The Sword and Laser

We have a new format to tell you about, and we also kick off our September book pick, Luminous by Silvia Park. And a lot about bots and their stuff.

Sword and Laser is having a meetup at LaCon! Plus, Fable gets popular, ACoTaR has new titles and our non-spoilery thoughts on This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me.

Cucamelons, short lists, long lists, Tom sings Le Sserafim, and we talk about books that changed our view of the world. Plus, what book would you want to portal into? Our first non-spoilery first impressions of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews.

What's the best SciFi/Fantasy book title. Are there too many Bobs? What about Murderbots? 

Starlog is back! The Le Guin shortlist is out. Why Tom is naked. We kick off our July read and struggle to understand why some people think Red Rising is Romantasy. Now we know.

We check in on our June reading of Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Why do romantasy people like this? Veronica is making a tincture. And we have fun coming up with a Sci-Fi/Fantasy equivalent of the EGOT.

Tom and Veronica remember when they read a book. It was called Slow Gods by Claire North. And they're definitely not just reading the latest Dungeon Crawler Carl book instead of that one or the next one, Red Rising.

Jan has taken over the show and is exhibiting the personality of the AI from Dungeon Crawler Carl. Veronica hates awards. Tom puts the butt before the horse in deference to Veronica's theory of good things happening. And we don't wrap up Slow Gods, but we still have non-spoilery thoughts.

The Hugo voting is open! The Guild is coming back! Is "best and most popular" actually fair? Is it right to defy a dead author's wishes? Tom risks Octavia Butler's ghost to explain. Plus, we share our opening thoughts on Slow Gods by Claire North.