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

/

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 We learn about a novelization of an unpublished Alien 3 script by William Gibson.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.

Download directly here!

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 - #375 - 16 Books Enter, One Becomes Pick

/

We unveil the 16 books we'll be pitting against each other in our quite Mad March tournament of polls. We also chat about the Nebula nominees, introduce our March pick, and give our final thoughts on Gideon the Ninth.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Tom: San Pellegrino
Veronica: Waterloooooo

March madness UNVEILING
Sword
- The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
- The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

- The Land: Founding by Aleron Kong
- Rivers of London/Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

- The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
- The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan

- The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow


Laser
- A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
- Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson

- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
- The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

- All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- The Female Man by Joanna Russ


QUICK BURNS

Mark: Nebula Award nominees announced.

For best Novel:

Marque of Caine by Charles E. Gannon
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker"

Jan: The LA Times has announced its nominees for their first Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction, sponsored by Ray Bradbury Literary Works. It is part of the 40th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.

The inaugural nominees are
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell"

AD BREAK
Sponsored by Uncanny Collateral, book one of Valkyrie Collections by Brian McClellan.

Fast-paced urban fantasy series about a collection agent who works for the supernatural underworld of Cleveland, Ohio.

Modern-day slave Alek Fitz collects debts owed to demons, Haitian lao, vampires, and a diverse rolodex of other clients. Uncanny Collateral kicks off with a visit from Death, the Great Constant Himself, who needs a job done quickly and quietly. Aided by his best friend Maggie, a jinn who shares Alek's slavery, Alek sets off on what quickly turns into something more than a simple odd job. As the stakes escalate, Alek must use all his wiles and brawn to set things right in Death's realm.

Book Two, Blood Tally, finds Alek working for a cantankerous old-world vampire with more secrets than he lets on. It released in mid-February.

Brian is a friend of the show, please support his work!
Sword and Laser listeners can get 10% off signed copies of the Uncanny Collateral hardcover by using the code SL2020 at checkout on Brian's website store.



BARE YOUR SWORD

MLISsa! @Chaos_Librarian
@swordandlaser Hello! I love your podcast and this seems relevant to what you do, so I thought that I’d share!

Richard Marpole @RMarpole
@swordandlaser the Jim Butcher series about Romans in a Fantasy world is Furies of Calderon!
(You probably looked it up already.)"



BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Next Month!
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Wrap Up
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Book briefing

GtN: write a better blurb challenge

GtN: Harrow is a bae & other thoughts

GtN: Which House are you in?

S&L Podcast - #374 - Chaotic Neutral

/

We need your book nominations for our totally “mad” March tournament. Of books! Also we’re psyched Locke and Key is on Netflix, the new Naomi Novik series, and our first non-spoilery thoughts on Gideon the Ninth.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Cranberry Juice

Veronica: Lime Waterloo

QUICK BURNS

It's time for a March that might be considered a bit mad. In honor fo the sport almost none of us follow, we do a tournament of half fantasy and half science fiction books with votes every week in March. until one book emerges.... the choice for April! So we need your nominations! Between now and February 22 get on the goodreads thread and let us know what books you think should be in the tourney. Veronica and Tom will make the final decision based ons asense of balance and such but we need your ideas so get nominating!

Lauren: I loved this interview that Gizmodo did with Andrzej Sapkowski about The Witcher - it was so refreshingly direct and honest that I laughed out loud several times:

Silvana: The 2019 Locus Recommended Reading List is out! https://locusmag.com/2020/02/2019-loc...
Sad that Tiamat's Wrath is not included in the SF category.
The list has been quite useful (at least for me so far) to find recommended works for the Hugo ballot, especially for novelettes and short stories.

Jan: There's a very cute article over at Tor.com:
British Police Seek “Rightful Owner” of The One Ring

Joanna: New book by Naomi Novik comes out in October. A Deadly Education is a first volume in an epic new trilogy that publisher Del Rey calls “a twisted, super dark, super modern, female-led Harry Potter.”

Tamahome: Locke and Key is out on Netflix! Where did I put my head key?

Shad: Stormlight Archive #4 now has an official title, the Rhythm of War. Again, the title comes from an book that exists in the Stormlight Archive world, but this one is from a non human author.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Drew @fudderduds
Shoutout to @swordandlaser especially @acedtect for reminding me The Magicians season 4 was on Netflix.

Vanessa @van_hessa
En esta ocasión, mis #podcasts recomendados son @cruising_tom y @swordandlaser

Beth Mitcham @MitchamBeth
IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS, Julie Czerneda. Interesting. None of the pieces worked (pacing, romance, etc.) but I was left with a sense of satisfaction and thoughts of ethics, humanity, and sacrifice. The whole was complete. @swordandlaser

Beth Mitcham @MitchamBeth
THE POPPY WAR, R.F. Kuang. Hard to read. The vivid depiction of war shows how hate begets hate, violence creates violence, and children learn to destroy the best of themselves. Tragic and page-turning. @swordandlaser

Tamahome @tamahome02000
.@swordandlaser Is Veronica a "chaotic good" bookmarker? https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21149637-how-do-you-keep-your-place-in-a-book

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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

ou 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