S&L Podcast - #514 - The Rebirths of Wesley Chu

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Wesley Chu joins us to talk about The Lives of Tao and Jan is back, so we have loads of news including Locus Award Winners and the British Fantasy Society shortlist. Plus Tom sings. We're all sorry about that. Also, we almost named this episode The Lives of Wesley Chu until we realized we had already done that in 2014.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?
Tom: Spinach Ravioli
Veronica: Straight and Narrow, the gross Black Currant flavor

QUICK BURNS

Jan: Blinks Well, damn, I finished The Inevitable Ruin — seems I am out of the Dungeon. sigh
On the other hand, this means I can start posting Quick Burns again! SO...

It seems our Romantasy Overlady is continuing to conquer the world: Or as The Hollywood Reporter puts it: Sarah J. Maas has signed a worldwide deal with IMG Licensing for "apparel, beauty, lifestyle, home décor, wine and spirits, food and beverage, toys and games, collectibles, cosplay, and immersive fan experiences" for her entire fictional universe. But this notably excludes film and TV rights.

Jan and The Lives of JasonReads:
The 2025 Locus Awards Winners have been announced!

Winner for SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL: The Man Who Saw Seconds, Alexander Boldizar
FANTASY NOVEL: A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher
DEBUT NOVEL: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell

Jan: Locus Mag reports:
The British Fantasy Society has announced the shortlist for the 2025 British Fantasy Awards:

Nominations for Best Fantasy Novel:

  • Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

  • Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

  • A Shadow Over Haven by David Green

  • The Green Man’s War by Juliet E. McKenna

  • Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi

Jan: There is a trailer for Momo – the new English-language movie adaptation of the hugely successful children’s fantasy novel by German author Michael Ende (The Neverending Story) about a little girl living in an amphitheater, fighting with the help of a turtle and the power of friendship against the Grey Men – who literally steal time from all adults around her (in this adaptation, by distributing some sleek technological gadget that all the adults are linked to – which is definitely NOT a very heavy-handed metaphor...)
Watch the trailer — release date in Germany is October this year. No international release dates announced yet.

Jan: Two Romantasy novels are coming this July on the same day that are both reworks of successful Dramione fanfics:

Jan: From LocusMag and The Guardian:
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2025 for best science fiction novel first published in the UK in the past year.
The Guardian describes Annie Bot as an "‘Intense’ novel about [a] robot abused by her boyfriend."

Jan: Amazon MGM released the first trailer for Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling and based on the novel by Andy Weir.
US release date: March 20, 2026.

Trike: The home of Alfred Bester, winner of the first Hugo Award for The Demolished Man, is for sale. His wife Rolly, by the way, was the first actress to portray Lois Lane on the 1940 Superman radio show.

Seth: Romantasy is such a cultural force that Jimmy John’s created a miniature romantasy audiobook read by Walton Goggins. It's part of their "S.M.U.T." summer menu promotion and available to Freaky Fast Rewards members through July 6.

Mark: The Faith of Beasts, the next book in the Captive's War series by James S.A. Corey, has a release date of April 2026.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Seth: I got nervous when I saw the episode title — I share the last name Warburton with Patrick (sadly, no relation). Glad I didn’t do anything to cause the name drop!
Also: Please use company funds to watch Murderbot. It’s excellent.

Ruth: Disappointed by Tom’s weak rendition of Jisoo’s “All Eyes On Me.” I expect full Korean lyrics next time. Also, Murderbot is great! I’ve been secretly watching ahead of my husband.

Tassie Dave: Yes to S&L funds bypassing the Patriarchy 😜 and supporting Murderbot! 😊

Stephen: I wish Murderbot episodes were an hour long. Half-hour dramas just feel incomplete to me.

John (Taloni): Kurt Vonnegut once shared a quote from an archaeologist:
"I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

Jan: Clarification from a past episode: The bonus chapters in the Dungeon Crawler Carl hardcovers are not the same as the extras in the audiobooks. They’re part of a standalone novella called Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Kick Off:
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Wrap Up:
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

Questions for Wesley Chu:
See the full Goodreads thread

Seth: How does Mr. Chu feel about his debut now? Would he revise it, or is it in the past?

