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to

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our

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show.

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Today on the show we'll be discussing

1:00

the last 10 stories in the new

1:03

book, Harlan Ellison's Greatest Hits. We discussed

1:05

the first nine stories back in episode

1:07

583, so definitely check that out if

1:09

you missed it. And this will include spoilers

1:11

for everything in the book, so just

1:13

be aware of that. And I'm joined

1:16

today by my good friend Tom Garenzer,

1:18

making his 33rd appearance on the show.

1:20

He's the author of the business book

1:23

Think Like Google. The short story collection

1:25

intergalactic refrigerator repairmen seldom carry cash and

1:27

the popular science book How It's Made,

1:30

which he wrote for the Discovery Channel.

1:32

His middle grade novel The Magic Ski

1:34

Mountain is out now. So Tom, welcome

1:36

to the show. Thanks Dave, it's great to

1:38

be here. Okay, so just one bit of

1:41

housekeeping before we get started. So last

1:43

time Tom and I talked about whether

1:45

or not to review... the Harlan Ellison

1:47

stories of Boy and his dog and

1:50

Croatoin, which are two of my all-time

1:52

favorite Harlan Ellison stories, and they're not

1:54

included in this book. And so what

1:56

we decided to do is I actually,

1:59

after we recorded that, I did. that

2:01

there's another book called The Top of

2:03

the Volcano, the award-winning stories of Harlan

2:05

Ellison, and it includes 11 more stories,

2:07

including A Boy and His Dog, and

2:10

Crowa Toan, 11 stories that aren't in

2:12

this book. So our current plan is

2:14

to do a Part 3 of Harlan

2:16

Ellison's greatest hits, where we talk about

2:19

those 11 stories. So if you want

2:21

our thoughts on A Boy and His

2:23

Dog and Crowa Toan, keep an eye

2:25

out for Part 3. But for

2:28

part two, we'll just be

2:30

talking about the second, as

2:32

I said, the second half

2:35

of Harlan Ellison's greatest hits.

2:37

So we'll be picking up with

2:39

the story on the Downhill Side,

2:41

1972. Now, so in this story,

2:44

it's set in New Orleans, and

2:46

the main character is a

2:48

ghost, and he has a

2:50

unicorn sidekick who sort of

2:52

accompanies him through the

2:54

afterlife. And he has been... Let's

2:57

see, he's been punished by the

2:59

God of love. He had killed himself

3:01

in real, you know, in his

3:03

life and was punished by the

3:06

God of love for always loving

3:08

too much. And somehow his soul

3:10

was split into a male half,

3:12

which is him and a female

3:14

half, which is this woman, a

3:16

lissette that he, this other ghost

3:18

that he's pursuing. And so he

3:21

loves too much and she doesn't

3:23

love enough. And somehow, uh... on

3:25

the night that the story takes

3:27

place, he has basically this

3:29

one chance to convince her

3:32

to reunite with him or

3:34

they will both be wandering

3:36

as ghosts forever. Does that

3:38

sound right, Tom? Is that

3:40

basically what the story was

3:43

about? It is, but was, am

3:45

I correct in thinking that this

3:47

store at the end of the

3:49

story, they both kind of

3:52

become a unicorn together? So

3:55

I think what happens at the ends

3:57

is that the two, the man and

3:59

woman murk. They sort of merged

4:01

into one consciousness and then

4:03

the unicorn sacrifices itself to

4:05

save the woman and so the unicorn

4:08

dies and then the two of them

4:10

are reunited I think that's that's I

4:12

actually had a lot of trouble remembering

4:14

you know I read this story a

4:17

couple weeks ago and it just did

4:19

not stick in my mind at all.

4:21

Yeah I reread it yesterday or the

4:23

day before and it's already fading so

4:26

but that's that's that's how I remember

4:28

the ending anyway. They do merge,

4:30

but I thought that when they merged,

4:32

they became a unicorn and that that's

4:35

where unicorns come from. I

4:37

thought that was kind of the kicker

4:39

at the end of the story, but

4:41

I may have that completely wrong. But

4:43

yeah, I pretty much think your

4:45

synopsis is correct. It's just that

4:47

I at the end was unclear

4:49

on whether or not I could tell

4:52

they merged, but I was unclear on

4:54

whether or not that merging of this

4:56

person who loved too little. actually

4:58

created a unicorn and that

5:00

that's where unicorns come from.

5:03

So that's kind of what I walked

5:05

away with but I could have that

5:07

completely wrong. I don't recall that

5:09

personally but I don't know that's

5:11

an interesting thought but what did you

5:13

did you like the story or what

5:15

did you think of it just overall?

5:18

No I didn't love it. I thought

5:20

it I liked what I thought was

5:22

the ending, but I wanted a little

5:24

more from it. Like I was thinking,

5:26

well, now that they're a unicorn together,

5:29

it would be cool if their job

5:31

was to go back and rescue another

5:33

virgin and another guy who loved

5:35

too much or woman who loved too

5:37

much and man who loved too little

5:39

or something and put them on their

5:42

back. So it's a kind of circular and

5:44

then they go back and become

5:46

food for these. Demons Demons, but

5:48

I didn't the reason I didn't like love

5:50

it. I thought it was very poetic I

5:53

think most of his writing is very poetic

5:55

and I love that I think you know

5:57

Zalasny has that same quality of his writing

5:59

is so lyrical and so full

6:02

of poetry that it's just almost

6:04

hypnotic and just really fun

6:06

to be part of. But I guess the

6:08

thing I didn't like about it is

6:11

I didn't understand why not loving

6:13

enough would make you sort of

6:15

damned, like make you food for

6:17

some kind of weird glass demons,

6:19

which they weren't really explained really

6:22

well in my mind either. It

6:24

was, I think the best fiction,

6:27

there's like touchstones that Lock into

6:29

Like plug outlets in your mind

6:31

these things that are just ready

6:33

to receive fiction and I feel

6:35

like Weaker fiction just has these

6:37

sort of things that are

6:39

Fantasy elements, but you're not

6:42

really sure why and they don't see

6:44

really seem to fit anywhere and these

6:46

weird kind of glass demons. They

6:48

were very poetic, but I didn't

6:50

really get it. They didn't really

6:53

resonate with anything from my life

6:55

or yeah that I could tell. So

6:57

I think that's why I thought it

6:59

was. You took the words right out

7:01

of my mouth. I completely agree with

7:03

that. I didn't think this story was

7:05

very good. Like I said, I had

7:07

a lot of trouble just remembering it.

7:09

I mean, like you say, I mean,

7:11

if you were to just look at any

7:13

randomly selected page of this story,

7:16

you would think this is probably

7:18

a really good story, because the

7:20

level of craft with which it's

7:23

written is very high, you know,

7:25

you know, this great atmosphere, this

7:27

great mood to it, but just

7:30

the actual plot I didn't

7:32

think really worked basically

7:34

at all. And like you say,

7:36

it's just like almost the

7:38

entire story in terms of

7:40

the page count is just

7:42

sort of setting up this

7:44

kind of weird random

7:46

magical scenario. And

7:48

you never really understand like

7:50

why it did, you know. Yeah,

7:53

like you say, there's no, it doesn't

7:55

happen to any, at least that I

7:57

know of pre-existing mythos or anything, you

7:59

know. It's just like this world has

8:01

its own rules and they're all kind

8:04

of complicated and, you know, it takes

8:06

a long time to explain and it

8:08

doesn't pay off, you know, there's no

8:10

payoff really for all the time you

8:12

spent. Like why does this goes to

8:15

have a unicorn? That seems kind of

8:17

random. I mean, yeah, it's just, and

8:19

it's funny you mention Zelasny because this

8:21

really seems like maybe Harlan Ellison

8:23

trying to channel Zelasny. I

8:25

know, there's just something about the

8:28

voice that seemed very very. Very

8:30

Selasne-esque to me. Yeah, and the

8:32

unicorn and stuff but yeah It

8:34

just seems and like like we're

8:37

even sort of confused about

8:39

what happens at the ends because

8:41

yeah I just don't think it

8:44

really probably held either of our

8:46

interest Super tightly One interesting point

8:49

did you ever end up getting

8:51

the audio book or were you

8:53

still with the print book? No,

8:56

I still I still have the

8:58

print book. So yeah, so I'm

9:00

counting on you to

9:03

film me in on what the

9:05

the the intros said

9:07

in the in the audio book

9:09

So well You know there

9:11

there were there were intros

9:14

right in the in the

9:16

first half for all the

9:19

stories? So and it's almost

9:21

like we like right where

9:23

we chose to? break off last time,

9:25

that's where they stopped doing the intros.

9:27

Okay, well I'm glad I didn't buy

9:30

the audio, because I considered buying the

9:32

audio book, so I could listen to

9:34

the intro, so I'm glad I did

9:36

that. Okay, well there you go. But

9:38

what you did miss out on, I'm

9:40

being facetious because I don't think you missed

9:42

anything. There is this really bizarre

9:44

song called On the Downhill Side, that

9:46

the story ends, and then there's

9:49

this song that was clearly written

9:51

by Ellison and commissioned by him

9:53

with someone else singing it, And I

9:55

don't know if it was as a favor to him or it

9:57

was like a fan who did it and sent it to

9:59

him. liked it or it was paid

10:01

I don't know and it's kind of

10:03

interesting but it's like this it's really

10:06

goes on what way too long just

10:08

a super long song about like this

10:10

unicorn and this woman it has her

10:12

name from the story and it's like

10:14

just goes on and on and on

10:16

it's it's kind of written in this

10:18

some it kind of reminded me of

10:20

the music from Remember we did a

10:22

panel on the last we had the

10:25

last unicorn was one of that was

10:27

like animated fantasy from the 70s or

10:29

something like that? Yeah, one of my

10:31

favorite movies Yeah, but but that had

10:33

some kind of interesting like folk music

10:35

in it and this this song on

10:37

the downhill side was done in that

10:39

vein It sounded a lot like that,

10:41

but I just remember I was listening

10:44

to it going how much longer is

10:46

this going on? This is so bizarre.

10:48

All right. Well. I'm glad I missed

10:50

out on that but yeah, like just

10:52

the um You know, you're supposed to

10:54

be invested in the relationship between this

10:56

man and woman and I wasn't at

10:58

all. You know, they're very weirdly just

11:01

having their own conversations and not really,

11:03

you know, reacting to what each other

11:05

says and then, you know, the unicorn

11:07

makes this heroic sacrifice at the end,

11:09

but I didn't feel like I really

11:11

cared or got to know the, and

11:13

I think the unicorn had one line

11:15

of dialogue, if I'm remembering correctly, maybe

11:17

there were more, but it was just

11:20

not, yeah. It just didn't really work

11:22

for me this story. I don't want

11:24

to leave the way for the point.

11:26

Is there a, should we move on

11:28

or is there anything else you want

11:30

to say about on the downhill side?

11:32

Well one last thing is that even

11:34

when you're reading what I would say

11:36

was bad Harlan Ellison, it's just so

11:39

lyrical and poetic that it's still kind

11:41

of okay in a way. So that's

11:43

all I'll say about it. Yeah and

11:45

I did see online there. I saw

11:47

people who liked this story or you

11:49

know. listed it as an Ellison story

11:51

that they liked to remember. So, you

11:53

know, apparently there are some people who

11:56

like it more than we too, but

11:58

yeah, it wasn't definitely not one of

12:00

my favorites. Okay, so let's move on

12:02

to our next story, Paladin of the

12:04

Lost Hour. This is one

12:06

of Ellison's best known stories,

12:08

at least in this batch

12:10

of stories. And it was

12:12

adapted by him into an

12:14

episode of the Twilight Zone

12:16

revival from the 80s. And

12:18

so actually, there's kind of

12:20

an interesting story where he

12:22

was working on, I think, the

12:25

pros version and the screenplay version

12:27

at the same time. actually

12:29

published the prose version, if

12:31

you're curious, it was in

12:33

an anthology called Universe, do

12:35

I have it, Universe 15, edited

12:38

by Terry Carr. And then after

12:40

he submitted that, they went to

12:42

make it into the episode and

12:44

to the producers wanted him to

12:47

change the ending and he fought

12:49

with them for a week and

12:51

eventually decided that they were right. And

12:53

so he actually changed the ending of

12:55

the screenplay and then went back later

12:58

and changed the ending of the, you

13:00

know, the short story. But if you

13:02

go and look at universe 15, you

13:05

can read the original ending. And I'm

13:07

really sad. I didn't find this out

13:09

until, you know, yesterday. So I wasn't

13:11

able to track that down. But

13:13

that's kind of an interesting, interesting

13:16

bit about the composition of the

13:18

story. But so, oh, and oh,

13:20

okay. So the setup is, let's,

13:22

let's see. An elderly man in

13:24

a cemetery, you know, talking

13:26

to the tombstone of

13:29

his departed wife, dearly

13:31

departed wife, and he

13:33

gets attacked by some

13:35

young hooligans and a

13:37

Vietnam vet steps in

13:40

and rescues him, and

13:42

then they become friends

13:44

and roommates, and it

13:46

develops that the elderly man

13:49

has this. pocket watch which

13:51

contains sort of an extra

13:53

hour of time you know if you

13:56

activate the the pocket watch you can

13:58

get this extra hour of time. But

14:00

if you if the time in

14:02

the pocket watch runs out, then

14:05

the universe ends. So it's really

14:07

important not to let that happen.

