S&L Podcast - #300 - Don't Pee in the Gene Pool

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Hey kids, Nnedi Okorafor has an HBO show coming, EW and Tor have LOADS of book recommendations and we love the world created by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Download directly here!

QUICK BURNS

Allison: HBO has optioned Nnedi Okorafor’s World Fantasy Award-winning novel Who Fears Death to be a TV series with George R. R. Martin attached as executive producer. The novel is about a woman with magical abilities living in post-apocalyptic Sudan where light-skinned Nuru oppress darker-skinned Okeke people.

Silvana: So, according to EW, these are the 27 female authors who RULE scifi and fantasy. I can't even...Who are half these people? Who the heck is Rainbow Rowell? Apparently I was not aware of the genre rulers.
- AND Melanie added: Seems more like a list of 27 books not authors. Rainbow Rowell is a pretty famous realistic YA author who wrote ONE fantasy book as a spin off of one of her normal books. She does not belong in this list.

Stephen: Tor.com reviewers gives us "The Best Of 2017 So Far" list. Nice list, so take notes.

Stephen: Also, want to lend a hand transcribing Magical Manuscripts and rent a fissure into the underworld? It all possible.

BARE YOUR SWORD

A few things about KU.

A. It is a pay service.  10/month allows you to read as many KU titles as you can consume.
B. You can have up to 10 books in your library at a time.
C. The audio portions still cost full price.
D. Each KU author gets a pittance per page read.
E. There are a lot of books that would never get a wide distribution.  Some deservedly so.
F.  If you don't read several books a month, the $10 probably isn't worth it. I read 10/20 books a month and have a constantly full backlog and have not purchased a full price boom in months. At three to five dollars a book I am spending 10 bucks to consume 30 to 100 dollars worth of media.

There are however nuggets of gold among the dross. My favorite is Glynn Stewart.  He has 3 series and 2 stand alone books.  All of which are as good or better than traditionally published works. One series in particular that I recommend to S&L is Starship Mage.  A political action romp set in a universe where space travel is possible because of magic. It is epic fantasy political space opera at its finest.

There are of course other good KU authors and books, but a lot of them are mental floss and not like the high faluting books you generally pick.

-Joel

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Scotch butterscotch is just butterscotch @swordandlaser . Butterscotch is essentially caramelized scotch, sugar and cream. ;) @jfdubeau

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@Veronica @acedtect I am binge-listening to all of @swordandlaser -
This podcast makes me feel better about being me. #yaynerds #thankyou @epjwrites

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That looks more like a bear romance novel cover @swordandlaser https://twitter.com/tamahome02000/status/885143125542481920/photo/1 @tamahome02000

@swordandlaser Also @librivox has tons of PD sci-fi/fantasy read by great narrators. Great stuff. @joeljadamson (or as I like to call him, Joel J, son of Adam)

http://www.librivox.org

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

LHoD kickoff!

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser.

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks.

S&L Podcast - #298 - Don't Get Eaten By a Bear

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George R. R. Martin has even more money coming his way, public domain books clean up nice, we love the Locus Award winners, and why Veronica is not allowed to let a bear eat her.

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Schilling Hard Cider: Rhubarb Lumberjack

Veronica: Bulleit Rye

QUICK BURNS

Trike: Syfy to adapt (ordered a pilot) George R.R. Martin's short story Nightflyers into a series. Seems like not a lot of material to support a series, since it's basically his version of Alien.

Silvana: Locus Award Winners
Have not read the novel winners (not really interested as I am one of the very few not impressed with Three-Body Problem) but I read the novelette winner (Alyssa Wong has a unique style) and plan to read the novella winner too.
Special mention to Kameron Hurley for best nonfiction work.

Iain: Just found the Standard E-Books, which are Project Gutenburg books that have been type set and cleaned up to make them easier to read.
I have found the Princess of Mars and Armageddon 2419 A.D. (aka Buck Rogers) and many other cool old SF and fantasy. This is a treasure trove of free books (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc...).

