S&L Podcast - #300 - Don't Pee in the Gene Pool
/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.
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.
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)
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
ADDENDUMS
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