14:09

And so this pocket watch has

14:11

been passed from from guardian

14:14

to guardian for centuries. And now

14:16

the elderly man wants to pass

14:18

it on to this to his

14:21

new friend. Is that right? Do

14:23

you anything we should add about

14:25

the plot before we? No, that sums

14:27

it up pretty well. Okay, so

14:29

what did you think of Paladin of

14:31

the Lost Hour? I absolutely love

14:33

this story. It may be my favorite

14:36

one from the from the collection looking

14:38

back on all of them. It's such

14:40

a cool concept about the guy who's

14:42

responsible for the last hour in the

14:45

world and keeping it from happening and

14:47

I loved how it tied in

14:49

with the Gregorian calendar and how you

14:51

know there was a whole chunk of

14:53

time that was just kind of adjusted

14:55

out of being and how this comes from

14:58

that. And it was really cool to put

15:00

him with this young kid who has

15:02

this tragedy from the Vietnam War

15:04

that he can't get over. Because I

15:06

thought those two characters together were

15:08

absolutely excellent. The way they interacted

15:10

and they were from different worlds,

15:12

but they kind of liked each

15:14

other and they sparked off each

15:16

other. They were very real to

15:19

me. And then the science fictional element

15:21

I thought fit into the story

15:23

really, really well. I'm sorry the

15:25

fantasy element. This could totally happen

15:28

Tom. Yeah, that's definitely hard science

15:30

fiction. And I think that, you

15:32

know, the one drawback I think

15:34

to the story is that I

15:37

think the Vietnam tragedy was

15:39

introduced a little bit late that

15:41

it should have been hinted at earlier,

15:43

but maybe it was and I missed it.

15:45

But other than that, it's such such a

15:47

tiny, you know, detail. Other than that,

15:50

this was a really great story. It's

15:52

really fun to read. It was super

15:54

exciting, it was touching, it was

15:56

heartfelt, and the payoff at the

15:58

end was extremely satisfied. And the

16:00

Twilight Zone episode was really well

16:02

done as well. I'm not, I didn't

16:05

realize that he had, he wrote them

16:07

both together, but it makes a lot

16:09

of sense because they, they just both

16:11

work really well. They were both cast,

16:13

both characters were cast very well. I

16:15

really liked Danny Kay in that role.

16:17

I don't know who the other act,

16:19

I don't know his name, but he

16:21

did a fantastic job as

16:23

well. And yeah, that's interesting though

16:26

that they, uh, that they had him, they asked

16:28

him to change the ending and then he

16:30

did it. Do you know what the what

16:32

the original ending was? I know you

16:34

have, you didn't have time to read

16:36

it, but you know what happened? No,

16:38

I couldn't find, I looked around, I

16:41

couldn't find anyone who, you know,

16:43

said specifically what the original ending

16:45

was, so I'm not sure. Unfortunately,

16:48

I'd be very curious to

16:50

find out. I mean, I agree with you,

16:52

I mean, this is definitely one of the

16:54

best stories in this batch. Ellison said it

16:56

was one of the most important stories of

16:58

his career. And I agree with you that

17:01

I love the idea of the pocket watch

17:03

with this extra hour on it. I think

17:05

there's something really poignant about that idea that,

17:08

you know, that in your daily life, you

17:10

just might waste an hour doing nothing, you

17:12

know, you know, scrolling through your phone

17:14

or like, whatever. But then at the

17:16

moment. of your death that if you

17:18

could live an extra hour at that

17:20

point, that that, you know, like

17:23

how much would that mean to you?

17:25

And how tempting would that be at

17:27

that, you know, at that moment? So

17:29

I really, I really like that idea.

17:31

And I really loved these two characters.

17:34

I agree with you that they were

17:36

both really well drawn the, and

17:38

I totally felt and believed the elderly

17:40

man's love for his wife and

17:42

the part where... we find out.

17:44

So basically the Vietnam vet what

17:46

happened was that he was sort

17:49

of pinned down and thought he

17:51

was going to die and then

17:53

some other soldier sacrificed his life

17:55

for him and he's been haunted

17:57

by survivors guilt ever since and

17:59

his you know, rented an apartment

18:01

near the cemetery where this fellow soldier

18:03

is buried so that he can visit

18:06

the grave and he's just kind of

18:08

like, you know, been destroyed by this

18:10

guilt. And it's really, really moving, that

18:13

part of the story where you get

18:15

that kind of, you know, flashback or

18:17

backstory. So all that I thought was

18:20

really, really, really, really, well done. I

18:22

had some problems with the ending, I

18:24

guess. Like the logic of it didn't

18:27

100% make sense to me. I mean,

18:29

I think it's good. But I definitely

18:31

had some quibbles about it. So like,

18:34

I thought the idea of having this

18:36

extra time was really, like I said,

18:38

really compelling. But then it turns out

18:41

that when you use this extra time,

18:43

you can also talk to the dead.

18:45

And so really, it doesn't become so

18:47

much about time so much as just

18:50

communicating with the dead. And I thought

18:52

that, you know, they could have just

18:54

had something that allows you to communicate

18:57

with the dead and the plot would

18:59

have been the same. And so maybe

19:01

that should have just been established a

19:04

little sooner because it felt a little

19:06

like random to me when toward the

19:08

end you find out, oh, in this

19:11

extra time you can also talk to

19:13

the dead, they come back and you

19:15

can talk to them. And then there's

19:18

this moment where... The elderly man says,

19:20

I'm going to entrust this pocket watch

19:22

to you. And all I ask is

19:25

that you give me one minute out

19:27

of the hour that there remains to

19:29

communicate with my dead wife. And the

19:31

Vietnam vet says, no, you know that

19:34

would be wrong. And the elderly man

19:36

says, OK, that was the last test.

19:38

You passed the test. But now I'm

19:41

going to give you a minute for

19:43

you to talk to the person you

19:45

want to talk to. And it just

19:48

seems so weird. I was like, wait,

19:50

what? I thought we just established that

19:52

this would be wrong, but we're going

19:55

to do it anyway. Like, am I

19:57

crazy? Like, it seems so weird. No,

19:59

I can see that, but I thought

20:02

emotionally it worked for me because it

20:04

did bother me because I was thinking,

20:06

like when he first says all I

20:09

ask is that I have one minute

20:11

and I was thinking, no, no, that's

20:13

absolutely wrong. And then the way the

20:15

guy, the Vietnam vet, it just like,

20:18

rips out, he doesn't even think about

20:20

it, it just like, rips out of

20:22

him. He's like, no, he just like

20:25

hears himself say it almost. And he's

20:27

kind of surprised. He's like, oh, why.

20:29

Why would I not allow this? But

20:32

he's like, but he realizes like he

20:34

can't allow it. You can't just, of

20:36

course, you can't just say, we're gonna

20:39

give 160th of, you know, doomsday, we're

20:41

gonna, we're gonna give to some guy,

20:43

because if everybody along the chain of

20:46

people who's owned the pocket watch, all

20:48

the different paladins of the Lost Hour,

20:50

because it's not like this paladin is

20:53

like immortal, he's not. He's a guy

20:55

who had it past to him. the

20:57

person before him had it passed to

20:59

him and now he's passing it to

21:02

someone else. So if everybody decided to

21:04

take a minute, you know, who because

21:06

they feel like they really deserve it

21:09

and somebody's really important to them, then

21:11

after 60 generations, the world would end.

21:13

And you don't want that. So you

21:16

don't want that. So you can't want

21:18

that. So you can't do that. So

21:20

you can't do that. But then when

21:23

he said, oh, now I'm going to

21:25

give it to you. But then going

21:27

forward from there, it was incredibly satisfying

21:30

to me that he was able to

21:32

talk to the soldier who gave up

21:34

his life for him and say, you

21:37

know, he always wanted to tell him,

21:39

you know, I'm sorry, like, thank you,

21:41

thank you for giving up your life

21:44

to me. That was, you didn't have

21:46

to do that, you didn't know me,

21:48

I don't know you, you gave your

21:50

life to me. And then, but in

21:53

retrospect, it's, he finds out. No, that

21:55

this this soldier actually didn't even know

21:57

he was there and he the soldier

22:00

thanks to the Vietnam vet and says,

22:02

no, thank you for letting me

22:04

not have to die in vain. That I

22:06

thought, you know, all this time I thought

22:09

I died in vain, but now I know

22:11

I didn't. I saved somebody's life through

22:13

it. And it was really worthwhile

22:15

life to save. So I thought

22:17

that was super satisfying. And you're

22:19

right, there was kind of like a

22:22

disconnect there for a minute where I

22:24

had to go, all right, I don't

22:26

really like this, that he's giving him

22:29

a minute. Yeah, like I

22:31

said, I mean, it works really

22:33

well emotionally, like intellectually, I had some, like

22:35

I said, some niggling problems with it.

22:37

But, but you know, I mean, I think,

22:39

so I think it maybe could have been

22:42

tweaked, but it's, it's totally fine the way

22:44

it is. I mean, and I do wonder

22:46

maybe, I don't know if the original ending

22:48

had something to do with that, if, you

22:50

know, the original ending, what he refuses to,

22:52

what he refuses to, Use the watch and

22:55

then they're like no they they

22:57

have to use the watch and

22:59

Ellison resisted that for a long

23:01

time and Ultimately decided to go

23:03

in that direction. I don't know

23:05

that's just speculation, but But yeah,

23:07

I mean definitely one of the better

23:09

stories like I said in this batch

23:11

And again just like great premise that

23:14

I Yeah, I thought was just really

23:16

memorable. It's actually interesting with the

23:18

TV adaptation because Ellison, there's

23:20

an essay you can find

23:22

online, I guess I should

23:24

have sent it to you, where Ellison

23:27

talks about this, you know, his

23:29

writing process, and he said that

23:31

he had a couple of actors

23:33

in mind for the elderly man,

23:35

and he felt like Danny

23:37

Kay ruins the episode through

23:39

his performance. I thought it was

23:42

good, personally. I mean, I have

23:44

less invested in it than Ellison

23:47

did emotionally, but, uh... I really

23:49

liked Dandy Kay, but yeah, just

23:51

for the record, Ellison didn't. And

23:54

you'll notice that the

23:56

episode is directed by, what

23:58

is the name, is it? Alan Smithy,

24:00

there's this name that directors use in

24:02

Hollywood if they want to disavow their

24:05

work. And so, yeah, so I guess

24:07

the director, you know, wasn't happy with

24:09

how it turned out and Ellison wasn't

24:11

happy with, I think it was something

24:13

like the studio, it was a big

24:15

deal at the time to get Danny

24:18

Kay, he had gone, he had retired

24:20

and they brought him out of retirement

24:22

to be in this episode and so

24:24

the, the studio really wanted him, but,

24:26

you know. the director and the writer

24:28

did and so you know I think

24:31

I think that's maybe where all that

24:33

comes from but I liked him personally.