Nathaniel: Just seen this, a Foundation TV Series?
(( Skydance Television is closing a deal with the Asimov estate to try turning Foundation into a sprawling TV series.))

Call for submissions for science fiction and utopian imaginaries

BARE YOUR SWORD

Post-Science / Next Age Fantasy

I forgot to attach the photo! I entered my little guy in the costume parade as Baby Lem and I was his dragon wrangler 😊

Regarding Ep. 297 of @swordandlaser : how about scotch butterscotch? I know you eventually went there but...

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Book kickoff!

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks

Review us on iTunes!

feedback@swordandlaser.com

swordandlaser.com

goodreads.com

(415) 779-6736 or (415) 7SWORD6

S&L Podcast - #297 - Haint a Plot Hole if You Ask Me

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New Game of Thrones Trailer! AHHHHH! Levar Burton reading stories on a new podcast! AHHHH! Haint plot hole in the Hum and the Shiver-- ahhhhh— maybe not that big a deal?

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Butterbeer

Veronica: Margs

QUICK BURNS

New Game of Thrones Trailer (Returns July 16)

David: Indra Das won the 2017 Lamba Literary Award for Best LGBT SF/F/Horror for his first novel, The Devourers. Full list of winners here.

Nokomis.FL: George R.R. Martin says he thinks incremental updates just make fans angry, and only completing "Winds of Winter" will satisfy them as he tries to deliver the next book.

Christos: Levar Burton is finally making Reading Rainbow for adults and it's free. In each weekly podcast he reads a popular short story in full adds sound effects for atmosphere and gives a little background on it. He said he's going to read Sci-fi and Fantasy short stories but also non genre stories. He only released one episode so far (Kin by Bruce McAllister) but it's great, can't wait to hear more, I never watched Reading Rainbow as a kid because I never heard of it until I was adult, but I am a fan of him.

Sandra and Jessica: The title of the third installment in Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series has been announced: Record of a Spaceborn Few. The release is slated for June 14, 2018.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Sci-fi with language contact?

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Vote for our July pick!

The Hum and the Shiver: A Novel of the Tufa by Alex Bledsoe

Patron book briefing

The Haint

Cover Art Travesty!

The Painting in the Cricket Library (Slightly Spoilery)

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks

S&L Podcast - #295 - Don't put spiders on your head

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The Hugo nominees are out and we love them all, we kick off the Hum and the Shiver with music, and a spider that looks like a sorting hat. 

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Lifeway Kefir

Veronica: Hirsch Small Batch Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

QUICK BURNS

terpkrisin: Hugo nominees are out, including some books S&L has read or authors and series that we've read.

Books include:
All the Birds in the Sky
A Closed and Common Orbit
Death's End
The Obelisk Gate

More interesting to me, I actually *know* one of the editors nominated. I'm very happy for a friend to be nominated. :)

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials 'Equel' Gets a Title, New Hero, and Excerpt

Stephen: They found a new spider, and it is called "The Sorting Hat Spider"!!!
And the scientific name has Harry Potter influence.

Aaron: This year's Geeks Doing Good campaign just went up (6 days). mong the swag is stuff for the Iron Druid Chronicles, The Kingkiller Chronicles, The Dresden Files, and a JoCo cruise ticket raffle.

BARE YOUR SWORD

What is the most dangerous city in fiction?

@swordandlaser @acedtect IIRC, generally it’s whiskey for American and Irish. Whisky for those others. My mnemonic? It’s booze: Americans and the Irish want more! via @BrentWeeks

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Hum and the Shiver: A Novel of the Tufa by Alex Bledsoe

Patron book briefing

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser.

Welcome to Peter Gee and El_Comutador

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks

S&L Podcast - #294 - Live at BayCon with Whiskey!

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We are excited about the winner of this year's Nebula, the finalists in the Locus awards, and so many TV shows coming from our favorite books. Plus, why Neil Gaiman will read a Cheesecake Factory Menu on stage. 

