The SFFaudio Podcast #754 – Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper – read by Mark Nelson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hours, 14 minutes minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert.
Talked about on today’s show:
Henry Beam Piper, 1961, paired with another Piper, probably serialized?, no, doesn’t need a serial feel, Putnam and Sons, standard Piper spaceship: ball, the hunting of the seamonster, Lone Star Planet, chased by giant steer, more action hunting in this, makes you want to read it, influences, a Jack London novel, Moby Dick, kind of a juvenile, a YA protagonist, not 18 yet, felt younger, felt older, “Tin Tin And The Space Whalers”, Tin Tin at the typewriter, drill down into this book, Tin Tin on Instagram, streamer tech, video and audio recording everything, flashing it to his dad, their planet doesn’t have satellites, only 20,000 people on the planet, stubborn SOBs, occasional miscreant, divide satellites by the number of people on earth, Jesse’s not a math guy, GPS, navigating from the stars and inertial systems, cute surprising moves, on the docks, pulls out a gun, sea-snail, gets poisoned, showcases Piper’s hobby horses, excuses for guns, excuses to smoke, loves his guns, low opinion of police, respect, government forces lumped in with the racketeers, as a group they get no respect, libertarianism is in the mix, propaganda for libertarianism, undercutting that, multiple volunteer fire departments in the same city?, one alarm system, seven small villages, look at the geography of this planet, near antarctica, very rural, ports, no farming, vat meat, vegan meat, under-egged that, limited to the ocean journey, the lifeboat, a Battlestar Galactica episode, Dogget will survive until the air turned to liquid, taught us interesting things, Fritz Leiber’s A Pail Of Air, To Build A Fire by Jack London, The Sea Wolf, Eden among the sealions, not a romantic vacation, thick bark trees, using machine guns to cut down trees, more guns in this scene?, everybody brought their own personal weapons, the meta, a former slaver hiding his identity, a dead woman’s fingers, driving down the price of a natural resource in order to enrich himself, the hazards of monopolism, they wanna lynch, government’s on the case, that’s be nice, not very likely, Israel hunting Nazis, a Federation government, agents, at the general level or admiral level, James Bond, ordinary murderer, bank robber or conartists, enslave a planet, he’s a war criminal, more along the Hitler lines, characters from the Jack Vance Demon Prince novels, a personal mission not a government mission, the Manuel Noriega story, maybe I should run this country, they went after him, they knew he was corrupt, ask Saddam Hussein, why am I the one defending libertarianism to H. Beam Piper?, lynch law is bad, correct moral message, you must go to court, reading books, schools in Florida, supporting public education, the value of a good education, old fashioned, out in 7 months, useless information from chat GPT, good curation of knowledge, critical race theory in math books, banning hijabs, a women only safe space room, wasn’t even allowed to do her internship, a math class, a technique to divide the poors, telling H. Beam Piper his business, going against his own instincts, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, grows up wild, ends up working for the British empire, his Irish father and his good instincts, turn him into a spy, British empire good, Heinlein takes that and says I can do one better, Citizen Of The Galaxy, he has legs at home, gathering information for the Empire, goes a little cynical with them, a revolution is about to start, we’re storming the Bastille today, whoof the rug is pulled out from under him, cooler heads have already been on the case, he’s not as good as Heinlein for this, YA elements, where’s the romance?, the girl who’s going to work for him, doing romance in the 40s and the 50s, not in the cards for our hero Mr. H. Beam Piper, the sister, she’s a girl!, that’s a rough place, these rough people, the dad is busy smoking, doing the job of three people, way below, he’s not doing it as good, we need way more about the ecology of a planet with four days in the year, they can’t eat any of the food, and the food can’t eat them, Larry Niven, catsnake?, for this planet Niven [would be] better, Space Viking, breezier and easier, very simple, space battles, why is this science fiction?, the strongest science fiction idea in here, its the instagram recorder, youtuber streamer, and the hunting of the wax, shielding, a commodity, intense sunlight, analogizes with Moby Dick, whaling was huge, tallow wax and whale oil, how they breed, not to hunt them to extinction, traditional societies, north German Bremen dish made with whale meat, the meat was not the moneymaker, it was the sperm, petroleum, he doesn’t do enough with that, a reporter, friend doesn’t quite do enough, disappears like Ishmael, not a classic for the ages, Little Fuzzy, interesting, not a terrible books, but not special, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, the definitive Piper book, Omnilingual, a richer piece, passes the Jesse test, the 20 chapter titles, a cute little nod, obscure author from Scotland: Arthur Conan Doyle, the Javelin, the Pequod, gunpron, monster killing, treason, masks off, a simple story, 180 hour away from sunset, H. Beam Piper with Larry Niven, had he not killed himself, they could’ve been friendly, Robert E. Howard, tapering off, Clark Ashton Smith, ailing parents, kept changing, c’mon you can do this, doesn’t have the fire in the belly anymore, coming into his oats, Jerry Pournelle, sometimes it don’t work, sometimes it do, Oath Of Fealty, Dream Park ain’t a good book, a little silly, pretty good book, the whole Bish thing, a kind of western, quickdraw, Firefly and Serenity (2005), special agent, an H. Beam Piper tv show, our heroes and their dialogue, the empire they were fighting against were flat, the Alliance, insurance company, the Dortmunder, a Donald Westlake character, the reavers, better in prediction than in execution, it had potential, fashionable to criticize, Cora always had her issues, the best episode of Firefly: Objects In Space, a bottle episode, the casting was good, The Witcher tv series, Elric, they both have swords and white hair, hiatus, forgetting to cancel shows, the pilot for the Logan’s Run TV show, the movie in fast forward, the new Logan, an elder council is running things!, they have to make it a series, there’s old people?, old and weird looking, there’s no renewal, Logan and this other chick, they find a car in D.C., an android robot that will help them every episode, a Paul thing, the Planet Of The Apes TV series, about 6 Star Trek episodes, you can’t tell anybody what you saw there, an old circus poster of an ape behind bars, Sky has never been so good again, music videos and cartoons, Dutch people, best TV channel ever, D.C. Fontana was story editor, Harlan Ellison wrote an episode, David Gerrold, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Logan’s Run, all on for Odds On, not abridged, a Jesse book, Breakthroughs In Science by Isaac Asimov, in a rabbit, Sixth Column, Tommy Patrick Ryan, Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak, Charwoman’s Shadow a novel by Lord Dunsany, in Spain, dowry, substitute shadow doesn’t grow and shrink, praises by Theodore Sturgeon, I love the book, humour and beauty, E.F. Bleiler found it excellent, tradition of George MacDonald, first science fiction novel, Keeper Of The Isis Light by Monica Hughes, Crisis on Conshelf Ten, political crisis or something, set on the Moon, her stuff is really short, thin volumes, mostly girly and boarding school stuff, kiddie gossip for teens, a series, Invitation To The Game, a horrible situation, it’s odd, fewer women science fiction writers, she put out a lot of YA, solid science fiction book, not having the greatest prose ever, on the pirate website, a real shame, Invitation The Game by Monica Hughes, Lisse and her friends are unemployable after graduation, embrace The Game, narrated by June Carter, abebooks, Scholastic Books, way before Harry Potter, the YA cover look, an affordable edition, the shipping, import them, twice the value of the book for shipping, Ballantine Adult Fantasy, the Internet Archive, a hard science fiction dystopian novel, children go to government schools, social welfare systems, agitating for political reform, many are involved in organized crime, just write science fiction like you mean it, and not too long, 192 pages, from 1990, died in 2003, she was British, Canadian by emigration, 11 novels?, Earthdark, the Arthur C. Clarke moonbus book, Devil On My Back, used headset, hairgel, the price was right, bargain hunter, Jesse’s gonna hug Cora, Angélique books by Anne Golo, proto-bodice rippery, smoky shag rug, nicotine stained wooden rosary, one bloody Mary two bloody Marys, might as well convert, half-equipped, stinky old books, best wishes to the father-in-law, taking parents to hospitals, four hospitals in six weeks, nursing home, and blah, Paul met Cora’s mom, already in pain, not very communicative, karaoke evenings, what went wrong, heart surgery, hip surgery, not a lot going on with her anymore, Worldcon, collapsed at the airport, farm animals, recognizing farm animal, have you ever touched a bird, have you ever touched a cow, where was Paul born?, have your touched a cow, have you touched a bird, a lot of people haven’t, three days old, Jesse’s mom’s photography is awful, very significant hand disability, well done Jesse, you get 9 points, the one who blocked Jesse, cows or goats, not a farm kid, obviously a cow, cow, bull, and calf, a little bull, the relevant pieces, an active farm across the road, the cows next door, one of the cows would run away, Uncle Heine and Aunt Marianna, three sets of grandparents, kids need to do that, in New York city, a farm visit, city kids, look at all the animals, sit on a horse, had to have his balls banded, that makes him a steer so he can be eaten, ox and oxen, most of the meat, you need one bull just like you need one rooster, prairie oysters, rocky mountain oysters, I’d like a weird meat cut please, boy penises are dog chewies, rawhide chewies are penises, product descriptions, pure meat, oxen are commonly castrated, don’t steer us wrong, working animals, riding an ox, horses or camels or bicycles, a monkey riding a dog, riding an elephant, bull-riding doesn’t last very long, pull carts, ploughs, Paul has to game, Over The Edge, work for an embassy, misadventures, get into troubles and have adventures, bye, breakfast is what Jesse is hearing, Odd’s On by Michael Crichton, reuse of Easy Go notes.
