Reading, Short And Deep #069
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Riya’s Foundling by Algis Budrys
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
Riya’s Foundling was first published in Science Fiction Stories, 1, 1953.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
Tag: telepathy
Review of Dan Dare: The Audio Adventures, Volume One: 1: Voyage To Venus, 2: The Red Moon Mystery, and 3: Marooned On Mercury
Dan Dare: The Audio Adventures, Volume 1, 1: Voyage To Venus, 2: The Red Moon Mystery, and 3: Marooned On Mercury
Adapted from the Eagle comic strip; Performed by a full cast
3 Episodes – 3 hours, 9 minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Publisher: Big Finish
Published: January 2017
Three audio adventures based on the Eagle comic strip “Dan Dare” created by Rev. Marcus Morris, adapted and drawn by Frank Hampson.
Brilliant test pilot, Dan Dare, is chosen to fly the Anastasia – a new experimental
spacecraft – on its maiden voyage to Venus. This isn’t exploration – it is to make first
contact with a mysterious civilisation that has sent technological secrets as a goodwill
gesture. However, what Dan, Digby and Professor Peabody find on Venus isn’t
goodwill, but a terrifyingly intelligent, cold-hearted ruler, the Mekon. A creature
destined to become Dan Dare’s nemesis – and Earth’s greatest threat…
Unable to return to Earth, Dan Dare and the crew of the Anastasia head to the
desolate planet Mars, where Dan’s estranged Uncle Ivor is part of a research team
working on a top-secret archaeological dig; but when they find the base wrecked and
the scientists missing, Dare, Digby and Professor Peabody soon discover that the Red
Planet is not nearly as dead as everyone thought and that Ivor’s expedition has
woken an army of deadly insect-creatures that threaten to swarm and engulf the
Earth… Dare must stop the aliens, but can he really resort to genocide in order to
save the human race?
When a distress call summons the crew of the Anastasia to the burning wilderness of
Mercury, they are reunited with their old ally, Sondar. He tells them of the
beleaguered Mercurians who are held in thrall to a cruel new taskmaster – the
Mekon! The exiled Mekon is rallying his forces, plotting a desperate revenge against
his former homeworld of Venus and his hated enemy, Colonel Dan Dare!
It had been quite some time since I’d heard much about Dan Dare, at least twenty or more years until the classic comic character’s adventures were rebooted by ace author Garth Ennis in 2009 for Dynamite Comics. I was glad to hear that B7 Media, those folks responsible for the terrific Blake’s 7 adventures from a few years back have revived the man with the iconic name: Dan Dare.
Taking advantage of the audio drama format, these three new Big Finish Dan Dare adventures are truly terrific entertainment. They’re modern boy’s own-style space adventures, a kind of unapologetically forthright solar space opera, and starring no less a figure than Britain’s most iconic test pilot turned space adventurer, Dan Dare. For those unfamiliar, Dan Dare is one of those lapping-over delights from the end of the British Empire days, an ever just so slightly alien import – like the Rupert Bear books, or Captain Britain, or even Judge Dredd – and as delightful as a tin full of Turkish delight!
It is hard for me to review audio drama the same way I review audiobooks. I listen to audio drama at night with my eyes closed just as I’m drifting off into Dreamland. This means if I want to review them, I must re-listen to the shows over and over in order to get all my facts straight (that I love to is a side benefit). I need to know exactly what’s in the show itself, and what I only dreamed was in the show. And in my nightly re-listening for two weeks, I must say that all three episodes are really terrific – professional – solid work – as good as you would want them to be. Even with three different writing teams for three episodes and the fact that the three shows are mapped to three storylines from the very inception of Dan Dare, there’s very little for me to complain about. If you pushed me, really pushed me for some hard critiques of the shows as a whole I could come up with a few pitiful ones. I’d say, maybe, that the actors for Digby and Dan have voices just a bit too similar to each other, that maybe the personality of Professor Peabody – going from a hard-ass corporate profiteer to a stalwart champion of the undertrodden is a bit quick. But I really cannot complain. I got two wonderful weeks of nightly entertainment from these three episodes; each combining some of the very best elements of some of my favourite adventures into three all new shows. I’m telling you, if you like stories like The Empire Strikes Back, or Metropolis, or DOOM, or Aliens you’ll certainly love these new Dan Dare adventures.