24:35

I thought he was great and I

24:37

wouldn't necessarily trust Ellison as a casting

24:39

director. There's a there's an intro at

24:41

the beginning of the audio book and

24:44

I don't know if it's in the

24:46

regular book as well but there's an

24:48

intro by Neil Gaiman where he talks

24:50

about Ellison reading his own material and

24:52

how he would put on all these

24:54

fantastic accents and It was really funny

24:56

and entertaining, but then again you listen

24:59

to him and you're like, why is

25:01

he choosing to make this character sound

25:03

like Ethel Merman or something? It's really

25:05

distracting. And it doesn't fit the story,

25:07

but that's Ellison. He just kind of

25:09

would do it. He would do the

25:12

voices because he knew how to do

25:14

the voices and he wanted people to

25:16

hear the different impressions he could do,

25:18

so he would just like throw him

25:20

in there and they wouldn't necessarily fit.

25:22

of the anthology of the collection rather

25:25

and then listening to him read the

25:27

stories I 100% agree there are times

25:29

when he reads them amazingly well and

25:31

there are times when you're thinking I

25:33

don't think that's the way you should

25:35

read that and I understand you're the

25:38

one who wrote this but I feel

25:40

like some some of the stories are

25:42

better when there's somebody else reading the

25:44

story somebody who has a different interpretation

25:46

of it and I feel like maybe

25:48

him not liking Danny Kay I wouldn't

25:51

necessarily say, well, then absolutely it shouldn't

25:53

be Danny Kay, because... Because there were

25:55

a lot of choices he made with

25:57

his reading that I didn't agree with.

25:59

Okay, well, yeah, that makes me interested

26:01

to listen to his performance of this

26:04

story. But yeah. Did you, by the

26:06

way, did you happen to, have you

26:08

ever seen the movie, what's the name

26:10

of the movie about the Himalayas that

26:12

he mentions that Lost Horizon? Have you

26:14

ever seen that? I've never seen it,

26:17

no. So I went down a, I

26:19

won't, I'll try not to waste too

26:21

much time on this, but I went

26:23

down a rabbit hole because he talked

26:25

about in the story, he talks about

26:27

Lost Horizon and about the idea of

26:30

the, of the, was this in the

26:32

story or was this from an introduction?

26:34

No, the two characters talk about like,

26:36

you know, the elderly man says, did

26:38

you ever see this movie Lost Horizon

26:40

and the other guy says no? And

26:43

he says, well, I'm like the monk

26:45

who whatever in that story. Right, and

26:47

I thought that was cool and I

26:49

wondered, I couldn't help wondering if maybe

26:51

he got the idea from the story

26:53

by watching that movie and thinking that's

26:56

really cool that there's this person who's

26:58

going to pass on this magical item,

27:00

the care of this magical item to

27:02

someone who he deems worthy. And so

27:04

I went and watched that and I

27:06

watched the wrong version of it. There's

27:09

a version of it from the 70s,

27:11

which is a musical, which is horrible.

27:13

It's not horrible, but if you could

27:15

cut out all the music, it would

27:17

be. semi-decent movie, but it's like a

27:19

three-hour movie and the music every time

27:21

they start singing you just can't help

27:24

thinking of King Vorgern from Holy Montyprong.

27:26

No, stop singing. But the reason I

27:28

mention it is because then there is

27:30

the Frank Capra version, which he's the

27:32

guy who directed wrote and directed, it's

27:34

a wonderful life that's, you know, hugely

27:37

popular around Christmas time. And I happen

27:39

to see a... a Dick Cavett appearance

27:41

from Frank Capra where he says that

27:43

he actually threw away the first two

27:45

reels of that movie because they had

27:47

a screening of the movie and everybody

27:50

was like, this is movies. terrible.

27:52

And so the

27:54

studio was going to

27:56

like can the

27:58

movie. And he said,

28:00

no, let me

28:03

do another screening. And

28:05

he burned, literally burned

28:07

because it was nitrile film and it goes

28:09

up like an explosion. He burned the

28:11

first two reels of his movie, which is,

28:13

you know, 60 % of the movie is

28:15

gone. And then he put

28:17

the main title on the beginning

28:19

of real three and showed it as a

28:21

movie. And everybody loved it. And

28:24

so the movie lost her eyes and starts in the

28:26

middle. The reason I mentioned this is not to

28:28

get off on a diatribe about Frank Capra and Lost

28:30

Horizon, but to say that I think sometimes

28:33

an author

28:35

or an auteur like Ellison,

28:37

who's clearly a genius

28:39

loses empathy for his audience because he's

28:42

playing so hard in his genius and

28:44

not in this story, but in

28:46

another story we'll talk about in a

28:48

minute. Sometimes he gets so wrapped

28:50

up in his own genius and what

28:52

he can do that as Jeff

28:54

Goldblum says in Jurassic Park, he didn't

28:56

stop and think about whether he

28:58

should. And sometimes I think maybe if

29:00

somebody had come up to him

29:02

and said you need to burn 60

29:05

% of this story,

29:07

then you would wind up with

29:09

a with a more enjoyable story. But

29:12

you didn't actually watch the Lost

29:14

Horizon, the Capra Lost Horizon, you

29:16

just saw an interview with him,

29:18

or did you actually watch the

29:20

action movie? I watched the first

29:22

half of it, but it was

29:24

a version on YouTube that had

29:26

this bizarre, like superimposed 747 over the

29:28

middle of it and was like this trapezoid

29:30

like it was, they had forced it

29:32

in the screen. So it was really

29:34

weird. So I watched half of it

29:36

and it was exactly the same plot

29:38

and script as the 70s movie, except

29:41

without the music. So I

29:43

didn't feel like I needed to keep watching it.

29:45

I was like, yeah, this is the same movie.

29:47

I get it. Okay. All

29:49

right. But yeah, so Pound of the

29:51

Lost Hour is super cool. Anything else? Any

29:53

final thoughts about that before we move

29:55

on to the next story? No,

29:58

I just I just love the story. I think

30:00

that this volume is, this story

30:02

makes the collection worth the price

30:04

of admission. Oh, cool. As a

30:07

podcast network, our first priority

30:09

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30:11

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30:13

you. But at Realm, we also

30:16

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Shopify.com/ realm. All right, so

31:26

next story is called The

31:28

Beast That Shouted Love at

31:30

the Heart of the World. And

31:32

so in this, this story is

31:35

a little hard to summarize, but

31:37

so we start out and

31:39

there's this human being who

31:42

commits all these horrible crimes.

31:44

And as he's being sentenced

31:46

to death, he starts shouting about

31:49

how he loves. loves the whole

31:51

world, well he loves everybody. And

31:53

then we jump ahead like thousands

31:55

of years I think to some

31:57

human explorers in the far future

31:59

discovering it. giant statue of this

32:01

murderer on an alien planet.

32:04

And then we jump somewhere

32:06

in time and space to

32:08

this super advanced alien civilization

32:11

where there are these two

32:13

aliens who have this debate

32:15

about whether they've captured

32:17

this like evil seven-headed

32:20

dragon dog monster kind of

32:22

thing somehow. and they have

32:24

some some sort of process

32:26

to like suck it suck

32:28

the evil out of it

32:31

and transmit it out throughout

32:33

time and space and they

32:35

have a debate about the

32:37

ethics of doing that. And I

32:39

think it's fairly clear

32:42

that the them transmitting

32:44

this evil out throughout

32:46

time and space manifests

32:49

itself in one instance

32:51

as this. murderer, you know, that

32:53

he would have been a nice

32:55

loving person otherwise, but because of

32:58

the malign influence of this alien

33:00

experiment, he becomes this horrible person.

33:02

What do you think about that? What

33:04

do you think about that? What do

33:06

you think, Tom, about that? First of

33:08

all, that plot summary. Does that sound

33:10

right? Anything you want to add to

33:12

that? No, I'd say that sounds right. Okay.

33:14

So what did you think of the

33:16

story? So I was reminded of, remember

33:19

when we were at Clarion, and we

33:21

made a T. kind of slams that

33:23

we had for other people's fiction on

33:25

the back of the t-shirt. There was

33:27

like 10 of them. Yeah, I remember

33:30

like half of them were mine. That

33:32

sticks out in my mind. That doesn't

33:34

surprise me because you have a good

33:37

way of slamming a story in a

33:39

funny way. But there was one and

33:41

this story made me think of it.

33:43

There's a fire in your mind, but

33:45

all I can see is the smoke

33:47

coming out of your ears. And I think

33:49

that was from John. I can't think of

33:52

his last name. I could picture him, but

33:54

I can't think of his last name. Was

33:56

Guy named John Sullivan? Sullivan? Yes.

33:58

Thank you. Yeah, John Sullivan. and I

34:00

feel like if I were smarter I would

34:02

enjoy the story more and I feel like

34:05

that's the case with John Glasses yeah yeah

34:07

I think that was John Sullivan maybe but

34:09

anyway that's what this story made me

34:11

think of that and I don't like

34:14

it when there's a story that I

34:16

consider myself fairly intelligent but I don't

34:18

like stories where I feel like if

34:20

I were smarter I would enjoy the story

34:22

more and I feel like that's the

34:25

case with this like there's some genius

34:27

here but The writer is like, well,

34:29

if you're not smart enough to follow

34:31

me through my genius, then you're just

34:34

going to have to not enjoy it.

34:36

And I, that's kind of how I

34:38

felt about this story. I felt like

34:40

it was obviously brilliant, and it

34:43

just wasn't really enjoyable. It

34:45

was just really brilliant,

34:47

and it just wasn't really enjoyable. It

34:49

was just kind of like, like you

34:52

said, the plot is so hard to

34:54

follow that kind of thing when I

34:56

was younger. I don't for whatever reason

34:58

have patience for it anymore, but I

35:00

used to love like, oh, I think

35:03

what he's trying to say here is,

35:05

you know, this, I used to love

35:07

that kind of feeling of like mystery,

35:09

trying to figure out what was happening,

35:11

and I just don't dig it anymore. So

35:13

I didn't really like this story

35:16

very much. Yeah, I definitely found

35:18

this frustrating on a first read

35:20

that it was just more obscure than

35:22

it sort of point it was

35:24

really obscure. Just the just the basic

35:26

plot. And I think that on a second

35:29

read, I liked it a lot

35:31

more. I think it's a really

35:33

cool, like everything I just described,

35:35

I think is a really cool

35:37

idea. I think this idea of

35:39

this alien civilization, you know, that

35:42

evil is this sort of palpable

35:44

physical presence, sort of reminds me

35:46

of them, the fifth element, you

35:48

know, but that you could like

35:50

suck it out of somebody and

35:52

put it somewhere else. And it

35:54

kind of brings up all these

35:56

interesting. It's sort of an interesting

35:58

ethical dilemma, you know. like to what

36:01

degree are you justified in keeping

36:03

your, you know, your country or

36:05

your family or whatever, safe

36:07

by passing costs onto other

36:10

communities, you know, all that

36:12

stuff I think is really interesting.

36:14

But yeah, I definitely

36:16

think it could have, and this is

36:18

sort of a new, new wave, you

36:20

know, kind of this story was from

36:23

1969, sort of a new wave

36:25

thing to try to be very

36:27

artsy and literary and oblique. Ellison

36:29

said that he wanted the structure

36:31

of the story to be like

36:33

the spokes of a wheel where

36:36

you know rather than a lion

36:38

where things sort of connect ultimately

36:40

which is true did you want to

36:42

say something Tom? No no it's really

36:44

interesting. So like yeah like

36:46

like I said I mean when I reread

36:49

it I thought this is kind of cool

36:51

I mean and the ideas are really cool

36:53

but um I definitely think it

36:55

could have been clearer on a

36:57

first read. And I also felt

36:59

like the character, so I mean

37:01

sort of this, what happens in

37:03

the plot basically is that one

37:05

of the characters tries to sabotage

37:08

this process and then it

37:10

gets put on trial and

37:12

executed by his super advanced

37:14

alien civilization and then he

37:16

asks that a statue. you know,

37:18

that his life be commemorated by

37:20

them building a statue to one

37:23

of the victims basically, which is

37:25

how this statue of this murderer

37:27

from Earth ends up being built.

37:29

And so, so basically it's a

37:31

story about this person, this alien

37:33

sacrificing himself. But I felt like

37:35

we didn't really get to know

37:37

the aliens well enough for that

37:40

sacrifice to land with as much emotional

37:42

for us as it could have. So

37:44

like these two characters, Lena and semf,

37:46

I think. We could have spent a little

37:48

more time, like are they friends or are

37:51

they lovers? Like what have they, how long

37:53

have they known each other? Like I just

37:55

think there needed to be, those characters needed

37:57

to be fleshed out a little bit more for

37:59

the. for the sacrifice at the ends

38:01

to really land. One interesting thing about

38:04

this story is that I'm not really

38:06

familiar with this, but there's a very

38:08

popular anime series called Neon Genesis Evangelion.