Trike: Did City of Heroes inspire the Prophus and Genjix dynamic?

Mark: Any other sci-fi/fantasy/horror franchises you’d love to write for?

Veronica: Were there other Lives of Tao that didn’t make the final book?

  • How did you decide which historical events to reference?

  • How did you come up with Genjix and Prophus names?

  • The alien possession angle is fascinating — what inspired that structure?

ADDENDUMS

Our show is funded entirely by our patrons. Thank you!
Support us on Patreon

You can also support us by buying books through our links.
Find them at swordandlaser.com

S&L Podcast - #513 - A Civil War-burton

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Everything is out of context. But we do have interesting thoughts about The Lives of Tao and lots of congrats for the winners and nominees of the Nebulas and more.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

Tom: Garlic Shrimp and Tortellini
Veronica: Watermelon cooler

QUICK BURNS

The Lives of JasonReads and Geoff: 2025 Nebula Award winners have been announced:

  • Someone You Can Build a Nest In by Jon Wiswell wins Best Novel.

  • The Dragonfly Gambit by A.D. Sui wins Best Novella

  • "Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being" by A.W. Prihandita scored Novelette

  • And the Short Story award went to "Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim
    2025 Nebula Award Winners

Seth and Tamahome:
Goodreads shares their most-read books of 2025 so far, broken down by category.
Most-Read Books of 2025

Trike:
Foundation Season 3, Apple+, July 11
The Mule has entered the chat. Dun dun dun. iykyk
Foundation S3 Trailer

Trike:
The finalists for the 2025 Ignyte Awards have been announced. The public can vote for their choices until August 15.
Ignyte Awards Info

Scott:
Storyteller, a Tanith Lee tribute anthology, is scheduled for release on July 1. It has quite a list of contributors.
Storyteller Anthology on Bookshop

ScottM:
The 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction shortlist has been announced.
Le Guin Prize Shortlist

CountZeroOr:
Seven Seas Entertainment has announced that their English translation of the first Record of Lodoss War novel, The Grey Witch, will be getting an audiobook release.
Record of Lodoss War Audiobook

BARE YOUR SWORD

Tamahome: Joe Abercrombie (adapting Bruce Sterling), Tamsyn Muir, and John Scalzi wrote some of the teleplays in Love Death + Robots Season 4.

Francis X: Just to let you know about the Amazon Prime Video animated series Murder Drones, and a reboot of The Librarian called Chapter 2 airing on TNT cable.

Ruth: I’m slightly amused that, shortly after I resolved to be more positive in my comments on the monthly book picks, we get a pick that I really enjoyed but that Tom and Veronica both thought was pretty mid. Oh well!
On a totally different topic, Tom will probably be pleased to hear that I’ve recently been getting into K-pop and I too thought of the Jisoo song when I heard “All Eyes On Me”.

John (Taloni): At about the 5:30 mark, Tom says "dark and spooky." That was my daughter's favorite phrase for any room less than fully lit when she was about eight: "It's dark and spooky!" she turns and runs off

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu
Amazon
Bookshop

Wesley plans to join us for the July 2 episode!

Discussion Questions:

  • How Plausible is the Cover-Up?
    Is it believable that this war has stayed hidden for millennia? What modern elements (e.g., social media, surveillance) make this harder?

  • Dream Casting
    Who would you cast in a film adaptation? (Roen, Tao, Sonya, etc.)

  • If You Had a Tao
    What kind of ancient alien mentor would you want in your head? What kind of advice would they give you?

  • Quasing Among Us
    If Quasing were real, what historical figures do you think were definitely hosts?