Jesse, Paul Weimer, Bryan Alexander, and Terence Blake discuss The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff
Talked about on today’s show:
Nice, France, 1939, The Cataclysm, Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder, Manuscript Found In A Bottle, Manuscript Found In A Fortune Cookie, The Little Red Bag, 10 years later, old science fiction magazine, I got one too, the genre conversation, The Cold Equations, Null-A, A. E. van Vogt, Null-B, Null-F, ripostes, William Tenn, decades later, two kinds of science fiction, hard and soft, what would make this hard SF, calculations, what is causing the moon to hit the earth, never explained, magnetic attraction, gravity, totally crazy, a really good book and enjoyable, gold and platinum, a bold claim, petroleum, oil and coal, fossil fuel, non-biological processes, more than one kind of coal, abiogenic oil, something inside the earth we don’t understand, don’t roll your eyes, Paul has a B.A. in biology, Jesse studied geology, Bryan studied literature, filled the ocean with gravel theory, the weather inst very effected, so he doesn’t suffocate, no Atlantic ocean, there’s no stream, merry old England, weather more like Calgary, central Siberia, where is the water gonna be taken up from?, desertification of Britain, the front framing, the Addis Ababa people dismissing this book, corrected grammar, making fun of his own writing, the Roald Dahl “corrections”, Skiffy And Fanty podcast, there was no conclusion, sidetrack, what about George Lucas and Star Wars, is that kosher?, whoever said that is a radical, the right to do so but probably shouldn’t, what they did to Shakespeare, for the sake of the children, the frame is active, poor broody, how cozy it is, movie script writer, if not in a time machine, The Dam Busters (1955), The Night My Number Came Up (1955), a flight from Hong Kong to Japan, some Wing Commander had a dream, Liberator vs. Dakota, a snowy coast of Japan near a lighthouse, Okinawa, a fantasy in a sense of the dream element, based on a true story, a prophetic dream that came true, WWII, Pat is him, senseless violence, this thing in the moon, upholding the British empire, they’re depending on us, the logic of empire, not a hard economics model, British foodstock, do they starve?, interwar fiction, interesting Janus face, armistice, War Minister, Jaeger, Bismark, no mention of Italian facists, no mention of German, Britain has its own slice, such a good social science fiction book, just imperialism, take this book as a setting, 700 years in the future, museum edition, fun steampunk, untapped resources for science fiction, a computer game with aircraft carrier, FMV cut-scenes, Crimson Skies, airship society, railroad across the moon, the seigniorial system, London townhouses, we’re in railroading time, again, we should shoot our foots off, both of them, fuck ourselves even more, and then everything will be fine, to serve the pride, no good politicians in this book, the prime minster who was good, mutual aid, looses his position, kinda Chamberlainy, we shall avoid award at all costs, Munich by Robert Harris, an interesting spin, a little England play, the narrative arc, more and more convinced, snide and disdainful, such a prat, masterful, he makes us sympathize, he’s above his station, I’m the man who won the chicken contest 17 times, he comes from nobility, retire from being a schoolteacher, telescopy and chickenbreeding, a foresight move, I’m fucked and these kids are gonna need some local neighbour and not so distant government, that’s your best resource?, bummin around london, burning her Vermeers, very bleak, very John Wyndham, very cozy catastrophe, the John Wyndham feel, how this impacted our little community, Invasion (Apple TV series), do not watch Foundation, the camera never pans up, slow, three authors are called out, Rudyard Kipling, good war material, H.G. Wells, the script for The Invisible Man, a different book than what you think it will be, a chicken farmer inordinately proud of himself, maybe gay, bachelor, sexual tension between him and Pat, indignant, he never objects to the uncle thing, strange distance, if it is like any book it is like The War Of The Worlds, so innovative, devastating and overturning, black or grey or brown horde, the colonized come back to colonize, everything rots up there in the rain, a really solid book, Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Wind And The Willows, adventures in your backyard, giant ocean liner in his backyard, a very H.G. Wells scene, let’s get ourselves into a war, such a flawed character, very much about government, admiring his government factory built car, they are communists in the most obvious sense, anarchist communists, money is not what motivates people, I need a cow and a bull, the hunting and the housework and the chickens and gardening, Brexit, England standing alone, we don’t need the empire, we don’t need Europe, they’re heroes, we don’t need anybody else, isn’t that the conclusion unless we take the very long view, Eric S. Rabkin, everyone is expelled from London, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, the Eden complex, London being quashed, Oxford, the end of empire?, the metropol, Britain is diminished, a tangible sign, a retreat from empire, Suez crisis, the empire is finished, countries that get a slice, countries that don’t get a piece, the Soviet Union gets nothing, taking the piss, the bankruptcy of a European centered world, they play no role in the book, the isolationist part, fight among europeans, the rebellion of the colonized peoples, religious, anti-white European lines, Blood And Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945 by Richard Overy, WWII as the last colonial war, sought colonial dominions, a very young Ho Chi Minh, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Michael Moorcock’s Land Leviathan novels, giant super-tank, Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, a fascinating book, on archive.org, Islamic exploration quest, as from sio many science fiction pulp covers, the monkey book, Planet Of The Apes, the statue of liberty in ruins, what is that statue for?, Washington, D.C., Gustave Dore, a New Zealander visits the ruins of London, The Chrysalids, back to Frankenstein, the Byronic hero, Ruins Of Empires, hordes, that David Sirota movie Don’t Look Up, when Jesse reviewed that movie, “pretty good”, understatement, overstatement, not the greatest thinker ever, the central core of this movie, jockeying at the Moon club, the book proper, losing his money, losing his farm, telegraphed it very well, what is the theme of this book?, pride, excessive pride, almost every level, WWI is because of pride, what if you’re wrong about your level of quality?, who is responsible for WWI?, thrown into a duck pond, playing darts on Sundays, a very very good book, not the exact same tier as The War Of The Worlds, The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Challenger, Brian Blessed, focusing only on Sherlock Holmes, that very stupid man named Conan Doyle is really smart, he made those girls, chemicals that are poisonous to Earth, hard science, social science, later Doyle, melodrama and emotion, Challenger and his wife, a response to it, The Strand, Scoops, super-fun premises, a ton of books like this, Stowaway To Mars by John Wyndham, so cozy, so catastrophe, The Children Of The Damned, Village Of The Damned, the pertwee inspired series, Quatermass And The Pit, Nigel Kneale, in the wreckage of the 20th century, totally off the radar, a prejudice against stories set in a future that never was, immediately destroyed by history, no mention of WWII, not irrelevant, an amazing artifact, an amazing book, why it doesn’t stand shoulder to shoulder, American publishers, we love disasters, two days holiday to the Moon, emerging thing, cozy comfort SF, trying to understand it, it irks, Becky Chambers depresses Bryan, a cup of tea and a quilt, those cat mystery books, The Cat Who…[books], The Cats Who Walks Through Walls, how important tea is, coffee without milk, half the time, egg for tea, grammatical mistake, the university of Afghanistan, the society, the community of earth, another former British colony, Addis Ababa, a complete overturning, archaeologist, this place is uninhabitable, striking a match in the middle of the Sahara, the lack of the moon light ever night, light from that reflection, a pretty solid book, Robert Jackson Bennett, City Of Stairs, humbled, colonial oppressors, an investigator, gods afoot, colonialism and reverse colonialism, a society that’s repressed yours, Salim coming to humble, Selene, the moon is the liberator, Jesse’s on team moon: Smash that earth, the theory of the great replacement, not worth replacing those Brits, uninhabitable wastes of forests and wild dogs, climate change, a human response to a non-human event, climate change is caused by humans, agreeing to the science, giant corporations don’t play a role, layers of cynicism and suspicion, the newspaper account, making that up to calm us down, Bryan’s new book, Universities On Fire, John Hopkins University Press, Tantor Audio, Bryan’s previous book, Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, terrible remake, we’ve got this great Philip K. Dick, drill, come back with a can of gasoline, no good comes from people writing shit like that, conflates the issue, the reason this book has a moon crashing is it does something important, The Poison Belt, the introduction to this