We explain why the Tiptree Award is now the Otherwise award, welcome the casting of Apple's Foundation TV show, and Sam Sykes has a message for Stephen King (and Myke Cole).

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Thomas Allen Selections Generations Red Blend 2016

Veronica: Water

QUICK BURNS

Mark: New Expanse novella coming in December Auberon by James S.A. Corey

TRP: Stephen Moore, the original voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android on radio and TV, has died.

Joanna: The Foundation series for Apple TV starts filming on November 11th in Ireland.

Louie: Lee Pace and Jared Harris join the cast of Foundation, a 10 episode adaptation of the Isaac Asimov classic from Apple TV+. Harris will be Hari Seldon, the psychohistorian who foresees the fall of the galactic empire, while Pace will play Brother Day, the current Emperor of the Galaxy.

Tassie Dave: This years Booker Prize has gone to a SFF book.

It was won jointly by Margaret Atwood for The Testaments and Bernadine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other

This is Atwood's 2nd Booker Prize. She also won in 2000 for The Blind Assassin

Bernadine Evaristo is the first black woman to win the award.”

Seth: Another speculative fiction award has elected to change its name. The James Tiptree Jr. Award will now be the Otherwise Award.

James Tiptree Jr. was the pen name of Alice Sheldon

On May 19, 1987, she shot first her husband, Huntington Sheldon, and then herself. He was 84 years old; she was 71. He was blind and disabled.

It has been described by some including members of the family as a suicide pact.

Others have come to see it as possibly caregiver murder.

The Tiptree Jr award was started in 1991

To remind audiences of the role gender plays in both reading and writing, the award was named in Sheldon's honor at the suggestion of Karen Joy Fowler.

Otherwise Award, drawing on Black queer feminist scholarship around what is termed ""otherwise politics".

BARE YOUR SWORD

"Sal vs Mags

Wrapping up Trail of Lightning, you compared Mags and Kate Daniels. Would like to hear your thoughts comparing Sal the Cacophony with Mags, since the fall theme seems to be bad-ass women mage/witch/monster hunters.”

Dale

—

280 Character Book Review by Beth Mitcham:

TRAIL OF LIGHTNING, Rebecca Roanhorse. I loved the complex characters in this. The heroine and her friends did some bad stuff and the villains could be sympathetic. And sometimes it was tough to say which were which. Looking at you, Kai.

I'm a big fan of the re-read. I just finished LotR, for the 6-7th time, read the Silo series again, and have started Kingkiller, and Expanse is next up. I intersperse between new reads, though. I have @Veronica's same guilt about not reading ALL my many books.

Sometimes rereading an old favorite the best way to get over a bad read

Listening to your new episode. I love to re-read is "Lightning" by Dean Koontz. I also like to re-read "Duma Key" and "From a Buick 8" by Stephen King. On the nonfiction front, I like to re-read "The Island of the Seven Cities".

would you ever bring any of the other former hosts of Vaginal Fantasy onto the podcast as guest stars or stage a mini reunion?It'd be great fun to hear what they think about the latest Sword picks.

Next month:

The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

INTERVIEW WITH SAM SYKES

Sam Sykes Website