity was doing really well, wasn’t a robot uprising, shit happens, funny stuff, higher ground becomes expensive real estate, climate change!, melted into the sea, a bunker in Nepal, in case, fun, engages with this idea of 30,000 years around, tiny mammals hiding in holes, Science Fiction By Gaslight by Sam Moskowitz, London is destroyed by carbon emissions, 1890something, Earth is destroyed by carbon emissions, who is right?, The Doom Of London by Robert Barr, The Forgotten Enemy, Freaky Trigger, A Bite Of Stars A Slug Of Time And Thou podcast, a deserted London, it’s the ice age, a glacier slowly griding its way into London, the opposite way to go, flooded out vs. frozen out, global cooling, new ice age comin, New York suddenly freezes, The Day After Tomorrow, new Ghostbusters movie, ghost freezes New York, The Real Ghostbusters, read the fixup, mash em together, rewriting to make it flow, The Red Dust, has become the leader, 30 years later, needed the fixup, a terrible idea, defeats the whole purpose!, let’s do The Red Dust, not a lot of capacity, Return From The Stars, that’s a mental book, especially if I get to shit on it, about the same length, you who have read the Mad Planet, the world in the far distant future, tiny Man, acclimated to change, our hero Burl, nothing compared to the deadly red dust, thrusting his spear, shiny back, meat eating beetles, what does Bleiler have to say?, Blei this up, Moskowitz, a timeless classic of the pulp era, well written, fun, short, an interesting idea, the aesthetic is good, it has more depth, much better world building than Edgar Rice Burroughs, video game levels, designed for an adventure, still feel some enthusiasm, no invention in it, the new LibriVox of The Stainless Steel Rat on LibriVox, science fiction setting, Slippery Jim diGriz, very Futuramalike, future tropes, the police are robots, this other mode of reading science fiction, not what we do here, what a champion E.F. Bleiler was, just science fiction the early years, Gernsback’s life, closely typed 1115 pages, plot synopsis, would be great to have it, on the Internet Archive, searchable, google books, a supernatural book for all the Weird Tales stuff, The Last Spaceship, some more Murray Leinster, dubious quality, the very future future, 50,000 years in the future, a lady in a bathing suit in a belt and wristbands, mushroom guys, beautiful right?, Stories From The Sky (William Sky), This World Is Taboo, Mark F. Smith, a presumed plague carrier, but hey if he did the smart thing we wouldn’t have a story, Ray Cummings, as long as the audio is good, its a human, British (possibly human), pretty inhuman, homo sapiens non-roboticus, Thomas Burnett Swann, Popes, Japan, last December, June 2nd, A Spell For Chameleon, the minotaur books, human-minotaur love, an archive of our own?, wtf is it?, fan-fiction, won a Hugo, The Weirwoods, sail the high seas, records his crimes, not illegal, The Soul Of Man (Under Socialism) by Oscar Wilde, The Not-World, lure of the little folk, magic pen, one of the finest and most piquant, spicy!, Thomas Chatterton, mingle their fates with Arachnae, spider woman, drowning before sex, objectionable, everybody on the internet, objectionable, on Goodreads, very erotic, middle erotic, focused on Eros, eroticism deferred, not Gor, rapidly becomes weird fetish porn, a lovely novel, a smidgen of alternate history, the worst review, not helpful reviews, like the narrator, doesn’t understand the concept of what fiction is, a 30 year old novelist, a young sailor, you can disinvite Jesse from your birthday party, not-father’s day, the other Alex, regular Alex, never listened to an audiobook for this podcast, audiobooks when hiking, you wont miss anything by listening to the audiobook, popular long running series, a parody of Starship Troopers, Bill, The Galactic Hero, 45 years ago, Slow Horses, find it good, almost binge watch, fortunately/unfortunately, have a good Nice, new laptop, where Alex works, hear the insults roll in, perfect except the speakers are terrible, Lenovo Yoga, screen is so good, speakers are better, a lot of ThinkPads (but not for good reasons), all instant, $60, addicted to fixing up old laptops, Windows 11 (Tiny 11), the Pro matters, Brave browser, Microsoft Edge, Tubi.com, what looks like an app, no ads, works for everything that way, its amazing, in 7 months, get that Brave Browser going, running it as an app, never tried Plex, ad scammed all the time, Yes, Minister, this is not Scooby-Doo, nice and short, hits so fuckin hard, 79-80, stuff everybody should know about how government and the deep state works, any story in government, i’d like to reform things somewhat, loses completely, the language is amazing, Shakespearean doubletalk, he’s a right-honorable, the gossip network of other drivers, why the bus/train system sucks so much, if you were forced to take it, why the NHS sucks, force the PM or the premier to go to the hospital, truths that people that don’t understand, why govt fails to work, bureaucracy rather than