The SFFaudio Podcast #817 - AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Last Space Ship by Murray Leinster

12/16/24 • 610 min

The SFFaudio Podcast #817 – The Last Space Ship by Murray Leinster – this is a fixup novel, made from three stories:

The Disciplinary Circuit, read by Phil Chenevert, 1 hour 35 minutes (for LibriVox)

The Manless Worlds, read by Vinny Lerin, 1 hour 43 minutes (for LibriVox)

The Boomerang Circuit, read by Paul Lawley-Jones, 1 hour 57 minutes (for Golden Age Fiction)

These are complete and unabridged readings of the three stories that make the one novel (totaling 5 hours 16 minutes) followed by a discussion of them and it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
the last Terence Blake, the newest, the youngest, The Last Space Ship, a cowboy story, famous in the one genre, some problems with this novel, really loving it for the first third, fell apart, the last spaceship crashed, not literally, William Sky, available on Librivox in three seperate peices, audiobook available, the books are public domain, The Disciplinary Circuit, The Manless Worlds, a good way to sell, lied to, betrayed, The Boomerang Circuit, why am I still not happy with this book, the very end, 2nd and 3rd installment, the problem with series, excited about the premise, exhaust the premise, essentially, a me problem, you could tell it was an unedited a fixup, you can tell it was serialized, repetitions are necessary in a serial, not technically a serial, not intended to be a novel, a series character, barely a book market for science fiction, the fixup became a thing, a guy goes to a planet, summarizes, extremely tedious, his job or an editor’s job, two years after, three seperate “novels”, used to mean something different, in the prechat, novels in Weird Tales, The Man Who Loved Planks, novellete, official wordcount, Lord Of The Rings isn’t a novel, one big volume, it’s something, a weird technical definition, three separate stories that were long, Last Space Ship, the opening segment, not so sure about that, a bite at the end, the mayor of somethingHeim, doesn’t ever get a name, recurring characters without names, Steadheim, the colony organizer, political leaders, good point Will, 1984, Brave New World, political science fiction, and more stuff happens, the premise follows logically, our hero Kim is down there swanning around, a disheveled lady, we don’t need men!, get off of my planet!, the wife handles this, what women are and what men are, funny and interesting, wasn’t well executed, flatly written, repeating himself, over and over, no depth to it, no layers, driving on a very straight line, when there’s an hour left in the story, I’ve heard this a million times, what it turns into is space opera, it starts off with hard SF, not paid off, become suspicious, a transporter space ship, a little Larry Niven-like, Yankee ingenuity statement, Kim’s ability to do literally anything, an ideal subject, men without government, silly, a point to it, went to the beginning of time, it was impossible to get back, wife say something inspiring, that was good, reciprocal, what that can provoke, sexist, too many times, that was just their way, Heinrich von Kleist [“On the gradual formation of thoughts in the process of speech”], near random conversations, from a philosophical pov, the competent man can’t change a paradigm, but nobody’s ever thought of this, a German romantic, a book setsup expectations, subverts expectations, breaking its own rules, the worst rule that this book broke, that’s a deforming balloon of a spaceship, to trick other spaceships, but they’re building them, it still works as a title, matter transporters, public transportation, forgive the setup, this book is trying to be political, knock this out of the park, We, ultimately if every planet in the milky way galaxy has an evil dictatorship to get girls, let’s kill all the men, that does sort of fit the origin through pulp magazine route, comparing to Blake’s 7, anarchistic criminals, unconvinced of what the right thing to do is, the liberator, liberate the galaxy, soma, framed with pedophilia charges, brainwashing, ends in noir, betrayed and destroyed, there was no next season, cultivate some garden, get some kids, get off the pill, really sleep with you, a horny book solution to the problem of men wanting to hoard women, he doesn’t have the intellectual heft, quite interesting for five pages, Michel Foucault, great idea, we just cut your access, social credit in the popular news, cut your access to your bank account, can’t travel, used or sketched out, he couldn’t follow through with that, space opera fantasy with a few dollops of science, the electron telescope, he’s not perfect...

