The Sword and Laser discussion

I hope this is an appropriate thread, lol. I was intrigued by Ben Bova's short story book New Frontiers that he talked about on Geek's Guide to the Galaxy #352. One story is about playing golf on the moon. Dave Kirtley is a good host that reads the book beforehand. Ben Bova says he got his simple style from journalism.
https://geeksguideshow.com/2019/03/07... I think a Greg Benford interview is coming soon.

I love Geeks Guide! I have been listening to it for over a year, but I started from ep 1 so I am years behind. I actually prefer it this way, as it means I don't have to worry as much about spoilers and I still discover new things for my ever increasing mental 'to read' pile. I also get to giggle when time has proven them wrong, like when they were certain GRRM would finish his books before the tv series caught up. I last listened to ep 85, and Joe Hill was a guest. I really want to read his work now.

I listened to the Greg Benford one too (#348). I'm not sure if I want to read his sequel to Timescape called Rewrite, but his life as a scientist is certainly interesting. He was even involved in a company that made an anti aging pill. He talks about the power of the subconscious in solving problems when he thinks about them before sleep and wakes up with solutions.

I look forward to listening to it years from now. :P

Geek's Guide is in my growing queue of podcasts to start when media slots open.

My talking about SFF podcast is Imaginary Worlds
https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/
It changed networks this year, so the back catalog availability has changed.

My SFF stories via podcast include:

Mission To Zyxx
https://mission-to-zyxx.simplecast.com/

Welcome to Night Vale’s Stories
https://beta.prx.org/accounts/223014

The Thrilling Adventure Hour Treasury | Created by Ben Acker & Ben Blacker
https://foreverdogproductions.com/fdp...

LeVar Burton Reads
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stit...

Mythology
https://www.parcast.com/mythology

Tales
https://www.parcast.com/tales/

The season start for The World in Words is about sff.

The sci-fi of another language | Public Radio International
https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-1...

The most recent episode of The Allusionist is about conlang star David Peterson, who created the languages for Game of Thrones and others.

https://www.theallusionist.org/allusi...

Geek's Guide is awesome. I also listen to Imaginary Worlds sometimes, but it depends on the topic.

I'll give a shout-out to a newer podcast that's on the eclectic side, devoted specifically to the history of apocalyptic literature. It's only been going a few months and to date they've done relatively obscure works from the 19th century, but it's pretty entertaining and the two women that produce it are interesting and often hilarious. It's called Apocalist Book Club. It only puts out I've episode a month, so it won't burden you if you've already got a lot of podcasts to listen to.

*one episode a month

Trike wrote: "The most recent episode of The Allusionist is about conlang star David Peterson, who created the languages for Game of Thrones and others."

A previous guest on Sword and Laser as well. Back in 2011

http://swordandlaser.com/home/2011/7/...

I love podcasts, aside from S&L I listened to Coode Street Podcast and Galactic Suburbia regularly.
Coode Street have introduced me to lots of authors like Kelly Robson, Sam Miller, John Crowley, Jane Yolen, Rich Larson, etc and their recommendations seem to suit me most of the times. They also talk a lot about short fictions which I have increasingly enjoyed in the last few years. Galactic Suburbia - three Aussie ladies - has current discussion on Joanna Russ' book How to Supress Women's Writing.

I love podcasts, aside from S&L I listened to Coode Street Podcast and Galactic Suburbia regularly.
Coode Street have introduced me to lots of authors like Kelly Robson, Sam Miller, John Crowley, Jane Yolen, Rich Larson, etc and their recommendations seem to suit me most of the times. They also talk a lot about short fictions which I have increasingly enjoyed in the last few years. Galactic Suburbia - three Aussie ladies - has current discussion on Joanna Russ' book How to Supress Women's Writing.

For Geek's Guide to the Galaxy I tend to pick and choose the episodes (I think my fave episode was the cli-fi panel). I love the discussions on TV and movies there too, always a great panel.

Listening to the Geek's Guide one about a book about Facebook, the Oculus, Palmer Luckey, and journalism. Oh my. Even the author's editor cancelled the book for a short time.

https://geeksguideshow.com/2019/04/19...

They just had some good episodes about the movie Us and the tv series Love Death & Rockets as well.

It's been mentioned in other places, but Our Opinions Are Correct from Analee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders often covers the intersection of science fiction and reality. I like it. https://www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/

Geek's Guide is talking about the movie Prospect. Sounds like a tense western set on an alien planet. The host really likes it.

