S&L Podcast - #318 - I Wanna Know What Love Is

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Tom tries to convince Veronica to fight hate, but A Wrinkle In Time has her questioning love's power.

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Hudson Four Grain Whiskey

Veronica: Bulleit Rye

QUICK BURNS

David: Nebula Award Nominees announced!

Lots of GREAT nominees, among both the novels and the shorter works!

Also Hugo nominations are still open I assume...

Kenley: Amazon is developing a series based on Iain M. Banks’ sci-fi novel Consider Phlebas

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Amazon has acquired the rights to another huge book: Consider Phlebas, the first installment of Iain M. Banks’s space opera Culture series. THR reports that Amazon will partner with British screenwriter Dennis Kelly (who created the critically acclaimed Channel 4 series Utopia), and that should the scripts for the series work out, it will order it directly to a series.

Silvana: Just in case you missed the last weekend's uproar about Terry Goodkind. Not cool, man. I see some other authors have commented about it in Twitter. Looks like both PR and professional disaster to me.

Tomp: It's interesting to see the POV breakdown on nationalities, gender, occupations and Ajahs.
It's also weird to see the word-count-outlier-chapter in "A memory of Light" (book 14). The outlier chapter is "The last battle" with a word count of more than 80,000 words.
Avoid reading the comments at the bottom if you want to avoid spoilers.

Iain: Tor reports new Richard K. Morgan book coming: Thin Air.

John (Taloni): Cover reveal and blurb for upcoming Gail Carriger "Custard Protocol" book Competence at her site. Accidentally abandoned!

All alone in Singapore, proper Miss Primrose Tunstell must steal helium to save her airship, the Spotted Custard, in a scheme involving a lovesick werecat and a fake fish tail."

Scott: Forgive me if someone posted this before, but the sequel to The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson will be released Oct. 30th, titled The Monster Baru Cormorant. He gives an interview here.

BARE YOUR SWORD

SWORD BRACKET
1 The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
2 Soulless by Gail Carriger
3 Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
4 Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan
5 Jade City by Fonda Lee
6 Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
7 The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
8 All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

LASER BRACKET
1 We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
2 Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
3 Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
4 Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
5 House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds
6 The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
7 Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
8 The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and other stories by Vandana Singh

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Book Briefing

WRAP UP

February Book: A Wrinkle In Time

AWIT: Charles Wallace

AWIT: Warm Blanket

AWIT: The Ending (Spoilers, Obviously)

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.

Thanks to Anna Parikka, Travis Falstad, and Jim Bell

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 - #317 - Crew Goals

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Hey the Hugo nominations are open and you can vote for us! Also Firefly is coming back as books. And the Hugo nominations are open and you can vote for us. Plus StoryBundle has an awesome set of books called Black Narratives! And the Hugo nominations are open and you can vote for us. Oh and the Locus Awards are open for voting. That one... you can't vote for us. But you can vote for us in the Hugos.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Gainey Vineyard Cabernet Franc 2015    
Veronica: Syrah    
    
QUICK BURNS
    
John (Nevets)
It looks like Hugo Nominations are open, both for last year's works, and for 1942 works. They are calling it the "1943 Retrospective Hugo Awards", but that's like how they call this years the 2018 Hugo awards for 2017 works. If you are eligible to nominate, you have until March 16th to get those in, so that should hopefully be plenty of time to think on it.

Stephen: You can nominate The Sword and Laser podcast in the best Fancast section. There is a need to double the amount of nominated votes from last year to become a finalist. WorldCon 76 is being held in San Jose, Ca. You need to be a supporting member or have gone to Worldcon 75 to be involved     
    
Silvana: Locus Award's ballot is out and non-subscribers can vote too. 

Voting is open until April 15, 2018. 

Jenny: StoryBundle is offering a Black Narratives Bundle that has some great stuff, including one previous S&L read and another by the same author. The initial titles in the Black Narratives Bundle (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

To Raise a Clenched Fist to the Sky: The Panther Chronicles, Book One by T. Thorn Coyle
Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
Angelborn by L. Penelope
Echo by Alicia Wright Brewster

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular titles, plus SEVEN more!

Lion’s Blood: InSha’allah Series Book One by Steven Barnes
Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 by Terah Edun
To Wrest Our Bodies from the Fire: The Panther Chronicles, Book Two by T. Thorn Coyle
Kabu-Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor
The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
Black Borne by L.L. Farmer
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

Even though I've already read The Salt Roads and Redemption in Indigo, I went for this one! "    https://storybundle.com/blacknarratives
    
April: Tomi Adeyemi's book "Children of Blood and Bone" is coming out 3/6, and it looks amazing. This video of her opening her copy is fantastic:


    
Tassie Dave: Titan Books is releasing 3 Firefly novels. Starring our loveable bunch of rogues and browncoats. These will be the first books written for the franchise with original storylines. 