38:11

And it was apparently inspired by this

38:13

story. And one of the episodes is

38:15

called The Beast That Shouted Love at

38:18

the Heart of the World. So it's

38:20

very overt, you know, a very overt

38:22

nod to this story. Did that happen

38:24

while Ellison was alive and did he

38:27

know about it? Well, I assume not

38:29

because he would have sued them, right?

38:31

Right. That's what I was thinking. I

38:34

don't know. I mean, I think it

38:36

came out in the 80s or something.

38:38

I mean, I think it's, you know,

38:40

so it would have been definitely while

38:43

he was alive. I don't, that actually

38:45

never occurred to be like, why did

38:47

he not sue them? But I wonder

38:50

if they, I wonder if they paid

38:52

him, maybe they paid him. Maybe they

38:54

paid him. Yeah, maybe they paid him.

38:57

Yeah. watch anime and never heard about

38:59

her. I don't know. It's funny, that's

39:01

funny, you bring that up, I don't

39:03

know. It's a missed lawsuit right there.

39:06

Well, but you make me think that,

39:08

that's part of the problem with listening

39:10

to an audio instead of reading is

39:13

when you're reading. Oh God, I can't

39:15

even imagine trying to understand this on

39:17

audio. Yeah. Yeah, that's the, that's the,

39:19

when you're, yeah, exactly. That made, that

39:22

made it harder. That made, that made

39:24

it harder. go back a few paragraphs

39:26

and start again until you get it

39:29

and then you keep going. Whereas an

39:31

audio book it's just like it's like

39:33

a freight train you're going you're going

39:35

along for the ride and you're not

39:38

you mean you can rewind but then

39:40

however many times you rewind you're just

39:42

there's still a steam roller going on

39:45

you don't have time to pause and

39:47

like consider and reread a sentence two

39:49

or three times and then read the

39:52

next paragraph twice or it doesn't work

39:54

that way so you're making me think

39:56

I should. I should probably not default

39:58

to audio books like this, despite the

40:01

fact that I don't have a lot

40:03

of time. in my life right now?

40:05

Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely I

40:08

would read this story in print rather

40:10

than listening to the audio. And I

40:12

actually, I thought it, like I ended

40:14

up thinking it was kind of cool.

40:17

But it is definitely a story you

40:19

have to read. Just no going in,

40:21

it's a story. You really have to

40:24

read twice to really get a solid

40:26

handle on what's going on. So if

40:28

you're not interested in reading it twice,

40:31

you know, maybe give it a pass.

40:33

Okay, any final thoughts on that or

40:35

should we move on? No, let's move

40:37

on. Okay, next story is called, I'm

40:40

looking for Cadac, Cadac, I'm not sure

40:42

I'd pronounce that. So Ellison wrote this

40:44

story for an anthology called Wandering Stars,

40:47

edited by Jack Dan, which was an

40:49

anthology of Jewish science fiction stories. And

40:51

so this story, it's set on an

40:53

alien planet where at some point in

40:56

the past, I guess, like... humans, you

40:58

know, like Jewish humans had come to

41:00

this planet and the the alien the

41:03

native alien population had like converted to

41:05

Judaism or something and so it's so

41:07

you have this group of aliens who

41:09

are all super Jewish and talk like

41:12

kind of like stereotypical Jewish like, you

41:14

know, like, like, like, Brooklyn Jews with

41:16

who use a lot of Yiddish and

41:19

stuff like that. So, so Tom, what

41:21

did you think of this story? You

41:23

liked it? You thought it was fun?

41:26

Yeah, okay. I was just checking to

41:28

see if you... How well I know

41:30

you? Yeah, exactly. So I thought this

41:32

was possibly the best 3,000-word story. Funny

41:35

story I've read in a long time,

41:37

except the problem is that it's 9,000

41:39

words. Man, you're just like the words

41:42

right out of my mouth again, okay.

41:44

So I thought the premise is absolutely

41:46

hilarious. I was laughing out loud when

41:48

I figured out, when I understood what

41:51

was happening, that this was actually an

41:53

alien talk. because at first you getting

41:55

the edition I was going okay this

41:58

is fun and then when I realized

42:00

it's like this blue alien with like

42:02

multiple like several arms and like I

42:05

just busted out laughing and I pictured

42:07

Mike Resnick you know my mentor sort

42:09

of also kind of a mentor to

42:11

you two our clarion teacher I pictured

42:14

him absolutely loving this story I remember

42:16

him telling he had a story about

42:18

where they they talked about like the

42:21

one of the lost tribe of Israel

42:23

winding up somehow in in the American

42:25

West and didn't he have us I

42:27

could be completely misremembering this but I

42:30

think it was I don't remember if

42:32

it was the American West or if

42:34

it was like Africa or something but

42:37

he definitely had a story where there's

42:39

these people who you wouldn't think of

42:41

as being Jewish talking Like like this

42:43

character in the story does and I

42:46

don't he might have even written it

42:48

for the same anthology I don't know

42:50

but well I thought there's probably where

42:53

multiple stories he wrote because the Africa

42:55

one sounds like it would totally I

42:57

mean he loved Africa right and he

43:00

traveled there a bunch and his nickname

43:02

was Buanna and But uh, but he

43:04

also there was one and I'm pretty

43:06

sure this was him where Tonto the

43:09

loan was yiddish and he was from

43:11

like the lost try and it was

43:13

like just a a slapstick funny story,

43:16

but, and I can't remember if like,

43:18

it ends up like Kimosabi means asshole

43:20

and Jewish in Yiddish or something like

43:22

that, or if that comes from a

43:25

different story, but I, but I, I

43:27

swear he wrote a story like that.

43:29

No, yeah, I think you're right. Yeah,

43:32

now I remember this now. Yeah. So,

43:34

so I don't know. So I've pictured

43:36

him loving this story, and I also

43:39

picture him saying, as an editor, I

43:41

can't buy it unless you. It really

43:43

struck me when Frank Capra said he

43:45

burned the first two reels of his

43:48

of his you know his magnum opus

43:50

and then put out the third real

43:52

is a movie that everybody loved. I

43:55

was thinking if you cut out the

43:57

middle 60% of this story, nobody would

43:59

notice and everybody would love it. And

44:01

I still love the story. I mean,

44:04

it's funny all the way through. It's

44:06

hilarious. The whole thing is so funny.

44:08

The whole concept is funny. The whole

44:11

concept is funny. It's done really well.

44:13

The Yiddish in it is just absolutely

44:15

delightful. The guy who read it in

44:18

the audio book, it was not Harlan

44:20

Ellison. They hired an actor to do

44:22

this one or an audio book reader.

44:24

But this guy had a command, a

44:27

superb command of how you pronounce all

44:29

this all this Yiddish. and it made

44:31

it so funny. But at some point,

44:34

I had this picture in my head

44:36

of Steve Rogers from Captain America at

44:38

the beginning of the the titular movie

44:40

when he's getting beat up and he

44:43

tells the guy I can do this

44:45

all day. And then that becomes a

44:47

running joke in the movies, but I

44:50

just picture Harlan Ellison just being like,

44:52

I can do this all day. And

44:54

I picture me in the room with

44:56

him saying, No, I get it. I

44:59

know you can do this all day,

45:01

but I don't think you should. I

45:03

think you should, you know, have, he

45:06

had a plot, right? He had a,

45:08

he had a place he was going

45:10

with the story. The story winds up

45:13

somewhere, but it starts out somewhere. Let's

45:15

just, let's just say what, the plot

45:17

is basically that this, um, alien planet

45:19

is, is slated to be destroyed to

45:22

make way for a hyperspace or something

45:24

like that, like Douglas Adams style. And

45:26

so everybody has left. But this population

45:29

of Jewish aliens, for some reason there's

45:31

some like Jewish ritual they want to

45:33

perform before they leave, or they can't

45:35

leave unless they've performed this ritual. City

45:38

Chiva. And they need 10 like Jews

45:40

to perform this ritual and they only

45:42

have nine. So they have to go

45:45

searching for this this alien, this one

45:47

of them who nobody liked, who's left

45:49

along, who left the community a while

45:52

back. And it turns out to be

45:54

some like sort of religious seeker who

45:56

has like migrated from religious community to

45:58

religious community like underlying everyone ever and

46:01

getting kicked out everywhere he goes. Okay,

46:03

sorry, so, so, so, so, so

46:05

sorry, sorry, Tom, continue. Yeah, so,

46:07

so, yeah, I mean, it goes somewhere, right?

46:10

At the end, you finally

46:12

figure out, because of his

46:14

alienness, he's, they're able to

46:17

solve the problem of who's

46:19

gonna sit chiva for this,

46:21

for this dead alien. And

46:23

it's funny, like, and it's

46:25

satisfying, but it doesn't need to

46:28

go on the middle. you know, 6,000

46:30

words is just not really necessary

46:32

and if I may, it winds

46:34

up being kind of fakakata. Well,

46:36

no, because I started this and

46:39

I saw what the basic premise

46:41

was, that it's this basically

46:43

one joke story about isn't it funny to

46:45

have an alien who speaks Yiddish? And I

46:48

was like, there's, and I saw that the,

46:50

story was like 25 pages long or something

46:52

like that and I was like there's no

46:54

way that this is not going to wear

46:57

out it's this this one joke is not

46:59

going to wear out its welcome you know

47:01

but then after like 10 pages I was

47:03

like wow it still hasn't worn out its

47:05

welcome I'm still laughing you know but then

47:08

we got to like 15 20 pages and

47:10

I was like okay it is definitely worn

47:12

out it's welcome now like I'm you know I'm

47:14

ready for this story to be over so yeah

47:16

I totally agree with you that this should have

47:19

been one- Especially getting into

47:21

the second half of this book,

47:23

you start to see Harlan

47:25

Ellison's Achilles heel of just

47:27

being really impressed with himself,

47:30

start to cause more and

47:32

more problems for my enjoyment

47:34

of some of these stories.

47:37

Because yeah, I definitely agree with

47:39

you that the story is

47:41

not, you know, not as, you know, funny

47:43

as he thinks it is. It's

47:45

pretty funny, but like it's not

47:47

9,000 words long funny. But yeah,

47:49

so I think we're in total

47:51

agreement about this. I wonder if

47:53

I wonder if the anthology was

47:55

if he had a kind of

47:57

like a word count assignment like

47:59

if. told him like it's got to be

48:01

9,000 words and so or 25 pages or

48:04

whatever it is and so he went well

48:06

I just got a I got to fill

48:08

the form here I don't know I I've

48:10

never heard of an anthology telling an author

48:12

it has to be that long you know

48:14

so I don't know if that would have

48:17

I mean I sort of imagined that he

48:19

just had a like a list of Yiddish

48:21

words and he's like I'm gonna write a

48:23

story where I use every single one of

48:26

these or something like that you know Yeah,

48:28

that makes more sense. Yeah. But so yeah,

48:30

I mean, if you, if the idea of an

48:32

alien who speaks Yiddish, you know, is

48:34

up your alley, you know, maybe you

48:36

would want to check out this story.

48:39

But yeah, I think for most people

48:41

it's going to try your patience before

48:43

you get to the end. Yeah. But

48:45

there's no, there's no question that

48:48

Harlan Ellison knows a lot of

48:50

Yiddicians, you know, and the ending

48:52

of the story is pretty clever.

48:54

I thought, well that to my

48:56

mind you just hit something that

48:58

I that I love and hate

49:01

about him and I think he

49:03

just has this absolutely encyclopedic

49:05

command of the

49:08

English language where

49:10

he almost like Oxford English

49:12

dictionaryic command

49:15

of the English language he

49:17

just knows every. Mojest,

49:19

every right word for everything and

49:21

he can describe everything in detail

49:23

and he never will let anything

49:25

be used furniture. You know, instead

49:27

of saying, man-eating tiger, he's

49:30

gonna say a man eating sumatra

49:32

and black panther, he's always gonna

49:34

have like a twist. He's never

49:36

gonna let anything be used furniture.

49:38

Nothing is taken as rote. He's gonna

49:40

twist everything on its head all the

49:42

time and it's fascinating to watch him

49:44

do it's like watching a skilled.

