The Sword and Laser discussion

John (Nevets) wrote: "Doesn't it seem like all of these are coming too late?"

I don't know if it is the timing or if it's the sour taste left by the last season or two. People saw that without the strong framework provided by the books that the show couldn't really pull off a convincing and coherent story. It's tough for me to trust that a spinoff will absolutely nail it.

Seth wrote: "John (Nevets) wrote: "Doesn't it seem like all of these are coming too late?"

I don't know if it is the timing or if it's the sour taste left by the last season or two. People saw that without the..."

House of the Dragon is based on Fire & Blood which I thought was very good. So I'm cautiously optimistic.

John (Nevets) wrote: "... I wish them these series the best of luck, but I'm not going to watch just because they have GOT attached to the name, they are going to have to be good on there own for me to do that."

What John said.

I will read & watch every new Song of Ice & Fire book or TV show faithfully with love.

Moving this out of the Quick Burns thread...

Mark wrote: "And Trike is MIA. He was locked out of Goodreads a few weeks ago."

Good grief. How did he get locked out? Is Goodreads actually censoring?

And on that note, I don't go to Discord regularly, but when I have been there I don't recall Trike there. Is he? Different name maybe?

He seems to have had a problem with his password and hasn't gotten any help from Amazon/Goodreads fixing it.

He is on Discord, but I’ve only seen him post a few times.

I got worried about him after Jenny’s passing, and not seeing him for a while. But got confirmation that he was at least alive. I hadn’t heard the reason why he wasn’t here. I had made the bad assumption he was just pissed off/ fed up with the Amazon take over of the world, and decided to swear off there products. I guess I had it backwards;-).

He should just create a new Log-in. 😕

Not ideal, but at least he can contribute. We miss his unique take on topics. 😎

John (Nevets) wrote: "He is on Discord, but I’ve only seen him post a few times.

I got worried about him after Jenny’s passing, and not seeing him for a while. But got confirmation that he was at least alive. I hadn’t ..."

Damn. I thought Discord was a safe space. ha ha

Tassie Dave wrote: "He should just create a new Log-in. 😕

Not ideal, but at least he can contribute. We miss his unique take on topics. 😎"

I agree Trike is awesome :-)

Re: Hugo award winners.
I read all of the nominees (for the novel category) this year:
* A Desolation Called Peace (Winner) 5 stars
* Project Hail Mary 4 stars
* The Galaxy, and the Ground Within 4 stars
* Light from Uncommon Stars 4 stars
* A Master of Djinn 4 stars
* She Who Became the Sun 4 stars
Based on my ratings, clearly I agree with the winner! An enjoyable crop of books this year. Well done Hugo awards.

I read four out of six including the winner and my fave was She Who Became the Sun. None of the read books have five-star rating.
I still want to read Light from Uncommon Stars, was bummed I missed the kindle discount recently.

Silvana wrote: " my fave was She Who Became the Sun..."

I think that's the one I would have picked too, though I also gave it four stars. Retrospectively, maybe I was too harsh.

She did win best new writer, and they had her on video.

I’ve read all of the nominees except for Project Hail Mary. An excellent crop of books and a worthy winner - not sure I can choose a favourite tbh!

I read all of the nominees this year. I enjoyed them all, but I have A Desolation Called Peace, Galaxy and the Ground Within, and She Who Became the Sun a step above at 5 stars with the other three at 4 stars. Overall, I think it's a great list of nominees and winner.

I loved A Desolation Called Peace. Definitely my favorite among the contenders (haven't read The Galaxy yet, its on my list, but while I like Becky Chambers I just love the sort of political/social conflict at the center of A Desolation Called Peace. I'm a big fan of CJ Cherryh as well.)

Seth wrote: "Newspaper USA Today is starting a monthly book club and chose to kick it off with a fantasy pick. It's Stephen King's Fairy Tale.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entert......"

Like Andy Warhol said, "in the future, everyone will have their own monthly book club for 15 minutes."

I’m going also use this to breakout from the slow burns discussion on fat characters. For much of my life I’ve been fat. I did recently loose a bunch of weight, but for the better part of 25 years I think most people would have at least called me significantly overweight if not fat. That being said, the Baron Harkonan scenes in either movie, and the book never hit me as portraying fat as evil, but instead portraying the gluttony as evil. And yes they were mostly fairly “one note” in that regards, but in my mind that is a significant difference.

I wrote the above before actually reading the article, I’m a bad slashdotter. After reading the article I see where the author is going with this, and I believe I understand why they feel the way they do. But for me personally many of those instances read as fat being a symptom, not a cause. Is it used in that shorthand too much? Yes, but I don’t know if that makes it an invalid character trait. There are other ways to show gluttony, but it is an overly used easy shorthand. I’ve not read Goblin Emperor, but if a large person was described as light on there feet, to me that would describe someone who was strong willed enough to not let a physical attribute dictate how they behave.