ADDENDUMS

Our show is currently entirely funded by our patrons. Thank you to all the folks who back our show. 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

📧 feedback@swordandlaser.com
🌐 swordandlaser.com
📸/🐦/🐘 @swordandlaser
📚 goodreads.com

S&L Podcast - #512 - Deep Dish is SciPie

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We speculate on how James Cameron will make The Devils and whether Frankenstein will be too scary for Veronica. And we further kick off The Lives of Tao.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?
Tom: Orange Muffin
Veronica: PIZZAAAAA and ice cream

QUICK BURNS – add time stamp!
Trike: Frankenstein, Netflix, November
Guillermo del Toro is going for it. Looks gorgeous and scary. Watch clip

Liqorice: Filmmaker James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron, director of Aliens, Terminator and a couple of small indie films like Titanic and Avatar) is teaming up with author Joe Abercrombie to work on his latest book, The Devils. It’s a case of Blue Man Group meets grimdark fantasy. Can’t wait. Read more

BARE YOUR SWORD – add time stamp!
Ruth: I have to say, for me Mickey 7 didn’t feel like a one-off book that then had a sequel tacked onto it. For me, the ending felt like a suitable pause rather than a full conclusion, and the sequel felt like a conclusion to a duology.

Trike: I sampled some of the AI narration and currently it’s bad. But next year it will be on par with humans.
A recent estimate said AI will replace 10 million jobs in the next 3–5 years. That’s a lot and soon. AI could definitely do 80 % of my job at the TV station. Robots would be needed for the other 20 %. If the system powered up and down by itself and we switched from wireless mics to wired ones, AI could do 95 % of my job.
The recent Chinese robots I saw on YouTube last week are dangerously close to being able to do everything a person can. Fortunately we’re still years away from them being smart enough to do anything other than preprogrammed tasks, but it’s scary-slash-interesting how far they’ve come in just the last five years.

John (Taloni): I am not worried about AI.
My first job in the Entertainment Industry was doing Accounts Payable for a major indie. I quickly segued into Distribution Finance. In that timeframe an “analysis” was a data dump out of the mainframe by the IT Director, which we then added up by hand. Any other kind of analysis was a report followed by tick and tie. It took the whole department working in parallel to do any kind of major analysis.
Now everything is either available immediately from the ERP or on a short refresh into analysis databases/software. A single analyst can do what a whole department needed 35 years ago.
Finance departments have not gone down. Rather, they do more analyses and at a deeper level. I expect the same with AI. The work won’t go away. It will just change.

Tassie Dave: I’ll start off by saying, I’m against AI narration as a replacement for humans. It’s going to happen, but I’m not happy about it. I will always buy the human version versus the AI, if given a choice.
But will the AI be bad? It is now, but it’s only going to get better and I would assume the best companies will still have a human sound editor tweaking the audio to remove any ‘Uncanny Valley’ oddities and to smooth out the quality. I expect it will be indistinguishable from humans within a few years.
AI does have its use. For books that will never sell enough to warrant the cost of a human narrator.
Also for better, on-the-fly narration for the blind community.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu – Audiobook · Bookshop
Wesley plans to join us for the July 2 episode!

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.

feedback@swordandlaser.com
swordandlaser.com
We are on Instagram, X and Mastodon @swordandlaser
goodreads.com

S&L Podcast - #511 - Throw Me in the Corpse Hole

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We discuss the return of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and Frank Herbert’s posthumous SFWA Infinity Award, Audible’s AI narration plans and Amazon’s cancellation of The Wheel of Time—while nominating hamburg steak and vegan enchiladas and sharing listener stories from Matt Dinniman’s event. We round out the show with in-depth discussions of The Lives of Tao and Mickey 7.

Download directly here.