book, how could the moon actually hit the earth, gravitation aside, Space: 1999, Rocket Ship Galileo, how do you know the back of the moon exists?, a philosophical conversation, not impossible, Martians trying to destroy the Earth, our relationship to the moon and the earth distance, a cloud of interstellar gas, how long would it take?, at what density?, does the calculations, months or years, the Earth’s orbit around the sun, air at sea level, everything would be broken, the status of the moon separating from the earth, the moon is receding, friction of the tides, hopw do you know the moon and the tides are connected?, never mentioned, what is the effect of the tides on the water cycle, wind connected to the sun, the wind is a gas effected by the tides, would the level of oxygen go down in the ocean?, not a hard SF book, the earth’s long term well being, a sharp criticism of humans, heated roosts, raising chicken, light vs. heat, egg production, chickens can be disgusting, he’s done something on your shirt, his love for broody, the love story, the octopus teacher, a scruffy looking cockerel, the only thing available, prideful chicks, an incisive look into a person’s brains, what novels can do, what short stories are for, masterful, so H.G. Wells, hate his characters, silly, wisdom in his dumbness, science fiction as a cozy, do delivery of actual material, reading gothic horror, actual threats and danger, pulling punches, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), a stray planet collides with the earth, depressed by their lives, the conclusion is based on physics, emotional pain, staying home and not talking about what happens to London, Lovecraftian description of the Moon, he uses the word cozy, the life of uncle Henry and aunt Rose, being older, he chooses chickens, he makes a family, cultivate your garden, Jesse with his podcasts, Terence with his blog, Paul with his photography and reviews and gaming, such a dark book, a horror, his surrogate children, taking pride in your car, she’s a hero, his soul goes off, there is darkness here, 20th century British genre fiction, Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven, what we do when we know we only have the night to live, admire that Niven is a such a misanthrope, makes him incredibly incredibly human, the blinding of the human race, something we’ve been working on in the background, we can do it ourself, genetically augmented plants, hedonism, John Stuart Mill, going to shows, epicurean philosophy, what is missing?, no Bruce Willis going to blow up the moon, there’s no guns, becomes violent, played for laughs, that’s not a real problem, he’s ridiculous, the people in government, if I don’t win this war I might loose my seat as the prime minister, let people know how stupid they are, despite how he’s broken, they know he’s egocentric, don’t let him go, you can’t stop him, you have a choice, Eric S. Rabkin again, he’s probably not coming back, a failure of the oedipal romance, the Eden complex, there’s nothing productive, in the desert countries but not here, Threads (1984), the Hartnell years of Doctor Who, it’s teach people about history, they go to Skaro in the second serial, radiation and mutants, the radiation dial, radiation danger, its invisible, something we did something went wrong, why is my hair falling out, another part of Seveneves, two suggestions, Poison Belt, a mere 3 hours, LibriVox, The Angel Of The Odd by Edgar Allan Poe, one of his funniest, The Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry, makes total sense, Eric’s been married for 55 years, a very very old story, he’s choking up, of course that makes total sense, [Wilfred Owen], a crying ball of tears, revealing of character, a lecture on The War Of The Worlds, ‘she had counted me as I had counted her among the dead’, the Tom Cruise adaptation, this silly man who’s telling us this story, his own position in his limited society, Jean Luc Godard, Schindler’s List (1993), Life Is Beautiful (1997), grievous circumstances, most of their oppressors go on to live regular lives, The Act Of Killing (2012), a documentary, reenact, The Year Of Living Dangerously (1982), how did you do the killings, a repeated theme, Linda Hunt movie and Sigourney Weaver, The Killing Fields (1984), The Lack podcast, Benjamin Studebaker, Nina Power, a generative lack, Compact Magazine, a 15 minute essay, Freudian takes, labour history takes, really interesting, obscure movies, that is the central core message, the babies are missing, the fecundity aspect, because the egg, a personal recommendation, you get half, are these people richer than me?, fairly die hard, make time to listen to their show, fourth or fifth wave podcasting?, Terence’s videos on first paragraphs of philosophy books, Agent Swarm on YouTube, adblockers on everything, the Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, demonetized years ago, the first apocalypse, evil but water, they’ve added context, throwing it up as a podcast, Anchor FM, HYPER-THINKING THE ABSOLUTE, an AI transcription, Terence anti-Roald Dahled himself, floor to ceiling books everywhere, HD 4k, why Stalin was a megachad, young Stalin, would you let this bank robber into your house, profile people by their books, what are they hiding?, what are they doing?, get rid of books, a terrible feeling, phantom limb, limit the number of incoming paperbooks, kindle collection, its pure evil, we really need to focus on the government factory making the cars, Triumph and MG, they’re all government owned, British Leyland, Range Rover, overseas car industry, a planetary economy then, Brexit, the whole thing with Europe, sovereignist at every level, power and money hungry, that’s the way it is, the treatment of science, the treatment of censorship in the newspapers, the media, radio broadcasts, Conrad Black leaves Canada becomes a British Lord by buying a British newspaper, Lord Black of [Crossharbour], you’re a good old boy now, they all play along, Bezos/Musk, the New York Times owners, Jeff Bezos’s middle name, Preston!, call him by his middle, their nasty side, what did I do?, what have I done?, you will not be upset by reading it, worth the length, 11.5 hours, a very solid novel, a repetition of the same thing, people haven’t learned, avoidance behavior, it starts up all over again, you need the long first part of the book, would it be as gripping or meaningful?, back to Don’t Look Up, David Sirota, parallel thinking, following the same colonialist lines, the anti-science, a very Eric idea, born naked into the garden of Eden, a comedy, a serious topic, a parody vs. an indictment, criticism from both ends, it doesn’t nail the idea of a condemnation, people were reading Meryl Streep as Trump, the Steve Jobs like character, the unhelpful young people, the main lead, Leonardo DiCaprio, reactions, go cultivate the garden, Epicureans vs. go on the news, a delaying action, you’re fighting against the tide, she even forgot her son, a much better movie is 2012 (2009), When Worlds Collide, Edwin Balmer and his buddy [Philip Wylie], proles, plebs, arcs not dugouts, makes it personal, millions of falling buildings, the Y2K disasters, fancies, witchcraft, moral panics, Steven Baxter’s Flood, beyond climate change, Waterworld (1995), over time, a side-plot leads to the sequel, a relentless book, The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, C.J. Cherryh’s Morgaine novels, can’t recognize it as water, the data is coming into my eyes, I don’t have a symbol for that yet, why chickens?, the problem of induction, induction is a fallacy, the turkey is fed everyday, it had never happened before so it can never happen, alimentary, artisanal, with ten days food, none of this needed to happen, it’s about human nature, it’s bleak, contingency, lack of induction, moments of productivity and fecundity, a cozier world order, specif people grabbing for power, Churchill, he doesn’t think it is inevitable at all, through Pat, behind uncle’s back, he’s intoxicated, my forefathers were all military men, his sister says he’s getting fat, he’s a young, government mandate, the easy way to become an officer, wounded in WWI, he can’t be pro-war, an unnecessary stupid war, just pride, all the lies, how we got into that situation, David Hume like impossible event, other than the Black Hand, Germany was largely to blame, blank cheque, a great warlord, they’re responsible too, historiography, dive into this in great detail, the opposing view, Barbara Tuchman, send me back in time with a rile and I’ll work on this as best I can, what’s my job, to help the cogs or resist?, finding targets we hope are the right targets, what if we’re wrong?, so I can make the best decisions I can, a careful reader, what caused the Moon to fall, subtle about it, hard to recapture, civilization wide horror, until 1940, the Oxford pledge, WWII occludes, Neville Chamberlain is a fuckup, conventional wisdom got us to where we are now, form entangling alliances, some pickup team, book that Challenger book, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, deep into April, if a pile of gravel filled the North Atlantic, one land mass from British Columbia to Japan, the longest walk ever, a long train ride, from Los Angeles to Vladivostok by train, how many horse archers, how little water overspilled, Terence with two Rs, repeated letters, pirates, two fs and two rs, Arkansas, oversupplied, could’ve saved money, an extra vowel, I am to be, Cartesian, Rene Descartes is not the