S&L Podcast - #475 - Father Knows Best

Awards season is here! We're celebrating deserving winners and discussing potential TV and movie adaptations of our favorite books. This November, we're diving into a novel about trains on Jupiter and concluding our October discussion on Father’s “5D chess.”

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

Tom: Pizza Flavored Mac and Cheese

Veronica: Tiny Halloween cupcakes!

QUICK BURNS

John: Hugo award 2023 winners

Kev: Just saw that Seattle won the bid to host Worldcon in 2025. Our supreme overlords should make an appearance.

-- And Mark noted that the Wiki is now updated

terpkristin and Frazzld: Ignyte Awards being announced too

Jan: From Locus Mag: The 2023 Utopia Award Winner for best Utopian Novel is "The World We Make" by N. K. Jemisin

From Locus Mag: The World Fantasy Awards winners for works published in 2022 have been announced.

The winners for the 2022 Sidewise Awards for Alternate History have been announced.

Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell is the winner of the second Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.

Trike: Beacon 23, MGM+, November 12. Based on the Hugh Howey book, Beacon 23. Howey wrote Wool Omnibus, adapted for Apple TV as Silo.

Jan: The Guardian has an article on how the "British Library celebrates the surging popularity of fantasy fiction" in their exhibition "Fantasy: Realms of Imagination" which runs at the British Library until 25 February

Jan: from Tor.com : Comic book writer Van Jensen's debut novel, Godfall, is only coming out November 1st, but the story, "which centers around a small town where a three-mile-tall alien crash lands" has already been picked up by Ron Howard’s production company for adaptation as a movie.

JasonReads and CountZeroOr: Good news for Veronica, Fourth Wing and the rest of The Empyrean series has been optioned by Amazon and Michael B. Jordan's Outlier Society for development into a Prime TV series by MGM, with Rebecca Yarros serving as an executive producer.

Jan: And the follow up novel "Iron Flame" is going to be released November 7 already!

Jan: r/fantasy has voted on their annual list of best self published fantasy.

Mark: Murderbot returns! Read the first chapter of System Collapse by Martha Wells Book is out November 14

BARE YOUR SWORD

"terpkrisitn: I never asked to keep my tonsils when they took them out, but I have kept the screw they took out of my ankle (only one of 5 taken out so far) and 2 sets of posterior spinal hardware. Turns out human hardware is more expensive than space hardware!"

"John (Nevets) Like Kristin I had a bad ankle injury, and without prompting they gave me the hardware that was used. This was actually fairly extensive, and some of it a bit exotic. Part of it was a couple of long rods and a bunch of hardware used as an external fixator between the back of my foot up to the top of my tibia. Another part was a chunk of titanium plate that was meant to be used as an internal fixator. At some point I think I may try and make something with the titanium, but not sure what yet.But I don't think I've kept any of the body parts that I grew that have been removed. Nor do I think I ever will, that just seems a bit weirder for some reason."

"I wear a FLorida Panthers or Chicago Cubs hat, when hiding at grocery store. I don’t know who I would put on my hat. (As a 55 yr old GenX woman part of me wants to put Dick)

Tom wearing a hat that says “Book”

Becky Chambers! Martha Wells. Though again I think last names work better here too. What a first world problem. Still as long as it can be Blue….Happy Monday - gifted article "

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

November Kick Off

Mimicking of Known Successes Book by Malka Older.

- Amazon Link

WRAP UP

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

- 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 - #474 - The Vibe-rary at Mt. Char

Best books of the year? Already? How Veronica got her k-wires out. And our non-spoilery thoughts on Library at Mount Char.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

Tom: Orange Chicken, brown rice, spicy fish cake, gai lan

Veronica: Pumpkin spice syrup

QUICK BURNS

Chris K: Apparently it is not too early for best of the year lists to start appearing. Here are the Barnes & Noble Best Books of the Year 2023 lists for fantasy and science fiction. (via Locus)

Brian: Casey Handmer dropped the latest installation in his ""Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary"" (on the Kim Stanley Robinson series).

Jan: From Locus Mag: The 2023 Utopia Award Winner for best Utopian Novel is "The World We Make" by N. K. Jemisin

Liqorice Margaret Atwood comments on the current state of AI and its threat to writers.

BARE YOUR SWORD

terpkristin: I'm glad your K-wires are out! Did you save them? Sorry it was uncomfortable/painful. I've found most things are as I get older, certainly nothing like it was when I was in my 20's.