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?
Tom: Hamburg Steak
Veronica: Vegan enchiladas

QUICK BURNS – add time stamp!
Any news or announcements

Iain: 10 years ago the planet of the spiders was set loose.
Tchaikovsky’s publishers didn’t think it would amount to much. Creating something truly unique means you don’t fit in existing boxes.
Bsky post by aptshadow

Iain: Via Scalzi on Blue Sky.
Dresden is back. “12 Months” is coming out in January after Jim Butcher works through depression. Good read.
NYT: Jim Butcher on The Dresden Files

Mark: The SFWA announced that the recipient of the 2025 Infinity Award is Frank Herbert, author of Dune.
The Infinity Award posthumously honors acclaimed creators who passed away before they could be considered for a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.
The Infinity Award will be presented at this year’s Nebula Awards Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.
SFWA Infinity Award Recipient: Frank Herbert

Paul: Locus’ annual fundraiser is up, and the coolest-looking thing for sale this year is “A special luxe edition... of the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, signed & personalized, with printed edges in a gorgeous binding,” for $500 USD. I know Tom’s a big fan of the series (I’m on book 2 now and it’s pretty awesome), so just throwing it out there.
There’s also a signed Sando book plus a chull plushie for the bargain rate of $1,500, and for under $150, signed books from Corey Doctorow, Vajra Chandrasekera, Elizabeth Bear, and more, as well as other perks.
Locus fundraiser on Indiegogo

Chris K: The shortlist for the annual Arthur C. Clarke Award, celebrating the best science fiction novel published in the UK, has been announced.
• Private Rites, Julia Armfield (Fourth Estate)
• The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre)
• Extremophile, Ian Green (Ad Astra)
• Annie Bot, Sierra Greer (The Borough)
• Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK)
• Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock, Maud Woolf (Angry Robot)
The winner will be announced on June 25, 2025 and receives an engraved bookend and £2,025 in prize money.
The 2025 judges are Dolly Garland and Gene Rowe for the British Science Fiction Association, Nic Clarke and John Coxon for the Science Fiction Foundation, and Glyn Morgan for the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival.
Andrew M. Butler represented the Clarke Award directors as non-voting Chair of the Judges.
Locus: 2025 Clarke Award shortlist

John: Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks.
After all the recent praise for Jeff Hays’s narration of the DCC audiobook, this is a sobering reality check.
The Guardian: Audible’s AI narration plans

Phil On The Hill and JasonReads7:
Looks like Amazon has cancelled The Wheel of Time. Is this sad news? I only watched an episode or two and was not won over. The curse of long series is that we never reach the end when televised.
The Verge: Amazon cancels The Wheel of Time

BARE YOUR SWORD – add time stamp!
Feedback from the audience

Hapahappiness: Hey y’all. Matt Dinniman event was great! Some takeaways: writing awful things was easy because being an a-hole is the path of least resistance. Jeff Hayes made (and lost) a bet resulting in a donut tattoo on his butt. The tattoo session was recorded and posted online. Mr. Dinniman thinks the video resulted in the first DCC audiobook being on the NY Times bestsellers list for the first time. He has never watched Gilmore Girls or Gossip Girl; his daughters are his subject matter experts. He denied having a foot fetish. Lol. One of his joys with this series is when people tell him DCC has reignited their love of reading or got them to read for the first time since high school. When I met him he commented on my S&L hat and told me he recently learned about our book club. 😊 He stayed past 10 pm meeting with everyone and personalizing books (with a name). Overall, a really fun event.

Jan: For the New Dungeon Crawler Carl segment of the podcast 😉
I did not know that the hardcovers for the series had a bonus chapter at the end! I don’t know if I’d buy these just for the chapters, but it might be interesting for some!
Sorry if this had already been mentioned on previous episodes, but maybe these kinds of incentives are something we will be seeing more in the future...

Trike: Re: Ship of Theseus – comedian-juggler Michael Davis had a great joke on this topic. He said one of his axes used to be owned by George Washington. “I’ve replaced the head and the handle, but it occupies the same space.”

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION
Kick Off
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu
Amazon audiobook link · Bookshop link

Wrap Up
Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton
Bookshop link · Amazon link

An SF “Adventure” about being hungry · How many times can an author use a big word? · The line between adaptation and “in name only” (spoilers abound)

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