The SFFaudio Podcast #850 – Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Tommy Patrick Ryan talk about Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
under his real name, 4th novel, 3rd book, if it was under another fake name, Professor blah blah blah, tricky at base, a copy of the paperback, just like what he did with The Andromeda Strain, stuff on the copyright page, footnotes everywhere, verisimilitude, a document dump, subversion, see what the score is, a more difficult time, shit information, the answer you would have got 15 years ago, some terrible reddit thread, ai summary of the whole thing, full of fake citations anyway, tripped up, the afterwords, an abridged audiobook, the movie, the dwarves, it wasn’t that good, the scenery was British Columbia, we got trees they got trees, fairly good adaptation, well regarded, late at night, sent late, Antonio Banderas still sounded like he was from spain, what’s with the no beard, Omar Sharif, champion bridge player, Lawrence Of Arabia (1964), his last film, learning the language, John McTiernan, slash, Michael Crichton came in to finish the movie, a very good director, Burt Reynolds tv movie, Norm Macdonald, they had to build a lot, a lot of horses, a lot of extras, rains, not a bunch of big names, European actors, our main warrior, the translator, the main viking for us, Buliwyf, Beowulf, the first 20 minutes, keeping it hidden, another Beowulf adaptation, pretty obscure, the Neil Gaiman cgi version, what if he was a coward the whole time, the sea-serpent scene, how he swam with the sea-serpent, the culture of bullshit, a great book, so ambitious, it’s really solid, the footnotes help somehow, in the middle of a battle scene, a little bit like The Princess Bride, very different from the film, the same structure, William Goldman, maybe we should do that one, it’s fantastic, part of it is the source material, a unicorn movie, really clever, a clever idea, a bet, did it on a bet, The Saga Of The Volsungs, deeply connected to Tolkien, Tolkien’s connection to Eaters Of The dead, at what point does it become complete fiction?, after chapter 4, an adaptation of Beowulf, as witness, historical figure, nicely implied, written down by this Arab dude, you need to tell my story, this wizard lady, lady of death, it can’t be 12 warriors, it has to be 13, Gandalf having the conversation, in The Hobbit, the reluctant participant, The Red Book Of Westmarch, There And Back Again, the same story, a mountain from also which comes a dragon, slay the thing and return home again, kinda funny, it is the premise of The Hobbit, all the rich hobbits were thieves, proud of being footpads, they’re old money, robber barons, they’re just Englishmen, hilarious, an Islamic scholar, drinking the mead, having sex with the slave women, he’s choking out a lady wanting to be sacrificed, wow!, not pulling his punches, very solid book, how good is that?, is this real? all the way through, that style of writing hurt sales, an after action report, setting up the frame, not a good writer, wrote it like an anthropologist, drier versions, giving himself a pat on the back, narrated by George Guidall, his vocal quality, very matter of fact, he had fallen in love, so I’m sitting there, super-hot wife, I enjoyed her for a while, all those locks on the door, an impotent rich man, he’s so matter of fact about it, that’s why they sent me out, the asides, the telling of stories, friend of the prophet’s, bearing his slippers, the miser, big long story, that man was cursed, a Guy de Maupassant story, out of embarrassment, gets fined again, completely destitute, he stole somebody’s shoes, our narrator thought it was a funny story and nobody laughed, cursed, you had to be there (in the culture), that culture’s clash, extended, Hrothgar and his son, faithfully done in the film, accidentally on purpose, beef, fight, quality of deception that they love, deception REALLY GOOD, quashes the growing rebellion, you send for a hero, questioning his loyalty, what did Buliwyf ultimately get out of all of this, and what else do you want?, the movie improved on, it’s good, the viking prayer, lo there, now I see all my deceased relatives, the line of my people back to the beginning, where the brave may live forever, he’s become acculturated, a very good adaptation of the book, any additions are structurally helpful, very streamlined, 6 and half hours, feasible, these books are designed to be picked up at a spinner rack at a drug store, typical Crichton heist novel, very ambitious, succeeds at every measure, the small big idea that it is, made his reputation, so well told, competence of the government agents and agency to solve a chemical mystery, he isn’t a faker, all my friends write novels for nanorimo, some weird idea that I have, an insatiable market for paperbacks, a new thing next week, The Venom Business, read Airframe and report back, Congo, The Great Train Robbery, terrific movie adaptation, funny, fast paced, clever, sexy, him showing off that he can do everything, a fake scholarship novel, not science fiction exactly, technothriller, more like a Robin Cook novel, his movie version of Coma by Robin Cook, Westworld, so solidly, characters, stop repeating yourself, Rendezvous With Rama, character and the idea, Arthur C. Clarke is not a normal dude, normal human relationships, ideas, Kim Stanley Robinson, Pacific Edge, this guy is clever, 2312, 900 pages, no plot, no characters, let me worldbuild, The Silmarillion, more plot, everybody wanted more Tolkien, great worldbuilding, novels, humour, very dry, a lot of writers, successful writers, cool ideas, some of them get awards, highly acclaimed books, this could be one third as long and be way better, he’s great at short stories, The City And The Stars is an amazing book, lean into