telepathy – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #786 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Radium Pool by Ed Earl Repp

The SFFaudio Podcast #786 – The Radium Pool by Ed Earl Repp, read by Thomas Copeland (for LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (2 hours 43 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
in Earth language, sorry everybody, Sophie Wenzell Ellis, another radium filled story, avoid radium, taking a long time to get started, WHAT!, so many explicitly catery characters, outer narrator, professor who explains things, meet a guy who who is looking for another professor, another professor, infodumper, chapter 9 tells us despite the counter evidence, that makes sense, me too I agree this story makes a lot of sense, if H. Rider Haggard were boring, Inception, oh yeah, that was a thing, awkward framing, August and September 1929, The Moon Pool by A. Merritt, an early popular science fiction story, sequels, sorry, cool cover with a lady in yellow, old science fiction, some shitty science fiction out there, completely unfuckin scientific, despite the gestures, Jovians from Jove, lovesick guy with a gun, getting the better, cheated by using telepathy, tentacles, a scientific fact, other than it’s a planet, a gesture at the distance, whatever, this story is so fuckin bad, Mars has already been done, there are good stories set on jupiter, Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson, The Radium Poul, Lester Del Rey, good ideas, not being so long-winded about it, Maissa speaks for Will, the same as Avatar, grow a Jovian, as in the original Avatar, a telepathic link, guy just lives in the new body, a centaur with a big axe, Poul Anderson likes vikings, downloading yourself into an avatar in reality, what Justin Trudeau is trying to do, become a leader of the people, the first 2 Avatar movies, waiting til we are ready for it, why they’re all the same, he’s good at what he does, Titanic (1997) is his worst movie, a long and a prequel for Avatar 3, do your own serialization, might as well just talk about Avatar, Jake Sully is fundamentally untransformed by becoming an indigenous leader, a football coach from Cincinnati, for the Navii that’s exotic, why he’s not so boring to them, what’s really happening in Avatar: the American audience inserts themselves into Jake Sully and downloads themselves into the movie during the running time of the movie, six years old and think its cool, he’s not a character you aspire to be, he is you, no qualities, the most frequent expression, the bad guy in the first one, too bad they brought him back, there’s a reason we don’t do a movie podcast, most movies aren’t very deep, playing with the water theme, The Abyss, a cool Cold Equations scene, you need to drown in order for us to live, with a solution, the aliens thing at the end, crazy guy with a nuke is enough, better than Terminator 2, radioactivity coming into its own, radium was touted by doctors and scientists, rejuvenation, it kills cancer, it killed all those women, Marie Curie, watches are time and immortal, some sort of high before you die, unobtanium, when radium is in abundance it has other qualities, scaling, a big pool full, also power your spaceships, homeopathic doses of radium, the opposite, it can eat off your fingers, burn the end of the barrel of your gun, garbage story, something very bad, we’ve all done bad, a humiliation ritual to cleanse, something special about it, from the period it is, a taste of 1929 is very refreshing, the way we think, Jules Verne, hollow earth fantasy, four levels of characters to explain one muscular action, too space-opera in fashion, E.E. Doc Smith, Triplanetary, 1934, the swing of the pendulum, Creatures Of The Light by Sophie Wenzel Ellis, Antarctica, Death Valley, you can’t stand being their too long, lack of research, infodumps, guys feelings, partners for a long time, alien shows up, I turned your girlfriend into my throne lady, a Sleeping Beauty moment, I can throw words at pages, diverges, the peridocity?, Astounding, Science Wonder Stories, more science, throw everything into this pot, king of the university, robot sentry and a wagon and a gun, editor at the journalist desk, we’re not reading the newspaper report, chapter 9, somehow I found it incredibly plausible, pad his expense account, this is not the newspaper report, another step out, censored at the end, plausible we can go to Jupiter, first they’re going to have to find some more radium that wasn’t drained away, a lot of Doctor Who, a serial, Enlightenment, the fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, companion pets, materializes on a ship at sea, Edwardian era sailing vessel, all the officers have telepathy, Turlough and Teegan and the Doctor are thinking, they’re racing in space, solar sail race, crewed by humans, the grog doesn’t work, the aliens who look like humans, so bored, there’s stuff here, cheating, treating the humans like pets, learned a word: ephemerals, word in back pocket, being bored and nothing to do, you can’t waste your time because you have to live forever, three score years and ten, in June Terence will be 70, somebody becoming immortal, mine shit, lord it over, big long speech at him, quite taken with that girl, best possible tautological name: Alley Lane, Jimmy Olsen, just plain ordinary folks with superhuman friends, Spider-Man, earnest reporter who’s on the beat, the twist is he’s reporting on himself, here’s a market for stories about pools, suckered in, pretty girl, not as green as expected, 40 years in the desert, hoping to meet her, got a bad rep, something super-redeeming, this doesn’t have that much, not as tedious as it should be given how it doesn’t pay off, it’s naive, not meta-level at all, several layers of explanatory sauce, a magic formula, I have to put the ingredient of scientific realism in, that way nobody can say, radium parfait, Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim, film’s not great, the problem with the film is just jump scares and has to fill two hours,

“the original MIMIC, the 1942 story by Donald A. Wollheim, is abt as close to perfect a science fiction story as you can find

1. HEAVY EARLY INFODUMP✔️
2. PAYOFF WITH A TWIST BASED ON INFODUMP✔️
3. 4PGS LONG✔️

MIMIC is highly suggestive. leaves u in awe. leaves u with ideas.

the movie takes 1 hour and 45 minutes – the story takes less than 9 minutes to read with your eyes, 13 minutes 34 seconds to read with your mouth

the movie takes 1 hour and 45 minutes – the story takes less than 9 minutes to read with your eyes, 13 minutes 34 seconds to read with your mouth”

