Is Neal Stephenson fantasizing revenge? How does Patrick Norton read so preternaturally fast? Can you really make paper out of elephant dung? All these questions and more exlpored on this episode of Sword and Laser.
We wrap up Ready Player One, give away a Kindle, get psyched up for NaNoWriMo, and discuss whether virtual worlds will lead to the decline of cvilization. Ready Player One spoiler's ahead!
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Wherein Tom decides to spend $1,000 on an Alastair Reynolds book, Veronica decides to become an author, and we remember "that comedian". It's a chatty episode, a little longer than some have been, but we hope you find it chock full of goodness.
Write a pitch for a NaNoRiMo story, we'll pick a winner randomly from this thread. You have until October 31st to post, and you could win a Kindle!
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Tom and Veronica,
Every once in a while Tom mentions that he's always looking for books. I've also come to the conclusion from a few subtle hints that have been dropped here and there that he's a baseball fan. So I'd like to add the following to Tom's reading/listening queue (as the Audible version of this is a fine performance: Summerland by Michael Chabon, winner of both a Hugo and a Pulitzer (not too shabby and a thoroughly uncommon combination). YA fantasy (though as a middle-aged geek, I enjoyed the heck out of it as well) about trans-dimensional travel, elves, dwarves, magic, good, evil, and baseball. Not just baseball, but baseball as a metaphor for life.
Who knows, it might even be an excellent selection for S&L.
Love the podcast, even though I can't always keep up on the reading.
Yours in geekdom,
George Van Wagner, occasionally known as GVDub in various places on teh intarwebs.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
It's time for SciFi writers to get up and help science, according to Neal Stephenson. We also seem to have had the idea of starting a wiki for Ready Player One. Now if we only had the energy to do it. And one broken link gets two podcast hosts into an epic battle of fixing.
Looks like we'll wrap up Ready, Player ONe either next week or the week after. Which would you rather?
And Tom gives a quick review of The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
EMAILS
Hi, I just discovered your podcast and I'm listening from the first episode. It's full of geeky goodness and I've enjoyed every episode so far. However, I discovered that the MP3 for podcast 25 is unavailable. Would you be able to check the link in your spare time or perhaps send the MP3 via email?
Thanks,
Chris
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Macrologia: @Veronica I think that, whenever on @swordandlaser, you should be referred to as Deathstalker Commander by @acedtect.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
It's an episode chock full of twists and turns with an incredible ending you won't see coming. Unless you've listened before. We end with the email address. But HOW do we get there? Well for one, we talk about video games as storytelling. For another we kick off Ready Player One and Reamde as our new books. And finally..... well that would be a spoiler.
The reason I'm writing is because after 2 years, I finished my 3rd book, first fiction, a novella titled Trapped in My Zombie Body. The cover is being designed now, and I will have it going out digitally in mid-October, paperback in November. Moreover, I'm donating 50% of royalties to Child's Play Charity.
Synopsis: Imagine your body no longer listened to you. You were trapped, experiencing the world in a new way: without any control over your actions. It's a world filled with sleep deprivation, mind games, and unthinkable acts. Welcome to my world.
By the way, I publish under my legal first name, Mario, rather than my nickname, Andy, just FYI. I look forward to hearing from you guys!
Cheers, Mario Lurig, aka Andy in Colorado
NEW MEMBER HELLOS
York, Brandon, Kyle, Matt, Joshua, Another Brandon, Lindsey, Rob, Walter, Simon, Esther, Joe, Brian, The Duchess, Adiel, Sophie, Another Joshua
ADDENDUMS
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
Since practically the first moment we discussed doing the book club, Veronica has told me how Tad Williams was the foundation of her fantasy reading history. Today, we get the pleasure of talking with Tad about what he writes, how he writes, and why he's become the godfather of Sword and Laser.
Bay Area-based Tad Williams is the author of many outstanding books, including several series, such as Memory Sorrow and Thorn, Otherland, and Shadowmarch. On a personal note, his novel Tailchaser's Song was the book that basically got Veronica interested in fantasy in the first place! Follow him on Facebook!
BARE YOUR SWORD
In your discussion on the use of German in FlashForward, I cringed when you pronounced “jawohl”. It is pronounced like “yah-VOLE”, and is something you would expect to hear on Hogan's Heroes reruns, or in the phrase ""Jawohl, mein Herr!"", but I never heard it in Germany when I lived there for several months in the mid 80's.
I love your podcast,
Kevin Hansen
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Hi Tom and Veronica,
As promised, here's a small pronounciation lesson for some of the German words that you talked about in the last episode.
If you have any more questions, just ask.
Have a great day and looking forward to the next podcast, Anne.
Next time we'll kick off: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. And Reamde, if you're so inclined!
