The SFFaudio Podcast #789 – READALONG: Gilgamesh The King by Robert Silverberg

The SFFaudio Podcast #789 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Gilgamesh The King by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
serialized, 1984, simple question, science fiction or fantasy novel?, how could it be, other than crude financial reasons, a novelization of the oldest epic that we know of in any great detail, The Road To Science Fiction volumes, an excerpt, claimed, adopted, annexed, interstitial material, fragments, and a whole lot of Silverberg, the major events are seemingly from quasi-historical sources, demystifies the fantasy, a rational explanation, the epic shares, the novel shares, the search for transcendence, brought back down to earth, losing out to imminence, immortality, Dickian, the basic formula for science fiction, come back transformed, wants and needs, wants a lot of sex, wants immortality, needs transcendence, the immortality is in the work he does, living out his life the way it can be shaped, who is the survivor of the flood?, Zeusasudra?, that guy presents, I didn’t say that, you’re inferring that, how not to die rather than how to live forever, 1984, maybe one day, that’s such an impressive statue or temple, passing from a living being into a mythical being and written about by Robert Silverberg, a bit of Ozymandias, fragments of the wall and the epic itself, we look up this book and despair at its length, writer and artist, other intellectual activities, 1.7 speed, unpleasant to listen to that fast, the first 3rd or first half, the part he invented himself, Game Of Thrones, more dynamic and less descriptive, 2x speed, he changes the story, the first third was painful, tedious?, a boring story, really dragged, this isn’t really, because we’ve done a number of Silverbergs, his beats are all out on display here, chasing after women, concerned with death, the solitude, The Book Of Skulls, a Charles Stross novel, when Schweitz showed up, Enkidu, comfortable garden, kicked out of the city, comes back, kinda like Conan as a king, bored on his throne, kickoff, the interesting bit, greater acceleration, experincing this book, a flashback to Hayy Ibn Tufail, raised by antelopes, wise with the wisdom of nature, a man coming out of nature, Tarzan, before all that, the granddaddy of them all, he resonated with the idea, this isn’t the only book into this series, Scott asked Jesse a question, the same Gilgamesh as Gilgamesh In The Outback, a road trip across the United States, not a hero as much as a drug user, Downward To The Earth, once administrator of, a lot of tourism, he sees himself as this character, pushes her breasts into his face, what, I’m six, autobiography, Gilgamesh believes but Silverberg doesn’t, a potion, he’s sprouting hairs, a placebo, rejects the teaching the of the religion, is she sincere?, the political subplot, his conjecture, makes the wrong decisions, the lens he looks at everything [with], a volcanic vent, it’s both, translating, one of the big successes, the difference between poetry, philosophy and religion, William Blake, really a volcanic vent, psychic perception taken too concretely, he’s got epilepsy, Gene Wolfe, head injury, he see the gods, Wolfe being Wolfe, meeting the same characters over and over again, the fantastic is supposed to be taken as partially real, a concrete example, the sick tree scene, three demons in it, making bricks and fuckin ladies all day, the leaves are all falling down, thing’s he’s wrong about, cuts off the sick branch, worst poison, pours it down the hole, the demon being a snake, all fun stuff, the concoction is probably manure and it fertilizes the tree, the three demon problem, what a shaman does, things in all directions, really there’s one thing in there that works, decoration, trying to impress people, his presentation is as the king, having sex with everybody, goes to far with that, loves the bricklaying too much, he abandons the city, he is Man, lessons for men, if you’re going to be a man, very Jordan Peterson, Inana, he thinks she killed the previous king, not fully fleshed out for her, why is her face fucked up in the end, a disease, venereal disease?, leprosy, of love, war and political power, Venus or Aphrodite, a bloody good time, psychologically, they’ll laugh at me, reason for rejecting her, he knows the story of going to the underworld, he’s afraid, points in the story, a showmanship part of this I’m not really a goddess, role model, a Candide naive adherent, he didn’t have a dad, the manly arts, doesn’t have a friend, wrestle and become best friends, ruled by affects, addressed in the text, we were not lovers, doth protest too much, all the women he’s having, we can’t read this on a subversive level at all, the bull of heaven, not an earthquake, the explanation is made to fit, a woman’s jealousy, mask off, what’s going to happen, obvious he was going to kill her, for the last time, he’s going to banish her, shuts her up in a hole, uh huh, yup, he’s the king, nothing complicated or delaying of satisfaction, ruled by his emotions, a foreign prince in another city, not subversive, writing from an atheistic perspective, very minimal, the closest we get is when he goes off to get immortality, the magic pearl was lost, feels like a fantasy, he goes off to Africa at one point, wooly haired, visitors, Yemen?, Qatar, China, placenames, this place used to be called that, guessed it, sort of saying, a rational explanation for everything or is there?, the science fiction aspect as well, the myth of the flood, no longer an immortal, tell the story like it is, a huge downpour, no ark, a miniversion of this book, a legendary story and so is this, “‘euhemerism’ 1. the theory that gods arose out of the deification of historical heroes. 2. any interpretation of myths that derives the gods from outstanding men and seeks the source of mythology in history.”, what if this actually happened, psychological stuff too, a modern novel, told first person, very reliable narrator, perceives in a different way, I, Claudius, you don’t need to bring the gods into it, two thirds god, it doesn’t make sense, a two father point of view, Lord something who is divine, two fathers and one mother, he’s not a demi-god, a step up, the god come into him, the ancestor of Hercules, Prometheus, Ulysses, doesn’t steal fire form the gods, a titan, he’s a builder, side note, a historical Gilgamesh, Civilization 6, don’t judge us, yes we can be friends, wrestling with him, that can save you on higher difficulties, demystifying, mostly historical alternate history straight, vampires and zombies, Zeusy, pocahontasy, Heroes In Hell, To The Land Of The Living, one of the fragments not included in the Epic Of Gilgamesh, his shade comes back, dirt farmer, preferred to be a fisherman and not a great scientist, hindsight is 2020, 0202, straight up, post-modernism, read an old text, what if this was real, Alan Moore’s Watchmen, zero irony, The Calydonian Boar Hunt, no situational humour, her boobs in his face, the sex is really enjoyable, not a normal book, too mundane, not wild enough, it doesn’t get crazy, becomes subversive and undermines the society that he lives in, needed a drug dealer, a subversive element, the premise is double, what if people really saw the gods and the world in this way, Julian Jaynes’ two hemispheres hypothesis, the right side of the brain, the irrational intuitive side, the left rational side, a dissociated way, people in 2023 talking about prayer, in a dialogue with god all day, students, what people meant by prayer, what does that even mean?, kneeling at the bedside hands in prayer mode, Gilgamesh is writing his own story, always on about, write an essay about things that are bad, self-dialogue and self-talk, I need to pay attention to mummy and daddy, it was you who was listening, I have a relationship with god, bizarre but real, more so long ago, secular mindfulness, Buddhism, very popular, journaling, accountability tweets, Carl Jung, what she says and what the wise old man says, get dialogues going, objectively, chat gpt is the god I ask to write up my journal, multiple personalities like we see in dreams, traveled around a lot, strange or exotic beliefs, believe in ghosts, seeing ghosts, ghosts are 100% real, you shouldn’t go hiking at 4 oclock in the morning, the fear of things, taking in data, the screen of reality, The City In The Middle Of The Night by Charlie Jane Anders, similar length, firs book in a series, Leonidas, Conan and Ted Nugent, learned so much from this novel, old myths of Gilgamesh, what the story was trying to tell me, baffled, mid-3 stars, the ratings 11,322 vs. 901 ratings, what’s your point?, people don’t read old books, the editor of iO9, this is an old book, people just don’t read old books, making an assumption, not sure that’s a proven assumption, audience is extremely online, Silverberg’s is older, not fully supported, just looking at one thing, this is not a famous book, the novelty of being new, what’s a good book to read?, a book I’ve heard of that’s good, go by author, a Clarke award, a Locus award, a Hugo award, thousands of good review, by helpfulness, how goodreads sorts its review, likes, probably some algorithm, everything is in 3 star range, Amazon bought goodreads with the intent of killing it, just strangle it, Luke Burrage, disable features, the science fiction book, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, a higher high, the similarity there, when the god manifests in him, the power of the god in him, survivors of a space travel crash, the Hindu pantheon, wield an attribute specific to that god, a precedent, Dune, the got-it-all-wong hypothesis, the bene gesserit, manipulating everything, not exactly a messiah figure, a savior for the city, The Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick, a male feminist, misunderstanding Anana, he’s paranoid, Gilgamesh is the misogynist, I don’t see it, full of the juice, had to go and break into the wedding ceremony, on my way to have sex with the wives, mentioning, sex scenes early on, five women a night, it’s not five!, lay on the psychology, really well done, plodding rather than tedious, walking along telling his story, set pieces, the tree, the demon in the forest, the meeting with Enkidu, the things that are special, getting his emotions, good inference in what’s going inside Enkidu, presume some jealousy there, sex once a year, nothing otherwise, temporal vs. spiritual power in the third millennium B.C., trying to kill him, he’s a bad king, abandons the city, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, trying to kill him out of jealousy, a smear campaign, trying to hell the city?, he was lousy, transgressing the limits, cleansed means killed, he is a bad king, his job is to fix all the city problems, the councils, I’ll think about it, who’s going to fix the walls, what the priestess wants, go out and build that wall or the temple or fix the tree, the reason he comes back, threatening to take away his kingship, A Time Of Changes, a life in business, that coming back is what he’s supposed to do, to Australia and to hell, Conan is a funny case, the problem with being a king, just like Kull, campaign against other kings, the domestic sphere, a tension built into the story of Gilgamesh, a man is domesticated, she gets more power, yes, sitting there horny, carousing with his buddy, a fundamental dynamic going on there, I’m going to have sex with you when you’re older, not a guy who believes in kings at all, he’s bad at it, he does things to much, your soldiers are exhausted, nobody has the strength you have, yeah I have a giant dick, but do be jealous I have premature ejaculation, the