The first will be released in October, 2018 with 2 more scheduled for release next year (March and October 2019) 

The novels will be written by Nancy Holder, who has written over a dozen Buffy the Vampire Slayer tie-in novels; Age of Heroes author James Lovegrove; and Tim Lebbon, who has written the movie novelizations for 30 Days of Night and The Cabin in the Woods, as well as tie-in fiction for the Star Wars, Alien, and Predator franchises. Joss Whedon will serve as consulting editor.     

Tamahome: Firefly novels coming to the 'verse    

Mark: My Own Kind of Freedom: A Firefly Novel by Steven Brust was written on spec and submitted for consideration as an official Firefly novel, but was rejected. Brust released it as an ebook which you can download in epub/mobi/pdf formats at http://dreamcafe.com/firefly.html

Matthew: So happy to see R.A. Salvatore announced more Drizzt books (who didn’t see that coming lol). It’s a brand new trilogy starting with a book called Timeless on Sept 18th. I’m a few books behind but will easily catch up before the new one comes out. Also this year is the 30th anniversary of the The Crystal Shard.    
    
Colin: Orbit announces the publication of original Culture drawings from the Estate of Iain M. Banks. Sounds like something that some of us would be interested in.  
    
TRP:  here's a link to a story about the HBO version of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. 
It's a film starring Michael B. Jordan, Sofia Boutella, and Michael Shannon which is due to air on HBO in the spring of this year.
Here's another link to the teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzAwg9gj9vc
    
Tom's book Pavaria is on Audible now, read by Tom!
    
March Madness nominations continue
    
BARE YOUR SWORD

Science Fiction Art Prints    
    
Spaceship + Crew generator    
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
February Book: A Wrinkle In Time
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
    
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 - #316 - Why'd Ya Do It, Ernie?

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We share our memories and thoughts on the passing of Ursula K. Leguin. We also talk about how silly it is to think anybody but George R. R. Martin truly knows the release date for Winds of Winter, and discover the true villain of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Air

Veronica: Temptation 2013 Zinfandel

QUICK BURNS

RIP Ursula K. Leguin

Nokomis.FL - Winds of Winter is coming......September 6th. ? The story came from The Strand bookstore's website on NYC. Several other sites reported the same story, i.e

Trike: The next project by Dennis Villeneuve, director of the superb Arrival and better-than-expected Bladerunner 2049, is going to be a new adaptation of Dune. He says his goal is “Star Wars for adults.”

BTW, if you haven’t seen the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, I highly recommend it. That guy was a crazy person, and the influence of that failed project was felt in most of the sci-fi movies released in the 1970s and 80s, including Star Wars.

Darren: Anyone else pick up that Google are now doing audiobooks. There's no subscription option like Audible which Google are touting as a good thing (personally I get quite excited when the credits turn up), and there's no whisper-sync which I don't use much myself but I know others do.

I'm sure the ongoing conflict between Amazon and Google is going to play into this at some point, just as long as they don't start pulling apps from each others services then having another option out there can only be a good thing (surely?).

Not bought anything from them yet so no idea what the service, quality, usability is going to be like.

Anyway, it's 50% off your first purchase until Feb 26th.

Mary: Yay! It looks like MaddAddam could be back on! (And yes, I call these Sci Fi even though Ms Atwood doesn’t like the term.)

BARE YOUR SWORD

S&L BOOK CHALLENGE

Rob was sad because we didn't mention the challenge last time. You have to create new shelves that feed into your challenge totals -- we're competing to see who can get to 10,000 Sword OR Laser books first! (Veronica named hers sl-laser and sl-sword respectively).

From Sean Lookielook (the Rob and Tassie Dave of Vaginal Fantasy, btw): "When you join the challenge you make a separate bookshelf for that challenge. Just name it "2018 sword challenge" or whatever. It doesn't matter what it's called; it's just for your reference. Only books that are on that shelf AND have been marked as "read" (i.e. they are on your "read" bookshelf with a "date read" set in 2018) count toward the challenge."

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

February Book: A Wrinkle In Time

Book Briefing

Final Words on Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

FOTMP (1818) part 3 chapter 4

Veronica has problems with this chapter too, also this story is basically Doomsday Book at this point (everyone is dead).

FOTMP: Why'd Ya Do It, Ernie? (Whole book spoilers)

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 - #315 - Philip K Dick Move

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Goodbye Shannara, hello The Blade Itself TV show? Also Moby Dick and Philip K Dick have different problems, and what the monster in Frankenstein might truly represent.

Download directly here.
    
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Fantasy Scotch  
Veronica: Fantasy Bailey's    
    
QUICK BURNS
    
Thane: Viacom cancels Shannara TV show
    
David: Rumour that The Blade Itself is being made for TV/Film.
    
Trike: The adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers is coming to Syfy in the US and Netflix everywhere else.
    
Dara: HBO confirms you won't be getting your Game Of Thrones finale this year
Best comment: "Man, who's writing this final season? George RR Martin?"
Best response: "Low hanging fruit."
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
"Hi, Tom and Veronica.  Love your show, which I found by looking through
the long list of last year's Hugo nominations for other worthy podcasts
to listen to.