ADDENDUMS
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
We have a huge calendar to get through. Some great books are coming out this month! Plus we wrap up Flash Forward by Robert J. Sawyer and with all the great conversations on Goodreads, we have a lot to say! Also a fruit fly died in the making of this episode. He is survived by several thousand other fruit flies.
Hey where do you get the info for the Calendar segment you have? Is it a website? I looked on Goodreads and didn't see anything related to that.
This would be a useful site to bookmark.
Thanks,
Jim From Boston.
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Hi Veronica and Tom,
I recently downloaded the .mobi version of United Moon Colonies from archive.org and was saddened by the formatting. The .mobi file kept all the ""United Moon Colonies"" headers and the pages numbers from the original file. The problem is that they must have been treated as plain text when the original file was converted in .mobi and .epub, so now they pop up right in the middle of sentences.
It really bothered me, I'm a bit OCD-ed sometimes : I like things neat. Because of this and the fact that I am not a big fan of pdf reading on the Kindle, I decided to reformat the whole thing to make it more comfortable for me to read. It took a bit of work but I think I straightened it all out. At least I hope I did, although I'm sure there must be a forgotten line break hidden somewhere.
Anyway, I may not be the only one bothered by the archive.org files, so I thought I'd submit these reformatted .mobi and .epub to you so that you may do with them as you please.
As for the cover, I used the one Sean submitted on the Goodreads thread, credit where credit is due :) It would be easy enough to change it back to the original one if needed.
Anyway, I thought it might interest you and might make the reading more enjoyable for other people. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Tom Merritt book to read :)
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
Dragon*Con is one of our favorite times of year, and 2011 was no exception! We had the wonderful opportunity to interview Hugo and Nebula-award winning science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer. This was especially fortuitous, considering we're reading FlashForward for the book club this month (ok... that was no coincidence).
There are no Quick Burns or Bare Your Swords this week, but thanks to everyone who sent in questions for the interview. Pick up Flashforward at a library or book store near you, and join in on the discussion on Goodreads!
We're excited about Dragon*Con and our interview with Robert J. Sawyer. In fact we're picking his book Flashforward as our next read, which we'll kick off next week. This week we wrap-up our last alternate selection, Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi.
Over in Goodreads I don't know if this has been discussed yet, so sorry if it has. I've seen people wonder about using the hide spoiler feature in threads that are clearly marked spoilery from the get go. I think it's still important to hide spoilers so people can decide to what degree they want to get spoilery. Also, perhaps more importantly, thread comments you make will appear in your friends' feeds and they won't be happy campers if a big nasty spoiler appears on their Goodreads home page after you comment on a spoilery thread. Keep up the good work, you guys have a lot of fun doing the show and it's contagious!
thanks, Philip
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Hey Tom and Veronica,
Catching up on podcasts and I heard Veronica say she was interested in a listener's bad theatre experience, so I thought I'd share one I had recently. Like the letter writer, I've also had people wait outside the theatre for me because I've politely asked them to be quiet, but this one take the cake. I copied it from my tumblr, (Zombie Otaku), so I hope you don't mind.
So I decide to leave the house for once and go see one of those moving pictures that are all the rage with the kids today. There is an art house/indy film theatre not far from me that I’ve always intended on frequenting, so last night was the night.
So I arrive, and it’s all old people. Well, older than me. All gray hair, all wearing slacks and weekend plaid. I’m wearing a Ramones shirt and Chuck Taylors, so they of course check their wallets and ask their spouses if they locked the car.
I decide to commit to this place and get a membership. This way I’ll have to go, since I paid extra and I hate not getting my money’s worth. The woman looks pissed off at me, since this means she has to fill out out a card and laminate it. Somehow, she gets through this ordeal.
I go into the theatre, ready to see Midnight In Paris. A contingent of what I assume were lawn bowlers sit down across the aisle and start yelling at each other in Greek, even though they’re sitting beside one another. A man in thick rimmed black glasses glares at them, switches off his iPhone, and storms to a new seat.
I counted lots of thick, black rimmed glasses on guys checking their iPhones.
The movie finally starts. At this point the ancient seats start giving me back spasms. Still, I’m going to enjoy this movie. Twenty minutes in, something flies past the screen.
I look. It flies past the screen again. Then it swoops over my head. The audience all jump.
BATS.
Now I’m not watching the movie. I’m watching bats flying around the place. I count three of them. When they fly close to the projector, their silhouette fills the screen, and I wonder how many us will now be inspired to fight crime as Batman.
Then they start swooping. I can feel one just miss my head, impacting on the chair behind me. It screams, flops around, and takes to the air again. I’m out of my chair, deciding someone should tell management we’re under attack.
But a bat is flying in front of the door leading to the lobby. It’s bouncing back and forth between the walls, getting pissed. Then it flies at me, I duck, and run out into the lobby.
