The Sword and Laser
Read along with the Sword and Laser book club! From classic science fiction to the latest gritty fantasy, we cover it. Subscribe for book discussions, author interviews, hot releases, and news from the genre fiction world!
Show episodes
Everything is out of context. But we do have interesting thoughts about The Lives of Tao and lots of congrats for the winners and nominees of the Nebulas and more.
We speculate on how James Cameron will make The Devils and whether Frankenstein will be too scary for Veronica. And we further kick off The Lives of Tao.
We discuss the return of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and Frank Herbert’s posthumous SFWA Infinity Award, Audible’s AI narration plans and Amazon’s cancellation of The Wheel of Time—while nominating hamburg steak and vegan enchiladas and sharing listener stories from Matt Dinniman’s event. We round out the show with in-
From Hugo admins resigning over AI panel vetting to the latest award winners and a fresh Murderbot clip—to set the stage for our book club pick. Then we dig into Mickey 7’s Ship of Theseus dilemma, sharing listener takes (yes, even foot‑fetishting AIs) and the questions that keep us up at night.
We wrap up Dungeon Crawler Carl, including our horrible imitations of Jeff Hays. Plus, we announce the next pick for May and ponder data-driven determinations of the best SFF books of Tom’s life.
We have Murderbot trailer! And we like it! Plus, the Hugo nominees are out and we wrap up our thoughts on The City and the City and begin our April dungeon crawl.