S&L Podcast - #541B - This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews Wrap Up

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BOOK OF THE MONTH WRAPUP (SPOILERS)

Welcome to the wrapup of last month's book pick!

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This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews

Shane: I got to the halfway point and couldn't help but fly through the rest of the book. I really liked it and have lots to say, but I'll kick it off with some highs and lows from my perspective. Very curious to hear from others.

  • Highs: Lots of compelling characters, with some real variety in backgrounds, personalities, etc. Clever solutions to problems in conversation and action.

  • Lows: All of the "Maggie must be mine" stuff. I don't read romance, so not sure how normal this is but I didn't like it. Some solutions were plucked from other "plot lines" in a way that felt cheap. The Raven Scholar did an AMAZING job of avoiding this pitfall IMO.

SkittyJann: I very much enjoyed the book, being a long time Ilona Andrews fan, with two caveats. One, the excessive info dumping in the first third (quarter?) of the book which was sort of caused by the premise of the story, and two, the tacked on ending on the last page. Was that really necessary? I feel like the publisher made them put that in so that people will read the next book, like the excellent character building and story line weren't enough. One can include something popping up at the end of a book that intrigues and inspires further reading. This felt more like a threat. "You'd better want to read the next book 'cause something bad could happen to Maggie!" As if.

Ruth Tiltab: I also want the next book even though, yes, the number of hot controlling dudes who wanted to own Maggie was a little annoying. It’s a trope in some romances, and can be fun when it’s lightly done, but the amount here made the men very unattractive to me no matter how pretty they looked. Like, Maggie’s main dude had that whole, dangerous but will protect her no matter what thing going for him and that normally appeals to me, but I grew so tired of him that by the end, I was kinda puzzled Maggie cared if he lived or died… That gripe aside, I had a great time with this pick, and breathed an audible sigh of relief whenever Maggie made it through something without dying, which shows how invested I was. I liked her cousin a lot, and enjoyed the shades of grey the characters all wore. I hate having to wait for the next one.

ADDENDUMS

Thank you to all the folks who help to back our show! If you want to help support the show, 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.

S&L Podcast - #540 - A Court of Coif and Sushi

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Sword and Laser is having a meetup at LaCon! Plus, Fable gets popular, ACoTaR has new titles and our non-spoilery thoughts on This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.

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WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

  • Tom: Spinach Ravioli

  • Veronica: Tomatoes

STARTING IN SEPTEMBER

Sword and Laser simplified tiers. Monthly:

  • $5 Shieldbearers - Ad-free (Raise the price but leave existing tier folks at $3)

  • $10 - Laserswordmaster Book Briefing (Raise the price for new members only) Knighthood-Space Marine is retired and becomes Laserswordmaster.

  • $20 Space Knight Special Thing We Need to Come Up With. Quarterly free gift? (I have some old merch, could do a Forthwall store and send them things. OOh I like custom merch. They get it and everybody else can buy it)

    • Themed gift for the monthly read

    • Monthly video conference

  • $50 - Primal You get to suggest book picks and weigh in with opinions on picks ahead of time. We make a special Doc they have access to where we each keep a list of books we're thinking of. You get to join the Discord hangout voiced.

CONTENT

  • First Wednesday of the Month (or the second if schedules conflict): Record Quick Burns, Book Kick Off and Book Wrap up. (Patrons get all this at once. Public gets it doled out in two episodes)

  • Once a month on another Wednesday: Hangout and check in with the Discord. This is recorded and posted for Patrons.

QUICK BURNS

Any news or announcements

  • Jan: The 2026 Dragon Awards Ballot has been announced. Nominees for the Best Science Fiction Novel are:

    • The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey

    • Radiant Star by Ann Leckie

    • Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman

    • Slow Gods by Claire North

    • The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi

    • God’s Junk Drawer by Peter Clines

    And as Best Fantasy Novel:

