Episode Details

The SFFaudio Podcast #897 –Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Talked about on today’s show:
family names, English people are weird, disappointing, what year this book came out, a prolific writer, the reader’s digest version, it’s really cool, no one else has read it, post WWI, it has to be 1920, there’s a movie in 1921, a weird and good book, the ending obviously, four different things going on, the 39 steps meets The Prisoner Of Zenda, a lot more swordfighting, talk about previous swordfights, he fell on my sword, came away with a broken arm, it skips all the fun in a certain sense, subdues Robert Urthank, smokin, alcohol, a lot of guns on birds, like it a lot, the only way it could be constructed, a new student, choose your own adventure book, if you do this turn to page 18, death, premature imprisonment in a skull mountain, the best ending, rewrite this as a Choose Your Own Adventure, do you drink the whiskey?, at some point in the narrative, the author tricks us, a possibility, really suspicious, my fake wristwatch that I don’t have, that’s a slip-up if…, the main character is called by his proper name by the narrator of the book, the twist is he’s not lying, it comes out of nowhere, a clever book, oooh!, The Sixth Sense, sitting around in rooms with a little kid, a good twist, missed the twist, the revelation which was kinda cool, massively improved, do you go on another hunt?, do you go in the black wood?, is this a little Hound Of The Baskervilles thing too, her brother who’s mentally deficient, we don’t have the butler, we’re supposed to be in on it, very cool, how can you do this to me?, I was not your buddy Leopold, does the book play fair?, misses something he should have known, I’ve been gone for so long, he also was gone for a long time, a teenager, a trick for us, in on the secret, the German guy, we will expand!, we need breathing room, use this for inspiration!, take my papers, hold them for me, two documents that are opposite, Germans are nice fellows, evil conquerors, in combination with the black wood, haunted place from the past, a body buried there, Baron Ragstein, his own demon in his backstory, his real demon?, fought a man and was exiled, mirroring, at Oxford, both at the same school, one is charged with the other’s bills at school, a nice little touch, a very good condensation of scenes in the book, other Universal Horror movies, a werewolf story, the calling in the night, a fakeout, clearing the black wood, the resolution of the valance, which is he?, the spy or the counter spy, he’s the hero, we never see him meeting with the British, the white linen, what happened in Africa, Africa changes a man, the cousin, Africa, India, all the same, the women are black and there’s lots of beasts, he took the Baron’s money, and followed the Baron’s plan, quite striking, guys gone to seed, the first of his name not to waste all his money, degenerate, regenerate, the family line always degenerates, a Lovecraftian family, in the basement eating your friend, I’m paying off the family debts, his skin looks better, standing a little straighter, like you’ve been a military uniform, a great surprise as a possibility, the author knew what he was doing the whole time, turning old novels into Choose Your Own Adventures, poor student, every poor kid, The Great Gatsby, a rich guy observed by an acquaintance/friend, the very first Hard Case Crime book, Grifter’s Game, conmen, a supersolid horrible noir awesome ending, the lobby was air conditioned, his tone apologetic, every stinking dive, palm up, he liked to receive it, a great opening, the girl is tied to the chair, making her a heroin addict, the great dissipation, you don’t want to have him for a boyfriend, g