In your podcast #314, you speculated on the opening of Frankenstein
being influenced by Moby Dick. That seems really unlikely, unless Mary
Shelley had a time machine, since Moby Dick wasn't published until
1851.  Nice try, though.

Dave W"    
    
Philip K Dick accuses Stanislaw Lem of Communist conspiracy
"He [Lem] was “probably a composite committee rather than an individual.” Dick's evidence for this denouncement was that “[Lem] writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not.” And the conspiracy spread further still: “The Party operates (a U..S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction.”    
    
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Book Briefing
    
This was different than what I expected
"I was mostly surprised as to how quickly the actual experiment was over. It felt like "And then everything worked and holy sh*t, what a monster, f*ck it, dude, I'm outta here". I was prepared for a detailed description and a lot of building up what I thought was one of the most important scenes of the book and then it was over so fast."    
    
Oh My Goth!
    
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 - #314 - Not-So-Young Frankenstein

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It's a whole new year of books, and we have some suggestions! Plus the science behind Westeros and the amazing 200-year-old Mary Shelley.

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Tea

Veronica: Coconut Water

QUICK BURNS

24 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Add to Your January Reading List

The Wertzone: New Steven Erikson book and interview

The University of Bristol used a climate model to simulate Westeros. 

BARE YOUR SWORD

Favourite S&L Books of 2017

Christmas Day with the Supremes and Tech's Message

Harry Potter by predictive keyboard....

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Book Briefing

The Wertzone: Science Fiction just turned 200

Which edition?

Changes between 1818 and 1831 version

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 - #313 - No Bones To Pick

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Ready Player One may have a sequel, The Witcher TV show has a show runner, and we have no bones to pick with California Bones.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Beckmen Vineyards Cuvee Le Bec 2015

Veronica: The Yankee (Bourbon...) The Agricol (Rum, Lime, Ginger)

QUICK BURNS

Trike: Disney purchased most of 20th Century Fox.

Disney announced its agreement to acquire most of 20th Century Fox including its movie studios, regional sports networks, cable channels and production arms. A new company called Fox will spin out on its own containing Fox broadcasting stations, national sports and Fox News. Disney will assume controlling ownership of Hulu with minority stakes owned by Comcast and Time Warner. Disney expects the acquisition to take 12-18 months to close.

Dara: Ernest Cline is writing a sequel to Ready Player One. Gotta milk that cash cow I suppose

Louie: Netflix's The Witcher series finds its showrunner and executive producer in Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, who has previously written and executive produced for Netflix's Daredevil, and The Defenders, and Starz’s Power.

Nokomis.FL: Here are the most listened-to titles on Audible in 2017

Trike: Ian McKellen says he'd play Gandalf for Amazon's show if asked.

David: For the fans of S&L pick The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, they've revealed the cover for the sequel, European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman.

Mark: Coming to Netflix The Frankenstein Chronicles is a reimagining of Mary Shelley's classic novel, Frankenstein.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Killing Your Protagonists is Overrated

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

California Bones by Greg van Eekhout

Next Month: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

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 - #312 - Eating Bones for Fun and Magic

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Some authors drop by and lend some insight on Goodread's book giveaway charging, we’re excited from some Old Man’s War movie action on Netflix, and why eatin’ bones is fun.

Download directly here
    
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Angry Orchard    
Veronica: SomeWine    
    
QUICK BURNS
     
Rob: Goodreads is going to start charging publishers and author for giveaways. Boo.    
To which Clyde wrote "Sigh. That is yet another gatekeeper tax. I suppose some bean counter had a bright idea.
I reckon the result will be that most giveaway activity moves to FB, G+, etc. with links to the writer's/publisher's pages. "    
And then Robin Hobb casually sauntered in and wrote "Bingo. I think it's likely that individual writers will do their own giveaways via their own websites/facebooks, etc. It only makes sense to build your following that way. If I pay Goodreads to give away my books, then I'm paying Goodreads to drive more traffic to them. Publishers may pay the fee just to keep their lives simple.It's like the old tale of the Tar Baby. The deeper you get into these things, the harder it is to pry yourself out.

After which Mark Lawrence popped his head in and spake thus "Even publishers may fall back on their own websites using their social media and that of the authors to drive readers to giveaways. I would suggest that and say spend the money saved on a Facebook advert or something similar."

Which made Stephen say "Wow, two of my favorite authors read S&L's Quick Burns ! Okay I will spend a day liking all the Publishing Houses on Facebook, follow them on Twitter ( Most I do on Twitter already) , but is there anything else besides giving Goodreads some grief?"    
    
Louie: First trailer for Netflix adaptation of Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon
    
Iain: 2017 best of lists are starting up. The UK Guardian's list is out. Some good books in the list.   
Scott: Adding to the 2017 book lists, here's the one from npr

Ruth: 
see comment history On the “best of 2017” topic, Is anyone else feeling deeply unimpressed that the Goodreads award for best fantasy book has gone to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay ie a screenplay not an actual fantasy novel?    
    