49:47

gymnast going through a routine, but at

49:49

the same time it's like after a while you're

49:51

thinking okay but you know my butt's starting

49:53

to hurt can you get to the point here

49:55

or can you can you move it along a

49:57

little bit get kind of get the story going.

50:00

Yeah, after a while he wears

50:02

you out. Yeah, yeah. All right, so let's

50:04

move on to the next

50:06

story. This one is called

50:08

How Interesting a Tiny Man.

50:11

This story is noteworthy for

50:13

being published in 2010, which

50:15

is 15 years later than

50:18

the second newest story in

50:20

this book. So Ellison was,

50:22

you know. I think sort of

50:24

semi-retired or like, you know, sort of

50:26

on the outs in publishing and was

50:28

maybe just publishing like chatbooks and stuff

50:30

like that. But he published this story

50:32

in realms of fantasy. I remember when

50:34

it came out, I remember when it

50:36

came out, I remember when it came

50:38

out, I was really excited to see

50:40

a new Harle and Allison story. And

50:43

at that time I thought it was,

50:45

I was like, I was like, yeah,

50:47

this is just okay, you know, it's

50:49

nothing special. You know, it's nothing special.

50:51

But I actually liked it

50:53

more. uh... rereading it for

50:55

this but um... but so

50:57

the premise is that there's

50:59

uh... a first-person narrator who

51:01

describes creating a tiny man

51:03

uh... who's you know like

51:06

a whatever six-inch-tall man

51:08

or something and uh... the

51:10

wider society just has

51:12

nothing but this irrational

51:14

hatred for this this little

51:16

man he's created any kind

51:19

of uh... well and the narrator

51:21

I should say goes on the

51:23

run with the Tiny Man, but

51:25

they eventually get captured.

51:28

And then there's sort

51:30

of two endings to

51:32

the story, and one

51:34

in which the first-person

51:36

narrator is revealed to

51:38

be female, and the other

51:41

ending in which the Tiny

51:43

Man somehow is revealed to

51:45

be God, or have God-like

51:47

powers or something. So Tom,

51:49

what you think of the story?

51:52

Right any notes on this one for

51:54

some reason and I and it has

51:56

faded quite a bit in my memory

51:58

since I read it but What I

52:00

remember thinking as I was reading it

52:02

was, I thought at first that it

52:05

was kind of a critique on the

52:07

state of science fiction and fantasy

52:09

at the time, that he was

52:12

just, he almost, I could hear

52:14

Tim Powers' voice through the whole

52:16

thing from, again, from our clarion

52:19

experience, almost like he was

52:21

saying, oh, this is just a story

52:23

where it's like, oh look, how interesting,

52:25

a tiny man, that there was.

52:27

sort of Ellison was kind of poking

52:30

fun at people who write stories where

52:32

it's just like, hey, here's a fantasy

52:34

element, but it doesn't mean anything. And

52:36

then when I got near the end, I

52:38

was like, well, clearly he wants to have

52:41

it mean something, so he, but he

52:43

didn't really 100% know what. I mean, he

52:45

made it resonate in terms of, you know,

52:47

everybody hates this, this scientist for doing

52:49

this thing and. He made sure he

52:51

made it resonate somehow, but then you

52:53

get to the end and there's a

52:55

couple of different ways it resonates. And

52:57

I feel like it's almost like,

53:00

like he wrote it to show people

53:02

how to write fantasy and science fiction,

53:04

like don't just have it be how

53:06

interesting a tiny man, have it resonate

53:08

and have it, have some kind of

53:10

payoff at the end. And here's two

53:12

examples as far you could do that.

53:15

But I don't, it didn't really stick

53:17

with me that well. I thought it

53:19

was cool. writing is just fascinating. But

53:21

overall, I, like I said, it's kind

53:23

of faded for me. Yeah, yeah, I mean,

53:25

like I said, when I first read

53:27

it, I thought it was just okay.

53:29

And reading it now is like, oh,

53:32

this is actually I enjoyed this more

53:34

than I remembered. I mean, I still

53:36

wouldn't say it's, you know, like you have

53:38

to go out and read it or

53:40

anything. But I think it does resonate

53:42

more, you know, in 2010, I feel

53:44

like we hadn't quite gotten to

53:46

the whole gotten to the whole. You

53:48

know, ordinary people's irrational

53:50

hatred is just omnipresent yet.

53:53

You know, like, I still

53:55

thought of ordinary people as

53:58

being kind of ordinary. rather

54:00

than like crazy and malicious or

54:02

you know full of hate. And

54:04

so the yeah just the like

54:07

the way that this tiny man

54:09

is hated by everybody for

54:11

no reason kind of hits

54:14

me a little bit more

54:16

now than it did then

54:18

just with social media and

54:20

everything that's happened since. And

54:22

yeah like there's a lot of

54:25

ways you could interpret this

54:27

story I mean a couple, and I

54:29

don't know, I don't have any

54:32

like inside dirt on what Ellison

54:34

intended with this story or anything,

54:36

but just what strikes me. I mean,

54:38

you know, Ellison himself was a

54:40

short person and I wonder if

54:42

that, you know, the fact that it's

54:45

this tiny man that everybody hates

54:47

if there's something going on with

54:49

that. You know, he also wrote

54:51

short stories in a world where

54:54

people really only value novels and

54:56

I wonder if there's something going

54:58

on with that with people not

55:01

appreciating the tiny man who's perfectly

55:03

fine the way he is being

55:05

tiny. But yeah, I mean, I definitely

55:07

agree with you that this doesn't

55:09

seem to be just, you know, an

55:12

interesting story that Harlan Ellison thought

55:14

was like an interesting idea and he

55:16

thought of a plot to go with

55:18

it. I mean, it definitely

55:21

feels like personal or that

55:23

he's trying to communicate some.

55:25

grievance or something with the

55:27

story. But I don't know. Yeah, it's

55:29

really interesting. Yeah, I didn't

55:31

think that makes a lot

55:33

of sense that it would

55:36

be sort of autobiographical that

55:38

he's nearing, like you said, he's

55:40

been kicked out of out of the

55:42

inner circle of science fiction and

55:45

fantasy and now he's

55:47

publishing his own limited edition

55:49

books and. It kind of like

55:51

appears Anthony figure he's you know

55:53

he's ostracized and everybody hates him

55:56

and now he's kind of commenting on

55:58

that through this story like look yes. here

56:00

I am, I'm a tiny man, I

56:02

write tiny stories, and everybody hates me.

56:04

And yeah, I didn't think of it

56:07

that way, but it makes a lot

56:09

of sense. Yeah, so I don't know

56:11

if there's, but it does feel like

56:13

a story that, you know, you could

56:16

say what he meant by it, but

56:18

I don't know. It would be interesting.

56:20

I don't know if he ever said,

56:22

you know, what he meant by it,

56:25

but I feel like somebody probably knows

56:27

out there. I guess one

56:29

thing I forgot to mention with

56:31

the beast that shouted love at

56:33

the heart of the world that's

56:35

maybe Jermaine here is that that

56:38

was another one where I sort

56:40

of felt Ellison was maybe that

56:42

it was commenting on something that

56:44

he felt, you know, in the

56:46

same way that I get that

56:48

same feeling about how interesting a

56:50

tiny man. Because Ellison knew he

56:52

had this uncontrollable rage that got

56:54

him into trouble over and over

56:56

and over again. you know, and

56:58

I just get the strong sense

57:00

that he just thought of himself

57:02

as this hero, you know, heroic

57:04

loving person who was just misunderstood

57:07

and mistreated by everyone. And I

57:09

could, he was also, when I

57:11

interviewed Netsagloff, who wrote a biography

57:13

of Ellison, he said that Ellison

57:15

was diagnosed with bipolar disorder toward

57:17

the end of his life. And

57:19

so with the beast that shouted

57:21

love at the heart of the

57:23

world. I wonder if there's something

57:25

going on there. I mean, I

57:27

don't like to like psychoanalyze authors

57:29

too much, but I think it

57:31

is worth considering whether Ellison's, you

57:33

know, putting together the story in

57:36

which evil was this uncontrollable force

57:38

that comes from outside you and

57:40

makes you do things you don't

57:42

want to do if that was

57:44

expressing some, you know, some way

57:46

that he felt about how he

57:48

existed in the in the in

57:50

the world that that he was

57:52

basically this loving person and that

57:54

there was just this beast that

57:56

came out and almost felt like

57:58

it was this. this alien, you

58:00

know, alien force messing with him?

58:02

Yeah, I think it would be

58:04

hard to separate his deep beliefs

58:07

from his fiction. I think they

58:09

would have to seep in, like,

58:11

you know, token always said that

58:13

the Lord of the Rings had

58:15

nothing to do with World War

58:17

II, but then you have to

58:19

kind of say, well, not overtly,

58:21

I'm sure, but how could it

58:23

not? Ellison's... you know, his inner

58:25

struggles not come out in his

58:27

fiction somehow. Yeah. I guess one

58:29

other thing I'll just mention is

58:31

that this story reminds me a

58:33

lot of a story that I

58:36

read. I think it's roughly, I

58:38

think roughly around the same time.

58:40

There's a story called The End

58:42

of the Line by Amy Bender,

58:44

which is also, it's about a

58:46

guy who goes to a, you

58:48

know, like a pawn shop or

58:50

something and buys a tiny man.

58:52

And the stories are very, like

58:54

the plots are different, but the

58:56

plots are different. you know the

58:58

setup is very similar and I

59:00

really love that story so I

59:02

think it's an interesting if you're

59:05

able to get your hands on

59:07

it it's just an interesting exercise

59:09

in comparing and contrasting how to

59:11

very different authors explore this the

59:13

same you know same basic premise

59:15

well I can't let this go

59:17

by without telling my own tiny

59:19

man story because it just it

59:21

just hit me that I have

59:23

one that I was when my

59:25

oldest Maddox was I don't know,

59:27

a year and a half old

59:29

and could barely talk. I used

59:31

to walk around these woods trails

59:34

with them in a stroller and

59:36

like a jumped up stroller that

59:38

has like fat tires and stuff.

59:40

And he would have to get

59:42

out sometimes to go to the

59:44

bathroom. So I had him out

59:46

and he said, big man coming.

59:48

And I started looking around and

59:50

there was a six foot. plus

59:52

man walking down the trail toward

59:54

us and I think it was

59:56

kind of creeping him out so

59:58

he was telling me there's a

1:00:00

big man coming and I said

1:00:02

I said no I said that's nothing to

1:00:05

worry about nothing to worry about that's

1:00:07

just a I know that guy he's okay

1:00:09

and he said okay and then from then

1:00:11

on any time would be on the trails and

1:00:13

he'd get out to go to the

1:00:16

bathroom he'd say big man coming whether

1:00:18

or not the guy was there and

1:00:20

so this one time I said no

1:00:22

no there's nobody there nobody's coming there's

1:00:24

no big man coming and he said

1:00:27

oh and then he went Tiny man

1:00:29

coming. Sorry Dave, you can cut

1:00:31

that out if you like. No,

1:00:33

no, this is cute. Now that

1:00:35

I have kids, I have to

1:00:38

be, you know, I can't complain

1:00:40

about other people talking about

1:00:42

their kids. Because I have

1:00:45

to be able to, I

1:00:47

have to have that same

1:00:50

privilege to just bore people

1:00:52

talking about my kids. Okay, so,

1:00:55

uh, so we move on to

1:00:57

next story? Yeah, absolutely. If fashion

1:00:59

is your thing, eBay is it.

1:01:01

eBay is where I find

1:01:04

all my favorites. From handbags

1:01:06

to iconic streetwear, all authenticated.

1:01:08

For real. This time, a

1:01:10

little supreme. Some goochie. I

1:01:12

even have that vintage Prada

1:01:14

on my watch list. That's

1:01:16

why eBay is my go-to

1:01:18

for all my go-to's. Yeah,

1:01:20

eBay. The place for new,

1:01:23

pre-loved vintage and rare fashion.

1:01:25

eBay, Things People Love. Okay,

1:01:27

next story is called

1:01:29

Jin, like a genie, DJ,

1:01:31

I, N, Jin, no chaser.

1:01:34

The premise of this story

1:01:36

is that there is a

1:01:39

newly married couple and

1:01:41

the wife is determined

1:01:43

to decorate their apartment.