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Veronica and Tom (Thanks to Robert!): Michter's Limited Release Toasted Barrell Finish Bourbon

QUICK BURNS

Louie: The Nebula Award winners announced. Congrats to Charlie Jane Anders on winning the Best Novel award for All the Birds in the Sky.

Rob: Locus Finalists Announced

terpkristin: So, apparently GRRM has said that the HBO GoT spin-offs will NOT include Robert's Rebellion nor Dunk & Egg. I'm perplexed but intrigued as to what they will be.

Trike & Rob wrote: Recent S&L pick and popular video game series The Witcher is being made into a TV show by Netflix: With Andrzej Sapkowski as a consultant.

David: Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is coming to HBO, with Jordan Peele & JJ Abrams as executive producers. Magic and racism in '50s America (despite the name, it's not really a Lovecraftian novel). I think the book had some potential issues, but Peele's studio involvement makes me beyond excited.

Alex: Neil Gaiman agreed to read entire Cheesecake Factory menu, with a catch if $500,000 has been raised for a charity of his choice, which happens to be the United Nations Refugee Agency.

BARE YOUR SWORD

I'm on the literature division for Worldcon 75, held in Helsinki this year, and a huge fan of Sword and Laser. I wanted to let you know that I will be hosting book club meetups for Sword and Laser and Vaginal Fantasy as part of the Worldcon program. The meetups will be open to anyone attending the con and will be discussing the August picks for each club. I can't wait to meet all the fellow genre book fans from around the world! We haven't finalized the schedule yet so I can't tell you the days for the meetups but the con is from August 9th to 13th and it's going to be a fantastic lineup.

Kind regards
Liz Loikkanen

Live Audience questions!

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

June Book

The Hum and the Shiver: A Novel of the Tufa by Alex Bledsoe

May Book Wrap Up

The Long Way to A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Colin: Discussion seems to have dried up quite early for this book. Is that because so many of you had read it before this month?

Drew: I'm almost done (I have about 15% left) and I think I have figured out what has been bugging me.

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser.

Welcome to Larry Lein, Sean Sandulak, Gloria Renna.

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks

S&L Podcast - #292 - Cozy Space Opera

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We've got more of Game of Thrones TV coming, the Arthur C. Clarke Award nominees, and our thoughts on why The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is the opposite of epic in the best way possible.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Orange Juice with Mango

Veronica: Robert Hall 2015 Rose de Robles

QUICK BURNS

Silvana: Another TV series we can wait for: The Black Company

Danielle: Don't know if anyone has posted about this yet or not, but Persepolis Rising, book 7 of the Expanse has a release date of Dec 5, 2017 per Amazon. Just in time for Christmas. ^.^

David: The ceremony for the Parsec Awards for podcasts has been hosted by Dragon Con for a decade, but the organizers recently announced plans to begin holding a livestreamed virtual ceremony instead sometime in November (date TBA).

David: The Arthur C. Clarke Award nominees have been announced. The Clarke Award is given for the best science fiction novel published in the UK (judged by a panel).

Nokomis.FL: HBO has signed on four writers to begin development of four different Game of Thrones spinoffs. 

Conal and Nokomis.FL: Here’s What Andy Weir’s New Book ARTEMIS is All About (United States and Canada on November 14, 2017. )

BARE YOUR SWORD

First ever Lem

What are the coolest and most powerful handheld weapons in sci-fi and fantasy

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Long Way to a A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Opposite of Epic

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser

Welcome to Jenna Woginrich, Tanya Dawn, Liz U

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks

Review us on iTunes!

S&L Podcast - #290 - Let’s Get Stuck in Fantasyland!

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Neil Gaiman makes sure the American Gods TV show is prepared for the sequel he hasn’t even written yet, why the Invisible Library doesn’t need to change the world to be awesome, and a plea for regular folks to get back to Fantasyland.