    • Red City by Marie Lu

    • Queen Demon by Martha Wells

    • Academy of Outcasts by Larry Correia

    • Hell to Pay by Sherrilyn Kenyon

    • The Lost Reliquary by Lyndsay Ely

    • Twelve Months by Jim Butcher Read more at File 770

  • Jan: Clarion West has announced their "2026 Deep Dive Series" pairing a speculative fiction author with a scientist or other expert in a moderated conversation. The first one is September 12 with Mary Robinette Kowal and former commercial astronaut Dr. Sian Proctor about "the current state of global space programs and our possible futures among the stars" The second one is September 24 with Author T. Kingfisher and naturalist Daniel Winkler who will discuss "fungus to slime molds, and nature’s lessons in collapse, renewal, and connection—sometimes sticky, sometimes horrifying, always a little weird." The events are hybrid with locations situated in Seattle and the streaming link being 5 dollars. Link

  • Jan: Via File 770: E. J. Swift won the 2026 Arthur C. Clarke Award for her novel 'When There Are Wolves Again', a near-future SF novel about "environmental change and possible recovery". The novel beat the other five finalists, including Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl. Link

  • Jan: Audible has announced the launch of an audible exclusive audiobook for November 5th called “Exoplanet,” a sci-fi thriller executive produced by Andy Weir and written by comic book author and novelist Benjamin Percy. The cast includes Anthony Mackie and John Leguizamo. From Audible: "When the starship Wild Blue Yonder is torn apart by a quantum anomaly, each surviving crew member crash-lands in a different era on the same deadly exoplanet — hunted, alone and running out of time. [...] Separated by centuries, the crew must find a way to communicate across time itself before this world consumes them all." Variety Link

  • Spriggana: Murderbot Season 2 cast will include Steve Buscemi, Wanda Sykes, Patton Oswalt, Martha Plimpton, Bridget Everett, Michael Sheen, Tramell Tillman, Blair Underwood and Brendan Hunt. Deadline Link

  • terpkristin: ACoTaR books 6 and 7 have titles and some descriptions to whet certain appetites. Today Link

  • trpw: I went to see the stage version of The Hunger Games in London. Quick TL;DR it was a well done show but I only went when I could get a large discount on the cheapest seats. I don't think that I would have enjoyed it as much if I'd had to pay full price for more regular seats.

  • Tamahome: Fable membership growing to 5 million users (how many 150 million Goodreads users are active?). (Women seem to dominate book clubs.) Publishers Weekly Link

  • Tamahome: Kindle Short Reads. Scifi & fantasy you can read in 90 minutes (there's other minute lengths—15,30,45,60,120) (included with Prime or 99¢). I've been wanting "movie length" reads. Wish I could list scifi only. Amazon Link

  • Elizabeth and Tamahome: Ebooks are coming to libro.fm in some markets! This includes using credits to buy either audio or ebook editions, and syncing between editions if you have both. No timeline, I just got a hype email. They will arrive by 2027, offering a competitor to Amazon that supports over 5,000 independent bookstores. Libro.fm Blog Link

BARE YOUR SWORD

Feedback from the audience Sword and Laser Meetup at WorldCon LAConV in Anaheim on Thursday August 27th in the Monterey room in the Hilton starting at 9 PM

  • Tamahome: What does it mean to executive produce an audiobook?

    • Trike: You get to pick the snacks.

    • Jan: You get paid by slapping your name on it because the real writer is not well known enough?

  • Stephen: Hate to tell you this, but I did a quick re-read or re listen of the Bobiverse series because there is a new one coming out September 10, The Infinite Extent. Thank you short book A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang. It got an extra star just for being short. My Laser challenge is going way over. What I meant by the Mary Sue and the four doorways comment is that the 4 doorways is a much nicer way to explain why you did not like a book. The literary equivalence of an "It's not you, It's Me" criticism.

  • Ruth: Good to hear another K-pop bop on the show. I think the hosts should introduce a new section where they talk about the music they’re listening to and sing a few lines.

  • Paul: What fun questions! (Though I can't find the convo in discord so I'll share my answers here) And really, this is what I look for in SFF: A way of seeing the world that I never imagined, so for "Books that changed my view of the world," I could probably list dozens, but I'll just share the first three that come to mind:

    • The Gods Themselves - my first read that explored the multiverse, a concept I occasionally obsess over still. Also, I was a philosophy student at the time, and I found it an surprisingly strong defense of David Hume b/c it posits "What if all life in our universe was an accident caused by blob monsters having an orgy?"

