S&L Podcast - #534 - No Noox, Just Boox

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Jan has taken over the show and is exhibiting the personality of the AI from Dungeon Crawler Carl. Veronica hates awards. Tom puts the butt before the horse in deference to Veronica's theory of good things happening. And we don't wrap up Slow Gods, but we still have non-spoilery thoughts.

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WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

  • Tom: Mushroom Risotto

  • Veronica: Lot 40 Whiskey

QUICK BURNS

Jan: So you want to know about a great non-English science fiction novel that will NEVER be translated into English? Well, I have found the right news for you! Lyneham by Nils Westerboer has won the German Kurd Laßwitz Prize 2026 for Best Science Fiction Novel.

But hey, I can at least translate the beginning of the Goodreads description for you:

Henry Meadows is turning twelve when Earth dies. With his father and siblings, he travels to "Perm," a primordial moon in a far-away solar system. Henry’s mother traveled on a different spaceship. The family awaits her arrival, but suddenly signs appear that she has already been there — long ago. And she has left behind a warning...

You can read more about the other winners over on Locusmag (Hint: Best translated work is To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers).

Jan: Alchemised by SenLinYu has actually won something! Not the "Best Harry Potter Fan Fiction turned Novel that has absolutely nothing to do with Harry Potter anymore wink wink, but we'll market the heck out of that fact anyway" Award, but the 2026 British Book Award in the Category Science Fiction & Fantasy. At least that's what LocusMag is telling me, so it must be true!

(I am very sorry about these Quick Burns, I am currently listening to "Parade of Horribles" and apparently this is influencing my writing style!)

Phil: There's a Humble Bundle of 31 books by Robert Silverberg available for the next 15 days. I've read a fair number of them and can recommend his writing. It does include the Majipoor books. You can check it out on Humble Bundle.

Clyde added: "I read most of his books back when, as a bard once said, 'I wore a younger man's clothes.' (Hmm… I think it is about time to reread Lord Valentine's Castle.) For those interested in Silverberg the man, I recommend Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg. It gives a glimpse into his life both in and out of the SF&F world. And, it provides a vision of Silverberg's wide-ranging interests and is well seasoned with his dry wit."

Jan: Hello Cra... Shields! Goodreads has released its list of the most anticipated books this summer, and of course, there are genre lists included.

The most anticipated Fantasy books include:

  • The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden

  • Winner of this summer’s unofficial Best Book Title award, Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim

  • Victorious by V.E. Schwab

Science Fiction includes:

  • Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne (which apparently is about a spaceship covered in sentient moss)

  • As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers

Romantasy I am skipping, as for some reason none of the titles follows the "An X of Y and Z" romantasy novel title generator format, which I find hugely disappointing. (But which may be fixed when the 6th and so far untitled book of A Court of Thorns and Roses gets revealed, even though Goodreads cheated by including that book because October 27 is definitely not part of summer anymore). But if you want to read up on the Romantasy list and all the other books, you can find it over on Goodreads. Now get out there and read, read, read!

Mark: Prime Video orders Fourth Wing to series. Ladies and gentlemen, start your dragons! Read more on Variety.

Mark: If you use an ePaper device to read ebooks, then this is the gizmo for you: a Bluetooth page turner! Check out the BOOX Tappy Wireless Page Turner.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Jan: I would totally buy a Sword & Laser cookbook! And most of the stuff I contributed was ChatGPT stuff anyway, so no problem with authorship there... *g*

Jan: Regarding the "best/most popular novel thing": I did a bit of editorializing when posting this, as the article starts talking about crowning "the best" fantasy novel but then shifts midway through to talking about popularity... So I felt this contradiction as well when posting the news. I also checked Screenrant and there didn't seem to be anything on other genres, but since posting the news, they have also released an article about the Best Science Fiction and Thriller novels.

The "Best" Sci-Fi novel is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and the "most popular" Thriller Mystery is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides (see, they did it again — mixing popularity and quality!). Check out the articles on Screenrant for Sci-Fi and Thriller Mystery.

Paul: Regarding that best/most popular of the last 10 years post, I think the reason Circe showed up as the biggest fantasy is largely thanks to the author's previous book, The Song of Achilles, being one of the biggest books to benefit from the BookTok phenomenon. Circe wasn't nearly as big of a deal, but I remember always seeing it displayed next to the wall of Song of Achilles books at bookstores back in 2022 and 2023, and so I think people who wanted more from Miller flocked to Circe. Since Circe was published in 2018 while Song of Achilles was published in 2011, though, it got the title of most popular fantasy of the last decade.

This is by no means a slight. Miller writes very well and it had large appeal; I'm just saying it won because it was the BookTok fantasy published after 2016. Similarly, ACOTAR was published in 2015, so it was also disqualified because of its publishing date. I'd be curious to see the stats of ACOTAR vs Fourth Wing. BookTok really messed with traditional bookselling and lending though, no question. At my workplace at the time, I would make a poster with a list of the most requested books of the month for my public library, and it was the first time that books published 5–10 years ago were our most requested items. Like Colleen Hoover. She'd been publishing junky romances for over a decade and nobody cared, until suddenly 4 of her books were on our Top Ten list, and we only had 2 copies in the entire city. Our poor acquisitions department had no idea what was going on until somebody was like, "Get on TikTok NOW!"

Melissa: I read Angel Down and I thought it was brilliant! I was surprised that anyone would place it in the science fiction genre. It’s a story of soldiers in No Man’s Land in WWI who discover an angel trapped in barbed wire. The descriptions of war, along with this supernatural component, place it firmly in the horror genre. Kraus writes the novel in one continuing sentence, which mirrors the unrelenting violence and horror of war. The text is broken up into sections, so it isn’t difficult to read once you get used to it. It is NOT for sensitive readers. The descriptions of what happens to bodies on the battlefield are visceral.

The Book Review podcast from the New York Times just posted an episode with Daniel Kraus in which he discusses his novel. The episode also includes an interview with Patricia Cornwell, so the episode is titled “Patricia Cornwell on Her Dark Childhood.” The Kraus interview is first in the episode, and he discusses how he decided to write the novel in one sentence.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Jan: But listening to the podcast makes me feel bad for neither connecting to the main character nor the writing style — and even more for posting a mean-spirited review excerpt about Maw. I am glad people love this book, the language, and the character! It makes me think about my own biases dismissing both so easily.

ADDENDUMS

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