S&L Podcast - #377 - How to Hopefully WIN the Time War

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Worldcon goes virtual and we totally get it, Tom has a new book out, ways to support your independent bookstore, we kick off our April pick, and FINALLY give our last thoughts on The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.

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WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: His own ennui

Veronica: "In the Pines, Under the Palms" from True Laurel in SF

QUICK BURNS

Rob: WorldCon goes virtual

Rob: The trailer for Jim Butcher's 16th Dresden Files book: Peace Talks dropped today. But in bigger news i09 has announced that not only is Peace Talks coming out this year, but the 17th book called Battle Ground will be coming out later this year on September 29th

Anne: Jo Walton writes about books in which no bad things happen, maybe somewhat direly needed right now.

Mark: Trigor by Tom Merritt (Pilot X series) is now out

Sheila Jean: MacMillian Abandons Library eBook Embargo

Trike: How To Support Your Independent Bookstore Through Coronavirus And Beyond

The Internet Archive has created a National Emergency Library of 1.4 million digital books that will suspend the normal waitlists for ebook lending until June 30.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Jude Sturman @TechNTools
Spending some time leaving 5 star reviews for my favorite podcasts! @TWiT ⁦@avexcel⁩ ⁦@hdtvpodcast⁩ ⁦@dailytechnewssh⁩⁦@swordandlaserGenesee Rickel @gmrickel

@swordandlaser This is an unusual time so I have an unusual ask. Could we, as much as possible, announce book picks 2 months ahead of time? Library waits on digital copies are growing w/ libraries being closed, and finances are tight so folks may not be able to buy books anymore.Zach Sears @zsears

@swordandlaser @Veronica :notes: SHOW YOUR SHELVES :notes: Too much Frozen 2 for me.

Congrats to our winners for our Instagram contest "Share your Shelves!" @iamcoz randomly takes home the top prize (the Harrow the Ninth arc), while @violettwilight, @talking_leaves_reader, and @skywa1ker11069 were each able to select a book from Lem’s Library.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

FINAL THOUGHTS ON The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The Ending (HUGE SPOILERS)

The Logic of Time Travel (With Graphs!)

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 - #376 - The Corona Light Brigade

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We’ve got our first impressions of the new Star Wars: High Republic books, some great new award-winning picks, and our first impressions of The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.

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WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Corona

Veronica: Sleep Tests

QUICK BURNS

March tournament down to the final four

Jan: Well, let's welcome back the Star Wars Expanded Universe 2.0?
LucasFilms has announced its next big cross-medium publishing campaign: Star Wars: The High Republic.
According to the press release "Lucasfilm will launch an epic new era of Star Wars storytelling that will be explored through multiple voices in adult and young adult novels, children’s books, and comics from a variety of publishers" starting in August 2020.
On StarWars.com the High Republic is described as "an era when the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order are at their zenith, about 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace."
The project is supposed to cover a more optimistic time and in a video in the article some of the creators described the tone as "Jedi Knights of the Round Table" or "Jedi Texas Rangers".

Jan: According to The Hollywood Reporter Ava DuVernay and Victoria Mahoney (second unit director for The Rise of Skywalker) are producing Octavia E. Butler's sci-fi novel 'Dawn' as TV Series for Amazon. Mahoney will also serve as writer and director on this script to series project. Sooooo... let's wait and see if "Dawn" will in the end ... see the light of day (pun absolutely intended)

TRP: An early Happy 42nd Birthday to the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
The the first episode of the radio series was broadcast on 8th March 1978

Kurt: I just found a new upcoming novel called Trigor by an author named Tom Merritt available as an ARC on NetGalley. Maybe you've heard of him :). Congrats on the upcoming release of book 2 in the Pilot X series.

Tamahome: Altered Carbon anime movie coming from Netflix March 15th

Buzz: Audible will create the exclusive audio version of Neil Gaiman's 'The Sandman'

Mark: The 2020 Audie Awards were announced March 2.
Science Fiction winner was Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin read by Jason Isaacs
Fantasy winner was The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow read by January LaVoy

Jan: The Lambda Literary Awards have announced their 2020 Finalists. The "Lammys" are honoring achievements in LGBTQ literature published in 2019 and the finalists in the Science Fiction and Fantasy category are:
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes
False Bingo: Stories by Jac Jemc
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
The Rampant by Julie C. Day
A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney
Stories to Sing in the Dark by Matthew Bright
Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung by Nina MacLaughlin
The finalists in the other categories can be found here

Dominik: The newest Humble Bundle just dropped, and it happens to include an anthology of short stories by this month's pick's author (for lack of a more elegant turn of phrase), Kameron Hurley. Plus a ton of other nice-looking SF/F books, so that's pretty neat.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Feedback from the audienceBenedict @ForeverBen85
@swordandlaser Got an Instagram account? Would be cool if you both had access to same account uploading pictures of things you’re reading/podcast set ups in each of your houses etc

We did it! Follow us here.

