S&L Podcast - #510 - A New Theseus
/From Hugo admins resigning over AI panel vetting to the latest award winners and a fresh Murderbot clip—to set the stage for our book club pick. Then we dig into Mickey 7’s Ship of Theseus dilemma, sharing listener takes (yes, even foot‑fetishting AIs) and the questions that keep us up at night.
WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?
Tom: Perilla Oil Buckwheat Noodles – Instagram
Veronica: Gin & Tonic, this time with elderflower syrup!
QUICK BURNS – add time stamp!
Any news or announcements
Dwango and Trike: Hugo Administrators Resign in Wake of ChatGPT Controversy
The upcoming Seattle edition of the World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, used AI to help vet program participants.
Basically the con used ChatGPT to help find a list of panel members, nothing to do with the awards themselves. But it’s very much a case of “read the room, guys” – people don’t like AI, especially the artists from whose work the LLMs have stolen to create their database.
Elizabeth: Looks like the difference between the con (Seattle Worldcon 2025) and the awards presented there (Hugo) needs to be highlighted. It seems the LLM use was by the Worldcon team, not the Hugo team, and the Hugo administrators resigned in protest of this.”
Gizmodo • File770 roundup
Stephen: SPFBO X (Self‑Publish Fantasy Blog Off 10) has a winner: By Blood, by Salt by J.L. Odom.
Facebook photo
ChrisK: 2025 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists
SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL
The Man Who Saw Seconds, Alexander Boldizar (Clash)
Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
The Mercy of Gods, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Bezzle, Cory Doctorow (Tor; Ad Astra UK)
The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, Malka Older (Tordotcom)
Kinning, Nisi Shawl (Tor)
Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK; Orbit US)
Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tordotcom; Tor UK)
Space Oddity, Catherynne M. Valente (Saga; Corsair UK)
Absolution, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD; Fourth Estate UK)
FANTASY NOVEL
I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons, Peter S. Beagle (Saga)
The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape UK)
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)
The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman (Viking; Del Rey UK)
Asunder, Kerstin Hall (Tordotcom)
A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher (Tor; Titan UK)
Somewhere Beyond the Sea, TJ Klune (Tor; Tor UK)
The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed (Solaris UK)
Long Live Evil, Sarah Rees Brennan (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The City in Glass, Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)
For other categories, click the link.
Locus Mag – Top Ten Finalists
Seth: The dishonor of losing the Quick Burn battle to those Discord heathens must not continue.
The LA Times announced their winners of the 2024 Book Prizes, with the Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction award going to Kelly Link for The Book of Love.
Interesting choice because the Goodreads reviews are decidedly mixed.
LA Times Book Prize 2025
Paul: Some new clips of Murderbot with Skarsgård describing Murderbot’s deal.
Didn't really think of the crew as Space Hippies. I just thought they were good people. Does that make me a space hippy?”
YouTube
Iain: The final book in Pullman’s Book of Dust is coming out in October. The (possibly) last book in Lyra’s story, which started in Northern Lights. It’s been a long wait.
Reactor Mag
hapahappiness: Matt Dinniman will be at the San Diego Air and Space Museum for an event hosted by (my favorite) independent bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy, on May 15 at 7 pm!
Mysterious Galaxy event
BARE YOUR SWORD – add time stamp!
Feedback from the audience
Jan
Hi everyone.
Everyone: HI JAN!
My Bare Your Sword for the episode:
I am still here – I just don’t have time to scour the net for news and post them in the Goodreads Quickburns thread as all my waking moments are dedicated to listening to the master himself Jeff Hays reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl books to me! I am at “The Gate of the Feral Gods” and already dreading when I am through with the available books! Thanks for getting me hooked on the series! I think this is actually the first time I have continued after a Sword and Laser pick!”
Ruth: I actually really enjoyed the parts where the AI talks about feet. It’s just the right balance of gross humour with the underlying sense of “goddammit my whole planet has been destroyed, nearly everyone I know is dead, I have been forced into a deadly dungeon crawl for the entertainment of intergalactic sickos and to cap it all off, I’m being perved on by an artificial intelligence with a foot fetish.
terpkristin:
I’m glad that so many people enjoyed DCC. It wasn’t for me but I enjoyed listening to this episode. I also liked Tom’s impression of the “NEW ACHIEVEMENT!” sound bite.
Stephen: I ripped through all the books last year, one right after another, until I had a short wait for Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin. The series has surprising depth. There are some minor characters that are still a mystery even after seven books. Also, if you Laser folk don’t want to claim DCC, I will gladly put it on the Sword side. It’s just I have so few science fiction writers I eagerly await their next book, I thought you would like one more.
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION
Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton – Bookshop • Amazon
Philosophical job training – Goodreads
“The Ship of Theseus from Liqorice
Ok, so we need a SoT discussion. The book asks whether or not the Expendables are effectively immortal (“Is it really you if you die and are recreated?”) As a reminder, Theseus was a Greek king who took a ship on a pilgrimage to honor Apollo. By the end of his journey he had replaced all of the original components on his ship, so was it still the same ship?
I think the book glosses over some very important points that don’t fit into the typical SoT philosophical discussion. As @Iain Bertram points out in another thread, only one scan is ever made of Mickey’s body, and it is done at the start of the journey. So, er, how exactly would that work? Your brain would have changed considerably in the intervening years. In SoT terms, you build a ship. Then you take it to other ship builders and have it modified. Then over the course of intervening years you replace all the parts but do it in a way that makes it identical to the original ship, not the modified one.
Discord SoT thread
Early impressions about Characters (No Plot Spoilers) from Roberator
I’m about nine chapters in and I don’t find any of the characters likable, including Mickey. Am I the only one?
I am interested in the story though, so it’s keeping my interest, but typically my favorite books have memorable characters that I’m rooting for (or rooting against). I don’t dislike anyone enough to be rooting for their demise, but I don’t really care who lives or dies at this point.”
Discord character thread
Replication from Iain Bertram
The method of replicating Mickey is analogous to the transporter in Star Trek (think transporter buffers) which has all sorts of implications. It’s supposed to be an exact copy from when the first scan takes place which means Mickey 8 has a body that is a decade younger than when he started the journey which is going to be weird as his girlfriend gets older.
What happens to the memories of trauma when the body has no scars? That would have to be disconcerting.
Can you imagine hitting the gym for six months and then being stuck back in your flabby body which hasn’t worked out?
Not sure how the tech actually works (I know it’s hand‑wavy but my brain won’t leave it be). Does it need all the proteins and other material used to build the body or does it create it from atoms? I mean, how could you feed it exactly the right proportion of proteins each time? If it builds from atoms why not take a scan of a cow sans personality and just print loads of cows and have a BBQ? Probably the same tech as a Star Trek replicator.
Instead of shipping colonists just ship the scans of the colonists and a nanotech self‑assembly plan to minimize weight.
Discord replication thread
ADDENDUMS
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