Now, twist my arm just a bit more and I’ll tell you a secret… oh yes, I loved the first and second episodes, but that third episode, with those wonderful sympathetic Mercurians… it is my favourite.
Some fun, fast facts comparing Dan Dare in 1950 and Dan Dare in 2017.
-In the original comic strip Digby was Dan’s batman (his gentleman’s gentleman), not so in 2017.
-In the 2017 audio drama, Dan Dare is a vlogger!
-In 2017, Dan Dare’s dad is in hospital, in what sounds like a coma, and he regularly visits him (as does Digby).
-Professor Peabody was a professor in 1950 and still is a professor in 2017.
-The 2017 Dan Dare is set in the 2040s, the 1950s Dan Dare was set in the 1990s.
-In the 1950 Dan Dare “Eagle” was the name of the magazine where Dan Dare appeared, in 2017 “Eagle” is the name of the corporation that built Dare’s spaceship.
-And, the 2017 Dan Dare uses the medium of audio drama (or radio drama) as part of the plot.
Here’s a video reviewing the history of Dan Dare:
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #362 – READALONG: The Game-Players Of Titan by Philip K. Dick
The SFFaudio Podcast #362 – Jesse, Paul, and Marissa talk about The Game-Players Of Titan by Philip K. Dick.
Talked about on today’s show:
Ace Books F-251, December 12th, 1963, The Man In The High Castle, nominations, a worthy follow-up?, a high bar, somehow I ended up in a taxi with no memory of how I got there, whaaah?, bluff (the game), the landed class of a depopulated earth, Monopoly, Candlyland, Liar’s Dice, the game of Life, dice, cards, spins, their powers of imagination, just so ridiculous, Marissa really liked it, a short story by Dick, Jupiter, test the game on the kids, there’s something to this, the way we conceive of how Philip K. Dick wrote his novels, we know almost everything about H.P. Lovecraft, but Dick was a talker not a letter writer, one aspect of Dick’s life, the game aspect, sitting around playing Monopoly is an obsessive horrible experience, egomania, weirdly emphatic, very philosophical, if Monopoly was a real thing… (and it kind of is), it has very little to do with skill, lots of luck, Peter Garden had a rough night and got into an argument with his car, the car scenes, the cars are some of the most realized characters in the book, the elevator spills its guts, simulated personalities, doors and elevators and cars, the Rushmore effect, a kettle that reports on you, how the rushmore circuit got installed in everything, the Talky Toaster episode of Red Dwarf, AI circuits, Mork & Mindy, Pocatello, Idaho, Berkley, California, New Mexico, the plot, Earth has been subjugated by the Vugs, nuclear war, immortality, bindmen, the Titanians, that’s not the plot, the Earth-Titan War, sterilizing most of the earth, factions of Vugs, are the Vugs trying to live on Earth, living like humans, a lot of telepaths, The Pirates Of Penzance, Mr. Tagomi’s lin: “Things are seldom what they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream”, the key for Dick to doing that cool thing, Pete Garden’s visit to Titan, they change the reality of what’s on Pete’s card, Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field, Joe Schilling, that little hint, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, a really cool cipher, please tell me if I’m human or not, psionics, telepathy, had Dick taken it even farther, Dick and his characters are on speed in this book, checklist of Dick themes, homeopapes, boobs, marital infidelity, the men are the major players, are they trading property and women?, the reason I have to get divorced…, having a baby is national news, somebody in Ontario had a baby, why is their syndicate called “pretty blue fox?”, NATO-style call codes, ham radio enthusiasts, PBF, two or three books back, robot brains on little carts (the Lazy Dogs), childish, Now Wait For Last Year, Dick is teaching his kids, children’s culture that we forget when we are adults, if I was to pop out a baby next year, distraction techniques, maybe as a social dating thing, another glimpse into Dick’s life, a playful book, character names, a couple named Angst, a guy named Calomine, Lucky Luckman, Mr. Gains, a cop named Hawthorne, sin (Nathaniel Hawthorne), the Vugs had initials, E.B. Black, E.G., a clue for us, a moderate vug, a very soft occupation, interpolation of the vugs into Earth’s society, the U.S. occupation of Japan after WWII, okay, I guess we’re playing the game, a way to encourage humans to keep