    • The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia - Made me look at the comfortable life modernity grants me, what the cost is, and whether it's worth fighting for justice when I'm not personally inconvenienced by injustices around me (Answer: YES)

    • An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us - Made me realize that the world as I know it can be a very very different world from non-humans, and that all that we think we know is limited by our senses and what we can deduce from them, and that is actually not very much. It's non-fiction about animals, but excellent fodder for pondering aliens.

    For a world I'd want to port into, I agree that it's tricky for a lot of Fantasy, although I'd love to go to a Bed and Breakfast in The Shire. If you get to have special powers when you're there, like Howl from Howl's Moving Castle, that wouldn't be so bad though. I'd probably want to port into the world of the White Space novels by Elizabeth Bear (see Ancestral Night). It's a future where people live almost totally in harmony with all kinds of super-funky aliens, one person had a custom pet made from the genes of a dinosaur and that kind of tech sounds rad, and my favourite feature: You can manually control your chemical reactions to manipulate things like stress, adrenaline, alertness, depression, etc. The result is a still human but far less toxic world, plus making friends with giant mantis monsters.

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews Amazon link Bookshop link

  • ScottM: Sushi fan board! Let's discuss our favorite stelka, obviously the main character of the novel. Discord Link

  • John Taloni: Early readers, what'cha think? Got a one-week "skip the line" library read and am plowing through. At about the 15% mark now. (Gonna have to read that much every day!) Initial take, this reminds me of World of Tiers. Not in specifics, but in that both are portal fiction with a wink-and-nod incorporation of the real world. Also, yes, there's violence, but so far it has happened off screen. I'm kinda hoping that continues. The premise is fairly original. I'm liking the take. It's a little like The Eyre Affair in that the MC enters a work of fiction, but the use of that material is much different. Discord Link

  • Ruth: major shade Elaborating on my comment in the announcement thread, my first impression of this book is that the authors are throwing major shade on fantasy writers who leave their book series unfinished and their characters on cliffhangers. There are a few examples, like Patrick Rothfuss or Scott Lynch, but the one who particularly sprung to my mind was George RR Martin. The world of This Kingdom, with its rival families, constantly plotting and backstabbing, feels quite Game of Thrones-y. There’s also a grimdark element of callous cruelty to a lot of the characters’ (supposed) fates that reminds me of GRRM. I haven’t finished the book yet so I can’t comment on how it all develops, but what I’ve read so far feels like a bit of a commentary on fantasy authors who create tangled narratives about plots and conspiracies and sadism and then never get around to finishing them. Goodreads Link

  • Steve: I don’t think that word means what you think it means I’m enjoying the book, but - and I know this is a small hill to die on - as far as I’m aware, a coif is basically a hat. At most, it’s a head covering that also covers the neck. I can’t for the life of me work out how everyone seems to be using one to hide their face. What am I missing? Every time I come across this, it pulls me out of the story. Goodreads Link

ADDENDUMS

Thank you to all the folks who help to back our show! If you want to help support the show, 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.

feedback@swordandlaser.com swordandlaser.com We are on Instagram, X and Mastodon @swordandlaser goodreads.com

S&L Podcast - #539 - Floss, Floss, Floss!

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Cucamelons, short lists, long lists, Tom sings Le Sserafim, and we talk about books that changed our view of the world. Plus, what book would you want to portal into? Our first non-spoilery first impressions of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews.

Download directly here!

WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

  • Tom: Chicken Yakisoba

  • Veronica: Cucamelons!

QUICK BURNS

Jan: The Booker Prize longlist for 2026 has been announced and includes The End of Everything by genre icon M. John Harrison (Viriconium).

The Booker Prize website loglines the novel as:

"A slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure into the limits of human understanding from the acknowledged master of science fiction."

Other entries that could be considered genre-related:

  • The Renovation by Kenan Orhan (I mean, builders installing a door to a Turkish prison cell instead of a new bathroom sure does sound a bit fantastical).

  • The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams (apparently set in a "crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners").

But hey! Maybe there are more—so head on over to the Booker Prize website and find out.

Chris K: Via Locus: 2026 World Fantasy Awards Finalists The World Fantasy Awards ballot for works published in 2025 has been announced. The awards will be presented during the 2026 World Fantasy Convention, scheduled for October 22-25, 2026 in Oakland, CA.