The manager jumps out of his chair in his office. “What’s wrong?”
“Bats are attacking the audience,” I say, because I wasn’t sure what else to say. Do we discuss the decline of art cinema first, then move onto the bat problem?
He looks into the theatre. The bats are flying fast and furious in front of the screen.
“Yeah, I see them,” he says. “They’re early this year.”
So this is normal.
“I’m just worried someone might get bit,” I said,
“Yeah, I hope not,” he replied.
Silence.
“Guess I’ll go back in,” I said.
“Okay,” and he went back to his office.
So in I went. I watched the bats a bit longer, especially when they hung on the screen and screeched. But then they disappeared, and I finally got to watch the film.
No book pick this week, but we do have a special interview with the man who plays Hodor in the HBO series Game of Thrones. We'll find out what he had to do to get the role and how he thinks Hodor thinks. Plus a look at the Hugos and a new book recommendation engine.
Kristian Nairn plays Hodor on the HBO series Game of Thrones. He's also a DJ and WoW player!
Did he ever just wish his character was mute so he could stop saying "Hodor!"? Also, did he answer a casting call? If so what was the character description? -- Nick
Since this is his first major role, I'd like to know a bit about the casting process. How did he land role? What was the audition like? (a lot of Hodoring one would expect) -- Tero
I'd like to know how much say he had in his dialogue. No, seriously. There was a distinct lack of Hodoring in the show and I'd really like to know if he was involved in any discussions on how much Hodor is too much Hodor. I'm wondering whether they were toning it down to not grate on people, or if they just didn't have time to explain his backstory and didn't want people wondering about it until they'd had a chance to. --Been
As a fellow big guy (6'7"" and about 280) did he have problems walking around the castles? I almost knocked myself out walking through a castle in Wales wearing a baseball cap. I walked strait into a stone door frame I could not see b/c the hat bill blocked it. Can only imagine how tough that would be with someone riding piggy back. --Alden
Do you think that Hodor has intense internal thought but is unable to communicate it effectively? He can clearly understand what other people expect of him and can look after himself in other ways. -- Michael
ADDENDUMS
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
Kristian Nairn, who plays Hodor on the HBO series Game of Thrones, will be joining us on the podcast next week! If you have any questions for him, please let us know over on the Goodreads thread!
In the meantime, make sure to follow him on Twitter!
Yes this week we wrap-up our thoughts on "A Dance with Dragons" and there is quite a bit to talk about. Meantimes there's other stuff in the worlds of Swords and Lasers, including a couple top 100 book lists to debate. And debate them we do!
I would like to urge you to listen to Little Fuzzy with an open mind. The story is neither misogynistic, nor racist and I think that you may just find it delightful. Piper's work, like that of Asimov and Heinlein, is a product of the 60's. The characters smoke and drink martinis. True, there aren't many female leading characters. The lead female character is named Ruth and she is no secretary. She is a powerful lawyer and central to the plot. For the early 1960s I'd say this was fairly progressive.
The cast of human characters is also fairly diverse racially and culturally. Piper envisioned a universe that was not America-centric and numerous characters have Muslim or Hindi names or were the products of interracial marriage. By the standards of the day, this would be considered very progressive.
What might throw you is the fact that the story is indeed dated. The good guys and bad guys are pretty well defined and protagonist Jack Halloway is not flawed in the way that people expect a good character to be. He's something like an old cowboy, I suppose. Some of the technology is humorously dated -- he has to run his movie film through a portable processing lab, for example.
The story addresses some very deep social issues, mainly what constitutes humanity. How do we decide when to confer human rights to non-humans?
This book was the first sci-fi novel I read as a kid. The gateway drug, one could say. I've been hooked ever since.
Side note: You'll remember that during the live interview with David Gerrold at DragonCon last year, he mentioned that he had originally called his creatures Fuzzies but had to change the name to Tribbles because of the H.Beam Piper novel. Also, much of Piper's work is available for free as it has slipped into the public domain.
Anyway, I had to speak up for one of my very favorite authors. Thanks for your awesome podcast. I hope to see you guys again at DragonCon this year.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
We're not done with the old George R.R. Martin book just yet, but we actually got a chance to see the guy in person, and met some of you folks too! And ate Mexican Food! We have no complaints about life now. Except for the series Alphas.
I don't know if you talked about this before, but it always irks me that you're using percentages when talking about how far along you are in an ebook. Perhaps you should solicit suggestions for a word that defines an ebook page in your forum. Here's my suggestion:
Fage |fāj| noun a page in an ebook reader or ebook application of arbitrary size. I'm currently on fage 364 of 1,663 in The Wise Man's Fear iBook. ORIGIN early 21st century: from English fake page.