breeding, the depopulated earth, that record store in New Mexico, a village sort of feel to the novel, in other novels, his core set (of characters), a haunted landscape, Peter Garden, Pete as a symbol for infidelity, importing a wife in for him, she bites the rabbit paper, a little more kosher, Garden, a story, a very short story by Dick called Out In The Garden, a wife and her duck, a duck in a suitcase, grocery shopping and getting her hair done, Sir Francis the drake, a poem by Yates, Leda And The Swan, Zeus turns into a swan and rapes a woman, a poem about sexual assault, Helen of Troy, a fantasy story about a woman who has had a relationship with her duck, a guy is cuckolded by a duck, Dick is always worried about his wife cheating on him, Sylvia, name puns, not even probable, Freya, the goddess of fertility, Carol, Pat McLean, an eight year old sought after by a 200 year old man, that crazy big bender, gotta go take all the drugs (like it is his job), the ending fake out with the drugs, getting precog abilities when taking meth, double blind (or double bluff?), a cold war metaphor, like poker with even more random elements, Solar Lottery, pairing books, different cultured futures, what is destiny and fate?, a completely legitimate way to go, instead of a meritocracy or a democracy, let’s just magnify this out a bit, well, that marriage didn’t work out, Eye In The Sky, a group in the same way, Inception, whose dream is it this time?, a clique of people you spend time with, it’s about Dick’s personal life, social dynamics, intruding on things, the outsider vs. the insider, Dick divorces his wife Sally but that’s okay because John likes her and…, Sally brings his new boyfriend in from the east coast, success, the pseudopodia robot cleaner, riper and ready for potential citizens, the non-bindmen, how did that happen?, now you can have all the property in California, the Jack Gaughan cover, what’s going on?, a stack of deeds, there’s not enough detail to reconstruct this game in reality, Jesse says “undercooked” a lot, the human squares, rolling is spinning (maybe), I hate Monoply (but I really do hate it), it fascinates us, a brilliant horrible strategy, controlling the housing supply, brilliant and evil, everything to do with Monopoly is horrible, the origin story of Monopoly (the Landlords Game), showing the evils of capitalism, trusts roll-in, he stole the game, her idea is thrown out and the rules she lays out in Monopoly actually occur, the ironies of Life, a horrible game, it happens within the family, you can see it coming, it’s crushing, what are the vugs playing for?, playing for a life on Earth, what Luckman’s doing, the vugs got so entranced with the game they created that they are subsumed by it, crass to gain power (instead of playing it for a lark), he’s trying to crush the kids, I don’t wanna play that game, Jesse’s housing costs are because of how others are playing the game of life, they’re playing the game wrong, live read books then later die (there’s no winning), a way to spend a rainy afternoon with your kids, the psionic talents, telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, Pat gets a bit of the precog’s point of view, the precogs could be wrong, finally methamphetamine does a good thing, all the layers of deception, it was kind of exciting and leavened with dollops of humour, Max the passive-aggressive car, driving Joe down the bumpy street, so many good scenes, a little bit of Ubik, it’s in our future, a lot of technology talking to characters, coming up soon, AG-Chemi from The Simulacra, like a parallel world, if you take the rules of any one Dick novel…, using JJ-180, I love Philip K. Dick’s mind, The Cosmic Puppets, Peter and Mary, he re-uses names, one could very easily, a Philip K. Dictionary, the checklist, he’s such a fnool, The War With The Fnools, the wonderful thing about a book like this, unofficial Harry Potter encyclopedias and concordances, unlike Lovecraft, S.T. Joshi, Robert M. Price, the Journal Of Philip K. Dick studies, how many of the stories use the name Pete or Peter, homeopapes and autofacs, the rabbit paper, there’s a story called Autofac, we’d buy the heck out of that book, do it as a blog put it together as a book.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #356 – READALONG: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
The SFFaudio Podcast #356 – Jesse, Paul, and Marissa talk about The Demolished by Alfred Bester.
