The SFFaudio Podcast – Page 11

The SFFaudio Podcast #738 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

The SFFaudio Podcast #738 – The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain – read by John Greenman for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (19 hours 23 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, and David J. West.

Talked about on today’s show:
Or The New Pilgrim’s Progress; Being Some Account Of The Steamship Quaker City’s Pleasure Excursion To Europe And The Holy Land; With Descriptions Of Countries, Nations, Incidents and Adventures, As They Appeared To The Author., Paul’s thesis, 61 chapters, Palestine is the heart of this book, visiting the holy land, places from the Bible, putting his weight on things, casual racism, Samuel Clemens wasn’t super-devout, religious experiences, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, centers of Christianity, Rome, Notre Dame, Europeans by extraction, ancestral stomping grounds, bestselling book, he knows his audience, fairly well off, the ticket price: $1250, $28,000, a cruise of that intensity, a Rafael painting, he’s joking, his beautiful house in Hartford, 1867, Tom Sawyer is decades later, rolling in flow, he’s hanging out with the rich, pretending to be like him, Fletch (the Gregory Mcdonald character), fraudster, not a thief, we’re making apologies for this character, a reporter/investigator, not as ethical as Fletch, dry and reserved irony, sneaking off to the acropolis, gleefully robbing a vineyard of its grapes, villains and ruffians, villainous epithets, taking without compensation is theft, Paul’s not gonna like that, out-and-out targeted uncasual racism everywhere, chipping pieces off monuments, ancient temples, appalling, they’re hypocritical, keeping the sabbath, every church in Europe has part of the crown of thorns, enough nails from the true cross to fill a keg, destructive, leave only footprints, take only photographs, the only petrified tree, a giant fence, this is what we are like, he doesn’t think he’s better than them, chip off a piece of the Sphinx, humans come around, whole continental shelves are falling off, he knows that we are the problem, plastic Eiffel Tower ornaments, pink blobs, the focus on taking the picture, journaling, everybody was journaling, you could sell it for a million!, I wouldn’t write it for a million!, making fun of everybody, a meta-travel book, he’s going to tell you how things strike him, salt crusting over his skin while floating in the Dead Sea, how one should perceive it, the Grand Tour, a long gap of time, a rock from Versailles, gravel to replace other gravel, doing more good, breaking quarantine, Trish didn’t approve, the vandalization, the world has decided to yolo, mask in most public places, all the ports, untreated diseases, did this actually happen?, the ugly American, these people are monstrous, the emperor of all the Russias, his kid’s palace, it was really what it was, rich people traveling around Europe, naming every servant: Ferguson, naming unpronounceable cities: Jonesburg, he’s so honest, so ugly and stinky, colourized the incidents, buying the kid gloves, imagining this scene happening, Gibraltar, you’ve clearly worn kid gloves before, what an innocent, only a gentleman of great class and experience, he takes that pain in and writes it down, super-charming, I love this guy, he’s hilarious, this is the thing I wanted to read this book for, the trains powered by mummies, these peasants burn very poorly, bring me a king:

I shall not speak of the railway, for it is like any other railway—I shall only say that the fuel they use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and that sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, “D—n these plebeians, they don’t burn worth a cent—pass out a King”

some famous architecture, literally burning their history, did they actually do that?, they did it with the poor mummies, H. Rider Haggard’s She, surprise, drawn from real life, graverobbing, respecting the past people so little, speaking to the poverty he’s seeing, mostly taken apart Colosseum, and Paul’s like, the Hagia Sophia, Justinian did that on purpose, 12 obelisks, your god lives with us now, that’s the Christian religion, Jews are sitting in Israel enjoying themselves and then some Greeks say “he’s ours now”, super-fully illustrated, they didn’t do much dancing, a civil war blockade ship, sidewheeler, screwtechnology, steampowered, you want to have your propeller under the water, just over a year after the Civil War, we gotta have a vacation, vicarious travel, travel writers, food guy who killed himself: Anthony Bourdain, experiencing the very expensive thing of travel, newspapers had content back then, Poet Lariat, not white haired, feathered pen, wired telegraphy, we are very lucky to have this artifact, in a tradition already, The Canterbury Tales, the start of tourism, the 18th century grand tour, the poor people doing it, I need to visit, amongst rich people, a guide for the non-guided, travel broadens the mind and takes away your prejudices, he calls a lot of people ugly, sexism, everyone is dirty, everyone is dishonest, he compliments the railways and roadways of France and Italy, the men kiss each other because the women are unkissable, red indians, straightbacked, generally complimentary, definitely not, Tahoe, grasshopper soup, those degraded savages, an extinct tribe that never existed, helped them steal cattle, I would gladly eat the whole race if I had a chance, playing to his audience’s prejudices, playing to racists attitudes is practically indistinguishable from racism, very bad, Paul concurs, anti-Indian racism, Trish doesn’t like it, start the ball rolling, make people think and talk about it, I helped them do illegal things, wait what?, think about what he’s saying, it starts the ball rolling, how racist the times were, Twain was anti-racist, Huckleberry Finn, getting free, language that people will object to, his natural ability to sell books, understanding his audience, in liking him, liking his ideas, this was written at a much earlier time, less sophisticated in his ideas, he hadn’t evolved to that point, pretty racist, despise people for being poor and not having enough water to wash with, the baksheesh that never ends, dirt poor, polluting a sacred spring, the city that is full of water: Damascus, poor people are disgusting, blind people, staggering poverty, he’s making light of it, diverging into stories, the book of teenage Jesus, punishment for teachers, its clear that he’s anti-racist throughout, they literally were ugly and dirty, covered, some guy bathing nude, without being moved by their plight, not so sinfully ugly, so mean, the meanness, a real experience, if it happened on tic tok, she’s so sinfully ugly she broke the sabbath on a Saturday

“She was the only Syrian female we have seen yet who was not so sinfully ugly that she couldn’t smile after ten o’clock Saturday night without breaking the Sabbath.”

his meanness is kicking people while they’re down, he did a horrible job of it, confirming people in their prejudices, these dirty foreigners, he knows that, let’s dodge the racism thing for a second and look at it through the lens of the animals, the horse that had no tail, slandered dogs, grinding horrible poverty, the tourism is needed to reduce the grinding poverty, stereotypes about foreign animals, one of their horses died, skin and bones, the saddle sores, why is that happening, grindingly poor, showing the reality, these people are so incredibly impoverished, he makes it tolerable with Twain humour, no malice there, make sure you look at this, it sticks with you, why is she so ugly, the Sunday school grapes, they’re guarding it from each other, not being a tourist city, Paul agrees, roots to tourism, the word itself, a guided tour of a museum, a path established, cruising, the cruise ship industry, excursions, the picnic, picnicers, an overnight bag, a field near some cave, the ages of the passengers, born in the 18th century, the middle of the 19th century, The Love Boat, pleasure trips, baksheesh vs. alms, very different, a religious act vs. a straight giving money, infernal chorus, what are those people saying?, give us bribes, in need of charity, bribe, giving to the poor is not exclusive to Christianity, soliciting alms, mentioned in Dracula, the Bosporus, where Jesse got triggered, spending time with royal people, dead in 50 years, 1917, southern palaces in Crimea, Twain lived to see that?, Halley’s Comet, he’d go out with in, no citation, age 42, all the old people, five men dancing and three women, he’s so mean, the women wore little scarves on their arms, ageism, he’s so funny, there’s no plot, things happening, a journey, the idea of the sequel, shared experiences, Jesse laughed so hard, complaining about the coffee, would you try this from my table, okay tea, some really bad tea or really bad coffee, he does it to himself, Pompeii, the fountain people put their lips to, Paul touched that fountain, this was a thing back then and it is still a thing, no Eiffel tower yet, what a tourism map looks like, emblazoned, symbolic pilgrimage, the Arc De Triomphe, a cartoon map of Europe, the Milan cathedral, a really nice cathedral, why Sydney opera house stands in for the entirety of Australia, opera? who even cares?, kangaroos, Paris has four or five must-see destinations, what does New Zealand have? Lord Of The Rings, sad story, Lynn Canyon Park, suspension bridges, Whistler, whales, the sky needle, what keeps people out?, Olympics, push all the homeless people aside, tourism is a big deal, obviously some crusades, millions of Americans, walks the streets of Jesus, sharp perceptions and human interest, digressions, the stories that people were telling, agog, Heloise and Abelard, a compelling case, you can have ideas about what you’re going to see, as matters of fact, that’s straight out of the book, the point of the title, the lies they were told in Sunday school, when they go to a bar, we ferreted out, our general said, “we”, a stare and a shrug, suspicious of the vigour, this didn’t happen, the uneducated foreigner, a stone fence or an earthquake, a wicked impostor, Santa Cruz punch, 1885, you’re just wrong, Jesse, pan-galactic gargleblasters, a regional thing, these people are completely out of their depth, very Westlakian, spreading hands, the movie adaptation, an American Playhouse version, PBS was into Twain in the early 80s, what a weird idea to do a movie about, this is not a fiction book, The Prince And The Pauper, is there any precedent for that?, compelling, dramatic, funny, make fun of ugly Americans, Roughing It, sections of it were borrowed for Bonanza, written in 1870, daily dispatches, the opening and the closing, in reading what I’ve just written…, sections of the letters, presumption might lead to failure, this book took Jesse’s whole week, a bit of a slog for Paul, a chore, Paul’s bucket list, unduly dismissive, so funny, handful!