Lauren: This week, I discovered two neat digital projects involving old science fiction fanzines! 
First is a project from the University of Iowa where they have scanned the library's collection of old sci-fi fanzines. They are doing a crowdsourced project to transcribe the content of the fanzines, so if you feel like contributing, there's an opportunity! They have a tumblr where they report out some of the neat things that they find:  
AND
The Speculative Wonderverse
This is a digitization project for the Bob Gibson sci-fi fanzine archive with content going back to the 1840s. They have a tagging system so you can find stories and other content based on various themes. There's also a weird symbols system that Bob Gibson used for labeling the stories but didn't leave a key for, so you can try to solve the mystery. 
    
Sandra: Netflix has acquired John Scalzi’s modern sci-fi classic Old Man’s War to develop as an original film.
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
"Hello, I've lived in Germany for 21 years and have been enjoying German Gluwein, pronounced glue-vine (mulled wine) for quite some time. That being said, I have found a great recipe that will solve all of your woes!

1 bottle of wine (must be a wine you would drink!) I use Merlot or Bordeaux.
1 cup of granulated sugar
3 whole cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
Mix and heat, do not boil, to desired temperature. Make sure sugar is dissolved. Enjoy! I add a piece of orange for extra flavor. Let me know what you think.
Kory"    
    
"Rob:
I thought the plan was to read Frankenstein in January, not March. The wiki says it was published January 1st, 1818.

So maybe Frankenstein in January and A Wrinkle in Time in March?

And then the last two years the April pick has been the March Madness winner. 

If you want to follow the ""normal"" alternating Sci-fi/fantasy you could do A Wrinkle in Time in January and Frankenstein in February.

Although last year a lot of people were hoping for a Sci-Fi March Madness tournament, which I'm still hoping we may do next year. "    

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 - #311 - Science Fiction Triggers Clickbait Headline

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This week we have a lot to say about wine, some to say about Amazon's Lord of the Rings series and loads to say as we wrap up Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. Plus we kind of sort of kick off December's Book, California Bones.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: I Massi 2009 Chianti

Veronica: SomeWine Red Wine

QUICK BURNS

Via Silvana and Louie: Amazon announced it has acquired the global TV rights to Lord of the Rings and intends to produce a multiseason TV series in cooperation with New Line Cinema, The Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins. The series will explore storylines preceding the Fellowship of the Ring, and included a possible spinoff series. 93-year-old Christopher Tolkien officially retired from Tolkien Estate on August 31. He was very much opposed to licensing the rights.

Nokomis.FL: Trailer for Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Wrinkle in Time

Alex: Good news for Brandon Sanderson and fan of The Stormlight Archive:
John (Taloni)
Cool! I went over to see how it was doing on the USA Today list and it is a very respectable #3. Then I noticed that installment 12 of Diary of a Wimpy kid was #4 and had hit #1. Twelve! It's like Jeff Kinney has a license to print money. Andy Weir's Artemis also charting at #8.

Travis: Science Fiction Triggers Poorer Reading, Study Finds

That's what the headline reads, but then when you read the article, it turns out that lots of people are biased against sci-fi, and those people don't read it as carefully as they do realism. Which, like, duh! "identifying a text as science fiction makes readers automatically assume it is less worthwhile, in a literary sense, and thus devote less effort to reading it. "

BARE YOUR SWORD

Books with main characters collaborating with dark side of fantasy universe?

@swordandlaser listening to the smooth roberator episode where someone was asking for western fantasy and I wanted to mention the Wax and Wayne books by Brandon Sanderson. They are definitely worth reading. @Shaunyuken

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Announce California Bones by Greg van Eekhout

California Bones Book Briefing

Last Thoughts on Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Damn You Connie Willis!

On Time Travel and Paradoxes

PhysicsMinute on Time Travel

Final thought

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!

S&L Podcast - #310 - Apocalypse 1870

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OMG. Patrick Rothfuss is best buds with Lin-Manuel Miranda and they're doing a TV prequel to Kingkiller Chronicles, while Felicia Day plays Poppy the Dragonologist AND Amazon wants to do a Tolkien series. And that doesn't even begin to shed light on how good our book pick Doomsday Book is. But the piece de resistance of the show is one man's story of losing power and trying to read.

Direct download link!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: 2015 Chateau de Camarsac - Bordeaux and Plugging his new book Pavaria.

Veronica: Hirsch Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey

QUICK BURNS

David: The 2017 World Fantasy Awards winners were announced today at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio, TX:
Winners include The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North for Best Novel, The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson for Long Fiction, and "Das Steingeschöpf" by G.V. Anderson for Short Fiction, among others. Terry Brooks and Marina Warner were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards.