corporations, meeting with the BBC guy, complaints about the BBC, something that is out of date, bribery and scandal runs everything, why don’t you get more female high end bureaucrats, a great idea, the Saudis won’t like it, they all have excuses, this one woman promoted, a really good satire of what is happening now, there’s some great stuff and nobody gets to see it, not on Plex, on the deep schedule, Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson, puts on an alien planet, thinking about it as a writer, you don’t really need to, once you get idea, the Simak story, stuff like that, Bradbury?, as a novelist?, he smokes, the first Amber book, writing it by the seat of his pants, writing skill, that series, Larry Niven, supposed to be famous, Ice World by Hal Clement, Jack Williamson, not sci-fi, Legion Of Space, Gordon Dickson, a lot of series, a lot of repeated covers, a 2.5 hour one, Phil Chenevert, inhabitable planets, extremely young, covered with all kinds of life, should have not had a chance to even begin to develop, paleontology and geology and archaeology, a review or Bleiler?, Dorsai!, the first in a series, with an exclamation mark!, military SF, most valuable, The Genetic General, is maze a verb?, a short story that’s been expanded, genetic engineering, creating super soldiers, pee, look at Hal Clement reviews, Jesse puts everything in, there’s nothing cut, a champion of podcasting, the ones from 10 years ago are an hour long, [The Genetic General was copyright renewed RE0000404051 ], LibriVox, no women in it, Maissa is gonna love it, our base is old men, people smoke in this story, Attitude by Hal Clement, somehow in the empty rift, their captors had not harmed any of them at all, from Astounding in 1943, becoming a Campbell guy, Dianetics, Mission Of Gravity, Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos, Slaughterhouse Five, life is stupid and crazy, isn’t that funny?, not chill, Mr. Sheckley, read by Phil Chenevert, 60s stuff, 40s is good, a good length, The Status Civilization, solid satire, thoughtful and interesting, interesting not just fun, The Journey Of Joenes, The Blue World by Jack Vance, an imagined future, a picaresque, Mindswap, fell completely off the rails, an ocean of terror, another Stanislaw Lem, Neuromancer, don’t get hit by that bus, bought a bombshelter with free crawdads, they would eat each other, arthropods don’t have our values, shoeless mouse people, The Star King, complaints: this is not science fiction, science fiction wallpaper, he can write good ideas, The Man In The Maze by Robert Silverberg, similar to Thorns, a penal ship crashlanded, giant lily pads, forgotten their origin, caste system, giant lobster, monster stories can be science fiction, the latest John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society, a stuff happens book, how to get metal, they’re criminals, a good Larry Niven, read his as a teenager, Ringworld, the whole focus on that book is about sex, the puppeteer wants to reproduce, wants to have sex, win a name, young nubile woman, we’re gods, its a sex book, they get worse as they go, more than one Ringworld, The Seascape Tattoo, all about sex, the first third, a monthlong break, Louis Wu being kind of a perv, cat-men, the complete list of all of the novels, Protector, World Of The Ptavvs, Lucifer’s Hammer, racist guys at the beginning, just putting his name on, he’s awesome, super-smart, a mean sense of humour, but not cruel, short stories, Neutron Star, early short stories, comedy stories, The Draco Tavern, young people real old SF, how young are these young people?, how the relationships are forged, dubious of young people, no longer feel like a young person, an organization with young in the name, young DSA, middle age DSA, Man Of Steel Woman Of Kleenex, you know the meme, which is a problem, can’t be long stories, is there beyond the meme, the kids comics version, to fully understand you’re going to need to read the book, Inconstant Moon, New Twilight Zone, the dad on Growing Pains?, another tv dad, anytime people quote Shakespeare, God Save The Mark, it was a good one, a perfect book, Outer Limits Season 2 Episode 12, Michael Gross, Michael J. Fox’s dad on a TV show, it’s the end of the world, a woman he has known for many years, he’s been in love with her for a long while, a few hours to make up for his foolishness, good right?, an episode of Doctor Quinn: Medicine Woman, 6 seasons plus TV movies, a corporate law lady who decides to become a public defender, bougie friends, woman professional story, Bess Sullivan, The Trials Of Rosie O’Neil, Ponderosa, Bob’s Burgers, short and lighter, in a two person home, mutual boxes, watching bureaucrats talk politicans out of things, it’s educational, if you don’t beleive this is exactly, ripped from the non-headlines, an anti-West Wing, Yes, Prime Minister, hugely convoluted long sentences, Obamaisms, Joyce Carol Oates giving Obama an award, a better time, for who? for whom?, inflation wasn’t as bad then?, the president had