The SFFaudio Podcast #817 – The Last Space Ship by Murray Leinster – this is a fixup novel, made from three stories:

The Disciplinary Circuit, read by Phil Chenevert, 1 hour 35 minutes (for LibriVox)

The Manless Worlds, read by Vinny Lerin, 1 hour 43 minutes (for LibriVox)

The Boomerang Circuit, read by Paul Lawley-Jones, 1 hour 57 minutes (for Golden Age Fiction)

Previous Episode

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 - AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings and In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings (read by Mike Vendetti, 55 minutes) AND In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl (read by Edmund Bloxam, 52 minutes). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (1 hour 48 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
[Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings – from Terror Tales, May 1938 and In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931] that narrator, LibriVox, like to not listen, performing, distracting, a noble effort, everbodys got an accent, Trois-Rivières, a cultural, 30 years watching news reports, CBC generally gets its pronunciation right, the main character is an American, the half-breed Indian, Beaumont, a New York lawyer, take it too far, way too far, two miles from Manhattan, US states, the geography is so bad, giant book showing different continents, they don’t even know where they are on the map, maybe geography is a useless thing, from one tube enclosure to another tube enclosure, maybe it doesn’t matter, you need to understand geography in order to understand anything, a geology a little bit, from the Libertarian convention, use its military to defend itself, from what?, giant moat on either side, defending Hawaii, you don’t need a sixth fleet in the Indian Ocean, Nevada, Oregon, accents?, more than accent, Iraq, Iran, hearing about it on the news, the correct pronunciation, say it in Spanish, all these tourists, east coast politicians, it doesn’t need to be set in the orbit of Saturn, not as good as the other Starzl, E.E. Doc Smith, more compact, starts deep into the action, we’re in the middle of a battle, holding cells, dialogue happens, we’re done, fairly good for being fairly bad, published in the October 1931 issue of Astounding, the Clayton era of Astounding, having trouble following the action, put on a really big smile for your videos, the muscles of your face, practicing to be the joker, he’s really selling this, in seven months we’ll know if it was all worth it, Sword & Scandal, with that great art, very solid, character names, Quarl Finner?, Coerl?, Black Destroyer, Braniac Five from the Legion Of Superheroes, Lenore, character from Poe, Moby Gore, Lt. Burroughs, Captain Strom, he’s not shy, Mark Twain, a newspaperman, family newspaper in some midwestern town, its good, real things that happens, engaging with real stuff a little bit, her brother dies, dies from pneumonia, daughter of a capitalist, a capitalism in space story, the eugenics pirate, a good noble man, a man without a planet, engaging with the materials of the times, the Burroughs thing, make it about Romance, he doesn’t solve it, the IFP, the interplanetary flying police?, pirates infiltrated by east Indian company agent, sexy redhead pirate queen, a depth to it, for how short it is, a lot of time hating, too simple, a super good example of pulp that doesn’t suck completely, not enough beams, a cloaking device, I’ll parole you, new laser beam, ray of some kind, a little ethical back and forth, working for the fuckin cops, tremendous amounts of concentrated energy, the energy becomes sentient, weird juice, for the amount of plot and backstory, something in a series, ISFDB, seven of these stories, The Earthman’s Burden, very depthy, another Starzl story, Madness Of The Dust, he’s on mars, he has martian slaves, martian dust makes him go crazy, Against All Flags (1952), Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, off the coast of Madagascar, a political dissident, party now because there is no afterlife, mythological pirates, historical pirates, crook, of the golden age of piracy, still pirates today, the Horn of Africa, not British naval slaves, their backstory is different, a really good movie, the Mad Max novelization, Stone (1974), Satan worshipers, very beautiful, very artistic, by looking at pirates, land pirates, living life free from societal law, Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, patch him in and patch him out, harassing ransom people, Pirates Of Venus pirates are not really pirates, Gully Foyle, Alfred Bester, a positive spin, write the pants off, very early in the history of magazines, by the early 30s Weird Tales is getting good, Science Fiction isn’t as mature, willing to pay relatively good rates, the writing of both of this, Ray Cumming fuckin sucks, The Girl In The Golden Atom, this is a fun story, Cat-Woman, flies by the seat of his pants, bad stuff in here, as a relatively short weird menace, shudder story, so similar much better idea, serums that transform you, a lot hornier, more idea filled, Sam Moskowitz on Ray Cummings, went downhill, never evolved to keep up with the times, formulaic, 1938, Ambrose Bierce, this genre didn’t exist, a story a...