1:01:45

And so they go

1:01:48

to this, they're looking

1:01:50

for... Is it like Turkish revival

1:01:52

or something? Some sort of

1:01:54

particular style of furniture. Turkish

1:01:56

period, she calls it. Turkish

1:01:58

period. And, um. you know, ends up

1:02:01

in this obviously magical shop where

1:02:03

they get a lamp and then

1:02:05

when they get back to their

1:02:07

apartment, they rub it and a

1:02:09

genie starts talking from the lamp,

1:02:11

but it's trapped in the lamp

1:02:13

and it's really pissed off and

1:02:16

starts tormenting them with all sorts

1:02:18

of magical phenomena. And then this

1:02:20

drives the husband crazy and he

1:02:22

checks himself into a mental hospital.

1:02:24

But then at the end, it

1:02:26

turns out that the wife has

1:02:28

placated the genie by freeing him

1:02:30

from the lamp with the aid

1:02:33

of a can opener. So Tom,

1:02:35

what do you think of? Jin

1:02:37

No-chaser. All right, what do you

1:02:39

think? What do you think I

1:02:41

thought of it? I don't think

1:02:43

you liked it. Really? Okay. You

1:02:45

did like it? Oh, okay. I

1:02:47

mean, I could see the, it's

1:02:49

the kind of story that you

1:02:52

would like, but okay. But, okay.

1:02:54

Yeah, okay, good. I have to

1:02:56

I have to flash back for

1:02:58

a second to the to the

1:03:00

looking for conduct story Have all

1:03:02

the way through that story. I

1:03:04

kept thinking did I did I

1:03:06

write this? Because it's the kind

1:03:08

of stuff that I love but

1:03:11

at the same time I I

1:03:13

could It was like looking in

1:03:15

a mirror in a funhouse mirror

1:03:17

where people have always told me

1:03:19

my whole life look your stuff

1:03:21

is funny, but it doesn't go

1:03:23

anywhere and this one I thought

1:03:25

was funny but goes somewhere and

1:03:28

I and I don't necessarily like

1:03:30

the ending is obviously not satisfying

1:03:32

and I picture you absolutely hating

1:03:34

the ending and I hated it

1:03:36

as well but I thought the

1:03:38

the story itself the premise and

1:03:40

the two characters the husband and

1:03:42

wife were such a fun unique

1:03:44

couple together that I really like

1:03:47

them you know the way they

1:03:49

call each other squires and and

1:03:51

And the humor in it was

1:03:53

so perfect, so funny, there is

1:03:55

one moment jumps out where he...

1:03:57

he's laying in bed and she

1:03:59

says, are you asleep? And he

1:04:01

says, yes. And she goes, well,

1:04:04

why did you answer me that?

1:04:06

And he says, I was raised

1:04:08

polite. And I just, I thought

1:04:10

there were so many funny moments

1:04:12

like that all the way through it.

1:04:14

And I love that again, nothing is

1:04:17

taken as rote, nothing is used

1:04:19

furniture to him. He writes, you

1:04:21

know, oh, they're gonna find a

1:04:23

genie in a curio shop in

1:04:25

a curio shop. And that's obviously,

1:04:28

Pops into existence for a

1:04:30

little while and then vanishes

1:04:32

again having read volumes and

1:04:34

volumes of 1960s in 1970s science

1:04:37

fiction and fantasy I can tell

1:04:39

you that that idea of some

1:04:41

kind of traveling shop is not

1:04:43

new and probably was never new was

1:04:46

not new back then but the cool thing

1:04:48

about it to me is he understands that

1:04:50

when he writes it and he says like

1:04:52

Oh, a traveling curio shop with a laden's

1:04:55

lamp in it. What a trade idea. He

1:04:57

doesn't say those words. I can't remember what

1:04:59

he says, but he kind of calls that

1:05:01

out as being this trade idea, and he

1:05:04

makes fun of himself about it. But the

1:05:06

cool thing that I think is a product of

1:05:08

the way he never rewrote anything, is that

1:05:10

instead of tearing it up and saying,

1:05:12

I'm going to start again, he just

1:05:15

acknowledges it, makes it part of

1:05:17

the story that it's trite and

1:05:19

irritating and irritating. talks about that

1:05:21

for a minute and then moves on

1:05:23

and does something more like pushes it

1:05:25

forward and I love that he does and

1:05:27

I think a lesser writer would have

1:05:30

torn this story up and started

1:05:32

over or deleted it and maybe

1:05:34

a greater writer would have done the

1:05:36

same thing but not Ellison he hits

1:05:39

the sweet spot of improvisation where he's

1:05:41

thinking no I'm gonna say yes and

1:05:43

to this I'm gonna go forward with

1:05:45

it and he does and the whole thing

1:05:48

is super funny And the ending

1:05:50

is absolutely not satisfying. It

1:05:52

can't openers, it's like this

1:05:54

wah, wah, wah moment. So

1:05:56

that's, that's the plus, plus

1:05:59

and minus. I started out liking

1:06:01

this, and I actually, when I saw

1:06:03

that the premise is this, there's this

1:06:05

every man character, and then he just

1:06:08

encounters this genie, you know, or I

1:06:10

guess initially when it's the shopkeeper, the

1:06:12

sort of magical shopkeeper who's going to

1:06:15

introduce some elements of magic into his

1:06:17

life. I actually have a note in

1:06:19

the margins where I wrote Tom's story,

1:06:21

because this is like a Tom renter

1:06:24

setup kind of thing. Yeah, very much.

1:06:26

So I was initially, you know. on board

1:06:28

with the story. I think, I think, yeah,

1:06:30

I just thought it got like too

1:06:32

goofy. It's over, for me, it overstate

1:06:34

it's welcome and definitely it ends up

1:06:37

being just this shaggy dog story where

1:06:39

the, you know, you've read through 20

1:06:41

pages or something and then it's just

1:06:43

this dumb, dumb joke at the end.

1:06:46

And so, so yeah, I wasn't crazy

1:06:48

about this. It's also possible that

1:06:50

my perception of it has been

1:06:52

colored by the Tales from the

1:06:54

Dark Side adaptation adaptation.

1:06:56

I don't know did you did you

1:06:58

get a chance to watch that? I

1:07:01

did and in stark contrast to

1:07:03

the Twilight Zone episode of the

1:07:05

Powd in a Lost Hour that

1:07:07

was awful I mean well I

1:07:09

have to say the actor who

1:07:11

played the male main character yeah

1:07:13

I thought he was fantastic I

1:07:15

thought he was cast just right

1:07:17

I thought he was he was

1:07:19

given it his all he was

1:07:22

not phoning phoning it in he

1:07:24

was no He nailed it. I

1:07:27

thought the female lead was pretty

1:07:29

good. Karim Abdul Jabbar was miscast

1:07:31

and I think he was miscast

1:07:34

in anything that he ever was

1:07:36

in. I think he's obviously a

1:07:39

fantastic basketball player, but I don't

1:07:41

know if you remember his bit part

1:07:43

from the stand, but he was,

1:07:45

he did not make that work

1:07:47

either. Yeah, I just, I remember

1:07:50

him from airplane where, you know.

1:07:52

Oh yeah. It's okay for what it is because

1:07:54

it's a great, but it's a terrible, you

1:07:56

know, he's just not a good actor as

1:07:58

far as I can tell. Right, right. So yeah,

1:08:00

so that kind of wrecked it. But

1:08:02

also I felt it was funny because

1:08:04

I loved the story so much, except

1:08:06

for the very end. I was like,

1:08:08

oh, come on, Shaggy Dog, and like,

1:08:11

Bologna ending. You could have thought something

1:08:13

better than that up. But then again,

1:08:15

when I, I was happy all the

1:08:17

way through it and I loved the

1:08:19

story, I still love the story, even

1:08:21

despite the ending. Then when I watched

1:08:23

that Tales from the Crypt episode, it

1:08:25

had. Outstate it's welcome to use your

1:08:28

phrase. I was just like okay. I'm

1:08:30

I'm over this I don't know why

1:08:32

I don't know why I love the

1:08:34

story so much Can't stand this episode

1:08:36

so am I just it's like how

1:08:38

does a I don't understand how an

1:08:40

actual? TV production feels that amateurish like

1:08:42

it's just yeah, it feels like a

1:08:45

high school like high school kids messing

1:08:47

around with the camera or something. Yeah.

1:08:49

It's just horrible Well,

1:08:51

no, I'm glad you liked the

1:08:53

story. I mean, yeah, I didn't

1:08:55

like it definitely as much as

1:08:58

you did, but, you know, people

1:09:00

can have different tastes and that's

1:09:02

all good. Well, I pictured you,

1:09:04

I pictured you not, not liking

1:09:06

it because of the, you know,

1:09:08

sort of lack of plot. Yeah,

1:09:10

the main character doesn't do anything.

1:09:12

That was also an issue with,

1:09:14

on the downhill side, I don't

1:09:16

know if I mentioned that or

1:09:18

not, but yeah, some of these

1:09:21

Ellison has a real problem with

1:09:23

just main characters who just don't

1:09:25

do anything for the whole story

1:09:27

and it's not that compelling. Yeah,

1:09:29

yeah, I agree. But yeah, so

1:09:31

whatever you do, don't watch the

1:09:33

tales from the dark side adaptation,

1:09:35

but if you're into, you know,

1:09:37

funny, funny fantasy, maybe check out,

1:09:39

maybe check out. Jim No-chaser. But

1:09:41

yeah, oh, one last thought about

1:09:44

it. I thought it was, it

1:09:46

was almost like a lost Sheckley

1:09:48

story. It was very, very Robert

1:09:50

Sheckley, except that I feel like

1:09:52

Robert Sheckley would have had an

1:09:54

ending. He would have, he, I

1:09:56

remember telling him one time that

1:09:58

I could tell that he wrote

1:10:00

from the seat of his pants

1:10:02

and he gave me a lecture about

1:10:04

that. He was like, absolutely not.

1:10:07

He was like, science fiction has

1:10:09

a long history and plotting plot

1:10:11

is supremely important. I would never

1:10:13

see, I would never pants anything and he

1:10:15

just like went off on me and

1:10:17

I was like, oh, okay, I'm properly

1:10:19

chastised. But I do think this is

1:10:21

the aesthetic of it is very much a

1:10:24

Sheckley story, but except that it

1:10:26

Sheckley would have put an ending on

1:10:28

it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's two

1:10:30

ways you could go with this. You could

1:10:32

either have a better ending and a better

1:10:35

plot, or if you want to keep the

1:10:37

can opener to open up the genie's lamp,

1:10:39

you could make it a short, short, like,

1:10:41

in a little bit, we're going to get

1:10:44

from A to Z in the chocolate

1:10:46

alphabet. And, like, to me, this reads,

1:10:48

like, this would be totally fine. That

1:10:50

the can opener opening up the magic

1:10:52

lamp would be fine. The magic lamp

1:10:54

would be the magic lamp would be

1:10:56

fine if it would be fine. All

1:10:59

right, but let's move on

1:11:01

to our next story. It's

1:11:03

called How's the Nightlife on

1:11:06

Cisalda? So the premise here

1:11:08

is that they've sent a

1:11:10

human like through through a

1:11:13

time space wormhole or something

1:11:15

to explore another dimension and

1:11:17

he comes back with a, you

1:11:19

know, non-human like, it's

1:11:22

some sort of like sphere,

1:11:24

right, some furry sphere or

1:11:26

something alien. that he's copulating

1:11:28

with. And so in this other dimension,

1:11:30

there's these aliens, and they're just

1:11:33

sexually irresistible to all forms of

1:11:35

life in the universe. And once

1:11:37

you start having sex with them,

1:11:39

you just never want to stop,

1:11:42

and you can keep going because

1:11:44

they secrete some sort of hormones or

1:11:46

something that allow you to just keep

1:11:48

having sex with them nonstop. I think

1:11:50

until you starve to death or something,

1:11:53

I'm not even sure if you even

1:11:55

starve to death, I forget. And

1:11:57

so they managed to detach.