the commercial success, a disaster set on the moon, A Fall Of Moondust, a terrible novel, The Nine Billion Names Of God, Crichton didn’t write a single short story, A Case Of Need, Dealing, a drug dealing novel, Congo, Bruce Campbell, after Jurassic Park, a date movie, everybody wanted everything from him, universally beloved, kind of a problem, everything is Jurassic Park, elevator pitch, the quintessentially example, Jurassic Park, The Meg, Sharknados, Rising Sun, 1992, Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, Japanese businessmen are horny and probably bad, maybe too late in his career, one year after the book, 14 years old, moving into high school, he was a movie hit before Jurassic Park, Spielberg’s directing, get the kids going, shorts and boots, Sam Neil, Event Horizon (1997) is a movie, intense, how long is Congo?, chunky, King Solomon’s Mines, very King Solomon’s Mines, with lasers and monkeys, him engaging, writes books with poets as inspirations, big ambitions, gonna be interesting, white apes, intelligent monkeys, a little pulpy, a little longer, Sphere was weird, you can go wrong, Timeline, State Of Fear, weird ideas, talks a lot about science, The Terminal Man, MKUltra, tin foil hat, brain implants to control people, he’s really on it, whatever he’s writing, past Jurassic Park, what happened between 1980 and Sphere, no book for 7 years, in Hollywood doing tv shows, his Travels, sex with movie stars, every year after that there’s a new book, posthumous from there, one last year, with James Patterson, also not writing his own books, his fictional post-script, they’re neanderthals, has become less crazy, 1992, more than 30 years ago now, the state of neanderthal research, Robert J. Sawyer wrote a trilogy, homo sapiens are extinct, sexuality, their females going into heat, our hero describes the culture of the vikings, they are not pederasts, the culture where he’s coming from a pederastic culture, the Greeks, the relationship to females and slave females, marriage, is your wife faithful?, of course she isn’t, they’re your sons anyway, semi-reflected in the Scandinavian culture of today, a southern European thing, lock the women up, you wife may have a child from another man, something people wouldn’t have put in their book today, full of good detail, an adventure, action packed scenes subverted, capturing the alienness, a new york journalism student, basing it on a real document, carries that through, think differently, how influential Ibn Fadlan’s, rip off whole sections, handsome Hollywood actors, shows like Vikings, slavery among the Scandanavians, the worst slaveowners, most brutal, most casual, super-widespread, just kill them, get new ones in the spring, brutal, awful, some of that in here, complete casualness, raping the slaves, so good, choking out the sacrifice lady, she seemed clear in her mind, she was into it, that you’re into it to, god they’re weirdos, they don’t wash properly, the best sort of effect, a single player RPG, you in the final scene doing something horrible, really good writing, a very moral book, he grew into something better, what made it good, here’s this historical figure who really did travel from Baghdad into north country, meat into the story, suicide path, other female slaves, a question of consent, treatment of women, good for sex, procreation, and sacrifice, weird respect for women, treat em well, two female guards to prevent her from changing her mind, character growth, in fiction, the idea of progress, morally progress, technologically progress, from bronze swords to long swords, the Japanese katana is the highest form, the same job, chop or stab, the vorpal sword, light sabers, a cavalry saber, saber doesn’t mean what they do in Star Wars, all sorts of stupid stuff, progress is a mistake we impose on a set of circumstances, there’s change, and there’s continuity, people are not different, culture is slightly different, death cults, people remain the same, an illusion, we do this in story, stories should reveal character rather than show character growth, doing a lot lift, do you even lift, bro?, he isn’t as quick, trickiness and cleverness, shifty, you can change hands, your sinister hand, nobility, this other mode of being, being a tricky bastard, why Loki as a figure is interesting, his brother Thor, wrathful and kind of dumb, H. Rider Haggard’s Eric Brighteyes is a dimbulb, he’s a dimwit, strong and young, she’s playing him the whole book, a dimmy, 14?, he’s got so many good books, really good, a lot of really good books, he was supertall, standing next to Spielberg, 25 novels, Disclosure, 66 years old, older than Eric, born in 1942, he was writing paperback, put himself through medschool, CIA?, his memoir Travels, goes to Belize with his sister, almost dies, almost dead, this urge to have sex, not acceptable, connecting it to previous experiences, world traveler, the danger is these guys are gonna rob us, the physical circumstances, lives voraciously, a viking sort of idea, horny because you almost died, a biological perspective, pretty extraordinary, chakras or whatever, talking to a cactus, the cactus is talking back, sell everything, super-open and very hidden, as Doctors in everything except completion, mysteries to be solved through surgery, you don’t give them the other option, the show ER, long hours, cockiness, treat themselves as gods, that’s no way to be, a man who couldn’t be contained, Alec Baldwin movie, I am god, Malice (1993), The Bear The Edge (1997), Redbelt, David Mamet, House Of Games (1987), Tim Allen, Steven Segal, swordfighting movie, Conan The Barbarian (1982), cooperative play like in Wrestlemania, that’s fake, at dinner, Horatio Hornblower, Beat To Quarters, New Orleans, Phoenix, C.S. Forester, [lembas], healing energy.

Posted by Jesse Willis