Next Episode

The SFFaudio Podcast #818 – READALONG: The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast #818 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
grounded on where you’re at, in case you’re disoriented, you’re the president, 2nd Paul Kavanaugh novel, the copyright is under Paul Kavanaugh, pseudonyms and copyright renewals, to hide the identity, in the afterword, they way he writes and talks and thinks, I don’t know, how this book ends, very distinctively Lawrence Blocky, getting to know Lawrence Block, a lot of sex in this book, guy talking to himself for most of the book, conversations with Heidegger, full of references, Nazi philosopher, philosopher of art, on of the covers, the lower 48, deep down in the layers is a swastika, a background to this, quizzes?, hobby horses, Westlake doesn’t delight in putting sex in everything, natural mode, When the doorbell rang, looking at baby robins, the guy with the Turkish cigarettes comes in, a tribute to Richard Stark, starting with when, Stark is Westlake, starting with action, drinking tea, being playful, Such Men Are Dangerous, interesting book, first person, third person, very tight over the shoulder, in the head of the main character, conversations with a guy, telepaths words into our heads, having sex with his girlfriend, Jocelyn I need to tell you, pretty cool, third person limited, that title, a Miles Dorn version of it, a famous founding father?, all that is required for the triumph of evil..., for good men to do nothing, generally attributed to Edmund Burke, investigations of quotes, Heinlein quotes, AtoZQuotes, women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs, long big investigation, one source, from a 19th century book, really painful, plains speaking women, John F. Kennedy, John Stuart Mill, bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, doesn’t flow as well, Not Comin’ Home For You, really gay reporter [Truman Capote], In Cold Blood, 1965, a novelization of the idea of one of the characters telling the story, 1635, John Reynolds The Triumph Of Gods Revenge Against The Crying And Execrable Sin Of Murther, Sean Penn, an exercise of actors getting awards, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking, what is it for, the true crime genre is sick, true crime podcast boom, not as dominant in the headlines of podcasting, new Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, on Alexander The Great’s daddy, students using chatGPT, some piece of text that needed to be grokked, in the style of William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, now write in in the style of Dan Carlin, good Dan Carlin parody, a lot of legs to this thing, a Lawrence Block parody, several modes, that repetition going, the structure of a plot, a short story, fed it the whole thing, what would the plot be, fairly decent, now write it and market it for me please, a convention, quoting a magazine editor, inundated with AI generated stories, claim to be able to tell, ‘I want AI to do my dishes and vacuum my carpet so I can write and do art’, play with it, an idea for a short story, asking it questions, how can you see it related to this?, give me a list of 10 science fiction tropes, drumming up ideas, a very good search engine, hours vs. minutes, the formulation of question, student doesn’t know what prompts to type in, that’s what we should be educating the kids on, how to solve problems, a homework assignment that’s important to your mom, when you’re learning to write you need to read good writing, an opening paragraph, this feeling of unity, how was that achieved?, bad result and no learning, what makes something good?, Ernest Hemingway explaining something, what mode to be in, everything works out exactly as planned, written in a week, how does he do that, come up with a premise and get through it in a week, a solid novel, that was an experience, I’m not disappointed, some people have it a lot, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, L. Ron Hubbard, throw out stories like mad, making money, two stories a week to put food on the table, being proud of, for things that are more ambitious, Richard Bachman for Stephen King, channeling a different part of his brain, Misery, The Regulators, Blaze is a drawer novel he had to re-write, the sickness, know each other, politics are pretty sympatico, triggered by orange president, Stephen King has never recovered, what happened to them, this trauma is devastating, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King’s Bachman books are angry books, these boomers were triggered by something that happened in the 60s, the Black Panthers stuff, Sputnik, from a certain period of time, the trauma doesn’t go away, as they get elderly, feted, one of the least famous successful writers, his faculties are still there, racewalking, doing blow or drinking, got his head on straight, guns being the solution to America’s probl...