The SFFaudio Podcast #848 – The Magic City by Edith Nesbit (7 hours 33 minutes) read by Ruth Golding for LibriVox – followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Jason Thompson.

Talked about on today’s show:
1910, read to me, talking about it on twitter, pretty amazing, working on my Dreamland role playing game, dreamland adjacent, Five Children And It, childhood library, didn’t have good art, really love it, Ruth Golding’s version, the audiobook will be up front, unless they skip to the end, not better known, Wizard Of Oz level, didn’t have 50 other books made after it, we start with the premise, a little boy who’s an orphan, his mother is his sister, he’s 10, one day they meet a man on the road, he offends in many small ways, determined to be mad at his sister-mom, introduced to the family of this widower, everything’s wrecked, very real, Isekai, portal world stories, annoying boys, jerks, he gets out of it, negotiates with the girl, it’s sweet, talking everything, to restate the whole premise, child protagonist, feels lonely and grumpy, honeymoon with her new husband, new step-sister, takes refuge in an elaborate city, toy soldiers, books, the nanny, what a mess, take all this apart, by moonlight, transformed, into the city, his sister pops in too, not just a magic city, the wikipedia synopsis, the magic world, a small part of this greater world, everything that he’s ever dreamed of or played with, other people are drawn into this world, reminded by the premise, The Lego Movie (2014), Lord Business, relationship between you your toy your world, bad relationship, through the course of the experience, avatar, a more positive relationship on the other end, really key, build something and the then play with it, couldn’t become the guy, being inside the buildings, building up a fantasy secondary world, The Sword Of Welleran by Lord Dunsany, another mode, just play, not just the story of a kid who builds a city, a new family being integrated together, emotional change, after they see the beautiful city, she shouldn’t tear this down, a coming together, wild imagination, The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath, earlier modes of human behavior, past-toddler, a 2 year old and a 4 year old, superbaby, peekaboo, imaginative work, names for her toys, Setsee, literal names, the process, a mermaid named Seariel, every language was foreign, stodgy and literal, pretending to be things, a monster here, this is an ice cream shop, the floor is lava, his whole world and everything that he thought of, favourite line, for the second time, Philip the carpenter, a little progressive, idle dreamers, the people who build these toys, Mr Parent, how can you be here and at Amblehurst too, just a dream then, go through the dreams and come out on the otherside, the coolest concept, the most lame explanation, even in 1910, fairly silly, arbitrary, fetch quests, maybe written for serialization, no vegetables or fruits in this kingdom, pineapples are not considered fruits here, very profound, trippy, secondary world material, a cosmic feeling, the mystic sense, mysticism, drilling in the eight hours of day enough, contemporary politics, the laws in the Magic City, good laws and bad laws, Noah is also the judge, they’re convicted, put in prison, would you please escape, they exit the door, would you please escape, a task defeated, what the purpose of everybody’s job is, make beautiful laws, everyone should be nice to everyone else, Nesbit doesn’t delve deeply into this idea, SimCity, Civilization, your own philosophy, a peaceful city, a healthful city, chessboards and old books, will it be a kingdom?, crowned king and queen, this is a republic, please leave, play with the idea of what makes a building of a city beautiful and valuable, H.P. Lovecraft stories, the chalcedony and the thanes, impious leadership, very corrupt, how should they live there, gotta be conscious, the city is multi-ethnic, this person is brown, this person is Chinese, non-ethno state fantasy world, a reflection of the ideal, the boy builds it for escape, a very lonely life, wealthy enough to afford servants, play-friends, sister/mom playfriend, he’d previously done it, a practice of comfort, such a big grudge, so much investment he literally falls into it, Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven goes to Hell, reconstructing Dante’s Inferno from a hard science fiction point of view, how does the city work?, work out a history, meals made of cardboard, bowls for dessert, prophecies, make plot happen, while our hero has not been there, The Neverending Story, movie and book, the first half of the book, since you created it it has been here forever, module creation, set your players on a path, not hallucinate exactly, filibuster, once it has been said it is now fact, maybe the people don’t eat at all, fight the lions in the desert, the intent of the person killing them, so many great parts in this book, the hints of the political changes, Somnolentia, formerly Briskford, backtory, why