Talked about on today’s show:
1952, 1953, 1951, the serialization, a futuristic old book, purple and green with the big eye, The Stars My Destination, weird corporations, quasi-computer intelligences, Marissa didn’t love it, dated elements, 1950s women, really funny, the deleted prologue (is very confusing), damn amazing, so much in so many pages, it doesn’t baby you, many ideas per page, keeping track, not great as an audiobook, page play that can’t be seen in the audiobook, the narration is great, playful with typography, SMS style talk, the Amazon reviews, @ symbols in the ebook, Jerry Chuch, he’s an Esper 2, a textual clue to his nature, (lap)², the audiobook store, an illiterate society, paperbooks are extinct, a post-literate society, when you start listening to audiobooks…, shame for not reading textual books, reading aloud as entertainment, future societies, better as a paperbook on your first read, font size changes, the reader does a lot of the work, an amazing narration, dissension has begun, image of a laughing horse, more than one text version, the original serialization in Galaxy, the finished draft is the paperbook, changes between the text, Monarch vs. Sacrament, “enhanced books”, the esper world, the best adaptation of of The Demolished Man is Babylon 5, terrible and yet essential, the Alfred Bester episodes of Babylon 5, The Lord Of The Rings in space, it’s Dune, the Psi-Corp, “demolition”, the character of Alfred Bester, a dark Powell, deliciously played by Walter Koenig, evil, powerful, charismatic, on Spaceland, The Hunger Games, an unreal world, Sinclair, rogue telepaths, what does it mean if psi-powers were real, the breeding program, marriage, mundanes and telepaths, the coming war, his girlfriend is in the freezer, D’Courtney was a latent telepath, Ben Reich’s half sister, throat cancer, a psychic-scream, Powell and Reich (also in The Stars My Destination), Ben Reich = good money, Powell = power, Dishonest Abe (Lincoln Powell), Jerry Church (corrupted by the money), when telepaths make love, soooo Freudian, New York, sooo dated, demolishing the daughter, a sexy-father figure (super creepy), room for progression, who is Ben Reich’s heir?, who is D’courtney’s heir?, Powell now has all the power and all the money, he’s the bad guy (if you squint), the reconstruction happens in Star Trek episode (to Uhura), Nomad, we misread the code too, an inverted detective story, how-done-it, how-to-catch-’em, a locked room mystery, adapting it to TV, a Philip K. Dick-style mindfuck, a hugh solipsist section, artificial personalities, false memories, no stars in the sky, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Remember Me, going back to the womb, back to the beginning, explosion, concussion, the man with no face, suddenly blood is on him, very Lady Macbeth, a premonition of his future, he’s afraid of himself, The Prisoner‘s final episode, panettone, just 175 pages, the Hugo award, creepy stuff, the gilded corpse, ReDemolished, an essay by Bester on how novels are written, the book is dedicated to H.L. Gold (editor of Galaxy magazine), Astounding, Amazing, John W. Campbell, Jr., Scientology, ESP stuff, DARPA, remote viewing, one of Jesse’s profs, premonitions, Slan by A.E. van Vogt, power fantasy, “fans are slans”, the Minority Report thingy, no sense of the poor, in the Babylon 5 universe…, resentment of PSI, super-powerful, Babylon 5 is pretty amazing, The Best Of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord, Julian May, tension, a caste system, psionic aliens, class struggles, Chooka Frood (the corrupt brothel-keeper), a role playing game character, ceramicly beautiful, a dream, a blind albino who plays gimpsters, “accident”, Duffy Wyg&,
Eight, sir; seven, sir;
Six, sir; five, sir;
Four, sir; three, sir;
Two, sir; one!