most popular character in the bible, meditation is a contranym, the Sam Harris style of meditation, handy, talking to young kids, that’s what I studied at university, philosophy is a history of all the mistakes people made about what is, some stuff about what’s pretty, not even wrong, broken from the beginning, eventually Benjamin Franklin doing some science, no snow in Nice, between 7 and 15, the Promenade des Anglais, is Terence’s wife French, the kids went to Australia, Melbourne, On The Beach, Connor Kaye, folk horror, art to illustrate the essays, he’s young, reading an old book, there are people out there that are interesting and interested, making only friends with old people, Jenny Colvin died [probably from her COVID vaccine], boom dead, had she not been in the hospital, Moderna or Pfizer, weird chemicals put into my body, a really good system, pushing it in the province super hard, not a week, Daniel Ellsberg, the pancreatic cancer, not going to do chemo, not with pancreatic, the height of the COVID hysteria, blood clots, the heart, still pushing them, one of the reactions, we’d adapt, becomes endemic, two kinds of corona viruses, flu and corona, made in a lab and leaked out, two competitors, everytime cells replicate there’s a chance of cancer, unless you’re a shark, tissues that are resistant to cancers, engineered a virus, standard government shit we should be on the lookout for it, the newspapers lying, we learn that it’s a lie, and we go for the next lie, they take it in but they don’t take it in, cozy reading, things that confirms, shakes you up, Ancient Apocalypse, Graham Hancock, something of value there, his theory is probably bad, the things he’s pointing to are interesting, Joe Rogan, when confronted, tell me more, we can make oil in a lab, spilled petroleum, a wacko theory, the heart is not a pump, no that’s impossible, that’s not allowed, what if we’re wrong?, being wrong with you beliefs, very bad logic, it wouldn’t shatter my world, I misremembered, somebody who sneaks in, woke up and had three legs, is this a dream?, we can do some fun stuff with this, as something as profoundly familiar, who’s that guy?, he has grey hair and he’s so fat, a question of principle, Erich Von Daniken, in terms of the particular culture, a message to the aliens, fakes evidence, lies, just on principle, wow, what does this mean, that’s science, the phenomenon he’s seeing, why not hot air balloons, I want aliens, a long time ago there was a disaster on the earth, civilization than we think, what archaeology finds, the older things get, somewhere in there, after the dinosaurs (probably), well before 6,000 years ago, rocks aligned to the stars, misreading, we got lots of books and computer games, folkdancing, no podcasts, labouring to get their food, they played a lot, I’m making a circle, what dudes do, maybe this will help us, why do bower birds build their bowers, hot air balloons are more likely than aliens, entirely possible using the tech that they had, dirt piles, we did that, Chariots Of The Gods?, people like dirt bikes, why not, all slaves theory, the slaves built the pyramids, concentrate enough capital, beautification projects, the dugouts, those really in the know knew five years before, the big reveal speech, the vicar, of no use at all, a little contradictory, levels of initiation, where they had an airplane stored, it worked great, everybody loved it, making coffee and fixing little wounds, comraderie with the lower classes, this common goal, enjoy your chicken coop, Jesse’s podcasts, Terence’s blogs, bond wherever you can, feel a bit superior, very prideful about this, on Jesse’s gravestone: the bird in The Raven is not a raven, its really there, old illustrations, does this guy know, a Reading, Short And Deep, The Road Not Taken, trusting, we go centuries reading, I think this bird is not a raven, reading Shakespeare, so sexualized, look at what he’s saying, literal asshole in her ass, the prudish high schools as 2023, the code is not very difficult to crack, The Tempest, fart jokes, the bark, lying under a gabardine, the witches, in Macbeth
First Witch. Where hast thou been, sister?
Second Witch. Killing swine.
Third Witch. Sister, where thou?
First Witch. A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,
And munch’d, and munch’d, and munch’d:—
‘Give me,’ quoth I:
‘Aroint thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ the Tiger:
But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,
And, like a rat without a tail,
I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do.
Second Witch. I’ll give thee a wind.
First Witch. Thou’rt kind.
Third Witch. And I another.
First Witch. I myself have all the other,
And the very ports they blow,
All the quarters that they know
I’ the shipman’s card.
I will drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man forbid:
Weary se’nnights nine times nine
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine:
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look what I have.
Poe: likes dead ladies, a relationship with alcohol, Shakespeare: fart jokes, sex jokes, the Christian brothers didn’t point it out, playing to the absolute base, they don’t have to change his words like Roald Dahl, King Lear, there’s grass there on the verge, killing curiosity, making it dumb, Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, I don’t like his satire, he pointed out in the world, mental continuity broke it down, what’s happening today, newly dated place, look at this, banned from one of them, the mound builders, peer review is the worst thing that ever happened to science, a big circle jerk, electricity from lighting bolts, this Asimov science book, the heliocentric hypothesis, Galileo, Copernicus, obliged to put in his own epicycles, a rule of thumb attitude, string theory being a big waste of time, in trouble, somebody’s lying, no evidence, due for some reexamination, interesting observations and claim, dark matter, dark energy, fucking epicycles on the grandest scale, great for making money, 16th time they put the flying car on the cover, doing math for physics, build more colliders, Sabine Hossenfelder, the end of science, really really abstract theories, higher energy cyclotrons, more abstract than before, Eric Weinstein, UFO bullshit, wasting money and wasting time, sucking their own dicks, Michio Kaku, formally equivalent, given what we know about Galileo’s instruments, persuasive and convincing, holy fuck he was right, confirmation by little effects, the beauty of the thing that’s important, money and fame, that’s just capitalism, science used to be the hobby of rich dudes with lots of free time, I mostly like thinking about lightning, they make the disease, the make the cure for the disease, they control the government and make you have to take it, being retired but fairly wealthy, a schoolteacher, retired at 47, you need time, breed prize hens, willing to buy a telescope, lectures from people who used a telescope, what happens if you do that, listen to the guy who read about a microscope, time, money, curiosity, people are going for the money, pride, the ass-licking to succeed, university professors are never surprised so many of their students, what’s wrong with me, some memorization, kids don’t have much time with their teacher, become a good writer, grammatical sentences, count the mistakes and subtract from the A, the psychology of the teacher as somebody who is overworked, add some humour, make a little joke, stands out, write shorter paragraphs, do something great for the introduction, terrible teachers out there, they’re getting worse, a new curriculum in British Columbia, land expropriated by Canada, having lost all of Alberta, bulldozing Indian land, feel bad for them, competing narrative, studying natives, first nations is the most popular pc term, your job is to go to this website, the teachers getting the kid to do the homework, a flood of this stuff, an Indian teacher who’s an Indian, a whole new industry starting up, first cars coming out of the factory are shit, skip a meal every few weeks, retired but doing other things, covid devastated in person tutoring, asthma, distance education, online teaching is terrible, teaching on an empty ritual, oof, terminal classes, tell them stuff and they laugh, trying to engage students with ideas, the more students you add the harder it is, the more you add the worse it is, science students who could hack, roblox, you make your own games, a Doctor Who thread, 68 and two thirds, Oh Doctor, you’re so gay, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, good as a concept, twisted and morbid, The Last Of Us, scary fungus things, zombies aren’t scary, but blind fungus zombies are scary (probably), pretty good, The Peripheral, the end is silly, fit all the novel in (sort of), second series, a comic William Gibson did [Archangel], Gattaca, The Man In The High Castle, a book is not a film, the show is churn, the way Harry Potter is constructed, Drug Of Choice by Michael Crichton, archive.org, Keys Of Marinus, each episode in this serial is standalone, beautiful silk, gorgeous cup vs. dirty old mug, Jesse’s obsessed with A Wrinkle In Time, E=mc², hot garbage, a Robert Silverberg novel, alien elephants, Downward To Earth, audiobook, Dying Inside, I’ve got a big stack of them in the basement, Passengers, The Book Of Skulls, The Poison Belt, big format, library genesis, good pirate, so many other sources, maybe Christmas in Australia, one r in Terence.
Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Evan Lampe talk about Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein
Talked about on today’s show:
1947, the first of the Heinlein juveniles and also the least good, pretty bad compared to his later stuff, first read, Paul skipped the juveniles, back catalogue, proven Paul wrong, first read through, Evan Lampe is reading Heinlein for his American Writers podcast, you can tell, the formula is imperfect, study math, stop and study algebra, before we bomb the Nazis, do our physics studies, The Rolling Stones, more integrated into the plot, him doing Tom Swift, boy rocketeers!, almost no girls, there’s the mom (and that’s it), she’s knitting, a boys book, simple question, who is the Heinlein standin in this book?, Hargraves, painfully obviously, Heinleinian Socratic dialogues and opinions, digression about math theory, he’s a propagandist, adult Heinlein, Gulf, Friday, theories of intelligence and knowledge, all the things he says are right, side discussion, whether the back of the Moon exists or not, the stuff about the rainbow, defend Heinlein propagandism, continued his work for the proto-CIA, learn math in school to fight the cold war, yes you can, sir, what math is, the kids give back to him, not anything related to reality, this conversation with your math teacher, what the Moon in, that’s meta-science, epistemology, some of Evan’s favourite stuff, this book is weak, the philosophy of knowledge, what do we know and how can you prove it, the whole tides thing, a correlation, a good inference, the sun also tides, the moon might not but the sun definitely does, learned it in college, king tides, therefore its true, Hypatia of Alexandria, epicycles explained the motions of the planets, on point, its good, that guy just shot that guy, how do you know that?, when you’ve got 15 hours in a rocket, how do you know the house is on fire, the stoics, withholding judgements, the skeptics, our path to internal peace and freedom from disturbance, go through our life and assume that’s true, pragmatism, math’s that way, essential true but not, P. Pilate = Pontius Pilate’s middle name, a subtle expression of Paul’s unconscious, Evan’s middle name, however right wing he becomes in future, address people, for the listener in the year 3,0000, people were jerks, a political billy club on President Obama, lower yourself to your enemy’s level, tweeting about politicians, practical reason, less liable, account is locked, Elon Muskovites, Nikki Haley’s middle name, don’t call me Schicklgruber, deliberately disrespectful, that ship has sailed, puts Paul into the mud, stirring fecal matter, irkked, take em all on policy, I, Mudd, the stern schoolmarm, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, Paul as a parent scolding their full, I named you, a true name thing, Robert Anson Heinlein how dare you, why Destination Moon (1950) is so shitty, they took out the Nazis, the characters are uninteresting and unlikeable, Woody Woodpecker was Heinlein, the shotgun, garbage essentially, so propagandistic, here’s how we’re going to do it boys, they’re all old men, no females in the entire movie, The End… of the Beginning, it has no heart, its soulless, the skeptical guy, it really woiks!, you think the Bears are playin’?, boring, Apollo 13, a little bit of The Cold Equations, we want them all to die, I’d be embarrassed, he wrote at least part of it, why it is so shitty, they took the Nazis out because 1947 is very different than 1950, dealt with, the bad guys are the Soviets, who are our allies?, Werner Von Braun, it fucks the script, being sabotaged, all those people trying to stop them from going, plot pieces, second time reading it, NAZIS ON THE MOON?!!?, sabotage on earth, business meetings, you know what America has, American how-to-it-ness!, The Man Who Sold The Moon, D.D. Harriman, charisma, goals, they’re wasting Jesse’s time, D.D. Harriman is passionate, he’s a Reeve, wokescold Delos David Harriman!, Requiem, Expanded Universe, a prequel, a great couplet of a character arc, his lifelong dream, you guys suck you’re so boring, Jesse sounded like Cora, make the story kinda interesting, cute and very Heinlein, the little implied sex scene, radioactive fuel, Thorium, distribute the letters, that girl who’s hot on you, the bottled blonde, i’m hot on her, I guess you’ll find out soon, does the carpet match the drapes, this carpet is definitely made of wool, inappropriate pictures, porn to the Moon!, gotta keep up with your homework, an association copy on Haithi Trust, Heinlein inscribing it to his nephew, you are this character, proves Jesse’s point, Tuckerization, cool and interesting, reading this book blind, here’s a book, did Heinlein write it, point to certain things, one of the thing’s that’s pointed to, who are the kids who go to the moon, an all-American boy, a German immigrant kid and a Jew, a Heinleinism, Spider Robinson gives a Jewish accent, not make a big deal of it, ohhhh the Holocaust!, this must really traumatized, the UN has made Earth a happy basket except there’s fuckn Nazis everywhere, probably South America, Antarctica, searchers looking, not in Heinlein books, they’re in Washington DC in real-life, in the Heinlein universe, Canada, in Germany too, deNazified, maybe Maissa caught this, where they could do their testing, Little America, that’s Antarctica, not if you have a rocket that is nuclear powered, constant thrust, asked a science teacher, this week, why don’t we have atomic rockets?, he’s a smart guy, assume the best of our high-school teachers, the big technological question, why don’t we have atomic rockets, why haven’t moved beyond the steam engine, make water hot, solar energy, a solar sail, no NASA rockets that are nuclear, Voyager has radioactive decay, a trickle charge, Project Orion, very inefficient, opposite of constant, the lesson here is, at the origins of capitalism, capitalism hasn’t contributed to technological development, we manipulate the electrons a little bit differently, technology developed in the 19th century, David Graeber, stagnant from the, its shocking, the Marvel helicarrier is atomic powered, use electric power generated from a reactor, your fuel doesn’t get wasted but you need water, they ran outta water, thorium is atomic number 90, zinc steam, water, he’s hoping that this will work, the stuff coming out the back of the space shuttle, a radioactive cloud of zinc, what happened in Ohio the other day (but radioactive), he’s got the math wrong but the idea right, uranium would work, it’s a fudge, he’s trynna make a story, kind of scary, chunks of uranium or plutonium falling all over the place, a nuclear thermal rocket in space, take your fuel up there in space, pretty scary, you need to wear your radioactive film, Spider Robinson does a really good job with the audiobook, he doesn’t play the Heinlein stand-in very comedicly, that’s Heinlein hoggin all the best lines for his character, he’s knocked on the hear three times, shot in the head, an explosion on the base, and the third time on the moon, a Jules Verne move, rock head, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, that’s a Jules Verne one, a gun to the moon, making fun of Americans, the ballistic society, anti-gravity technology, pull yourself to any body in the sky, contragravity, push away from the earth, pull to the moon, very clever, Selenites on the Moon, I’m British!, does colonialism, they’re strong, they’re from Earth, a nice satire, your my cousin but its okay, whatever weird sex things he wants to throw in there, no politics (other than Nazis bad), all about the U.N., Space Cadet, U.N. Space Force, there’s Selenites in this book!, Blowups Happen, craters on the moon couldn’t have been meteorites, nuclear war, fission power, the slightest mistake, Lester Del Rey’s Nerves, take this energy source off Earth, the moon is like the lesson, novelette, 1940, Coventry, say his name!, that’s funny Paul, Stranger In A Strange Land, Glory Road, Evan’s destination, eager to get to, Maissa didn’t get through it, he can be rough, the lack of women hurt the book, maybe he was learning, Space Family Stone, his sexual politics are very interesting, girls don’t exist, they’re just budding, they don’t reproduce on the moon, his worst juvenile by a lot, so didactic, we have to have a trial, legalism, Farmer In The Sky, Boy Scout stuff, I’ll back you, I gave my word to your son, graduates of the high school, how most of us learn those lessons, Socratic dialogue, we have creepy uncle Heinlein, you made me think, the three families, only a mom, dad died in WWII, your a man, you’re my Jewish son, I disapprove, you need to let him go, how to make everybody man, Jordan B. Peterson, whatever the B stands for, women want to protect, men want to challenge, I don’t want my boy to get hurt, I want my boy to become a man, chooses to follow the second instinct, some of his female characters, Grandma Hazel, it’ll make a man out of you, dual instinct, rip-roaring six-gun, both things going on, gender dynamics, mother vs. father, Bernt?, a fuckwit, he doesn’t read enough!, getting his Latin wrong, a simple mistake, Marxist postmodernism, withhold judgement, his debate with Slavoj Žižek, re-read The Communist Manifesto, a 5 minute, not doing you homework, Whatifalthist, social dynamics, hatewatch, social ideas, everybody is a work in progress, read some real books, way out of date, in the bin with Jordan Peterson, Evan feels sorry for Jordan Peterson, daughter despises Jordan Peterson, we have a derth of public intellectuals, Žižek’s not perfect, he likes jokes, on that we agree, all the good philosophers kill themselves, more grounded, a more radical, serious