At all hours of the day and night the sailors in the forecastle amused themselves and aggravated us by burlesquing our visit to royalty. The opening paragraph of our Address to the Emperor was framed as follows:

“We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation—and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial state—and, therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting ourselves before your Majesty, save the desire of offering our grateful acknowledgments to the lord of a realm, which, through good and through evil report, has been the steadfast friend of the land we love so well.”

The third cook, crowned with a resplendent tin basin and wrapped royally in a table-cloth mottled with grease-spots and coffee stains, and bearing a sceptre that looked strangely like a belaying-pin, walked upon a dilapidated carpet and perched himself on the capstan, careless of the flying spray; his tarred and weather-beaten Chamberlains, Dukes and Lord High Admirals surrounded him, arrayed in all the pomp that spare tarpaulins and remnants of old sails could furnish. Then the visiting “watch below,” transformed into graceless ladies and uncouth pilgrims, by rude travesties upon waterfalls, hoopskirts, white kid gloves and swallow-tail coats, moved solemnly up the companion way, and bowing low, began a system of complicated and extraordinary smiling which few monarchs could look upon and live. Then the mock consul, a slush-plastered deck-sweep, drew out a soiled fragment of paper and proceeded to read, laboriously:

“To His Imperial Majesty, Alexander II., Emperor of Russia:

“We are a handful of private citizens of America, traveling simply for recreation,—and unostentatiously, as becomes our unofficial state—and therefore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting ourselves before your Majesty—”

The Emperor—“Then what the devil did you come for?”

so Twain!, punching down, Paul prefers the punching up, how incredibly diseased people are, implicit acceptance, that’s just their nature, Spaniards are just naturally awful, the pitiable state of poor children, any excuse for that condition is rare between, these are not people with names, describing an entire race of people as despicable, time spent in Gibraltar, some beauty in there as well as comedy, disease, dread of cholera, our friends the Bermudians, these are like us, the very last image in the book, a cigar, smoking, fini, it’s backwards, the ship image, briefly in the Hatian navy before being lost in a storm, good podcast listening, an experience, lots of really funny bits, lots of revelations, trying to imitate Mark Twain, he’s the genuine article, pastiche your way, he comes at things from strange angles, he’s like a standup comedian before standup comedians, who is the earliest funny person, ancient Greek plays, Shakespeare’s pretty funny, some caveperson?, black humour, this blood eagle is funny, utterly relatable, Edgar All Poe has humour in him, Eric S. Rabkin, H.P. Lovecraft’s Alethia Phrikodes, his most cosmicism poem, later published, without the opening and closing frame, heroic couplets, orientated towards food jokes, when you’re reading H.P. Lovecraft you don’t usually say he’s a really funny guy, The Unnamable, Herbert West: Re-Animator, in the context, we gotta laugh, looking at the darkness can be alleviated and being playfully funny, deep and dark, a good sense of humour, inherent humour, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, structurally funny too, I prefer not too, Bartleby The Scrivener, Typee, the cannibals are always in the other valley, the same punchline over and over again, the tragedy of life being alleviated by comedy, maybe Hamlet is not very funny, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, ’70s Doctor Who, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, Abbot And Costello, R2D2 and his co-equal, a previous episode, Tonto and The Lone Ranger, buddy comedy, Martin Riggs and the other guy, Shakespeare’s the buddy comedy inventor?, Gilgamesh and Enkidu are a comedy team, re-read it to find the humour in it, comic misadventures, To my most patient reader, this volume is affectionately inscribed, his wife’s brother, issued by subscription only, not the way we do books now, eh?, Jane Austen, kickstarter today, 20 books to 50k, the sell-it-yourself model, looping back around, only one publisher, Simon & Shuster & Tor, there’s no big secret, marketing, this is what Jesse is saying, when you run out of stock, Audible, Downpour, boxes full of hardcovers and shipping, up front costs, if it has any legs, you did all the work now you have to pay more, when the author is buying his own cover, narrator friends, when Audible makes a change, the new Audible return policy, soundcloud?, maybe somebody made some money from it once, Jesse is welcome, Jesse’s aged mother, around xmas, next July? [June], five months, solicited in February, Jesse is not a big fan of cholera, Jesse might be baksheeshing himself, would Jesse be a companion to Jon Pertwee?, David would go in 1867, some risk, risk adverse, Corfu, sidetrip to see Palmyra, destroyed by ISIS, Jordan, mainly on topic, Paul is melting down over twitter, despairing, Conan The Adventurer (the cartoon without violence and blood), amongst the dross, Tower Of The Elephant aka The Master Thief Of Shadizar, a red-caped monkey, shurikens made of starmetal, Conan has a shield with a baby phoenix living inside of it, Conan™, barbarian in a fur diaper, WrathAmon™, Isle Of The Iron Statues, The Red-Brotherhood, no lasers, no lost city, mostly clothed, more reasonable piratical, I steal from no-one!, what should we do to these guys, Vilayet Sea, Shadows In The Moonlight for like a second, Shadows In Zamboula is a story about tourism, mummy fuel, Edgar Rice Burroughs, a tiger in the first Tarzan book?, like Kipling, the guys who never went anywhere, the most imaginative, The Moon Maid, find out how the centaurs live, wings on the moon, a [callforward] to The Menace From Earth, when H.G. Wells died, they have to go together even if they don’t want to, enriching, 20 hours richer or poorer.

Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad

Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

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The SFFaudio Podcast #737 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper

The SFFaudio Podcast #737 – The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper – read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (7 hours 18 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, and Tony DeSimone.

Talked about on today’s show:
Junkyard Planet, a precursor, Graveyard Of Dreams, Galaxy, 1958, the H. Beam Piper’s Federation, Space Viking, a little earlier, the Federation is doom, ruinous, more meat, this book sucks, Klatooine, trash compactor planet, crashed star destroyer planet, the throughline, fun title, graveyard of empires, Poul Anderson, a larger space future history, Dominic Flandry, the clock is ticking for humanity, influenced from other SF, Helen O’Loy by Lester Del Rey, the positronic brain is Asimov, Star Trek, a Foundation book, the situation with Merlin, a lot of ideological stuff, bogged down in the wrong things, recounting the growth of one major idea, about making companies, management, not interesting, space manager, Michael Whelan, battle armour, wreck, that has nothing to do with computers, all of the battle set pieces, pirate infested, a landspeeder flying across a landscape, the carbon dioxide planet, pollution, the best cover is the Valigursky cover, the cosmic robot, the mcguffin, a con job, the audience hates you, rather clever, the sexy mermaid movie is full of office managers, an old manatee, writers and moviemakers are interested in sales, if he had called it Junkyard Planet, great ideas, civil war stuff, Fox Travis, an Alamo guy named Travis, finding and marketing war surplus, matter converters, post scarcity, power units, Universe by Robert A. Heinlein, a Heinlein lift, replicator, a very tired replicator, sad and melted, a living being like a shoggoth, the growth and management of new businesses, marriage stuff, compared to his mystery novel, not very mysterious, not bounded by genre lines, a space opera, a sociological novel, ship battles, space battle management simulator, soccer, England, Premiere League manager simulator, advertising for products, Master Of Orion, MOO2, space fleet management, a startup company, revitalizing the economy, character names, an interesting idea book bogged down in details we are not interested in, dry discourse, here’s some news, Asimov does it better, the background and the ideas, the world, faith in this one supercomputer that’s going to solve all their problems, more melon farming, an interesting review on RPG.net, historical themes, the Pacific island cargo cults, temporary prosperity, larger war themes, cargos that came, influences on the RPG Traveler, Space Viking is even more of a template for Traveler, lost technology, Merlin is a higher TL (tech level), a poison chalice, a subrace, the stellar trigger, build up a whole little polity, nothing lasts, there’s junk all around, the ideological stuff with regard to all the capital is lying around, the laws are designed to do things, for us too, setting up the game for the market of that good, you can fuck up an economy by having bad laws, who is making the laws and for what purpose, hiding the truth to improve the economy by lying, the theme of the book is: should you lie for people’s good, what happened?, Merlin knew their society was going to collapse, but he told them to lie about it, not an AI, offering falsehoods as suggestions, Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey series, a sign of true sentience and intelligence, R2-D2 clearly has free will, deceiving Luke, a plot to trick a human, Jawas or Princess Leia?, its the other way around?, where are we going Batman?, he/it’s long association, Jesse’s favourite scene in the book:

He climbed out of bed, knuckled the sleep-sand out of his eyes, threw his robe around him, and started across the room to the bath cubicle.