stars some lady, Mira Sorvino, Charles S. Dutton, young Josh Brolin, Thanos, Cable, a fun actor, Jeremy Northam, Charles S. Dutton is a cop, buy food from local street vendor, now in the present, killed in his apartment, a metal box, the window is open, not actually a human, literally an insect that looks like a human, his trenchcoat is a carapace, some other animal mimicking another animal, swarm of its babies, chimney suddenly transforms into a predator, there are creatures out there that mimic humans, the awesome infodump, paid off, takes it one step farther, what if…, backstory about cockroaches spreading a COVID-like disease, Guillermo Del Toro, tweeting about Microcosmic God being in the public domain, neoterics, capitalism trying to happen, steal his ingeniousness, Theodore Sturgeon’s great classic, classic mad scientist buys and island and does Edison work all day, make a race of creatures do the work for me, tiny people, meth and probably radium or whatever, an evil god, materials and compounds and alloys, he steals their patents, that guy’s got too much power, same techniques, a nested idea of the story of Edison as a mad scientist creator, it’s also us, we need to build cave walls and sunscreen and french fries in order to survive, Blood Music by Greg Bear, usually he’s a horrible writer, a collection, Wind From A Burning Woman, who’s talking, what’s going on?, children born with mutated organs, wasteage, incredibly intelligent, takes most of the novel, slow with lots of information dumps, Vitals, you’re not good, had he died tragically it would have been must better for him, dead to Jesse, Darwin’s Radio, so slow, even the novel is good, the grey goo problem, make a machine that can make stuff automatically on an atomic level, the paperclip problem, the Grogu problem, cute animals from twitter, should I be sending this?, some sort of deermouse with peglegs eating lettuce, quite relevant, somehow enhanced, here’s a baby muskox eating some lettuce, incredibly racist, two racisms in a row, grappling with the king of the Jovians, a white beast, mental leap to Octavia Butler’s Dawn, tentacles, creepy crawly little tendrils, seem ugly to the explorers, arrogant and condescending, making shit up and throwing it on the page, having characters tell each other its very plausible, the radium powered plausibility machine, drink the pool, how dare you do this to a white man, something about a ‘spic, completely unnerves, Sands, you look like a ghost, you don’t look like a white man yourself, by jingle, second childhood, not the opening character, outback hicks who are racist, I’m second in charge of everything, I could destroy you with a wiggle of my tentacle, then I give a big long speech about how I like your girlfriend, and I keep her on this throne for reasons, and I’m going to take her back to my planet, for reasons, with her dad!, and you notice your gun doesn’t doing anything to me, well that won’t stop you from shooting me later six times in the head and that will stop me, I’m telepathic but I thought you were dead, I hit my wordcount, accepting a lot of shit, as an artifact it is a valuable lesson, understand the progress and changes, there’s some shitty stories too, the S effect, Nerves by Lester Del Rey, revealing atomic secrets, this story doesn’t reveal anything about anything, if this story came out today, would not be popular, the attack vector, it’s dangerous for children because they’re going to eat radium, manipulate the watch, a darkroom to show you that it worked, radium in its pure state, tritium glows green?, is there a dye?, radioactive isotope of hydrogen, luminous because of the alpha particles, phosphorous, most volatile, little bit of green maybe, copper, if you had it in a pool, you experienced the radium pool, no research done, fake fainted a lot, Freud started treating hysterical patients, hysteria was more common, one explanation, so oppressed, rebellious of deviant feelings through their bodies, listened to women, more narcissism, no real feelings, a social change, the evolution of the symptoms, how tight their corset was, special radium ribbed corset, keep your shape, as much as she wanted, marriage ceremony right now, have you forgot I’m a pastor?, the opposite of Chekhov’s gun, Munchausen’s threads, ends suddenly when Alexander the great comes in and chops it off, why should she faint?, telepathically knocked out, they don’t eat anymore, whatever, if you’re immortal, they ate all the radium on Jupiter, the story is stupid, in V they want our water, Michael Ironside, a Dutch historical story about occupation by Nazis, we call the the Visitors, V for Victory, V for Vendetta, the aliens that look just like us, they have to wear sunglasses, sex with the lizard man, lizard baby, the resistance against them, the Nazi party, Nazi occupation of Europe with aliens that were lizardmen, Alien Nation, the show was amazing, oppressed migrants, a movie with James Cann, hardboiled cop buddy movie with an alien partner, the human is racist against the aliens, mild mannered, strange culture, alien lady with no head, they solve murders involving the alien, manufactured by other aliens, the masters are not their, a shipwreck with 100,000 aliens, Fox show in the early 1990s, contemporary with Star Trek The Next Generation, is it weird to have a guy sleep with your wife, dating one of them, 1 full season and then 6 movies, a film first, parallel with, archive.org or youtube, it helps to be able to see things, the 80s is a weird time, women in the work place sort of stuff, Murphy Brown, ten seasons, presidential debate, there’s nothing going here, a different time, weird period of time, of this terrible story, not everything in the past is good, the Olemas sequel, why would I hurt them like this?, The Ones Who Stay And Fight by N.K. Jemisin, condescending and fascistic, goes off into an alley, quote mine it, an alternative universe, send information between alternate universes, observing our universe, our TV shows, a very American world, one of Jesse’s big objections, horrific videos of people being bombed to death, you condescending lady, the Heinlein solution, if you’ve been infected by observing our earth, I know what mis-mal-disinformation, you’re not equipped, its my burden, Ursula K. Le Guin, maybe she’s wonderful, mummy knows best condescension, mommy knows the right people to drop the bombs on, it just takes a few good surgical strikes on what people know, everybody Eloi, one Morlock, the worst treated proletarian, magically, more politically correct, our horrible racist evil world’s ideas, the CIA and the FBI, the secret judges and jury, killing people with the wrong ideas, apologize and sit still, it won the Hugo?, wow powerful story, am I offering good solutions for humanity, patting myself on the back, given what’s happening in Palestine right now, double down, the holy shit people are protesting, 500,000 people in London walking together can’t stop it, the price of being on the wrong team, let’s make a long list, always an excuse to drop bombs and kill people, object to the trolley problem I have to make a choice where the trolley goes, some people are not going to accept it, the response, a response to a false Omelas, a straw-man of Omelas, very much a Bartleby, The Scrivener, grit in the system, taking the metaphor literally, I’m better than Le Guin, sanctioning Biden sending arms and ammunition, I’m going to give you a condescending lecture, a movie that’s an antidote to all of this, Dream-Speaker (1977) TV movie, Cam Hubert, Angry 11 year old orphan Ian Tracey burns down his school, meets an Indian shaman and his mute companion, the authorities find out, blonde white boy, reform school, he’s hung himself, cut back to the Indian and his mute companion, please place me in a tree as was traditionally was done, school is a horror, institutions, it just is a horror, asking kids why they set things on fire, what am I supposed to do with this, residential schools, doing pretty well with their broken family out in the forest, an instinct in people to try to solve problems, cogs to be solved in problems, no alcohol should be imbibed, you think you’re fighting for something good, is there a possibility that you’re wrong, arrogance, interesting, more artistic trolley problem story, another objection, 3829, 1200 and something for Omelas, a lot to prove?, flourishing details, random paragraph, wear wings too, some are invisible, forbid the emulation of beasts, all honored, all sounds very nice, the triggering word is honoured, honouring her feelings, don’t honour feelings, not something to be venerated, kids don’t have the experience you have, couch it in another way, not the right way to frame it, stupid feelings, that was a silly thing to feel, you can wear as many wings as you want, we can still be friends, you need to be destroyed, targeted at race, 2018 and still talking about race all the time, racism exists, ingrained in a racist society, the nadir is the lowest, pinnacle, the worst kinda racism period, look at this huge problem and what caused it?, the kenosis, self emptying, on an ordinary level, maybe one day I will, grope around in the dark, starting with the idea that I don’t know, a big part of the solution, anti-kenosis, infodumping, solution dumping, moral dumping, best done through parable, that’s not a parable, oh my little sweetie, it’s okay that mommy runs drone programs, you’ve got something wrong with your car, sledgehammer, gets rid of the problem by getting rid of the people saying the problem, just delete youtube and twitter channels, mute it, give a warning, violence by having a video, goodreads, Omelas is pornography?, this is about abortion!, offended her kid was told to read, in her school English class, what ever happened, spirit and refreshment, she may not like it, millions of murdered babies, billions of dollars the abortion industry…, pornographic literature, demonic desensitization of our young people, the punishment of a child, about capitalism, if she was standing in line at the grocery store, Peel District School Board, emptied everything pre-2008, unfathomable, somebody talking about the red scare, number of professors fired for being communists, anti-woke (not censoring), a kind of hysteria that’s going on now, writers telling other writers you don’t need to read anything past 10 years ago, because other better writers, and token John Scalzi, you don’t need to read a Lovecraft story, lies you’re telling yourself, trust me the homework’s not worth doing, school library is a place to hide in the school, even in prison they have books, prison book programs, escape the horrors they’re locked in, a bulldozing non-thinking tactic, super-retarded, those people shouldn’t have those jobs, in favour of humans doing ok, because they’re ignorant fucks, mommy or daddy knows best, mommy vs. daddy, daddy’s meaner than mommy in the stereotype, oh sweetie, condescending like I got a boo-boo, old fashioned radium pool drinking black pilled anarchist with tendril face, giving lectures to professors, trolling me, a very bad story, it had a nice cover, produced, not much meat on these bones of the story, what did I do to my friends, not very deep, Thomas Copeland’s narration, university professor in English, his recordings of Paradise Lost, his productions, long stuff, Orlando, Furioso, Jerusalem Delivered, a classical education, unjustly forgotten science fiction, worthwhile, rock bottom, we’ve fasted and we’ve prayed, skeletons hanging on the wall, Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak, The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton, watch his movies, an ancestor to cyberpunk, science fiction-ish, watch The Andromeda Strain, good science fiction, race-against-the-clock, he knows his shit, Gilgamesh the King by Robert Silverberg, The Sword Of Welleran by Lord Dunsany, on the other side of the state, find the length, his novels are a little longer, he’s fun, fun and short, Hobbits!, Marimna, a dream story, the kings of all the countries, a cute story with beautiful description that he subverts somehow, Lord Dunsany’s in a restaurant, crazy man runs into the restaurant, The Hashish Eater, a doesn’t think about race at all Lovecraft, whimsy, entertainment for toffs, cozy, even when dishing out, quite cozy, In A Dim Room, a ghost story, a tiger in India, all the subsequent fracas is on Jorkens, very palate cleansing sort of reading, half-sold, Through The Gates Of The Silver Key by H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, The Weirwoods by Thomas Burnett Swann, reactive and doesn’t pull his punches, a sparky conversation, Arkansas, Kentucky, another Kentucky, mountains and hillpeople, reputation for being backwards, very foreward thinking, Sirius by Olaf Stapledon, smart dog book, they all want to get kisses instead of doing podcasts, The Cave Girl, no bad books, just less good books, a good way to start the year, The World That Couldn’t Be by Clifford D. Simak AND The Worlds Of If by Stanley G. Weinbaum, a double good show, the titles, inspired a magazine, kinda like an ACE DOUBLE, chocolate and peanut butter, that will be the homework for the podcast, draw a straight line from, modalized titles, Return From The Stars by Stanislaw Lem, Dark Carnivals: Modern Horror And The Origins Of American Empire by W. Scott Poole, strongly suggested, nuke Nice, take hostages, political experts, political views, The Devil’s Elixirs by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Matthew Gregory Lewis’ The Monk, minor capuchin, said by scholars, sort of a pioneer of a lot of interesting stuff, Poe ripped him off, 200 year old novel, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey, Drug Of Choice, At Time Of Changes, with beautiful art, mentioned in a Lovecraft story, interleaved the art, of things that are hot, 41,000 views over 11 years, 5 hours, comments on this video, transformed my life!, all addicts?, this is really interesting, learned more about drugs by not taking them, read it 50 years ago, well written, hallucinatory style, not modernist prose, from the era of the Romantics, 1821, here’s what I found, no image remains, the pains of opium, a BBC In Our Time, still a good show, podcast, did we miss anything?, parodied in Elder Scrolls, Morrowind, Scottish opium eater’s POV, Mount Analogue by René Daumal, the surrealists really loved it, symbolically authentic