The SFFaudio Podcast #898 – Jesse and Scott talk about All Flesh is Grass by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
1965, the point in his career, without serial in magazines, what’s happening after 1958, distribution is just awful, Galaxy, Astounding/Analog, F&SF, magazine sales, hardcover 1st, Doubleday, purple covers, it’s ok, mid 60, psychedelic covers, horrible, Foss cover?, spaceship with blowout, a science fiction book, flowers and faces, rocketship = science fiction, dragon = fantasy, good cover or not, where we start, what’s the cover look like, favourite, love this book, a fan, one of his best ones, the suspicion of the main character, suspicion of the flowers, he/it/they be, is it justified?, Simak’s behind it all, trust Simak, aggressively hostile at times, talking to the politicians, personal suspicion, harsh circumstances, losing his business, can’t pay his phone bill, unsettling, am I losing my mind or not?, very Philip K. Dicky, guy standing in his garden talking to his tree, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, a delusional homeless man, careful framing, trying to go for an effect, clunky careful framing, this is just a crazy man, all he has to do to be a secret hero of earth, a solipsistic power fantasy of a child, reinforce that, drinking himself to death, Tupper, autistic?, something wrong with him, the primary source of contact until the phones get going, until the barrier shows up, backstory, setting up the scenario, particular distress, it’s cool, so many Simaks, Dick is similar or vice versa, he really cooks with short stories, that old Del Rey paperback, to read Simak is to read science fiction, kinda true, you think of space, other alien planets, are they really other planets?, what recurrs in his books, humanity is screwing up badly, there’s a way out, a friend named Gavin, the solutions he always gives are fantastical, to the point of destruction, a science fiction trope, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the one with Gort [The Day The Earth Stood Still], we will destroy you, Simak was already on it in 1965, gotten into scraps, town asshole, a pretty brutal fight, blood, the girl runs off, periods of things like that, lash out, a surprise, dogs fight, turning on each other, snarling down on the ground, a real town, Millville, population 127, the town is disappearing, instead of Ray Bradbury nostalgia, I’m still here, world wars, humanity as a species, we are bad because we did nukes, those rockets have yet to go off, putting this collective guilt on us as individuals not to do war, follow orders, like we’re the bad ones as a collection, Bradford or Brad, humanity itself is worth saving, not a Malthusian you fuckers have to stop breeding, Ring Around The Sun, empty and beautiful, mobs, a newspaperman, hip deep in that, he’s seeing everything, the plant is closing, this is key to understanding, look at the news and process it everyday, local news, see the trends happening, the tv says there’s going to be good weather next week, the current state of humanity, WWII, throes of Vietnam, greed, corporations, extremely pessimistic about humanity, an optimism about what humanity can be, on the whole humans good, extreme ideas, the knowledge of the universe, this incredible knowledge, tap that, solve these problems in ourselves, recurring stuff, that optimism, laying down some goodness, the interaction with the flowers, he does talk to an elm tree, through the telephone, in his best novel, Galactic Pot-Healer, talk to Mr. Job, an ai that put you out of work, go to Cleveland, radio broadcasts, look in your toilet tank, doesn’t like being mentally ill, you are needed for a great project, a return to a belief into something bigger than yourself, raising the sunken cathedral, find a purpose, a novel of a romantic poem, the romantic poets, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth, continuous as the stars that shine, along the margin of a bay, they outdid the sparkly waves, a jocund company, the blissful solitude, no alien intelligence inside these daffodils, how’s he gonna resolve this book?, what if we’re cut off from this possibility, the other species can cure humanity of its ills, they aren’t just healing us, they’re replacing the broken things in us, witch-doctor, penicillin, an alien economy, the way the romantics work, you go for a walk, the birds of the air, the grass, the trees, then you go home and you write it down, an experience of nature, a nature walk transformed into a piece of art, aliens who want to contact humanity, a solution, they need our love, they need us to appreciate them, an olive branch, the flowers say, we need living space, we have no hands, for the benefit of each of