S&L Podcast - #439 - And the Rest is History

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So many awards! We learn about a novelization of an unpublished Alien 3 script by William Gibson. We take a brief trip back to episode 1. And we share the books we picked to read this month in honor of Jenny.

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QUICK BURNS

Jan: As The Hollywood Reporter writes, there is a Jon Snow Sequel Series in Development at HBO with Kit Harrington attached to reprise his role as Jon Snow.

Jan: Penguin Random House has announced a new imprint, Random House Worlds, "dedicated entirely to licensed book publishing.’

Jan: Goodreads has releases their list of the most popular books of 2022 (so far). In Science Fictios and Fantasy the TOP 5 are:

Mark: The 2022 Scribe Awards nominees have been announced. Winners will be announced at the award ceremony at San Diego Comic-Con Friday July 22.

Jan: The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the winners for the Annual Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating “the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books.”

Jan: Nominees for the first Utopia Awards, presented in association with the Climate Fiction Conference (CliFiCon22), to be held online October 1, 2022, have been announced.

Tamahome: Harlan Ellison's last edgy anthology to be published posthumously next year with the help of J. Michael Straczynski. I actually saw this in Wikipedia.

Jan: Netflix has released a first clip for 'First Kill' "an adaptation of the short story by V. E. Schwab about a sapphic teenage vampire-monster hunter romance"

Jan: Netflix has released a first teaser trailer for their upcoming Paul Feig movie "The School for Good and Evil" based on the series by Soman Chainani and set to premiere in September.

Joanna: Samuel Delany’s new book This Short Day of Frost and Sun (according to author it is "fantasy, in the manner of G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday") will be serialized in The Georgia Review starting from the Summer 2022 issue.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Fun time comparisons:

Jan: original Star Wars is way closer to the outbreak of World War II than it is to today

Tassie Dave: Cleopatra lived closer in time to the building of the Sydney Opera House, than she did to the building of the Pyramids of Giza

Paul: The amount of time between the first Stegosaurus and the last Tyrannosaurus is roughly the same as the amount of time between the last Tyrannosaurus and NOW!"

Good evening,

I am presently reading the oldest books on the podcast. I was hoping to listen to those old shows. I have discovered that you’ve posed all the old shows on sound cloud. My question is, are the first few shows available somewhere that I haven’t looked? Thanks for any help or guidance you can provide.

Jason

Here’s episode one on Archive.org.

Beth Mitcham

MACHINEHOOD, S.B. Divya. Great big and small-scale questions -- ideas about humanity's future and societal change, peeks at future kitchen technology and virtual school. Characters worry about world destruction and spousal discord.

Kenley Neufeld

A place we may become. Or are? Familiar, and yet not. To lie is to be jailed. A story of a speculator. Those who uncover the lies. A death that leads us on a journey. Fun play with words. A “cop” drama. Golden State by @benhwinters - book #3 for June ⁦

Kenley Neufeld

If, Then by Kate Hope Day. Book #1 for June

@swordandlaser pick. It was quick & easy read. Shifting through the multi-verse. Gives us pause on what could have been; what might have been. Choices we make. Mostly traditional fiction with some genre mixed into the story. I liked it!"

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Veronica - Nona the Ninth

Tom - Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

Next Month

Hunt the Stars by Jessie Mihalik

Amazon link

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 - #411 - Is Murderbot Art's Murderboo?

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The final book of the expanse has been handed in for publication. Feelings of joy and sadness hit Tom. Plus, did Murderbot convert Robb Dunewood into a SciFi fan. Find out!

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WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Diet 7-up

Robb: Benner Tea Co. Diet Mango Tea

QUICK BURNS

Richard: Fugitive Telemetry has made Martha Wells a New York Times best seller again. It debuted at 14 in the hardcover fiction best seller list and number 4 in the combined print and e-book list.

Mark: The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association has announced the 2021 Aurora Awards nominees for works done in 2020 by Canadians, to be voted on by CSFFA members and handed out Oct 16, 2021 at Can-Con.

Alex: The Longlist for the African Speculative Fiction Society’s 2021 Nommo Awards has been announced.

Mark: Punctuation in novels by Adam J Calhoun

Roberator: The final book of the Expanse is complete!

Ruth: Tor dot com have just released a free sampler of their 2021 debut novels

BARE YOUR SWORD

Leesa: re: ""what are we drinking "" I also really like Curious Elixer drinks. #4 (like an Aperol spritz) is my favorite.

PuzzleBound: Something I'm just discovering is the combination of graphic novels from Libby + Kindle app on a tablet. Reading Saga on my nice Galaxy Tab screen I appreciate the incredible artwork even more. And the Kindle app does a surprisingly good job navigating and zooming between cells and pages. I haven't delved much into graphic novels before. It might be time to change that."

