S&L Podcast - #383 - TerpTalk

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Congrats to the Locus Nominees and Nebula winners! We’ve read a bunch of those but there are some great new picks to be discovered too. Everybody wins! Plus long-time Sword and Laser listener TerpKristin joins us to wrap up Magician: Apprentice.

Download directly here!

QUICK BURNS

Geoff: 2019 Nebula winners announced! Here’s the official post.
A Song for a New Day wins for best novel, which surprises me based on "buzz", but I haven't read it yet so I'll take it on faith that it is worthy. Looking forward to reading it!
S&L pick This Is How You Lose the Time War wins for Novella.

Mark:
2020 Locus Award finalists announced

Stephen: New Virtual Con, this time put on by Tor.com and Den of Geek
Info and dates here
Christopher Paolini & Brandon Sanderson June 11th
Neil Gaiman & V.E. Schwab June 12th
June 13 and June 14 all sorts of stuff
You need to register to get an invite to the event.

BARE YOUR SWORD

Thanks to Dave Packard the OC S&L we had a lockdown version of the monthly meetup via Zoom, attended by Dave, Stephen Richter, Andrew Cator, Christina and myself.

We spent about 10 minutes discussing Magician: Apprentice then over an hour talking about Star Trek, Star Wars, various books and comics we're reading, TV shows we're watching and I forget what else.

A good time was had by all.

Gary Fisher

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Beth Mitcham @MitchamBeth
MAGICIAN: APPRENTICE, Raymond E. Feist. A great time-travel book. I mean, there's no time-travel in it, but while reading it I am magically a kid again, reading fat fantasy books by the bucketful. Hindsight makes it pleasantly predictable.

Kelly Sedinger @Jaquandor
Listening to a @swordandlaser discussion on the DUNE books and which ones to read and which to skip, I'm reminded of a wonderful turn of phrase by @BluejoWalton, who referred to the later novels as "homeopathically good".

Kenley Neufeld @kenleyneufeld
A gentle tale of humans, elves, dwarves, and even a dragon. Fun and light w/out the dark heaviness that pervades fantasy. More than one boys journey into manhood caused by war. Surprised to not hear from our protagonist in the last 85-pgs. Magician: Apprentice for @swordandlaser

Amy @SuthinBelle
@swordandlaser I posted on Goodreads but wanted to let you know about the new data viz on book picks I made

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

JUNE PICK

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Full wrap up with Terpkristin joining us! Yay!

Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist

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 - #382 - Great Movie, I Hate It

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We're beefing up our reading lists with Japanese and British award lists. Also it's fun to see what critically-acclaimed movies are hated by the authors whose books they are based on. Plus, we preview our June pick and have a few thoughts on the May pick!

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Water

QUICK BURNS

John (Taloni): Gail Carriger's latest, Defy or Defend Defy is now out. This book is the second in the "Delightfully Deadly" series and follows Dimity from the Finishing School books in her later adventures.

Richard: "The Science Fiction Fan Groups’ Association of Nippon (SFFAN) has announced the finalists for the 2020 Seiun Awards (the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo Awards), honoring the best original and translated works published last year in Japan.

Seth: Book Riot picks 15 great Science Fiction podcasts, and guess who made the list? Yep, Sword and Laser - here's the rest:

Mark: Miss Reading in Public? Bring the Sounds of the Library to Your Home. The New York Public Library has compiled an album of noises we miss—including the sound of the library itself

Erskine: Neil Gaiman just announced the first 3 graphic novels of Sandman will be released July 15 as an audiobook on Audible. I, for one, cannot wait, as I love this series. Richard added: So excited for this as well. The cast looks amazing! Michael Sheen as Lucifer. Riz Ahmed as The Corinthian. James McAvoy as Dream.

Mark: Murderbot will be back in 2021! Announcement and cover reveal for Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Jan: Tor.com reports that the British Science Fiction Association has announced the winners of the BSFA Awards for works published in 2019.

Jan: JK Rowling has announced the release of a new children's novel "The Ickabog"


BARE YOUR SWORD

Dear Tom and Veronica,

I always enjoy your author interviews, I'll have to put Veronica Roth's Chosen Ones on my to read pile. I never really noticed character's named Veronica until you two mentioned, you don't see them much. In the past few weeks I've come across two. The ""Untamed Beauty"" on The Lost World TV show from 90s (streaming on Amazon Prime) is named Veronica and the main character looking for love in Dark Angel: The Ascent (Full Moon Entertainment) is also named Veronica.