us, many earths, a common aim and purpose, that’s heavy, that’s the threat, suspicious of corporations, Monsanto says, they’re resistant to this, the terminator gene, making ip laws on nature, when Simak posits some aliens, can’t we just trust them, he is the god of the book, this god is good, malevolent aliens, if Lovecraft wrote this book, Mars is a dead world, never been any evil acts done on Mars, a kindly touch, some encouraging words, that’s a sterileness, uplifted, in a quest to enjoy symbiosis with other minds, first contact, we meet aliens and we become friends, a flower garden, cherry blossoms, blackberry blossoms, we need a closer relationship based on me eating part of you, what those bones were, they wiped themselves out, never developed properly, delivered to his plate, the money being grown by the flowers, not real money, what makes it not real?, it hasn’t been officially blessed, cynical and looking for trouble, a communist!, even they’ve got a program in Mississippi, how important money is to us, if each of those bills had a new serial number, it’s above our pay grade, be able to spend it, break the system, some flaws with the book, the dome, Under The Dome, definitely came from this, aliens again, playing a game, adolescent, he fails on his endings a lot, what it did to that small town, The Tommyknockers, The Mist, the scene in the grocery store, we gotta sacrifice one of us, I should sacrifice myself, the homeless guy rushes in, back to his father, looms over the book, the original sin, cultivated and cared about them, a repayment, an investment, a very weird book, it takes the sentiment and thought behind romantic poetry and turns it into a science fiction novel, the barrier proves this guy’s not crazy, to prove existence, pass in between, permission somehow, there’s something there, create the crisis and the proof, if this were a Philip K. Dick novel, calm down bro, running around town, an invasion like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, the horror of mental illness, thinking people are demons, a man in crisis, good hints, what’s she gonna do, all the great people who came out of this town, self-insert, a business guy, not super-imaginative, straight laced mind, a means to fund other projects, set aside some of this money selling gadgets, write cheques, really cool, a collection The Gentle Invaders, The Midwich Cuckoos, the barrier, a whole town in put to sleep, 9 months later all the women are pregnant, still rape, a new hybrid human alien species, too gentle to make the aliens malevolent, Leigh Brackett, Fritz Leiber, Mack Reynolds, 1969, Hans Stefan Santesson, editor of Fantastic Universe, Edward D. Hoch, 60 cents, Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1966, Judith Merrill’s review, long winded, right after Earth Abides, John Christopher, personal nomination, conformity vs. individualism, some zombies too, no hasty conclusions, solid speculative content, oxymorons, meaningful and eminently readable, our protagonist is an individuals, mobs, rumor vs. fact, there will be peace, we will be nuked, panic, she’s bringing her own stuff to it, him vs. the government, some bigshot through the dome, NPCs, quite well realized, the father of the girlfriend, knows himself, this is your money, here have a drink, self-concious of his own limitations, a history of all the people in this town who are making a big impact in the world, they’re all inspired by the flowers, no?, a walk in the woods, lovely daffodils, a spring in your step, the beauty of the nature, a Doc Labyrinth story, shoes that come to life, a living thing, zany guy’s house, latest invention, The Preserving Machine, allow beauty to survive nuclear war, transformed into a living creature, lay eggs or gestate, life persists even in the face of disaster, these plants preserve knowledge and truth in themselves and want to share it, the animals that come out are reflections of what Philip K. Dick thinks of the chamber musicians, deadly serious, plant life is the thing I’m talking about, jokes about my favourite musicians, this field of flowers is beautiful, cultivate your own garden, write a poem, maybe someone will like, a rifle and a tower, kill all the politicians who want to make war, get better soil, love it, very biblical too, these are not even a monocrop, they can be sticks or vegetables, fruit, how amazing fruit is, eat me, take me, get my seeds elsewhere, this deliciousness serves us both, our relationship to animals, chickens, beef, get upset, how can you eat that thing, a creature, ready to be harvested, what they’re there for, this planet must be sterile, only because it can feel pain, our relationship and its relationship with us, the whole animal business, a ...