TRP: Neil Gaiman just announced that Josie Lawrence will play Agnes Nutter in the TV adaptation of Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
She played the same role in the BBC radio adaptation of the book a few years back Good Omens: The BBC Radio 4 dramatization Josie Lawrence is an excellent comic actress and a skillful improviser (especially songs) who people may know from her appearances on Whose Line Is It Anyway. Also I'm seeing her in the play that Neil Gaiman mentions in a couple of weeks.

Terpkristin: Tor.com says that the TV adaptation of Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle will be "The Kingkiller Chronicle" and will be on Showtime and has a showrunner. John Rogers is the showrunner (The Librarians, Leverage, Transformers, per Tor.com). Apparently the announcement also included something for fans to chew on. Per Tor (emphasis mine):
"Set in the world of the wildly popular fantasy series by Rothfuss, The Kingkiller Chronicle will follow a pair of wandering performers on their adventures through the unique and startling world of Temerant, immersing audiences in a universe of unexpected heroes, mystical places, and terrifying dark forces. […] The television adaption is a subversive origin story of legendary proportions set a generation before the events of the trilogy’s first novel, The Name of the Wind." Rogers tweeted "A generation is a very, very *specific* amount of time. It'll make sense later." I guess I may have to get Showtime...

Dara: Lin-Manuel Miranda on Adapting The Kingkiller Chronicles, How It Inspired Moana, and the Lady Lackless Song He Wrote

Silvana: Amazon in talks about adapting Lord of the Rings into TV series Hmm. Why not The Hobbit? While the LOTR movies are not perfect, there are also still other stories in Middle-earth worth exploring. The Silmarillion for instance. Feanor, Turin, Luthien, there are so many stories there. Anyway, if they stick with LOTR I hope there will be Glorfindel and Scouring of the Shire. And maybe Tom Bombadil.

Felicia Day to join cast of The Magicians, as dragonologist Poppy!

Louie: I feel like this is relevant news to this group, whether you are in SF or not.

Borderlands Books Buys Permanent Home Thanks to Patrons’ Sponsorship

Nokomis.FL: OMNI Magazine Is Back

It's NaNoWriMo Time!

BARE YOUR SWORD

Hi guys,

To Say Nothing Of The Dog" is Connie Willis' friendly nod to Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog)", a humorous book from the late 19th century, originally planned as a serious travel guide, and then gone haywire.

Best,
Marc Fabian Erdl

---

Hello good folks of S&L!

I have a reading challenge dilemma, as not in the title, that I wanted some advice on. Hope you can help.

I have a goal of 24 books to read in 2017. I'm at 18. Only 6 more to go. I fell behind a little during the summer but have been working hard to catch up. This 18 is already a huge accomplishment for me as I haven't really read anything since I was in middle school.

Here's the dilemma. I'm a slow reader, and I really, really, really want to read The Way of Kings by Branden Sanderson. Hope that's spelled right. As most you may know the book is 1,000 bajillion pages long, and I might as well throw out my goal for this year. So, should I read The Way of Kings? Or focus on shorter books to knock out my goal before reading it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Out.

George

---

Apocalypse Diary, Day 3 - without electricity, I have been plunged back to the '70s... the 1870s. Read a book about a similar apocalypse (The Fifth Season) by firelight and candlelight. Plugged phone into car and drove around to recharge it. Okay, it's a weirdly advanced 1870s. Alt universe, clearly.

The plague has struck down my nearest neighbors, who live on the hill across the woods. The lone survivor trekked over to offer a cup of jolt, which I have gladly accepted. Our suffering bonds us.

The heavens are troubled no more, the sunlight shining brightly down through ice-blue skies and skitters across the fallen frosted leaves. It is almost enough to make one forget the devastation wrought by the storm which hath brought us so low.

I feel an especial kinship to my compatriots to the south who suffered a similar fate not long ago, although I daresay they are not also dealing with freezing temperatures. But this is not a competition, nor what we elders termed a "pity party" in those long-ago '70s. I keenly feel empathy in our shared plight.

The animals and I have retreated to our demense's great room, huddled by the fire. I envy them their obliviousness to our suddenly shifted lot, and wonder which will eat me first. My money's on the Chihuahua.

Diminutive demons and pint-size princesses will cavort and gambol this eve, begging for treats I do not have. Their tricks may push our fragile existence beyond the brink. Perhaps they will accept spoilt cheese as a bribe to stay their hands?

Will soldier on and report later.

Trike

---

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Book Briefinghttps://www.patreon.com/posts/15026582

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 - #309 - League of Extraordinary Ladies

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We’re happy for Chuck Wendig and sad for the passing of Roy Dotrice and Julian May. And we’re also debating whether side conversations are a good literary device.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING

Veronica - Rosé
Tom - Jet Lag - But check out these book-related pics from his recent trips!

IMG_0966.jpg

Baker Street Station

As seen in "The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter"

IMG_0965.jpg

Marylebone Station

As seen in "The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter"

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The Dakota 

As seen in "Time and Again"


    
QUICK BURNS
    
Mark: Invasive by Chuck Wendig is in development for a CBS tv show titled Unthinkable.
    
