S&L Podcast - #349 - Sit Down Kid, I Got This

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So many books became options! We’re hopeful. Also we’re excited to read our March Madness winner, Theft of Swords. And why Dumbledore may or may not be an irresponsible headmaster.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Yes Way Rosé

Veronica: Pacific Coast Bone Dry Hard Cider

Thanks to everyone who took part in March Madness!

QUICK BURNS

Joe: Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series of novellas has been optioned for television.

There are four novellas published so far, more on the horizon, and it is legitimately one of my favorite things. The first, Every Heart a Doorway, won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award for Best Novella. I wrote in my review at Nerds of a Feather that "Every Heart a Doorway is a beautiful and heart wrenching story of kids who don't belong anywhere except perhaps the one place they can't get back to." It is a story that feels like coming home.

Tamahome: Love, Death & Robots has been released on Netflix. It's a series of animated shorts. A lot of them are adapted genre short stories by John Scalzi, Alastair Reynolds, Ken Liu, Joe Lansdale, Marko Kloos, and Peter F. Hamilton. ... The tone is kind of like Heavy Metal (It has some roots in it). Plenty of sex and violence. Of course the Scalzi ones are more humorous.

Mark: Brian McClellan's new self-published fantasy novel, Uncanny Collateral, is available direct from the author before official release date.

Adrian: The Laundry Files by Charlie Stross has been optioned for a TV show. This time it's by an English producer so the author is more optimistic

Dara: Nnedi Okorafor is set to write the Wild Seed series adaptation for Amazon Prime. Viola Davis and Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions will be producing and Wanuri Kahiu will direct.

"Wild Seed is a love (and hate) story of two African immortals who travel the ages from pre-Colonial West Africa to the far, far future. "

BARE YOUR SWORD

Started from the first one again a few days ago for the @swordandlaser and as a warm up for @readathon :) re: Harry Potter. Readathon is a twice-yearly 20 hour readathon, happening again on April 6th. Learn more here! http://www.24hourreadathon.com/

Read all the books! (From the S&L bookshelf)

Subject: Tom pronounces something wrong shocker
Message: Berwick-upon-tweed
ˌberɪk əˌpɒn ˈtwiːd
See OED.
You can try the Geordie of Newcastle as well but that isn't standard.
Superhero bit of bullet dodging Veronica.
pob

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan

Book briefing

Final stats:

Final Thoughts onHarry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone

HP: Dumbledore Is a Horrible Teacher (spoilers for the end)

A Star Wars Is Born – “Shallow” Parody (Nerdist Presents) - YouTube

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 Erin, Scott and Juliana

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 - #348 - Book Battle Royale

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We review the final four books in our Mad March Tournament. Plus lots of great new award-winners and nominees to fill your to-read list and our continuing thoughts on our re-read of Harry Potter.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Regret

Veronica: Despair

QUICK BURNS

Ruth: Michael B Jordan's production company and Warner Bros have scooped up the movie rights to Black Leopard, Red Wolf.

Dara: March is Women's History Month and Syfy's Fangrrls is celebrating women with a limited podcast series called Forgotten Women of Genre. The first episode is about Carol Clover and the Final Girl.

ALSO: It’s early morning. You’re tired. You were up late listening to the latest episode of the Sword and Laser podcast. You look in the mirror as you brush your teeth. Your reflection is Sam Sykes.

"Good morning! I bet you think I’m going to tell you to buy my book. I’m not. I’m here to tell you that nominations for the 2019 Hugo Awards are open and you should nominate Sword and Laser. I know I am! (Also buy my book.)"

How he managed to get all of that out through a mouthful of toothpaste, you’ll never know.

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Instructions on how to vote can be found here. Check your email for individual links for online nominating. Voting ends Friday 15 March, 2019, 11:59 PDT.

Silvana: Circe, a past S&L pick, is included in the long list for the 2019 Women's prize for fiction, along with some other writers, such as the one highlighted in this article, a non-binary trans author from Nigeria Akwaeke Emezi with her novel Freshwater.

Stubble: The episode titles for the first four Wheel of Time series episodes have been revealed and seems to indicate that the first season will be based on book 1 and 2. The titles have been revealed by images of each script's first page.

The episode titles are
1 Leavetakings
2 Shadow's waiting
3 A place of safety
4 Dragon reborn

On the fourth script image there's a faint trace of episode 6 being named The flame of Tar Valon which indicate events in the beginning of book 2.

You can find information about this on the Daily Trollock

Dara: Martha Wells's Murderbot will return in a full-length novel in 2020 called Network Effect.

