The Sword and Laser

We have a delightful conversation with Catherynne M. Valente about decopunk, book awards, and why she fears spoiling herself about her own stories while she’s writing them.Her decopunk book Radiance is out now!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/.http://swordandlaser.com/home/2015/10/20/sl-podcast-231-can-an-author-spoil-herself Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We cheer for Patrick Rothfuss winning the Hollywood game, jeer a little at Spielberg refusing to put a Delorean in the Ready Player One movie and peruse with careful academic curiosity a study showing the increase in empathy caused by reading. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With the huge success of the film adaptation this month, we thought it would be fun to travel back in time to our interview with The Martian author Andy Weir and Influx author Daniel Suarez. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We wrap up A Canticle for Leibowitz and explore all its science and religion feels. Also we welcome a new Expanse series cover, a new Gaiman baby and we discover why Taylor Swift IS the Kwisatz Haderach. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, things really go nuts when Veronica realizes that she likes Tom's book pick more than Tom does, which causes Tom to question everything he has ever known. Meanwhile, over on Goodreads, Thane questions whether present tense is the bane of genre fiction! Hmmm... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This weekend at DragonCon 2015 in Atlanta, we had the great fortune of chatting with Cherie Priest for an hour in front a live audience of Sword & Laser enthusiasts! Listen in to hear Cherie's rise from goth to glorious, the proper way to distinguish steampunk from goth, and why Lizzie Borden is not who you thought. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re happy for the Hugos, sad for the last Terry Pratchett novel, and J.R.R. Tolkien has a new book. Plus, we wrap up Uprooted by Naomi Novik and make our peace with a trope.Full show notes: http://swordandlaser.com/home/2015/8/26/sl-podcast-225-embrace-the-manic-pixie-dream-witch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We chat with J-F Dubeau, author of The Life Engineered about why we should keep calm and build more robots. Also the good news of more Game of Thrones coming to TV thrilled the live audience at Nerdtacular 2015 as did our surprise host-swap! And thanks to Matt Avery of The Tadpool for the album art inspiration ;)Recorded before a live studio of nerds, and thanks to Jeff Cannata of We Have Concerns for joining in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott Sigler’s Alive is out, and even though he didn’t mean it as Young Adult fiction it’s turned out that way. And even though he didn’t mean it to be Science Fiction, it’s turned out that way too! Find out why this all happened and why he’s happy with all of it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we congratulate several more authors on TV deals, one author on getting to write more movie books, and another author on having too many potential movie deals. We also come to the conclusion that Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is all the genres. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.