left, so ignorant, propaganda going on, could have went to town on him, Žižek’s doing his own fucking thing, interesting, your job here is to crush this anti-communist, teach him, I’m not gonna think about that guy, they know he said something, he aint necessary for Jesse, you haven’t been told to clean your room, offering a path for people, he understands the same problem, his diagnosis is wrong, the problem is late capitalism, the Marxist post modernism trans-people, Evan worries about the boys, his sympathies are with the ladies, getting emotional, he’s saying it though, wash your armpits, talk to a girl, many do, Evan doesn’t have the patience for those people, pull up their bootstraps, Evan doesn’t feel bad for them, turn towards the right, become internet fascists, 20 year olds, some sort of psychopath, people who are off and lied to, a very small subset, they’ve been lied to about what communism and how the Soviet Union worked, in British Columbia there has been a law passed that requires every student to study indigenous stuff, part of a plan, slightly weird case with B.C., we’re gonna fix our problems with our natives by educating everybody about it, blockades in B.C., you have to study these issues, completely fucked up, making an inference, we have a plan in the future to not be assholes, elect governments with popular support, the Holodomor, the Ukraine deliberate famine by the soviets, Nazi monuments in Canada, strongly lobbying for anti-soviet campaign, a massive lobby, have this in the curriculum, Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather was a Ukranian Nazi, to demonize the Soviet Union, 99% bullshit, gulag system (gulag means prison), our job is to teach the incels or whatever you want to call them, they want to have girls like them, Evan had a dad, your mother can’t do that, Jesse pull up your pants and clean your room, in a cult for 20 years, another uncle is still in that cult, a much more obscure, Jesse likes Mormons, Eckankar, is it a cult if it is around for 100 year, Chanhassen, Minnesota, cut you off from your family, new religious movements vs. cults, religion, parents divorced because of capitalism, not a replacement for your dad, I’ve fucked up my life, here’s 12 rules, very simple things, you need a dad in your life, Joe Rogan’s real dad is still alive, Quentin Tarantino’s stepdad made him, we are weird creatures, model myself on somebody, where culture comes from, primitive tribe in the bush, it more effects boys, having the uncle there is really important, a lot of people don’t have anybody to model themselves on, a very different world now, just so insulated within themselves, just teaching each other, not really helping, a bad effect, we all need to re-read Bowling Alone, Elks Club, Shriner’s, Boy Scouts, the boomers, he always knows people, softball, without church, so socially isolated, internet is not replacing whatever that was, can’t get those incels into the Shriner’s club, capitalism has rooted out the thing, why we’re in front of screens all the time, 19 hours, relevant, a little old, social science, come to terms with it, he says everything seven times, a number of hobbies, Evan’s not wrong, wants to get us out on the streets, a rally today in Washington D.C., Rage Against The War Machine, 19th of February 2023, stop funding Ukraine, start funding Ohio, populists, a demonized word, farmers talking to each other, people hear the word Nazis, people expressing dissatisfaction, war bad, as Jimmy Dore points out, that’s not how you organize a movement, united on an issue, organize particular events, Occupy Wall Street, no agenda, there were no demands, let’s dissolve NATO, NATO bad, NATO Nazis, Jesse no, run by a former Nazi for a very long time, at the end of WWII, hey Germans we’re in charge now, the genetic flag, once you start looking at what the policy is, team world, back to the Cold War, a hate for the Soviets, prefer fascists over, Canada sending aircraft to Haiti to search for gangs, why is Canada trying to run Haiti, what the Americans can’t do in Haiti, we do what they say, you don’t want to be on the bad-side, Jesse is making Paul angry, the evils of Ukraine, not interfere with Ukraine, fare thee well, Ukraine would loose, not supporting Ukraine is saying Russia can do whatever you want, we’re not the world’s policeman, why don’t you just take all of it, what you are advocating, sorry can’t help you, Russia can do whatever the fuck you want, sucks for you, Paul is angry, have a good day, the issue, a set of beliefs about what’s happened, its hard to communicate an alternative narrative, televisions channels and newspapers, what’s actually happening vs. the narratives, why things have gone wrong so badly, 2014, 2020, the reason we’re in this is because of NATO, Canada picked a team, there’s only one Switzerland, some land almost nobody wants, rocks and salt-mines, if you don’t pick a team, one of the teams collapsed, team China, sympathetic in many ways, looking back, the great tragedy of 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union, mistakes, there’s us with the plenty, a chicken in every pot, the hobos are all gone, everything is grey, nobody has jobs, its always winter in Russia, homelessness, toxic everything, government completely corrupted, untested poisons, ethno-nationalism, Russians in Ukraine, Nazis in Ukraine who want to refight the war, where Evan is critical of China, how poverty has been eliminated, not the best example, in ethnic policy, irredentist towards Taiwan, what we inherited, this nationalism, Serbia, Kosovo, breaking up the enemy, a definitive article, the Nordstream pipeline, they don’t want Germany to have Russian gas, that’s bad, hurting Germany, they’re not on the same team, bad team to be on, we have your best interests at heart, there are consequences to that, transnational corporations, send more lobbyists to Washington, how the world was saved by lobbyists, the U.N. police, the third world movement, an alternative to the first and second world, Indonesia, India, what the U.N. calls for, in this book, give a voice to every country, that empire cannot do, the U.N. needs some reforms, votes based on population, there’s one big bully who refuses, the winners of WWI[I], we can’t have peace because profits, shouldn’t be thrown out, maybe it’s hopeless, better than the alternative, just empire, making fun of Jesse, the essential problem is propaganda, dwell too much in media, material conditions, what’s actually happening, hard to talk to Paul about Ukraine, what Aaron Rupar says, to cheer a team, against random war, how did that happen, designed to be done on purpose, in order to support it, it’s a proxy war, using other people to get your enemy, Zelenskyy ran on a platform of peace, know more, very little sympathy for post-Soviet Russia, a more democratic system in Russia, throwing rocks at your window, rock throwing was on purpose, the United States backed a coup in Ukraine, random wars, because NATO, why didn’t we dissolve NATO, let the Russians join NATO, global capitalism, neither is an alternative, competing nations amongst them, transnational elites, lots of forces, as an ethnic group, security being threatened, trying to crush the Russian economy, regime change, the drunk guy with the white hair (Yeltsin), was the American pick, Putin is the replacement, nation states are still more powerful than transnational oligarchs, Elon Musk doesn’t have an army or a navy, complexity here, Heinlein wouldn’t be happy, the Friday show, Heinlein is not as committed to the United States as people think he is, just the United States, important to the book, he thinks its a solution, Space Cadet, he’s right about that, we have 70 years of U.N. history to look at, The League Of Nations, solve the problem of war, that’s out the window, turned the cold war back on, democratic global civil society, the Westphalia system of sovereignty, violating the integrity of Ukraine, Jesse is not in favour of Canada or the United States annexing Canada, long silence, how do we convince people other than having a conversation, blow up buildings, whatever that was, 9-11 etc., pointing people to particular books, violence should be off the table most of the time, what Paul was saying, Crimea, Crimea was gifted, part of the Soviet Union, trying to make friends, we’re integrating, recolonization, this is not in a vacuum, Putin decided he’s a madman, they’ve seen the ill effects, tried to make nice, Russians or Soviets, a one sided animosity, the Russian Revolution and WWI, the British are responsible, a tiny Russian colony in Africa, near Djibouti, New Moscow, an attempt in the rush for Africa, too busy colonizing Siberia and Alaska, history is fascinating, this Ukraine stuff, not as evident, people who have the signs in real life, the Six Flag game, which three flags do you pick?, Palestine or Israel, Russia or Ukraine, Taiwan or China, different options, who are you, a certain media bubble, Israel Ukraine Taiwan, what’s the anti-imperial flag?, pirate flag, a mug’s game, a Rorschach test, putting those flags in your bio is the bad decision, a hammer and sickle on Evan’s twitter thing, force Evan to pick, Taiwan, Ukraine, Palestine, don’t accept the forcing, Americans aren’t Europeans, a cash generator for the arms industry, who speaks what, what language you learn in school, Africans don’t have this problem, multi-ethnic countries, China is 56 nations in one, Alsace Lorraine, eruozone, continental Europeans, Scots independent vote, ethno-nationalism, on the wane, nationalism, on the rise, has been for a while, funded by the United States, diverse by their borders, Nazis in Russia are not funded by the world’s biggest superpower, the