Danielle reminded us on October 19 that Just wanted to remind everyone Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust) released.    
    
Tassie Dave: Roy Dotrice, known here for his fantastic audiobook readings of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, has died at the age of 94. He was originally meant to play Grand Maester Pycelle in the TV series, but was too sick at the time. He did end up playing Hallyne the Pyromancer in 2 episodes of Season 2
 
William: The great Julian May sadly passed away on October the 17th 2017. Ms May was inducted into the the First Fandom Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention. Ms May was most famous as the author of the unique Intervention, Galactic Milieu Saga, and Saga of the Exiles sequence of books. Ms May also collaborated on the Trillium series with Marion Zimmer Bradley and Andre Norton. 

On a personal note, her work moved me deeply and has led me to interests that, in a way, have shaped my life. I salute this deep thinking maestro of the very eloquent page. 
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
"Last few months I've been getting into several LitRPG books on Audible -- Most of these books kind of are both Sword AND Laser in nature. You have usually a fantasy environment viewed from the standpoint of some form of hyper-advanced VR players in an MMORPG game. Every series is different as you have different game rules, needs to logoff, interactions with the real world, uses of social media, flaws or hidden features in the game, etc. If you haven't looked at the genre , you might want to try.,..

(We've met before -- I attended your first Several DragonCon sessions)

Mark B."    
    
Science Fiction Horror Stories?
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
Next month: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Book Briefing    
    
"Wrap Up: The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Hardcover
by Theodora Goss "
    
Side Bar Conversations
    
The ending or the ending?
    
ADDENDUMS    
    
Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons, like Logan, Carmen and Gregory. 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 - # 308 - A Decade of Us

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That’s right, Sword and Laser has been picking and reading books for 10 years and we’re not even close to stopping. This week we discuss why you don’t need to travel to London to read Theodora Goss but it doesn’t hurt. And why we’re extra excited for Andy Weir’s Artemis.

Download directly here!

QUICK BURNS
    
Dara: Amazon is developing adaptations of Lazarus, Vol. 1: Family, Snow Crash, and Ringworld.
    
David: The British Fantasy Awards were announced. 

Ian: TRP wrote: "Neil Gaiman posted a picture from the TV adaptation of his and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch."

I realise where I have seen a picture like this. The back cover of Good Omens. 

Looks like they are channeling the authors (appropriately so). 
    
Travis: Two of the five books on the National Book Awards shortlist for fiction are speculative: Sing, Unburied, Sing is a ghost story (I loved it), and Her Body and Other Parties is both fairy tale and sci-fi.
    
Nick: Andy Weir's Artemis is getting the audiobook treatment, and Rosario Dawson--of Daredevil, Luke Cage and Sin City fame--will be doing the reading! The audiobook is scheduled to be released on Audible.com November 14th of this year.
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
Firstly, thank you for a wonderful podcast. I love looking forward to it.

You mentioned that George RR Martin won a Past Words award for illuminating history. I read Maurice Druon's ""The Accursed Kings"" (history based medieval western europe royalty struggles) after seeing somewhere that it's the real life version of Game of Thrones. I don't know if those books directly inspired it, but on the Amazon reviews there's a quote from Martin to that effect.

The Accursed Kings was written back in the 50's (and if I remember correctly, they were written in French). With the popularity of Game of Thrones, and the release dates on the books, readers searching for similar series to fill the time between GoT releases would be likely to stumble across Druon's work, hence reviving to some extent the historical saga that very few people would ever be curious enough to read/not likely to stumble over these particular monarchs in mainstream history books. Not a direct historical illumination, but kinda sorta related.

Have a wonderful week!
Mary
    
10 Years of S&L holy crap
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
October Book Pick: The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Hardcover
by Theodora Goss
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.

Thanks to Ryan Kather, The Cutaways Podcast, Neal Cross
    
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 - #307 - Annihilation is the New Arrival

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Good Omens looks good, Annihilation looks great, our last thoughts on Helliconia Spring, and why we’re reading about monsters in October.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: The Dalmore

Veronica: Some kind of Rosé (She doesn't know she tossed the bottle)

QUICK BURNS

TRP: Neil Gaiman posted a picture from the TV adaptation of his and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.

It features David Tennant and Michael Sheen as Crowley (the demon) and Aziraphale (the angel) respectively.
David Tennant seems to be channelling Bill Nighy(not the Science Guy)'s ageing rockstar character from the movie Still Crazy.

Silvana: just wait for the Expanse Origins Graphic Novel, published next year.
Tassie Dave: 4 of the 5 issues from the Expanse Origins graphic novel are available now. (Holden's, Naomi's, Alex's and Amos's origin stories) Only Detective Miller's story is new for the Book released in February 2018.

David: George R.R. Martin wins one of the inaugural PastWords awards from the Historical Writers of America: 
The Historical Writers of America will recognize seven artists whose work illuminates the past. The awardees include novelist Larry McMurtry; Larry’s son, songwriter James McMurtry; fantasy writer George R.R. Martin; nonfiction author Hampton Sides; and U.S. Congressman John Lewis, writer Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell, the creative team behind the three-volume graphic novel, March.