Best Novel

  • Audition for the Fox, Martin Cahill (Tachyon)

  • Once Was Willem, M.R. Carey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

  • The Secret Market of the Dead, Giovanni De Feo (Saga)

  • The Everlasting, Alix E. Harrow (Tor US; Tor UK)

  • The Adventures of Mary Darling, Pat Murphy (Tachyon)

(Note: 9 pm Thursday, August 27, after the Opening Ceremony until whenever we like)

Mark: It looks like the film adaptation of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower is going to happen. We read it back in COVID times (December 2020). Read more on Variety

Paul F: Locus is releasing a Year's Best anthology through Kickstarter. They've already reached their initial goal and a few stretch goals that allowed them to add more stories, making it sound like a pretty huge collection. Personally, I love SFF anthologies because it's a great way to sample work from the best new writers out in the world, and the editor Jonathan Strahan has great taste IMO, so I'm excited about this. $15 for an ebook pre-order and $25 for the paperback. Campaign ends Aug 7. Check out the Kickstarter

Mark: The shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is out. A couple of familiar authors on the list and one S&L pick! See the shortlist

Spriggana: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Home Recognized as National Historic Landmark, to host Writers’ Residency. Read more on Locus

Zomino: Fonda Lee is on her book tour for The Last Contract of Isako. She’ll be hitting up West Coast spots during the month of August, including WorldCon. Fonda Lee's Events

Robertaor: I'm still not sure live-action is the way to go, but at least they are making the smart choice for Princess Donut. Read more on Variety

BARE YOUR SWORD

Stephen:

"I went back and did a re-read, or rather a re-listen, to both the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and the Murderbot series. Both were on sale with Audible—Murderbot because they now have a full cast version and DCC because of the new release. I too had a hard time remembering, but both were so good it was a pleasure rather than a chore. Slow Gods suffered, as I rushed it, stopped it, restarted, and all in all, did not give it the time it deserved. But I will stand by my opinion: we should have read Claire North's Ithaca, a retelling of the tale from Penelope's POV. Considering all the talk around Nolan's film Odysseus, it would have been perfect. By the way, the group has left the Mary Sue criticism for The Four Doorways."

Ruth:

"^ I’m reading Ithaca right now and I’m enjoying it! I’m very happy for Tom and his wife both winning a ticket to see Le Sserafim! I hope we’ll be hearing some more performances of their songs on the podcast. 'Bad bitch in between your teeth… eat it up, eat it, eat it up…'"

Jan:

"S&L is way more fun if I don't like the book! Listening to the podcast and everyone hating the pastry shop... Uhm. 😬 Guys, S&L is WAY more fun if I don't like the book! I can enjoy the snark and laugh along and admire Tom for defending it (and occasionally feel a tiny bit guilty for not feeling the same as the ones who liked it). This wasn't that. 🙈 Sooo.... Do more books I dislike! (I'll let myself out and start listening to the How Did This Get Made?! podcast) 😅" Discord Link

Christos:

"What’s a SF/F scene that changed how you see the world/yourself? An obvious one for me is The Matrix / Dark City. A more recent example is a Doctor Who audio drama where a character is torturing an animal in a video game and the Doctor scolds him. The character says “the victim is not real, who cares.” The Doctor replies, “the victim isn’t real but the cruelty is real.” No joke, that really messed with my head because I immediately thought of all the characters I tortured in video games and felt bad. Another example is the novel Dark Matter by Blake Crouch about a guy fighting an evil version of himself from an alternate dimension. That made me think of what I would be like if my life went differently. I pretty much had an existential crisis." Discord Link

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Check In: This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews

Veronica accidentally read TWO portal books this month! The first one was Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan.

Calvey:

"So about 12 chapters in and curious, if you could pick your portal world to fall into, what would you pick? What do we think Veronica/Tom would pick? Mine would be Star Wars (Rebels timeline or between ANH/ESB). I know that is more movies, but I read a LOT of the legends in EU books. For books, while not sci-fi, I would pick J.D. Robb's In Death series and do a companion True Crime podcast (but have a lot of money). LOL. I am sure there may be others... will need to think on that. Veronica would pick ACOTAR I think. Tom I am not sure, something with tech maybe."

ADDENDUMS

Thank you to all the folks who help to back our show! If you want to help support the show, 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.