I haven't really made much progress in China Mountain Zhang. I find it easy to put down. But I enjoyed y'alls thoughts on it. It made me want to read it more. Too bad it's not backlit.

Thanks for keeping going with the show. One of the things I look forward to every other week (sometimes more!). I really enjoyed the interview with Felicia Day, too (though I was traveling when it came out and didn't easily get to post about it)."

William

Looking forward to listening. I don't yet know the source of the episode title, but I actually used that phrase to describe myself years ago after being asked to categorize an entire library of books. I was seeing codes when I closed my eyes.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

- Amazon Link

TLAMC: Book Vibes

"Decado: There’s a real lack of description in this book I’m finding. I have no idea what anyone looks like, what their surroundings look like, etc. I don’t feel any sort of grounding in this world. This is the same problem I had with Gideon the Ninth that made me lem it.

I tend to lean in the direction of liking things to be over-descriptive. I’m also reading Ninth House right now and I love the lush descriptions in that book."

"tilltab

How strange - I seem to be finding the book very visual and easy to picture - likewise for Gideon. I guess it’s just that the way things are described here matches the way I ‘see’ things."

eytanz: It mostly reminded me of Gideon the nineth in that the mismatch between the writing tone and events was the hardest thing to get used to

"tilltab

I’m loving it so far, so maybe I should check out House of Leaves! I love it when stories unfold like this, with you slowly learning about what is happening and why. I was gripped from the very start, and love the way I care about Carolyn, even though it’s clear from the get go she’d done, and will do, some incredibly shady things."

"Gristle McNerd

With all the grimdark and the vaguely 20th century American setting, I'm getting Stephen King vibes, which is not my favorite thing. So I'm a bit lukewarm on this so far, though it is also kind of intriguing"

"DasGerm

It's giving me American Gods vibes, which is a good thing. It also reminds me a little bit of The Breakfast Club, but that may just be the main character's ""wardrobe"" and some of the personalities represented."

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 - #473 - Dewey Decimated

Veronica's state of K-wires, the most highly-rated books in the world, we kick off our read of The Library of Mount Char, and wrap up China Mountain Zhang.

Download directly here!


WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

Tom: Three-cheese frittata

Veronica: Switched to red box wine from rosé for winter!

QUICK BURNS

Jan: WordFinderX has an interesting article about the best rated books for each country on Goodreads.

Tamahøme: Kindle mobi support ending in November but not epub.

John Taloni —

Dennis E. Taylor tweets:

I am authorized to make the following statement:

"The Bobiverse Series has been optioned to Lord Miller Prods/Universal."

Also: Woo hoo!"

Scott - Hugh Howey's OTHER upcoming series has a new home

BARE YOUR SWORD

terpkristin: In weird parallelism, many years ago I broke the 5th metacarpal of my dominant hand and had two K-wires in it for a good bit. But I apparently pulled one of the K-wires out on my own because when they went to pull both out, they found one wasn't there anymore. Oops! I hope your hand heals well, V! And your foot! (I also had ankle surgery 3.5 months ago and am still kind of hobbly).

Sean Lookielook Sandulak: Does this make me Felicia's agent or a Sword and Laser producer?

"Please do more author interviews. The episode with Felicia Day was AWESOME! One of my favorite episodes! Or just have more of your podcast friends on.

Your patron (which means you have to do it =P)

-Andrew"

CoyoteBrown: libraries don’t need to let you take the book home to be considered a library.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

KICK OFF

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

- Amazon Link

WRAP UP

China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh

Amazon

CMZ: 1992 called and wants your International Relations Book Back

CMZ: waiting for that sun over the horizon

S&L Podcast - #472 - Felicia Day Opens Her Third Eye

We talk to Felica Day about her new Audible Original Third Eye, and how her own struggles led to her story about a chosen one who fails. Plus, we talk about the importance of doing what you love and learning to leave your past behind (and why she's eating ground turkey a lot).

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

Tom: Moon Cakes

Veronica: Szechuan

Felicia: Ground turkey w/ spinach and rice

Interview

Third Eye by Felica Day

Once upon a time, in the magical land of San Francisco, there lived a not-so-ordinary girl named Laurel Pettigrew. She was supposed to be the Chosen One. The plan was simple: She would vanquish the great evil Tybus in an epic battle. But destiny had other ideas, and Laurel's performance in the whole heroics department was a colossal flop.

Felicia Day’s Fantasy Comedy ‘Third Eye,’ Featuring Neil Gaiman, Coming to Audible This Fall

Coming October 5th