non-euclidean adventures in mountain climbing, treated in a science fiction way, famously finished on a comma, an audio comma, producing a short film festival, have lunch, commune, participation, fear to recommend, that would be homework, trick-or-treaters, not a light to turn on to summon them, never big in france, society is going to hell, can’t wear masks and demand candy?, protestors, invite them in, makes Jesse cynical, she’s popular, take it at face value, a good reply to Le Guin, way worse ideas, a big answer rather than posing a question, very American and not very universal, take it to Australia, right to be distressed, James Wallace Harris’ review, fairly bland takes, very clear writer, not a radical, doesn’t have strong opinions, angry ripostes, that’s sad, Lester Del Rey is a bad writer and great writer, Greg Bear is a great writer and a terrible writer, banger after banger, filling my brain with interesting stuff, is this the same character as the one on the previous page?, so good at sparky ideas, full of anger, go on to write Halo novels, so horrible despite the good ideas, despite the fact that Blood Music is great, he didn’t ruin it, Asimov ruined his stuff with Silverberg, married Poul Anderson’s daughter, fairly litigious about estate shit, nude pics of her cosplaying of Dejah Thoris or Red Sonja, Karen Anderson, 85 now!, temporary and long term, just recent stuff, Hardfought, great!, an old telephone operator switchboard, 10 hours on youtube, from Recorded Books, fake audiobooks, that’s not a human, Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson, the idea yes, cozy American, marshmallows around the fire, they don’t need fire, look manually, read with your mouth, creates an image, read with fingers, counting on your fingers, precise title, Frederik Pohl, Luke Burrage has mentioned it, an essay, Consumership by Margret St. Clair, Meem, kind of light, a lot of good worldbuilding for no reason, Three Worlds Of Futurity, A History Of Science Fiction Without Holes, The Man Who Sold Rope To The Gnoles, the title, take an ordinary expression and interpret it literally, one of the big secrets of science fiction, he knows diddly squat about science, there’s a Bevatron, even if he’s not New Wave, that forces you to be in a scientific background, go one step further, the whole and your life that way, that’s Philip K. Dick, a pure case of science fiction, being able to solve things, somebody tried, wanna use this for the cover of your book?, seven minute stories, need to be inspired by something, this is a really good story, Jesse, sent it to Eric, an excellent little story, pioneer uplift stories, build a robot and marry her in your basement stories, why everything is working, weird, and arrogant, The Basket by Jesse, this is a very good story, why shouldn’t you do a show on it?, lead the dance, maybe it is a great idea, not having other authors on to talk about their own work, what’s there to discuss, brings stuff out, not Dickian enough, The Exegesis, but what if, where’s that goddamn novel?, put on a different hats, story about hats and baskets, this picture is a story, how writing techniques work, The Man In The High Castle with the I, Ching, what’s the penalty if they don’t, get their grammar fixed, students play the game, boys love competition, they think it’s treat, Isaac Asimov’s Super Quiz, Bruce Jenner will be in there, pick a card, get to keep the card, aka the smartest person in the room, defeated their brother or this other kid in the room, that’s how kid brains are actually, busywork, makework, indoctrinated into school horror, sometimes it’s super-hilarious, who got up?, Bobina, young kids who need, could do anything, the program was more and more edulcorated, putting sugar in, the final exam, we’ve removed 1 result from this page, the only result has been censored by a copyright claim, medieval latin, India Love, the pornstar’s onlyfans, Instagram, allegedly infringing boobzone, a sex move, very rapidly, exam copies, straight-away, count as correct even when it wasn’t, very hard to get bad marks in English on the exam, special methods, minimum knowledge, some very short stories, half page stories, three minute videos, a minute and half, I’m against school, I’ve failed my life, I’m a school teacher!, that’s why we don’t like it, egodeath, killing your conformist self, the whole literal, Edward D. Hoch, the most delicious sin, the ancient sin, what is this sin?, mummifying himself, the story is profound because I don’t know what it means, suicide, this Karl Jung quotes, the one is the shadow of the other, seems interesting, psychological types, the four functions, the rival psychologists, Alfred Adler, Friedrich Nietzsche, like that Luther show, beyond Jung, Elmer Gantry audio, I could grow to love me, she’s a lot like the characters in The Fountainhead, a dominatrix, real love has all sorts of elements, I like reading his stuff, sharing his works, deeply flawed novels, dreading his phonecalls, shitty love, purified form of love, I don’t want to have power over you, hence the job of parent, more to make you think, a schema, will to power is not power over others except in its lower forms, to will it over and over again, because it has the name attached and picture, too guru, an all or nothing sort of thing, very ultimatumy, not even true for Jung, his alchemical phase, tortures and crucifixions, weird hermaphroditic result at the end, it has the shadow in there, a sentence, is that true?, this sounds interesting, makes sparks start flying, Omelas makes sparks go, you’re a monster, am I supposed to think you’re a monster?, a feel good libertalia, she’s tough love, I kill you if you think the wrong thing, maybe they read it and say you are so evil in this story, Beggars In Spain, yes, I’m a slan, the Hillary Clinton mentality, the most qualified person in history, whip me harder, mom, hence Trump, he has the right enemies, the joker card, a card working under cover for another card, he only works for him, all about him, the existence of billionaires, not a deep man, not my first choice, capitalism creates egomaniacs, one is an honest egomaniac, why this Jung stuff is so interesting today, all shadow projection, this Cirsova guy (Alex P.), we go back and forth, his critiques are pretty good, Paul has a problem with him, integrated into the microcosm, he’s on a team, reacting what’s going on in Israel and Palestine right now, same story as Ukraine but more heated, The Jimmy Shore Show covered Ryan Long’s skit, it would be really convenient to be a coma right now, at the end they’re dead, the reason the left hates Nazis so much, because they killed 27 million communists, pretty sure she’s not, see something they don’t like inside themselves, just trying to hate that person, poor vocabulary, Justin Trudeau, literally calling people to Nazis and then giving a standing ovation to a guy who worked for Adolph Hitler, there’s Nazis in Russia, what Putin is saying: we’ve got to root out the Nazis, they are definitely on the Nazi team given the Nazi imagery, totenkopf is one thing, dumped the imagery but kept the guys, kept the unity and the symbols and dumped the Jew hatred, nothing political on twitter at all, good for jokes, for links, get to meet people that way, either hyper-religious and autistic or mentally ill, I never see that, might be a listener to the podcast too, Roof Bears, weird people to get new insight into the world from, most of the time no feedback, one of them will bring good reaction, for maybe 10 years Jesse’s been poking Wayne June, what ancient wisdom was ruthlessly torn from the sacred archives?, are they fit?, what twitter is good for, poked Jonathan, a great sense of humour, ok robot, he’s very very dry, too dry, piss off?, hard to do tone, his communication system is too different, The Wall (1982), big long music video, Roger Waters words, politics, he gets stuff wrong, a great attitude, love Dawn Of The Dead (1978), it needs to be seen by political people, responds by becoming a fascist, The Quiet Earth (1985), Jesse is not a music guy, must be missing something, Wagner’s good, philosophy, science fiction, nothing, Tangerine Dream, music over the end credits, a beat in a scene where you get a montage, that’s something you like, we don’t need no education, political speeches, active politically, 1979, 1982 in the cinema, wife to be, Blade Runner (1982), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), El Topo (1970), acid western, Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), this new Dune movie, dumbing it down, what they did to Jessica, can’t stop weeping openly, we’re not allowed to have narration or voice overs, one-dimensional, like a Cliff’s Notes, multidimensional, the TV adaption, why Lynch’s Dune is reviled, a book medium, people decoding each other, even Heinlein, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress has some action and some visuals, the martian one, Stranger In A Strange Land, of his adult novels, Dune is better than Stranger In A Strange Land, you need the ideas, you need the doubt, you need the multidimensional, different grids, good science fiction in writing, you need a demanding film, how much Blade Runner is able to extract from the novel, Mercerism, the owl, that’s enough, the dove, he’s a video guy doing a video medium, a little bit of this book, no fake police station, I want more life, fucker, the elevator scene, the eye scene, Gaff, a real idea movie, little stick man, a robot and robot love story, why the sequel is a failure, here’s the bad guy for the next movie, pretty good for being what it is, Ridley Scott has dumbed himself down, we didn’t need Harrison Ford, children and garbage, the political woman, we all whole through that, very N.K. Jemisiny, film editing, The Matrix (1999), took everything out about Zion out as irrelevant, take away the battery scene, The Thirteenth Floor (1999), eXistenZ (1999), David Cronenberg, he can’t help his fetish, bodies, opening them up and getting weird, Barry Convex, tripping over his own fetishes, kinda gross, long live the new flesh, even The Fly (1986), Crash (1996), vagina surgeon twins, Dead Ringers (1988), lingering over body trauma, reaching into his belly and inserting videotape, Lovecraftian, Videodrome (1983), with some judicious editing, The Electric Ant, he likes boobs, mainstream fetish, fit them in regularly, they don’t rot or explode or melt, very William Burroughs, with RoboCop guy, Peter Weller, Naked Lunch (1991), like a Cohen brothers movie with Cronenberg added, non-intellectual class, this is basically a film about cockroaches, Brazil (1985) a similar movie with political resonance, comedic riposte to Nineteen Eighty Four, the state we’re in right now, kids don’t get to mine back movies, old movies, almost impossible to find anything old on streaming services, the Orson Wells movie with the sled, people who enjoy making movies, Citizen Kane (1941), William Randolph Hearst, stuck with the dross, unwatchable, Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023) by other means, a big ad for that, very meta, socially critical, unless Red Letter Media covers it, seeing this as a science fiction film, Tenet (2020), paradoxes, does the universe re-arrange itself, you’ve seen it played through hundreds of times, nonetheless, really clear, Goddard movies, traffic going by, Robert Goddard made movies?, Breakthroughs In Science by Isaac Asimov, lots of stuff in common between his fiction and popularizing history and science, the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic, see Foundation in a new light, figuring out the worth of things like that, don’t read anything since 2008, throw dice for the Hugo finalists, unfortunate, not in the microcosm, when some of the Hugos made sense, read science fiction all alone, starved for good books, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, fan clubs, media people, like dressing up, they found their people, a little like university, you’re going to have a lot more interaction with people who like books, just enough true, Greg Bear was there, Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis, Robert Silverberg, Larry Niven falling asleep, the panels were like very weak shit podcasts, so many names mentioned, going through the list of all the names mentioned, here’s a long list of reasons why SFFaudio Podcast hasn’t won a Hugo, that’s exactly what it is, read a trilogy, three years too late, very time based cheerleading, we can still talk about an old book and be happy about it, a cheerleading squad for people in our niche, mostly not good, mostly very fluff, that show is so fucking long, goes hours and hours, Luke Burrage did an exercise, focuses on new books, some fantasy stuff, Alzabo Soup podcast, the Gene Wolfe Literary Podcast, The Fifth Head Of Cerberus, made it real enough to plunge into the stories, Marooned On Mars podcast, novel by novel, Kim Stanley Robinson, the other podcasts who follow new writers, some of them are good, somebody else’s job to read it for Jesse, that 1812 book, kicked around for 200 years, probably something to it, Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail, two ibns, more intelligent than us, how dare it!, a good phrase, a Sufi scholar, re-written in the first person, Robinson Ibn Tufoe, in A Time Of Changes, without language you can’t get access to reality, it was good, reading all Silverberg is a life, Scott Miller’s Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, The Thing Behind Hell’s Door by Robert Silverberg, inside out world, a really good source, his enthusiasm, famous authors and some obscure thing, some obscure science fiction author we’ve, Watchbird by Robert Sheckely, going Sheckley crazy, shitty Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett humour, Sheckley was there first and better, a more diverse range, a lot like Philip K. Dick a little more sane maybe, R.A. Lafferty and John Sladek, Harry Harrison, The Stainless Steel Rat, just having fun, Bill The Galactic Hero, the narrator who did the whole series for Brilliance, what’s going on on facebook, heterosexual man got nude pictures from a teen girl, he was a good narrator, maybe he broke a law, Phil Gigante, Commentary, Rusty Rockets, Russell Brand, they took his monetization away, they should promote cancelling people, so very public, keeping him on there is pure profit that week, almost 5 hours.