Download directly!

QUICK BURNS
    
Silvana: BBC is going to adapt China Mieville's The City and the City. Noir thriller in a Mieville world. Sold.
    
David: The 2016 BSFA Award winners were announced this past weekend at Eastercon: (BSFA is the British Science Fiction Association, and Eastercon was held in Birmingham, England, this year.) Europe in Winter by Dave Hutchinson won Best Novel, and "Liberty Bird" by Jaine Fenn won Best Short Fiction. 
    
Michele: New update on Wheel of Time tv show
    
Aaron: Independent Bookstore Day is Sat April 29

Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day national party that takes place at indie bookstores across the country on the last Saturday in April. Every store is unique and independent, and every party is different. But in addition to authors, live music, cupcakes, scavenger hunts, kids events, art tables, readings, barbecues, contests, and other fun stuff, there are exclusive books and literary items that you can only get on that day. Not before. Not after. Not online."
    
Nokomis.FL: Neil Gaiman isn't letting Starz spoil the sequel to his book, American Gods with their television adaptation, though the book won't be available soon.
    
Matthew: I really enjoyed this and all of Joe Hills work so far so hope a show based on it is good as well  (Hulu doing a Pilot based on Joe Hill's comic Locke & Key) 
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
What's your favorite scientific explanation of magic in fiction?
    
Why Doesn't Anyone Get Stuck in Fantasyland Anymore?
  
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
May Book will be:     
The Long Way to a A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
May Book Briefing on Patreon
    
WRAP UP

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
    
TIL: The Ending (Full Spoilers)
    
Late to the party
    
Come meet us at Baycon!
    
ADDENDUMS    
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser
Welcome to Jennifer WIlkinson, Eric Pulvermacher, and Christopher Schroeder   
    
You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks
    

S&L Podcast - #288 - Slow Readers Unite!

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Hugo Nominees are in! The African Speculative Fiction Society nominees are in! People pressuring you to read 200 books a year are in. But us slow readers draw the line.

Download directly here!
    
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom:    Some of his wife's soda from Fatburger
Veronica:    Petite Syrah
    
QUICK BURNS
    
Nokomis.FL : 2017 Hugo Award Finalists Announced on April 4th
    
Sandra: Well that was fast, Scalzi's new book The Collapsing Empire tv rights have been bought.

David adds: Scalzi gives an update of all the TV/movie stuff here.
    
Sandra: Piers Anthony’s long-running “Xanth” fantasy series may soon become a feature film and a TV series. Variety has the full story. And holy crap this series has 42 books!  
    
David: The African Speculative Fiction Society just announced their short list nominees for the Nommo Awards. Folks may recognize Nnedi Okorafor's Binti on the list for "Best Novella"
    
Warren: No one wished Leon a happy birthday. Why is that?
    
Shelfaware giving away 10 signed copies of Pilot X
    
We will be special podcast guests at Baycon May 26 - May 29, San Mateo Marriott San Francisco Airport. Daniel Abraham is the guest of Honor and Ty Franck is the toastmaster so James SA Corey will be there! Daniel Dociu is the artists guest of honor and Dr. Christine Doyle is the fan guest of honor. Come join us!! 
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
From Alan:
I have no patience for reading. I'm a doer, I do things. So I thought the perfect way to get around this was to use Audible. This worked for a long time. I listened to most of the Dresden series, the Song of Fire and Ice (2 credits a pop there), Name of the Wind, and the random book here and there. But now I realize I have 6 unused credits. I need to use them up or lose them. Could you send me a list of your top 10 picks for "swordy" or "lasery" books? No research required. Just a list of the 10 you can think of that are worth the time. I'm sure I haven't read most of what you have in a brain dump. Thanks.
    