They had decided to have breakfast together his first morning home. The party had broken up late, and then there had been the excitement of opening the presents he had brought back from Terra. Nobody had had a chance to talk about Merlin, or about what he was going to do, now that he was home. That, and his career of mendacity, would start at breakfast. He wanted to let his father get to the table first, to run interference for him; he took his time with his toilet and dressed carefully and slowly. Finally, he zipped up the short waist-length jacket and went out.

His father and mother and Flora were at the table, and the serving-robot was floating around a few inches off the floor, steam trailing from its coffee urn and its tray lid up to offer food. He greeted everybody and sat down at his place, and the robot came around to him. His mother had selected all the things he’d been most fond of six years ago: shovel-snout bacon, hotcakes, starberry jam, things he hadn’t tasted since he had gone away. He filled his plate and poured a cup of coffee.

shovel snout bacon!, starberry jam!, we gotta sell our wine, Omnitrend’s Universe 2 is up on Archive,org, stop calling it spoilers!, call it enhancers!, Larry Niven, Neutron Star, Binary Systems’ Starflight and Starflight 2: Trade Routes Of The Cloud Nebula, Star Trek, Star Trek economics manager, analogous characters, a whole universe to explore, pirates, a mystery, the old ones, Babylon 5 sort of stuff, the fuel you’ve been using is ancient aliens that are still alive, Endurium is made of people, Robin Hobb’s The Liveship Traders series, Frontier Elite, a new Mario game: labyrinth manager, hire a bunch of turtles, grow a bunch of mushrooms, how else are you gonna keep the princess safe from rescuers?, padded out, pirate battle scenes, the construction of his merchant fleet, a High Crusade situation, overtures in that direction, undercooked things, a whole third class group of people, dealing with the unemployed, women can press buttons too, cardboard characters, I’m in hospital because I’m so shocked, Sylvie, a go-getter, a marriage but hardly any romance or dialogue, romancing little fuzzies, he ends up with a different girl, fixups or expansions, Time Pawn vs. Doctor Futurity by Philip K. Dick, shares, you’re a stockholder, he doesn’t care, ships carrying old CRTs to the Philippines, the junkyard stuff, military surplus planet, PBY aircraft tuned into luxury homes for rich people, a downed pilot in the Sulu Sea, there’s no junk, too expensive, space travel is really expensive, an analogy for carpet bagging, Firefly, these guys are the losers of the civil war, ex-browncoats, border states, what happened to this great economy we had, overblown, wicker aircraft, the Seabees, what the hell are you doing, shit out cargo, chewing gum, reconcile the values, sending their kids to university in the states, let’s fake a reason, if we just believe hard enough, faith, McDonnell Douglas, hilarious, in eight months when this comes out, a weird time on twitter, Lockheed-Martini, calling themselves real, faith and rule-sets, creating whole classes of people, the vague idea of the book, David Drake and S.M. Stirling, dark age of magic, evil demonic empire, having a computer in your back pocket, interested in the wrong things, what we want, if he had written it differently, people make mistakes, Tony’s reaction, Jesse wanted to like this book, obsessed with smoking, a lot of smoking and gun polishing, a very interesting intelligent man, not a powerful man, a working class guy who was able to write, a lot of self-taughtness, he could do great things if he was in such a position, is this helping the story?, inside this book there are good ideas and such, more focused on a theme, its not objectively true, he might have thought this is my best work ever, an objective star rating, a thesis for why it sucks in the way that it does, run a Traveler campaign, stand around and tell us about what’s happening elsewhere, Little Fuzzy, a trial, heart and humour, folksy, forgettable characters, Calvin Morris, Omnilingual, a modest focus, doing something like this, what estate agents do, how to make money off of an abandoned resource, informative to his life, The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), warplane graveyard, his nightwatchman job, Jesse is not a big character guy, Murder In The Gunroom, a lady, a good mystery, a solid book, Graveyard Of Dreams should be public domain, virtually everything of his is public domain, John J. McGuire, A Planet For Texans, Cowboy Range In Heaven, Lone Star Planet, the “wild west”, everyone was very polite, when and wear you can carry firearms, Broken Arrow (1950), Jimmy Stewart, emancipated!, New Mexico, Cochise, Indian culture, Jay Silverheels, seal the peace, they refrigerated her, Gregory Peck, The Bravados (1958), Joan Collins, Lee Van Cleef and Henry Silva, sounds like a western, a catholic vibe, killing em off one by one, has a wife and kid, you killed my wife!, you raped my wife!, a really good ending, we thought he was a good guy, western media, the Dark Tower books by Stephen King, cinemascope!, Gregory Peck is not a nerdy, Jimmy Stewart is nerdier, they don’t laugh out loud very long, there’s this giant class of amazing culture, the fans of the westerns made all those movies happen, submarine movies, prison movies, WWII movies, exhausted all the genres, The Big Country (1958), sounds like a western, treat him like a dude, a wild bronco, he won’t play their games, big musical score!, 90 minute movies, 2 hours 46 minutes, Charlton Heston, House Of Wax (1953), The War Of The Roses (1989), Danny Devito, a spiritual sequel, the romancing the Stone cast back together, a cynical movie, Michael Douglas, Death To Smoochy (2002), that wont offend people, What Is A Woman (2002), My Son Hunter (2022), 2000 Mules (2022), Dinesh D’Souza, God King Trump, that’s what piracy is for, Allen Anderson, credits for movie posters, Memory (2022), Guy Pearce, The Time Machine (2002), The Rover (2014), a guy driving around Australia, living in his car, not an action movie, a different kind of fun movie, Ravenous (1999), a western black comedy, The Count Of Monte Cristo (2002), BC (Before Cavil), Jim Caviezel, poor rich actors, not flourishing, also goes with Tom Cruise, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022), UHF (1989) is one of the best movies, people loved it, Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), that kind of movie, Adam Sandler mixed with Mel Brooks, has heart, make you root for the characters, we’re a family, very 80s, fake ads, Robocop (1987), Conan The Librarian, Ghandi II, The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs, in 7 to 8 months you will hear about Blaze, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, a Conan story, heavy on the action, they all have virtue, At The Earth’s Core, Tarzan, The Land That Time Forgot, The Monster Men, Beyond Thirty, rewilded, The Mucker, The Efficiency Expert, The Mad King, anti-communist centaurs, heat from the left and heat from the right, a good writer not a brilliant thinker, sequels, avoided politics, the last election, center is the worst, Jesse is not in the center, Evan Lampe gets very salty in DMs, cranky on twitter, pleasant in real-life, if the Dems are proBLM…, they oppose all working class movements, not left wing, co-opted, flawed leaders, foreign forces of corruption and evil, visiting politicians in the states, Justin does what they say, he’s a bad person, tangled up about being left or right, meet somewhere in the middle, conversations about fascism on twitter, minor differences, antagonistic towards what?, a Trump supporter who criticizes Trump, WWIII with Russia, Ukraine related, not good at his job is a positive, too incompetent to get things done, he has the right enemies, he hates the media, Biden is much better for what?, based on the effects they actually had, surprising strides, trying to make peace with North Korea, if we’re grading on a curve, every time they say they’re going to do something, codify Roe V. Wade, a way to keep people voting, when Paul and Trish are worried about Jesse watching What Is A Woman (2022), Jesse’s fragile mind, have issues with the movie, Joe Rogan, [Graham Hancock], interesting guests, Robert E. Howard was right!, Ancient Apocalypse, criticism, ground penetrating radar, more stuff in the earth to find out, ancient aliens is a stage, less rewarding as you investigate, paranormal people are full of it, most interviews suck, gay marriage, asking the question, coming at it from a Christian pov, Orson Scott Card, gays kissin’, pretty antigay, why is gay marriage wrong?, the best of the bad choices, the federal vs. provincial parties, Paul and Trish couldn’t be seen to watch this movie because it is from a right wing website, we’re all in the poors class together, all pro-big business, that would never happen to me because I’m so corrupt, $80,000 a month for a no show job in a country they coup’d, they banned it, all the earmarks of Russian disinformation, this is something I don’t need to look at, corruption alleged, the evil ghoul Giuliani, America’s mayor for a minute, the laptop was real and the corruption was real, vote for the right team, there’s no reason to votes for these Democrats, just do it as a personal favor for me, provide legitimacy to the farce, more people on the team: let’s not do this anymore, robot’s platform, there wasn’t inflation under Trump (like there is now), super-right wing, can’t allow the plebs to talk amongst themselves, makes sure they know there are two camps: right wing and left wing, shaking things up, sowing chaos, the Marx Brothers, what the politicians say to the people who really matter, that’s what you can believe, they tell the truth, “nothing will fundamentally change”, don’t worry I won’t rock the boat, nothing good happened for regular people, imposing their morality on our bodies, lied about it for 50 years, is it true that?, Justin Trudeau is stealing people’s bank accounts, $2000 a month for a long time, $90 a month for car insurance, smaller government, what really needs to happen is more universal programs, the “socialist” party, universal dentalcare, phase it in, they care a little more, there’s a feedback, let’s fix this, you fucked up our healthcare system you get fired, pharmacare is almost completely covered too, good positions, before Justin, an oligarchy, when the government and the big corporations get in bed together, you don’t need armbands together, Italy and Germany, developing as nations later, late in the game, it’s our turn too, Italy taking Ethiopia, Germany trying to colonize Russia, almost all of Canada used to belong to the Hudson’s Bay Company all of western Canada, being mean to gay people, we’re gonna censor this, I like music, I like my pets, mutual aid, conspiracy theory, the farther down you dig for the truth the more you realize you’re not going to find it, Bigfoot isn’t in the woods he’s in your heads, like ghosts, a multidimensional being, Michio Kaku’s whole life is a lie, their theory sucks, dark matter and dark energy, an invisible black ball we can’t detect, not testable, we’re going to add another dimension, he says “long distance communication was yelling out the window”, because he’s got a PHD and he’s Japanese and he wears a suit, he’s a fuckin scammer, Neil Degrasse Tyson, big fish in a small pond, Newt Gingrich has a wife that looks like an owl, evil Republican, he’s read some books, he thinks he’s super-genius, he’s a dimwit, finally Oksana Boyko, kaku means shit, Stanton [T.] Friedman, debunk UFO stuff, evidence to the contrary, physical mechanical things (rather than multidimensional), people like to be fulfilled, we will be like gods?, in the year 1900, technically correct, your parents weren’t alive 100 years ago, Napoleon had long distance communication, yelling at your neighbor, life in 1900, they had letters in the Roman era, sell his book, how to become a god, Biden is demented right?, he looks pretty out of it, literally dementia, is Trump demented?, morally, yes, Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, Biden dementia updates, FDR, Reagan’s wife was running things, they don’t want to make him look weak, is that a right wing talking point?, is it over-fixating when the man with power over nukes has dementia?, Kamala Harris is so incompetent but not from dementia, she does not do homework, pay more attention to the opposition, don’t support people who don’t support you, the way that they want us to be, withdrawing your consent, you can’t make me party to it, if you vote for someone you can be in a sense responsible for everything he did, if you voted for George W. Bush you’re in part responsible for a million kids dying, from 2 wars to 7 wars, Paul would get mad at Jesse, world socialist website, Citigroup Chose Obama’s 2008 Cabinet, being on the team makes you left wing, sure to solve things, its time to not giving your support to shit, a risky thing to do, that’s the concern, you can’t let them win because Roe V. Wade might be overturned, they might export all the jobs to China, inflation might get bad, third party candidates, Al Gore, John Kerry, manufacturing consent, I’ll go with the less shitty choice, things are bad, mutual aid, a local group, these are the people in the community doing this, “leadership classes”, manufacturing politicians and flunkies for politicians, management and leadership, bossing people around, giving out favours, if you giving them what they want, a tough situation, have nothing to do with it, most people don’t vote, the material conditions worsen under both teams, all the great things the Democrats have done, the EPA is Nixon, the DHS, we need more cops and spies, that will solve things, the social programs, building hospitals and universities and bridges and highways and trains, we don’t need that stuff, giving money to their friends, Costa Rica, Evan is in Taiwan, your country is experiencing emigration, pro-capitalist, defense about capitalism leading to progress, dependence on money and the oil industry, serving the power that is, the South was against universal healthcare, insurance is a huge industry drugs is a huge industry, work three jobs, there are solutions to power problems, we can do a lot of things we choose not to, its not a conspiracy theory if it is true, one third of Syria is occupied, the Nordstream pipeline, putting it all in the hands of people who give it to each other seems wrong, the lower class doesn’t deserve good healthcare, working too hard, on the spectrum, easily stressed out, just because you know why your leg is hurting doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, why we need comedy so bad, a dying art form, all the wokeness, like a religion, like puritanism, comedy is tied to culture and youth, irreverence, older comedians, those jokes are old now, not new stuff, outdated opinions, weak jokes, “offensive”, we’ve all heard those jokes before, Richard Pryor [LIVE IN CONCERT (1979)], Blazing Saddles (1974), we’re talking about the Ghostbusters (2016) movie, very charitable, the jokes were not character based, look he’s dumb, lowball, vocab jokes, simple, fart jokes, Adam Sandler movies are starting at the baby level, fart jokes, unusual for mainstream American films to portray flatulence in any way, eating beans all the time, a cowboy movie therefore farting, inherently funny, Eric S. Rabkin wrote a book called It’s A Gas, a serious academic book on farting, Terry Gilliam, pumping his colon up with gas in order to perform, a spectrum of jokes available to us, we’ve descended to the farting level.

Graveyard Of Dreams

Junkyard Planet by H. Beam Piper

The Cosmic Computer - art by Valigursky

The Cosmic Computer - art by Michael Whelan

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The SFFaudio Podcast #735 – READALONG: A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Trish E. Matson, and Tony DeSimone talk about A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

Talked about on today’s show:
yay, the title is from Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe, yes is the answer, all the repetitions that build the emotions, Auber, written to somebody, that’s for you, the three names of the lady, not super-related to the plot of this novel, a point of inspiration, you take a great line of poetry and make it your book name, what he’s paying homage to, he didn’t steal the plot, this author from India, reset in India, the religion is no longer, 38 years later, this is very familiar, we’re all the same all over the planet, the entire book was stolen, chapter 8, the author ended up killing herself, because she knew it would be found out, wrote a [probably] suicide note to her mentor, this is the opposite of that, the great detective, into the public domain, using Sherlock Holmes, filing the serial numbers off of everything, making them archetypes, the vicar, an amorphous evil vicar, the wolfman, not from a literary source, Larry Talbot, Lon Chaney, Jr., Benicio Del Toro, The Wolf Man (1941), a cultist, a neutral party, set in England, 1887, a lost opportunity, October 31, 1887, Dr. Christopher S. Kovacs, The Lovecraft Ezine, a novelty book not a novel, The Wisdom Of George Bush, narration by the author, novel length, a bit different from normal novels, loose with definitions, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, experimental for the time period, epistolary books are popular, a collage book, I see what you did here, noticing the ending, the complete ending vs. the particular ending, a choldren’s book from 2011, Go The Fuck To Sleep, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, a novel told from the dog’s point of view, Elmore Leonard’s Coyote In The House, I’m a coyote, I’m cool, Be Cool, when he’s doing something else, confirm in the bottom right hand corner, Snuff, a cur and a hound, what breed he is, a mutt, conjured, one of Paul’s characters, a demon in disguise, modeling Hugo on Snuff, more than just a regular dog, an uplifted dog, what I was before he summoned me, Delvish stories, the horse Black, when you’re visualizing this character, a short haired dog or a long haired dog, medium haired dog, a big large greyish dog, Trish is wary, Gahan Wilson illustrations, a bloodhound, the sense of sniffing and to kill, conflicted rooting for Snuff, his master is Jack The Ripper, just blocking out his competition?, under a curse, being a closer, counteract his own curse, magical knife, the vivisectionist scene, Cain the original killer, Hugh Jackman, Van Helsing (2004), the monster that fights other monsters, read the last little bit of the novelty book, of course the distinction was subjective, the last paragraph, Jack and Jill went down the hill…, a button ending, just off the character’s right leg, wearing a Jeffrey Dahmer t-shirt, we are distanced in time from the Jack The Ripper murders, the Strange Studies podcast, HPPodcraft.com, will Paul be upset?, they addressed it, this is a long time ago, Genghis Khan was a bad man, the other Jack from england: Springheeled Jack, assaulting women, way less tight as a narrative, a folklore figure like Robin Hood, a pre-pulp figure, penny dreadfuls, villain to hero, Professor Moriarty, Star Trek, Wolf In The Fold, Time After Time, the fictionalized Jack The Ripper, the lengthy of the dog’s hair matters a lot, a shaggy dog story, a long joke, Paul disagrees with, unfair towards humour, why is Jill named Jill, the Frankenstein character, degrade, novelty books aren’t as good as novels is what Jesse is hearing, worthy?, the best way to understand what’s going on, Dracula gets killed, it’s not Dracula, faked his own death, constructed to be a novelty book in every respect, every day of the month is a chapter, the last line is a joke setup from the beginning of the book, the reason all the characters are in it, this is a monster mash, to have that cover, not design to be a novel of the normal kind, not a real book, a not well written book (if it is a blank book), weighty, the ride, not a substantial book, he’s playing (like a game), an early form of graphic novel, graphic novel is another word for comics, trade collections, a format, Reckless by Sean Phillips and Ed Brubaker, Gahan Wilson was never a comic book style artist, having him drawing these characters is fun, flying body parts, that cover is amazing, this is a mystery, setup to be a mystery, animals are trading information, James Warhola, one of the reasons Tony was drawn to the book, the animal characters, the spirit of the book, the graveyard scene, trading body parts, disappointed, fun and funny, a mirror, a statue, Pallas Athena, a regular female bust, the owl, naming characters, which one is Jack, the rat, the Mad Monk, a squirrel, Cheater, Larry Talbot in the chair, two assistants, unnamed cultists, the Good Doctor and his creation, openers, another bat, that’s the idea, bring all these character together, [The Monster Squad (1987)], the Creature From The Black Lagoon, a Spider-Woman, are we missing a mummy?, the thing steamer trunk, the thing in the wardrobe, the thing in the circle, stories with “thing” in the title, The Thing In The Cellar [by David H. Keller], The Thing Under The Stairs, what is the thing?, evil entities trapped in various places, growl and snarl, a checklist, a novel because it is a long Zelazny book, novelty films, Clue (1985), Battleship (2012), [The Beast Must Die (1974)], as a part of its marketing, 3-D, a marketing gimmick, constructed to be a shaggy dog story, because of that button ending, novels are the highest form of art, movie and myth characters, pays tribute to monster movies in general, mashups Abbot And Costello Meet…, Hammer Horror, Drak Pack, Rick Moranis as a teacher for a highschool for monsters, Gill-Man, Van Helsing, vampire brides, the witch, Hester, he’s making that joke, shaggy, its coming, shaggy fur, Zelazny is a great narrator, how good it was, the first Amber book, Nine Princes In Amber, Dark Tower audiobooks narrated by Stephen King, The Horses Of Lir, folklore resonates within, a universal truth of humanity, some older person is mean to you, there’s always a you, what water is and what it means, its transparent and also dark, where the mythology comes in, [New Wave], A Rose For Ecclesiastes, Damnation Alley, a cult following, other than Amber…, The Unicorn Variation, Jack Of Shadows, Deus Irae, Philip K. Dick, Lord Of Light, This Immortal [serialized as …And Call Me Conrad], slipped out of one dimension, there’s an audiobook for it, definitions of a shaggy dog story, irrelevant incidents, the very obvious joke, I love monsters, my friend Gahan Wilson loves monsters, he started with the reverse, wouldn’t it be cool if…, Case from Neuromancer, Molly Millions is a cool character, important in Neuromancer, the book is more important than Molly Millions, apologize for any confusion, make it a Lovecraft book, the Dreamlands, straight out of The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath, the dog and cat are flying, the river Shai, the river Skai, strange turbans, thag weed, did he do all this from memory, a typo?, a clue?, a verbal typo, a little error, did he do all that from memory?, compressing a bunch of things together, fake Dreamlands passages, Oriab, the technical plot of the book, openers and closers, they didn’t use the phrase, Robert Bloch’s The Opener Of The Way, August Derleth style, The Dunwich Horror, the Whateleys, the Universal Monster characters, the reaching across the lines, Snuff and Graymalkin, Jack and Jill, deliberately obscure, teamwork and respect, indignation, the rules of etiquette, Bubo is the cheater, Cheater, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, a retelling of The Jungle Book, oh that person is a werewolf, Mrs. Lupescu, Mr. Lupescu [by Anthony Boucher], a teen book, or weird older kids in their fifties, kids can be bloodthirsty, Coraline, we want to be scared, Jack is essentially a good guy, Snuff is very loyal, polite as he rips you apart, ambiguous morality, they like the world the way it is, for whatever reason, having too much fun, the blind beggar with the pencils, Linda Enderby, having a lot of fun, I know who that is, a page where you put the checkmark beside, under Jesse’s rubric, a Jesse book is where ideas come front an center, clever, not as great a book as The Graveyard Book, the idea is not as good as the idea of The Graveyard Book, this is fun, WordSearch style games, it is a strange book, Roman A Clef, a novel with a key, each character is an analogue for someone else, The Great Gatsby?, you bring yourself to your book, the one set in hell, The Inferno, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Kurt Vonnegut in hell, it expects a certain knowledge, the hardest one to understand is the cultist or the mad monk, the Experiment Man, clunk around and pet dogs, Lenny from Of Mice And Men, Blaze by Stephen King, a Gollum-like way, neither an opener or a closer, the animal characters, charm and personality, make a fool of himself, he’s doing typical Sherlock Holmes things, his greatest disguise yet, one of Trish’s favourite books, it gives her a good and happy feeling, playing with ideas and references and characters in a very agreeable way, a very charming book, you’re allowed to love books, Zelazny’s opinion of the book, Zelazny’s son, living with his dad, fun writing this book, one of his personal favourites, long long long long joke, a short shaggy dog story, he’s not that shaggy, you pulled the rug out from under me, and Gray and I ran after, this whole book is front framed, I met a dog in a graveyard recently, that tiny front is subsequent to all the action, a prologue, recounting events of the past, chapter length is quite variable, the last chapter is the longest, not eating all your candy at once, why it is so unnormal novel like, Graymalkin means grey cat, moggy, that poor snake, Quicklime, getting drunk on fermented plums, sympathy of view for openers who were in it for good causes, letting Elder Gods ruin everything, a slavering vicar, a power monger, a lighthearted book, thoughtful, a good writer has different hobby horses that they want to ride, good writing or riding, scary parts of the book, trapped in the mad doctor’s laboratory, the vivisection, based on real stuff, demonstrated and wrote articles, the Anti-Vivisection League, The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, his characters are all villains, a big loveable guy, all the animals get along weirdly well, a fable, its funnier if you cut it off, weird stuff, specialized craziness, its self-aware, writing a werewolf book, a recognition, half the fun of the reveal is that you have to infer, Rasputin, a quiz book, a recognition guide, before the web, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was lucky to have three names, not being based on a specific character, a good place to start, an amazing idea or a fun idea, a classic for the ages or just a good book, it presumes the audience is people of his era, which political figure is being represented, it comes down through language, we know what a gladstone bag is but not who Gladstone is, Night Of The Hunter (1955), Tequila-Li, it should have been a penguin, a strange familiar, a big long giant useless pun, completely useless, a library sale, a provenance, all the illustrations, you need to experience the book version with the Gahan Wilson illustrations, a signed copy goes for $265, inscribed vs. signed, please don’t dedicate it to me, association copies are more valuable, a five time Hugo finalist, some rando, this was for Paul, massive collection $150,000, Nine Princes In Amber signed, advance reading copy, even truer than first edition, uncorrected proof, this work is a novel, why are you telling me it is a novel?, Based On A True Story: A Memoir by Norm Macdonald is not a true memoir, the ghost writer that Norm Macdonald hired was an alcoholic, one big long shaggy dog rape joke, foreword by Louis C.K., autobiography but I don’t have to tell the truth, describing it as a novel, novel means new, [A Million Little Pieces by James Frey], memory, what I remember about it, untrustworthiness, Better Call Saul, a copy of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, how time travel works, a real book, really good writers, the children’s book, a 19th century book, the ability to talk to animals, a gnome or something, The Moon Is A Balloon by David Niven memoir, so raw and real, BBC audio drama of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising, Over Sea, Under Stone, The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Jesse has some problems with series, New Year’s Day, Star Trek, I, Q by John de Lancie and Peter David, abridgement as an art form, abridgements or short stories, abridged books have fallen out of popularity, The Rules Of Acquisition, audiobooks come first and the paper book comes after, audiobooks are cheaper than paperbooks, Jesse’s prediction: audiobook and ebook only, colour eink devices, the full experience, some radical shifts in publishing, a backlit screen vs. a piece of paper, a digital device that doesn’t fuck up your eyes, Paperwhite Kindle devices, ebooks, library background, a sale on at The Library Of America, books are light and heavy, at night, reading before sleep, the blue light thing is bullshit, circadian rhythm, screens, Doctor Who, relaxing sleep related videos, rain and fireplace and somebody reading a book, real rain not fake rain, Wayne June needs to become a YouTube personality, a little set, a dog or a cat, there’s no problem Doctor Boblum, don’t mind these strange lumps, nerdy asmr videos, influenced my taste in music greatly, all the extras, the actress who play Jo Grant, you poor boy, more extras than Jesse’s ever seen, the problem is the writing, William Hartnell vs. Jon Pertwee, Inferno, a geothermal drilling plant, a mad scientist, a 1984 style dystopia, everybody is borrowing from everybody else, The Monster Hunters, they go through all the monsters, superfunny, the ElfQuest audio drama, work emergency -> emerged properly, Apple bricked Tony’s phone, The Haunting Of Roy Steel, a werewolf movie with a “paws”, what is the best way of expressing that idea?, Barry Letts, KVOS 12, one of the worst ones, the special effects, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, on PBS in North America, serials of variable length, ten 25 minute episodes, coffee addiction, really cool ads, local comic book store, 3 o’clock in the morning ads, recorded over, NSYNC footage, I recognize your name, you were a scriptwriter for Doctor Who, Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers Of London, people can have it whenever they want, can’t stop it might as well allow it, Tony’s reading of The Time Machine, The Sign Of The Four, Hard Case Crime, The Valley Of Fear, The Five Orange Pips, it works in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, the KKK, weird topical stuff, a lot of it is tech based, bicycles, Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the Annotated Brothers Grimm, being a bookstore employee, you need to arrange your life to do the things you like, how the government is fucking you, the rent is too high, a very big rabbit hole, happily retweet, pick your targets.

A Night In The Lonesome October by James Warhola

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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 Gary Gianni

The Black Stranger - art by Manuel Perez Clemente

The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #733 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt

The SFFaudio Podcast #733 – Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt – read by Evan Lampe. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (4 hours 21 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse and Evan Lampe.

Talked about on today’s show:
1957, paperback original, Evan’s falsetto, a fun one to read, an interesting guy, 150 or so books, mostly public domain, disposable, available to read, available to be narrated, title wise, Never Cheat Alone, Torrid Wench, each was easy pickins, lovers kissin, crime novel adjacent, “sleazecore”, a science fiction novel but the genre is different, stupid-interesting entertainment, an adult at the time, the drug store, the spinner rack, behind the counter?, well written, fluffy, the plot makes sense, fetish for sex, ideas in my science fiction, talking about the fins on rocketships, fetish books for men, romance novels for men: talking about guns, Executioner and Deathlands novels, some hard man walking through the Mad Max world, extended mag, books for dumb people, really interesting things in this book, Brother And Sister by Donald Westlake, real estate obsession, Levittowns, rising middle class, who owns property, an easy go to plot, a marriage breaking up, men who went overseas, Iceland vs. Germany, a poor girl from Iceland, an Iceland slur, bojack?, bohunk, making up Iceland like an alien planet, the cultural stuff, interesting if true?, am I learning something about Iceland, the hotsprings, the brief summers, it being poor, some Viking culture that somehow survived, a very small population, one of the smallest european countries by population, taken over by the British who handed it to the Americans, you’re free now, apparently they don’t have a Swedish accent, Paul didn’t want to do this one because of all the nudity, all the violence, all the wife hitting, abusive, get back together at the end, they reconcile, we’lll go with Ed being the badguy, scamming people, taking the photos then blackmailing people, the hotel room, the film, get the property from her, the ex-husband comes and saves the day, not a classic, always Jesse’s story, an archaeological stratum, this fossil, what other fossils are under there?, floating around in people’s minds, learning about nudism, granola crunching islands, religious colonies, summer camps for various church organizations, fearful of falling under their religions, weird festival people, real life experience of weird nudists, Allan Alda’s character in MASH, nudism magazines, photographer magazine, he liked women, Corporal Klinger, 50s aesthetic, The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein, spending time with a nudist, their philosophy, a thing in Germany, the whole theory of nudism, he doesn’t get more serious, trying to separate nudism from sex, supposed to titillate, the opening scenes of the book, looks at herself in a full length mirror, a smut book but very educational, seems kinda of tame, very little penetration, very few pearl necklaces, the good organizer, the speech, the lecture, it’s about health and our natural state, body positivity, one step away from a pure smut book, a scene that should turn you off, ugly flabby lady, gut over her thighs, boobs like pendulums, that was a test, is this about sex?, not identical with being a swinger, related?, Heinlein did both, your average person picking up the book, from the woman’s pov, our Icelandic gorgeous lady and her abusive husband, they’re rich in land, she has a maid and a gardner, an interesting subplot, the pregnancy, an ethical gloss, written quickly, “Sometimes the whole world stinks”– Orrie Hitt, the King of Tri-State Sleaze, Apocalypse-Confidential.com, Orrie Hitt’s mythos, that’s amazing!, Lawrence Block, easter eggs, always the same movie playing in the movie theatre, you’re getting a secret history of the united states, all the sex shops, punanyi train fan , Orrie Hitt is on the rise, good to hear, EAP aka @punanytrainfan [account deleted] on twitter, literally read it aloud, a thousand year old book, Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān by Ibn Tufail, a book of philosophy, Daniel DeFoe, raised by a gazelle, Aristotelianism filtered through the Arabic worldview, Avicennan Aristotelianism, building the whole system from scratch, building capitalism from scratch, a short book, a few things he’s working on, Mark Twain, hinted at Heinlein, just teasing Jesse, excusing with the Library Of America, every book, taking Heinlein in doses, doing it with a Hugo in mind, Jesse’s Tom Godwin cold equations told as a star trek episode, the plot of Mudd’s Women, a bajoran slave girl, race jokes on a federation ship, it deserves a hugo and a nebula and a seuin and a master of fantasy award, the atom award, does it come with a rocket ship, a carbon atom, throw them in a garbage, awards, just play the games, put your pronouns in your bio, a lot of laughing, psychopath laughing at yourself, too pale, too male, looking at the lists, not impressed, consistently poorly researched, Jesse wants to learn something, entertainment, back to Orrie Hitt, not called nudist colonies anymore they’re called nudist camps now, a counterculture, a separate state, go for a week, summer camp, a nudist colony in the winter, why they like the location, set in New Jersey, hidden away, not bothered by the locals, not going to happen in the winter, Florida, what do they do?, standing around naked eating hot dogs, swimming, croquet, let’s go to the nudist camp!, like minded body positive people without hangups, written just as a non-sex book, the sex stuff in it, have only couples come together, don’t take singles, the subplot, blackmail, keep coming to the camp, not a very good sex book, subplot, a chaste proper good relationship, 1950s morality, she gets pregnant, a morality tale, Della has this new boyfriend, after she breaks up with her husband, not ethically suspect, we’re titillated, putting her bra on, fit in with the crowd, she gets shot in the leg, defending nudism, on the cover it is a sex book, a crime novel, genuinely surprised, we’re supposed to be suspicious of him, seemed legit, we were surprised, do you blame her for getting back together with him, wraps up the plot nicely, getting back together with, Stephen King wouldn’t be able to write this book, the woman has to escape, he’s got too many hangups for this book, could Bachman try?, the wrong kinda traumas, a nice person, very sympathetic, as an immigrant story, tricked into marrying a German whore, a cloud over her, a poor Icelandic waif, a golddigger, reputation in the community, one scene in the hotel, the pornographic film, the bank, the lawyer, learned a lot about the 1950s, experiencing it on the periphery, why Hawkeye likes nudist magazines, the nudist philosophy vs. wanting to see naked people, very clear about that, a legit claim, born nude, practically naked, shorts and short sleeves, not being over-clad, getting vitamin D, having a tan making you feel mentally better?, not enough sun, given our species previous history, we probably get too little sun, a funny phenomenon, not allowed to show boobs unless they’re natives, nude foreign women, a british or Irish, the page 3 girl, how do we explain this phenomena, a racy thing, what makes it racy is the prudery, creepy to see a creeper, scary old bodies, herniated bodies, a book all about bodies, their experience through their heads, the injury to her leg, getting pregnant and thinking about that, why is she saying these things about this baby, you don’t need to get an abortion, in most of the sleaze books, sex doesn’t necessarily lead to worries about pregnancy, begging for a baby from her husband, more smut books, more sleazecore books, more to them just sex, here too, the time?, self-censorship, doctor labels, The Naked Lunch supreme court case, what happened to comics neutered comics, defending it to your wife, the study of strange women who do strange things, she’s super hot in the shower, fat bodies, another bait and switch, pick that up for the incest, a horrible suicide and insanity ending, real estate calculations, the shame is different, a shame book, she’s a poor girl, essentially raped in Iceland, a traumatized person she’s pretty strong, pretty fucking terrible, Paul would not like how this book ends, what are her options?, not highly educated, what marriage is so popular for, real estate, big in China, she’s rock poor, she marries a middle class guy who thinks he’s going to inherit wealth, squanders the money, ends on a happy note, gives her a baby and becomes a doting father, be good Christians and believe in redemption, what are her skills?, he knew how to build a big house (with full length mirrors), look at her assets, run a little business, something she can do with her life, reveals himself as the bad guy, what can she get from Ricky?, adopt that baby, partners, all the men betrayed her, Ricky saved the day, in “Sleaze Camp Part 2”, a good moral camp, what the future’s going to be like, set in the 1850s, the photography stuff, if it was the 1750s, a guy behind a curtain sketching quickly, civil war portraits, still images, sunbathers, it is a tech book, pre-birth control (the pill), a tech thing, what makes this non-mimetic fiction is that it is somehow is like a piece of science we can explore, look what people are worried about, an after WWII Iceland plot, we don’t know much about Orrie Hitt, seems to be thoughtful, as book every two weeks at the prime of his career, six sex scenes, explaining to Scott [Danielson], agreeing with a J.K. Rowling, you’re going to have to put TERF in your twitter bio now, why people like her books, set pieces, very movie like this big battle, this cute scene, that cute scene, a plot in the background, the ride, titillation throughout the book, attentive to the plot, the first Harry Potter book, it read like a movie, not that much internal getting to know the character, this is an intellectual experience, didn’t get hard at all, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake, not heavy on the sex, Netflix everyday, the covers/posters/cards, The Reader, a nazi woman?, an illeterate woman?, Kate Winslet in her pajamas, the strategy is still there, two naked guys on the card, a lot of prudery in the states, no explicit sex on Netflix?, on the newsstands besides the explicit, science fiction, westerns, romance, nice to look at, more titillation on the covers and in the descriptions, Hustler, sex letters, Penthouse forum?, letters about free speech!, reading a magazine with a nakedish woman on the cover, like the HBO of magazines, less censored things that people are interested in, Jimmy Carter had lust in his heart, rather than the lie they do all day, Obama’s exit interview, Joe Rogan’s interview with the founder of Rolling Stone, way less censored than everything else, shitlib former hippie, upset and worried, now that Trump had won, I’m not really interested in lying anymore, softcore interview, a formality, the shitty answer and the truthful answer, being more honest, a weird sleazecore book, insight into, a good prose stylist, clean and easy to follow and interesting, unaffected, he reminds us of her body every few pages, experiencing interest, a big enough sample, read a romance novel, anything of value, tiny little bit of sex, as tame or tamer, slim romance volumes, Blaze by Stephen King, A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, less mad as time goes by, thinking of Jesse as the star, Harry Turtledove, Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, why Evan is not a fan of tourism or travel in general, why travel sucks, Michael Crichton books, Grave Descend, Easy Go, super consumable, very solid writer, maybe that was never true, “science fiction books”, not natural writers, Stephen King is a natural writer, Neil Gaiman, Ted Chiang, Stephen King, Andy Weir, The Troop, near the bottom, just body horror, the lowest level, the gross out, fewer of those, idea based stuff is really cool, Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet by H. Beam Piper, The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens, The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard, seven John Lange books, fairly thrilling at times, Hard Case Crime republished them, a reuse of a failed hard case crime spinoff [Gabriel Hunt], Hunt For Adventure, The Spider, The Shadow, Indiana Jones, an adventure book series, churn out a series character, Binary, Eaters Of The Dead, he’s really playful, amazingly good at transforming thought into words in the form of a novel, after Blaze, its long, spending 20 hours with Mark Twain.

Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #732 – READALONG: Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Alex (pulpcovers) and Cora Buhlert talk about Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel

Talked about on today’s show:
Audiobooksnow.com, 500 other websites after Audible and Downpour that sell audiobooks, this books exists only out in the world outside of Audible and Downpour, Brian K. Fitzgibbon, the story itself is , foliage, otherwise a good narration, the ultimate book, a hard intro, all of the negative stereotypes of pulp science fiction, Planet Stories, not the literary science fiction, the luridist, fairly strong, this is fun, this is good, it fell apart, the middle doesn’t make a lot of sense, the ending is good, extending psychedelic floating, pregnant at the end, twins, this woman raped him while he was in the bacta tank, when Luke is in the bacta tank, Mark Hamill had had a car accident, injuries explained away, hand chopped off twice, disabled protagonist, crippled is offensive, a pain in your phantom arm, Gil Hamilton, a crippled protagonist, disabled war veterans, missing a hand, a scarred face, a blind eye, a missing eye, a plus for the story, three strong female characters (two of them are the same), he’d been betrayed by his fiance, clearly a villain from the beginning, a good setup for a story, mid-20th century telepathy, not a good exploration of the topic, monkey squirrel lemur thing, also telepathic, something out of 1980s kid’s cartoon, would make a great cartoon, should be adapted as a cartoon, a pretty cracking story, gets his abilities, it would be better if he didn’t have abilities, I’m the best telepathy, immune to telepathy, who’s on the cover, a scene from the story, Allen Anderson reusing the same image, lady with a sword over her head, also a Leigh Brackett cover, Black Amazon Of Mars, an axe, grey lumpy things, he’s not disabled, he has two arms (one is hidden), it is Crasna, but she’s a redhead, the interior art, the vat scene, the lavender liquid, his girlfriend Margaret getting all stabby, cutting off all of his thumb, lost in the mist, missing an arm, very accurate, page 25 art, totally missing an arm there, a scratch across his face, with a savage bellow, the pasty gray features, sluggishly back, prostrate form, soundlessly, a blue black fluid gushed from the wound, Erik Fennel is not a famous person, as Planet Stories pulpy as Jesse has read, a Gardner F. Fox, returning to Mars, returning to Barsoom, a portal fantasy, very Edgar Rice Burroughs, he’s an inventor, The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein, time travel, freezes himself, she’s much older, she’s fat, she’s been drained of sasso, very Lovecraft, Dwellers In The Mirage by A. Merritt, vikings at the north pole, squid god eating virgins, pregnant ladies are delicious, his source for the material, monolimbed, monohanded, blood gushin out of him, repainted by Anderson, Sargasso Of Lost Starships, Bettie Page haircut, yellow foil-age, a little blue city, under the text, what do you think, people talking about sensitivity readers (both pro and con), a panel of sensitivity readers, some subject they’re not an expert in, Chinese and something else (maybe Vietnamese), an expert on Japan, makes sense, a double amputee, bloody offensive, bipolar is not the same thing as an amputee, probably pretty different, gay and a minority skin colour, the writer, an expert witness, a thinking chain that’s not encumbent with the title “sensitivity reader”, immensively important to the book, not collaboration, later Elmore Leonard novels, his 90s stuff, getting up there, he had a professional researcher, professional diving, interesting facts, wow that’s amazing, it really sucked, the dialogue was the same, you could see the hands of the researcher’s work, the particular setting, civil war reenactors, “farbs”, modern underwear underneath, bringing a zippo lighter to the battlefield, hanging out with those guys as a first person person vs. having your researcher do it for you a year before you, that’s the difference, a real sense of place, a real sense of dialogue, he knows the places and he knows the cultures, this is actually why sensitivity readers are working, writing about stuff they don’t know anything about, a researcher magic wand, like Wikipedia, an inkling about something about something, Erik Fennel was disabled, an engineer, an inventor, Fall 1947, Beneath The Red World’s Crust, a dude with a blaster and a dagger on his hip, holding a blonde, blue aliens, a rocketship, a vampire bat, P.S. Feature Flash, Atavism, during a childhood spent barefoot in Hawaii, prehensile toes, Eve and Lilith, the dog insists, a propeller, 2:47 am, a model-T sparkplug, molten lead and cold water, just short of atomic, studying co-eds, Heath Parasol, a kitbuilt aircraft, a truck driver, bootlegger’s assistant, riding the rods, amateur boxer/goat wrangler, structural steel work, born without a fear of heights, one day there was a very nasty mess, a retread job in my skull, 4F, arrested development, Science And Invention, Hugo Gernsback, a housetrailer, a portable basement, used oil wells, deep auto-hypnotic research, the editor of Galaxy [Planet Stories], Nichevo, Russian for what can you do?, that’s how it is!, makes you like the story more, makes you like the art more, the art informs the story, the art of the writing, texts should stand on their own (but also they don’t), everything is connected to other things, give a kid Shakespeare, another essay from 1950, utopianism, Nobody Wants Utopia, Science Fantasy Review, Winter 1949-1950, the slave system they have, zombies, they treat them, they give them the pill, a culture that has declined, the superiors had roads, there were always two races, more primitive people, benevolent, H.P. Lovecraft with Zealia Bishop, The Mound, an underworld utopia, the closed world, creating a setting, the author insert returns to it at the end, I’m going home, she’s having my babies, genocide these poor people, kill orcs because they are elves turned by Sauron thinking, utopia, dry and hot summers, cold winters, he’s given himself a fantasy world, he chooses to go back into the fantasy, helpful to understanding the story, it’s a real lump, The Goddess Of Atvatabar, mental powers, they create an island, that happens in this too, a Leigh Brackett, The Moon That Vanished, mental powers, lost in their fantasy world, suicidal drug addict, picturing his girlfriend, he grabs the other woman, quite a common theme, also Inception (2010), WWII, trailer, not super-negative, creation of a world inside of a story, roads and a car, he’s an engineers, mid-20th century engineers knew everything, that fantastic power is the power to be a writer for Planet Stories, a product of it being a longer piece for a magazine that cranks out a lot of pulp, not a classic, snap up the IP, the She-Ra: Princess Of Power cartoon, a planet besieged by aliens, drains of energy, rebels lead by a brave woman, twins, Hordak, not impossible, why you can’t read anything out of context, all the Shakespeare plays are historical pieces, the pulp, Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, inform, time spent looking for the literary roots of Indiana Jones, drawn from the vibes, a smell, an aesthetic, the suspension bridge, cliffhanger, quite literally, movie serials, magazine serials, wait 30 years, not inspired by the original sources, the new Andor series, notably good, a guy on a planet trying to find his sister, mall cops, corporate security, too much content, there’s way too much stuff, its very hard to know if anything is good, everything is lying to you all the time, they’re all being gamed, people mention things in twitter threads, increasingly required to ask, I can’t watch all of that, not all of them have the same taste, big long reviews, consumer reviews, you have to dig, drowned out, ignored, the latest thing, a culture war fight, American Gigolo, The Punisher, how can I know if it is good?, it’s exactly what you’re interested in, lot’s of airships, bread and butter cop dramas, cartoon dinosaur show, periphery, The Rogues In The House podcast, this is great, our serious problem, an experiment today, too deep into the story, not the ideal story to start their pulp fiction experience, Robert E. Howard, some Leigh Bracketts, C.L. Moores, higher quality pulp, this isn’t that bad, Werewile Of The Crystal Crypt by Gardner F. Fox, they all look down at Planet Stories, bad stories in Astounding Science Fiction, mid to low level Planet Stories, mediocre Weird Tales is entertaining, The Ghost Table, fun adventure, fast paced, what we got, a slower pace in the middle, lots of action, what if the speed of light changed by 3 percent?, what bad Astounding often looked like, bound charges, almost skipable, if your assignment was to fix this story, spend a lot less time recovering, three months later, drama, go with the interesting opening, lay around a little less, more time with the badguys, she’s a bad girl but a lot of fun, more from Victor’s point of view, Margaret’s catspaw, boy toy, Sin and Wor, very subtle, on the nose, Axis and Allies, written in reverse, Matson, Sasso, a fad dance from the 1950s, The Wizard Of Wor, Wor’s military tunic, Faith, Elvedon, a pocket universe, The Elf-Trap by Francis Stevens, a tradition he’s slipping into, Stanley G. Weinbaum, there’s no rocket ship, it is a portal fantasy, transports him to a world, closed worlds, thin world, like Cthulhu worshipers, A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, the lavender liquid, that sloshing, some kind of acid, absorbs their energy, a convoluted system, as a priestess, all the best cults are sex cults, Superiors, the gross gray bodies, they utterly refused to remain dead, lacking sufficient converts, Faith, Superiors, the hunted folk, thought was a tangible force, a stand in for the author, more things cut off, will the wall to light, a wish-fulfillment fantasy world, maybe we have to genocide these monsters, the little lemur guy, weak, but not that bad, the connection, Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books, what’s the scene that Paul and Cora don’t like, leprosy, white gold wedding ring, his rape daughter shows up, not real, absolutely annoying, he’s also a whiner, extremely unlikable, he doesn’t think any of it is real, half excuses the whole thing, The Gap Into Conflict, space opera, blink drives, The Real Story, an asteroid miner, roll a d100, turn people into remote control zombies, policewoman, he’s not supposed to be the hero, very gritty, well told, incorporating other people’s researches, what they’re thinking about, writing is thinking, he’s not a raw power, perfectly serviceable, problems selling, Chinese Filipino, Hawaii, that experience is his experience, a story that hasn’t sold yet, he blames that on gatekeepers of editors, half-naked, Valeria, Dark Agnes, Jirel of Joiry, Farnsworth Wright, he never got really old, oh, it’s a Howard story!, non-white protagonist, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, thalidomide, magically healed, he lies around a lot, to hide his superpower, his mind is broken, the cover does not participate in LegCling, whips, a chain whip, BrassBra hashtag, just assumed, clinging gowns, a lot of nudity, a lot of sex, disabled sex, sex orgy cult, remarkably horny, more explicit, is it less horny when it is explicit?, a shudder pulp story, the ultimate shudder pulp, the covers and the titles, the story premises, Lovecraft plus sex and humiliation and racism, Dime Mystery, not easy to find, they didn’t sell well, pricey, The Spider, the lurid stuff, Terror Tales, E. Hoffman Price, there must be something in there, the pinnacle of the shudder pulp, still fun, unique, a little lemur thing and whips, lavender acid, revealing something, Genndy Tartakovsky, a Planet Stories animated series, you’re doing Heavy Metal, technothriller science fictiony compared to this, The Rocketeer (1981), why aren’t we having more like The Rocketeer, Batman (1989), The Shadow (1994), The Phantom, Dick Tracy, Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, 4 hours, read by Evan Lampe, the back cover, they worshiped nature in the raw, scathing novel, where she came from, swim or subathe unclad, so lovely, so innocent, began to love nature a little too passionately, a she-devil had entered paradise, her own glorious body, having sex with a tree, a tree fucking contest, Germans love their nudity, naturalists, nature worship, airbathing, skyclad, a nudist beach, of course I looked, Wreck Beach, the communist had no clothes they were so poor!, they saved them for the winter, they weren’t wearing a wire, Evan Lampe: “it’s a good book”, Evan’s female voice, not a Paul book, Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake, The Black Stranger by Robert E. Howard, Roger Zelazny, Blaze, Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet, Innocents Abroad, Grave Descend, sell Easy Go to Alex, in Egypt, the last tomb, scam archaeologists, a heist story, a really great sense of place, written by someone who’s been there, Greece, Amsterdam, nice and short, Topkapi (1964), Korean War vet captains, journalist/writer, especially him, a very solid very readable book, very impressed by early Michael Crichton, he’s no Erik Fennel, write to the market, slim volumes, 160 page books vs. 700 page books, mainstream thrillers, measured by inches or by weight, Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens, Vietnam, communing with the communists, a communist wedding, a half communist wedding, salvage, communist babies, The Thrill Book, after inhaling a grey dust, totalitarian Philadelphia, perhaps the first science fantasy to use parallel time track, dated and old fashioned, parallel worlds, one of the classics of early pulp, cynical anti-authoritarian, a fine anticipation of Philip K. Dick, stand in for the expertise, Fran Wilde and Chuck Wendig, definitely not a communist book reading, cool name, the cheese, a big city, skyscrapers exploding, school atlas, natural resource cards, coal and steel, pre-internet, Benjamin Franklin was president (of Pennsylvania), not a fake job, the supreme executive council, Rocky Balboa, a good writer, violent American trash, Rocky (1976), Rambo and Conan, a very good movie, he’s got heart, Carl Weathers, Dolph Lundgren, the cartoon aspect of it, this super-genius, Red Scorpion (1988), Masters Of The Universe (1987), not The Punisher (1989), Rocky IV (1985) was his best movie, Universal Soldier (1992), The Expendables movies, airplanes, Jet Li, riffs on their Hollywood personalities, speaking six languages, they’re making fun of the fact, tall and apparently smart and handsome he did very badly, Bloodsport (1988), not really a great actor, Schwarzenegger is charismatic on screen, they didn’t have the budget, Soviet Rambo, an American production, the first half of Red Dawn (1984), The Death Of Stalin (2017), American Ninja (1985), The Delta Force (1986), Iron Eagle (1986), she doesn’t understand what a podcast is, needs to grok, you don’t have to do the show nude.

Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel - cover art by ALLEN ANDERSON

Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel - ILLUSTRATION

Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel

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