all his faculties, aiding and abetting an active genocide, H. Jon Benjamin actor is Archer, you can rewatch them, character based humour show, Pam, the HR department, a very dumb one, sniffing glue, pushing Picard and Crusher together, that’s not what this show should be about, professionals acting professionally, Moonlighting was a good show, not even a zygote, hatched in 86, became a feotus in 89, she has mammaries, a platapus, what colour milk would it be?, Carthoris, flows beautifully, only one kid, the second novel, each individual entry has a different lead character, Korak, side characters, Tarzan, such a legend, 24 books, 12 Tarzan novels, husbanding them, diminish returns doesn’t apply to economics it applies to art, Young Indiana Jones is a separate animals, early 20th century history, look at art, this is amazing, look at this!, look at this piece, a weird thing to do all day, art The Executioner Of Venice, Harry Lemon Parkhurst, Spicy Mystery Stories, September 1942, science fiction stories, how good are they at science fiction?, not all visual art, fiction, poetry, can’t we just do this all day long?, a pretty good position, report cards, be honest without hurting anybody’s feelings, not here to rebuke you, grading is horrible, learning something, what poetic devices, you’re getting this, it is important to love what you’re doing, hobby business of selling books online, sold to PulpCovers, had you scanned them, two scanners for sale, Herbert Schmaltz (artist), Zenobia, Palmyra, chained up, a comic series, Magnus Robot Fighter, has a nice backstory, stop them with your fists, the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen, another Zenobia, facial expression, Cleopatra by the same artist, boobs exposed, mammals love mammaries, birds other than the evil evil cuckoo, they give them barf, duck around, keep them warm at night, ducks might like you, they’re less like humans than cats are, cats are very catty, their default behavior, not quite individual animals, nothing like dogs, household pets, cats are very different, sometimes cats like you, dogs are loyal at least, pirate cat [Anne Bonny], allergy to her own saliva, saliva cats, lots of hair comes out, kinda wild, do your best, a big Jesse theme, copying Jason Mockman Thompson, he’s got good politics, he’s a dad with a toddler, a twee year old, the city in the distance under the dome, silver key in his hand, so much great art, Lauren somebody, Blue Book, Tarzan: Guard Of The Jungle, better in the pulps, more elemental, with the #LegCling and #KetchupAndMustardGetup, why are they so powerful, the combination of red and yellow, everything means something, reading the original magazine publications, ERB didn’t like to be edited, the sixth martian novel, 30-40 magazine pages, you have to drill down, the only way, the Amazing Stories Annual, the operating room table cover, available as a scan, Frederik Pohl, blew his mind, how come those ones didn’t blow your mind, how come that one blew his mind, a voracious reader, I want to be a science fiction writer, editor and agent, famously unsuccessful at making money, $30,000 in debt in the 1950s, no audiobook, too obscure, no champion, the Pohl estate?, can’t even get a Robert E. Howard biography audiobooked, Mark Finn, Philip Jose Farmer’s books, speaking to somebody who doesn’t understand, that sounds like something you’re saying, Frederik Pohl audiobooks, the Heechee series is not good, kinda broken, the main character is mentally ill, as a kind of a theme in later books, seeing a robot therapist, you can make anything good, fictional robot therapist, ideological objection, therapy is probably a mistake, talking about your problems in a structured environment, insane, hangups about making mistakes, is that true?, double negative, get confused, the whole point is it not?, especially with kids, very impressionable, most people don’t understand how impressionable people are, did it have the effect that was intended, even knowing that you’re being manipulated, offered her food, more dangerous than teaching or parenting, the thing that they know is true, school is prison, the reason that people become teachers, fall into it, a pretty good job, the school district you’re in, being a prison guard is a good job too, painful for the children and the teachers, catbird seat, you’re not going to get fired, teachers can do harm, many students only one teacher, teachers can single out a kid and fuck em up, parents can fuck their kids up for sure, indulging them, get any toy they wanted, how can anyone have this much money, casual with their toys, if every thing goes easy, if every thing goes hard, lift em up when they fell down, say: you’ll live, go superreligious, to fill them full of hangups, you have to come to terms with everything, hell was the scariest idea, let’s take this kid who is acting like a child and get them professional help, you need professional help, a way of saying I’m better than you, there’s something wrong with you, an old man who lives