The Simple Truth Behind Reading 200 Books A Year
    

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
    
    
ADDENDUMS    
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser    http://patreon.com/swordandlaser
Welcome to.Dr. Jason L. Garner, Luciana Vigil-Holterman, Heather Miller
    
You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks
    

S&L Podcast - #287 - You Do Like Your Alternate Londons

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A SciFi book is mysteriously returned after 35 years,  at the same time a billionaire suddenly invests in brain implants and a skull begins to talk. Are these events connected somehow? Yes. They're all discussed in this episode along with Gateway by Frederick Pohl.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Orange Juice    
Veronica: Ipswitch Ale    
    
QUICK BURNS
    
Sean: ‘The Expanse’ Renewed for Season 3 at Syfy
    
AndrewP: Some guy made a talking skull using Amazon Alexa. Should be something for all Dresden fans who want their very own Bob!
    
Joseph "Cover reveal & synopsis for Ann Leckie's new book, due out in October."    
    
TRP: I think Elon Musk has been reading his Iain M. Banks Culture novels.  The book Surface Detail has quite a bit on neural laces
    
Nokomis.FL: Case of the purloined library book solved 35 years later, restored with $200 tucked inside. “It’s one of the, if not the greatest sci-fi/romance stories ever written; it’s absolutely fascinating” and the swiped edition is now a highly sought-after collectible."
    
Darren: Bernie Wrightson passed away this week. A huge loss. It's hard to pick a work he's most famous for, but his illustrations for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein are never to be equalled, in my opinion.
AndrewP adds "My personal anecdote. I met Bernie several times at Con's and one time my wife asked him how she could inspire me to do more artwork. He replied with a grin "Spend all his money." :)     
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
Hey,

I haven't heard you mention this book/series yet and i wanted to throw the name your way, just on the off chance it can be added to the (very) long list.
The Screaming Staircase : Lockwood and Co
I have listened to the audio book and the entire series to date and I have to say it's one of the more interesting new series.

It's a fabulous fantasy horror / young fiction series and i strongly suggest the audio book, the narrator really makes it. Plus it's relatively short especially compared to certain other authors #sanderson# *cough* , i love the value of 60 hour audio books but sometimes 10-15 hours is cool too. 😉

Anyways thanks for the epic podcast.

Mat
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
The Invisible Library Book Briefing
    
Wrap Up     
Gateway by Frederick Pohl
    
ADDENDUMS    
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser
Welcome to Gillaume Rossolini, Skeeter Murphy and Jessica! 
    
You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks
    

S&L Podcast - #285 - Why You Should Like Bad Characters

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Sometimes a character does stuff you hate. And that’s OK! We explain why. Plus: great space opera, women writer picks, and some guy named Tom wrote a book too. 

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Orange Juice    
Veronica: Pain Killers (and not the tiki drink!)    
    
QUICK BURNS

Rob "Ars Technica has an article up about Fireside Fiction, calling it "Science Fiction's Best Kept Secret" As a SW Engineer/Git user I find the details about their use of GitHub to automate the process pretty interesting.
    
Lauren "Nice set of very short sci-fi and fantasy stories for International Women's Day inspired by the phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted." Lots of big names here, Seanan McGuire, Catherynne Valente, Jo Walton, etc. "  
    
Liz "Just in case anyone missed the emails, Tor sent out its March free eBook download. This month is Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe."    
    
David "Anna-Marie McLemore wins the 2016 Tiptree Award for When the Moon Was Ours"
    
David: "Some guy named Tom is on the Functional Nerds podcast talking about his new book, but more importantly his work as a DJ playing the Beastie Boys. " 
    
Nokomis.FL "Nielsen survey finds UK ebook sales declined by 4% in 2016, the second consecutive year digital has shrunk as younger generations drive appetite for print "
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
International Women's Day 2017
    
Space Opera Book Recommendations
    
Thoughts on differences between The Magicians book and TV show

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
Check in on March Madness
    
Check in on March Pick: Gateway by Frederick Pohl
  
ADDENDUMS    
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser.
    