Cham1nade: Listening to Robb Dunewood on the latest podcast be happy about discovering scifi he likes is making quite happy, too!

I’m super excited for Veronica to be back, but I’ve loved the guest hosts so much!

Back to Robb Dunewood... I don’t often get to hear the perspective of someone just discovering a genre they hadn’t tried much before. Seeing books through new eyes is so engaging"

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

NEXT BOOK: Veronica is picking it. We'll announce it later this week on Patreon and in Goodreads

WRAP UP

Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel (The Murderbot Diaries)

Seems to have been a hit: @violinknitter: So I should be doing many productive things today. What I *am* doing is devouring Martha Wells’ NETWORK EFFECT for the @swordandlaser bookclub

Chris: When I first encountered the Murderbot series, it was in print. While reading, I kept thinking of Murderbot as female. I'd assumed because the author is female.

Leesa: Kevin R. Free is so good at narrating these stories. I can even tell when Murderbot is saying something parenthetically. My husband and I both laugh out loud a lot.

SMR Podcast

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 - #410 - My Kind of Murderbot

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We have finalists in the Ignyte awards, Locus awards, some upcoming release dates for new Green Bone Saga stories and why our guest host Robb Dunewood rom the SMR podcast has stopped worrying and learned to love the Murderbot.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Suntory All-Free

Robb: Curious Elixir Number 4

QUICK BURNS

Mark: Finalists for the 2021 Ignyte Awards were announced today, April 22, on Twitter by FIYAH Litererary Magazine

Silvana: FIYAHCon tickets on sale! The fringe event is free, though based on last year, going to the main event is worth every penny :) (FIYAH is a magazine of black speculative fiction)

Mark: LeVar Burton to Guest Host ‘Jeopardy!’ the week of July 26

John (Taloni) Fugitive Telemetry, the sixth Murderbot book, is now out!

Mark: The Locus Science Fiction Foundation has announced the top ten finalists in each category of the 2021 Locus Awards. The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 26, 2021, during the virtual Locus Awards Weekend.

Mark: Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee, the final chapter of the Green Boone Saga, has a release date: November 30 in the US and Canada, December 2 in the UK.

Ms. Lee will also release three Green Bone Saga prequel short stories in September, October and November And in April 2022, The Jade Setter of Janloon, a standalone noir mystery novella set in the Green Bone Saga world, will be published by Subterranean Press.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Trike had an excellent response on Goodreads regarding the question of the rise of the category of Young Adult. here's part of that response

"The first book targeted specifically at teens was Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly, in 1942. Publishers were split between calling teen-focused books “juveniles” and “teen reads” through the 40s and 50s, with Robert Heinlein’s 1947-1958 juveniles being among the few which weren’t either romance-themed (“teen reads”) for girls or sports-themed (“juveniles”) for boys.

The ALA created the Young Adult Services Division in 1957. Later that year publishers began calling their juveniles “Young Adult Novels”. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) is considered one of the first “modern” YA books, tackling mature themes but aimed at teens.

Look at sci-fi, being all up in there first."

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Joseph added "IIRC, the public library that I went to when I was growing up (so, 1970s into 1980s) had a children's room (with the picture books and the chapter books kind of split up from each other) and a section in a nearby room that was called "teen" but which was functionally the same as what would be YA these days -- kind of that junior high/high school range of books. "

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terpkristin: I liked how Jenny mentioned listening to the Murderbot novellas in the shower. In the before times, I would go to the gym and listen to podcasts while I worked out. There were TVs everywhere and music playing overhead, so I couldn't focus on books. But since covid lockdowns started, I workout on the elliptical in my basement and I listen to books. I wasn't really every super excited about the Murderbot books, but now that one is the pick, I'll probably listen to the novellas while I workout before I start the book. Of course, while I'm in the shower I usually listen to podcasts (but this podcast was while waiting to get bloodwork done this morning). ;) :P

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And if you're worried about Jenny electrocuting herself listenign to podcasts int he shower, rest assured. She clarified "I have the BOOM/Polk Swimmer duo that wraps around my shower caddy very well, and also has a fast forward feature to get through obnoxious commercials on podcasts. "

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

KICK OFF

Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel (The Murderbot Diaries)

Book briefing

MelissaMelody in Discord: This is the most recent book in the series tho, and having read the series it is rather dependent on the previous novellas....

Roberator in Discord: I dont' feel like you need to read ALL of the novellas, but I feel like 2 and 3 are pretty important. and if you're going to read those 2, you should read the first.. and if you've read the first 3...

BethMitcham in Discord: If you decide to go back and read the novellas you will have the pleasure of knowing where things are going, which is a joy those of us who read in order will never have. Swings and roundabouts.

SMR Podcast

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