Tamahome wrote: "Geek's Guide is talking about the movie Prospect. Sounds like a tense western set on an alien planet. The host really likes it."

It's on Netflix now. I found it fairly average. 6/10

Tassie Dave wrote: "Tamahome wrote: "Geek's Guide is talking about the movie Prospect. Sounds like a tense western set on an alien planet. The host really likes it."

It's on Netflix now. I found it fairly average. 6/10"

Not on Netflix US currently, but I concur.

It’s a feature length version of the 2014 short film: https://youtu.be/XBwPVTyKDEY

Like short stories turned into novels, not much new was added other than length.

The movie is a bit more exciting than that short. It starts off as slow, but does have a few action sequences. Still nothing worth wasting your time ;-)

Pedro Pascal is in the movie length version. Which might interest people here.
He's Oberon Martell from Game of Thrones and also the star of the upcoming Star Wars TV series "The Mandalorian"

I recently subscribed to the podcast Overdue. The two hosts discuss a variety of genres including plenty of sff novels (Mistborn, Spinning Silver, etc...).

The Legendarium is pretty good. They have two different teams so they can cover more than one book/series at a time. I listen to every episode of Sword and Laser, but I'm more pick-and-choosy with the Legendarium. Overall it's really good though.

Incomparable talked about all the nebula nominated books, and will do the hugo noms too, like they do every year.

Heard about Neil Stephenson's new book Fall or Dodge in Hell on the Agony Column podcast. It's both fantasay and science fiction. I like how he says when people realistically talk, there's often some humor.

SPAM.

And it looks like they hit 25 or so of the most recent posts, fun.

I've flagged the ones I'm subscribed to.

That explains the 36 new notifications. 🤦

I flagged the first two. I've deleted all the ones I've come across and banned them from the group. The damage is done though.

Not only did a ton of people get spammed, but my deleting of threads will mess up notifications for real replies for a bunch of people.

I think I got them all, but if I missed some, please point them out to me so I can clean that shit up.

I wondered why I had 34 notifications when I woke up this morning.

Good work Rob :-)

We have had relatively little spam over the years.

This is definitely the worst we've had in awhile. I thought it was only 2 threads. I didn't realize how bad it was until about 2.5 hours later.

Sort of off topic but given that this July is the 50th anniversary of humans first stepping on the moon, BBC World Services is doing a series of podcast episodes called 13 Minutes to the Moon, covering many aspects of Apollo, especially the last 13 minutes before the moon landing, which were rather exciting. I just binged everything that’s been released so far. Highly recommend even if it’s not science fiction.

But did we really go :-? or was it all filmed in Hollywood

(view spoiler)[Just joking. Of course we went :-)

I am old enough to remember watching it on telly. I was 7. Yes, I am that old :-(

If I remember correctly, we saw the landing before I went to school. Then we watched the moon walk at school around lunch time.

Australian satellite dishes were used by NASA to receive the signal when the moon was on our side of the earth.

I will check out the BBC podcast. Thanks (hide spoiler)]

Tassie Dave wrote: "But did we really go :-? or was it all filmed in Hollywood

Just joking. Of course we went :-)

I am old enough to remember watching it on telly. I was 7. Yes, I am that old :-(

If I remember corr..."

There’s a great little movie about the Aussie assistance on the moon landing, called The Dish.

We got a German Shepherd in July of 1969 and my parents named him Eagle, after the lunar lander. Here he is with my dad: https://www.instagram.com/p/BIJzNbphC-M/

The Dish is a good movie. It did fudge the facts a bit to make Australia's part in the moon landing a bit more important that it actually was. NASA did have alternate dishes if ours had failed.

But why let facts get in the way of a good movie. Oh and they didn't really play cricket on the dish. Good scene, but a big no no ;-)

Cute dog and it's cool you got to meet Armstrong. He is a true American hero.

Tassie Dave wrote: "The Dish is a good movie. It did fudge the facts a bit to make Australia's part in the moon landing a bit more important that it actually was. NASA did have alternate dishes if ours had failed.

Oh and they didn't really play cricket on the dish. Good scene, but a big no no ;-)."

Knowing post-docs they would have if they could!

Tassie Dave wrote: "But did we really go :-? or was it all filmed in Hollywood

Just joking. Of course we went :-)"

I don't know about that, I have evidence to the contrary right here:

http://pigeonsnest.co.uk/stuff/nasa-f...