in the basement, big long fingernails and he smells bad, I can’t handle you, I’m going to outsource this to a professional, a master’s degree, how important it is to be thinking about what the kid is thinking about, a handle on their vocab level, a handle on their brain, cloistered, sent to school and sent to after school, we can have a really negative influence, you’ve been wetting their bed, a problem of a being a baby and something go wrong in your life, dangerous, it’s like knives, children are vulnerable to institutions, parents deferring their authority to experts, that living thing came out of my body, especially moms, it’s really really hard, in a random sampling, there are great people in the world, raising both hands, how much of a responsibility it is and all the things that can go wrong, takes your freedom away, spinabifida, drown the kid, a huge mistake, structured talk therapy for adults, talking about your problems, get past or through or around, wallowing, some people make their living, the effect in school, school counselors, what did they do?, becoming more confident, understanding how the world works, knowing who you are, most people don’t know who they are, model, a mentor, a lot of the time the best thing to do is to get outta there, the solution (often) is to not be there, traumas that we experience, that shouldn’t be what you think about all day, get out in the field and fix a boat, people who can help you, just like in the medical industry, milk customers, what do you think?, a number of very bad therapists, this video by Louis Rossmann, very religious Christian woman, buy a lot of scented candles, older woman nearing retirement, underconsidered psychological approach, biofeedback, behavioral therapy, literally experimenting on you, hate to opine, a little senile seeming, skeptical about the DSM, the big book, for the benefit of insurance companies, the laws, their theory of human brains, how things will be punished, constantly evolving, our theory should get better and better, a coding manual for insurance purposes, obsessed with death, as long as six months, these people are not regulated by an ethical code that makes exposure of unethical behavior public, very sketchy, old boss went to prison for sketchy behavior, defrauding medicare and medicaid, measuring, an outside check, an adult who is thinking I will submit to this system in the hopes it will help me, I yell a lot, regulating people’s behavior medically, the dismal science, at least they make predictions, criminologists and sociologists, an ongoing feud with psychology, care about methods, is it an art?, not all artists are equally good, Foundation, a fun idea, Paul Krugman, you’re just hearing about science fiction, predicting technologies, futurism and futurology, a specific Italian movement, Bryan Alexander, going out of business, massive endowments, declining to enter, full of administration, it can be both, it is really bad, do you value yourself more than a broken Macbook, a little autistic, he reads the comments, he responds prophylacticly and after the fact, went to therapy, trying to find a good therapist, online therapy companies, not everybody is the same, there are good therapists, active in looking for them, is there a good doctor, a serious problem, as a child you have no instruments, my mom is sending me to therapy, whisper networks, an adult who knows something, adults that know stuff?, people managing to float by in life, very skeptical of doctors and politicians and everything, Scanners Live In Vain [by Cordwainer Smith], Day Million, Paget’s hierarchy of needs?, Ted Sturgeon, Pruzy’s Pot, a living toilet, Microcosmic God, Gateway, The Voices Of Heaven, a great book for Will, gigantic caterpillar like beasts, he’s good, Kornbluth has a sharper edge, more biting, The Advent On Channel 12, about Disney under another name, basically Winnie The Pooh, feels very New Wave, a little early for the New Wave, prefigured before it happened, where Scanners Live In Vain, The Other End Of Time, the beloved leaders, are these replicas capable of reason?, characterized it differently, seems like a cool guy, Tunnel Under The World, Heechee is so overrated, what it must be, a lot of hype?, preorders are love, look what happens in this story, characters in folktales don’t say I love you, they give each other food, how mother bird feeds its child, I have something in this bag do you want it, I made you like me more, many bad teachers do all the time with candy, a zap, behavior cognitive therapy, you can trick people or manipulate people with praise or candy, the thing that was important was food, everything that’s in there for a reason, a story Connor wrote, finds a dead woman in the bog, she’s beautiful, parents in his head, why are there two parents rather than one?, for a reason, why does Tarzan have only one child?, if it is not for a reason that’s bad, The Brady Bunch‘s premise, evil Nazi scientist, Flesh Eaters (1964), Gilligan’s Island with a Nazi, there’s good thing in