Author Archives: Luke Burrage

Bonus – SFFaudio Podcast #051 – Yellow Peril

Last week I took part in a discussion about The Mysterious Dr. Fu-Manchu and the idea of Yellow Peril. Scott and Jesse from SFFaudio hosted the podcast, and Eric Rabkin and I were guests.

Stuff mentioned:

The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer (aka The Mysterious Dr. Fu-Manchu) – available via Tantor Media, fix-up novel, hypnosis, Sherlock Holmes, the yellow peril incarnate, the yellow peril as the hordes of asia, the Chinese Exclusion Act (USA), Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 (Canada), Tamerlane (the scourge of god), The Yellow Peril by M.P. Shiel, The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel, racism, WWI, colonialism, Burma, Thuggees, Boxer Rebellion, genius, The Talons Of Weng Chiang, if you read it as Fu-Manchu being the hero you may like the story more, mad scientist, Faust, Paradise Lost by John Milton, Robur-Le-Conquérant by Jules Verne (aka Robur-The-Conqueror aka The Clipper of the Clouds), The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells, The White Man’s Burden by Rudyard Kipling, colonialism, The Invisible Man, the other colored other, The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman by Alan Moore, Hawley Griffin (The Invisible Man), Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde, Mina Murray (from Dracula by Bram Stoker), English 418/549: GRAPHIC NARRATIVE (Winter 2010), The Invisible Man shows I and II, If I Ran The Zoo by Dr. Seuss, Jonah And The Whale, Suess’ anti-Japanese propaganda during WWII, Japanese internment during WWII in USA and Canada, Aryan, India, Nazi Germany, The Thule Society, Sri Lanka, racial stereotypes, Marco Polo, Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, gender and skin color, blondness, Karamaneh (the love interest in The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu), femme fatale, Black Widow (1987), miscegenation, the Chinese hordes vs. the insidious Japanese, War With The Newts by Karel Čapek, Japan, LibriVox.org, Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein, beauty as goodness (in fairy tales), King Kong, Last And First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker, The Iliad by Homer, The Old Testament, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg, Arena by Fredric Brown, Plato, the red scare, Jack London, The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin, Arslan by M.J. Engh, Chung Kuo by David Windgrove, selective memory, polarized memory, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Encounter With Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes, China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh, Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends on It by Zachary Karabell, Firefly, Limehouse, London, Detroit, The Man In The High Castle by Philip K. Dick |READ OUR REVIEW|, alternate history, SS-GB by Len Deighton, Fatherland by Robert Harris, Gorky Park, North Korea, the North Korea embassy in East Berlin.

SFBRP #086 – Gene Wolfe – The Shadow of the Torturer

Luke reviews the first volume of The Book of the New Sun, The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe.

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #085 – Iain Banks – Transition

Luke reviews Transition by Iain Banks.

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #084 – R Scott Bakker – The Prince of Nothing series

Luke reviews the entire series of The Prince of Nothing by R. Scott Bakker, and more specifically the final novel in the trilogy, The Thousandfold Thought.

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #083 – China Mieville – The City and The City

Luke reviews The City and The City by China Mieville.

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #082 – Paulo Bacigalupi – The Windup Girl

Luke reviews one of the Top 10 Fiction Novels of 2009 (according to Time magazine) – The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. He also talks about his new fiction release, called The Monster Story Conference.

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novels, “Minding Tomorrow” and “The Monster Story Conference”, so download them at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/fiction.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #081 – Alastair Reynolds – Revelation Space

Luke recounts his experiences with listening to a long audiobook, then reviews Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. After some actual research, it turns out Alastair Reynolds DOES have a PHD in Astronomy, so the “amateur cosmology” jibe is a bit out of place.

Recorded weeks ago, but due to being locked out of my own website…

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #080 – Peter Watts – Blindsight

Luke with iPhone and iPod Touch

Luke reads and reviews a novel in one day: Blindsight by Peter Watts. You can download this novel for free at http://www.feedbooks.com/book/976

Watch Luke’s new video, International Juggler 2009:

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #079 – Smoke and more invisible men

Luke is joined by Jesse from SFFaudio.com to discuss Smoke by Donald Westlake, and talk a bout a lot of other things besides.