first time he leaves, almost identical scenes, the new king, he grew up in a cloistered environment, when he comes back to see his brother, this awkward meeting, the same emotional set, pock marks vs. worry lines, prematurely grey, busy being king, uneasy lies the crown, footloose and fancy-free, experience the depravity and luxury, the full exercise of being a man, that’s in the afterword, Leonidas, Gerard Butler in 300, an alpha male, an ursine manliness, manly manless, gave myself ten pushups, fun and entertaining, three times as many, comparable to a lot of Silverberg, still alive, there’s overlap, remarking on twitter, two Silverberg novels on LibriVox, pre-fifties, a break in there, throughout the eighties, putting em out, multiple novels per year, fairly unknown Silverberg novel, doesn’t compare well, we should focus on things that people can do anything with, learn how to pirate, put these up with the story, whoever happens to be familiar, make it as easy for as many people, rigamarole, all the affiliate links, all the links die, this website has been online, wasn’t a good idea, SFFaudio isn’t a commercial project, send people to the source if possible, a different Herculean task for another day, Passengers, really into writing, short light things, The Sword Of Welleran, if this hadn’t been assigned, not as high a high, not as sparky, very insightful, he did a great job with the worldbuilding, a lot of research, William Coon, quay, draught, he’s so slow, very early in his narrating career, speaking of friends of yours, Kevin Hearne, Iron Druid, Luke Daniels, many many great narrators in the world, the theme of death, I’m gonna die some day, the origin story of the Buddha, come back and do your job, the crazy religious stuff is killed at the end, hurt by Enkidu’s death, stumble into the underworld, Conan doesn’t have an Enkidu, the only consistent character is Conan, after Belit dies, a paragraph in the middle, the adventures, fights hawkmen, the Black River of Zarkheba, buries her with her treasure with a viking funeral, sad, ten second pause then back to it, it’s too dumb, the colour palette, a great story, slowmo, a brown filter, too much green screen, the story and the emotions are strong, in the Conan stories, more Kull, he’s more human than Conan, likes sex too much, works his men too much, get your head screwed on right, clean your room, a thematic thing going on, he plays it perfectly, he’s enjoying it, from Wikipedia, reception, Neil Gaiman, Imagine Magazine, David Langford, White Dwarf, a gaming magazine, explains the fantastic, you have to kill a friend, a celibate priest doing rituals all day, do the work, he did the work, Larry Niven, the Draco Tavern, the men who lived forever, our hero the bartender, make it worth enough, the premise is like the Lord Dunsany Jorkens stories, The Callahan series by Spider Robinson, hard SF jokes, Zaphod Beeblebrox style stories, Asimov did some too, Arthur C. Clarke, a fun mode of storytelling, scientific love stories, from The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, Ray Cummings, Cautionary Tales, Limits, good at mathematics, Convergent Series, the one with the demon, July 1978, hence the title, that’s gonna make Jesse into a pearl, the Russian movie made by two brothers, don’t usually click on what Jesse sends, the trailer is in English, subtitle auto-translation, an amazing plasticine animation movie about gladiators, two female characters voiced, 9-0 minutes claymation gladiatorial combat, super-solid, anti-Russian, a raging anti-Semite asshole, insistence, limiting in general, trolls, patently bullshirt, convenient, reach me elsewhere, the problem with Skype, pornbots, inundated, messenger, social media just twitter, but…, delete the app your done, pity twitter, Elon Musk did something bad, the controversy this week, anti-white hate, sue Media Matters, like Scott had, the fucking trolls, more hatred, until Elon Reeve Musk is gone, hurtful meme, an exercise in antisemitism and personal attacks, after five years, pinned tweet, the frustration, a lot of work, your handle remains your own, Charlie Brown, take him at his word, get a bluechek, cut out, a really sensitive arrow, reactived to deactivate with more courtesy, going to Australia, 32,000 words, weekends off, why open a used bookstore, like Harlan Ellison, nobody here, a destination right beside you, a yoga salon, nail salon?, culture isn’t an important thing here, X-Box, bowling, Black Box Theater, you need a date for that, spend money, play games, 2 or 3 days a week, when not eating or pooping, the desk people, on their phone, sit on the bench on their phone, watch a video, swipe up swipe up, filling the hours between grave and birth, weird fuckin channels, figuring out how to preserve laserdiscs, laserrot, the technical know how, weird shit, as a percentage, ripping it through the coaxial output, processing involved, special developer kit, an even better signal, straight to the analog, more fidelity than you get from your screen, the animal videos, here’s a puppy with a duck friend, very poor, not a wealthy area, New Jersey, where the servants lived, closed highschool, where they sent the black students during segregation, a third of the storefronts are closed, there’s no train anymore, just empty, a small performing art school for kids, state run, the park, a housing project, the people who are incapable of living on their own, walk around, an opportunity to build something, do signings, advertise it, build a local culture, a place to store your books, an anchor, the story of Austin, how horrible it was under covid in California, industry, a liberal democratic section of Texas, Portland Oregon, keep it weird, you need something like an anchor, 15 bookstores on the same street, live above the store, use it as your workspace, some weirdo gets lost on the way through your town, games with Yelp, the internet stuff, a hair salon, we are upen, English is not a language you’re familiar with, can you pay the rent?, the banks approve the loans, charge a higher rent, the whole scam going on in New York City proper, business vacancy rate, 17.4%, at least half empty at street level, some empty apartments as well, this artificial thing, a foothold, physical infrastructure, shifts with the sands, do they have bookstores in China, we have no serious emptiness in business, people moving in, the economy is not a total train-wreck, people don’t buy physical books except at Costco and Chapters, lifestyle shit, desperately trying not to be in the book business, in the used market, regional authors, you have to visit my store first, you have to do a signing, phone stores are popular, bookstores are not popular, how much is rent going to be?, set up an LLC, this is going to be on the podcast, a cafe, people like coffee, a latte, I wanna try this latte, brought into the 21st century, sells an addictive product, relatively inexpensive to make, a relatively high price, a couple towns over, they always are older, they got a rent deal a long time ago, move or go online, I would love to own a restaurant, all the signs point to this being a terrible idea, you cannot fix the country on your own, FDR fireside chats, he was speaking via radio to a specific group of people, Wall Street was against him, he was treated like Trump, Smedley Butler, he went on record, the wiped him from the record, totally true, that was in the past, like Caesar, his uncle was president, the deep state and the billionaires were against him, this is what you need to do, this new innovation, 40 different alphabet agencies, you can’t will your city into not being fucked up, most people’s solution is to leave, a hobby that’s going to fail, fit enough books in there, it would be good to have customers, Walmart killed that business, by 1998, ebay, we should start selling on ebay, Sears catalogue pickup, extra foot-traffic in, by 2005, that business was still alive 2 years ago, figure out a way to not have the rent be an extravagance, unless independently wealthy, the George Washington Bridge, it would be about bitcoin and supermodel asses, cat videos and making fun of celebrities, Elon Reeve Musk is a bad person, what they say about a Nazi bar, it’s called censorship, it’s not a bar, much more like a public square, annoying when people have different ideas, let me hear their story, walled garden, Threads, Bluesky, Mastadon, Truthsocial, Media Matters is an evil organization, a functionary of one of the political parties, David Brock, the people who donate to it, institutions are naturally corrupted, institutions are evil, what if you’re a tenured professor, a staunch institutionalist, Eric is an emeritus professor, The New York Times, New Jersey, the had a Ted Chiang story, still big, that goes for art, a received opinion, animated movie about a kung-fu panda, the same school as Donald Trump, Denzel Washington, Colin Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, army, they don’t want to hear dissent or questioning, literally did that, at least it’s not an Ivy League school, H.P. Lovecraft, the decorative ivory, the building is old, they like the way it looks, they trim it, old east coast university, a Jesuit school, if you think institutions are right you do evil, I’m outsourcing my decisions and actions to a thing outside of myself, pirates stabbing liches, controlling things from beyond the grave, pirates are anarchists, piracy, I don’t trust this Dick Cheney guy, but I’ve been in this thing my whole life, what will happen if I don’t shaking Richard Nixon’s hand, like Smedley Butler, the supreme leader of China, would you still call him a dictator, it’s just a slur, what makes him a dictator, not Roman position anymore, regime, just a slur, autocrat, the guy gets shit done, he forces his will upon people, 23 years, he arrests dissent, a whole January 6th thing, they forgot to bring their guns, Huey Long, a collective action, literally what happened to Caesar, guns on the assassin, Lone Star Planet by John J. McGuire and H. Beam Piper, H.L. Mencken, The Malevolent Jobholder, Woodrow Wilson, arrested his opponents, revered by the institutionalists, his 14 points, Julian Assange, nobody has repealed it, he railroaded that war [WWI], a fascinating guy, they called Trump a dictator, he modeled his speaking style after Hitler, a little folksy, Bernie Sanders with a more humorous presentation, become obsessed, maybe there’s a science fiction tie in, populist, socialist, his family, revere him as a hero, like Caesar, he gets his power from his army, the whole thing happens because of slaving and genociding, to overthrow the old order in a particular town, successor, still going to do slavery and all that but less civil war, on the right path of doing something good, Gerald Ford, the Manson Family CIA assassination group, the deep state in action, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, somebody so dumb, speaker of the house in Canada, everybody in parliament was clapping for a literal Nazi, the Speaker resigned, his boss is the prime minister, he chose to resign, a cuck job, prestige in the states, considered equal, head of state, head of congress, add some balance, the speaker is a cuck in Canada, run things when the king or queen is not in parliament, they choose their prime minister afterwards, a little bit of reverse order but functionally identical, a machine that should work identically, if they force the vote they can choose somebody else, changed the rules, the guy who has an owl for a wife, Newt Gingrich, he quit, a brand new rule, rules they are imposing on themselves, owl shaking Trump’s hand, an isolated incident, Democrats were cucks for Democrats, what happened to the