The Radium Pool by Ed Earl Repp

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #785 – READALONG: A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
Self-bearer, to outsiders, we are going to talk about, a novel, serialized in Galaxy, March April May 1971, won an award, a nebula, the competition, The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Byworlder, Half-Past Human, The Devil Is Dead, Margaret And I, interesting Poul Anderson, arguably her best book, strong stuff, meandered all over the place, T.J. Bass’ reputation, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer, a scattered mess, The World Inside, a good book, liked, great, Paul has questions, liked the world and the worldbuilding, quasi-sister obsession, an incest book, lusting after his sister, takes his drug with his sister, the incest trope, incest is a big erotic thing, step mom, step sis, step bro, step-sister, it’s fun, the forbidden fruit, a forbidden love story, by the customs, bond brother, bond sister, it would be seen as incest, step-siblings, the only people they’re allowed to open up to and talk to, it makes sense within the world, you need to talk to people to fall in love with them, marriage and procreation is not about love, love is a dirty word, a very restrictive society, natural human impulses, puritanical catholic society, drainers, leave town, going for a sexual massage, literally it didn’t happen, a public drainer, a heterosexual dud jerked off by a professional whore, homosexuality, betrayed the confessional, all from our guy’s POV, such an important social outlet, we don’t see that part of the world, such an important social outlet, Catholic church, unfortunately, confessional booth, lawyer – client privileged, go to Silverberg, sociological ideas, a new wave book, drug books, drug smuggling, LSD or mushrooms, he’s Christ bringing love into the world, a good book, coded Catholic, protestant, puritan, corrupt, coded Jewish, a subversive element, a negative Jewish stereotype, wholesome and perfect, subversive Jew came in, a suffocating society, good ideas, the drug was coded as sodomy, butt sex, homosexuality, homoerotic, we’re doing it, a lot of pornography, to make money, because he liked it, explicit, a way of getting out of a book, not his best work, 9 minutes in, Jonathan’s gonna love this book, very homoerotic of you, I is a swear word, the worldbuilding was terrific, not many kids, the life of per-pubescent kids is minimal, other socioeconomic levels, he’s the son of a king, we’re focused on that, allows him mobility, he’s not against the king, his brother, a personal story, if this is the story of the Christians, the early church, not mass orgies, people out in the woods, the primitives, they have a wonderful time, the lower class betrays him, as a person who has experienced children in adulthood, people who’ve forgotten what children were like, completely distanced from it, me me me me me stage, not everything is about you, this is something that should come up in the book, his favourite word was Trump because it triggers adults, not illegal in the normal sense, the adults around him are triggered, sometimes it would work, cortisol spike, you have to share your toys, in a sense the idea here is very good, not focused on one’s self all the time, Mr Jim Moon, with ambient noodling by the Eldritch Light Orchestra, it’s not the way to be, one ought to be a good person, we actually believe this, made it very rigid, bond sisters and bond brothers, he did the easy version of this book, a really good idea, he did a pretty good job, it won the nebula, a book about a writer, the most taboo thing you can do, the solitary vice (masturbation), I gotta big dick, I have premature ejaculation problem, plowing that girl for three seconds, a very Silverberg book, overboard with his philosophy, too honest, too forthcoming, becoming self-absorbed like us, he’s all about love and barely mentions his children, he didn’t have any interest in talking about them, very thoughtprovoking, Jordan Peterson hell, assigned pronouns, that’s very interesting, you’re not supposed to say this, in Ontario, the thing that made Peterson famous, personal choice pronouns mandated, your honour to the judge, command respect, one ought not to do those things, distance it, constructed language, barely science fiction, mostly a fantasy setting, the drug is the technology (telepathy), a preview of Majipoor, a juggler, not fair to this book, a weird job as a writer, never a professor, always a writer, juggles words, he’s not a science guy, Dying Inside, The Book Of Skulls, very limited science interest skills, sociological skills, very far from Larry Niven, Ursula K. Le Guin in a male, Jack Vance, a veil around the sex, humans colonize a planet, the spaceships leave, The Blue World by Jack Vance, caste is pronounced kayste, giant lilypad, giant lobster, Big Planet lacks heavy metals, land on a planet, living in their world, very Le Guiny, earthman shows up and is the representative of us, why kings?, telephones, medieval, heat rods, laser guns, Gene Wolfe, Dying Earth/New Sun, groundcars, flying vehicles, sailing ships with auxiliary engines, but why kings?, makes it simpler?, personal, more relatable, how the mighty has fallen, spontaneous lumberjacks, he’s ready for it, didn’t go outside her bubble, why she did what she did, she couldn’t handle it, relativizing experiences, she’s a saint, very hierarchical, no mobility up, she’s incredibly repressed, all hidden, share souls, gotta dose, the reverse experience from the drug, loathsome, couldn’t handle it, travel psychosis, psychotic breakdown after being married, suppressed latent psychosis, go psychotic, winning the lottery, France, might get it again, strong feelings towards them, idolized and loved, very negative self-image, he doesn’t say this drug is good, he’s stupid, he is a self-barer, psychoanalysis, understood everything about themselves, two big errors in the book, the soul sharing experience, you have to say I, without changing the pronouns, Gilles Deleuze, clandestine, why do people say that the sun rises?, it doesn’t matter whether you say I or not, proselytizing, she wasn’t ready?, he was ready, one way of reading this, Timothy Leary, there are some people who need the walls, it’s because you’re fucked up inside, little funny looking fish, deep soul with krakens inside, angels or krakens, the wrong way of opening a hole in the wall, not the best way to read it, shows up personally in the desert, a little bit of pity, Jesse’s not a drug guy, what it don’t do is make Jesse he’s communicated with god, when you take some drugs, mushrooms as a group, the connectedness of everyone and everything, he didn’t learn anything from anybody, the way he acts, makes you less repressed, alcohol makes you stupider, chatting up very pregnant women, the Faustian bargain gone wrong, midichlorians, a normal high, bullshitting this guy, a reading you can make, suddenly realizes, the homosexual banker, you can hide things under the influence of the drug, self-interested, he’s also looking for someone to help him, a sharing contest with the natives, they did have a connection, two druggies, Downward To The Earth, we don’t have the legacy, the druggie experience, costs some people, melt into puddles, pharmakon, a world that’s very interesting, thinks he’s self aware because he’s saying a taboo word, not making the best decisions, his tactics were wrong, imagine we retell this story from the brother’s POV, taken on responsibility, fuckup of a brother, let me show you this thing, he thinks that’s everything, the problem of being the spare, he’s Mr. Pfizer, no side-effects, the society has a problem, too repressed, a famine in the land, the king’s responsibility, he’s interested in it, I don’t want to lie to you, very meta, the Nebula awards, a limited set of people: writers, after a certain point they stop reading, they give blurbs, a bad discussion, the drug is writing as well, somebody likes drugs, ambivalence, build the case, a guy who fucked up, a failed messiah, Le Guin’s Philip K. Dick book, more ambitious, a writer service, the opening, the whole premise of this book, first person is taboo, very sparky, writers trying to solve writing problems, why this character?, why not head-hop?, if we were in the head of the brother, the unhealthy obsession, I grew up, if you’re a middle class kid, some other family, why?, safety valved, a secret plot, makes them richer, why did this custom start, we hear the myth, bad stuff happens, myth comes from reality, the powder, this entire religion happened, the drug was the cause of their reactionary faith, hidden through myth, the world’s Satan, he’s a tempter, why does God want to keep knowledge from you, we’re reading the book, published backwards in time on earth, social anxieties, when gin is introduced to England, abstinence from alcohol, every culture that touched another, a druggie doofus, he has impulse control problems, passport works everywhere, sending him gifts, this could be a much better book if we read it properly, he fucked up royally, if from the brother’s POV, second guessing Silverberg, feels richer, working that literary mine, guilt, the secret, druggie ideas, the communion, the slaughter, the sharing of flesh, The Book Of Skulls, there’s a cult in the desert that has achieved immortality, you have to kill your friend, focus your prana all day, a road trip book, Twilight Zone style horror, riding around the planet visiting places, sex, drugs, not kids, sometimes they work amazing, a very Ursula K. Le Guiny idea, The Left Hand Of Darkness, this is better writing, how easy this flows, his vocabulary was incredible, so precisely, top notch above, if we follow the meta thing on the power of writing, Jean Jacque Rousseau’s Confessions, inventing auto-biography, take it back to Rousseau, he never considers how this is going to effect my kids, don’t you have to live what he’s all about?, he’s not a full rich Silverberg, he’s a druggie Silverberg, limited perspective, the salt of the earth, respect for the working people, age 30 in their years is 40ish in our years, there’s something wrong with him, fill in all the corners, very repressed, the implication, too conventional, job as a customs guy, corruption all the way up and all the way down, cushy job, a definite commentary, immense power and dominance, he gets gifts, he gets influence, he’s a customs guy, they make this drug illegal, a drug smuggler as an evangelist, addicted to the experience, he likes the sharing, you should do mushrooms man, selling religion door to door, maybe it benefits the church, official missionary position, a religion of sharing your inner soul, what information did he gain?, not combination to any locks, you were tripping balls too, explicitly called out in the elephant book, did he learn anything?, no, your just thinking you’re having, stuff that happens with our regular drugs, some people just don’t like dancing, that’s too much, degenerating, no man I got these really good insights, it helped me clean my house, reality is controlled by an entity, the CIA, see beyond the veil the CIA puts in front of you, so does it only help dumb people, kinda fucked up his life, seeing reality as it is, with the help of language, dialogue, discussion, William James, a blooming budding confusion, the alterity, the otherness of the other, a very useful world, gave up on LSD, the internet, he invented the app, ability to collect data on people, is what I’m hearing, mind mirror approach, personality tests, the PC is the new LSD, a similar experience, takes over your brain, videos of current events, lady in an SUV with a Starbucks on her way to her sushi job, Joe Biden bumbling across the stage, tricked into believing, anybody can be made to look a stumbling dumb idiot, same effect, too soon, the next six months will tell, criticize this podcast as soon as it comes out, creates telepathy, the fable myth story, tries to become a god, two real gods drunk, not actually a god, not actually there, he has to be a god to become a god, the only time he doesn’t share the drug with someone else, they drink together, having his drug alone, feeling the whole planet, smoking marijuana alone, drinking alone, a feel-good hallucination, feedback with somebody else, folie à deux, prophecy is fulfilled, having the book makes him the prophet, we have to imagine we are these people in the future, how do you know, like Battlestar Galactica, Silverberg is subtle, time travel drug, regressive hypnosis, while you’re back there would you mind killing Hitler?, it is from the past, 1971, spread illegally on the internet, the LSD of 2023, and legally, I believe in some sort of life force that can metaphorically exist, the reading of his own drug experiences, a good feeling of sharing, Fight Club with a Love Club, ecstasy, get hot, wanna dance, I’m taking it you’ve taken it, MDMA, without asking your age, 45 years old, a lifetime ago, things have changed, too late now we can’t talk about, six minutes in the middle of the night between too soon and too late, finding Friedman units in people’s arguments, genocide happening, the end of the world people, a moving time horizon, a drug book, a very challenging book, very suffocating, hard to read in the first half, a deliberate effect, an effective technique, doesn’t make for light reading, the ideas are right there, an unreliable narrator, you have to read him that way, what his ideas are, a veil between you and Silverberg’s ideas, that was first person too, people are merging into other peoples, broken in a way that made his smarter, not that self-aware, so many unnamed themes, religion, incredibly Freudian, liberated sexual practices, not naming to go to the general case, ambiguous all the time, maybe those Nebula guys were smarter than we thought, soft SF, dystopia, evolution, the jungle, the strange beasts, the tendrils, far future, language, coming of age, Time For The Stars, across parsecs, she likes me, is it a telepathy book?, communicate emotionally, selfishly, Deanna Troi in Star Trek, she can read emotions, autists, the drug is the thing, other people on this planet love their children, a Scandinavia thing, that must be hard for them, handsy and cuddle, supernatural or a drug, they feel dirty, they’re so repressed, alcohol does that, the backlash to the backlash, and watch football, people get together and drink, ought they?, a religion and the laws, smuggling, what’s good and what isn’t, isn’t it interesting, visits the house, it’s a palace, insight into his character, kind of a failson, a Canon movie from the 80s, hires homeless Judd Nelson, this is a failson, he’s a slob, he’s the premise, The Prince And The Pauper, we’re following the prince, journey to an ashram, an embarrassment to his society and his brother, he’s a tourist, tourist/entrepreneur, he couldn’t give a fig, he’s sleazy, he has an agenda, he plays a long game on this guy, he’s interested in taking it and selling it, synthesize it back home, take him at his word, still sleazy, corrupting this other guy, not so hard on the judgement, Socrates corrupts the youth, after several centuries, ultimately positive, their covenant is everyone should be an introvert, not express things, people who can’t really be introverts, living in repressive Finland, fuck this country, live in Mexico and Brazil, they’re all skinny (show a lot of skin), no cachet with the natives, an equalizing thing, the I I I I I, too self-centered, what makes it a dystopia is that he didn’t like it, slobber them with kisses, in the middle, the correct way, someway between Norway and Brazil, America is not fucked up, perfectly combobulated, happy medium, goes to the other extreme, enantiodromia, even when not appropriate, I want to sit between the sexy enantiodromias she has, goodbye Paul, Radium Pool, funeral, Lowdown Road, The Terminal Man, part of Jurassic Park, Time-Line, limited number of ideas, The Andromeda Strain, very cold and very solid, Prey, a cut-off point, his first 6, John Lange, Drug Of Choice, fucked up rich people, one in Nice, and one in Spain, very literary, who he’s reading, radical hemispherectomy, ancestor of cyberpunk, Gilgamesh The King, 7 people for The Weirwoods, drug withdrawal/depression, friends with Will, he’s a communist, his politics seem to be very snarky/cynical, aren’t Kentucky and Arkansas the same place?, like to talk to people who have different ideas, strangely, a little exchange about Friend Island, funny, insightful, sparking full of ideas, invented the Futurians before the Futurians, Paul Michel, either a piece of shit or making fun of something, it has to be a comedy, as supposed to be funny as opposed to pathetic, one of the words, called out, Hell In The Village by John B. Michel, Farnsworth Wright, Von Juntz, Sixth Columnist, Heinlein, supposed to be terrible, clew, a Lovecraft sort of move, shew, shewed, he just patted the female elevator on the behind, German professor scientist with a beautiful daughter, Lovecraft is called out, having fun, 1942, war stories, Lovecraftian pulp parody with a war theme, so bad its good, Lovecraft is funny, where he’s doing Jesus, The Dunwich Horror is a comedy, you have to zoom out, Stuart Gordon adaptations, a dream written down, a lame awesome ending, think through an idea, Call Of Cthulhu, it’s Dracula with a dream monster, Lord Dunsany, Chu-Bu And Sheemish, vacation, ruins of a temple, the destruction of the temple, the timing works out perfectly, a very famous Lord Dunsany story, he read this story and wrote his own version of it, an artists studio crashing down, The Tree by Lovecraft is a murder mystery, a historical setting, mother of Tiberias, Augusts’ wife, a poison story, that guy read that story, an axe to grind about art, Lord Dunsany doesn’t have an axe to grind, has fun and makes pretty stuff, I’m going to prove that New York is a hellhole, half French, half translation into English, epub, the life of Lovecraft, an ongoing feud with Heinlein, politically correct, always this feud with Heinlein, Lovecraft dies in 1991, a euchrony and dischrony, centenarian, too soon, he took an incoherent position, the next six month will tell, when Stephen Colbert used to be funny, he no longer gives FU, keeps on moving the goalposts, you should be both emotionally hot and cold, authors complaining about bad reviews is so lame, pretty weird, you want to hear about negative reviews, let’s play nice, share your toys, hang up and shut up, used to be proud, reviewers are part of the same bubble, professional reviewers, people are doing it for free, SUV with two sunroofs, go to university to get a marketing degree, cosplaying her parent’s view of what reality should be, go study business, the consensus is don’t say that, the consensus is too soon, a censorship move, not the same when you say it in the moment, people went to see the movie, Aliens was so good, Alien 3, Sigourney Weaver go a paycheck, resonant with ideas, a sequel can in someways surpass, a footnote, read everything about it, the dealer has an agenda, the situation now, writers who never get any meaningful feedback, David Fincher, studio notes, writes the next thing, goes on for 16-20 books, Charles Stross, random indie writer, not writing in a vacuum, writing in this vacuum, interpret it, a second pair of eyes, a message in the bottle, if you like this sort, intimated before, Pauline Kael, everybody does it for free, you’re friends with the people you critique, scrappy new independent, friends of the authors giving good reviews to their friends and bad reviews to their enemies, Chris Sempter, Poe’s relationship with a rich couple, tutor the wife in her sonnets, a vanity book, tried to make a living as a writer, I’m Nathaniel Hawthorne, every book’s a flop, Mark Twain died poor, desperate for cash, puffery, aka saying good things about an author, a savage critic, Tomahawk Poe, An Enigma, an acrostic, On Sonnets, sonnets suck unless…, without that context, doing it as a kind of work for hire, acrimonious break up, Philip K. Dick kinda worse, writing again to ask you for money, can I borrow money, grateful but come on, as evidenced by Charles Stross’ latest book, Laundry Files, Singularity Sky, a guy wants to make a living, not have to fix fences or whatever, the lie about all these authors are making a living, Stephen King and J.L. Rowling, TV and movie rights, most people don’t read, not making production like they were, streaming now, ambient pictures, getting a real bad feeling, Mike Flanagan’s Fall Of The House Of Usher, what relation is it to the story?, self-sacrificing for Foundation, a fashion house?, fan service for Poe but it’s own thing, rich people living in expensive houses, Glass Onion and Knives Out, rich people talking to each other, Veep, the best of Veep, every joke there were not laughs, people insulting each other, what satire is, insults are satire?, Airplane! (1980) is a parody, West Wing is a fantasy, Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are supposed to be satire but look like reality, a competence fantasy with insults, insults = funny, laugh track, Married With Children, shoe salesman is humiliating, things have changed, satire for dumb people, parody makes fun of fiction, satire makes fun of reality, maybe it is dead-on, the writing on TV is really dumb, HBO was supposed to be better than that, are there some people who don’t have a sense of humour?, a ladder, fart jokes make little kids laugh, very very liberal, reading the New York Times has Trump insult, too soon, attitude of superiority, a rich person who has never known any kind of tragedy, Fawlty Towers is about a guy who is very class conscious, the insults there backfire, how dumb are you humiliation humour, you’ve have to had had no tragedy, coming from a place of privileged, a level of disconnect, an actor playing a poor character, the other level of humour, you are a dumb redneck hick, being impolite = humour, it’s true he’s dumb that’s why it is so funny, social faux pas, elicits laughter, gives her license to insult other people, has the president called, she wants to be important, maybe I need to get some of this drug from this book, so unfunny, professional wrestling, do suplexes, kayfabe, opera for stupid people, it’s not a comedy, the heels and the babyfaces, ancient Asgard, the criticism that it’s fake, you know the planet where this takes place isn’t real, right Jesse, dumb humour, medium humour, smart humour, smart humour is dumb, Adam Sandler movies are very funny, not high level humour, became a money laundering scam, cardboard sets, they make movies to go on vacation, stopped caring, the next Jerry Lewis, the first man-child, the guy in Elf, Steve Carell, Some Like It Hot (1959), Marilyn Monroe, the theory of humour, a very dry sense of humour, the podcast proper, causes problems for people who don’t know its humour, puns, what a crustacean is to make a Red Lobster joke, a vocab joke, fart jokes don’t require language, you can laugh without having language, Marx Brothers, switched studios, slapstick, Groucho was the intellectual jokes, Harpo is silent, jokes, tricks, Duck Soup (1933), aiming for the bottom, the middle will watch anyway, highbrow and the lowbrow, with superheroes, this is going to dumb down cinema, people got bored, Dark Knight, dumbed up, For Your Eyes Only (1981), it’s the superhero formula, class based action sequencing, skiing, scuba-diving, car racing, drops the sophistication and keeps the supervillains, the key to any particular episode, Captain Nemo is the badguy, The Spy Who Loved Me, abandoned the book, the old formula, the scubacar, all fine, train scene, lacking the sense of humour, polite lewd jokes, something’s come up, somebody being trash, rubbish, the most recent James Bond movies are not funny, I’m interested in women style joke, humiliating James Bond, doesn’t work as an action formula, a feminist joke, James Bond represents the anti-feminist, on the right side of history, people don’t get humour anymore, the concept of humour, fear trumps humour, Ebu Gogo‘s goodreads reviews, anti-furry humor, making fun of furries, at the furries’ expense, endorsing the furry lifestyle, furry porn one star, rightfully feeling tricked, woefully misguided, a theory about vocab words and phrases, stole from Lovecraft, brain puppet, anti-furry propaganda, an axe to grind, something to say, misunderstood, misinterpreted, Aristotle’s Poetics, a comedy section, elaborate blackmail scheme, kicked him in the ribs, a flurry of kicks, a lot of puritanical people, nudity, sex, especially common in the united states, scared away from the cover, scare the wrong readers off, strategic placement, a version on LibriVox, some classic stuff, Lucian’s A True Story aka A True History, he’s a fucking furry, triggered by a word or an image, everything else falls away, going in your own head, an instinct, this smells like bullshit to me, are you just being an asshole, if you’re drawing from the text, throwing dirt on people’s heads, bad, too soon, rude, sounds like feelings, principles, strong ideas ground in something, getting facts wrong in your argument, designed to hurt somebody, Connor recorded an audiobook, Thule, coulda let it pass, you learn from pain, one little mistake, the critic who believed this was furry porn was correct, taking the wrong lesson is a fun way to go, instead of entering her, rummaging around the closet, dressed in a furry fox costume, furry gloves designed to looks like paws, kink shaming, exposing his hard cock, triggered, a white rabbit, put this one, wittle bunny wabbit, completely repulse, too x-rated for the show, they know how to pronounce them they don’t say them, a repression thing, you could elide it, six months later, that’s not my particular fetish, the 1 star reviews are more valuable, the wrong takes people have, the problem of everybody being a critic, open it wide, shilling puffery, paid in attention, working on projects that nobody cares about, a bigger version, slapped together for a student’s essay, get over your own ego it’s not that exciting, the Friend Island tweet, obvious context, an opportunity to jump in, too involved for twitter, explain copyright to me on twitter, finding out how to do it, literally trained, attracting somebody who would be interested, I like your content buy why are you so political, a firehose of what’s happening, some guy falling down, a generic example, people live in bubbles, Ray Nayler, columns, short stories, shat on for being out of touch, 87/88, after a certain point your best work is behind you, John Cowper Powys, I’m senile and I’m dying, out of the fiction business, quit before, Lawrence Block is still writing, typos, afterward, introduction, speaking of mental problems, Edward Wellen, Mind Slash Matter, a guy with dementia who is a script writer in Hollywood, apps and home computer, make him functional, a murder mystery, the detective doesn’t know what’s going, a brilliant idea for a book, a lot of the stories had to do with sound, the chemical warfare service during WWII, Mouthpiece, who shot you?, to mind map the character, an AI that comes alive Neuromancer-style, get revenge based on the murder, sparky as fuck, the early 1990s, trans-issues in the 1960s, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, Mindswap by Robert Sheckley, Douglas Adams, jaunting all over to different worlds, talking to an egg, the darkness, a little lighter to cleanse the palate, 8 minutes to read with your eyes,

On this day I want to tell you about, which will be about a thousand years from now, there were a boy, a girl and a love story.