1:11:59

the alien from the guy

1:12:01

and they kind of put him

1:12:04

in a holding cell. But then

1:12:06

because these sex aliens have now,

1:12:08

they're all telepathic or something. So

1:12:10

since they now know about Earth,

1:12:12

they all just start teleporting

1:12:14

to Earth and having

1:12:17

sex with every person and animal

1:12:19

and living thing on Earth. And

1:12:21

so the guy gets out of

1:12:23

the cell, the original. explorer and

1:12:26

now he's the only person on

1:12:28

earth who's not having sex with

1:12:30

one of these aliens and so

1:12:32

he kind of writes a store

1:12:34

you know he writes a note

1:12:37

in the bottle about what's happened

1:12:39

and throws it into the ocean.

1:12:41

I forget if there's a tag

1:12:43

on the end. Oh and there's

1:12:45

oh yeah there's there's something about

1:12:48

um like the cockroaches someday are

1:12:50

gonna evolve and they'll take over

1:12:52

the earth or something. But so

1:12:55

Tom, what'd you think of, how's

1:12:57

the nightlife on Susalda? This is

1:12:59

just an absolutely hilarious premise that

1:13:01

the human race would just get

1:13:03

hump to death. And I would,

1:13:05

if Ellison were here, he'd be

1:13:08

like, why are you saying hump?

1:13:10

That's because I just don't want

1:13:12

to be on air saying the F word.

1:13:14

But I just, I just think

1:13:16

it's an absolutely hilarious premise. I

1:13:18

thought, I'm really fascinated by

1:13:21

how he can tell a story

1:13:23

without necessarily. focusing on a

1:13:25

character, he can just kind of range

1:13:27

all over the world and tell you like

1:13:29

what's going on and keep telling

1:13:31

you all these different situations that

1:13:34

pile up into the story. And

1:13:36

he does have characters in it,

1:13:38

right? But he spends more time

1:13:40

kind of in introspection than he

1:13:42

does in dialogue or action or anything

1:13:44

like that in this story. I don't know

1:13:46

I just think it's hilarious premise I

1:13:48

looked it up to see if it

1:13:50

originally published in Playboy because I thought

1:13:52

that would be right if their alley

1:13:54

but it didn't it was in an

1:13:56

anthology called Chrysalis I

1:13:58

think but I don't know It's just a

1:14:01

really funny premise. It's fun

1:14:03

to read. It's kind of

1:14:05

disgusting too. It's kind of

1:14:07

because he doesn't pull any

1:14:09

punches on the graphic details

1:14:11

of things. I mean, he does sort

1:14:13

of, but he doesn't get as

1:14:15

detailed as he could, I suppose,

1:14:17

but it's a funny story. I

1:14:19

guess I'll just leave it at

1:14:22

that. It's not necessarily my favorite,

1:14:24

but I just think it's a

1:14:26

hilarious idea, you know, that's how

1:14:28

we're going to go out. Yeah, I really

1:14:30

liked this. I thought this was really

1:14:32

funny. I don't know that I have

1:14:34

a lot more to say about it

1:14:36

other than that. I thought the ending

1:14:38

was a little weak. The last line

1:14:40

I thought was weak. It's something

1:14:42

about that he was the best fuck

1:14:45

for a short time. He'd been the

1:14:47

best fuck in the universe or

1:14:49

something. I thought that could have been

1:14:51

stronger. But overall, yeah, I don't

1:14:53

know. I thought it was really funny.

1:14:55

I've never read a story with this

1:14:58

premise before. So, yeah, I don't know,

1:15:00

Tom, do you have anything more

1:15:02

to say about this story? Yeah,

1:15:04

about the ending, I remember thinking

1:15:06

that, um, that I was glad

1:15:09

that he didn't try to have

1:15:11

some solution, like he did with

1:15:13

Jim, no chaser, with the can

1:15:15

opener. I thought it was, I

1:15:17

didn't obviously want to like cheer

1:15:19

on the human race ending, but

1:15:21

I thought, uh, it was satisfying

1:15:24

that. that that's the end of it like

1:15:26

yes that's how we go out this is this

1:15:28

is it right here thought that was satisfying i

1:15:30

thought if he had tried to think up

1:15:32

some like way out for the main character

1:15:35

and that was like goofy or just would

1:15:37

have been irritating but then again i

1:15:39

thought well it could still be a good

1:15:41

story if he were the kind of person

1:15:43

who went back and rewrote things and if

1:15:45

he really worked hard to come up with

1:15:47

a way that there was a satisfying ending

1:15:50

where the human race survived that could still

1:15:52

be a good story But I was

1:15:54

glad knowing who he is that he

1:15:56

didn't do that. I liked the plot. I

1:15:58

liked the idea. that this guy, that

1:16:01

it becomes this sort of post-apocalyptic, you

1:16:03

know, story at the end because everyone's

1:16:05

having sex with all these aliens and,

1:16:07

you know, and that's basically destroyed the

1:16:09

world, you know, and the, I mean,

1:16:11

I liked that. I didn't have a

1:16:13

problem with that. I just thought the

1:16:15

last line was, like with Gindo Chase

1:16:17

or the last line was just a

1:16:19

little bit of a want, want, want,

1:16:21

kind of thing when I actually thought

1:16:24

the story was good enough to that it

1:16:26

could have ended on a note of, you know. like

1:16:28

poignant seeer or something you know because

1:16:30

because there was like just something poignant

1:16:32

at the end that he's the the

1:16:34

last survivor well yeah and that not

1:16:36

only is he the last survivor but

1:16:38

he's the only one not having sex

1:16:40

on the planet now because his his

1:16:42

casaldin or they pronounce it casalda in

1:16:44

the he pronounced pardon me Ellison read this

1:16:47

one in the in the collection and he

1:16:49

pronounced it casalda casalda okay so and he

1:16:51

read it in front of a crowd and

1:16:53

there was laughter all the way through it

1:16:55

which was really cool to here to here

1:16:58

but um but he um so it was

1:17:00

my point so so oh yeah this guy

1:17:02

is his his casaldin has has

1:17:04

left him because I can't

1:17:06

remember why but he ends up

1:17:08

they detached they detached the

1:17:11

casaldin oh that's right and

1:17:13

and then it's heartbroken and

1:17:15

it won't go back to him

1:17:17

now it's like yeah since they're

1:17:19

all telepathic none of them we'll

1:17:22

we'll couple with him anymore None

1:17:24

of them will touch him. So now

1:17:26

he's the only person on planet Earth

1:17:28

not having sex while the planet just

1:17:30

the human race ends around him. And

1:17:32

it had this kind of Burgess Meredith

1:17:34

from that Twilight Zone. He's like, he's

1:17:37

like the, all he ever wanted was

1:17:39

to read books and then the world ends

1:17:41

and he's in a library, but he breaks

1:17:43

his glasses and he can't read books. It

1:17:45

had that kind of feeling like this

1:17:47

guy just like now he's the only one

1:17:49

not having sex at the end of the end of

1:17:52

the world. And that was very poignant, but

1:17:54

yeah, I agree there could have been some

1:17:56

kind of better line to finish it off

1:17:58

Yeah, yeah, but again overall I thought It

1:18:00

was really funny, so I

1:18:02

would definitely, if you're into

1:18:04

science fiction humor, I recommend

1:18:06

this one. I'll also just

1:18:08

mention, it reminds me a

1:18:10

lot of a, there's a

1:18:12

really great story by Kiz

1:18:14

Johnson called Spar, where it's

1:18:16

about a woman and she's

1:18:18

trapped in a spaceship with

1:18:20

this like technical alien that's

1:18:23

having sex with nonhuman aliens. You

1:18:25

know, these are two of the

1:18:27

best. Best examples I can think

1:18:30

of. That reminds me there's a

1:18:32

Sheckley story. I might be confusing

1:18:34

two Sheckley stories, but I think

1:18:37

it's called The Day the Aliens

1:18:39

came, but there's a Sheckley story

1:18:41

where these aliens show up and

1:18:43

they start having sex with people, but

1:18:46

they don't have just one gender. They

1:18:48

have like 75 genders. And to really

1:18:50

have sex, you have to like... Lock

1:18:52

in with like all these different genders

1:18:54

like a giant jigsaw puzzle and these

1:18:56

people would be having these massive orgies

1:18:58

with aliens with like 75 different aliens

1:19:01

all at once I think that's the

1:19:03

day the aliens came but it might

1:19:05

be a different checkley story so if

1:19:07

you're into alien sex stories there's another

1:19:09

one for you yeah yeah I mean

1:19:11

there is I mean I haven't read

1:19:14

it I don't read it I don't

1:19:16

think but there I know Ellen Dattlow

1:19:18

had an anthology called alien sex I

1:19:20

think there might be a couple so

1:19:22

you're really into the topic, there's more

1:19:24

material to explore. All right, so next

1:19:27

story is called from A to Z

1:19:29

in the chocolate alphabet. And so this

1:19:31

is a story, it's a collection of

1:19:33

fantasy vignettes, one for

1:19:36

each letter of the alphabet. So

1:19:38

like the first one is A

1:19:40

for Atlantean, and it talks about

1:19:43

Atlantis. So the backstory for this

1:19:45

is that Harlan Ellison used to do

1:19:47

this sort of performance art thing,

1:19:49

where he would solicit ideas like

1:19:51

story ideas from the crowd and

1:19:53

then he would sit in the

1:19:56

You know window of a bookstore or

1:19:58

at a convention or something and

1:20:00

people could sit and watch him write

1:20:02

the story in real time, and then

1:20:04

he would read the story, you know,

1:20:06

when he was done. And this was

1:20:08

just a show, you know, that there's

1:20:10

nothing magic about being a writer

1:20:13

or the writing process. You just, you

1:20:15

know, you can, you know, just

1:20:17

do it anywhere under any

1:20:19

circumstances if you just have

1:20:21

the willpower to do it.

1:20:23

And so he started doing

1:20:25

these for like his fundraisers

1:20:27

for bookstores. And so there

1:20:30

was a bookstore in Los

1:20:32

Angeles called The Change of

1:20:34

Hobbit. And he wrote this

1:20:36

story over two days as a

1:20:38

fundraiser for that. And yeah,

1:20:40

so Tom, what do you think of

1:20:42

from A to Z in the chocolate

1:20:45

alphabet? Well, as a story,

1:20:47

I mean, it's not a story.

1:20:49

So it doesn't. It just kind

1:20:51

of. goes on, but there's a

1:20:53

definite... The vignettes have nothing to

1:20:55

do with each other at all? Right,

1:20:58

but there's a definite sort of

1:21:00

marking time through it because you

1:21:02

know what letter you're on, but

1:21:05

the individual vignettes are all mostly

1:21:07

brilliant. Each one of them is like, oh, that's

1:21:10

really kind of an interesting idea,

1:21:12

or that's a cool idea. Some of

1:21:14

them are kind of like, what, that's

1:21:16

kind of bizarre, but most of them

1:21:19

are brilliant, I thought, so I

1:21:21

enjoyed it. I don't know, as I would

1:21:23

go back and read it again, but that's

1:21:25

interesting that that was part of his sort

1:21:27

of performance art, stuff that he

1:21:30

did. I don't really have a ton

1:21:32

to say about it. We could discuss

1:21:34

some of the individual vignettes if you

1:21:36

want, but I'm interested to hear what

1:21:38

you thought of it. Yeah, I mean,

1:21:40

you know, when I was a teenager,

1:21:43

he had one called from A to

1:21:45

Z in the sasparilla alphabet that I

1:21:47

read in the magazine of fantasy and

1:21:49

science fiction, and science fiction, and I

1:21:51

don't And that's kind of what I

1:21:53

felt about reading this. I mean, I

1:21:55

actually went back and wrote a

1:21:58

little synopsis for each vignette. that

1:22:00

I sent you in doing that made me like it

1:22:02

more. I was like, oh, these actually are pretty clever,

1:22:04

a lot of them. I mean, it's sort of a

1:22:06

mixed bag, I guess. Like, a lot of them are

1:22:08

sort of, I feel like they're the ideas that you

1:22:11

write out, you jot on a piece of paper in

1:22:13

the middle of the night, and then you go back

1:22:15

and look at it in the morning,

1:22:17

and you're like, yeah, this isn't

1:22:19

really good enough to. write a

1:22:22

whole story about, you know. So

1:22:24

for example, there's one where a

1:22:26

vampire joins a free love commune

1:22:28

and then dies of an STD.

1:22:30

There's one where a guy melts

1:22:33

down a bunch of quarters to

1:22:35

make a silver bullet to protect

1:22:37

himself from a werewolf, but then

1:22:39

it doesn't work because there's not

1:22:42

that much actual silver in quarters.

