S&L Podcast - #344 - Steamy
/So many news stories! We have to speed through them but there are some good picks from lots of award winners in there. Plus, the best pajamas ever and whether Calculating Stars is steamy!
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Tom: Armagnac
Veronica: Irish Bessie
QUICK BURNS
Dara: Instructions on how to vote for the Hugos can be found here. Check your email for individual links for online nominating. Voting ends Friday 15 March, 2019, 11:59 PDT.
Dara: In order to drum up support for nominating the podcast for the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Fancast, I asked a few authors for an endorsement on Twitter*.
"You want me to support the Sword and Laser podcast for Best Fancast? You guys have read three of my books so I guess I have to." – John Scalzi
"Buy my book." – Sam Sykes
"Don’t buy his book, buy MY book." – Myke Cole
"You’ve read three Scalzi books but none of mine? No thanks." – Mary Robinette Kowal
"I get it, you loved Jade City. Please stop bothering me. I’m going to block you." – Fonda Lee
There ya have it, folks. Even authors love the podcast! Nominations are open! Go vote!
* Please note these are all 100% satire and made up for the lolz.
March Madness is upon us! Nominate books for the tournament next month in our Goodreads forum until 8 PM Eastern February 25
Dara: The Wheel of Time TV series will go into production in the fall of 2019. Tor has all of the details.
Seth: This year's American Library Association mid-winter conference just wrapped up, and in addition to their more famous awards for youth titles (like the Newbery and Caldecott), they also make adult picks in a number of genres. Their pick of 2018's crop of sci-fi is next month's S+L pick - “The Calculating Stars” by Mary Robinette Kowal. On the fantasy side they chose “Foundryside” by Robert Jackson Bennett.
Full list of picks across genres is here
Anne: Tor is now offering a newsletter with short fiction on a bimonthly basis which seems like a nice way to get SFF stories delivered straight to your inbox. More information is here.
Aaron: Clarkesworld Magazine is expanding into books with a new translation.A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight and Other Stories by Xia Jia
Mark: An excerpt of the deleted novella from the Wheel of Time, "A Fire Within the Ways" is on Tor's website now. This will be included in the Unfettered III collection out in March.
Joe: The Locus Recommended Reading List is has been published online (it will also be in the February issue of Locus Magazine.
I don’t think this is an original idea, but I’ve long considered the Locus Recommended list to be one of the best snapshots of what is going on in the genre in a given year. It’s certainly not exhaustive, and there’s always going to be favorites left off the list (Scalzi didn't make it for either of his books, the newest / final Sin du Jour novella from Matt Wallace didn't make it, only one of Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut novels are on the list, etc), but from a high level - these are most of the important and noteworthy SFF books and stories from the previous year.
Aaron: There is a new J.R.R. Tolkien Biopic set to release May 10, 2019.
Mark: From Locus, the announcement for the Crawford Award. 2019 winner is The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
The Crawford Award is given to a fantasy author whose first fantasy book was published during the preceding 18 months. It's one of several awards presented by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, and is presented at the conference each March in Ft. Lauderdale.
Rob: The Expanse Season 3 goes worldwide on Amazon Prime February 8th!
Additionally Seasons 1 and 2 will now be on Prime everywhere (previously it was just North America).
Anne: There's an interesting article on WIRED about how women were actively written out of Sci-Fi history by omitting their contributions from anthologies. There's a podcast episode about it, too, though I haven't gotten around to listening to it yet.
Nokomis.FL - New Robert Heinlein novel to be published in November 2019 from a manuscript written in the early 1980s.
Moar Lists!!
From the House of Random Penguins
The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time
and
The Best Fantasy Novels of All Time
Should I be suspicious that these lists are on a publisher website even though they are the best of All Time?
Lots of S+L picks. Maybe there is a future S+L pick too.
-- and as Shad notes, this does seem to be the best books of all time from Random House owned publishers
BARE YOUR SWORD
Poetry Slam happening over in the Ninefox Gambit discussion - @markmtz
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
TCS: Is it just me, or does this pick feel like Veronica is missing vaginal fantasy?
ADDENDUMS
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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