Squad, chose not to force the vote, a little bit of backbone, a rule for them, once a rule gets written, that’s a not a law, a mode of operation, a coup in Australia, refusing to do the job, a mask off moment for the United States controlling Australia, now you gotta resign in disgrace, had an unwritten constitution, make Donald Trump speaker, that would be hilarious, wrong, a sergeant at arms, to enforce the speaker’s will, an actual mace sitting on a table, when the queen’s not in town, a shooting in parliament in Canada, copied from England, kidnap one member of parliament, no torture involved, they have a hostage, formal formality shit, all cucks to the queen, how Hitler came to power, he was appointed, side with the rightwing nazis, didn’t realize it would sound bad later, Hillary Clinton on a talk show, she thinks she’s smart, a warning or a threat, fear is the best tool, if we don’t do this one thing something bad will happen, an effective tool, Ross Perot, had some good ideas, if you look at his charts, perfectly reasonable, a billionaire businessman, the conspiracy theory or the truth, left thousands of POW/MIA in Vietnam, the official line was the sonic weapon from Cuba, compensation for something that isn’t real, literal people killed in Vietnam, unrecovered bodies, eaten by a tiger, movies that would support that, Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Missing In Action (1984), Chuck Norris, Uncommon Valor (1983), reignite the Vietnam War, weapons of mass destruction, re-invade the country, drops out of the race, still on CSPAN, all 12 hours of it, kind of a naive guy, the October Surprise, these terms, false terms, a bag you stuff an uncertain set of ideas, I feel your pain, what makes you think there’s a distinction, a heel and baby-face, I like my girls like I like my…, what makes somebody left wing or right wing, campaigning on it is a trick, RFK, Jr., take votes from somebody, these are theories I want facts, 100% in favour of war, traditionally republican, both parties believe that, siphon the money off, George H.W. Bush, except for losing the election, circular reasoning, a robot or no vote, electoral college is a separate thing, it’s all a scam, institution totally gamed, senators in Canada, all paperballots all counted in front of witnesses for any parties, recorded, this vote is ambiguous, voting machines, a stylus pen, an anonymous ballot, there’s never going to be an overage, seems like it’s way more gamed, 50 state elections, are there any paper ballot states?, vote by mail, Alaska is hand count and optical scan, a real point of weakness, ballot stuffing, the Kennedys, Edgar Allan Poe may have died from this, the Chicago political machine, still ongoing, there’s video, ballot harvesting, just the official elections, the party elections, cheating members of the party, not working very well, people are not very good at choosing candidates, in the 70s and the 80s, internal vs. formal corruption, Hillary Clinton cheated Bernie Sanders, Donna Brazile, she wrote a book, pledged to support, inside party politics, taking advantage and cheating, neutral arbiter, when leaked emails showed, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Seth Rich, the “hack” which wasn’t a hack, the company that did the audit, ex-NSA guys, this is impossible, it had to have been a flashdrive, an unsolved murder, Robert Muller, working hard to say this is 100% untrue, the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, Hunter Biden’s laptop, The New York Post, the twitter account was removed, overt censorship of true things, if people thought Biden’s family was corrupt, very relevant, very interesting timing, given it wasn’t a hack vs. a leak, kinda boring, exciting movie style, what that whole House Of Cards, Kevin Spacey’s career went flush, just delete it man, a lot of audience on there, pornbots, women who joined twitter 2 months ago, clogging up followers, suddenly to get your message, in Hollywood, the talent, it doesn’t matter it is fake, the decision makers are so stupid, fake followers, if you enjoy twitter tweet, it has utility, the complaint from the girls was, thumbs up emoji, it’s not natural, make jokes and people get offended, a good scrap-board, becoming less and less useful, get off this hellsite, funny, a scenester, like an institutionalist for a scene, the SFWA scene, takes his queue, age gapped themed short story, makes himself a victim, a huge follower count, in the scene, its outside of the acceptable, on the downlow, prudish, beautiful naked women, paintings, Bettie Page, they tend to be beautiful, PulpCovers, a practicing Catholic, he’s very liberal, it has flipped, not libertarian, artistic representation of nudity, twitter is not the universe, politicians are on there, people who right books, Instagram, blogs were destroyed, Alex from Cirsova, what twitter is good for, sending files to people, all sorts of good things happen, where the people are, some who are leaving or have left, people are being crowded out by bots, there’s North Korean agents, people misrepresenting themselves, delete or not delete, Jack Dorsey, why twitter is good, seeing the video of the kids’ heads opened, the war in Israel, nice that it’s not being censored, there’s fake shit, just happened 10 minutes ago, also give out news, everything’s an op, more public domain books, good audiobooks, good covers, emotionally manipulative, if you want censorship, he doesn’t want to be confronted with opposing ideas, get’s really noisy, a jumble of information, a very reasonable number, an exodus, the consensus says you can’t be on here, I don’t want to give Amazon money, he’s angry, that sort of anger makes you not want to be angry, put on your Paul hat, believe in nations, personal sovereignty, large corporations, Bezos and Zuckerberg and the Virgin guy, rocket guys, having a lot of fun, Bill Gates, lives in a mansion, is that fun, lives in a little box, making bullet proof cars, MSNBC, humiliated, a pie in the face, trying to not be hated, own things, manipulate reality, fun and useful, electric cars are a scam, ethanol cars, he knows its a scam too but he’s having fun with it, he loves rockets, makes jokes about rockets, sucking off the government teat, he’s wrong in many cases, Starlink is very good shit, making internet not stuck to cable, provides it to Ukraine, providing it free, Boeing or Lockheed Martin, circumventing the US government, gives him decision making power, battlefield decisions, he’s very personally powerful, smoking Joe Biden, that genius who’s not demented, if you want to cow that military power, information power, computers, they go through the U.S. military, unilaterally decide, the enemy, it’s good that people can share shit, to guide rockets, the Russians have their own system, give Cubans the internet, more powerful than actual governments, whatever his staff tell him, quasi-state like, more powerful than many states, more powerful than Canada, the global world order, Eric did not like it, my favourite billionaire, Bill Gates is intruding into my apartment, Elon Musk forces jokes on me, he trolls me, he’s a threat, he’s dynamic enough, like Apple used to be, they need him, bring him to heel, whoever you’re saying the government is is super incompetent ignoramus and clowns who can spell, they’ll tell you your grammar is bad, institutions, amassed an enormous amount of power, states have armies, he has rockets though, amazing how well he’s been able to navigate that shit, we can be done, two hours of Jonathan and Jesse talking at the end.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #784 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #784 – Skull-Face by Robert E. Howard, read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (4 hours, 5 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Connor Kaye, Alex, Trish E. Matson, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, October and December [1929], The Return Of Skull-Face, by Robert E. Howard AND Richard A. Lupoff, open for a sequel, paid by the word, hoping for a sequel, a bold statement, incredibly clear, the Mary Sue character is Steve Costigan, semi-modern world, super punch powers, a different same guy, WWI shell-shocked veteran, more, Conan in a cave, not the same as Sailor Steve, a wanderer with no ties, expecting Zuleika to die, a shell-shocked Stephen, The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu, very similar, Seven Footprints To Satan by A. Merritt, he’s Satan, New York, missions, wear the ape suit, kill the guy, the ape suit, Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Curse Of The Golden Skull, a Lemurian sorcerer, [The Howard Collector (#9), Spring 1967], he’s already got the idea, Elmore Leonard, Karen Makes Out -> Out Of Sight, facesucking happens, kisses George Clooney, Double Entendre, a little pause, story proper, a huge mistake, a Poe poem fragment, Thule rhymes with newly, a misnumbered chapter, such a relish and enthusiasm to your voices, growl y work, soliloquy, throws himself at the bars, all poems?, Talbot Mundy, one Swinburne, a lot of Chesterton, Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, magic shadow shapes that come and go, directly quoted, oh there it is!, the epigraph of the very first chapter, right up front, internal comparison, look at the two, more than 10 years, Fu Manchu continues for about 40 years, movies get a hold of Fu Manchu, Nicholas Cage as Fu Manchu, Thanksgiving, still hope for Fu Manchu, The Mandarin from Marvel, the Johnny Quest TV show, Doctor Zen, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Ming The Merciless, the Klingons, the yellow peril stereotype, Kaiser Wilhelm II, excuses to conquer things, justification for what Fu Manchu is doing, the supposed heroes are archaeological graverobbers, pillaging of archaeological, the James Bond books, the opium wars, European exploitation in Asia, go Fu go!, the unmitigated better, a problem in this book, Skull-Face is racist, turn my blacks and my browns and my yellow, pan-Asian co-prosperity sphere, we’ll chop your heads up, empire no matter where it goes and what it does, playing these oppressed people against each other, seize power for himself, you white people, Howard was smarter, Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft think about their racism a lot, Steve work for this guy, he just saved you from hashish addiction, you don’t have PTSD anymore, the Irishmen who is the American who is Robert E. Howard, allies himself with the British Empire, conflicted here, to flourish, not that detailed, you could have been a king, the sequel book, curious, slash Skull dash Face, the flawed hero, legitimate grievances, Skull Face is Atlantean, as only Robert E. Howard can do, a living mummy, The Hour Of The Dragon, mummified, Acheron, LV-426, Richard Shaver, the prophet, Lemuria, Mu, Thule, amazing poem, Dream-Land by Edgar Allan Poe, the farther last l, out of of space and out of time for the rest of the poem, read more Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, a John Buchan adventure that turns, who is the boss of the network I’m working for, a secret police officer, a smart and funny man, exotic Asian adventures, completely forgotten, having a lot of fun putting this together, playing in someone else’s sandbox, The Black Stone, what if it was Call Of Cthulhu, I read this story by my body, Tuesday class, D&D, wrote up a module, a rip off of the opening of this book, three boys, a recent realms war, hashashiri, an opium like propdict, marks their hands with a trilobite, steal some royal jelly, the unguent, to enhance his mumminess, train tracks walking from home Taito Bandito, directly inspired by, wrote down a dream,

