The Sword and Laser

It's time to pick a new book, but for some reason we just can't stop talking about George R. R. Martin. And in some cases singing about him. But we DID pick a new book and it's The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It involves relativity, interstellar war and sad soldiers. In fact it's sometimes thought of as an anti-Starship Troopers. We think this book is a timely choice as Ridley Scott is making a 3D movie out of it. More on that in this and future episodes. If you want a sneak peek, take a look at this Forever War' Concept Art .



Also don't forget we're doing a live Sword and Laser in Atlanta at Dragon*Con! The show takes place Friday evening, September 4 at 8:30 PM in Hilton room 204. It will be Veronica, me and special guest Timothy Zahn. Other guests may be announced as well.

BARE YOUR SWORD - feedback from the audience.
Audio books are no good for SF
Do you like your endings with everything-wrapped-up or open-ended?
Hi Tom and Veronica,
John Anealio' George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.

QUICK BURNS - unrelated news of the month
Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov’s 3 Laws
A Game Of Thrones pilot script leaked
A brief history of SteamPunk
Personal Effects: Dark Art by JC Hutchins. The book with a lot of cool extra materials.

Tagline Contest
Congratulations Barry O'Neil "Different worlds - different discussion"

#022 – The S&L Podcast: George R. R. Martin is not your bitch

Turns out that just because Tom likes a book, doesn't mean Veronica will (she kinda hated it).  But we learned a lot about paranoia, and Polish communism. So it's not a total loss. Meanwhile we have determined that the podcast should be a once a month affair.  So get ready for regularity!  We'll be like the monthly bran in your reading  diet. And we hope to have interviews.  With real people. And some robots.



What we're reading
Tom is busy reading some not sci fi book by Evelyn Waugh (Officers and Gentlemen) and still making his way through Droidmakers.

Veronica is busy with David Eddings "Belgarath the Sorcerer" which is a continuation of the Belgariad and Malloreon.

News
Battlestar Galactica coming back tomorrow night!

Wheel of Time video game appears to be rolling onto the scene.

Our book pick

In honor of the WoT video game, we'll read the first in that series.
Eye of the World

#015 - The S&L Podcast: We disagree!!

While they aren't a sponsor, Audible.com has been kind enough to treat Sword and Laser fans to a free download of the first story from their new Metatropolis series. So we said, why not?! METAtropolis is an interesting project. It's an original audiobook, meaning there's no print version. The stories are published directly to audio. The first story is entitled “In the Forest of the Night” written by Jay Lake (author of “Mindspring“) and features the voice of Michael Hogan better known to many of you as Colonel Tigh from Battlestar Galatica. The complete audio book, featuring five unabridged novellas will be released on Oct. 21, 2008.

Go here to download the first story of the audio book. No credit card required, though you will have to create an account. Hey they wanna get something out of you for free.

Don't feel like registering for an account? No problem. Audible's also throwing in a free sample of another story from METAtropolis called “To Hie From Far Cienia” by Karl Schroder (read by Stefan Rudnicki). This isn't the whole story, but there's nothing required except to click to download.

Download sample of "To Hie from far Ciena"

Let us know what you think of the series, and the idea of free stuff like this in the comments!