Mark: Ok Sword & Laserites, let's go out there and be nice!

Trike: Phil Lord & Chris Miller (Lego Movie, Jump St. Movies, 3/4 of the Han Solo movie) have been hired to direct the adaptation of Andy Weir's Artemis.

Brendan: Teaser trailer for #Annihilation starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac. In theatres 2.23.18.


BARE YOUR SWORD

Hello Veronica,
Hello Tom!

I'm on holiday with my family in Canada at the moment. As I was browsing the fantasy/science fiction section of a bookstore in Prince George, BC, I noticed Tom's book on one of the shelves!
Here's a pic. Well done, Tom!

Cheers,
Fiona

IMG_20170917_163148.jpg

 

Need a book club recommendation for modern, non-dystopian, upbeat Sci-Fi

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

October Book Pick: The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Hardcover
by Theodora Goss

Book Briefing

WRAP UP

September Pick: Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss

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 Ingelin Naess, Theo Karner, Boyang Chen

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 - # 305 - Major in Martin Studies

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The Martin Studies International Network will help you study Westeros better, Scott Lynch gives hope for the next Locke Lamora book and sadly, we lose a great one in Jerry Pournelle,

Download here!

QUICK BURNS
    
Silvana: The Martin Studies International Network is launched! Yes, that Martin. I might join just for the heck of it. (and comments about The Winds of Winter in three....two....one....) 
    
Terpkristin: Dragon Awards for 2017 were announced over the weekend. 
Some books that I'm sure people around here liked. 
    
Andy: Scott Lynch updates the Helsinki Times on the status of The Thorn of Emberlain (via The Wertzone) Looks like we may get The Thorn of Emberlain in 2018 and the Scott Lynch lets us know some interesting details moving forward. Emberlain will be Locke and Jean's new base for a few books and we have a clue to the story. Enjoy. Click through to the Helsinki Times, it has a new photo of Scott with his magnificent beard"
    
Clyde: Jerry Pournelle has died. He is one of my favorite writers, and he will be missed.
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
Coinage of the Realm - cool words from SFF stories
    
What are the darkest sci-fi/ fantasy stories not including Dystopias and post apocalyptic stories?
    
Obama and The Witcher (Veronica sez "TIL!")
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
September Pick: Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss
Book briefing
    
From Dara: What about his brother, Ryan Alldat? (I hate myself)    😆
    
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 - #304 - Westeros for SciFi Fans

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We say goodbye to Brian W. Aldiss by reading one of his books. We respect Terry Pratchett's Steamroller wishes. And why Hey Jude is not an anachronism. 

Download directly here!
    
QUICK BURNS
    
Nick: British SF author Brian Aldiss, author of the Helliconia Trilogy and Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (which became the film AI Artificial Intelligence), has died. Three of his books appear on the Gollancz Sci-fi Masterworks list.    

Iain: BBC Obituary for Brian Aldiss  
    
Nekroskop: Terry Pratchett's unfinished works got steamrollered.    
    
Aaron: San Diego (California) has decided to start a book festival.  
    
Silvana: Kameron Hurley offered to write the now-dead reboot of Xena: Warrior Princess. While I don't see any need to reboot this classic series, I'd love to see Kameron Hurley's take on it.
    
Veronica: Super-interesting article about buying your way onto the NYT best seller list.
   
Shad: The Oathbringer prologue is up on tor.com. Wasn't expecting the prologue to be that POV. Answers a few questions and poses quite a few more.
    
Genesee: Another trilogy in the Shades of Magic world by VE Schwab.
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
On book reviews: Is Goodreads that bad?
    
Sword & Laser's 100 Books: The Stats
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
September Pick: Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss    
Book briefing
David: Adam Whitehead (of Wertzone) just posted an article about Helliconia, comparing it a bit to Game of Thrones
    
Wrap-up    
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
    
What's the deal with "Hey Jude"?
    
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 - #303 - Smooth Roberator

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All the best books are being adapted into TV shows and movies including Good Omens, The City and the City, Dawn, and The Fifth Season! Plus we dive into the Gunslinger and talk mostly spoiler-free about fantasy westerns. And BONUS song about our Goodreads moderator, Rob.

Download directly here!
    
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: UCC Green Tea    
Veronica: Nothing :(
    
QUICK BURNS
    
Louie: The Hugo Awards have been announced. N K Jemisin takes the top prize for her novel, The Obelisk Gate. And The Expanse wins Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, for its Season 1 finale episode "Leviathan Wakes," written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, directed by Terry McDonough. 
    
Via N.K. Jemisin on Twitter: N.K. Jemisin’s ‘The Fifth Season’ Book To Be Developed As TV Series At TNT.
    
Jen: In case this hasn't been posted yet, nominees for the Dragon Awards.
    