dreamt the alien invasion of the earth began through vapes. dissatisfied humans got addicted to cheap alien vapes smuggled in from “outside”. incompetent earth govts couldn’t stop the smuggling. eventually the poors of earth preferred the alien health care plan that came with… …cheap vapes. the earth govts and their media lapdogs were playing up lies about health care concerns about the alien vapes, but were so corrupt and the lies so obvious that only a puritanical few bought into it. and when any of these got sick they took the alien health care. […] through human fronted proxies the aliens plowed profits from their vapes into real estate and started selling cheap housing to poors. 2 year mortgages. this really got earth’s human overlords mad. after 7 years, the aliens had successfully taken over the earth and most humans… …were absolutely fine with it.

didn’t think anything of it, smoking hashish, basically opium, is it possible to get addicted to hashish, concentrated marijuana tar?, withdrawal symptoms, brain fog vs. physically debilitating, martini withdrawal, cigarette withdrawal is intense, a headache, why hashish?, assassin, the same story almost as the old man in the mountain, People Of The Black Circle, Marco Polo, the old man in the mountain, a fantasy land, I have the power to send you to heaven, recruited to be an assassin, completely correct, why this story feels its substantial, Omar Khayyam (1957), the world trade center attacks, 77 houris, mixing them together, his first choice, chasing the dragon, Lord Dunsany talking about Lord Dunsany, I just came from the world you created, told like a straight story, the response to stories in The Book Of Wonder, the inspiration for Lord Dunsany style stories, eastern exotic sounding places, aiming for with the girl, Zuleika, white enough, a much more detailed racist, it’s a science, I’m a scientist, not just a wizard, recruiting business, one time dose reducer, get you addicted to another drugs, makes your arms strong, lacking something a little bit, the main character is telling his own story, our drug addicted PTSD hero is telling his story, the descriptions of things are more serviceable, he’s not a poet, published during his lifetime, not even the height of his popularity, Almuric, kinda sad, awesome beautiful description, kicks along, this Gordon character, the stand-in for Petrie and Naismith, amateur detectives/spies, secret police work in reality, go to Oxford, meet your friends, cut up the middle east, as a Robert E. Howard representative story, can’t fully root for the good guys team, chooses the wrong side, he likes his girl, being in the arms of a beautiful girl who he loves and trusts, a strong character, brave, initiatve, saves his butt a couple of time, animal magnetism, he got beefy arms, beefy guns, how quickly he blows through the layers of conspiracy and worldbuilding, secret catacombs under London, the Cult Of The Scorpion, pre-Adamite, any other author, we’re just going, The Shadow Kingdom, They Live (1988), also Plato, the myth of the cave, William Shakespeare, Philip K. Dick, a conspiracy against a footsoldier, a flawed character, too awesome, Solomon Kane’s flaw is he’s insane, he’s a religious whackjob, God’s vengeance on earth, a vessel, that just makes it better, a poem with Solomon Kane, a historical incident, The Hills Of The Dead, flying vampires, holding the Staff of Solomon, Dennis Dorgan or the Mountain Man stories, he’s fixed of that, who’s going to cut up Africa, the tattoo on his hand, a mission to impersonate somebody, ape suit, catacombs are fine, coulda gone so hard, could gone the extra way, cut my own path with my girl, living as a hermit in a cave, living in Celephais, a dead bum in the ocean, gone mad, the end, kinda pulpy at the end, from the very top tier, colourful muscular description, so morally degenerate, my morals had been so beaten, go through some struggle, survive drug withdrawl, willing to die to keep the girl alive, moving on, a ticket to solve his addiction problem, willing to go against Skull-Face, he should have been more conflicted about it, serpent men are not so bad, a lot shorter, saved Skull-Face’s life, we’re square now, you’ll be my slave forever, A Witch Shall Be Born, favourite Conan, he’s not Conan, Kull would be pondering, am I a shadow?, this is all weird, kind of is, supposed to be a realistic story, not this pure force of will, not even Sailor Steve, they search the mummy case, poking at it, hey you just let him go, mesmerism, a great scene, we as the audience know this is Skull-Face, let me look at this sarcophagus, just a dead body, can’t possibly be him, a little down on the art, page 33 of the 46 page one in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, in the foreground, looking very Aryan, over the shoulder of horror, supposed to be a horror story, how to make Skull-Face in the canny valley, skeleton with a bit of skin, an acquired taste, Hugh Rankin is not great, appreciate them, Conan By Tweet, muddy looking, they’re stylized, a sketch, not the same kind of line work as you see in Finlay, a legitimate master, quickly and cheaply, the opening art, scraggly nails, the Fu Manchu vibe, Egyptian for a while, the man who came from the sea will be their god, so good, the dry run for this, literally yellow, parchment like bones, the eyes are very sunken, you can’t understate how awesome, hot under the collar, presumed to be Zuleika, black people, an arab looking dude, and the web, this is the threat, all these races are against the Anglo-American global empire, more cartoony, I don’t like Skull-Face anymore, WWI, Big Trouble In Little China (1986), his best movie, the funnest, wry and clever, playing with tropes, this plot in a large sense, David Lo Pan, Fu Manchewy, marry a girl with green eyes, get his body back, so charismatic, fish out of water, friends with some Chinese guy, not my culture, fumbling and tumbling, he thinks he’s the white savior, he’s the sidekick viewpoint character, starts like a Lovecraft story, why did a whole block of Chinatown explode, Zugartha?, the adventure isn’t over, underground tunnels, black blood of the earth, drink this potion, skepticism of any authority, tied with humour, Howard would have liked Carpenter’s stuff, into conspiracies, conspiracy minded, do the blood test, put on these glasses, drink the potion as you’re going down in the elevator, Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson, The Ten O’Clock People by Stephen King, action sequences, They Live works as the premise, putting on a monkey suit, he’s smart because he looked at his shoes, why isn’t this a better known story?, the 15th thing you would mention, so much other stuff, for other authors, the standard is so high, prejudice against it because it is a pastiche, angling for a certain market, the most successful author of the time, Seabury Quinn, The Vampire Master, Agatha Christie meets this trope, Cora, a reference to Edgar Wallace, Boby Derie, the ideas that carry you not the prose, like a rollercoaster, the smear of not completed by Robert E. Howard maybe, no comic book, no movie, no TV show, a race war with the brown people, a very controversial movie, the new Fall Of The House Of Usher on Netflix, Evan Lampe, Mike Flanagan, Edgar Allan Poe checklist, The Haunting Of Hill House, Shirley Jackson, cheapens his own work, a hill haunted house, no modern writer can write in someone else’s shoes, modern to its bones, can’t adapt someone else’s work, post-modern, not such a problem, so pervasive, everybody is doing it, William Gibson, same with Sword & Sorcery, Fritz Leiber was good, an exception, two Conans!, one is small one is big and they like girls!, there is a dangerous threat to white supremacy, a threat to democracy, a threat to the west, a threat to the rules based older, not international law, aka we say what goes, thinking white supremacy is bad, George W. Bush, make democracy happen, Professor Moriarty starting WWI, something similar here, start a war for reasons, I’m leading the brown races into victory, hah! suckers I’m not actually Egyptian, deciding where to put the twist, good things and the bad things, anticipating what the students like, there’s a beautiful woman: the master needs you, the 9 year old thinks girls are yuck, all identical beautiful daughter, a blue stripe a yellow stripe, everybody gets a love interest, champion you to her father, having so much fun with this story, you want to have an introduction to Robert E. Howard, a lot of understanding, take it at face value, a college student, do you think this is his most racist story?, Black Canaan, The Hyena, where this story fumbles a little, Limehouse, only 48 houses, not at his strongest when not describing Texas, New Orleans, the book research showing, beautifully told, the East of Africa, the racism, super-racist, a werewolf story, a were-hyena, tricking his acolytes, Hasim, a brute, so is the Afghani henchman, disposable characters, a rich field, the assumption that it would work, all those people, undead Atlantean necromancer, such a bad enemy, the situation in Djibouti, in 1977 the French said…, France is like yup, just looking at the history, a home invasion, almost a century goes by, divesting of colonies, gun pointed at the floor right now, this guy isn’t leaving, mutual security, a treaty between two equal countries, hey Italians, Italy sits on the couch with a big gun, Russia would you like a military base next to France?, within walking distance from each other, at what point did that independence come filling the house with potential foes, right near the Suez canal, Panama Canal, Noriega stopped talking orders, they don’t call it that anymore, revolt against the guy who won’t leave your country, not the ideal leader, so vague, grow a lot of bananas?, more sarcophaguses out there, the first one to awaken, if this was a movie, the last shot would be a bunch of sarcophagus floating, the sequel comes out and it, this time a lesbian Skull-Face, licked together, on youtube, commenting and liking, released as one audiobook, as fast as possible, an American accent, getting tired, the accent slipping off, are they called thick accents?, strong accents, not a very sweaty Australian accent?, Crocodile Dundee was ocker Australian?, British texan accent, when you think of horror books, Razorback, so many great Australian horror movie, The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), art film Paris, a car movie, an Australian biker movie, specializing in car chases, terrorizing gangs of bikers, Soylent Green (1973), a Volkswagen beetle with spikes coming out of it, gang takes over town movie, Christine, Trucks, Dead End Drive-In (1986), aka regular Australia right now, juvenile delinquents, Brave New World but with movies, dystopian drive-in, escape the drive-in, so many good films, so lucky, whatever video stores, a lot of video stores, previously not rewound, a big thick thousand page book of every movie on VHS, so much treasure, do a rental, nightmare, late fees, when you buy a movie, come back never, a great pleasure we still kind of have, so hard to search through now, JustWatch service, Plex, pirate any movie you want, Tubi has the best set of movies, Prime’s pretty good, Netflix, Shudder, Razorback (1984), Stone (1974), Bubba Zanetti’s my hero, Cinefamily, victims of the me too movement, are you an attractive woman, still can’t get work, secret job, all the shareholders (board?) got an anonymous email about an anonymous woman, a non-profit, Alamo Draft House, things to pirate, if you could choose only one country per decade, Americans made a lot of good movies at one point, Britain made some good movies, an exciting time for world cinema, each country wanted to be that new dominant, Italian movies, French producers, American actors, Dreamspeaker, (CBC tv Movie 1976), they adopt him, runaway kid who burns things down, sympathetic judge, that was unexpected, mute companion slash husband, put in a tree and let their corpse be eaten by birds, a Vancouver Island bases sort of story, Thunderbird blanket, a pretty brutal ending, a TV movie that came out on TV in the 1970s, child suicide, kid strangling himself, dies of broken heart, this is impossible, Jesse loved it, Chief Dan George, George Clutesi, Kelly (1981), realistic vs. Hollywood ending, about the horrible institution that school is, her blind friend, sets fires to things, go live with your dad, robs a bank, these two movies so like each other, kids being institutionalized, people like a happy ending, times for certain mediums of art, that was Jonathan, Dead Calm (1989), boat sabbatical and Billy Zane shows up, music in the 1970s, The Beatles, the next big thing, unique and original music, one guy would become the next big thing, a bit too calculated, new service bringing in tons of cash, throwing money at weird things, get a hit with any of these things, a short period of experiment, the president show, House Of Cards, Robin Wright Penn turns to the camera, a condemnation of the actor, a meta-thing, grievance on screen, all the 1980s movies, Stranger Things, Extraction (2020), a low budget action horror movie, Prey (2022)?, Slash/Back (2022), one of three Canadian territories, Nunavut, Yukon, North-West Territories, so much heart, some social issues, tremendous fun to watch, Reservation Dogs, APTN, The Beachcombers, a fun discussion, Wolfen (1981), Poltergeist (1982) with skyrises, irony, Whitley Strieber, 80s UFOlogy, considering doing a podcast, write my book, the picture that Alex is going to delete, a Yeti Nano, Elgato low profile mic arm, iphone 11, upgraded, android guy, more thinkpads, working for Lenovo, a T510, Skylark Dequesni, start wt, pocketknifes, arm a youth gang, brand new keyboard, lowprofile mechanical, cherry ultralow profile, $99, swing over, Blue now owned by Logitech, it’s Swiss!, $20, XP was running, downgraded, 7 was good, law firm as the head of IT, bought out, three month notice, wind everything down, a ton of laptops with no legal owner, shrug, cases and cases, they go in waves, what laptop should I get?, LGR (Lazy Game Reviews), old computer hardware, 45 hours researching laptops, modular, no glue, fixup and give to homeless person, engage that much with the local homeless, Connor must run a laptop, a little bit of noise, from the fan, too intense, good specs for processing videos, limit the processor, 10% of its power, put it across the room, connecting it to a monitor, quickly edit things, a luxury, if you travel, a suitcase style computer, everythings embeded like a tick, millions of files, half-processed, these torrents are on this harddrive, Gulliver Of Mars, The Languages Of Pao, a Don Pendleton, Thunderball, From Russia With Love, came from Trish, Eaters Of The Dead, a fun book, look how thin it is, Sands Of Mars, The Song Of The Whip, cylindrical black thing, the one with the martini, deleted by now, wireless hockeypuck, lightbar, brand and product number, scrutinizing the photo, two middle names, investment companies, hey we’ve been hacked, very popular, it doesn’t take up any deskspace, electric standing desk, cable managment, Uplift desk, an old Ikea Jerker, you should make a website for this there’s money top be made, servicing these desks, facebook page and reddit threads, these desks dont die, super-customizable, modular like Lego, standing desks didn’t exist, they were not an idea yet, sit-stand desks at work, back problems, you shouldnt be sitting for 8 hours a fuckin day, sat with a rigid back, you know actually it’s good to slouch a bit, lied to their whole life, running around with sticks in the forest, thrown into a canoe taken to a farm, left in the library for 18 hours, students that can’t recognize animals, schools so fucked up, scare them straight, its like prison, homeschooling, grow up without huge neurosis and giant deficits, Poland farm work, the culture in this small village is so fucked up, next generation of toxic bullshit, a lot of bullying, the Aryan Nations gang, prison mentality, a daypass to go home, traumatized, empire building, told one thing as a kid, margarine is for lubricating metal at a cheaper price, I Can’t Believe We Were Lied To, the irony of life, plastic bag tablet to dye it, the butter lobby, mush it together, whenever the topic came up, hasn’t grown any mold on it, something you can eat and not die from, a rock will pass through you, not something that’s supposed to be in a human body, food pyramid, students back to back, early Russian Revolution history, the three precursors to the NKVD, Kadets, three political parties vying for power in 1919, designed to show how the Russians were bad, the old curriculum, the regular history of India, massacre in Amritsar, policy of being evil, decided to breakup the country, this is the British doing that, divide and conquer, we don’t learn that much, a hateon for the Russians, 2014, the Holodomor entering Canadian curriculum, have them read The Gulag Archipelago (is 75 hours), there’s a prison system, not a complete picture, the focus is on the things you want to make them think, The Trail Of Tears, why school is evil, testing you on the adherence to these lies, what next?, There Werewolf Of Ponkert by H. Warner Munn, The Devil’s Elixir by E.T.A. Hoffmann, unabridged, wacky stuff, may need more time, books to do, Februrary next year, that coffee bud, vodka, loosens you up, maybe the show wouldn’t be so good.