TRP: Trailer is out for the Starz adaptation of The Rook by Daniel O'Malley It all looks a bit dark and serious. I seem to recall the book had a lighter touch. Probably worth a watch

Game of Thrones' Final Season Trailer: Be Prepared for Death

Amazon revealed a finalized map for its Lord of the Rings series March 7 with the island of Númenor in the lower left hand corner, which confirmed the Amazon show’s Second Age setting. In “The Lord of the Rings,” trilogy, Númenor has been destroyed for thousands of years and serves as a lost city in Middle-Earth’s history. (Hat Tip to Stubble who noted this as well)

BARE YOUR SWORD

I am committed to reading every single @swordandlaser starting from the beginning. And if I like the first book, I’ll continue with the entire series. -- From Priscilla Basilio

Mark Ferrando has our old set! It's amazing! "I'm a former employee of Pixel Corps, the company which used to shoot the video episodes of Sword and Laser. After the show wrapped the company had to dismantle the set, but it had nowhere to store it and was just going to throw it out. I managed to arrange it so that the set elements were transported to my parents' home in Petaluma where we rebuilt it in their garage (with some modifications to fit the geometry of the available space). Ever since we have used it to host community games nights, family reunions, and other festivities, and we have added our own embellishments over the years, including a custom carbonite statue of my sister, mementos from various conventions, and a menagerie of dragons to take the place of Lem (I'm not quite sure where he ended up, although I think we might have the smoke machine and tubing that was used to help bring him to life)."

Just found the new episode for @swordandlaser , thank GOD. It’s Tuesday evening but this is like audio CRACK. :pray::+1::heart: -- Benedict

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

MARCH MADNESS CHECK-IN

Theft of Swords by Michael J Sullivan

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

BOOK CHECK IN

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone

Book briefing

HP: The Dursleys were kind of right

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 - #346 - Accio Book Pick!

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So many good TV shows based on books that we love are coming, and we even got a movie with a casting announcement that made Tom very excited! Plus, our final thoughts on The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal and the kick off of what we assume is a re-read for most of you, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling. Come on. Read it again! It’s fun!

We are GO for March Madness! Head to Goodreads or find the link on swordandlaser.com to vote for your favorite books.

Download directly here!

QUICK BURNS

Dara: The Nebula Award Finalists were announced:
- The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
- The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
- Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)
- Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)
- Witchmark, C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)
- Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

Dara: There's a new teaser for season 4 of The Man in the High Castle. It also announces that this will be its final season

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A man sits alone in a cabin. A cap is perched on his gray hair, glasses are askew, suspenders are taut. A computer running WordStar 4.0 sits abandoned. On a laptop, a Livejournal entry is incomplete.

"This is my true purpose," the man mutters.

A browser page is reflected in his glasses. 2019 HUGO NOMINATIONS, it reads. A field labeled Best Fancast stands empty, pregnant with potential. "Sword and Laser," he says aloud as he types.

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Instructions on how to vote can be found here. Check your email for individual links for online nominating. Voting ends Friday 15 March, 2019, 11:59 PDT.

Joanna: The two latest casting news for Villeneuve’s Dune:
Josh Brolin is Gurney Halleck and Jason Momoa is Duncan Idaho.

Dara: All 6 episodes of Good Omens will premiere on Amazon Prime on May 31st. Also announced: Bandersnatch Cooterscoot will be playing Satan.

Clyde: Asimov's magazine have made all of their Readers’ Award finalists available for free reading on-line.
Some good reads there. I particularly enjoyed Kristine Kathryn Rusch's and Linda Nagata's stories.
Thank you Asimov's.

Dara: Adam Christopher is writing the Stranger Things prequel about Hopper. Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town will be out June 4th.

Genesee: Article on a recently released fantasy book, the "African Game of Thrones". Roxane Gay talks to Marlon James about his African myth-inspired 'Black Leopard, Red Wolf'

“The thing about a lot of West fantasies is that it’s still following European archetypes,“ James said. “Evil is clearly evil. Evil is Sauron. That reflects a Calvinist, Christian worldview.”

Louie: Daniel H Wilson ( Robopocalypse ) pens sequel to Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain .
The Andromeda Evolution will be released on November 12

Colin: Philip Pullman news. The details of his next novel in the Dark Materials universe are out. Includes a link to an excerpt.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Footnotes in Sci Fi and Fantasy Novels

2019

Being a patreon means receiving little surprises in the mail. Thank you @acedtect @Veronica for the all too relevant political sci-fi and @swordandlaser sticker

I'm trying to access the interview with RA Salvatore at but the video is no longer available. Do you happen to still have a copy of this? My understanding is that it covers some of the reactions to WotC (Wizards of the Coast) changing the Forgotten Realms with 4E D&D from the perspectives of the poor folks working with the material and I'd really like to hear that kind of thing.

Cheers,
Chris

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

KICK OFF

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone

Book briefing

Last thoughts on The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

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/