The SFFaudio Podcast #861 – Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg, (5 hours 3 minutes) read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:

Philip K. Dick, June and August 1958, 1962, rewritten around 1972, big problem with this book, Robert Silverberg, pay closer attention, who was right [it was Tommy], the worst Robert Silverberg piece Jesse has ever read, not good, some stuff, terrible at points, the timeframe, a switchboard, voice-only set, telephone set, the tech, published 1958, oh dear god, this novel is a total snoozefest, there’s no interest in it, twig this subject can be fun and interesting, a really terrific short story by Jack London, A Thousand Deaths, 1899, whisked off to the south pacific, back to life, he suffers a thousand deaths, the captain is his father, the son recognizes the father, a really solid and interesting story, Herbert West, oh yeah this can be great, Herbert West: Re-Animator, fun and funny story, how come this book is so bad, Double Star, bureaucratic politics, trouble management, the U.S. party system, a weak technology story, the first way he dies is through drowning, a heart lung machine, then he poisons him, electrocutes him, dies of a heart attack, a fundamental misunderstanding of death, careful to not spend too much time on the details, injury of cessation, visible damage can’t be too extreme, phaser damage, phasers only do as much damage as the plot needs them to do, controlling the settings, what mechanism death is, the innovation, a disintegration ray, zaps his dad, a revenge story, artificial resuscitation, watch the movie, read the story, an image of H.P. Lovecraft Reanimator’s makeup kit, corpseless head in a dish, the whole joke of that story, the body is never fresh enough, killing and killing and killing, they get their revenge, a comedy of science, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, reanimation vs. immortality, he is Prometheus, creating a race of creatures that won’t age, possibly more beautiful, an assemblage of parts, what is this thing?, this book, I’m a lawyer, used to the a governor, PR man, insane powers, head of this non-profit, kidnap a man and kill him, Bryant, getting reanimated, why didn’t it go that way?, made the choice to make it worse, perspective, a cautionary tale, so many guesses about prices, $9000, predicted the future, inflation, not meant to stand the test of time, a lesser science fiction magazine, the channel selector, his last client, let’s firm up your will, an elevator operator, set in 2033, analog tv channel changing, why the senator might vote with the conservatives, no guarantee against senility, assumptions being made, a good or a bad idea, in the way of progress, moral ramifications, the narrator seemed like the author, given motivation, his daughter’s death, before the book starts, other children, about a whole bunch of things, let’s imagine that it was, Herbert West is not Bell Labs, Beller Labs, such a huge institution, the wikipedia entry for Bell Labs, dozens and dozens of laboratories, thousands of employees, Alexander Graham Bell won a prize in 1880, a prize in France, is responsible for patenting and developing lost of technologies, scandals, where a lot of tech comes from, government labs, arpa darpa, wacky scientists, Benjamin Franklin, an extraordinary talent, make himself enlightened, Herbert West doesn’t have a lab, steals other people’s labs, steals a cat, steals the dean, a response done up straight, familiar with Lovecraft, a Lovecraft rip-off, not Lovecraftian at all, Dreams In The Witch-House, he’s not a lawyer, he does no legal work, some advice, he’s a lobbyist, who they hire and fire, the CEO all of a sudden, a king, Gilgamesh, Enkidu’s buddy, some of the things that are happening rhyme with reality, boring and stupid reality, what this book is really about, how is new technology accepted by the public, propagandized right, makes it more acceptable, Tommy is older, test tube babies, cloning, moral scares about it, birth control, the pill, around 1962, that process, how do we break it to the public, whatever this thing is, invent the telephone, technology and pricing, all tech, the media, newspapers are still a huge thing in this, sat down at the dinner table, the thick New York Times, as thick as your fist, not that thick anymore, media landscape, other technologies, even if you’re Albania or North Korea, pretty incoherent, a little undercooked in the book, save lives like his daughters, needs something to do, that is not a good science fiction book, agree with all of that, the undercooked nature of it, liberals and conservatives, why there aren’t Democrats and Republicans anymore, a political realignment, almost right, or changing their names, our friend Jonathan [Weichsel], why do we have party realignments?, slavery, segregation, what’s