Now although I haven’t said much so far, none of it is true. The boy was not what you and I would normally think of as a boy, because he was a hundred and eighty-seven years old. Nor was the girl a girl, for other reasons; and the love story did not entail that sublimation of the urge to rape and concurrent postponement of the instinct to submit which we at present understand in such matters. You won’t care much for this story if you don’t grasp these facts at once. If, however, you will make the effort, you’ll likely enough find it jam-packed, chockfull and tiptop-crammed with laughter, tears and poignant sentiment which may, or may not, be worth while. The reason the girl was not a girl was that she was a boy.

How angrily you recoil from the page! You say, who the hell wants to read about a pair of queers? Calm yourself. Here are no hot-breathing secrets of perversion for the coterie trade. In fact, if you were to see this girl, you would not guess that she was in any sense a boy. Breasts, two; vagina, one. Hips, Callipygean; face, hairless; supra-orbital lobes, non-existent. You would term her female at once, although it is true that you might wonder just what species she was a female of, being confused by the tail, the silky pelt or the gill slits behind each ear.

Blish has never been that good, The Abominable Earth Man, C.M. Kornbluth, with Playboy’s market in mind, that’s a sparky story, inoculation against the future, treating trans-people as people, dead no kids?, fair use clause, earlier in the year, Misha Burnett, editing an anthology is really hard, a learning curve, editor is a real job, the same mistake, saying no to my own book, servers on the Moon, servers in North Korea, the legal ability to say fuck you, a closed internet, commercial servers, get in good with Kim Jong Un, a movie industry, Saddam Hussein wrote fantasy novels, favourite deceased dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, maybe not so much with the plastic surgery, paid money to get married, highest standard of living to the lowest, an active propaganda campaign, occupation force from outside, not many North Korean refugees, what’s the difference bud?, refugee status, until your area is unflooded, fleeing the oppressive education system, causes kids to kill themselves, how bad it is there, this particular school district, next to Fort Lee, New Jersey, the George Washington Bridge, if it’s such a great country how come so many people are fleeing it, a lot of corruption, a state founded on corruption, also dynamic, the Irish, successful emigrant groups, forced out, what if that’s the goal, the English were interested in making the Irish successful, this is a class thing, an economics thing, Cuban refugees, that’s geography, there are airplanes, a push pull, Iraq refugees, Afghan refugees, mostly externalizes, we’re in the bomb making business, send them to Ukraine, cluster bombs, Central America, those places not being actively bombed, happy stories, we’re making a lot of refugees, here you’re told so much, the next generation of Americans, measuring engagement, creating engagement, tell me what you think about X Y and Z, when somebody is mad, Jesse is blackpilled, being realistic about what’s going on, things are escalating to war in the middle east, proxy war, heading towards a World War, six months from now please tell you your opinion, the Friedman thing, we’ll always know in six months, unfalsifiable, if Donald Trump became president that would be the end of democracy, democracy ended many years before that, corporations and the ultra-wealthy, what the founding fathers wanted, unfinished thought, good idea or great idea, this is falsifiable, 15 months from now, American troops on the ground in Israel, already troops on the ground in Ukraine and Israel, Americans have been killed, what number of casualties, there’s an election coming up, after the presidential election, lame duck, no matter who wins, American troops are going to war after the election, president Kamala has a plan, vice president Buttigieg has her back, when this podcast comes out in 7 months, laughing so hard, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, why Nixon picked Ford, tried to cheat and got caught, he won 49 states, put a bug in there, he wanted telepathy, two term successful president, a revered president, EPA, bullshit things people like, congressional veto, Ronald Reagan, totally drunk all the time, if Nixon calls you drunk, bugged his own office, slurring his words, mumbling incoherently, losing his stuff, some earlier piece of literature, claiming Silverberg rewriting Ayn Rand, Anthem, The Fountainhead, robotic and inhuman, Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, proto-SF, characterization is not good, to convert people to his ideology, Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach, she is the kulaks, she experienced some negativity, DRMd, written for the British, the terrible Russian civil war, mutinies in British Columbia, pro-labour, what was going on is Russia was a good thing, one of the atrocities, homes were built, people have housing?, build too much, hows the homelessness situation, doesn’t exist, homelessness situation in Vancouver, Los Angeles, so unaffordable, a Kuwaiti doctor, the housing exists, the power of a communist command economy, mitigation measures, a vacant housing [tax], that’s their solution, expropriate the land and build housing for poor people, all over Saudi Arabia, build a big building, commercial rather than residential, that was plausible at the time, how implausible it is now, a parody of Leave It To Beaver, a little cynical in the 1950s, those cynical guys would write Twilight Zones, project an image of America, homemakers, putting women back in the home, housing and schooling, the cream has successfully been drawn away from the cream-makers, they marry at 27, her life hasn’t really started yet either, secure enough to have kids, what can you afford, transgender surgery is free, what you can’t get done for free is housing, a mental contagion going on, remember bulimia and anorexia, strategies for getting thing, condemned by society, get skinny, doing bad things to your teeth, frowned upon, a fashion, now transgenderism is a fashion but officially sanctioned by every right thinking institution supports it, probably bad, people who want limbs or body parts removed, something fucked up, not exactly correct, pro-anasites, no such thing as water weight, all getting the same contagion, Matt Walsh documentary, don’t be mean to gays transferred that to anybody about anything, pro-furry, it’s comedy, just a fetish, ridiculous, a weird fetish, wanting to have sex with animals, fetishizing furryism, be nice to people, if you don’t support transgender people you’re causing their deaths, people often regret tattoos, the tattoo situation, tattoos don’t prevent you from having children, false consciousness, relatively non-invasive, a biker or a sailor, beards go in and out of fashion, those ear gauge things, an extra hole in your head, semi-reversible, taking someone’s penis away or cutting off boobs is radical change, shouldn’t be promoted even if allowable, solve an specific economic problem, state taking control of it, the whole gay marriage thing, I like living in sin with this dude, part of the attraction, they think it’s taboo, successful breeding babies, happy funeral.

A Time Of Changes by Robert Silverberg

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #771 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #771 – Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Phil Chenevert for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (6 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers.com), and Evan Lampe

Talked about on today’s show:
Argosy in 6 parts in 1932, the scanning community, go by date, somebody didn’t renew it, sticklerish, The Mad King, The Girl From Hollywood, fantasy oriented, dedicated to the craft of pulpwriting, cranked out words, do 700 episodes, he’s really good writer, Evan was shitting all over this book on Twitter, quibbles, not his best book, let’s start with the poo, my thoughts on Pirates Of Venus, meme with Sorpanos, listen to yourself you sound demented, the attack is…, high on its own supply, its a fantasy, very fantasy, riding the line on self-parody, cutting lose and veering into self-parody, playing with the tropes, Burroughs is demented, what are your problems, strawmans socialism, the same communist revolution from The Moon Maid, wink wink to the KKK, the birdmen, the treemen, they’re simps, unless he’s being ironic, a really bad take, during the depression, escapism?, escapist, his politics, my entire reaction: “really?”, what a freak he is, four books in this series, a fifth book, the ending on this, you’re going to have to read the next book, John Carter books, wrapped up nicely, I’ve got gold here, at least 7 books in that series, signed up to write a bunch of books, see about the politics, gets his money from his great grandfather, soldier in India, continuing the colonial project, Will [Emmons], somehow doesn’t motivate me, why this series doesn’t get the attention that Barsoom does, the takeaway, written as a retro piece, 1912, sword and planet, closer to Leigh Brackett, Weinbaum, a sop to the older readers, Asimov is coming up here, closer to Foundation, we’re moving in that direction, deliberate throwbacks, Burroughs wrote this, no one else, Philip Jose Farmer, no one could do it like he did, these are Burroughs’ sentences, a really fun book, really interesting, there are merits to A Princess Of Mars, same plot, kidnapping dekidnapping, lots of animals and creatures, weird alien not quite monster, anybody there?, crab monster!, kind of annoying, not much happens at the end, she says I love you, there’s no more time in this episode, read the next book, flown away by a birdman, various art, pretty cool, treading water with a sword, pirate ships with no sails, powered by endurium or plutonium or handwavium, a sailing ship with masts removed, in order to recognize it, I’m vaguely familiar with this piece of tech, starts typing, his non-science fiction books, not enough pirates, not enough piracy, the third third of the book, too much trees, earthlike tech, a lot of gun-polishing, that Graeber book, paying close attention, when the revolution happens on the ship, our hero is in charge because he planned the revolution, yeah and if you don’t like it, obey me, that is never how a pirate ship, pirate ships are democracies, communist democracies, a takedown of communism, the Thorist are supposed to be communists, presented so weak, in 1930s America?, the communists were the badasses, he’s wrong not to like them, point to the mountains of skulls, the skull counting, once we start attatching names to particular skulls, 100 million counted Nazi soldiers as victims of communism, the parody of Victims Of Communisms, look at all those guys he killed, Carson Napier, Burroughs is in this story, via telepathy which he learned from a hindu, never uses his telepathy on Venus, only a mechanism to communicate the story, I got it from my uncle, you can go visit his tomb but he’s not really dead, great opening line, he’s not really again, master of illusions never pays off, framework to get it back to earth, astral projection, Spider-Man 2 (2004), Octavius is inventing nuclear fusion, AI controlled arms, a neuroinhibitor chip, build the fusion thing faster, invests 7 different groundbreaking fields of technology, I forgot the moon existed, silly, very instinctual, put the girl in, I need more girl, Sikorsky Amphibian, only left in the world, not a cheap peice of kit, became a stuntman because deathwish because his mom died?, rich and bored, built rocket cars in German, rocket spaceship, Mars is the ceiling, books and a year’s worth of food, Venus is fun, trying to see the Russian revolution, the narrative was so different back then or…, it’s not in the text, am I stupid?, socialism or communism, economic systems, violent revolution, that’s the core of it, everyone becoming equal and level, no more kings, complete leveling, giant dormitories, children will be raised by the state, strains of that, communal kitchens, the history of cooking utensils, the ideal city of the future, westerners writing about it, writing a place they’ve not, everybody eating in cafeterias, H.G. Wells, G.K. Chesterton, what drove people to socialism, socialist agitation, socialism in the 1880s, economic necessity, suffering in the streets, I don’t want to live in a tenement, the thinkers of socialism, William Morris, an idyllic and pastoral future, freed from stupid work, how pirates work, a great scene, I’m not giving up my weapon, if he’s really critiquing socialism/communism, that’s a parallel of that, prisoners aka slaves, clean guns all day, prisoners with jobs, seize the weapons, important officers, a new officer class, I’m not going to give up my gun, another guy laughs and the revolution is over, if I’m just handsome dashing main character, the NPCs fall in line, the pirate campaign, Pathfinder, the PCs: we’re gonna kill all of them, treat people as people, a lot of people operate their lives that way, some bureaucracy, denying someone a kidney, the United States is worse at than most countries, so many levels of bureaucracy, University Of Kansas, Uncle Remus magazine, these are really bad we don’t endorse these things, a 600 word essay, we hate racism, we don’t endorse racism, are you sure you want to click on this?, trigger warnings, a button on google: I feel Lucky, the whole point is they want to curate your experience of reality, a piratical revolution, the jongs and the thorists, the royal guy has a cute daughter, the extent of my thoughts, a serious critque of communism, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you can choose your master, choose me, some other boss you can work for, the surplus army of labour, Carson Napier doesn’t because he has inherited money, it’s been washed, his mom was perfect, extracting value from Indian colonialism, that’s not the way to make money, an absolute spendthrift, hire the Mexican government, rocket sled, sitting on an omnibus in the 1930s, that’s me one day, peak pulp era, when the Shadow was big, Batman, am lift, Doc Savage, independently wealthy, inherited wealth, found gold mine in South America, he owns twitter now, on the Wikipedia entry, it’s just not that, the main thing they do, separate class systems are a bad idea, each is respecting each other, when there’s somebody from the lower classes, bullshit statements, no such thing as marriage, also no infidelity, a fantasy of humans and how they, sword AND pistol, shoot your enemy from across the room, had I known this guy was so good at swordfighting…, once again sheer dumb luck, literally astronomical odds, living in the ewok village, a shared balcony, this is your big security system, the mansion can only be so big, absolutely required, this has a recipe, they’re always princesses, he is never a king, he’s an up and comer, I’m officer class, I don’t even believe in presidency, I believe in royalty, very successful businessman, hyping things, let’s make a movie out of it, Tarzana at this point?, WWII happens, I’m going to be a journalist now, put on military officer uniform, his own fantasy life, soup kitchens, moving from state to state, horrors of being superpoor, like Stephen King he has a knack, on the back of letterhead, compared to Robert E. Howard, always poor, he’s got a car, didn’t try to sell to Weird Tales, he has magic fingers, Max Brand, such a huge hit, $100,000 or something, WWI deserter to wealthy man right into WWII, he bought that whole part of southern California, maybe it was the movies, he was the #1 selling authors of the 20s, and those movie serials, Johnny Weissmuller, Sheena is sexy, everyboduy thought he was the greatest thing ever, later Tarzan, really crazy real fast, arab shiek, hunting lions, too close to the daughter, lost Atlantean colony, sexual dimorphism gone crazy, shipwrecked, where Tarzan’s parents died, lost Roman legions, hollow earth, Pellucidar, weird ghost letter, marriage, line marriage, should’ve been a line marriage book, obsessed with monogamy, whoever Mrs. Burroughs was, life extension, amazing laser tech, amazing medical tech, radios, effective maps of their planet, all fun, the NPC handwaving problems away, he has an explanation that’s bad, low fertility, the Thorists want both, secret recipe, the scientists, such a strawman, not recognizable, and Marx starved two of his own children, they were so fucking poor, we don’t have enough food, an immigrant, that can’t be true, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he was sad about his kids dying, infant mortality was really high, terrible service, he may have said that, other people may have seen that, the pop culture view of communism, people say lots of bad things about Putin, that’s the character your making in your head, The Efficency Expert, The Mucker, Tarzan Of The Apes, cringey because of the hanging, we’ve done this before, fishmen, Lost On Venus, not enough time with the birdmen, Heinlein’s 4 years away from this, Heinlein’s Time For The Stars, twins shows up every once in a while in Heinlein, indistinguishable twins, Space Cadet, his plan for the UN and nukes, the intro part, joining the army, going through basic training, when you nuke your own city, very aware of his audience, you’ve got to close your eyes and drop marbles into a beer bottle, proprioception,, arbitrary tests, you’re a grown boy, the female princess daughter of Duras, green screen, darker skin, green skin space babe, Star Trek, hot alien, sometimes she’s brunette, vaguely Arabic looking, pretty, the trees are not green, presumed pink, in contrast to Mars being the red planet, green being Venus, in the injury to his buddy, the wounds, Shelob, this is a fantasy book in almost every respect, rocketships to the Moon before this, gun to the Moon, Cavorite trip to the Moon, an anti-gravity, Weinbaum comes in, well actually, she lives in a bottle, a jellyfish floating in the clouds, that’s your gene pool, you can romance it, laid eggs, women have breasts but they lay eggs, the element of the KKK, not a condemnation, why does he bring it up?, a thing that’s popular, making these alien names, Olthar, Camlot, taking sounds, Amtor, fiddling around, he is so not J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien goes to farm, elfish poetry, where elfen poetry was once read, he enjoys himself, nobody asked for this, Tolkien is the anti-Burroughs, noodling around in his own head, my books should not be lowered [to paperback], pirated in the United States, Evan making a defense of The Lord Of The Rings tv show, the orcs, the orc stuff was really based, the Galadriel stuff was really good too, just a woke cuck, Jesse doesn’t know what a simp is, you gotta watch more streamers, why do these guys come up every three years, Vaush, Matt Christman, Evan likes both, he’s like a troll, he’s pretty good at that, most of what Vaush says is on point, there’s something wrong with Evan’s brain, and yet I have not murdered you, these should all just be podcasts, Jesse doesn’t need video, playing Elden Ring and just listening to it, are people still Elden Ringing, we’re all boomers, we all live in the age of US supremacy, I’d have a boat, consumer republic, less and less relevant, 26 Tarzan books, lost colony of Atlantis, a James Bond figure, where Tarzan was seriously assigned, is Tarzan a book about empire?, a really good insight into this period of time, maybe My Little Pony is comprehensible, I’m a dude, I wouldn’t say no to a loincloth and a knife made out of stone but 26 books, L. Frank Baum, 14 Oz books, basic language, generational, coming out every couple of years, Harry Potter, the Glinken country, the Yellow Brick road is about the gold standard, William Jennings Bryan’s cross of gold speech, 100 years later, is it the fact that this is supposed to be a critique of communism, blatant, the state’s controlling you, as opposed to the king, it wasn’t a libertarian revolution, more parallels to the French Revolution, that’s what was happening, something racist about Oz?, all of it was racist, pay not attention to the man behind the curtain, the emperor’s new clothes, useful concepts that come out of literature, people knowing them, a psychological defense, a psychological arm-bar with concepts, a series of images, a girl away from home, all on a quest, place everybody’s talking about, going to Hollywood, that’s exactly right, the Emerald City is a complete lie, to keep the emeralds from blinding you, a good concept, as a young person, in a different way than Encyclopedia Brown, the sword that says awarded after the first battle of Bull Run, the Battle of First Manassas, the only kid with Wikipedia on his phone running around solving crimes, The Only Man On Mars With Wifi, detective solves with chat GPT, list the clues in chat GPT and it will tell you who did the crime, a telephone chat GPT that uses spam callers waste their time, Hello Mrs. Blah Blah Blah, if you’re in India or Pakistan and your name is Simon or Stephen, this person’s a little weird, oh there’s a bee on my arm, an elderly person who can’t hear very well, the chat GPT salesperson, email and phone calls have been destroyed by spam, this was a fine book, direct messages, Burroughs Sucks As Does This Tweet, an ideology that has killed millions of people, it’s not an argument, not even a satire, I need some bad guys, what do bad guys look like, the sequels to The Moon Maid, so he could get to the totalitarian communist future, Red Dawn-style, let’s not do that, they’re Moon communists, when Will read about, protestant emotional repression, her brows knit in thought, what is that?, love, it is wicked, is love wicked on Amtor?, whatever her name is, without sinning, the daughter of a jong, Korean word for king, what are the odds he knew that?, not good, he believes everything he’s writing, not a construction, but an explication, not a lot of ideology, the win condition is marrying the princess, a storytelling technique, little girls want to be princesses, its okay for the dude to marry up into a princess family, the girl wants to marry into a competent family, Edgar Rice Burroughs is a fantasy men, Cinderella is a fantasy for women, Prince Charming is faceblind, spicy foods for everybody to enjoy, laughing about him, laughing along, they’re not set aside, The Mad King, in all of these books, it can’t be just a regular girl, it has to be , even the one about working at Sears (The Efficiency Expert), daughter of a high class person, romance for men in the same way that Conan is, Conan’s class consciousness, American men have always been incels, Jesse doesn’t use that language, dreaming of marrying up, how the incels talk, chads get all the girls, left miserable, but they can read Burroughs, hypergamist, the men always marry up, marrying up, he’s not, Zenobia is not a queen, Conan makes her a queen, she was a harem girl, she was not a virgin princess, a class thing there, Howard would have been wealthy had he lived longer, he wasn’t in bookstores, Lovecraft would have been wealthy, the demand is high, when reading Robert E. Howard, different kinds of games, sometimes he says “what is the nature of reality” and then he stabs the wizard, satisfied for a moment, showing up on LibriVox, we’ve seen it before, Howard is capable of much more on this guy, he’s not substantive, YouTube podcast, frothy and fun and light, compared him to Stephen King, a different cast, Burroughs never talks about kids, King talks about kids, kid protagonists, he has a lot more to say, most writers have more to say, space em out, adventure, avoid execution, marry the princess, The Girl From Hollywood, a female finding a man?, none of his popular stuff, no Tarzan books need to be Jane centered, Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen comics, Superman’s girl friend, Supergirl, Jungle Girl, everything is about Superman, she’s always sexperving on Superman, is this what girls want?, Cambodia, stories for boys, a female protagonist story, he was a brand, you don’t want to piss off the audience, what the romance writers do, hardboiled detective under another name, The Cave Girl, a lost world novel, 1913, Dolores Claiborne, chain people up on beds, Gerald’s Game, domestic abuse, Misery, Rose Matter, Lisey’s Story, Outlaw Of Torn, relaxing rather than engaging, a society made out of tree people, other criticisms?, Donald E. Westlake, Killing Time, territories respected, a fine place to live, an anti-corruption investigator, 210 pages, still working on a couple, Mating Center by Frank Belknap Long, Hay Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufail, guys raised by a gazelle, time next year, not that great, Paul will be upset by it, too much mating, specialized job, we’re there, reproduction is also a specialized job, horny people out in society, a frightening view of life in 2061, hey, we’re guarding, that Ninteen Eighty-Four cover, Winston Smith and Julia, lesbians in prison, encourage Evan to finish, he’s andalusian, Andalusian Aristotelian, Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, Rima The Jungle Girl, Green Mansions, a primitive girl, Abel, Tarzan from South America, Sheena, The Jungle Book, another Kipling thing?, Citizen Of The Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, reading the writers who read stuff, it isn’t super-literary, reading material, Rocket Ship Galileo, Jack London would have made it the center of the book, the counter to Burroughs, fantasy strawman, fantasy animals, life is mean, let’s have fun, how much did Burroughs read?, hold my beer, he probably read the newspaper and a few pulp magazine, rips off Prisoner Of Zenda, today we have a lot of writers who are writing to make movies or tv shows, what’s so amazing about a good book, using the medium what it’s for, it is what it is, assigning a bunch of Ted Chiang stories, psychology, assign these short stories, grumble at first, they’re simps, they’re boomers, he’s short and he hits, they’re not designed to be adapted, Burroughs’ Tarzan is easy to adapt, some plants and a rope, Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, how we use language, so psychologically relevant, substantive, that’s what you get for giving a historian the job, not your thing?, he marries a princess who’s an orangutan, like Robinson Crusoe, Rousseau would’ve loved this book, noted father, how to raise children to be free, Plato is wrong but he has amazing ideas, we can use those things, bad maps give us maps to territories that we can get to and give us better bad maps, commentary on education, the point of education, bye kids, I gotta go write about being free, Jesse is tryna be free, make the most of their freedom, what does Alex do about this, a weird high school, very lucky and happy, worry about college, college can be fun, top schools, Asians are the new white people, University of Minnesota Duluth, homeschooled, you’re going to horse school, you’re going to be a farmer, locked in, my cheques are going over there, homeschool, something to do, big college tip, under recognized as a great place to meet a spouse, just marry a princess at your college, this is the person I really like, Midwest cow college, with cows, between Indiana and the Rocky Mountains, north of the Ohio river, Brown, first major boss was a Brown Phd and a major dick, he really wanted to be a manager, he was right about that, fun trouble, save your anger up for the show, provoking Evan, the first 2 hours, the ideology that killed the most, this boring shit, Burroughs took quite a dump, he can go fuck himself, oh come on, not that much more to do, he has a lot of sequels, maybe if youre in a factory job, you’ve got a big commute, your escape on the way to work, 6 hour podcast, 8 hour podcast at work, putting up with a lot of shitty shit Jesse says, the secret to his success, doesn’t explain Stephen King that well, he knows people, brain mashing, Burroughs isn’t a character writer, both are incredibly smooth in transferring thoughts into your brain, there’s no difference, they’re blank slates, Carson is a lot less competent, incredibly stupid mistakes, he’s a sloppy researcher, John Carter was hypercompetent, he’s like The Highlander, hypercompetent, has superpowers, he’s Superman, gentleman adventurer, luck saves him again, coulda used a Woola, alien companion dog, an inversion of The Star Beast, explicitly just people, space tiger, Weinbaum’s a genius, he’s jokey, why the genre moved on, this is kinda retro, The Mysterious Island, the wish fulfillment engineer story, building the ship, inventing the thing, Black Priestess Of Varda, rawer, Erik Fennel, near the end, he’s just a romance guy, really, how do they even have the concept of a year, they don’t even have the sun, Farscape.

