The Sword and Laser

While we’re kicking off reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, we’re also proud to announce we’re going to Dragon*Con in Atlanta to do a live episode of Sword and Laser! We’re very excited about that, especially because Veronica has been reading a book about dragons and is hoping to meet one.

 

 #020 - The S&L Podcast: Here There Be Dragons [28:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

WHY WE PICKED A GAME OF THRONES

Rick on May 22, 2009 at 9:22pm
I third “Game of Thrones”. It is sitting on my shelf waiting for me to finish the China Mieville book I’m in the middle of. Also, for those upset with Mr. Martin’s lack of new bookage, you should go read the comments by Niel Gaiman on his blog concerning exactly what George R. R. Martin is and is not to his readers.

C on May 23, 2009 at 9:39pm
Game of Thrones is fantastic, the only problem I can see with it is that anyone who reads it will be completely hooked for the rest of the series. As long as people don’t mind that then it’s great. I would also be interested in reading something else (as in something outside Song of Ice and Fire) by him though. Armageddon Rag is supposed to be really interesting and Fevre Dream is about vampires which is always fun. Both of those are standalone books (I think) so they might be better than starting a series?

terpkristin on May 26, 2009 at 4:10am
The reader for books 1-3 (Roy Dotrice) is great. I purchased the 4th book but haven’t listened to it yet (read that one in hardcover on an import version), though John Lee is the narrarator, and some have said that they don’t like him as much as they like Dotrice.

ABOUT A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones is the first of seven planned novels in A Song of Ice and Fire, an epic fantasy series by American author George R. R. Martin. It was first published on 6 August 1996. The novel was nominated for the 1998 Nebula Award and the 1997 World Fantasy Award, and won the 1997 Locus Award. The novella Blood of the Dragon, comprising the Daenerys Targaryen chapters from the novel, won the 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

The novel lends its name to several spin-off items based on the novels, including a trading card game, board game and roleplaying game, and HBO has authorized the filming of a pilot episode based on the novels.[1]

WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING

Tom - Heretics of Dune

Veronica - Black Powder War, Book 3 in the Temeraire series (Book 1 is here)

ESSENTIAL NERD VIEWING

John Hodgman administers a nerd test to President Obama. Do you know the answers?

MOVIES

Moon - A Film By Duncan Jones; Starring Sam Rockwell.

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We’re working on a fix for why the full podcast listings don’t show up with our old theme (previously, you could only see the last ten or so podcast entries). We’re also migrating our feedburner stuff, so if you see anything wonky, let us know in the comments!

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We’re very pleased this week to have Rick Klau, product manager at Blogger, as a guest to talk about the book Daemon. Rick is friends with author Daniel Suarez and gives some insight into the books creation and the long road to publishing.

 

 #019 - S&L Podcast: Talking Daemon with Rick Klau! [40:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We also give our impressions of the book. Which we probably didn’t make clear enough, that we absolutely LOVED it. There are some good threads discussing Daemon in our Ning group. If you want to jump in try the “How would you have ended it differently?” thread or the thread discussing the encrypted text at the end of the book.

Congrats to Mark who may have accidentally won our copy of Dune. Although it looks like he actually meant to enter after I’m looking at the thread post-show.

Next book will be by George R. R. martin. But which one? You can weigh in on our pick the Martin book thread.

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Aaron Harvey from our Ning forums created this amazing “book cover” for Sword and Laser! I think it marries the science fiction and fantasy genres perfectly! I also feel pretty honored that Aaron took the time to create something so cool for the community.

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It was Dune time and we found out how much of nerd I (Tom) am for Frank Herbert’s stuff and how hard it is to pronounce pretty much anything he wrote when you try to say it out loud.

 

 #018 - The S&L Podcast: Kwisatz and the Haderachs [42:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We also found out that there are Dune influences all over popular culture including Films, spinoffs, and metal. In fact there are all kinds of heavy metal scifi influences. Including, apparently this podcast. You must listen to the end to hear the rockingest book club rock anthem ever to rock. And we also form a new band based on Dune.

More info, including club members thoughts on Dune, in the podcast and after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Clive Royal Project is looking for new members, and they want you! All you have to do is remix some of the tracks on the site, and you’re in. We’re kind of emotionally invested in this band, since one of their epic songs is inspired by The Sword and Laser!

That song is so going in the podcast next time!

Thanks to @aldenoneil for the tip!

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For some reason the last podcast entry didn’t take in the iTunes feed, so I’m adding it again under a different file name:

 

 #017 - The S&L Podcast: Let's talk about sex?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thanks for your patience!

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Really, most of the episode is about The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan:

UPDATE: Hopefully the file will work now in iTunes!

 

 #017 - The S&L Podcast: Let's talk about sex? [37:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We disucssed the paralells to other fantasy worlds like Lord of the Rings and even World of Warcraft. We also passed along Randy’s post from the Ning site about the Robert Jordan convention which you can find out more about by visiting
www.AgeofLegends.net.

But then we got to talking about Watchmen near the end and one thing led to another. It all came back around to Robert Jordan though as we discussed Sean O’Hara’s Ning thread called Sexbots and dragons.

Speaking of the Ning group, we called out a couple of user-created groups that aren’t related to official book club selections. Take a gander at the Alternate History group if you like to pretend things are different than they way they really are. And a really cool group that crosses TV fandom with literature, The Lost literary references group.

Finally we settled on Frank Herbert’s Dune as the next book. We’ll kick it off in the April episode, so if you have any questions, or non-spoiler thoughts for newbies to the book, let us know here in the comments

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As promised in the most recent podcast, our good friend Ryan (a.k.a. TuxOtaku) has set up a Sword and Laser IRC channel! Here are the details:

Server: irc.revision3.com
Room: #swordandlaser

We’ll be doing some scheduled chats soon, but otherwise feel free to pop in and say hello from time to time! Just be mindful of spoilers (in fact, let’s keep current book discussion to a minimum unless otherwise noted).

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This week we check in on the beginning of the Wheel of Time series. Veronica’s ahead of me and says the thing really picks up right after the point I stopped. Which makes me think she’s just trying to get me to start reading again. Which is fine. One of the problems is I’m reading Watchmen at the same time in advance of the movie. I’ll share a few impressions about that with you as well. We also discuss the book Daemon as reviewed on Slashdot. Should it be our next book choice?

Finally we take some reader comments, including a Wheel of Time Drinking Game and someone calling the last book “pants.” We’re pretty sure that means he didn’t like it. Welcome to the wonderful world of monthly Sword and Laser! Woo-hoo! Pant

 

 #016 - The S&L Podcast: Pants! [23:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Special thanks to Jonathan Coulton for the use of his song, Mr. Fancy Pants! Go buy it here!

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