Also, if you need a laugh, Kill The Farm Boy by Kevin Hearne & Delilah Dawson is a fun read spoofing quest novels. If Mel Brooks directed a fractured fairy tail episode.

Best,
David

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Responses about good adaptations authors hated!

Jan: I think the best known example for an adaptation not liked by the author but in general considered very good is probably ""The Shining"". Stephen Kings hates the Stanley Kubrick movie because the shift of theme and message, but is in general considered a masterpiece...

Oh and the other big example is of course Disney's "Mary Poppins"" which was very much disliked by PL Travers

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Trike: Authors hating good movies made from their books is actually quite common. I’m sure there are dozens of examples. A few off the top of my head:

Roald Dahl HATED Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Winston Groom likewise despises Forrest Gump.

Ken Kesey hated One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

E.B. White (and his wife) hated Charlotte’s Web.

And a special bonus just for Veronica: Stanislaw Lem hated *both* versions of Solaris. 😆

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John Taloni: Arthur Clarke was pretty displeased with how 2001 turned out. Michael Moorcock has a an article that includes a pretty lengthy discussion of that.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

BRIEF discussion today. Full wrap up next episode with Terpkristin joining us! Yay!
Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist

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 - #381 - Happ-E-Anding?

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We're going to get some good Discworld TV! We talk about why sometimes you don't want to read old stuff, and whether you're someone who likes depressing consequences or happily ever after stories. All that and our first non-spoiler impressions of Magician: Apprentice.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: La Croix Peach-Pear

Veronica: Water

QUICK BURNS

Richard and Jan: The Wertzone writes "New DISCWORLD TV adaptations announced, unrelated to THE WATCH

In a press release on Discworld.com it was announced that "Narrativia, the independent production company launched by Sir Terry Pratchett in 2012, strikes [a] new development deal with Motive Pictures and Endeavor Content to create truly authentic Discworld screen adaptations."

It was not announced which books will be adapted first, but the deal is according to the press release for tv shows rather than movies.

The stressing of the "authenticity" of the planned shows in the announcement may reassure those Pratchett fans who are upset that the other Discworld series "The Watch" (which is currently in production at BBC America) is apparently diverging quite a bit from the source material - at least judging from the details released so far.

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Stephen: The winner of SPFBO 5 (self-published fantasy blog-off) is The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang. I personally had it as a six way tie. but I did not have an official vote.

Check out a panel from QuanranCon2020 of the authors who participated in this years SPFBO contest, it will make your day!!

If you are one of those who want to read more Self Published books but do not know where to start? This contest is one of the best way to achieve that goal. I have now ten new authors to keep track of.
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Jan: HBO has released a first Teaser-Trailer for Lovecraft Country, their adaptation of the novel by Mark Ruff.

The show from executive producers Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams, and showrunner Misha Green (Underground) will debut in August on HBO Max.

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Jan: Starting from May 5 WizardingWorld.com is releasing each week a chapter of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" narrated by celebrities like Stephen Fry, David Beckham, Dakota Fanning, Claudia Kim, Noma Dumezweni, and Eddie Redmayne.

The first chapter read by Daniel Radcliffe has already been released. Videos are available on the site, but there is also an audio-only version released on Spotify.

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Tamahome: Game of Thrones' Mountain just set a world record for brute strength:

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BARE YOUR SWORD

Kelly Sedinger @Jaquandor
Hey @acedtect and @Veronica, just listened to your discussion of epistolary novels (I'm always a few episodes behind), and let me plug Nick Bantock's GRIFFIN AND SABINE books! They're epistolary but also gorgeous art books, and you get to pull the letters from their envelopes!

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Hi Veronica and Tom,

I'm an avid podcast listener (and Patreon supporter!), though I'm not on Goodreads. I was just watching a press briefing given the Maine governor, Janet Mills, and was surprised to hear her quoting Veronica Roth! Since you recently interviewed her, I thought you might also be interested. This was not a forum where I expected to hear her name. I googled the quote and it seems to be from Allegiant. In the video of the briefing linked here, the part with the quote is at 55:25.

Thanks for a great podcast; I look forward to every episode and have discovered many books (and other things) through the pod. Like many people, I LOVED Gideon the Ninth, though I never would have read it unprompted. I had seen it on Audible before it was a pick and was totally disinterested. Meanwhile, I devoured it and immediately recommended it to all kinds of people.

I hope you are both healthy and well!

All the Best,

Robert Sheckler

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That curve's not flat!

HEA vs Depressing Consequences


BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist

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