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tension, apprehension,
And dissension have begun.
Doctor Who, The Master, Jo’s rhyme, Mary Had A Little Lamb…, jingles, Bester wrote radio dramas, strange observations, everybody is in the business, if you are at a psychic party…, a throwaway line about the old deaf mutes…, blackmail, no man is an island, “make your enemies on purpose”, he’s an awful man, William Edgars from Babylon 5, Donald Trump, how he earned his money, that embrace, their hugging, we are not ignorant but we aren’t fully party to Ben’s plans, eating candy, there was no bullet, an apache duster, the cover of Galaxy, “humans are weird”, compact death, if we are paying very close attention we should be noticing all the details that aren’t there, the missing bullet hole, the closer you read it the better it pays you, a million more themes, we go to Venus we go to Mars, written today it would be a 600 page doorstop that wouldn’t do half the stuff, “I liked dishonest Abe”, “absolutely scary”, “let’s foreground that”, “I might marry you I’m not really sure about that”, “punch me around”, Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber, a parody of Mickey Spillane, The Man Who Japed, “he shot her in the groin”, there whole world is completely strange, New York, the future computer, typewriter hands and punch cards, glimpses into…, rushing towards demolition, Old Man Mose, “kittenish”, they’ve turned over parts of their society to…, horrible but compelling, damaged or mean or weird, the game of Sardine, Smee by A.M. Burrage, party games, who ends up alone?, everyone is together and naked, a bunch of adults playing naked hide-and-seek, parallels to the fake solipsistic world, “here’s how I did it”, the delusionary world, he finally had to face the man with no face, I couldn’t tell him the truth…, we were buying it the whole time!, skepticism, admissible evidence and objective proof, Powell looking at Ben, the mysterious parcel, it’s a present for you Ben, clumsy hands, we’re all of just nursemaids in this crazy world, Powell friend, “listen normals”, we see the truth that you cannot see, mind to mind and heart to heart, Powell was the villain the whole time, William Edgars virus, “solve the telepath problem once and for all”, something that Reich never does, a moment of self-awareness, he’s a monster but at least he feels bad about it, Garibaldi’s manipulation, revealing all on the train, Harlan Ellison, Powell is secretly evil, we’re distracted by Reich, Inception (2010), the horror lies, tragic despair, D’Courtney’s secret wish (he wanted to die), his son gave him what he wanted, on some level Ben Reich is a telepath, everything Powell says is a lie, the more you read it the better it is going to get, you need to go into analysis, unspool it, re-reading, one of the best audiobooks, Joe Dunlop, Isis Audiobooks, from 1989, still for sale as tapes, it totally worked with the story, a good sign of a good narration.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #331 – READALONG: The Lord Of The Rings (Book 4 of 6) by J.R.R. Tolkien
The SFFaudio Podcast #331 – Jesse, Julie Davis, Seth, and Maissa talk about The Lord of the Rings Book IV (“The Journey To Mordor”) by J.R.R. Tolkien (aka the second half of The Two Towers).