We’ve talked many times before, that stories can be interpreted many ways, and that just because you differ on how you interpret them doesn’t make you wrong. And I truly believe that. So my sympathy to the author and others who have experienced pain in reading these descriptions. That is an experience I’ve felt far less in my consumption of sci-fi and fantasy over the years. And I do hope creators take the time to wright all characters in a well rounded, realistic way, but I also know that will not always happen.

Lauren Beukes's The Shining Girls on Apple does interesting things with different physical types. I'm halfway through it; I don't completely understand the timey wimey stuff yet. It's very creepy.

John (Nevets) wrote: "I’m going also use this to breakout from the slow burns discussion on fat characters. For much of my life I’ve been fat. I did recently loose a bunch of weight, but for the better part of 25 years ..."

Based on real life discussions and even comments on that article, I think that Fat Thor in Avengers: Endgame is seen as a symptom of his depression rather than a commentary on fat people, but it’s a fine line to tread. I just asked Mrs. Trike if she thought that portrayal was offensive and she said, “No, it’s just part of his character arc.” Which I think is bolstered by the fact that at the end when he transforms into God of Thunder About to Kick Butt, he doesn’t magically become all muscley again, he keeps his pear shape.

Jack Chalker (Midnight at the Well of Souls, etc.) frequently told stories about people transforming into other forms or shapes, which I suspect had something to do with his being overweight. In one of his short story collections he mentions that even the army couldn’t get him into shape, which, given the constant exercise and activity soldiers engage in, underscores that body weight has much to do with genetics. Part of the problem there, I think, is that one can also eat one’s way into obesity, so people often conflate the two.

People always think of me as fat (even my doctor!), even though I’m not. I don’t know why that is, but it’s a weird version of “projected body dysmorphia” that I’ve dealt with all my life. When folks see me for the first time in a while, their first question is inevitably, “Did you lose weight?” I suppose some would consider that a microaggression, but I’m honestly just puzzled by it. My wife theorizes that it’s because I look way heavier in photos than I do in real life, but my physician isn’t looking at my pictures. It’s weird. Is that a blow-by symptom of our culture’s obsession with weight?

John (Nevets) wrote: "I’m going also use this to breakout from the slow burns discussion on fat characters. For much of my life I’ve been fat. I did recently loose a bunch of weight, but for the better part of 25 years ..."

Am I a woman who grew up fat and will have that internalised in my self-view and worldview forever? Sure am!

I'm reading the Wheel of Time and if there's one thing that made me give up on the first attempt, it's that all characters (and there are thousands) are described in terms of their body size. Their significant (or insignificant) breasts, or tiny waist, or sturdy hips, or whatever. Body size-as-characterisation is lazy writing. All the fat-described people in the Harry Potter world or Roald Dahl are bad, nasty, lazy.

Is your protag fat and it has no bearing on anything? Awesome. Jean Tannen (from the Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards) is - his size is often used as part of his looming presence, but it's not his whole being, Jean doesn't use it to hate himself or compare himself to anyone else, it doesn't preclude him from loving or hating or fighting. It's just Jean. That's what I like to see.

What does everyone make of the shock departure of Henry Cavill from The Witcher? And the strange decision of Netflix to replace him with Liam Hemsworth, instead of simply cancelling the show (like they do with all their other shows)?

There have been rumours that Cavill - a huge fan of the Witcher books and games - was unhappy with the decisions made by the show’s writers, so maybe it was artistic differences that caused the split. Or maybe Warner Brothers just drove a dumper truck full of money up to his house to get him to play Superman again.

What do y’all think? And will you continue watching the show after Cavill leaves?

Dunno why he's leaving and honestly, it doesn't matter to me. But no, I won't watch past S3. I think it's a mistake to try to switch leads. You can switch supporting roles and have it work sometimes, but a lead in a show like this, where Geralt is alone or the main focus for so much of the runtime, it too central to the feel of the show. Even if Hemsworth comes in a does a good, critically acclaimed job of it, it's going to feel very different.

Henry Cavill is making more Superman movies. He may have had some problems with the Witcher writers, who knows. Also, he just played Sherlock Holmes in Enola Holmes 2 starring Eleven. Friends don't lie!

So I'm not real familiar with the Witcher series, haven't played the games or read the books, or even watched the series. But of course I'm not going to stop me from sticking my nose into something I know so little about. ;-) But from the little I know of this franchise from second hand, isn't the Witcher more or less a job title, and there are others that due similar things to what he does, and have over generations. So why not switch to another character to follow, and go in that direction? Heck you wouldn't even necessarily have to kill him off, that way if you wanted to bring him back later, you still could. But maybe I'm missing something here, or where they left the plot after season 3 wouldn't allow this.