Skull-Face illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin

Skull-Face - illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin

Skull-Face - illustration by Hugh Doak Rankin

Ken Kelly - Skull-Face

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The SFFaudio Podcast #734 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard


The SFFaudio Podcast #734– The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard – read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novella (3 hours 30 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, Connor Kaye, Alex, and Cora Buhlert.

Talked about on today’s show:
with changes, Fantasy, February 1953, Gutenberg Australia, some art, is that supposed to be Conan, always cleanshaven, he has a knife so he would have shaved, buck naked, a great costume, Conan has a hat!, Conan cosplays, a blue jacket with silver buttons, a lacquered hat, researching hats, 100 years out of date, a pirate hat, the Del Rey edition, Gregory Manchess, Irene Gallo, the comic adaptation, an adaptation of the L. Sprague de Camp, he never gets the hat, inferior version, more authentic and more Robert E. Howard, pirate sword, broadsword, Villains Of All Nations by Marcus Rediker, piracy in the golden age, Howard doesn’t care about piracy as much as storytelling, how terrible De Camp is when he puts his hands on Conan, respectful of the lady’s title, not within his character, he’s not a classist, protective not deferential, Gary Gianni, the pirate sword, full pirate, his hat is a girl named Tina, tricorn hat, not recognizable, not normally naked with a loincloth, armour, Conan doesn’t have its own look, fur diaper, barechested, entering dynamically into the argument, the manor house is the ship wreckage, not a cutlass, par for the course, a hundred years earlier sword in Conanland, well worth getting, original typescripts, great illustrations, introductory essays, the title, Treasure Of Tranicos, the appeal, which is the more Howard Conan title?, not evocative, Swords Of The Red Brotherhood, slowly over the course of a week, who the Black Stranger was, think of how many times some stranger shows up, also refers to Conan, three pirates, the busiest beach in Pictland, so full of coincidences, what? who’s this?, built this castle, there’s a black stranger on the beach, a whipping scene, some Pict’s head comes flying out of nowhere, black hair, black skin, Thoth Amon, gladly excised, a drinking party where everybody’s frozen, he’s having fun, he’s pulling a Rings Of Power, is this hobbit Sauron?, left as an exercise for the reader, he is the author insert, his clothes are described awesomely, stepping out of the shadows, Conan, who else?, Blackbeard, famous pirates stepping out of history, that’s the gimmick is going for, all after the treasure, the misunderstanding of what Howard is doing, I can fix it, a very abrupt ending, the comic’s ending, a bag of jewels, that’s when men of civilized lands want, the speech, I’m gonna go be a pirate again, the demon has been destroyed, finance a revolution, his Conan chronology, the story doesn’t need this, Howard didn’t care about the myth arc, it weakens the story, strengthens its position in the myth arc, de Camp is good if he does his own thing, he cannot impersonate Howard’s writing, his rewrite detracts from the story, a weird twist in Conan’s story, Beyond The Black River, he feels ready, maybe somebody needs to go fix this, maybe a year, runs through the Pict wilderness, off we go, carefree younger bloodthirsty pirate Conan, why he thought that, didn’t fit his character, a line of paperbacks he wants to push, numbers on the spine, collect them all, a way for him to make money, it’s better now I improved it, Jesse the Cimmerian, the Black Vulmea version, you might get sued, perfectly legal, the name change, Verezano, what August Derleth did to H.P. Lovecraft’s writings, all the stories are separate, the milieu, loosely connected, Jules de Grandin, a reference back to an earlier, “complete in this issue”, the promise, a Varney the Vampire, I hate waiting that week, anthology series vs. the appeal of series, sold out that week, massive problems finding copies of Weird Tales in Cross Plains, loose series, what happened so far, they’re the thing that keeps your reading, 3.5 hours, a substantial chunk of Weird Tales, Famous Fantastic Mysteries [or Fantastic Novels], too long, Red Nails was split, the whipping scene, Howard specialists, Bobby Derie, how absolutely terrified, an urbane cultured individual, a descent into madness, not very weird, supernatural elements, a historical story, a straight pirate story, unsold Kull stories, relistening to prepare, where Conan really enters the story (at the 2 hour point), The Cromcast, Rusty Burke, their pre-chat is at the beginning, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, in real-life pirates never buried their treasure, their whole deal, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were wrong about pirates, Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968), they live a brief life, they want some earthly pleasure, a very unrealistic portrayal of pirates of the golden age, Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, they wenched, it they drank it, the ISIS flag, found family vs. war against the world, anti-slavery, becoming a free man, they’re going to want to have me as a captain, a captain is elected, democracy and everybody having their share, they need me for navigation, Conan is not a class guy, he’s a race guy, in Queen Of The Black Coast, we get it wrong, she rules the seas, worshiped of the goddess, Valeria is another pirate, like Mary Read, a classic ancient roman dictator, The Isle Of Pirate’s Doom, quartermaster, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Master Of The Ballantrae: A Winter’s Tale, playing a game like in The Slithering Shadow, a gothic novel, supernatural seeming events, a giant slug monster, frog-monster, black heart, A Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, a coming together, sack of gold very small, woman on the arm, Tina is the hardest to explain story character, a prophetic gift, uncanny, what’s going on the beach, she sees, more plot device than character, a whipping scene, child characters, he liked children (not that way), Solomon Kane, The Moon Of Skulls, a kid he knew?, a Nathaniel Hawthorne sort of story, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a story set in a witch worried land, in the wilderness, the conception of a daughter out of wedlock, the scarlet A, why is that?, just a way to pad out the book, he’s read a book, what can I do with this, about men, our Duke runaway, civil war, no matter who wins the house and the land is saved, a lord who has runaway from his land to escape a demon, manifested, two demons, the collapse, Thoth is the black man, he sent the demon, in the comic book adaptation, a silver candelabra at the demon, in the original it is a silver bench weighing 100 pounds, what makes this a weird story is two things, the frozen men, the poisonous air, playing a role as in Nathaniel Hawthorne, the idea that people think there are supernatural elements, demons in the woods, Arabian Nights, folktales, the Mary Celeste, The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe, eerie circumstances, Beyond The Black River, just a great story, tacked on, otherwise Farnsworth Wright, sold into slavery, a juju man?, African voodoo priest, the central character, the game he’s playing, who is the central character, the count’s story, after he’s hung himself, the demon made him do it, tear him apart, if this was The House Of The Seven Gables, a a mouthful of blood, a curse on the family, something you internalize, externalize the demon, a slug/frog monster in the basement, an amazing scene, it might all of been in his head, kicking him into the fireplace, a superstition barbarian, knew the Picts pretty well, the shape of a man but the shadow was not that of a man, very against the Picts, he would kill us but he wouldn’t leave another white man to die amongst the Picts, the mythology and lore, in a cage in an toucan or eagle tribe villages, listening carefully, they’re neighbours, ancient rivalry, the Hyborian lands are basically Texas, in league with the Picts, you don’t understand , a feud older than the world, you know your enemy, traded from one to the other, tangling with each other, the Atlantean, geography is very important, Aquilonia is France, Nemedia is Germany, Zingara is Spain, Shem is Israel, Stygia is Egypt, do you have a map of the Hyborian lands, every issue of every Conan comic, a little splash of blood, just fucking terrible, Koth is south of this place, Bossonian Marches, and Poitain, a giant forest, a temperate rainforest, David J. West, bring to me your grey squirrel knowledge, a jungle off of France, it’s all Texas, get drunk and have sex with women, New Orleans, Tulane University, Cimmeria, Dark Valley, lots of trees so depressing, you bring your depression with you, buckskin, Hawkeye, Natty Bumbo, The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, the difference between Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, jokes written for an individual, not meant for publication for everyone, same stories same ideas, Robert E. Howard is like a sponge, his ideas, he’s doing somebody else’s work, Thunder River, a very Texas names, toponyms, character names, he doesn’t care, how much time did he spend on that map, exactly straight lines, why does the German border with France look the way it does?, it used to be the ocean, it helps dictate so much, one of the first nation states, the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, his overall attitude is exactly the same as the timeline, is the story good?, indistinctness, a really nice fantasy story, the maps in books is a newish invention, it’s Tolkien, the timeline, that timeline, The Phoenix On The Sword, don’t read them in order, Conan Of The Isles, a finite amount of time, so many adventures that happened, there can always be more, it’s mythical rather than historical, Conan is an old guy in a tavern telling stories about his life, I was king of Aquilonia once, listening to old frontierspeople, P. Schuyler Miller’s Probable Outline Of Conan’s Career, savage sword is in this, very broad strokes, and then an age of man passed, story notes, Almuric, a massive infodump, four or five pages of explaining, the decamp rewrite, connects us to the next story and the next book, extrapolation, in the fur diaper every single time, slightly different breeks, he’s hard on his clothes, The God In The Bowl, just stepped out of the cradle, climbs up a tower and kills an elephant and buys a drink and a hat, Afghulistan, silk, knee-breeches, a gay pride parade, made up by Frank Frazetta, he was really good at it, Margaret Brundage’s Conan looks malnourished, default D&D barbarian, we forget how little people read Howard, a long stretch where he wasn’t a thing, Frazetta, De Camp, and Lin Carter, the comics, a little Gnome Press, Lancer and Ace, the comics define that image, as opposed to the text, how excited Savage Sword Of Conan readers, the Conan movie is coming, he’s got a broadsword, a fur diaper, his super-hero costume, the S on his shirt, the underwear, and a cape, cowl with ears, serial, something we never see in American television, Doctor Who, film serials, The Lone Ranger, 52 episodes a season, they never connect, Batman (the Adam West TV show), two-parter, 77 Sunset Strip, Babylon 5‘s serialized arc, Twin Peaks was a weird fiction soap opera, a soap opera, hyper-reality, sexual molestation, deep horror, heavy for today, a father molests his daughter, L.A. Law, a crime drama, final exam, eating crisps, back to the story, the things that make this story work, how stories should be, people think that they can fix it, let me tell you how to open a story, before chapter one, the log walls of the manor walls he had built, his hard earned security, where the darkness seemed thicker than elsewhere, limp with damp sweat, a bluish glow, even in his swoon, what does that add to the story?, Conan fans, oh, it’s a conan story, having Conan in it, Beyond The Black River, Wolves Beyond The Border, Valeria, The People Of The Black Circle, posthumous collaborations with Robert E. Howard, August Derleth’s career, a tension between the audience, a fan petition to reshoot the ending of a movie, what we want from Conan or Robert E. Howard stories, all the arguing and infighting, two different pirates, some kind of code, what is a truce?, I have a ship, how are we going to resolve this, the cabbage, wolf, and sheep, other people reacting to Conan, I don’t want you on my ship, you will to turn my ship against me, preconceptions, the Schwarzenegger movies, three terrible people, fascinating characters, Black Colossus, weird intrigue, Yasmina, doesn’t want to fight a bunch of wizards, letting go of your preconceptions, different than in other stories, more raw and less sympathetic, willing to take advantage of other people, is the character always like this?, The Hour Of The Dragon, written after, similar personalities, really cynical, not very sympathetic, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, not sad about it, even the women and children massacred at the end, the young man and the dog, not even a likeable dog, a terrible dog, collect some Pict heads for the dog, the character we’re getting, younger, more selfish, the oldest Conan, among the first written, Zenobia the slave, a noblewoman, he needs to flee, go without me I’ll just slow you down, I’m gonna come back, I’m going to remember it, this honour, another adventure, that sense of responsibility, come back for them, the ladies of his court are being debauched by Nemedians, being King pushed him, The Phoenix On The Sword, this weird dream, I don’t care about all this king stuff, absolutely furious, horrible stuff happening, why the barons are not taking responsibility for it, did his personality stand out?, Queen Of The Black Coast Conan, he’s in pirate mode, they’re all in the game, the wildcard, who else am I supposed to root for?, sweep the board, Knives Out (2019) Robert E. Howard style, he never tries to take advantage of them, not very honourable, Pool Of The Black One, he’s done it before, washes up on a pirate ships, take over pirate ships, he’s first mate, Iron Shadows In The Moon, slave mutiny, go back to your villages, myth busted, Connor’s thesis, women and children without names, fairly innocent people, they’re all foolish because they followed this mad count, why it’s his story, that’s how we shouldn’t read it, the Jeremy Brett adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, they opened almost every episode NOT with Sherlock Holmes, consultation, when Conan Doyle gets tired of Sherlock Holmes stories, weirder, where Watson is almost the only character, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, 221 Baker St., we see some weird things happen, that preview is saying “this is the important part”, what makes series popular, The Twilight Zone, an amazing afterlife, as the reboots have shown, a serialized mystery murder series that sustained, an Alan Moore style iconic character, a professional entertainment show, we don’t criticise the author on stage, editing it for television, good writing, where Conan is reintroduced, two other pirates have shown up on the beach, being Weird Tales readers,