Buzz Park @buzzpark
@swordandlaser GTN review: 16 Snarky Goth sword-fighting necromancers in space on a deadly video game-like quest to achieve immortality & unlimited magical power. Only together can they achieve success. But they all have conflicting agendas & many of them are not who they seem...

Kenley Neufeld @kenleyneufeld
The Earth is run by corporations with three human classes. Deets is a soldier who experiences the war differently then others as they battle the Martians. Power. Freedom. Friendship. Surprises are in store.
Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Erik Redin @ErikRedin
Really loved this month's @swordandlaser pick, THE LIGHT BRIGADE by @KameronHurley. It's not for the squeamish, but if you like MEMENTO-ish puzzle stories, military sci-fi, and/or well written time travel, it's a great read.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

FEATURED REVIEW: The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

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Welcome to our Featured Reviews! In this series, we'll be highlighting book reviews by the S&L audience. If you want to submit a review, please check out the guidelines here! -Veronica

Review by Emily Carlson

The Low-Down:    

In a multiverse where magic is the product of the rise and fall of three celestial bodies, things can get a little complicated. Characters’ power waxes and wanes with the movement of these satellites, but the world seems to have reached a balance. However, that balance is shattered when the fourth, dark satellite – Oma – begins ascending. Oma, the Worldbreaker. Last time Oma rose, continents were literally torn in half by its power, and it seems that this generation will be no different. 

The Mirror Empire follows Lilia, a girl from a dying universe with an amber sky, as she is hurled into a new and thriving universe in escape from the dark forces gathering in her amber world. But Lilia is far from safe in her new blue-skied universe because the armies she fled haven’t given up the chase.


Key Themes:

Genocide, multiverses, TRULY NOXIOUS WEEDS, gender and sexuality, mystical orphans, THE DOPPLEGANGER, celestial bodies (wink, wink), BLOOD


What’s Good:

Hurley has bitten off an awful lot with her ambitious Mirror Empire. And for those of us who are bored with a linear and predictable narrative, this is a very good thing. Hurley seems determined to supplant nearly every fantasy troupe, even down to her five-gendered social structure with group marriage and funerary cannibalism. These bold rejections of what we take for granted in our own society are illuminating in Hurley’s hands. 

Take for example the thirty-something, war-hardened general returning home from her tour abroad to her teenaged, undereducated, ornamental husband. On one hand, this seems very familiar to fantasy fans (Drogo and Daenerys, anyone?). But on the other, it is completely unexpected and frankly, appalling. Readers might swoon at the scenes of Drogo and Dany together, might even excuse the some of the harsh treatment that Dany receives from Drogo. However, when the general dominates her husband and when we see how isolated he truly is, it’s harder to wear those same rose-colored glasses. 

The result is a novel that is challenging, though inducing, and at times shocking. But very much worth the time of any fantasy reader ready for something different. 

What’s Less Than Good:

Hurley has bitten off an awful lot with her ambitious Mirror Empire. What is this novel’s greatest strength can be its most frustrating weakness. Switching characters, universes, and social structures can be very confusing. Hurley pulls it off with a surprising amount of ease, but readers can still get lost easily. 

Furthermore, although Hurley is making wonderful strides towards fulfilling the potential of the unique world she created, only time (and more novels) will tell if Hurley is able to pull this off with the finesse demanded when an author deviates this much from reality. In my mind, the farther an author strays from reality, the heavier the burden is to make all of that mental strain worth our while.  


The Final Verdict: 

Maintain focus. If you can do that, The Mirror Empire is definitely worth the read. But for those of us who don’t want to leave a book with a pounding headache (I mean… not really, but you get it) this may not be the novel for you. The world Hurley creates is rich, engaging, and completely surprising. It is worth the effort the novel will require from you, but know that this is not a mindless read. So much of the world in this book is utterly new that it is bound to leave most people feeling a little star-struck. 

The world Hurley builds takes on a personality of itself, much like another character you are getting to know. It would be easy for the human characters to fade into the background of the novel and let the newness of the world stun readers. However, the characters in the novel are utterly profound. They are likable and revolting in turn, but in a way which reminds us of our own little green planet with a blue sky. The true wonder of this book is not the differences Hurley creates between her worlds and ours, but the similarities. Somehow, Hurley has managed to create a story where even with a radically different reality to ours, we are able to relate to and care about her characters. 

If you’re willing to go the extra literary mile, Hurley promises to deliver even more mind-blowing confusion in the upcoming Empire Ascendant dropping in October 2015.