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

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

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