A man strode out from the hangings that masked a chamber door, and advanced toward the table without haste or hesitation. Instantly he dominated the group, and all felt the situation subtly charged with a new, dynamic atmosphere.

The stranger was as tall as either of the freebooters, and more powerfully built than either, yet for all his size he moved with pantherish suppleness in his high, flaring-topped boots. His thighs were cased in close-fitting breeches of white silk, his wide-skirted sky-blue coat open to reveal an open-necked white silken shirt beneath, and the scarlet sash that girdled his waist. There were silver acorn-shaped buttons on the coat, and it was adorned with gilt-worked cuffs and pocket-flaps, and a satin collar. A lacquered hat completed a costume obsolete by nearly a hundred years. A heavy cutlass hung at the wearer’s hip.

‘Conan!’ ejaculated both freebooters together, and Valenso and Galbro caught their breath at that name.

‘Who else?’ The giant strode up to the table, laughing sardonically at their amazement.

Conan The Salaryman, the favourite pronoun for Conan, the thrillpoint, those amazing reveal scenes, that word “stranger” comes up 18 times, “The Coming Of The Black Man”, a pretty good story, the best of the unsold stories, The Vale Of Lost Women is better, Conan fights a god, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, Niord, Amra, The God In The Bowl, he’s playing games with literature, it’s time to do a detective story, Conan does Agatha Christie, an investigator, this mysterious murder case, a locked room murder, Mary Roberts Reinhart, the snake did it, The Speckled Band, Rogues In The House, Edgar Allan Poe’s Rue Morgue story, the monkey did it, sardonic, having fun making his own version of somebody else’s story, L. Sprague De Camp in fighting against the story, read the stories individually on their own, the order they are written, Man Eaters Of Zamboula, the best story of all of them, Red Nails, ambitious, it’s got a dinosaur, it’s got lasers, the laser wands are hard to beat, decadent, doing black lotus all day, a practice run for Red Nails, one big thing that shocked Jesse, railing against, pirate ship lay at anchor (full sails), always put gunports, we get this line, saw them drawing barrels of wine, if I had a hundred men, there goes a rocket from the red hand, they have rockets!, part of the argument that had been made, redone as Conan, part of the argument, the video comments, [Karl Edward] Wagner, magic or alchemy, even if they had black powder, a very modern term, feels kind of jarring, weird glowing gems, radium, radiation sickness, one city that developed way to fast, his version of The Time Machine, Morlocks and Eloi, evolution is real, shaking me to my core, a rocket from the red hand, Black Colossus, a practical pirate ship, a rocket store, Rocket Outlet, rockets imply Gandalf, the rocket passes with the sound of an express train, a football, Tolkien, a clock on his mantle, evokes westerns, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, the Picts are Indians, moccasins and tomahawks, Normandy or Brittany, toucans are not a European bird, grey squirrels are not a European squirrel, The Brain Eaters by Frank Belknap Long, the Mi-go, Robert Bloch, The Were-snake, a famous piece of art from Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith, The Isle Of Pirates Doom, a Poseidonis story, A Voyage To Sfanamoe, super-scientists the only island of Atlantis that has yet to sink, naturally, blind and deaf mute slaves, they fly off to Venus, they map Earth before they live, old men with five foot beards, evil twins, Dr Seuss like animals, one of them sprouts a flower from his hand, die painlessly, the whole story, they die horribly, The Forbidden Forest, becomes enflowered, monster flowers, the evil garden, organs turned into plants, he’s gone, a new Robert E. Howard story, wow this is amazing, Conan By Tweet, The Country Of The Knife, El Borak, Complete Stories Magazine, August 1936, every chapter has a title, a Jane Austen and Cinderella ripoff, super-classist, Keeping The Castle by Patrice Kindl, a YA, 2012, very well done, hate the stepsisters, some over the shoulder stuff, a feature not a bug sort of thing, Disney princesses, his character doesn’t matter very much, her unique goodness, the prince is faceblind, matrimony choices, she’s short, a weird feature if it is a feature.

THE BLACK STRANGER facsimile typescript

The Black Stranger - art by Orban

The Black Stranger - art by Orban

The Black Stranger - art by Gary Gianni

The Black Stranger - art by Gary Gianni

The Black Stranger - art by Manuel Perez Clemente

The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard

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The SFFaudio Podcast #682 – READALONG: The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr.

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #682 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr.

Talked about on today’s show:
Racoona Sheldon, Analog, June 1977, special women’s issue, Eyes Of Amber by Joan D. Vinge, Analog, not just for men, Ben Bova, a 1970s thing, Women Destroy anthologies, all Harlan Issue, throw all the women in one basket, J. Michael Straczynski, a sausage fest, representation by gender, a piss per job, one woman per this episode, making room for women, what her logic was, Angel Fix, to suit different markets?, James Tiptree, Jr had to intervene on behalf of Racoona Sheldon, Robert Silverberg had to make a huge apology, it was very clear James Tiptree, Jr. was a man, the Andre Norton story, she was not hiding, a quasi-medieval romance, rationalization, this story is about rationalization, the whole religious cult element, super hard SF, as a historian, certain biological experiences (like love), fairly universal across humanity, across time however…, culture, movies, love songs, something physically is changing in these men, all the cultural baggage would be dispensed, morality wouldn’t win out?, the first time a zombie wakes up, turning some aspect up to 11, to set the society’s norms, urges, the story of Adam and Eve, uncomfortable, people use it for whatever they want, good science fiction, why Jesse likes adaptations, The Twilight Zone adaptation, the new Dune movie, The Masters Of Horror adaptation, the 90210 guy and Elliot Gould, commas missing in the PDF, the narrator of the story has comma problems but the characters writing the letters don’t, her diary entry, a fun format, enough material for a hefty novel (or a quintology), if Steven Baxter wrote this story, a hard topic to fully satisfy everybody with, like H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds, horrific, creeping dread, clamping down on the news [censorship], the horror of the nice rational scientist, feels himself changing and can’t stop it, bestial/primal instincts, awakened by the aliens, existential dread, we are the monsters, we’re all going to die, humanity is going to kill itself, people do it to themselves, completely chilling, On And Off A Mountain Road, metaphors, cursed film episode Cigarette Burns, a slasher, the focus is on the micro, the outer image, Alan in Colombia, his job is what the aliens do to us,

the 2019 reboot of THE TWILIGHT ZONE has an episode called “NOT ALL MEN” which is credited to Heather Anne Campbell

it seems to be an uncredited remake of the MASTERS OF HORROR episode “THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION” scripted by Sam Hamm

Not All Men / The Screwfly Solution

except the latter is an adaptation of a 1977 story by James Triptree, Jr.

and the former isn’t

evidence:

Both have family dinner parties

The Screwfly Solution DINNER

Both have cakes with words written on them (“welcome home” and “happy birthday”)

Not All Men DINNER

Both have women being murdered by men

Both have the military showing up

Both have atypical meteors showers

and

Both have their respective blonde female protagonists driving around by day, and being chased by night, in identical yellow Volkswagen Beetles

on the left TWILIGHT ZONE on the right MASTERS OF HORROR

Not All Men / The Screwfly Solution BEETLES

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION is biological Science Fiction and visceral Horror – an alien invasion story like THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells, as intellectually rigorous, but brutal, scary, and gripping

NOT ALL MEN is decidedly not – it is almost a comedy, but there are no laughs

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION suggest we are victims of biology

NOT ALL MEN suggest everyone has a choice and most men choose to be bad

the MASTERS OF HORROR episode makes a character from the short story gay, and makes him resistant to the biology that effect most men

the TWILIGHT ZONE episode has a gay character who chooses to be resistant

and both have females disagreeing, in their yellow Volkswagen beetles, about how to understand what is happening to the men around them

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION is full of conscientious men and women, scientists, trying to figure out what is happening and how to help their families and the world

NOT ALL MEN has basically no scientists (@ the end, maybe?) but has a marketing company doing some sciencey or something?