Talked about on today’s show:
Book 4, from The Taming Of Smeagol to the end of The Two Towers, or “Don’t get tangled-up with a spider”, or “Frodo slogging through the marshes forever”, or “nothing but a bunch of people walking”, Jesse’s least favorite, so gloomy, poems, flora, fauna, stew, Julie thinks it’s necessary, encounters, the overall gloom, the purification of Frodo, also Sam, carry-on and finish-off, Sam as the hero, Sam telling the story, Sam is the lowest of the low, the evolution of Sam, Sam is jealous of Gollum, Jesse loves the meta-stuff, “Mr Frodo, sir”, Smeagol must save them both, once upon a time, “Tell me more about Sam, dad.”, the huge elf warrior, Gollum’s story, we’re never the villain, what inspired Richard K. Morgan’s The Steel Remains, seeing it from the orcs’ point of view, how well structured, looking forward and looking back, nuanced and multi-layered, Tolkien’s reputation, a very black and white moral sensibility…, the other point of view, the creation of orcs, Melkor, one of the seven gods of Middle Earth, the blight of Mordor, the flowers on the crown, dark and light, Frodo and Gollum, old and beautiful vs. old and pitiable, they could have been each other, the argument between Gollum and himself, the editing, why is Gollum bad, stinker and slinker, Sam’s apology to Smeagol, Smeagol is passive aggressive, the timing as the greatest tragedy of the whole book, Cory Olsen, the lost opportunity, twisting the promise, what the ring has promised him, Gollum the great could eat fish three times a day!, his modest dreams, like a dog off a leash, he’s like a dog in every way, guilty dogs, dogs turning on their masters, fish are sweet to Gollum, everything that we like he hates, calling Gandalf’s words to mind, the big picture, the eye is looking for you, Smeagol’s contribution, even the worst evil, chance if chance you call it, diverting evil to good, the deal with Faramir, another structural thing, three travelers in a land, Riders Of Rohan, who be you, it is totally a mirror, Aragorn and crew, revealing vs. being discovered, the righteous, blindfolded again, a foreshadowing of Éowyn, well the Rohirrim are great but…, bear that in mind, Faramir’s mind reading power, who are the Númenóreans?, Jesse thinks it is wisdom, not so much about race, it’s because he’s full of lore, the mind reading thing, Galadriel’s telepathy, “No”, “come hither”, ESP?, character vs. race, country first (Borimir) vs. wisdom first (Faramir),
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
this is the guy, the BBC radio drama, you ran all the way to me!?, Tolkien is teasing us, an echo of Galadriel, grey eyes glinting, not if I found it on the highway, “It’s not a romance novel, Julie.”, “Wow, what a guy!”, David Wenham, Aragorn is a ranger of the North and Faramir is a ranger of the South, Sam’s oliphant, what false promises did Sauron make to these guys?, dressed like Robin Hood and the merry men of Sherwood, one of the most religious things in The Lord Of The Rings, a meeting in the secret lair, Sam’s overspeaking reflecting Frodo’s overspeaking back in the Prancing Pony, heart over head, another geographical reflection, behind a waterfall, Helm’s Deep, seeing Rohan, seeing the storm, the dark skies, Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, the chapter titles, The Passage Of The Marshes, The Black Gate Is Closed, Of Herbs And Stewed Rabbit, ruin the conies, the homely things, pots and pans, the phial of Galadriel, the Checkov’s shotguns, the belt that Borimir was given, the magic items, used once, Hobbits learn to cook before they speak, the rope!, Shelob stings Frodo like when Frodo is stung by the morgul blade back at Weathertop, running blindly on the bridge, Cirith Ungol, Shelob is Ungoliant’s daughter, the children of Shelob inhabit Mirkwood, South African spiders, how many time has the ring been worn?, Bilbo at the party, Frodo at the Prancing Pony, Frodo at Weathertop, Frodo at Amon Hen, Frodo at Borimir’s confrontation, Sam at Shelob’s lair, the ring’s effect on Sam, different people are effected differently by the ring, Frodo’s power with the ring would be to command, the ring is like a computer, if you think google is the internet…, the ring gives invisibility as a basic power, it gives Sam the power of sharp hearing and translation, Frodo can see more, Sam’s superpower is listening (he was an eavesdropper), as they approach Mordor the ring gets heavier and more powerful, leap from a precipice into a fire, it also blinds Frodo, the ring’s perception, “the master’s back”, because it is linked to Sauron, like a dog?, back to the magic items, if you play Dungeons and Dragons, a bow of plus to killing orcs, even Borimir’s gift, Sam’s dirt, Frodo’s phial, Sting from Frodo to Sam, leaving the Mithril armor, and then there’s the rope, the tying of the rope, is it a magic rope?, Galadriel’s rope?, that’s not her gift, words have power, another manifestation, “We got rope” [says some random elf], cloaks, rope, and bread, who is following?, is Gollum really allergic to the rope, if somebody tied me up, he can’t eat the lembas, he hates light, the ropes, and the nice things, climbing down Dracula-style, he knows his knots, the mystery from the previous, what happened to the entwives?, back in the Green Dragon Inn, “oh those tales”, the Ents tell where the Entwives went, the Brown Lands are brown, Jesse found a thread somewhere on the internet, Teleporno, a lot of digital ink was spilled, the last paragraph of page 258, just after watching the storm, “the skirt of the storm”, primed for finding the entwives, looking at Fanghorn,
At last they were brought to a halt. The ridge took a sharper bend northward and was gashed by a deeper ravine. On the further side it reared up again, many fathoms at a single leap: a great grey cliff loomed before them, cut sheer down as if by a knife stroke. They could go no further forwards, and must turn now either west or east. But west would lead them only into more labour and delay, back towards the heart of the hills; east would take them to the outer precipice.
“There’s nothing for it but to scramble down this gully, Sam,” said Frodo. “Let’s see what it leads to!”
“A nasty drop, I’ll bet,” said Sam.
The cleft was longer and deeper than it seemed. Some way down they found a few gnarled and stunted trees, the first they had seen for days: twisted birch for the most part, with here and there a fir-tree. Many were dead and gaunt, bitten to the core by the eastern winds. Once in milder days there must have been a fair thicket in the ravine, but now, after some fifty yards, the trees came to an end, though old broken stumps straggled on almost to the cliff’s brink. The bottom of the gully, which lay along the edge of a rock-fault, was rough with broken stone and slanted steeply down. When they came at last to the end of it, Frodo stooped and leaned out.
ties it too a stump, got this rope from the elves, oh I don’t want it elf rope behind, the rope is not magic, not really high fantasy, the birch stump untied the rope!, the last of the entwives, Frodo and Sam aren’t looking out for the entwives, “10 points for creativity”, a structural argument, they untie their bonds and sit down on a stump, answering any and every question, Julie goes with Tolkien’s answer, Jesse argues for the book over the author, here’s proof that the entwives are there, every time Galadriel’s name gets mentioned, the last thing he says is Galadriel and he strokes the rope, there is no truth of the matter, we cannot go to Middle Earth except by reading this book, Jesse keeps marshaling the argument, “you will find friends”, “Elrond is right”, two hobbits sit down on a stump and are taken by a tree, on the edge of a forest, symmetrically it works, an undefeatable argument unless, if were trying to solve mysteries…, the fragrant area, it used to be, this place had its history too before it was the Brown Lands, there are things we don’t know and things Tolkien didn’t know about it, world-build the hell out of it, structurally: the time, a three day foot journey to the west and a three day foot journey to the east, near simultaneous action, the end of page 70, even the wind is mapped out, Emun Myul, “almost felt you liked the place?”, a magic talking tree, the final nail in the coffin, the birch, the word book comes from the word birch, bravo bravo, the mystery is left there, when we were talking about the word stuff, Tom Bombadil,
‘It’s a trap!’ said Sam, and he laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword; and as he did so, he thought of the darkness of the barrow whence it came. ‘I wish old Tom was near us now!’ he thought. Then as he stood, darkness about him and a blackness of despair and anger in his heart, it seemed to him that he saw… a light in his mind, almost unbearably bright at first…. Far off… he saw the Lady Galadriel… in Lórien, and gifts were in her hands. And you, Ring-bearer, he heard her say, remote but clear, for you I have prepared this.