John (Nevets) wrote: "So I'm not real familiar with the Witcher series, haven't played the games or read the books, or even watched the series. But of course I'm not going to stop me from sticking my nose into something..."

The series is the story of one particular Witcher and his involvement with a young person and how their fates seem to intertwine. If a series develops that over 3 seasons and doesn't resolve it, then it's hard to switch to a new Witcher. Obviously they could resolve Geralt's story at the end of season 3 and then bring in Hemsworth as a new Witcher but that's a new story.

Before watching The Witcher I was turned off by all the hype that surrounded it, but I did enjoy both season 1 and 2.

The only Witcher book that I have read is the one SL did many moons ago - The Last Wish but Cavill's portrayal of the titular character is excellent and matched what I expected from the book.

The show makers really nailed a gritty low fantasy world and it is probably the fantasy series I have enjoyed the most of all the abundance of offerings we have had in recent years.

If the show continues to be well written I will watch on, if not, then I will find something better to watch.

As for Cavill, who knows what is actually going on under the hood; he is leaving some big boots to fill, and I hope that inspires his replacement to bring his "A game".

I thought his tweet to his replacement showed great generosity of spirit and love for the character. I wish him luck for the future.

Ruth wrote: "What does everyone make of the shock departure of Henry Cavill from The Witcher? And the strange decision of Netflix to replace him with Liam Hemsworth, instead of simply cancelling the show (like ..."

Pretty sure he wasn’t happy with the direction of the show. He’s said as much in various interviews, if you read between the lines. Then there was the recent revelation by one of the former writers that others in the room didn’t like and actively mocked the books. (https://www.ign.com/articles/netflix-...) That’s never a good sign.

I lost interest partway through season 2 and bailed, so it doesn’t affect me, but my first response when my wife told me was, “That’s a no-win scenario for Hemsworth.” I wonder if he has a clue what he’s walking into?

I fully believe Cavill would quit over such creative differences. He’s already established his nerd cred several times over, and I’m sure most people have heard the story that he almost missed the Superman phone call because he was raiding in WoW. Unlike Will Smith, who only did SFF films because he and his manager saw those were the most popular and has zero interest in the genres, Cavill is clearly a fan.

Trike wrote: "Ruth wrote: "What does everyone make of the shock departure of Henry Cavill from The Witcher? And the strange decision of Netflix to replace him with Liam Hemsworth, instead of simply cancelling th..."

All this makes me wonder if in future networks/studios might be *less* likely to hire actors who are fans of the source material, since an actor without any particular attachment to the part they’re playing would be less likely to argue with the show runner and/or quit over creative differences.

It’s all a big shame, both for Cavill and for the fans, as he was stoked to be playing Geralt and did a great job. Oh well, whatever happens, we’ll always have the three seasons of him in the role.

Trike posted a link to an obituary for Greg Bear over in Quick Burns. I read a couple of his books, like Blood Music and Corona, before I started keeping track of what I read. Since then I've read Darwin's Radio and Psychlone.

If I picked a book for S&L to read, I would probably choose Blood Music, but it's sort of like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End.

What Greg Bear title would you recommend for S&L?

Mark wrote: "Trike posted a link to an obituary for Greg Bear over in Quick Burns. I read a couple of his books, like Blood Music and Corona, before I started keeping track of what I..."

Yes Bear is well worth a read. Blood Music is an interesting take on nano science that gets seriously weird.

Eon is a good Big Dum Object book and again a good representation f his work.

Queen of Angels is the first of a series of stand alone books that is his version of cyberpunk.

The Forge of God is an apocalyptic end of the world story (view spoiler)[ answer to Fermi's paradox (hide spoiler)]

Darwin's Radio is his take on some interesting aspects in the theory of Evolution.

Greg Bear played around in so many areas of science and the near future that he stayed fresh for a remarkably long period. One of the killer Bs in 80s SF (Brin, Benford and Bear)..

It would be appropriate to read one of his books. Blood Music would be a good one as his first major novel.

Iain wrote: "Mark wrote: "Trike posted a link to an obituary for Greg Bear over in Quick Burns. I read a couple of his books, like Blood Music and Corona, before I started keeping tr..."

And a thoroughly decent human being by all accounts..

For my money the crazy-ambitious novel Queen of Angels and solid short story collection Tangents are Bear’s best works.

I would reccomend The Infinity Concerto.