You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks
    

S&L Podcast - #283 - The Madness Begins

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The Nebula Award Nominees are out, the Gateway is in and we’re glad we traveled The Salt Roads. But most of all we’re geared up for the March Madness tournament of fantasy. Get your voting fingers clicking folks!    

Download directly here!
    
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Water    
Veronica: Arcadia Ales IPA    
    
QUICK BURNS
    
Sandra: The 2016 Nebula Award Nominees have been announced    
    
Dara: Neil Gaiman's next novel will be a sequel to Neverwhere titled The Seven Sisters.
    
Nokomis.FL: Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' gets poster, premiere date"    
    
Sandra: Gerard Butler, yes that Gerard Butler and Neal Moritz will produce an adaptation of V. E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic for the big screen.
    
Michele: Bill Paxton has died. RIP Hudson - Game over :(
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
Books that make you cry
    
March Madness 2017: Round 1 (Voting Ends March 8th)
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
March Pick: Gateway by Frederick Pohl
        
Wrap-up    
February Pick: The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
    
TSR:I have no real idea what I think of this book
    
TSR: Saint Mary the Dusky
    
ADDENDUMS    
    
You can order Pilot X!
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser

You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks    
 

S&L Podcast - #282 - Where The Salt Roads Lead

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We check in on our reading of The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson, get some hints on the progress of the next Kingkiller Chronicle, and find another way to track author releases.

Download directly here!
    
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Laguvulin 16    
Veronica: Arcadia Ales IPA    
    
QUICK BURNS
    
David: The movie rights to Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin have been purchased.
    
Greg: The Name of the Wind 10th Anniversary edition as well as some non-spoilery info on book 3
    
David: Goodreads is now adding a "reread" function. Until now, they'd only allow one ""date read"" per book, but now we'll be able to add multiple dates. (According to the Goodreads blog post, they're rolling out this feature, so it may not show for everyone just yet.) This will make it easier for us folks who reread a lot or do yearly reading challenges."    
    
Martin: The Thorn of Emberlain Teaser Update on Scott Lynch's tumblr.  
    
Mark: An interesting reading list for fans of The Man in the High Castle, the book and/or the tv show.  
    
Atasteforbooks: A release date has been announced for the follow up trilogy to His Dark Materials! Philip Pullman shared that the first book, The Book of Dust, will be out (in the UK) on October 19, 2017! 
    
Louie: Read Chapter One from John Scalzi's upcoming novel, The Collapsing Empire. Available March 21st.
    
We'll be doing March Madness for the April book again. Get your nomination in! Tournament starts March 1
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
Data:

On episode #280 Adam H asked about "a way of tracking upcoming releases" 
from authors. You noted a few services that try. Adam had noted "Amazon
does for stuff from authors I've previously purchased, but..."

Amazon does send some emails automatically for those authors, yes. But
you can explicitly "Follow" any author on Amazon to opt-in to
notifications about all of their new releases. Search for the author, 
click through to their page, hit the ""Follow"" button.

It's an automated system, so it can only be as smart as the data - but
most authors and their agents are pretty good at keeping their Amazon
data clean[*], and there is some human + machine-learned curation to
make sure that any book you get notified about really is a new one, not
just a reprint, a book by an author with the same name, etc.

Meta:

Formally I should say that although I work for Amazon, I'm not speaking
officially for them - this is just me telling you what I know.

(But in this particular case: I work on the team that runs this system, 
so what I know ought to be reliable!)

[*] I dunno about that B00EYUJ8F0 guy though. I just cleaned up his
bibliography, but why someone who knows how information on the Net
stales would years ago put things like ""has written two novels"" into a
bio is beyond me. :-)

Anthony
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
February Pick: The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
    
Recommended: A podcast history of the Haitian Revolution
    
ADDENDUMS    
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show and if you would like to support the show that way head to patreon.com/swordandlaser
    
You can also support the show by buying books through our links! Find links to the books we talk about and some of our favorites at swordandlaser.com/picks