1:22:44

So, so they're kind of like, it's

1:22:46

like, yeah, this is, this is never

1:22:48

an idea, this is not an idea

1:22:50

that's good enough to write a, you

1:22:52

know, 5,000 word short story about,

1:22:55

but, you know, for a half a

1:22:57

page, it's like, you know, it's amusing.

1:22:59

I don't know. I mean, I think

1:23:01

it is really impressive that he was

1:23:03

able to write so many of these

1:23:05

things in, you know, like sitting in

1:23:07

this. the window of a bookstore.

1:23:10

You know, that's impressive. Some of

1:23:12

them are really good. I mean,

1:23:14

well, I'm curious, Tom, what did

1:23:16

you think were some of the best

1:23:18

of these? Man, reading through your

1:23:21

synopsis, I don't remember a lot

1:23:23

of them. I just remember thinking,

1:23:25

oh, these are really clever,

1:23:27

but I don't know. I don't know what

1:23:29

I thought. I think that vampire one was

1:23:32

really funny, but yeah, you go ahead

1:23:34

and tell me what you thought were.

1:23:36

The one that stuck with me the

1:23:38

most is for the letter S. There's

1:23:40

one called S. There's one called S.

1:23:43

Sulfidean, the sorcerer. And it's the longest,

1:23:45

I think, of these. And it's about

1:23:47

a sorcerer who comes to, you know, a party

1:23:49

and performs miracles, you know, grants

1:23:51

wishes basically for everyone who asks. And

1:23:54

then his wife comes. And it's like,

1:23:56

what are you doing? Waste and time

1:23:58

doing this and for... to leave and

1:24:01

he's cowed and leaves with

1:24:03

his wife. And I thought

1:24:05

that was, there was something,

1:24:07

you know, again, sort of

1:24:09

poignant or memorable about that

1:24:11

one that, you know, no

1:24:13

matter how, you know, assured a person

1:24:15

seems in one social

1:24:18

context, you never know what

1:24:20

their home life is like or

1:24:22

how they, how they relate to

1:24:24

people in other social contexts. So

1:24:26

that was the most memorable one

1:24:28

to me. I thought some of

1:24:30

the first couple like the Atlantis

1:24:32

one I thought was was pretty cool

1:24:35

Basically the premise of that one

1:24:37

is that Atlantis wasn't destroyed by

1:24:39

sinking beneath the waves that it

1:24:41

became this I guess like in

1:24:44

a lot of sort of pseudoscience

1:24:46

kind of things it became this

1:24:48

advanced civilization and a like bubble

1:24:51

city thing But then it was

1:24:53

destroyed when people from the surface

1:24:56

dump toxic waste or something. There's

1:24:58

some sort of reactivity that that

1:25:00

destroys the civilization. And again, I

1:25:03

found I guess it's the sort of

1:25:05

like, you know, with these, um, with

1:25:07

these short shorts, I guess the ones

1:25:09

that work the best for me is

1:25:11

where it's funny or, you know,

1:25:13

it's amusing anyway, but then there's

1:25:16

also some, some element

1:25:18

of poignancy to it. Yeah. So,

1:25:20

yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah,

1:25:22

I mean I could see why it was chocolate

1:25:24

alphabet. I think there was a I don't know

1:25:26

if they still do this but when I was

1:25:29

a kid in the 70s That was a thing

1:25:31

for a while where people would buy

1:25:33

someone a chocolate alphabet for Christmas

1:25:35

or for Valentine's Day You

1:25:37

would get a box and there were

1:25:39

Every different letter was a different

1:25:42

chocolate and I think they would all

1:25:44

be kind of it wouldn't be like

1:25:46

different fillings. It would just be like,

1:25:48

you know different letters all done in

1:25:50

chocolate and So I think that's where

1:25:52

he was coming from with this, that I

1:25:55

could make a chocolate alphabet out of

1:25:57

fiction, just like little interesting things

1:25:59

to right down. So I thought that

1:26:01

was kind of neat, but I don't know.

1:26:03

I don't know that I would read it again.

1:26:06

Yeah, I do wonder if there would be

1:26:08

a way to do this where it would,

1:26:10

you know, add up to something greater

1:26:12

than the sum of its parts. Yeah,

1:26:14

that would be cool. Yeah, I think

1:26:16

that would, that would work. I was

1:26:19

also reminded of Bob and Doug McKenzie's

1:26:21

12 days of Christmas spoof, where

1:26:23

they, you know, they, they're like

1:26:25

Canadians from SCTV from SCTVs. and

1:26:27

they're singing the 12 days of

1:26:29

Christmas, but they get, if you

1:26:31

listen to it over and over

1:26:33

again, which I do around Christmas

1:26:36

time, you realize that they only

1:26:38

get to about day eight. They don't go

1:26:40

all the way through 12. At one point,

1:26:42

I think they're on like day five or

1:26:44

six, and one of them says, hey, this

1:26:46

should just be the five days

1:26:48

of Christmas. It's too hard for

1:26:50

us. And then you realize, well,

1:26:52

if they had actually gone through

1:26:54

the entire 12 days of Christmas,

1:26:56

it would wear at a 12

1:26:58

kind of, it wouldn't be funny

1:27:01

anymore, it would be boring.

1:27:03

So they truncated it, they made

1:27:05

it really short. And I think

1:27:07

that's kind of maybe what this

1:27:10

kind of format suffers from is

1:27:12

you get to like letter L

1:27:14

or something, and you're like, oh,

1:27:16

I still got a bunch more

1:27:18

of these to go through. you know,

1:27:20

recontextualized everything somehow. Yeah, and they

1:27:22

pretty cool. That would be very

1:27:24

cool. I wonder if anybody's ever

1:27:26

done that where they've done a

1:27:28

like an alphabet sort of series

1:27:30

of vignettes that like this, but that

1:27:33

that had a plot running through them.

1:27:35

That would be kind of cool. Yeah, I

1:27:37

don't even know if other just alphabets stories

1:27:39

like this at all, let alone did anything.

1:27:41

So I don't know if anyone knows if

1:27:44

anyone knows if any let me let me

1:27:46

know. If you're an editor, that

1:27:48

might be a new anthology

1:27:50

idea for you that probably

1:27:52

wouldn't sell. If you're an

1:27:54

anthology editor with a big

1:27:56

stack of money that you're

1:27:58

not that attached to. There's

1:28:00

an idea for you. No

1:28:02

charge. Okay, so let's go

1:28:05

back to our list here.

1:28:07

Our next story here is

1:28:10

called Idolons. Okay, so this

1:28:12

one, it starts out

1:28:14

and there's a narrator

1:28:17

who tells us he's

1:28:19

this very dangerous person,

1:28:21

but he's also interested

1:28:24

in. miniatures, you know, like,

1:28:26

like, you would use, like, army,

1:28:28

like, toy soldiers for, for war

1:28:30

games. And so he comes to

1:28:33

this town where there's a man

1:28:35

who has the most amazing collection

1:28:37

of painted miniatures ever, you know,

1:28:39

it's like soldiers from every, every

1:28:42

army throughout history. And but they're

1:28:44

all, when he, when this narrator

1:28:46

looks at them, they all have

1:28:49

terrified expressions on their faces. And

1:28:51

he gets from the owner that

1:28:54

that the owner is somehow able

1:28:56

to capture the souls of soldiers

1:28:58

at the moment throughout time at

1:29:00

the at the moment of their death

1:29:02

and kind of trap their souls in

1:29:04

these painted miniatures. So that's

1:29:07

kind of the first section of

1:29:09

the story. And then the, um, the

1:29:11

owner of these miniature says that

1:29:13

how he was able to do this was

1:29:15

through this magic scroll that

1:29:17

he discovered. And he tells

1:29:20

the narrator where it is.

1:29:22

I forget it's in some

1:29:24

cave in the coast of

1:29:27

something or other. And so

1:29:29

then the narrator goes and

1:29:32

gets these magic scrolls.

1:29:34

And so then the

1:29:36

story becomes kind of

1:29:39

a transcript of like

1:29:41

half of them or something.

1:29:44

And then at the end,

1:29:46

the character says, I decided, the narrator

1:29:48

says, I decided not to give you

1:29:50

all of them because then you would

1:29:52

be able to have all these superpowers.

1:29:54

And then I was a little confused,

1:29:56

but there's somehow I think the implication

1:29:59

that the, the. soldiers are out in

1:30:01

the world somehow? I don't know.

1:30:03

That's what I got from the

1:30:05

story anyway. So Tom, what did

1:30:07

you think of idolons? Well, I thought

1:30:09

this was a good illustration of

1:30:12

your biggest criticism of Ellison,

1:30:14

which is that he just

1:30:16

never fixes anything. He just

1:30:18

writes it. And I feel like

1:30:20

this was like. He was writing a story

1:30:23

and got bored with it and decided

1:30:25

to write a different story and kind

1:30:27

of just went, no, the same story.

1:30:29

And then because he was famous, he

1:30:31

was able to sell it. That's kind of

1:30:33

what I think. I mean, I was really

1:30:35

fascinated by the idea of the miniatures. I

1:30:37

don't know if that's an original idea, but

1:30:39

the way he was doing it was really

1:30:41

cool to me. These miniatures, these soldiers, like

1:30:43

all frozen at the point of their

1:30:46

death. And the way he described again,

1:30:48

his just encyclopedicopedicopedic knowledge,

1:30:50

just... describing all these

1:30:52

different types of soldiers from all

1:30:55

these different wars throughout history was

1:30:57

fascinating and the idea that somebody

1:30:59

froze them was fascinating and then I

1:31:01

was like oh I was just getting to the

1:31:03

point where I was like I can't wait to

1:31:05

see what happens next and then all of a

1:31:07

sudden the story jumps the track and

1:31:09

goes off in a completely different direction

1:31:12

and we start talking about those letters

1:31:14

that I was like no no I want to

1:31:16

hear about the... about the soldiers and I

1:31:18

want to hear about maybe one or

1:31:20

two or five soldiers in particular

1:31:22

that get together and something really

1:31:24

cool happens and you know you just

1:31:26

set up this awesome premise and now you're

1:31:29

taking me over here to this less awesome

1:31:31

premise and now you're going to spend 60%

1:31:33

of the story over there instead and I

1:31:35

I don't know I just completely lost

1:31:38

me this one yeah yeah totally agree I

1:31:40

mean I read this and then I could

1:31:42

not remember the contents of the scrolls at

1:31:44

all, they didn't stick in my mind or

1:31:47

make any sort of impression on me at

1:31:49

all. So again, I went in, I wrote

1:31:51

a little synopsis for each one that I

1:31:53

sent to Tom, but they're just not interesting

1:31:56

to me. I mean, it reads like again,

1:31:58

like from A to Z in the... chocolate

1:32:00

alphabet except just like

1:32:02

way less interesting. And yeah,

1:32:05

I don't know, I don't know, I didn't,

1:32:07

not a big fan. And like

1:32:09

you say, I love to the

1:32:11

initial setup with the miniatures and

1:32:13

then it just totally lost me

1:32:15

after that. Yeah, I feel like he

1:32:18

just got bored with it, like he

1:32:20

just didn't, wasn't sure where

1:32:22

to take it and wasn't

1:32:24

interested in it anymore. But

1:32:26

I wish he had found

1:32:28

a way to get himself

1:32:30

interested in it or found

1:32:32

something interesting about it that

1:32:34

he could explore more

1:32:37

because it was such a cool

1:32:39

idea. It's so well done at

1:32:41

first. Yeah, if there's anyone who

1:32:43

likes the story, I would be

1:32:45

curious to know why. I mean, but

1:32:48

yeah, I mean, let me just,

1:32:50

I'm just gonna scroll down to

1:32:52

my synopsies of these scrolls. So

1:32:55

I'll just read the first couple just

1:32:58

to give, if you haven't read this

1:33:00

story, and you're just curious, like, what

1:33:02

are we talking about? So number one,

1:33:05

a ghost attempts to communicate with the

1:33:07

living by manipulating dust moats. Two, distant

1:33:09

lovers are connected through the spirit world.

1:33:12

Three, human foolishness is temporarily suspended.

1:33:14

So it's stuff like that. It's sort of

1:33:16

like, they don't really have anything to

1:33:18