Referring to Paul's comment in Quick burns regarding computer generated art. One of the things I don't believe Tom or Veronica mentioned either in the podcast, or in the description is that the cover art and title were computer generated for this episode. If you listen live over on Discord, they often have a bit of an after show as they are prepping all of this stuff before it goes off to audio editing.

Time for more discussion of everyone’s favourite buff nerd, Henry Cavill.

Or, anyway, of the forthcoming Warhammer Cinematic Universe he’s developing with Amazon. Not many details yet on what the movie/tv show will actually be about. I’m only glancingly familiar with the source material courtesy of a younger sibling’s teenage obsession, but I know there’s a whole load of tie-in novels to choose from. Is there anyone here who cares to speculate on what specific stories and characters we might expect to see?

Ruth wrote: "Time for more discussion of everyone’s favourite buff nerd, Henry Cavill.

Or, anyway, of the forthcoming Warhammer Cinematic Universe he’s developing with Amazon. Not many details yet on what the ..."

Or perhaps the tv show will literally just be filming Cavill as he paints his space marines 😂

Ruth wrote: "Time for more discussion of everyone’s favourite buff nerd, Henry Cavill.

Or, anyway, of the forthcoming Warhammer Cinematic Universe he’s developing with Amazon. Not many details yet on what the movie/tv show will actually be about. I’m only glancingly familiar with the source material courtesy of a younger sibling’s teenage obsession, but I know there’s a whole load of tie-in novels to choose from..."

Tell the truth: “Warhammer 40,000” refers to the number of tie-in novels, right?

— Trike (@Trike) December 19, 2022

My guess for the 40k stuff would be something like Eisenhorn. It has humans as protagonists, but having an Inquisitor as you MC means you can include aliens, chaos and monsters at will.

The tricky part will be the depiction of the Imperium of Man - it is honestly a bit like "The man in the high castle", what with the characters operating in a thoroughly crappy and fascist society and still trying to do some good (or at least avoid something worse). That can very quickly go wrong, independent from the story.

Nils wrote: "My guess for the 40k stuff would be something like Eisenhorn. It has humans as protagonists, but having an Inquisitor as you MC means you can include aliens, chaos and monsters at wil..."

Thanks! Glancing at the reviews this sounds like an interesting story even if you’re not familiar with the game universe, so it could make a decent tv show.

I watched two separate videos doing breakdowns of the 40k universe and even simplified it’s tremendously complicated, maybe even more so than the Marvel or DC comic book universes. I think there are 3 or maybe 4 ways to travel FTL?

“Where to start” recommendations are all over the place, too. For instance, some people advised starting the Horus Heresy series, but several others said those were relatively unimportant to the overall scheme of the 40k universe and basically called the series a “side story”. A side story that’s 54 books long! With a multi-book sequel series. o.O

It was frankly too daunting to even contemplate.

Interesting side note, though: one of the videos mentioned that 40k was inspired by Moorcock’s Elric stories.

Mark wrote: "Trike posted a link to an obituary for Greg Bear over in Quick Burns. I read a couple of his books, like Blood Music and Corona, before I started keeping track of what I..."

Eon, and it's sequel Eternity, are two of my all-time favorite books. I used to re-read them about once a year through my late teens and 20s. I got Greg Bear to sign my SFBC copies at ECCC maybe 3-4 years ago.

People, including me, have recently been liking Legends & Lattes, so it seems appropriate to post this Book Riot list of other cozy fantasy: https://bookriot.com/cozy-fantasy-books/

Seth wrote: "People, including me, have recently been liking Legends & Lattes, so it seems appropriate to post this Book Riot list of other cozy fantasy: https://bookriot.com/cozy-fantasy-books/"

Having 5-starred the first 3 books on that list and 3-starred Howl’s, this is one I’m coming back to later. Thanks for the heads up!

Seth wrote: "People, including me, have recently been liking Legends & Lattes, so it seems appropriate to post this Book Riot list of other cozy fantasy: https://bookriot.com/cozy-fantasy-books/"

I'm surprised that A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking isn't on that list.

A girl who uses baking as magic. She has a sentient sourdough starter as her familiar and little gingerbread soldiers.

There is the occasional murder and innocents in peril, but it is mostly teenage friendly.

Sentient sourdough starter? Does it send little intelligent pieces of itself to be baked into Murderloaf?

John (Taloni) wrote: "Sentient sourdough starter? Does it send little intelligent pieces of itself to be baked into Murderloaf?"

It does try to bite people. It has the disposition and capabilities of an angry pitbull. 😉

It is a fun read.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Sentient sourdough starter? Does it send little intelligent pieces of itself to be baked into Murderloaf?"

I have had starter that appears to be starting a new civilisation...

I apologize, this is probably a bit crass. But “Subterranean” seems like the perfect publisher for publishing books posthumously.