;P

Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth wrote: "I don't know about that, I have evidence to the contrary right here:"

That's very convincing. I'm starting to doubt we went :-?

This thread is cracking me up. Sorry for the hijack. :) ;)

Stanley Kubrick fabricated the moon landing. It's on youtube, dudes.

Waiting for the Incomparable podcast hugo noms read episode.

I listen to Geek's Guide also. Besides S&L it's the only sci-fi review/commentary podcast I listen to.

I listen to a number of casts however that publish stories rather than discussing/commenting on them.

Escape Pod: weekly podcast featuring short science fiction. Produced by Escape Artists Inc., which also produces other genre-focused casts Pseudopod (horror), Podcastle (fantasy), and Cast of Wonders (YA). All very good, and a wonderful bunch of people.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies: features speculative, literary short fiction of various flavors, some of which could be characterized as science fiction. There's a companion magazine.

Drabblecast: similar to BCS but the common thread is that it's all weird fiction, not literary fiction. Went on a yearlong hiatus in 2017 but came back in the fall of 2018 and now publishing more-or-less weekly again.

Clarkesworld Magazine: I think it may be the oldest continuous sci fi podcast running, or the second-oldest after Escape Pod.

Shadowpublications.com: the free feed of sci-fi/horror author Paul E Cooley, who serializes all his books on this site.

Toasted Cake: Short spec-fic project of author Tina Connolly. Features work from other authors, not her own work. Unfortunately just went on hiatus for a year in May, but has a large back catalog available (RSS is truncated to the last few episodes but .mp3s are available for download on the website).

I've been listening to Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies for audio fiction, but grew dissatisfied with their recent offerings and have sporadically peek into their offerings.

Other sf/f podcasts I've listened to or listen to (starred) are:

Mythology* (www.parcast.com)

Imaginary Worlds* (https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/)

Sci-Fi Saturday Night* (www.scifisaturdaynight.com)

Spec Fic Crossing the Gulf* (karenburnham.podbeam.com)

Science Fiction Book Review Podcast (sfbrp.com)

Three Hoarsemen 54 - Between the Covers
talking about a lot of sf books, including Ada Hoffmann's The Outside, which is like Lovecraftian Space Opera

Then Skiffy and Fanty Signal Boost 54 with Ada Hoffmann. She sounds bubbly. "Neuro-divergent"

Then Geek's Guide 370 with Melinda Snodgrass. She has some new book The High Ground that sounds like royalty in space.

One of my other current favorite literary podcasts is the Appendix N Podcast -- as you might expect from the title, it's a couple of guys going through all of the books and authors that Gary Gygax listed in Appendix N (Inspirational and Educational Reading) of the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. Naturally it's older stuff -- mostly sword & sorcery and pulp fantasy, with occasional excursions further afield -- Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt, Robert E. Howard, etc.

Even more hyperspecialized is Hall of Blue Illumination, a podcast dedicated to M.A.R. Barker's fantasy world of Tekumel, setting for the Empire of the Petal Throne RPG and a handful of novels, including The Man of Gold.

Peter Watts just had a good short appearance on the Coode St podcast. https://jonathanstrahan.podbean.com/e... Apparently he sort of predicted coronavirus in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtbL2...

Tamahome wrote: "Peter Watts just had a good short appearance on the Coode St podcast. https://jonathanstrahan.podbean.com/e... Apparently he sort of predicted coronavi..."

That was cheery. We are well and truly goopled.

Cable news: "Up next we interview [insert science fiction author] on their book about [insert infectious disease] and how it parallels the coronavirus."

— Trike (@Trike) March 30, 2020

The New Hampshire-based podcast Outside/In just did an episode about Skyrim and open-world games: http://outsideinradio.org/shows/open-...

Alzabo soup podcast , Phil and Metz a deep discussion of Gene Wolfe, the book of the new sun and other stories.
The recent is about Discussion of Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente.

(ভ_ ভ) ރ ／/ ┊ \＼ Coode St podcast still has 10 min episodes every day. That website has all the book recommendations mentioned. I listen to them on walks. I just heard one where G. Willow Wilson (Alif the Unseen, Ms. Marvel) mentioned she's writing new Sandman comics that come out in August.

("Ruin")

In another one, Cat Valente said she liked Hank Green's book series about robots. ("An Absolutely Remarkable Thing"...) 🤖