the name of this elderly liberal senator against reanimation, Strom Thurman, suspicious names, more Roman-A-Clef than we realize, Harker, not Johnathan, elderly democratic senator, tweeted about this, the Grok thing on it, fishing, it can recognize this picture is 3 people, a huge funny interesting story, the 2020 kidnapping plot of Gretchen Whitmer, everybody in the van except for 2 people were FBI informants, a kidnapping and a governor, P. Schuyler Miller review from Analog, before isbns, 75 cents, a spinner rack at the grocery store, introductory blurb, greatest novel, Infinity in 1958, deserves the Hugo nomination, mechanico-chemical means, how this power is to be administers, passive language, the handling is what makes the book different, James Harker, of New York, trying to carry out his campaign promises, kind of true, not the focus of the book, who he is, second chance, felt forced, hired as an attorney, probe the political and religious aspects, hand is forced, a premature announcement, less than practical scientists, reanimation fails, calms down the melodrama, makes the book realistic, could have been governor, an accessory to murder, what it would have been competing with, Who? by Algris Burdrys, A Case Of Conscience by James Blish, better than this book, fairly comparable, trynna sell it, seemingly random things, the kidnapping, realistic, bring out the new iphone and there’s a leak, hurt sales, lord it over Samsung, don’t care, banal, convince him by giving him the experience, the old man who lives in the elevator operator apartment, greedy children, didn’t go to space like he did, millionaire astronaut, Neil Armstrong, a private person, Yuri Gagarin, Buzz Aldrin, in a Transformers movie, John Glenn, in Canada too, name recognition, managing the public’s perception of a tech that comes in, should be interesting and important, circling around the tech, weird science fiction fetish, why does he like it, what he wrote, The Space Merchants by Fredrik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, freneticism and meandering, Madison Avenue, Mad Men, reverse psychology, more K-Street, where the lobbyists control what’s going on in the senate, K-Street, a synonym for what it is, what we want is money, another seemingly random action or choice, random scientists, spring the trap, Martin Raymond, reasonable, I’m the one who signs your cheques, tip the public, a court case, wrangling back and forth, a congressional hearing, not even under oath, testify to congress, no HIPPAA, two As, 1996, a therapist, that name, convenient and on purpose, how to get what you want, he kills himself to demonstrate it, another fucking lie, while he’s in recovery, manages to wing it, an analogy for winging it for writing a book, Donald Westlake, generally entertained, Lawrence Block, writing a novel a weekend, little room somewhere near Greenwich Village, start typing away, a natural ability, you don’t need to worry, just need to get tapping, amazing, okay, how good is the idea behind the book, when the idea is excellent, well thought through ideas, how will this technology impact society, how people would react, neat idea, well executed for what it is, where the world really is, fewer issues, assumption, religious concern, makes himself Jesus at the end, human nature, the rich are going to take this over and live forever, the lich problem, a frozen go to the future book, very limiting, neurodegenerative disease, if you happened to be drowned, luckily we have somebody to fix you, you can bring old people back to life after they have a heart attack, Terry Schivo, heart lung machine, a baby in the womb, the person who you loved is dead, opinions about it, the topic of the day, how everybody dies now, decide it’s time, make it look less messy, we have this tech now, it doesn’t bring you back, corpuscles full of oxygen, lean into the lich thing, it isn’t about that astronaut, ungrateful children, have him live forever, a conclusion more morally interesting, a k-street ex politician gets involved in a cover up for a murder, why is this the book that we have, if you want to be Herbert West, not bad because of any technical mistake, told this story in an interesting way, where did he go wrong?, repetitive, missed opportunities, that’s the reality, he isn’t cool, feel bad for him that his daughter died, sure that he isn’t, damage control, I’m in on it too, part of the cover-up, saw her for the first time, swept to the side, terrible terrible, not a good guy, Gilgamesh is not a good guy, Herbert West is not a good guy, sit behind a desk, do damage control, paragraph on page 30, a doodle pad, the religious part of this book, what will the big forces of Catholicism think about this, papism in power, what the pope said was “vote for the lesser of two evils”, Vatican II,