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION has the most brutally noir ending imaginable, an ironic one given the characters we follow around for the story, perhaps the last woman alive on earth watching the new tenants of Earth arriving and knowing humanity is finished

NOT ALL MEN ends with a deus ex machina, with cops or the army saving our viewpoint characters, fade to black

blood tests turn up nothing

a twist ending that throws out the main idea they’ve been pushing (the red meteors were a red herring)

there a line at the end of the episode that supposedly explains it all:

“The meteors…they were a placebo.”

then we get the cut-rate Rod Serling closing narration:

Jordan Peele (cut rate Rod Serling)

“Tonight, Annie Miller found herself in the center of a mysterious and violent epidemic. What she encountered was no material disease but rather a plague of conscience. One that gave men permission to ignore decency, consent, and fear. And tonight, all it took was a few an
innocuous little rocks to turn men into monsters here in the Twilight Zone.”

at one point during the craziness in the streets one guy says

“Fuck your feelings”

And this is the level of analysis and writing we are dealing with.

more than 2000 imdb ratings for each

IMDB RATINGS

4.8/10 for THE TWILIGHT ZONE “Not All Men”

6.4/10 for MASTERS OF HORROR “The Screwfly Solution”

Finally, both were filmed in British Columbia

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION is set in several places, including Texas, Michigan, and British Columbia

i don’t think we know where NOT ALL MEN is set (other than a really lame corner of The Twilight Zone)

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, Volkswagen Beetle, understanding the point of the original, we might be unable to control ourselves vs. choosing to be bad, just attacking, just aggro, one of these is science fiction and the other is something else, nightmares, mass hysteria and people’s choices or an alien disease, the hope of the species, woken from crazy aggressive killings, In The Mouth Of Madness (1994), The King In Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, a meme vs. an enzyme or a hormone, social pressures vs. biological pressures, do you read Sutter Cane?, if so you’re infected, the reason I’m killing you is because you’re a communist or a homosexual, explaining inexplicable impulses, a phenomenon we see in reality, Trump as a symptom, the Cult of Adam, “angels”, interesting things in a compressed space, Dracula, the epistolary format, the personal and the broader picture, different perspectives, perfectly expressed, something terrible is happening in England, layers and layers of intertextuality, this is all a suicide note, yesterday I saw an angel, a real estate agent, a devastating last line, all the adults over six years old, feral kids, like a lot of Star Trek episodes, we did it to ourselves!, higher doing what we do to lower or higher species, Huston, Huston, Do You Read?, gender dynamics, women disposing of men, this thing called kissing, Y: The Last Man, a response to When It Changed by Joanna Russ, ovafusion, all female civilization, Sheri S. Tepper, a whole genre conversation, The Children Of Men by P.D. James, The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro, gender reversed romance plots, men are the hysterical, the second most dangerous primate, another primate note, the rhesus monkeys, spider monkeys, chimpanzees, biological similarity, not well discussed at the dinner table, mating behaviors, Fritz Leiber, opinions from twitter, wishing people would read it, even the uninfected nodded and saw the killing as natural, the result is extermination, God’s will, committees, kill camps, bad things are happening, no one in authority, the mundane aspect, being called to Florida, a car flotilla [aka a convoy], the NIH, Triptree lived in Washington, D.C., her husband and her were both CIA, part of the interest here, Deep Impact (1998), a bunch of people in a control room, the media, something weird is happening in India, 150 adulteresses in Saudi Arabia, very similar headlines, “so-called Sharia Law”, Michael McKean (of Spinal Tap), #YesAllWomen, scarier and scarier every day, an over-reading, anonymous submission, George Sand, other reasons, “trans-phobic”, whatever else, transphobic by structure, a binary opposition of genders, gender binarism is real and meaningful, structurally queasy, men as naturally pedophilic, socially compelled into a straight marriage, there’s a lot there, you gotta consider the context of the story, Heinlein was, reading transphobia into texts [from 1977], Trish is cancelled, a failure of imagination, phobia is without meaning, outside the scope of what she’s exploring, how they turn on the boys, a non-binary view of sexuality, reading too much into this?, aggression hacked sexuality, a less binary reading of sexuality, she’s thinking super-hard, what is sexuality?, this strange focus on a part of science that doesn’t get a lot of attention in Science Fiction, our hero Alan, his relationship with his wife, it gets hot, he starts fantasizing on the airplane, crushed the Coke can, you need to kill me if I show up, I should throw this knife away, really good hard SF, he knows there’s something wrong with him, he should kill himself, killing (and possibly raping) his own daughter, slightly misreading what’s going on, the chase mentality is real, ovulation in some animals needs this, kinda Kinsey, the weaker have been killed, artificial wombs, Podkayne Of Mars, freeze your zygotes, Lois McMaster Bujold, people’s wrong takes, the most devastating counterargument to #NotAllMen, they are connected, an expression, traction after #MeToo, the defensive reaction, downgrading the impact of #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter vs. #BlueLivesMatter, sarcastic uses, #AllMen, aggressive seeds, bombing Dallas, men are evil, seeds of violence, misogynistic in structure, a jihad against women, in order to do evil is to choose evil, we are biologically determined, human beings are more than their biology, condemned by our biology, its not a disease, on the ground, isn’t it horrifying that we are biologically determined?, the hashtag vs. the Twilight Zone episode of the same name, explicitly rejecting Tiptree Jr.’s idea, we should summon the will, what if we are biologically determined to do everything, an MRNA injection, a hard bitter pill to swallow, what the story is suggesting, it helps Scott make choices, seeing this in all its horror, if we don’t have choices in reality, the illusion of choices?, what about the screwflies?, they’re just flies, we write stories, we’re not as complicated as we think, slaves to our hormones, he doesn’t kill himself, noir, not pulling its punches, biological determinism or mostly biologically determined?, influenced by stories, closer to chimps or rhesus monkeys, bonobos?, sex as a way of saying hello, a dispute over a sandwich settled by sex, institutions and ideology shape how we interpret and overcome biological, the birth control pill, change society, what science fiction is, geology, how old the Earth is, life-changing, a very good science fiction story, harder than H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds [not The Time Machine], take the war to Mars, maybe somebody’s working on something somewhere, so good, 1 hour to read, that fake stuff that’s 16 books long, fake science, 2 north 75 degree west, anthropology, WHO inoculations, just watched an episode of Masters Of Horror, Cordwainer Smith, off in Africa with her parents, the horse latitudes, bringing experience to the table, its not because she’s a girl, long short story format, The Women Men Don’t See, The Woman Who Was Plugged In, semi-interesting, externalize evil, religions antagonists fighting god, the devil is trying to put bad thoughts in your head, avoiding responsibility, easier, Alcohol Anonymous’ plan, accept the higher power because you’re weak, these religious pamphlets make so much sense, Genesis 3:16, women: feel the pain of childbirth and obey your husbands, short stories are a technology for delivering ideas, don’t be anti-good story, some people are willing to put anything into their bodies, good short SF is a vaccination against long terrible series that do you wrong.

The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #555 – READALONG: Shadows In The Moonlight by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #555 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Terence Blake, Mark Finn, Alex talk about Shadows In The Moonlight aka Iron Shadows In The Moon by Robert E. Howard