and that happens again, Sam brings light by thought, the big theme, with this phial, brandishing this light, intolerable light, unbearable light, the infection of light, Frodo asleep becoming a phial of light, Sam seeing it in Frodo, Frodo fading?, Frodo purified?, light going through him, the pincushion effect!, Frodo the white, the trend of weariness, the fate of all the elves, Mythgard Academy, that’s a choice, The Choices Of Master Samwise, you noodle!, everything that happens in the last book, foolish choices (wise choices), signing a contract you haven’t read, who would have the ring now?, somebody cut this open, the orcs had orders, in the floaty ghosty of the eye, the black hand only has four fingers, does Sauron have a body?, rolling Frodo into a ditch, all my choices have proved ill, what good lay in choice?, the very last map in The Two Towers, the wetwang and the entwash, Rohan, the new book The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip and Carol Zaleski, telling the story of The Inklings, Lewis’ atheism and conversion, intertextuality, reading each other’s minds, Eagle And Child pub, Hugo Dyson, an alternate theory on the entwives, the vocal mannerisms of treebeard are those of C.S. Lewis, the question is not: “where are the entwives” but rather “where are our husbands?”, Dorothy L. Sayers, a male exclusive club, christian apologetics, a shoo–in.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #321 – READALONG: Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick
The SFFaudio Podcast #321 – Jesse, Paul, and Marissa talk about Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick
Talked about on today’s show:
Philip K. Dick’s first published novel, The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, the Psi-Corps, a solar empire, getting away with murder, raw power, a telpath’s guild is a logical consequence, a 1950s idea, Dune, the John Preston sub-plot, Prester John is middle age superhero fan fiction, Marco Polo, Robert Silverberg, “the cynicism of later Dick”, the quizmaster bodyguard plan, Dickian action sequences, the conclusion on Mars, Batavia, that’s the cover too, androids on the Moon, Ace Books, how do you explain the guy not in the space suit, the protagonist, Doctor Who, the culture, androids, surprisingly little info-dumping, minimax (game theory), there’s so much going on, loyalty oaths, corporate feudalism, cheap Chinese goods, fealty to corporations, Total Recall, Johnny Cab!, distinguishing between male and female, imagine how difficult it will be for robots to determine gender, an elegant solution, the world is amazing, The Golden Man, nuclear war, post nuclear war, Indonesia, Batavia, no mention of the USA at all, such an ambitious book, it gets better in the re-reads, everyone’s obsessed with good luck charms, a metaphor for the whole society, stifling progress, very The Man In The High Castle, The Price Is Right, sell more goods, increasing demand for supply, pacifying the population, what does the quizmaster actually do?, lingering through the subways, algae growing on the bathroom pipes, a literal channel, a metaphorical channel, Channel M, Ted Bentley, his favourite bedgirl agency, the McDonalds of prostitution, virgin’s milk and boiled owl spit, all of his psychological problems were solved for the day, bare breasted, quivering breasts, his interests coming to the fore, cheating may or may not be legal, cynicism, the public service, bio-chemical engineering, secretaries, a minimum quality of life for everyone, defeating corruption by subverting competition, power cards, p-cards, figuring out how the lottery actually works, The Library Of Babylon by Jorge Luis Borges, the lottery starts as something for the lower classes, an interplanetary society, it just so happens that this story is in the the public domain, the 1962 English publication of The Library Of Babylon, great minds think…, I’m not playing this game, defeating corruption, avoiding cynicism, a total inversion of meritocracy, how the assassin as an anti-corruption measure, corrupting the anti-corruption measure, crackpots in power, the cynicism of Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein, fatalism, am six year old wife, France, the premise of Glory Road, a sense of futility, SFF writers for and against the Vietnam War, International Science Fiction Magazine, a response to America 1950s, getting out of the system somehow, when do you not obey the law, so not full of philosophy, courtroom drama, Marissa needs to expand this book, “cluttered”, Dick’s later works are meditations, René Descartes, what the hell is the Flame Disc?, John Prester wrote four books, Prester is dead on Earth, Prester is dead in a bottle, what does 2 plus 2 equal?!, a buoy, Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, unanticipatable, keep cooking that idea, looking for the 10th planet, bedgirls working in the mines on Mars, work-camps, random punishments, very Borgesian, neo-colonialism, Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson, Avatar, Desertion by Clifford D. Simak, just like in Avatar, him and his dog, escaping reality, A Princess OF Mars and Glory Road, let’s go live in this book, The Peripheral by William Gibson, time travel, computer simulations of historical characters, Socrates is a troll, Socrates trolls Francisco Pizarro, Keith Pellig has the bomb, another android with a bomb, Imposter by Philip K. Dick, Impostor, Astounding Science Fiction, it’s not terrible at all.
Posted by Jesse Willis