Here’s what we talked about:

Luke’s The Invisible Man podcast (SFBRP#78), The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, Donald E. Westlake’s Smoke, invisibility, Freddie Urban Noon, crime, Smoke is an invisible man story done right, Memoirs Of An Invisible Man by H.F. Saint, Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (the 1992 film), invisibility in Fantasy (J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings), invisibility in Science Fiction (The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells), invisibility in a comic crime story, what are the problems with being an invisible thief?, humor, New York, Richard Stark, hard boiled crime, 5 Writing Lessons Learned from Donald Westlake, “When the phone rang Parker was in the garage killing a man.”, The Writing Excuses Podcast, Luke’s review of Makers by Cory Doctorow (SFBRP #74), big tobacco, Westlake’s way of telling a story “he went into the unspeakable kitchen.”, Westlake is a masterful writer of sentences, Peg Briscoe (Freddie’s girlfriend) is a competent confederate, how do you steal things when you’re invisible? (people will see the stolen goods floating down the street!), how do you sell stolen goods when you’re invisible? (you’ll need a confederate), invisibility is a small but well known meme, comparing the memes of invisibility and time travel, nailing small coffins and flogging tiny horses, The Man With The Getaway Face by Richard Stark, the Stark novels are faced paced and utterly absorbing, the differences between Stark novels and Westlake novels, The Hunter by Richard Stark, Payback (the 1999 film), more invisible men, Hollow Man (the 2000 film), Sony used a fake reviewer to shill its movies, unlikeable characters in novels vs. film, the concept of invisibility is a human concept and not a worldly phenomenon (and what that does to our perception of possibility), negating a phenomenon doesn’t create a new phenomenon, invisibility in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series, Jack Ward, The Sonic Society, Superman, why Superman is impossible, invisible men cannot smoke or drink or eat if they want to remain wholly invisible, Neil Morrisey, The Vanishing Man (1998), future memes and themes for podcasts: THE YELLOW PERIL, when will China take over the world? (soon), David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo series, The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer, the Judge Dee mysteries, Starship: Flagship by Mike Resnick, Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick |READ OUR REVIEW|, ***watch out for the false ending*** Alan Moore’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, Allan Quatermain, the National Treasure series, Indiana Jones,

6 Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better, the best television show ever made: The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones, doing something with a television show that no-one has ever done on TV before or since, automating your podcast with Audacity, python.

https://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki

SFBRP #078 – H G Wells – The Invisible Man

Luke is joined by Jesse from SFFaudio.com to discuss H G Wells’ The Invisible Man

Jesse’s notes:

Here’s what we talked about:

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, the public domain status of the writings of H.G. Wells, Luke and Jesse in conversation, The War Of The Worlds, The Island Of Dr. Moreau, The First Men In The Moon, Luke’s review of The Time Machine, Sussex, invasion literature, mad scientist, horror, thriller, the village of Iping, invisibility, scientific invisibility, What Was It?, haunted house, the 2000 film Hollow Man, Smoke by Donald E. Westlake, the development of the invisibility meme, creating tension in a scene with exposition, Luke’s review of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan Raiders Of The Lost Ark story conference |PDF|, a Nazi monkey, Griffin (the titular Invisible Man) as an anti-hero, The Ring Of Gyges (found within Plato’s The Republic), invisibility as a cipher for moral character, invisibility is good for nothing other than spying, if you’re an invisible person you’ll need a confederate, The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Miss Pim’s Camouflage by Lady Stanley, WWI, Invisible Agent, WWII, isolation, moral isolation, anonymity, Eric Rabkin’s point about, refractive index, albinism, the sleight of hand that H.G. Wells uses in The Invisible Man and The Time Machine, The Crystal Egg by H.G. Wells, Mars, long distance communication, what is the serious problem with invisibility? [the answer is a DEFEATER for any truly HARD SF story], the background for The Time Machine is Charles Darwin, evolution and the class system, the background for The War Of The Worlds is invasion literature, war and colonialism, Eddie Izzard’s colonialism through flags, the background for The Invisible Man is personal responsibility, isolation and moral character, Thomas Marvel (the tramp with an invisible friend), the parallels between The Invisible Man and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fawlty Towers, psychopathy, sociopathy, the one ring’s invisibility, invisibility for burglary is only half as useful as you’d expect, imagine the Sauron’s ring in the hands of Denethor, Boromir, or Gandalf!, the filmspotting podcast, visit Luke’s website!

https://www.sfbrp.com/?feed=podcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Luke blogs at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog

Follow Luke on twitter: http://twitter.com/lukeburrage

Luke wrote his own novel, “Minding Tomorrow”, so download it at: http://www.lukeburrage.com/mindingtomorrow.html

Check out listener recommended books: http://www.goodreads.com/lukeburrage

More information on the SFBRP Wiki