Robert: Octavia Butler's Dawn is being adapted as a television series. Attached to co produce is Ava DuVerney, director of Selma, 13th, and the upcoming A Wrinkle in Time. Hopefully the adaptation is for the whole of the Lilith's Brood Trilogy.
    
Lauren: China Miéville's The City & the City is being adapted for BBC Two as a 4-part drama series, starring David Morrissey from The Walking Dead as Borlu and Mandeep Dhillon as Corwi. I'm really interested to see how they show the "borders" of the city (and the consequent "unseeing") on screen.
    
Robert: David Tennant and and Michael Sheen have been cast in the adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens a six part series produced by BBC and Amazon.
    
Shad: Tor.com will be putting the first 32 chapters of Oathbringer online starting with the prologue "To Weep" on August 22 and the first three chapters on August 29.
    
BARE YOUR SWORD
    
Hello Tom and Veronica,

I know you said you were done talking about butterscotch, but I have to send this in because I keep yelling at my speakers. Butterscotch does not contain scotch. There are a few theories about the origin of the word, but two more common ones are that it comes from ""score"" (to break the candy into pieces after it's done) or "scorch" (as the sugar has to be cooked). Recipes depend on whether you're making candies or sauce, but common ingredients are brown sugar, heavy cream, butter, and salt and vanilla for flavour. Here's a good article on the etymology and the difference between butterscotch and caramel, and here's the recipe for butterscotch sauce that I use, which is fantastic and unbelievably easy and will impress anyone you feed it to.

Also a few recommendations for local beers, while you're up in Canada. We have tons of smaller breweries around! Most of these are fairly easy to find in stores, and some will be on tap in some places:
-Parallel 49 makes a nice grapefruit radler called Tricycle, and they have a fab dark beer called Salty Scot, but it can be hard to find at this time of year.
-Bridge's Lemon Gin Saison is super refreshing
-Hoyne's Dark Matter is a really nice dark beer
-Dead Frog's Nut Brown is yummy and a little lighter than the Dark Matter

Erin

I should add: this is not saying that putting scotch in butterscotch would be wrong, as I'm sure it would be delicious. Just that it's not a required ingredient.

--- 
    
Misty, water-colored memories
   
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Book Briefing  
    
TGS: Llut
    
TGS: Other Fantasy Westerns?
    
What's your favorite Dark Tower connection to other Stephen King Novels? (Minor spoilers)
    
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 Susanna, James Freeman, Jessica Alter, Stephen Crawford  
    
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.
    
Stay tuned after the show for Tanya's rendition of Smooth Roberator!    

A license to read, forums to patrol
Guards all our threads with a sword for the troll
His eyes are like lasers but what he wants is control

No need to ask
He's a smooth Roberator
Smooth Roberator, smooth Roberator
Smooth Roberator

S&L Podcast - #301 - Long Days and Pleasant Nights

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Hot Pie has a bakery! Ready Player One has a trailer! The Rook has a TV show! This episode has a final word on butterscotch! And the man in black has a gunslinger following him!

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Forgot.

Veronica: Driftwood Crooked Coast Altbier

QUICK BURNS

Trike: The most pleasant surprise is the Ready Player One trailer. I started a thread in the Movie/TV section, but here it is.

Trike: Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer is adapting another story from Ted Chiang's collection Stories of Your Life and Others for AMC: "Liking What You See: A Documentary."

David: The 2017 World Fantasy Award nominees have been announced.

Stephen: Do not know how serious this is, but Hot Pie has opened a bakery called, are you ready for this, " You Know Nothing Jon Dough "

David: And Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad wins this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award!

Robert: It looks like Daniel O'Malley's The Rook is coming to Starz. It is being Executive Produced by Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series. So of course her name is overshadowing the book's author.

Nokomis.FL: Rob Reid releasing excerpts for his upcoming book, After On.

BARE YOUR SWORD

I have to raise the name of David Eddings, I read these books in the 1980s. I found it very hard to buy new copies in Brighton uk . I manages to buy complete set on eBay and started reading, wow, the books are still great and I find it very strange that these books have not been made into a movie or to series. Please could you remind your followers about David Eddings. Would you consider a review of one of his books on your show.

Mike

---

The final word in BUTTERSCOTCH

Okay…

So this began when you guys were talking about adding whiskey to butter beer, which is like butterscotch soda (according to what Tom said, I’ve never had any) and my comment was simply goofing off about adding scotch to a drink that, should it be using authentic ingredients, would already have scotch, because butterscotch is traditionally made with scotch. So I called the redundant concoction Scotch Butterscotch.

This isn’t helping, is it?

Anyways. I think we can agree that butterscotch, because it’s made with scotch, is the better version of caramel.

JF Dubeau
(and yeah, don’t waste good scotch. Just use Johnny Walker Red.)

Book Box Subscriptions

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

The Gunslinger Patreon 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 Chris Hyde, Jessica Crawford, Steve Coghlan and more!

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 - #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

---

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

---

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.