it, the dialogue works, that part of the script was well written, so good as it is, a budget for five actors and no budget for a set, a beach, an airplane for one day and five actors, solving problems, applies equally well to essays, passionate about good writing (not chat GPT), as a tool for helping students get through school, it’s humourous, it’s also evil, the corporations are there to maximize profits, extracting value from children from a system they’re unwilling to reform, art stuff is even more insidious, Jonathan did a poll about a robot narrator, publicity, trying to move books, controversy sells books, Chuck Tingle, are they meant to be read?, that fact that Chuck Tingle is a name I know, really stupid, just designed to get attention and publicity, doing life wrong, just talk to Will, we like to talk, spicy takes, he’s got a game going, fears disagreement, verboten!, zees vords!, need Cora here, sounds a lot scarier than it is, not in massive discord on it either, very extreme, tweet dream about weapons, right on, even if it is a dream, taking the discourse to a reality, it’s a show for them, gamestreaming debate bro, Destiny being called a gusano, talking about Mao, subconscious refers to the state as a million dudes with guns, a body of armed men that holds itself about society, proud of ability to record, they have to be done in the first moments, barely awake, a flow state, you can’t record everything, difficult to record, a textual expression of a virtual experience, your roof was domed, decorated not just with Star Trek curtains, Simpsons curtains, tacky admirable Star Trek curtains, not the biggest Enterprise stan, Deep Space Nine, not enough to speak about it intelligently, Enterprise’s entire run, the copyright system, servers full of movies, getting paid still, make infinite copies, mostly laser guns, phaser fights is not the point, a good Star Trek show almost never needs its phaser, those are the worst episodes, the ship has guns on it, very specifically not the point, a more martial show, it becomes a serial show, what it does is excellent, more consistently good, start with a good one, of all the pilot’s that the best first episode of any Star Trek, Encounter At Farpoint is garbage, captain beep, Spock goes haam (hard as a motherfucker), speaking not as a gen xer, Millennial Hunter (2023), his car is murdered by a millennial, kill all millennials, she’s a genXer, a daughter who is a zoomer, working for a big online website, something AF, almost great, this is amusing, meta genre?, clever, Chazz AF, give our listener a break?, a question about H.P. Lovecraft, listeners still listening, popularity waned during the cold war?, Bobby Derie, how old is he?, balding, people in their thirties can’t be balding, solidly a boomer, very useful information, google NGram, broke the cold war up into different eras, levels of exposure, Arkham House, really gets rolling in the 80s, the game, but also the movies, with the rise of Robert E. Howard in comics, Savage Sword Of Conan, reviews of books that are related, H.P. Lovecraft ripoffs, replicated for many other people of contemporaneous period, after life as a skinsuit magazine, a 70s startup, a current skinsuit, disconnected, the Ligotti period in the 80s, a paperback for three issues, a long weird history, there was movies in the 60s, a band called H.P. Lovecraft, what could he think about any of this stuff?, amateur press association, dedicated HAMF, hard as a motherfucker when it came to art, that doesn’t compromise, this is a story about art, sculptors and painters and musicians, even in the comedy ones, his focus is on art, that is unusual, Robert W. Chambers, models and painting, what it means to be original, his amateur press career, not well written, Sonia Green doesn’t have the gift of prose, the story as it is, biographical detail, why stories exist as they do, an old school thing, doesn’t drill down on Lovecraft, the reason she’s going to marry him, she believes like he does that amateur journalism is a good unto itself, I’m gonna fix him, making him able to do art, like believing in blogging and podcasting, download distributed without interference, steal wreck and exploit, Podcast Addict, Downcast, not married to it, the Fairphone, fair as in just, try not to use child slaves, operating on Linux, Framework (laptops), repairable, fixable, upgradable, old piece of tech, the Apple tax, into the playground, all the competitors, vertical and horizontal integrated, the ultimate Apple product will be you in a white sphere that has no buttons and no exits, the Apple car, Apple TV, Homepod, overpriced, google goggle, $2300?, really expensive, make your laptop in your face, artificial reality, just buy a monitor and don’t wear a mask on your head, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t cynical enough, see you on twitter.

The Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, Argosy, June 12, 1920

THE MAD PLANET - Virgil Finlay

THE MAD PLANET - Virgil Finlay

Posted by Jesse Willis