Toronto Star Weekly - artist Matania - Pirates Of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Pirates Of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #765 – READALONG: Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #765 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Tommy Patrick Ryan, and Jonathan Manfred Weichsel talk about Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
1976, Clifford D. Simak, late Simak, probably the 1st science fiction novel Jesse read, Madeleine L’engle, steered Jesse right to Larry Niven, not a great book, a lot of Russian reviews, a weird choice, teenage boys, as it would, a floppy story, the Darrel K. Sweet, Carnivore and the robot, working on it, 1978 paperback, a robot and an alien, 1982, fourth Simak, Special Deliverance, Way Station, A Choice Of Gods, most famous, The Goblin Reservation, three robot brain, why is this here?, gestalt was really big in the 70s, Baby Is Three, a way of experimenting with storytelling, tribunal ship thing, shove however many pounds of crap into a ten pound novel, doesn’t interact, Eric’s group, sort of a sideshow, the main storyline, there’s no resolution, given Shakespeare in the title, the wyrd sisters, they’re not gendered right, why are the people there, why are any of them on the planet, why are we here?, why does he need the ship, a philosophical novel, different monsters, desolate, Starobin by Margaret St. Clair, paradise sucks, an existential philosophical novel, Elayne, a rose tattooed on her breast, finally!, that’s what its there for, white cowboy boots, finally somebody looked at my boobs, this is awesome naked chicks with tattoos on their boobs, all the kids who read this were set back in their misogyny, very non-sexual, you can pretend I’m your dead old girlfriend, a very mature Clifford Simak, the blaster on the hip, a loos game, all doesn’t work, and all doesn’t work, existentialism doesn’t take you anywhere, for a totally sexist objectifying scene, some women do like being topless, free love concept?, super-cringey, woke people these days are gonna ban this book, gratuitous and unnecessary, starts out goofy, behaves in the opposite way, a similar game, very clever and very sneaky, taking those tropes and cultural prejudices, all fictional characters, Carnivore is the best character, honor ideas, proud warrior race, first impressions, killed and ate Shakespeare, hunting the best game, he’s Caliban, he doesn’t have a mom, the wizard dude in The Tempest, incantations, where’s Miranda?, he had a copy of Shakespeare, his skull talks, is it just because it’s the book, Shakespeare is being channeled here, Ariel and Caliban, a terrific play, shipwrecked, nose and throat sounds, passive mode, brain was hallucinating, a trailer for Orson Welles’ Othello, he doesn’t have any special effects other than his words, no laser beams or motorbikes, one of the major props is Desdemona’s handkerchief, the central focus of a story, Shakespeare is a philosopher of the human condition, to tell us about ourselves, as men and women we’re jealous, we are fatally flawed, Simak is not interested in conflict at all, have you read Simak?, conflict is diffused immediately, aren’t we in this discourse now, eat me!, you probably won’t taste very good, don’t gag on me, that’s his nature, he can’t do let’s setup a strawman enemy, what makes him different from everybody else, Heinlein’s strawmanning, a Philip K. Dick book, pretty good, not great, sexism, he’s the hero, Carter, Horton, brain skits, I guess they don’t read Seuss here, quite to the contrary, Gail Neiman, most people don’t read, incredibly rare, most people don’t read at all, Neil Gaiman in reverse, can’t experience some of the fun things that humans can do, time tunnels, C.J. Cherryh, break causality, the whole idea of stargates, breaks the universe, its a setting, shenanigans, a stage, the island in the tempest, Elsinore, strut around, a lot of speculation, self-aware, the play’s the thing, why Shakespeare is so universal, he’s god, he’s the god of this planet, he winks himself off the screen, he’s better at short stories than he is at novels, a good book, Max Deboost in 2013, succinct introduction to mysticism for the young adult, what Scooby-Doo is solving, I read it 13 times, planets and carnivores, robots and galaxy gates, the brain computer interface, telepathy, brain computer interfaces, hey, this is fun, all that stuff, and easy-breezy, and thoughtful, we experienced something, should probably read more, continue to read, objectively much better, lodestone attraction, Time Enough For Love, Martian Chronicles, I, Robot, The Hobbit, when you’re young you’re a sponge, 1800 words, impressed on their brain, frustrated, see ya goodbye, to do what and go where?, explore the time tunnels, that’s the existentialism, Paul is not big into existentialism, we like him because he knows who he is and what he needs to do, whereas we’re more like Horton in that we don’t know who we are and we don’t know what we need to do, very unsatisfactory, 1904, he’s from 120 years ago, very traditional SF, could have been written today, the robot can program itself, swapable modules, fits with the actors on the stage, a man plays many parts, the dowdy cook, everything on goodreads is 3.something, on a grading scale, ahead of the average, human beings as locusts, the environment, her gun is a tool, his gun is a weapon, solid concepts, cringe, written before Tommy was born, a big book in the public eye, what he was going for, there’s biker chicks, I’m an embodied being, at the thrift shop, weird things, a videomicroscope, looking at the cells on my arm in realtime, little puddles of liquid coming out of the skin, hairs and broken hairs, a piece of metal embedded in your palm, macro creatures, haircuts, very cerebral, biological organisms, sexual creature, bringing up the topic, the book doesn’t work perfectly, explore them further, scattershot, 20 pounds of shit, good fertilizer, 20 pounds of emeralds, spilled over, a quarter of what he’s trying to present, the beautiful crown or tiara, Heavy Metal magazine, Mœbius, expected to be there, he subverted and explored the trope, a personality, a sense of duty, map the tunnels, feelings for Carter, a very boring Heavy Metal story, standing around perceiving, presentation, sizzle, have you ever thought about this?, they think about another thing, a good introduction to science fiction, appreciated, an existential science fiction novel, when they start talking about magic, there’s a dragon in the story, is Prospero really a wizard?, interpret Shakespeare, they usually get him wrong, entertaining and edifying the low class people, his low class audience, low class brain, I like robots, I like monsters, what are we all doing here, man, was that Neo, Logan’s Run, it’s the same thing, The Thirteenth Floor (1999), zero sequels, not an action movie, action scenes, Simak does it really well, conflict between nostalgia for the past and anxiety about the future, dispersed across all these planets, an idea out of Americana, unthinkable future, a metaphor for this American train of thought, a very American writer, the whole civil war angle, A Choice Of Gods, really really really weird, he loves robots in a way that Asimov doesn’t, the Indians were robots, Heinlein and Simak were almost exactly contemporaries, Simak starts earlier, Simak was a newspaperman, Wonder Stories, Amazing, fantasy magazines later on, Astounding and Unknown, the same age, the reference points to rural countryside housing and the landscape, more of the Bradbury style, Jack Finney, Charles G. Finney, he doesn’t talk down to the reader, here’s some ideas to explore, made it longer, the voice of Carnivore, stupid brute, David Drummond, X-Men’s Caliban, Days Of Future Past, H.G. Wells, ugly mutants, Wolverine, Beast, Futurama’s ugly mutants, the people who read it, mimetic fiction, give me a guy who only wants to be eat and a guy who wants to be eaten, realistic fiction, Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant, falls in love with a prostitute, The Midnight Bell by Patrick Hamilton, secret crush, prostitute’s POV, 20000 Streets Under The Sky, A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, Fools Die by Mario Puzo, no ideas there, enjoyment, enjoyment vs. appreciation, PKD points, appreciate what he’s doing, Philip K. Dick’s Progeny is probably the best take on autistic children with capes being raised by robots, yuck your um, harsh the squee, relatively enlightened, unintentionally sexist, super-forward thinking woman, talked about it too much, pulled Tommy out of it, The Empire Strikes Back, anything on Dagobah, get me out of here, wise I am, Yoda is wrong about everything, your training not complete is, a pendulum, the court of King Charles II, Senior Dildo, a dildo expressed in poetic terms, other poems, A Ramble In St. James’ Park by John Wilmot, Roxana by Daniel Defoe, from one extreme to another extreme, we have definitely beaten that horse, so tame, this one is female, Pond, what’s the story on Pond, the undercooked nature, this intelligence that can split itself, a beaker full of Pond, it’s strange to be carrying a glass of your friend, pour out Pond somewhere, Ego from Guardians Of The Galaxy, the Deep Space Nine aliens, the glory hole moment, the God Hour, rough metaphors for something, the splendour of nature, this is sunset?, the Golden Hour?, the main theme of the book, gestalting, group mind, doing Dunsany, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, in service to the drama, is there conflict in this story and if so where?, instantly resolved, fate, part of nature, not so toothy, not so clawful, he’s cool with that, even though there’s no one to spread the word, their understanding of the universe, limited perception, let’s try to explain that to him, they don’t understand something, we can dialogue this guys, conflicts resolved through lecture, there are only misunderstandings, a friendly neighbour sitting down: “uh, you’re an alien from another planet. That’s unusual. I had a brother-in-law from Tennessee”, it never is, a great attitude, a really really good grandpa, Heinlein would be insufferable on Twitter, wrong in interesting ways, he’s undeniable, 3 Hugos 1 Nebula and Grandmaster, audio of Simak accepting his award, polygrip, the lady who is always getting canceled, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Grandmaster, Gandalf awards, engaged with Jules Verne, Dickens, poor people living in London, reading A Christmas Carol, I like him because I got to be him, he deals with class, Paul is related to Charles Dickens, doing something about class, first class, more poignantly, TSA lines, treating other people differently, their boobs, caste vs. class, the Sikh religion, eliminating caste by name change, you’re one of those people, defeats caste or class, a famous name, my young daughter: you’re a maid, I wanted to be a princess, nobody aspires to be low class, I’m a Disney princess, give Hunter Biden a foot massage, pen-name, telemarketer, James Williamson, too ethnic, an FCC violation, a bunch of consonants together, writing with integrity, somewhat agree, Mark Twain, Richard Stark, name changes, invagle their way into a jet-set class, laptop people, vacations on tropical islands, lie a lot, Vistula, sounds strange, memorable, 2016, Masters Of The Maze by Avram Davidson, time tunnel ghost, minotaurs, oubliette: a very Heinlein word, dungeon, this oubliette called Earth, Elon Musk wants to get out of the oubliette, 12 guys have gone camping on the Moon, one more note, early Known Space, Wunderland, planets aren’t that great, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, mythology, Simak has a better life philosophy, Dan Simmons is a horrible person, it goes without saying he’s a monster, Mecca should be nuked, Islam taking over the west, a broken step, generally used for sexual predators, what’s that, urban dictionary, missing stair, 9/11 broke a lot of people, untrustworthy or “managed”, that is evil, con culture, whisper network shit, author x has grabby hands, of the worst order, Until The End Of The World (1991), Wim Wenders, meandering plot, trafficking in a machine that allows you to record dreams, watching their own dreams, an opal mine heist, music by U2, Jesse is not a U2 expert, indie director, giant canons on top of the mountains of Hollywood, The End Of Violence (1997), drones before drones, Paris, Texas (1984), a live recreation of Nighthawks, almost cyberpunk, genuine SF on film, Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Harry Dean Stanton, awesome and fun, so critical of nudity, make you two connect, a lot of nudity, I enjoy gratuitous sex and violence, a progressive novel, he’s so old, right-thinking, Jonathan may think I’m a douche now, book titles: Warrior Soul and Other Stories, Kitty Kat Massacre, that sounds horrific, Savage Headhunters, came across as a social justice warrior, you’re fine, too aggressive, triggered, conservative thinking is a “you’re not of the body”, we need to kill the disease, people turn off receiving data, it’s hard to understand, shortly after 9-11, months later, hot dog, do you know what just happened, trying to bomb the hot dog stand, unable to recognize, a blackout happened, why the car stopped, these people are really scared, what’s wrong with them, fear is contagious, they’re being affected in an irrational way, why Jonathan doesn’t like social media, ultra contagious pathogens, looking within yourself is hard, followers to followed, I’m considering reducing my followers, 11,000 people he was following, Stephen King, a TV show from 10 years ago, tweet about politics, posting Chicken Dinners, people use twitter in different ways, a slow minute, upset about some Republican idea, a steady feed of everything that’s happening with Paul, Fredosphere tweeted a candy bar he liked, something to do with the people and not the media, why people were obsessed with premature burial, the 2nd Red Scare, Dashiell Hammett, Atlanta, Cop City, what Hammett was arrested for, Dashiell Hammett’s a hero, he know whereov he spoke when he wrote Red Harvest, it wasn’t because of social media, more visible, mass hysteria on crack, post 9-11, pro-ano sites, pro-anorexia, propaganda, tips on how to lose weight, moral support, all the trans stuff, social memes, beings subject to thought control, we are social beings, maybe the Mennonites are right, Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow, Orphans In The Sky, instead I reading what I wanted, I’m deeply subject to this shit, I have to be careful, David Currie, political tweets, Smouldering Toxicity, Max Blumenthal, Natsec Media Lackeys, Kit Klarenberg’s detention, that’s kinda horrible, a tweet of support and then took it down, sighs: Jesse, this is something more people should know about, he’s really dumb, what makes me really dumb here, some principles, these things are valuable, not these books, reconciliation, people tar sources, Evan Lampe got triggered by Elon Musk, triggered by Taiwan related tweets, blocking all bluechecks, the Elon Musk tax, a really good thing, we’re all strange, a writer and and artist, the input is what you read and what you consume, the output is what you create, a complex mathematical formula, lazy after a while, not accustomed to searching, iconoclastic, tweeting old movies, The Good Place, this is dumb I’m out, get good, new stuff is very divorced from the old stuff, how I want my brain to work, 20 Books To 50k, mainstream media talks about it, indiewriter, dungeoncore, read 40 dungeoncore books, making a formula, they makes that are unreadable, weird set of people, indistinguishable, create unique books, reading old books feeds into what Jonathan wants to do, expand vocabulary, Orwellian newspeak, doing that in the background, if this was 1968, Frank Zappa, make statements, people disagree with them, the artist taught me something, sophisticated, these are great covers, random paperback covers, painted, the theory on design now, the assumption is the other books sell, a foreign idea, look at you aghast, why would you do that?, bad tropes or bad ideas, if you want to be published…, agents personal tastes, if you read older books that’s going to pollute that, you’re sabotaging your career, you’re undermining yourself, writers on twitter, cat mom, trans flag, kofi, venmo, follower counts, Dollar Tree’s book section, Our Opinions Are Correct, Jesse is not understanding how the economy works, for a buck 25, intellectually interested, Charlie Jane Anders, they were iO9, Victories Greater Than Death, somebody is buy this and reading it, most of the economy is fake, passing the same five dollar bill around, fake it til we make it, I become a Tor editor you become a Tor editor, BoingBoing?, Gawker, Jalopnik, back when blogs existed, write books and manage a website and have a blog, they have a producer, not a lot of, H.P. Lovecraft, E.A. Poe was overrated, compared to what?, Charles Dickens was overrated, A Tale Of Two Cities, historical fiction, just like a science fiction story, a doppelganger, serialized, you seem like a reasonable fellow, this guy who’s a lawyer who likes like a loser vagabond, impersonate each other, Jesse doesn’t love Stranger In A Strange Land, gripping, subterfuge, political anger and angst, chopping babies heads off, a spilled barrel of wine, a slaughter, too many roosters, butcher some chickens, farm animals, Jersey cow, I’m a farm now, obvious reasons, the agricultural land reserve, Maissa and Will, think about government stuff, party change in BC, the latest one on June 1st, 2023, 21 minor medical ailments, skin irritation, social health insurance, why did they do that?, government can actually make changes, a mountainous region, limited land for farming, if you’ve paved over all your land, they shut down the border, a shortage of Alberta beef, a separate system, food production in the place where you live, the egg shortage, buying incubators, chicken coin miner, no food supply to New York, horrible riots, deliberately trying to fuck things up, what the citizens want somehow, its not impossible for good things to happen, making work, an inefficiency left over from a previous system, toll bridges, let’s reduce the amount of traffic, too much congestion, $17 to drive across the bridge, they gotta cut it down somehow, Chris Christie, Fort Lee, a bigger island than Manhattan, and a lot of empty buildings, Manhattan sinking, capsizes, sinking due to massive corruption, the Bronx, Bronck’s creek, the Gotham, Kumbaya (come by here), Gullah, scheduled for both.

SHAKESPEARE'S PLANET by Clifford D. Simak

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The SFFaudio Podcast #759 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Star Born by Andre Norton

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #759 – Star Born by Andre Norton, read by Mike F. Smith (for LibriVox.org). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (6 hours, 34 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish, and Alex (PulpCovers.com).

