The Sword and Laser discussion

We celebrate our 500th episode in the best way we know how—by asking ChatGPT to get our stats wrong. PLUS, announcing the book pick for December and sharing our final thoughts on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

https://www.swordandlaser.com/home/20...
https://soundcloud.com/swordandlaser/...
https://www.patreon.com/posts/1169757...

It's great fun to listen to you reminiscing! Makes me look back as well! ❤️

I am old an my memory is fuzzy but I feel I am with Sword and Laser since the Geek & Sundry days but I started contributing from time to time with Hogfather.

Btw: Is there a statistic who contributed the most Quick Burns? Asking for a friend... 😉

I feel like Vaginal Fantasy started before Geek and Sundry was founded. And it was through Vaginal Fantasy that I first encountered Veronica and heard about Sword and Laser. I started listening to the podcast sometime around then. I enjoy hearing people talk about books and related stuff. I didn't actually try to read along with either Vaginal Fantasy or S&L. I kept reading the way I always had. Sometimes there was overlap though not on the same schedule. Other times not. And that was fine. I still enjoyed listening.

It's only been recently I decided to actually read the selections when selected and actively participate in the discussions. So I've been lurking forever and more actively involved very recently.

Scott wrote: "I feel like Vaginal Fantasy started before Geek and Sundry was founded."

Vaginal Fantasy started January, 2012.

Geek and Sundry was founded and pitched to Youtube in 2011.
Sword and Laser became part of it in March, 2012
and Geek and Sundry was officially launched April 2, 2012.

Sword and Laser had their first video on the network in April, 2012

2012 was a hell of a year for geeks.

Speaking of VF, the club did Binti by Nnedi Okorafor in January of 2018, so V was probably mixing up her book clubs again. :P

Anyway, if you want to hear her talking about the book it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOL3o...

Tassie Dave wrote: "Scott wrote: "I feel like Vaginal Fantasy started before Geek and Sundry was founded."

Vaginal Fantasy started January, 2012.

Geek and Sundry was founded and pitched to Youtube in 2011.
Sword and..."

Thanks. Not a lot of gap in the timeframe then, which is probably why I didn't have a clear memory which came first. But since I watched Vaginal Fantasy live in Google Hangouts and the first Geek and Sundry offerings pretty much as they were released, my gut feeling that I had seen Veronica and made the connection to S&L first through Vaginal Fantasy was probably right, then.

I had no clear memory when either had started, though. It's kinda surprising to me they were just months apart. (It's the actual G&S launch that would count as it's start for just a viewer like me.) Thanks for the timeline!

Veronica and Tom,

You didn't realise that ChatGTP pinched all its statistics and information from our very own Wiki ? 😜

https://swordandlaser.fandom.com/wiki...

I made all those Stats (with some help from Mark) It is a little bit out as I haven't updated since "A Night in the Lonesome October"

I will update it very soon (like now) 😉

You ask about "Combined Host Choice" for book selection. In the early days a lot of the choices were often made on the fly, on the podcast via mutual agreement, after a discussion on what to choose.

I also use it as a catch-all, if whoever chose the book isn't made clear. As it wasn't always early on.

It was correct in that Anathem was started on day of release, but missed that we also started "A Dance with Dragons" on its day of release.

The 2 Asian authors stat is correct. It only includes official books and citizens of Asian countries. IQ84 was an alt and most of the Asian authors were citizens of non-Asian countries (US, Canada etc)

We have read 16 authors of Asian ancestry (7 Male, 8 Female and 1 Non-Binary).

1 Chinese, 1 Korean, 10 American, 3 Canadian & I British.

It was mentioned in the podcast that we haven't done any 19th Century SciFi/Fantasy.
I made a large list of Victorian Novels for my BookTube channel back in October https://youtu.be/hxN6oHoznzs

I didn't cover obvious choices like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and George MacDonald but found 8 books that might be of interest

Samuel Butler — Erewhon; or, Over the Range (1872)
A satirical utopia that features ideas of machine consciousness and self-replicating machines

F. Anstey — Vice Versa: A Lesson to Fathers (1882)
A Father and Son swap bodies - the forerunner of body-swap films like Freaky Friday

Edwin A. Abbott — Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions(1884)
An exploration of a two-dimensional world

Richard Jefferies — After London Or Wild England (1885)
An early example of "post-apocalyptic fiction": after some sudden and unspecified catastrophe has depopulated England

Edward Bellamy — Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888)
A man from 1887 wakes up in the year 2000 where the United States is a Socialist Utopia

Bram Stoker — Dracula (1897)
The Classic vampire tale

L. Frank Baum — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
A young girl goes to a mysterious land and kills the first person she encounters. She will kill again

M.P. Shiel — The Purple Cloud (1901)
A volcano in Indonesia emits a poisonous purple cloud, killing everyone in its path. The sole survivor was on an Artic expedition

As an occasional enjoyer of the older stuff, I approve of this idea. Looking at the list I see I've read Wizard of Oz, Flatland and Dracula. I then thought "and probably everyone else has too" but then remember that Martian Chronicles is 70 years old and the classics of my youth further back than Wells/Verne were when I was young. Anyhoo, I would love to read or reread any of the above. First suggestion: Erewhon. Partly because that's been on my "maybe someday" read list for a while. Have heard good things about the Purple Cloud as well.

And! Benefit to all of these. Free to read and available worldwide!

TRP wrote: "It was mentioned in the podcast that we haven't done any 19th Century SciFi/Fantasy.
…
L. Frank Baum — The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
A young girl goes to a mysterious land and kills the first person she encounters. She will kill again"

Ooh, missed it by that much. 🤏😉

Pretty sure we read Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I don’t think we read Dracula, just discussed it at some point.

I read this science fiction novel, written in 1889, The Last American: A Fragment from the Journal of Khan-Li, Prince of Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy, a while back. It basically describes America today, Weird and unsettling to read.

"

Mark wrote: "I read this science fiction novel, written in 1889, The Last American: A Fragment from the Journal of Khan-Li, Prince of Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy, a while back..."

I found it on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27307

Trike wrote: "Pretty sure we read Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I don’t think we read Dracula, just discussed it at some point."

We did - it was the Jan 2018 pick

Tassie Dave wrote: "Veronica and Tom,

You didn't realise that ChatGTP pinched all its statistics and information from our very own Wiki ? 😜

https://swordandlaser.fandom.com/wiki...

I made all those Stats (w..."

Thanks for doing all that work and pulling the numbers together. I find it super interesting to have that kind of overview and call me old fashioned but I will always trust a human over a computer algorithm. :-)

I doubt ChatGTP could do that sort of in depth statistical analysis without having all the data supplied to it.

I was lucky in that I started collating the data when there were very few books to check and can now add each book's data as it is selected.

One day (maybe Book 200) I will really nerd out and throw up a few pretty graphs and charts and show how meta I can get with the data.

Not all of it is on the Wiki. 😉

Example of Data analysis that ChatGTP can't do without my spreadsheets.

Decades that Women Authors dominate over men in books we've read for S&L:
1810s: 1 to 0
2010s: 37 to 34 ( 1 Non-Binary)
2020s: 17 to 5 (1 Non-Binary)

1940s: Tie (1 to 1)