The Sword and Laser

We're very pleased this week to have Rick Klau, product manager at Blogger, as a guest to talk about the book Daemon. Rick is friends with author Daniel Suarez and gives some insight into the books creation and the long road to publishing.



We also give our impressions of the book. Which we probably didn't make clear enough, that we absolutely LOVED it. There are some good threads discussing Daemon in our Ning group. If you want to jump in try the "How would you have ended it differently?" thread or the thread discussing the encrypted text at the end of the book.

Congrats to Mark who may have accidentally won our copy of Dune. Although it looks like he actually meant to enter after I'm looking at the thread post-show.

Next book will be by George R. R. martin. But which one? You can weigh in on our pick the Martin book thread.

#019 - S&L Podcast: Talking Daemon with Rick Klau!

It was Dune time and we found out how much of nerd I (Tom) am for Frank Herbert's stuff and how hard it is to pronounce pretty much anything he wrote when you try to say it out loud.



We also found out that there are Dune influences all over popular culture including Films, spinoffs, and metal. In fact there are all kinds of heavy metal scifi influences. Including, apparently this podcast. You must listen to the end to hear the rockingest book club rock anthem ever to rock. And we also form a new band based on Dune.

More info, including club members thoughts on Dune, in the podcast and after the jump.

Dune comments

Hard to get into - Terpkristin

Bizarre early attempt to make a film of Dune - Josh Lawrence

Great lines - Sean o'Hara
One thing I love about Dune is the great quotes it provides.

- A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

- Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. (For some reason I imagine Gurney sounding like Groundskeeper Willy when he says this)

- I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

What are the ones that stand out to you?


Comment by Sh1mm3r
Does anyone else find the sentence structure a little wacky? I find myself having to re-read some to understand what is being said. I'm in the first few pages though. I might just need to get into the rhythm.

Tom's currently reading the Butlerian Jihad by K. Anderson (one of the extended universe novels - a prequel actually)

Thread of the month
Books with both Sword and Lasers

Next Book: Daemon (buy here)

#018 - The S&L Podcast: Kwisatz and the Haderachs

Really, most of the episode is about The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan:

UPDATE: Hopefully the file will work now in iTunes!



We disucssed the paralells to other fantasy worlds like Lord of the Rings and even World of Warcraft. We also passed along Randy's post from the Ning site about the Robert Jordan convention which you can find out more about by visiting
www.AgeofLegends.net.

But then we got to talking about Watchmen near the end and one thing led to another. It all came back around to Robert Jordan though as we discussed Sean O'Hara's Ning thread called Sexbots and dragons.

Speaking of the Ning group, we called out a couple of user-created groups that aren't related to official book club selections. Take a gander at the Alternate History group if you like to pretend things are different than they way they really are. And a really cool group that crosses TV fandom with literature, The Lost literary references group.

Finally we settled on Frank Herbert's Dune as the next book. We'll kick it off in the April episode, so if you have any questions, or non-spoiler thoughts for newbies to the book, let us know here in the comments

#017 - The S&L Podcast: Let's talk about ...er... sex?