are we changing the name, making the place better, healing exercise, you’ve got some trauma, talk it out, write it down, work it out, Halva?, more complex chess or go or Chinese checkers, before video games, before dungeons and dragons, toy shop, the Sears catalogue, Lando’s speeder, I can imagine it, you use what figures you have, why LEGO is so great, make your own toys, the guts to see though it, branded toys, an IP nightmare, make it generic, playing into the same, sloth vs. industry, something there, a slow person, very slow, sloth is a sin, what makes you suddenly creative, 17 different things going, on the phone, no creativity there, stress and things that gotta get checked off, today’s a slow day, early in the book, just because it’s raining outside that isn’t a day for lessons, punishment, much rather be playing, a day of laze-about, get out the pencil crayons, something starts to appear, the rule by the great sloth is something to be addressed, not working deep mines of anything, isn’t it interesting, impressed by the ending, the grand surprise, Julius Caesar to defeat the barbarians, imaginative stuff, everything is in the city, how they exit is interesting, they build their way out, they build their way in, the pretenderess, carried away with her own excitement, the Noah toy comes to life because of the tears, not a serious story, maybe it didn’t happen, The Fall (2006), artsy, listening to stories told by a stuntman, the story becomes darker, dark thoughts, helplessness and despair, all just a dream, oh please!, fantasy sequences, they don’t give you that wink, literal minded, establish that it’s “real”, pointing to it earlier, you go through dream through to reality, Ex Oblivione, chairs, horses, become one with everything that’s real, through the trauma of that plucking, as you grow and learn and experience, you recognize the things you once knew, dreams tell me about me and what’s going on in my world, if it has no consequence or value, the world is a dream, the Poe gloss on it, The Arabian Nights, literal mindedness, let me tell you another story, what’s the real?, equal weight as words on a page, we’re destablishing the reality of the frame story, get me back to the action!, what is the real reality, something you find in Borges, a story inside the Arabian Nights, what the particular story is called, a prophecy, meets a man and talks to him, something that he wanted, that man has had a dream, it’s a circle, The Circular Ruins, a man who self creates in dream, The Green Meadow, The Crawling Chaos, the landscape is a human body, it’s a skull, a man lying down in hospital, decaying and decrepit body, so interesting, the connection between mind and body, sick the last week, high fever, see many things, experiencing things that are not real, you can be in a waking dream state, the normal activity, faces, swirling, crazy outsider artist, devilish landscape, look up at the ceiling, painted in a pattern or lack of pattern, a cloud that looks like a dragon or a horse, the interpretation and the generation, real connections, a map and perception of the world, something that’s real outside of you, a piece of fiction, narrowing the reality to just the words, no reality other than the words, combined through the ears, the eyes or fingers, as real as a dream but more concrete, it’s cool, magic items, magic coming to our world, time travel, expand this out, headcanon, essentially in the Dreamlands, if the world is bigger than the city, his sister, the people who build the blocks, the collective unconscious, public domain, the dragon that was the key, wind up the dragon, largely lost, a kid’s nursery from 1910, the toy soldiers, Christmas presents, what it is constructed around, propagandistic toy soldiers and sailors, without the Jurassic Park or Star Wars branding, marketing to kids, blocks are handmade by the servant, the factory works, it really is the LEGO movie, it is good, whatever’s on the streaming service, curate everything, the Barbie Movie, addressing right away, doesn’t mention the CIA, Barbie can be any job that she wants, arch and meta and clever, that was for adult women and men and kids, H.G. Wells doing his Floor Games, collecting He-Man figures coming out today, his sister reappears in the world, not conscious of it per se, the husband is Julius Caesar, read it very subversively, childhood sweethearts, he’s got a kid he needs a mom for, an integration not a horror, the sister and not the parent, makes the resentment more, you’ve already been betrayed, you’ve already lost your parents, 17 brothers and sisters, how big a deal is it?, the more tenuous your relationship with your parents, mad at my father when he’s dying of cancer, it’s not fair, child logic just amps it up, he’s left alone, unless you work really hard, she’s whisked off to the honeymoond almost immediately, thank you, every two years or so, get well soon, this really fund story, better known, three other lives, the magic country, the magic land.

Posted by Jesse Willis