yellow and blue flags everywhere, local businessman, rainbowflag, Ukraine flag, older people, former professor, nice piece of land, enough money on her pension, where do they get these signs?, she supports the things that are good, these aren’t necessarily good, reductionist, expressing solidarity like he/him is not wrong (it’s just silly), I support a proxy war in Ukraine, a series of provocations, a war since 2014, a team picked a side, strawmanning, we had the Minsk agreement, some measure of independence within Ukraine, Boris Johnson kiboshed that, subject to a lot of propaganda, maybe that makes Jesse a simpleton, Evan’s not sure what to do, keep tellin truth, all the Kubrick movies, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), a documentary, twitter bios, black white and green with a red triangle, a weird mix, mental illness, autism, the Scots flag is “based”, the Scots took over the British Empire, a bot or autistic, fake bio, CBSRadio Mystery Theater is based, needs a dad, The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick, The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson, another non-fiction, Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber, Global Enlightenment, riled up, I didn’t know we were going to Ukraine, it went there, Rally to stop the War Machine, Yemen, against War with China, while America falls to shit, spill in Ohio, instigate a war, what happened at the U.N. right at the beginning, one china policy, which one was which, there’s only one China, Republic of China, self-determination, democracy, there’s another country involved, fucking around with some other part of Chinese policy, we should always say no to WWIII, don’t do that, flying planes over Taiwan, they need to grow up about it, the Chinese people, using Taiwan as propaganda, bring up Taiwan as a distraction, let the people of Taiwan decide, better than WWIII, persuade, the U.S. is really good at propaganda, dominate, incompetent as well, everything we learn is propaganda, math is propaganda, the belief I have that the moon has another side, some innate stuff, I don’t even know the word sexy, primitive stuff, that car looks cool, persuaded that it looks cool, don’t conflate what the US has been doing in Ukraine with Taiwan, its an island, a way to sell more weapons, everybody has to have vaccines, mandated, in response things, the United States is surrounding China, China is hiding submarines in the South China Sea, like it’s not their sea, it’s coming, a NATO of the pacific that they’re building, weapons, software, the NATO of Asia, the milk tea alliance, Australia, Japan, democratic forces in Hong Kong, Burma, Thailand, opposed to Chinese domination of Asia, SEATO, dissolved 1977, get Vietnam on board, finding allies in the region, making progress, developmental outcomes, pick fights with the Philippines, Philippines is occupied, 3 new bases, North Korea and Vietnam, in the pocket, best friends, Germany is still occupied, recognize Cuba?, not occupied, even Britain has American military bases, Trump’s right, better alternatives, Jimmy Dore for president, no good alternatives to American empire, one member doesn’t want to play nice, China signs up for stuff, at the heart, an evil cabal in that Stanley Kubrick movies, Cecil Rhodes’ guys, listen to Alex Jones, he knows what’s going down, evil trans-nationalists, what caused WWI, entangling alliances, the blank cheque, multipolar, start acting like Switzerland, 1600 – 1940s, no allies, on the side of democracy, people should have power, global civil society, Shriners International, Idahoan scouts jamboreeing in Tiananmen Square, go to see the moon with your space friends, he needs to be looked at in a careful way, too RAH! RAH!, American exceptionalism, a radical part, stay healthy, make up with Paul, propaganda that’s good for you, Heinlein is good propaganda, not an echo chamber, say where he’s wrong, cutting yourself off from other people, banning this blocking that, missing something important, not trying to make an enemy, imagine in 50 years, a cheerleader, Lovecraft, fascism is a good idea, before the ovens, Mussolini is silly, causes deaths.
The SFFaudio Podcast #747 – Space Viking by H. Beam Piper – read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hours 17 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Cora Buhlert, and Jim Kitchen
Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in Analog, November 1962 and February 1963, paperback in 1963, Ace Books, Little Fuzzy, the Scalzi treatment, gently disagree, Michael Whalen covers, homerun painting, a children’s book of Fuzzies, The Cosmic Computer, Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen, cross dimensional novel, Roger Zelazny, rat hole, popular, used bookstores almost don’t exist, expensive used bookstores, why are those books harder to find?, how much was published, more printings of Space Viking, redoing it, a great inspiration for the Ewoks of Star Wars, Ewok-ish, translated into German, normal Ace printruns, fell into public domain, Jerry Pournelle, The Other Human Race, Uller Uprising, Junkyard Planet, Graveyard Of Dreams, Graveyard Planet is by Clifford D. Simak, a tier down, grabs your lapels, Dr. McCoy, still alive and on twitter with a pipe and gun emoji, it doesn’t work as an idea, obvious three things, two of them, three rules of H. Beam Piper, 1. throwback to historical incident or occasion, Sepoy Mutiny, fated to repeat our mistakes, hey that Hitler guy had some pretty good ideas, the big lie works for me, anti-cancer vaccine, 2. chainsmoking is still a thing, break out the cigarettes, hardboiled science fiction, drinking, gun oil and cleaning rod, firearms, everybody has cap guns in the future, after the crackup, the final war on Earth, only the southern hemispheres are around, race goes out the window, character’s looks don’t match the character’s names, Four Day Planet, Japanese name but looks like a viking, western colonization, whiteman-centric science fiction, go forward from there, the bleeding edge, he’s with Heinlein, a bigger name, Scalzi commented on his blog about it, his estate is in shambles, how amazing his writing is, his reputation has gone up since his death, all the people we don’t remember from the early 20th century, why everyone hates H.P. Lovecraft, standard beliefs, still read today, worse than Lovecraft, not that apparent in the fiction, Henry S. Whitehead, weirdos like us, 60 years since it came out, rotted in great fiction, Three Musketeers, Four Musketeers, character, romance, begins with a gutpunch, qualms with the society is a part of, the darkest motive of all: revenge, find and end him, a little worldbuilding, playing by the same rules, playing fair by those rules, an axe to grind, pschoanalyzing, a self-educated man, doing their hobbies on 500 journeys, history, he has his characters doing that, when not polishing his gun he’s smoking and reading history, a self-made man, somebody who champions the self-made man, a hardscrabble version of Heinlein, pocket money, by his bootstrapping himself, he was a working man, a nightwatchman, his interests, the way he focuses his characters on engaging in intellectual ideas, some massive blindspots but mostly right, a moral horror book, post-apocalyptic and protect my family, 17 books in this series, intellectual heft he’s working through, we’re utter monsters, I know what I’m doing is utterly monstrous, I’ll have a scene where I explain with a little girl and a dog, Beowulf raid, rape and other things, swordworld core values, Gallic law, innocent people, a quote, the Duke of Wellington, Siege of Cádiz, the 30 Years War, ya ya I know, rifles and pistols, they keep on fighting, what would you do in their place, terro-humans are all stupid like that, a massacre, a man made hell, a compulsion to share their guilt, it doesn’t stop him from writing the book, realistic, WWII, WWI, Ukraine war, The Bridge (1959), betrayed by the German Green party, all of the kids die, grew up to be famous actors (and a singer), whenever they swear, swearing by Satan, writing for magazines, “foul unprintability”, Katherine Tarrant, the system states cede, the collapse, the decline, interstellar ability, sick of what’s coming, raid the bones of the Federation, the atrophy that brought down the Federation, the Empire that comes after, Retrun Of The Jedi, Hoth is one of the planets, Dagon, Nergal, named after famous swords, Durandal, Excalibur, cookies, Gram, The Song of the Nibelungs, the Traveler RPG universe, Game Designer’s Workshop, good thing it is public domain, right?, the worst cover art ever, how did a game with such a crappy cover get any traction, Paranoia had great art, Battletech, Mechwarrior, a pox on you, 1976, Logan’s Run, the juggernaut that is Star Wars, Marc Miller, the great blurb on the cover, where D&D was just a box, the storyhook, Space Opera, Fantasy Games Unlimited, Battledroids, FASA, peoplw ere so excited about the blurb on the cover, a literary game, a board games, tabletops games, playing the game smiling, mmm interesting, explore the entire galaxy, ruled mostly by the French, WWIII, the superpower of the stars, Heinlein smoked, Heinlein could quit, Starship Troopers, horror and guns, a massively different book, different foundations, ideological, hobbyistic, a thing to look at, the names, an explanation, Morglay, Omfray, Nikkolay, Andray, this comes up a lot, pig-latin, in Shakespeare, dog become goday, God become Ogday, Google becomes Ooglegay, a game kids play, you have to learn, Ol’Nick, From, Morgue, Rand, a being from the same culture, Rathmore (wrath), playing fun games, giving the game away, a fun game, smart guy, self-made, he wants to be an