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.

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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.

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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!