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Chapters 9–11 deal with the morning after—when consequences arrive wearing sensible shoes and asking pointed questions. The town of Yokums sobers up just enough for authority, ambition, and self-preservation to reassert themselves, though not always in the order you’d expect. Avram Davidson is at his sharpest here, letting irony do the heavy lifting as plans unravel, alliances shift, and everyone insists they were reasonable all along. The comedy tightens, the satire deepens, and the story quietly pivots from celebration to reckoning. It’s less about beer now, and more about what people do once they’ve tasted the impossible.

#AfterTheParty

#SmallTownSatire

#BeerBeerBeer

#PowerAndConsequences

#ClassicSpeculativeFiction

#DryHumor

#AvramDavidson

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Chapters 6–8 kick the door open on pure, gleeful chaos as Yokums stumbles into an impossible discovery that turns an ordinary workday into a civic fairy tale. The town reacts exactly as you’d expect during hard times: with wonder, hustle, disbelief, and a very practical approach to joy. Avram Davidson leans hard into his gift for turning civic minutiae, oddball characters, and moral gray areas into comedy that feels both mythic and deeply human. There’s laughter, suspicion, authority figures scrambling to look authoritative, and the unmistakable sense that something magical has briefly elbowed its way into the everyday. It’s funny, sharp, and affectionate, with Davidson quietly reminding us how thin the line is between order and delight.

#ProhibitionChaos
#SmallTownAmerica
#SatireAndSuds
#LiteraryComedy
#BeerBeerBeer
#AvramDavidson
#BootlegLogic

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Chapters 3–5 plunge us deeper into Yokums, where politics, ethnicity, morality, and money collide with the steady thrum of everyday life. We meet larger-than-life civic figures, reformers who truly believe they’re saving souls, and working stiffs just trying to get through the week without losing their jobs—or their dignity. Avram Davidson’s voice shines here: wry, generous, and sharp enough to skewer hypocrisy without ever losing affection for his characters. These chapters quietly braid power, temptation, and history together, setting forces in motion that feel inevitable long before anyone realizes what they’ve touched. Nothing explodes yet—but you can hear the fuse hissing.

#BeerBeerBeer
#AvramDavidson
#ProhibitionEra
#AmericanSatire
#SmallTownPolitics
#BootlegCulture
#ClassicSF
#LiteraryHumor

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The opening chapters of BEER! BEER! BEER! drop us into a Depression-era New Jersey town that feels loud, crowded, funny, and just a little bruised, seen mostly through the wandering eyes of a sharp, restless kid. Chapter One is a street-level ramble full of smells, characters, rules, and small humiliations, where “go home” becomes a kind of local anthem. Chapter Two zooms out to City Hall, where politics, paperwork, and personality collide in a very Avram Davidson way—wry, talky, and quietly absurd. Together, they set up a world where nothing is simple, authority is slippery, and everyone’s improvising. It’s richly observed, dryly hilarious, and already humming with trouble—without tipping its hand.

#BeerBeerBeer, #AvramDavidson, #ClassicSF, #LiteraryPodcast, #DepressionEra, #AmericanFiction, #CityPolitics, #ComingOfAge

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In this special holiday episode of the Avram Davidson Universe, Virgil & Bob turn the season of giving into a season of reading by hand-picking the perfect Avram Davidson books for friends, creators, family, and fellow weird-fiction travelers. From occult detectives and haunted walls to eccentric wizards and classic science fiction, we match stories to readers with joyful enthusiasm and a little mischief. It’s all in service of one simple holiday wish: MORE PEOPLE SHOULD BE READING AVRAM DAVIDSON.

#AvramDavidson
#WeirdFiction
#HolidayReads
#BookGifts
#SpeculativeFiction
#FantasyAndSF
#OccultFiction
#LiteraryWeird
#PodcastRecommendations
#GiveBooks
#HolidayPodcast
#ReadersOfWeird
#ClassicSF
#FantasyReaders
#SmallPressLove

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Virgil & Bob revisit the hilarious “Milord Sir Smiht, the English Wizard,” as collected in The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy (1975). In this episode of The Avram Davidson Universe Podcast, they return to Bella’s Court of the Golden Hart, where an English “wizard,” a roomful of snuff, and some very dubious odyllic forces somehow add up to one of Davidson’s strangest comic investigations.

We previously featured this story with the great Tim Anderson — you can watch or listen to that reading here:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1310005/episodes/15173599

https://youtu.be/MibdctVmI2k

This time around, Virgil & Bob try to decide what’s more dangerous: the odyllic machinery, the bureaucracy, or the sheer quantity of Rappee being inhaled. Side effects of this episode may include spontaneous phrenology, sympathy sneezing, and an irrational desire to visit Brothers Swartbloi for “just a pinch” of Imperial.

#fantasybooks , #fantasyhistory , #scifi , #weirdfiction , #booktube , #shortstory , #storytime , #audiobook , #literature , #fiction , #podcast , #podcastclips , #storyanalysis , #readingcommunity , #narration , #classicbooks , #bookdiscussion , #speculativefiction #Snuff @PBSBooks @Tor @PenguinRandomHouse @Nerdwriter1 @crashcourse @WisecrackEDU @britishlibrary @LofiGirl @nytimes ​

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In this episode of The Avram Davidson Universe Podcast, Virgil & Bob try to figure out what the HELL is going on in “The Church of Saint Satan and Pandaemons,” originally published in Fantastic (December 1975) and later collected in The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy and The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy.

This one left them baffled, amused, and occasionally questioning their own sanity.
Please comment — they need help!

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In this episode of The Avram Davidson Universe Podcast, we present “The Church of Saint Satan and Pandaemons,” originally published in Fantastic (December 1975) and later collected in The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy and The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy.

In the next episode, Virgil and Bob will try to unravel what this story is really about — and they may need a little help from the fans on this tricky one.