architect and couldn’t afford to, a couple of different kinds of arches, what a cathedral you’ve built here sir, he only has marble, he can’t build with girders, a powerful intellect without enough time, he’s got to know he’s brilliant, we can all make it, all noble and good and smart, a very American view of history, very Heinleinian, adventurers who wanted adventure, Germans in the 1850s/60s, the 1848 revolution, gold in California, the apprentice who would never be the master, women who couldn’t find husbands, risky, he’s saying the crazy vicious people leave to go viking, slightly supported by a glance at reality, Scandinavia, barbarism and civilization, what would Robert E. Howard would have liked H. Beam Piper and arguing at the bar all night, very nice socialist emotionally cold, hygge, being cozy at home, exported their vicious people, anger makes him go off, dissatisfaction, describing the reality, starvation, new government policies, cleaning the lands, the enclosures, thieving bread, shipped off, exporting his best genes, not fully decided, viciousness and tenderness, from a ground pounder’s point of view, an infantryman, all the best officers start off as regular soliders, a grounding in what reality is, only people who’ve seen war, imagining a future, settled and collapse, barbarian is back baby, neo-barbarians are not the same as the space vikings, Heinlein started off as a socialist, went to seed later, where he’s at is not the mid Heinlein phases, a very sparky engine, rich or even overrich with ideas, Junkyard Planet, A Planet For Texans was a co-production, courtroom stuff, served on a jury?, people who think for themselves, do you have any set ideas?, let me make a list, strong opinions or closeminded, persuadable by argument, spark up, he wants to be a lawyer, he’s making arguments, ideas against monarchy, from the top down, he leans into it, sits down and smokes, what Conan does, similar guys, he was in a working class society, resident working class vs. transient working class, he had to have a trade, dreams are fleeting, solved their problems the same way in the end, amazing but unsupported is crushing, not all business with Howard or Piper, they both think that they’re geniuses, breathing room for characters, the little girl with her dog, arranging all the family dynasties, he likes the romance, having so much fun in this book, the murder of the new bride, the massacre at the wedding, Game Of Thrones’ Red Wedding, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming, different classes, an older trope, people will be doing Heinlein like deep studies on Piper’s books, war with Russia, we are lead by sad idiot clowns, incompetent on purpose, ex-Nazis, semi-competent, what would happen if H. Beam Piper had become a politician?, feeling based ideas, he would want to be a king, not a lot of room for diplomats, Keith Laumer, his standing has much receded over the years, every year that goes by, most writers decline towards the end of their life, later period Asimov, the smart ones stop writing, rising and developing and getting better, if Philip K. Dick was writing today…, you shoulda stopped around 80s man, a better short story writer than a novelist, he works pretty well at the novelette and novel length, ascended, people who want to record his stuff, ebooks with decent covers, people love making the art for his books, Wildside Press, the spinner rack, a whole month of pocket money, the ending, the hallucinations, shot to death, Elaine was with him, be good to her, then she was gone, such a romantic, the chivalry stuff, Howard likes girls and thinking about girls and describing them, Piper is a romantic, his writing style, his grammar is a little bit off sometimes, who says goodbye, Elaine?, its the author, suffering loss, a short brief awful bought with cancer, two ways you go, on off switch or lingering fade, goodbye dad, who is writing this book?, third person, her head against his cheek, one way of reading it, now it finally be said, I can let it all go, I got my revenge and there’s no heaven, it’s not by Trask, it’s by Piper, he’s so crazy, who else would do that?, sometimes it can hurt, a presence throughout the book, appears to him multiple times, in order for the plot to happen, fridging, he breaks the rule of the narration, reframing the whole book, that’s something on the page, lain in ruins, forays to loot the corpse, wealth of detail, how it has all fallen apart, if you wanna understand piper, set during the Federation, seams and threads, natural disintegration, key peices of the Piper library, a lot of himself into it, Jerry Pournelle: Piper was a craftsman, Uller Uprising, set in a common universe, let three authors loose, Twayne Triplet [The Petrified Planet], how these chartered companies work, an analog to the East India Company, sequential order, Space Viking‘s sense of romance, Piper in his prime, he’s put himself into the protagonist’s shoes, agree and disagree, Jesse’s thesis, Fletcher Pratt, Judith Merrill, humour stories, public domain but we didn’t know, it helps your career, hidden behind a paywall of an estate that renewed, Condé Nast, good and bad, still Junkyard, very different, a different girl, Adept’s Gambit, Night’s Black Agents, trans people and gay people in the mid-1930s, Gideon Marcus, Galactic Journey, comparable to Foundation [by Isaac Asimov], good at short stories and bad at novels, Asimov’s characters, big honking series novels, late period novels, horrendously bad, James Lovelock, Arthur C. Clarke, genetically engineered weapon, great ideas, three stages, the setup, the last third, the left turn to Albuquerque, courtroom drama, he’s right most of the time, reinforced from Terra, a hunt through pornographic romantic fiction, sketching on notes, meanwhile his mind is percolating along, interesting to read and not typical novels, the most straight up book he’s got, sell Jesse on Four Day Planet, the closest to juvenile fiction, let’s book it, sea-monsters and unions, one of Piper’s greatest jokes in it, a dad joke, fun, twitter is weird right now, Games Workshop, the worlds largest toy soldier company, Microsoft, stat at home dad, Illinois, tired of moving, all that wonderful stuff, a mover’s worst nightmare, Rivian, surrounded by where the car industry is leaning, why some materials are so important, Amazon delivery vehicle has a panic button, a very science fictional thing, something you’d find in a Heinlein novel, third parties to deliver packages, majority minority employing, the drivers love them, gigantic windshield, mid 50s, make friends with young people, a really good plan, pained but smiling, if you didn’t like her…, German post, electric vehicles, more and more, a facility in Vancouver, Calgary, The Sentry Box, sleep in a teepee, Coquitlam, outside Minneapolis, The Source, Tower Games, great game stores, 1300 game stores, the ones that survive, Staten Island, The Complete Strategist, comic book stores were hit hard by COVID, [Hourglass Comics] leaned into gaming, Diamond Distribution, 18-24 months, Comic World, Huntington, West Virginia, burns everything to ash, Pokemon trades, the black and white bust of the late 80s, a bookstore, they’ve got the space, literally 1 block away from light rail, Evan Lampe doesn’t understand toys, Cora’s got all the He-Mans, Funkopops, scarred by Diddl Mice, Beanie Babies killed an industry, Edmonton, Eternita playset, you deserve it, Rotterdam, they didn’t want to take the hint, you were always watching something, every single Ninja Turtle ever made, you have to keep doing, you can’t overcoming the inertia, Battle Cat, a slippery slope, now they need a Skeletor, Target and Walmart exclusives, I shall make you a queen amongst all the others, new Masters Of The Universe figures, want list, Lego minifigs, little H.P. Lovecraft stories scenes, Playmobil, some amazing stuff, Nativity Scene, general appeal, people are Christians, an A-Team Playmobil, there are no children who have ever seen The A-Team, this is a product that is marketed to adults, adult toys, not the kind you get at the sex shop, Star Trek, nobody sits down with their kid and says let’s watch some A-Team, German only jokes, George Peppard, Perry Rhodan, a series, audio dramas, not huge in North America, its not New Wave, Dan Dare, the morass of Doc Savage, small magazines, dime novels, lucky to have a newsstand, John Sinclair, the biggest science fiction series in the world, almost no impact in North America, an institution, issue 2254, a very robust industry in central Europe, a fan in Italy, Urania, similar in style, great art, pretending to be American, so wonderful, found some long lost friends, we’ve all lost some books you’ve read, Worlds Without Number, Jack Vance’s Tschai, remix everything, Jack Vance integral edition, nobody has the money to buy it, hear about Urania, all the Italian Giallo movies, Italian crime magazines, other European countries, romance and westerns, for the old men, back issues of various pulp magazines, Cora’s main comic store, elderly ladies coming in, romance novels, a lesbian elderly couple, lesbian bookstores are very common, that same collector trait that men more often have, lesbian couples, comics and games don’t pay the rent, the sextoy shopped, they’re in it for the books but the sex-toys sell, 90% of the profits, there’s a joke to be made hand over fist, Playmobil Perry Rhodan, he’s still in very good condition, one of the first ones, Jesse’s theory: Hummels are to the 1950s as Playmobil is to the 2020s, collectible doll, Rocket Ship Galileo, some cookies, caught COVID in the hospital for the second time, wearing masks, negative tests, she never caught COVID at home, we’re being lied to.