Talked about on today’s show:
trademark, registered, copyright, Vale Of Lost Women, rattle Mark’s cage, red caped monkey, more construction, more constructed, barbarism vs. civilization, propagandizing this idea, the middling Conan, formula, Rogues In The House, the beginning of the greatest hits album, if he were Aerosmith this would be “Walk This Way”, touchstones, essential elements, the damsel in distress, bloody trail of vengeance, piracy, savage ape, supernatural menace, what do you want from a Conan story, a representative story, there’s wizardry, dream magic, this is what Conan is all about, this is what Conan does, if there was a snake, squirmed an burrowed like a snake, the comics, it starts similarly to Red Nails, the end of the beginning, fruit, giant monster, alone in the wilderness, why did you run out of this jade palace, the Garden of Eden, Queen Of The Black Coast, monkey monsters, a forbidden place, working through, this is what manly men act like, this is what a man is, where Olivia looks at the two jungle creatures, how they’re alike, Shah Amurath, barbarian in response, a Cimmerian vs. the Cimmerian, a response to what he and Lovecraft were arguing over, Howard thought Lovecraft was smarter than him, test those theories, page 30, was there a serpent in..?, PulpCovers doesn’t want to be PC, without judgement but with a pattern, unashamed of being a manly man, pirate costumes, carrying a gun around, chivalrous towards women, Lovecraft is a gentle-man (a gentlemen), what a man is, Terence territory, a pre-philosophy for manhood, the way men love Conan, doing ablutions, iron thews, a male and female gaze, ewww gross, powerful, Tweets Of High Adventure, tweet length prose, every sentence has the language, art, unashamed, its all pure, Vale Of Lost Women is “problematic”, a distilled essence, no casual Conan readers, in for penny in for a pound, this masculinity, did he have a choice in Texas in the 1920s?, acceptable work for a man, vocational training, taking a day job, begging letter, worst fucking human being ever, the boxing stories, bareknuckle boxing, intellectual conversation, never about particulars, newspaper stories to back up their thought processes, news clipping, the only way to run a city, the story in the boat, in the prose, we don’t sell our children, stories of Comanche, a warts and all presentation, ethnic cleansing, riding with the Cherokee, a mindset, an ideal, there are no rules right now, Gertrude Hemken loved Conan, studying philosophy, Nietzsche, John Milius and Oliver Stone, Conan The Barbarian (1982), a through line, sitting in the agora listening to the philosophers, life is an illusion then I’m an illusion too, Solomon Kane is the religious philosopher, scenes of melancholy, a debate on masculinity, a constructed virtue, the body or the mind, the idea of the wild and nature, Lovecraft’s wild, you’ve got the wild inside you, human beings , women are shapely, every muscle is supple, pantherish, his scabbard purrs, it comes from silk, a relationship between what shah Amurath vs. the ape vs. Conan, toxic masculinity, I’m a barbarian buy I’m not a monster, a king of Akif, Turanians vs. Hyrkanians, Hyrkanians are a race and Turanians are a nationality, the Persian Gulf vs. the Caspian Sea vs. the Black Sea, maps of Hyboria, Vedyha is India, Khitai is China, the islands of Mu, filling in the historical record, a starting place, walk these things back into the Hyborian age, analogs, she’s a devi not a rani, he needs a Mediterranean, adventure locations, a pirate this week, the Kozaki are the Cossacks, the Mongols, Red Sonja vs Red Sonya, her sister’s a real person, her father’s a real person, Haws Of Outremer by Robert E. Howard, Mark wrote the afterword, the Punisher in armor, the Cormac Fitzgeoffrey stories, the same emotional space, riding out on the steppes, Oriental and Middle Eastern adventures, Flesh + Blood (1985), Rutger Hauer and Jenifer Jason Leigh, the Dark Horse Comics adaptation, the art, Olivia doing the narration doesn’t make sense, 2 and half days, the confrontation in the reeds is one of Howard’s best scenes, you really hate that guy, when he’s getting chopped to bits, Olivia has two dreams, when Conan’s rowing and the other in the ruined temple, a prologue, what her dream is, the negroes who aren’t negroes, not-kushites, black and made of iron, what does it mean?, expressing their otherworldliness, black statutes but not statues of black people, an artificially baroque language, some sort of race thing, the golden youth, possibly raped, the sky reflected in the water, both a sea and a lake, one third the salinity of the rest of the oceans, flying through the sky, she’s describing it to Conan, she’s supposed to be telling Conan’s story, we shouldn’t be inside her head and not past tense, he can’t hold down a job, pillage a few towns over, holding out for a management position, wear sandals to tread the jeweled thrones, the blue of the sea, mirrors of stars, a phantasmal oarsmen, a quiet slumber, his iron thews, that female gaze, shying away from Robert E. Howard, annoyed by the mire, unmanned by bugs, how far a man can throw a stone, showing off his thews, testing his theory, she’s traumatized, a princess laid low to the status of a slave, a couple (at the end), not telling fairy stories, men and women equally tough in a fight, Ronda Rousey, women are subject to male violence, a romance (an adventure) out of horrible circumstance, we’re not used to today, Yemen right now, 70-80 year old text, a historical basis for women adventurers, easy to gravitate to, Joan of Arc, the women pirates, women doing what men do, he’s not pulling this stuff out of his butt, Howard’s historical stories, Conan was a commercial endeavor, pulp era titillation, why Margaret Brundage did those covers, Seabury Quinn, when he comes back, the women have changed positions, evil queens, swordswomen, a shift in agency, in the Dark Horse adaptation, in the actual story it’s all her, saving him in order to save himself, Valeria is competition for Conan, Red Sonja’s character is mostly that, equally wily, Olivia is just a regular person, crawling into that den of pirates, how tortured they have been, the male version of Olivia, Conan knows everybody, Sergius, a boss fight, the TV tropes for this story, three point landing, divine right of kings, Conan the rules lawyer, Tim Truman’s Dark Horse comics adaptation, a defense of the switch to Olivia’s POV, the thing that Conan did, the guy in the story that everybody’s heard about, getting into it, Conan’s perspective, the disembowelment, seeing that same scene again from that POV, the Roy Thomas adaptation is not to add any words, Roy Thomas is amazing when he captures Howard’s prose, the new Marvel travesty (Conan The Barbarian and Savage Sword Of Conan) “ass” is used twice in July 2019 issue, cur, dog, slut, special language, Island of the Temple Statues, why that change, it changes the dynamic, hard not cruel, quartering, “quarter? I’ll give you quarter!”, Olivia’s really active, this formula, beautiful babe in distress, check off those boxes, you can take my stories or leave them, playing it up, why the text feels so weird, three set pieces, don’t forget the giant ape, strung like beads on a string, Conan on a weekend, they should hire the person who runs Conan The Salaryman, how it resonates with Paul, flipping your desk, Thor: The Dark World (2013), adjectives attitude and viewpoint on the world, Frank Miller’s Sin City, Conan in a noir story, just a crazy guy (with a code), code vs. philosophy, a personal moral compass, allowing for an exception, Conan is his own arbiter, there’s always an angle to be played, we can take Conan at his word but nobody else can, Olivia over his shoulder and he’s running away, high heels vs. mountain cat, the only thing that can unman me is mosquitoes, a supple ass, those outside, too nice a guy, Gertrude Barrows Bennett, faces and asses?, girls like prepping, men like to be thought of as competent, how to be, how to be a man, the right attitude, its more like…, why does Howard never take us to Cimmeria?, the whole point is to see a man out of his element and see how he should act, those roving feet, something powerful about that idea, how to be a man, “what’s real, man?”, it’s good to have skills, the prose is gorgeous, the unnamed monkey, we need to talk about the parrot, bad biology, if this is near the tropics, New World parrots are colourful, a thousand year old parrot, Jesse wasted his time, the parrot as the harbinger, the chorus, we got the idea, if Howard had seen a parrot, Da Vinci’s Demons, the communist memes, some Nazi left over from WWII is giving a speech, justifications for tweets, macaw, why he put it in this fantasy world, research is hard, fantasy world, letters to Harold Lamb in ADVENTURE, it’s so good, a fruit they’ve never seen before, there’s a dinosaur in it, getting snakes wrong, a failure of the work, a fringe moment, the new Age Of Conan Belit comic is shit, a ship at full sail in a storm hidden in a harbour with gunports, Baggywrinkles by Lucy Bellwood, a sailor’s story should be written and drawn by people familiar with ships, Lovecraft defends him as a poet, his poetry is beautiful, 700 poems!, the complete poetry of Robert E. Howard, Cimmeria, some great lesbian stuff, the alliteration and rhythm, the lull of the rowing, he was fantastic at it, how he did it, looking at meters and couplets, Howard intuited, his prose has that richness, scenes of horrible violence, kings dying from poison, beauty in the savagery, why nobody has been able to write a convincing Conan story, the vocabulary and the rhythm, Howard was able to write Lovecraft stories, a different disposition, The Black Stone, The Challenge From Beyond, Queen Of The Black Coast, the language is the main character, the checkpoints could be seen as mechanical, a complex story, an inspiration to early Dungeons & Dragons, mixing and matching, skill checks, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, not enough angry monkeys, Giant Ape, kobolds, why does he like monkeys so much, is Howard wrestling with Darwin, Thak, Moon Of Zimbabwe, he doesn’t like to come out of the forest, gorillas, base emotions, Howard’s stance on mankind, cycles of history, that backslide into savagery and barbarism, Thak wants to be a man, a ladder you can climb, Gulka the Gorilla Slayer, gorilla as a stand in for the lecherous intentions of people of colour, to refute Darwin and prop up racism, that wonderful willful disconnect to justify a bad belief system, using the stories of the bible and the trappings as a weight of authenticity, The Murders In The Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, from the monkey’s POV, the sailor who brought him to France, dragon, flying monkeys in Queen Of The Black Coast, a thing in culture at the time, King Kong, The Uncharted Isle by Clark Ashton Smith, the Hippocampus Press documentary: Clark Ashton Smith: Emperor Of Dreams, Dagon, a per-Atlantean civilization, babies sacrificed to a gorilla god, an Atlantean dream story, monkeys are in the air man, The Wizard Of Oz, a phenomenon, everybody got gorillas on the brain, gorilla suits, a course correction after the 1970s, Planet Of The Apes, Sailor Steve Costigan stories, an animal reflection, using natural terms, why Solomon Kane is always a wolf, El Borak is fast and deadly, hawk noses, vulpine eyes, connecting to a larger natural world, sacrificing something superior to them, the psychological basis for bullfighting, suppleness vs. strength, he wins with dexterity as much with strength, he’s upped his wisdom, his constitution, he can lie in a snowbank, the Tibetan monks, the yoga of inner heat, pro-nature, Conan is a part of nature, Lovecraft as a nature as a scary other, nature with gambrel roofs nearby, how much was Howard out in boats, a rural existence, hiking and camping, New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns, Galveston, Texas, how he writes about stuff, the Walden variety of gentlemen on holiday, longhand letters, the things some writers will do not to finish a story, going back to it vs. being out of it, getting past miscegenation, deep ones, Cthulhu, shapeless formless, slithering shadow, in Howard’s world, the last of their kind, the end of the age of megafauna and megaflora, he’s still working on his monkey ideas, fringe science, discredited anthropological stuff, one of the greatest magazines ever printed, a whole series about the Kozaki, a fight with Yildiz, making whole connections by people who can capture the voice, The Scarlet Citadel, this guy’s lived a life, I’m gonna git Conan, we can fill in that stuff for ourselves, the best thing about Conan, he’s the least asshole asshole in the room, why he’s in a bad mood, I already told him I wasn’t going to do it, Black Gate blog, Hither Came Conan, The God In The Bowl, the one with the snake god, barbarism vs. civilization, the reason why you have them in so many of the stories, Farnsworth Wright, in the first 11 Conan stories, issue 21 of the Dark Horse series, the reason Olivia was sold, the Queen of Ophir, undercutting the idea, ABlaze‘s Conan series, Jesse will fight that monkey god, Terence doesn’t hang out in the French comic book stores, more spare more simple, a feminist ending, I want to sail the seas with you, I will bring you with me, Conan, “I will make you the king of this inland sea, Conan”, it ends with the parrot, scorch king Yildiz’ pantaloons, John Bolton anti-Iranian propaganda, People Of The Black Circle, the Persians as the bad guys in western history, Howard’s sympathies, “Oriental Adventures”, the El Borak stories, throwing the Brit under the bus, every man has the capacity to be a shithead, shithead or victim, the compass needle, the course correction, melded with a dark god from an ancient tomb, Conan as the antidote for too much corruption, where the politics comes in, Conan The Cimmerian, Tomas Giorello, you gotten soften, unexpectedly cheerful, if this was happening in the 1990s, the Del Rey Conans, disengage the De Camp and Lin Carter, pop-culture Conan fighting pop culture Wolverine, Savage Avengers, the onramp, CHiPs , you’re sullying the legacy, deeply understanding and respecting the prose, how the fuck can they get away with this?, an editorial failure, she has the voice in her head, that it’s funny, we need thews and no ass, the recipe, Red Sonja with Roy Thomas and Esteban Maroto, it will get cancelled, By Crom, Shel Kahn’s Conan Is My Spirit Animal, attributed to Genghis Kahn, what is best in life, coffee, women lamenting, pulp magazine philosopher, Philip K. Dick as a paperback philosophy, what these weird guys spread across the United States, everybody should be lucky enough to have access.

Boris Vallejo cover for Iron Shadows In The Moon

Mark Schultz illustration for Iron Shadows In The Moon by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #197 – The Pimienta Pancakes by O. Henry

Podcast

Reading, Short And DeepReading, Short And Deep #197

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Pimienta Pancakes by O. Henry

The Pimienta Pancakes was first published in McClure’s, December 1903.

Here’s a link to the PDF of the story.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson