The SFFaudio Podcast #377 – READALONG: Dreamwalker by Russell James

The SFFaudio Podcast #377 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and David Stifel talk about Dreamwalker by Russell James

Talked about on today’s show:
ACX, Audio Realms, Fred Godsmark, a workmanlike exposition, a terrific premise, the setup, a disability in life mirrored by an ability in the dream world, all of the spoilers, Life Is A Dream by Pedro Calderón, a prophecy in the court of Poland, raised in a cave, juice of the poppy, an Elizabethan era court, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, the Induction in The Taming Of The Shrew, a Shakespearean hobo, the play with the play, the dream story is improved because of the framing, a secret dream girl, building the dream mansion, a memory palace, is it a horror novel?, a fantasy novel with some gore, Paul’s theory of horror, The Burning Dark by Adam Christopher, splatterpunk, horror is something you put on to something, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, the mean streets of Atlantic City, surgical detail, two kinds of horror: body horror and moral horror, Greek tragedy, how many fingers into his orbits, the Bacchae and Pentheus, oh my god the parents are monsters, H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamquest Of Unknown Kadath, but rather Dreamscape (1984), the symbolism, Dennis Quaid is a psychic trained as a dreamwalker, Inception, seeing Nancy Regan being exploded by a nuclear bomb in New York City, a rare phenomenon, an internet of dreams, Roger Zelazny’s Dreammaster, a whole sequence of dream stories, stories on both sides of the fence, assassination at the bus station, no body to go back to, coma, afraid to go to sleep, Dreamwalker would make a very good movie, picturing Atlantic City, no salt water taffy, what does Twin Moon city look like?, how does it get built?, the shared landscape, Second Life, virtual reality, how seriously do you take your dreams?, retreating from day-life into dream, Pete, depressed people sleep, Moby Dick has a lot of mass, it gets better as it goes along, self-contained, Pete is a sympathetic figure, visual processing disorder, libraries turning into caves, we all have visual processing disorder in dreams, dream house, dream girl, lucid vision in the dreamworld, sequel dreams, alternate New York, the geography of dreams, littering the landscape with so many (undercooked?) seeds, the furniture all thrown out on to the street, Who Knows? by Guy de Maupassant, furniture fleeing a home, to flee his fleeing furniture, checking into an insane asylum, the furniture of your mind, the taxis with two crossed palm-trees, is Twin Moon City in the Caribbean?, an alternate Port-au-Prince, Jesse’s illustration, Nameless Street, is Reyna supposed to be white? she’s blonde, Pete is supposed to be white too right?, the good girl is a black guy too, What Dreams May Come, reflecting an essential truth, what would Russell James say?, in dream people blend together, a love hate relationship with Haiti, Ithaca (NY), moving to Philadelphia, she has a ship, retelling the novel from another character’s POV, “dream girl”, his view of her, following her sister into death, the scene with the antelope, what’s the range of dream wifi?, inquiring minds, a sequence at the bus station, overhearing the soldier’s, a smile that the son will never see, a foreshadowing of Tommy’s return, what happened to the assassin (the hit-woman), an entertainment book, not designed to languish in a drawer for sixty years, this is what a modern meat and potatoes working writer book looks like, amazingly deep, Six Characters In Search Of An Author, Henry The IV by Luigi Pirandello, harmonies and reverberations, what is reality, narration, so many voices, you’re everybody, Geoffrey Holder (Baron Samedi), a deep deep voice, Live And Let Die, The Serpent And The Rainbow, voicing the main character, a mature me and a younger me, buy the book it deserves more listeners, especially neglected, food for thought, a thinking book, a popcorn book with a different premise, Dark Inspiration, Dark Vengeance, rural horror, Wayne June, Audio Realms picks great narrators.

Posted by Jesse Willis