Talked about on today’s show:
1957, Ace Double, H. Beam Piper’s and John J. McGuire Planet For Texans, which one would you like better, memories of H. Beam, great elements, a better book vs. more fun, action, courtroom scenes, sitting around the campire expressing philisophical opinions, too much plot, too many characters, 2 humans, a supporting cast of other space men, 2 different mermen, on the cover, the new mermen, a lot of men, not a lot of wo-men, merladies, female characters, we mention mating, brightly clothed the others women, escorted to the arena, a line of mermen, the mom dragon creature with its babies in the arena, two arena scenes, vast audience, gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome, half full stadium, aliens are the natives, genetically uplifted, slaves, Doctor Moreau them, consciousness raising, experimental animals, more docile, a fairly fun book, developing the world, this is not the first book in a series, The Stars Are Ours, a sequel, Trish liked this book a lot, horrible disappointment with Star Hunter, hate all her stuff, the ethical questions, Raf Kirby, mental journey that he goes on, politicking, distrust of his own crew, they’re all weird, come from the culture, the Pax is overthrown, they’re the Federation now, descendants of the Pax, his bloodknife brother, way more star of the story, they’re on a manquest, different culture, assisting him with a lifequest, tightly knit, partners, telepathically communicate, talk to the animals, squirrels, understanding the concept trade, this is a culture that is integrated into its ecosystem, hunting and gathering, Rafe, covered in gear, bombs in his chest, guns, rocketpack, flitters and bases and tech, do you have a friend?, no, I don’t, she doesn’t cook this enough, a critique of machine culture, H.P. Lovecraft, regimentation, titles and orders, settle on this planet?, go back to his spaceship, we’re us you’re you, come back and see us in a few thousand years, an adventure, he got to go home, nine missions previously, not really volunteers, space navy seals, fled a bad culture, still the case, a Herman Melville style native vs. capitalism culture, Rafe and Dal, one syllable with an A in the middle, the ecology, the geology, the geography, a little better, randomly tossed together, loose ends, small explanations, it having a prequel, she invented that other culture and world first, four grandfathers ago, at least 100 years, cryosleep, Earth has moved on, hyperspace tech, they’re warpin, a slow trip, at least 200 years later, all the richer, ancient dead society that’s not so dead, past glory, Rome is explicitly called out, 6th or 7th century Roman empire, Justinian comes in from the east, Rafe’s world, they come from cities, Homeport is a village in a ruin, she sketches everything, the closest to concrete details, the merman’s fur it gray with rainbow tips, they’re otter people, they’re furry, iridescence, it’s cool, the world’s cool, go deeper, a contemporary review, Galaxy, January 1958,by Floyd C. Gale, workmanlike, sequels demand comparison, a solid interesting story, Earth’s dictatorship, a degree of telepathic ability, Dalgard Nordis, the normal matriculating exploration, strange activities, capital t capital o, Jesse’s problem with the book, all the parallels, a high culture, crushed by its own craziness, abandoned its technology, hunter gatherer with a taboo against high technology, a plot moving characters around the stage, that’s kind of all there is, there’s more to talk about, how terrible that captain is, draftee, just got training, slaps Raf down, wrong keywords, I guess cuz they’re aliens, that’s the evil culture, representing the horrible culture that he’s coming from, the philosophy may be in the right place, delegitimating other peoples because they’re not your own, burned up and flamed out, they’re not men, a fire and tools rule, carrying spears, a big hypocrite, a terrible captain, self ordered exploration, no reprimand, going off with that warrior, immediately embroiled in local politics, let’s get involved in this land war, the Prime Directive from Star Trek, ignore the contradiction, the enemy we have to guard against, the one bright idea, the recording device, let’s run it through the ditto, backup tapes, here’s a human looking captive, did Andre just forget about it, this book the result of that recording, all that stuff, he should’ve gone native, this is a juvenile, two juvenile, loincloth vs. spacesuit, adult role, he needed to go through a Heinlein novel first, strong opinions, some ethical system he’s imposing, get away from that society, there’s no girl to seduce him, no merlady, recasting Dal as a girl, gender flip somebody, the aquaman, cross species romance, carrying through unresolved sexual tensions, rishathra thing from Ringworld, mules or something, Apple TV, a Discworld, unrecognizable Ursula K. Le Guin, unnatural in some way, they’re from the land, their whole species, later Romans are always cast as decadent, a lack of nuance, mustache twirling, I can solve this, a young juvenile from the others, her solution is add another character, what does Raf contribute?, bombs, the outside perspective, down with Dal, if I could skip each Raf chapter, adding a couple inches to the map, this book needed a map, helps to display interesting similarities, hate sleeping inside this alien city, being shutup in buildings, reflexive xenophobic instinctual, an adopted prejudice, bad vibes, why was he so immediately alarm bells, plot that needs to happen, an argument, the heebee jeebees, a lot of showing, no Heinleinian lectures, ancient race, very cool, internal reveal, a conflict between Dal and Rad, fighting over a mergirl, a mermaid if you will, Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper, nice little infodumps, better than Lone Star Planet, people arguing for positions, a newspaperman cannot offend everybody in the community, presenting characters who the reader can identify with, snarky or excited or religious or something, just has a furry coat, she needs some chip on her shoulder, forced character development, allow the reader to project themselves, the characters are palish, even Nancy Drew, she has no strong stuff, she’s always making sandwiches for people, behind it all she’s the girl detective, mysteries, do whatever you want with her, blank slate, she has a skirt and flashlight, juvenile literature, she’s not a cipher, nobody he’s sweet on, secret passion for his merboyfriend, always the loner, any kind of a personality, writing quickly?, cranking these books out as fast as they could, keep the secret of the this colony, protect them from the Federation, here be dragons on the planet, quite literally, that’s a mistake, taking a lot on himself, when they’re all telepathic, his telepathic wife, council of elders, one person keeping a telepathic secret, Raf’s reasons, Dalgard feels more like arrogance, next time they see a rocket, a mistake not to share this information with his people, the evil Pax, isn’t Ssuri in on some of this, Merguy number 2, there for the rocket, protect the people here, she’s doing a lot of symmetrical stuff, how old do we think he is, 14, 15, 16, 18ish, a callow 18, 16-18, maturity at a younger age, Star Trek: Enterprise, Cogenitor, a nice solar sailing cruise, enslaved another race and uses them for reproduction, terrible trouble, when they pick him up, he blew up some of the artifacts, keep the deal, lost from the expedition, his dead armor with a hole in it, charred helmet, some blood, hating because it is powerful, surely they’re going to revisit this, not a well loved show, the most notable thing about Enterprise, the movies that Tucker chooses to watch, Picard’s holodeck, a holodeck serial, what movies are on the harddrives of the NX-01, there weren’t that many episodes that were good Star Trek episodes, Ensign Ro, made Deep Space Nine a show, Kira instead, what if you’re wrong, Federation?, the Maquis, an undercutting of the main thing, integrated instantly, Captain Chakotay, so much to explore there, political distrust, a crew vote for captain, your pirate thing, upset with a Federation decision, we should raise the age of consent or retirement, whoever it is, cede territory to avoid a war, integrated into the Cardassian culture?, how rich that paid off, why Voyager is not as good as Deep Space Nine, Quark doesn’t play the game, embraced the tensions, arcy stuff, the Cardassian tailor, J’kar is the other show, Babylon 5, this needed some of that, too stiff, danced around it, vestigial sense of duty, I’ve changed my mind, doing this as a Tom Cruise movie, go against the IMF, use the blast bombs for the second time, the cache of artifacts, invaded the city with a strike team, there was no music swelling or dramatic pause, Andre Norton’s famous books, Voodoo Planet, Beast Master, The Beastmaster (1982), a barbarian, John W. Campbell’s evil influence, telepath vs. cyborg, her big legacy, a sad legacy, the very 1st D&D novelization, Witch World, the great filter, over time people and things fall by the wayside, Robert W. Chambers, a new King In Yellow movie on Amazon Prime, there goes Trish’s semi-noisy keyboard, terrible metaphor, lacks some pepper, lacks some heat, not making it spicy, benefit with adaptation, Rings Of Power, not executed, gender flip some furry people, change the ending, The Demon Breed by James H. Schmitz, a mostly water based world, female scientist and her intelligent otter companions, tool uses, foil the invasion by extensive knowledge of the environment, a great book, The Witches Of Karres, no psychic powers, Uplift series by David Brin, otter people, a natural for uplift, they hold hands, if you are choosing species to uplift, humans disappeared, uplifted elephants, weird furry trolls, they otter be more ottery, no audible audibooks for Schmitz, Legacy by James H. Schmitz, ancient living machines, A Tale Of Two Clocks, skilled in every martial art, a chilling notion, the plasmoids, an excellent narrator: Winston Tharp, mostly does poetry, Lion Loose by James H. Schmitz, the Lion House, a lesbian pulp fiction novel, October 1961, guy with a cigarette and a long pony tail, judging a story by the art, anything he records, problematic stuff, the sexister the better, let’s talk about Gor, a long running series, the covers are really good, simplified map of known Gor, do they exist as audiobooks, John Norman, book 37!, 35 hours, we’re safe, Gorean saga, really overselling it, terrible horrendous art, random stock art put a sword on it, some person riding a giant eagle, a tarn, one guy, a professor of decorum, professor of philosophy, in defense of ethical naturalism, nudity?, the logic of the open question argument, publishing the wrong things, working out your psychology, Heinlein’s is pretty scary, deep issues, he’s 91, longer in science fiction, more than 20 Tarzan books, other books where Tarzan shows up, cross overs, the Barney Of Beatrice series, Joe R. Lansdale, The Mad King, the Tarzan literary universe, they’re trying to beat Norman, 26 by Burroughs, they get longer and longer, that’s not the crazy part, 28 hour book, Ralph Lister has a helluva workout, happy Ralph Lister?, what the first Gor book is about, counter-earth, a princess, war aircraft bird, semi-feudal city states, the slavery becomes the main theme, weird slave fantasies, wow!, I’m a sex slave now, that’s crazy, a market for it, tiresome after a while, 1966, Burroughs pastiche, sexier, a Gor book from 1966-1988, almost every year, amazing, a helluvan output, a model dressed as a kajira, cosplaying gor, classifications, a plethora of types by virginity types, by employment, save Jesse from himself, new weird things, it exists its fine, so hard so fast, a gothic romance book, you have to have a castle and a lady running away and a high light in the window, yelling at Jesse about Gor, the reputation, endorsing by damning, weirder and worse, an impressive series, The Shadow, Walter B. Gibson, it makes him look like his other brother, the nose is part of the mask, hero pulp characters, backstory, very descriptive, from the pov of others, a force of nature, he’s never the narrator, is this his real identity, Lamont Cranston is a real guy, a rich playboy, impersonates him, you were here last week, Liam Neeson, Darkman (1990), Sam Raimi, a great premise, an origin story movie, scientist or something, do amazing stuff, a review of Darkman by Red Letter Media?, Frances McDormand, the romantic lead, two sequels, Armand Assante, he has no face, dramatic I’ve got cancer heroes, Rob Roy (1995), now just action roles, ice road trucker, The Gray (2011), assassin on the Mexican border, Stallone’s career, stick around long enough, a lady falling from a high tower, all the Spider-Man movies, people got their fetishes, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino’s feet, blonde lady and handsome guy with dark hair, The Spider, Will Murray, the guy who invented Squirrel Girl, straight 1930s pulp style, a cloak and a hat, carries a gun, indistinguishable, what a trick, essentially identical, Spider Fury And Steel, Doc Savage meets King Kong, The Spider: Fury in Steel, Billy Zane, The Phantom, great grandpa was Tarzan, 400 years of history, this immortal, the ghost who walks, weird 90s pulp revival, The Rocketeer (1991), female air pirate, weird lesbian subtext, perfectly understandable, action sequences, Treat Williams, Xander Drax, he’s a treat, Deep Rising (1998), action heist movie turns into towering inferno with a Cthulhu monster, Famke Jansen, Anthony Heald, Wes Studio, that didn’t take long, John Carpenter, that vibe, 45 million dollar budget, before we have to go, ocean going heist movie, Out Of The Dark by David Weber, dog-like aliens from space, submit, space-dogs, Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, guerrilla warfare, the Battle of Agincourt, Harry Turtledove, Dracula shows up, Vlad the Impaler himself, the title reveal, double meaning, glass the planet, two books in the series, Into The Light, co-author, 381 pages, 16 hours, alien invasion until the very end, because he’s Dracula, Honor Harrington, a lot of those, the Moon is secretly a death star, 1966, a different series, a solid week, The Tall T (1956), based on an Elmore Leonard novel, Randolph Scott, Henry Silva, ave Gun, Will Travel, somebody Boone plays the badguy, neighbourly, she’s the daughter of a rich farmer, ransom, you can feel the Elmore Leonard on the screen, Glitz, painted cover art, lady fleeing from a high estate, doing a Hans Gruber, a Gothic Romance, that counts, a Markie Post/Jimmy Smits movie, sounds good, even tho they’ve rebooted that show, Daniel Krouse original, perfect hair, not running exactly, fleeing, moving rapidly away, this is a gothic romance and we need to do a show on it, invested in some very weird things, William Shatner, a musician, and Stephen King, Chadwick Boseman has a bluechek in case he comes back to life.

ACE DOUBLE D-299 Star Born by Andre Norton

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Reading, Short And Deep #392 – The Deep Hole To China by Robert Sheckley

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #392

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Deep Hole To China by Robert Sheckley

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Deep Hole To China was published in Fantastic Universe, June 1955.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!