Cheers, uv.
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Hi Tom and Veronica!
I was wondering if you were planning to have another Sword and Laser meet up in Atlanta during DragonCon?
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We're stoked about more than just A Dance with Dragons this week. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is going online for free next year! Comic-Con is coming, which means awesome YouTube videos! And we sing a welcome to the newbies in our GoodReads forum. But you should listen anyway.
Veronica is at 36%. Tom is significantly behind her.
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Starting at about 11:00 in the S&L podcast number 68, Tom said something like, "Those are three book trilogies, there's lots of examples of those. Addams is at least a five book trilogy." All with a straight face. Have fun, Rob
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We start dancing about dragons, face an uprising from the listeners, and talk with David Peterson. As the creator of the Dothraki language, he advises us to tell the audience "Anha ochomok yeraan kijinosi."
David was nice enough to translate the passage on the show and pointed us to this link for an example of some diagramming of Dothraki:
"I will not have your body burned. I will not give you that honor. The beetles will feed on your eyes. The worms will crawl through your lungs. The rain will fall on your rotting skin... until nothing is left of you but bones."
Ánha vazhók khadoés yeroón virsalát. Ánha ochomók yeraán kíjinosi. Ínte vádakhie tíhoa ma khéwo áfilki vi gadimaán. Eyél várthasoe she ilekaán ríkhoya arrekaán vékha vósi yeroón vósma tolórro.
ADDENDUMS
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
We kick off A Dance with Dragons a week early with a quick summary of the important stuff that happened in the last book, A Feast for Crows. Don't worry if you don't want to be spoiled, we save it all to the very end and give lots of warnings. But you have to tune in for some great Goodreads discussions, quick news, and of course the Calendar.
I have to say that I'm very curious about the sound effects others are offering for the calendar & book check-in. I'm not very creative & don't expect to win. However I did come across some effects that I'd like to share from www.audiomicro.com. For the calendar the only thing I can think of is 'page flip by Soundjay'. For the new member 'reaction cheer by Blastwavefx'. For the book check-in 'foley book grab by Blastwavefx'. All of these are wav format & very brief. Because it's someone else's work, I don't know the legal issues for me to grab their work & send it to you for possible use. What got me curious the most is the sound effects people are choosing for calendar & book check-in. That curiosity is what lead me to see what sound effects are out there.
John -- Long time listener, first time caller. First let me say I love the 'cast. I especially love the pace and format Veronica and Tom have adopted. (Note: As I listen, I like to picture them as the VeroniTom, a two-headed book-hoarding winged creature. Try it yourself, it gives the podcast that added extra flair.)
ADDENDUMS
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
Well we've seen ol' Katniss, Peeta and Gale through to the end, and we wrap up all three books in The Hunger Games series. We also have some good book picks to get you through until July 12 when we start our next book, and book-bingers of the world unite!
Hello to Blindman (came to us from Major Nelsons podcast), Dani, Robert (what is this, the cast of Game of Thrones?), Jason and Vladimir!
ADDENDUMS
Help us with sound effects! T-shirt contest! Send your .wav files of VERY SHORT segment sound effects to theswordandlaser@gmail.com by July 12 to win a Sword and Laser t-shirt!
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
This week we bring you the first two-word review of Geoirge R. R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons, some excellent hard scifi for you scientist types, and a philosophical discussion of dark YA books.
Tom: On book 2, loved book 1, book 2 still good -Finished Best Served Cold and Wolves of the Calla, on to Song of Susannah and Last Argument of Kings
EMAILS
Hello Veronica and Tom, Horkken here from Paris, France. I know you talked about it on a previous episode but now that the HBO series is coming to France (this week (yes it's fast)) I wondered what is the best option. Reading the book first and then watch the show or watch the show and then read the book ? I know it must be a common question but I usually have a rule, always read the book before watching an adaptation on screen but I really don't know with Game of Thrones. So I would like your opinion on that. Thank you !
PS: In the original version you have 4 books so far, the french translation is in 12 books. The publishers are real butchers here. (It's even worse with Robin Hobb).
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
S&L listener Anne did an awesome cover of our theme music (originally composed by our pal Josh Lawrence) on her ukelele! How awesome is that? And she's only been playing the ukelele for three weeks!
This episode we get the distinct pleasure of chatting with N. K. Jemisin, author of our last book pick, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. We'll discuss a little about her writing process, how she invented the world her characters inhabit, and even get a bit political. Or at least social judicial.
We also go over the books that are coming soon in the science fiction and fantasy world, and annouce the winner of the recent poll on Goodreads for our next book, which was up against some pretty tough competition in the "science fiction written by a female author" category. No recap on Game of Thrones this week, but it'll be back next time! And we'll have plenty to talk about, trust us.
This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.
