S&L Podcast – #167 – Spitcoin

We evaluate George R. R. Martin’s plans to stay ahead of the HBO show, look forward to spaceships returning to SyFy, congratulate Arthur C. Clarke Award finalists and ponder the disgusting need for spit as a payment method in Richard K. Morgan’s “Altered Carbon.”

Direct download link here!

QUICK BURNS

FINALISTS: 2014 Arthur C. Clarke Award

People Who Use E-Readers Dive Far Deeper Into Books

Incredible Game of Thrones pop-up book folds out to 3D Westeros map

J.K. Rowling has released History of the Quidditch World Cup online

TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES

George R.R. Martin knows how to stop ‘Game of Thrones’ from catching up to his books

Frederik Pohl’s dread-coated ateway to get a TV series adaptation

Syfy promises a return to space opera at last, with Ascension

Cosmos with Neil DeGrasse Tyson – who watched it?

BOOK CHECK-IN

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

First impressions

Payment Methods

Punishment

Our April book pick will be selected by Bryan Benson who backed our Kickstarter. Thanks Bryan. The book is “A Dance of Cloaks” by David Dalglish. — Thren Felhorn is the greatest assassin of his time. Aaron Felhorn has been groomed since birth to be Thren’s heir. Sent to kill the daughter of a priest, Aaron instead risks his own life to protect her from the wrath of his guild. Assassin or protector; every choice has its consequences.

Bryan also is an author so we’re going to make HIS book our official alternate pick. So check out Brand by Bryan Alexander Benson as well! It’s a fast-paced, Fantasy action novel with steam-punk tendencies. It is the first book in the Order of Luminan series. We’ll have Bryan on for our wrap-up episode at the end of April.

BARE YOUR SWORD

What good would come aliens arriving from another planet?

Recommend a book you think most people haven’t heard of

FEATURED REVIEW: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Welcome to another Featured Review! In this series, we’ highlight book reviews from the S&L audience. If you want to submit a review, please check out the guidelines here! -Tom



The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

By Stephen King

Review by David Goransson 

What do you get when you mix the epicness of Tolkien, exalt in the cool of “The Good The Bad and The Ugly,” are partial to Arthurian legend, and possibly (some have suggested) have overindulged in too much weed? You get “The Gunslinger” the first book in Stephen King’s Magnum Opus “The Dark Tower Series.”

This will be the third time I’ve read “The Gunslinger,” and each time I read it the more I appreciate it. Not for its plot structure, which is often times as broken as Roland–but more for its “vibe.” A certain coolness that exudes from a character who is chillingly relentless and unapologetically single-minded in his quest to the point of obsession.
Plus he has a massive pair of .45 calibre six shooters. 

For those who have finished the series, there is a lot to appreciate in rereading the beginning. There are people and characters and places and events mentioned, sometimes only in passing, that will have veterans nodding their head. But for the first timer–a lot of it will be just gibberish. And a lot of first timers will hate the ending, or “non” ending, and possibly curse the day King was born. That’s why I often suggest that virgin Tower Knights skip this book altogether. There’s nothing in the plot you actually need to start the journey. Because as a beginning this book is hopeless to the point where many will despair of the quest before its begun. But as a prequel this book is fantastic. It will be like returning to an old lover and discovering something deeper about their soul.

Do yourself a favour cully and wait a book or two till you are ready. There is no rush for this one. Else by the time you can appreciate this story you will have forgotten it. “Time’s the thief of memory” as Vannay says. So will you cry off maggot and turn aside? No? It’s too bad. It will be sad to see you broken and set upon a blind path. But if you are so determined to pull leather, then take your stance with legs set wide and I will do what I can, not to convince you to read this book, but rather to continue with the next, should you stumble on the way.

****

So come, let us have our Palaver, do it please ya.

Firstly I’d advise getting a copy of the 2003 edition or later. It has been edited and revised to fit better with the following books and possibly make a bit more sense for first timers. I would also recommend having a squiz at Robert Browning’s poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” which inspired this book. It’s about 34 Stanza’s long and tells the story of a knight on an elusive quest for the Dark Tower, driven by duty and obsession

The Setting 
Somewhere beyond In-World, but not Mid-World. The world is broken. 

‘The world has moved on,’ we say . . . we’ve always said. But it’s moving on faster now. Something has happened to time. It’s softening’

Clocks can’t be trusted and people measure time by other means, like Jake who counts one to two weeks as “3 poops.” Distance and direction is also adrift. 

The landscape of the story looks pretty much like any barren wilderness in any Western. In fact, at the start, one could be forgiven for mistaking this book for a Western. But its not long before the reader will get the unnerving feeling that things are off kilter. Walk into Tull for example. It’s your typical Western shanty complete with stables for your horse and a good old saloon come whorehouse. Except there’s a honky-tonk piano’s playing a rendition of “Hey Jude.” What the..? And pretty early on we get a random glimpse of a Taheen. Do you ken “Taheen?” Cry your pardon, but how could you, unless you had already read further into the series. Say sorry. Man’s body, raven’s head–this one anyway. There are old machines long disused, that were powered by electricity or atomics. There are slow mutants and threaded stock (non-mutated men and animals) are getting rarer. Ah, an alternate Universe? Or rather, a parallel Universe. Do you say so? One of many. “… there were many remnants of the gone world, just as there were demons.”

The Good 

Jake 

The boy who didn’t come from this place but vaguely remembers dying in a vaguely remembered other world. A world where the buildings are so tall they scrape the sky and people drink Coca Cola and watch teevee, and there is a Ka-tet of musicians who call themselves “Kiss.” Do you ken it? He loves the gunslinger, even though the gunslinger doesn’t deserve his love any more than his neglectful ma and da did–possibly less.

The Bad 

The Man in Black 

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

In Browning’s poem he is referred to as a “hoary cripple,” a liar, a kind of devil who is all too happy to take deals to point out the road to obsession. In this story he is the sort of villain who resurrects a devil weed addict and embues him with eternal life–not because he wants him to be well, but because he wants the addict to suffer in his addiction forever. He offers a barren woman a child. A child king. Just kill the unkillable interloper first. Not because he wants his enemy dead, but because he wants his enemy damned. He gives his enemy a boy to love, but …. “While you travel with the boy, the man in black travels with your soul in his pocket.”

“This bad man . . . this Marten . . . he was a wizard. Like Merlin. Do they ken Merlin where you come from?”
“Merlin and Arthur and the knights of the Round Table,” Jake said dreamily.
The gunslinger felt a nasty jolt go through him. “Yes,” he said. “Arthur Eld, you say true, I say thank ya…”

The Ugly 

The Gunslinger 

What is a “gunslinger” in this world? Well its not a cowboy with a pistol. Roland Deschain comes from the heart of In-World. From Gilead in New Canaan. A city of castles.

Yar!” He paused. “When I was your age, I lived in a walled city, did I tell you that?”

The castles are ruled by knights called “Gunslingers.” So called because of the “Irons” that are the mark of their office. Roland’s father Steven Deschain was a direct descendant of Arthur Eld and Lord of his version of Camelot.

My father had by then taken control of his ka-tet, you must ken—the Tet of the Gun—and was on the verge of becoming Dinh of Gilead, if not all In-World

But the world has moved on. And Roland is the last gunslinger and he is on a mission to fix the Universe. To find the Dark Tower. Everything else, love, family, humanity, his very soul is expendable in the light of the greater good. See it well. See it very well indeed.

****

So have I convinced you yet to carry on to book 2? I hope so. Because I’ve seen the end of that journey and would have you set upon the path. Not because I am wise or good. Perhaps I just play the hoary cripple–I say true. I say thank ya.

Long days and pleasant nights

 

FEATURED REVIEW: Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo

Welcome to our first Featured Review! In this series, we’ll be highlighting book reviews from the S&L audience. If you want to submit a review, please check out the guidelines here! -Veronica

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Review by Casey Hampton

I dig the basis of this book. A generational spaceship has been exploring so long that it’s forgotten its purpose (coughing-allegory). They find a planet that has evidence of horrible stuff that happened to the planet’s inhabitants. The explorers quickly depart only to discover an enormous alien spaceship adrift. Next, they explore the alien spaceship and discover, wait for it, wait for it, horrible stuff that happened to what appears to be humans that mirror what they found on the planet.

Richard Paul Russo writes a slow burning SF thriller that ultimately fizzles. If you read this anticipating the end justifying your reading, disappointment lies ahead. But if you read this for the experience, then I think you can find happiness or at least some measure of satisfaction.

No spoilers, but my favorite character is the coffee-growing dwarf who occasionally drinks too much of his homebrewed whiskey. 

I was underwhelmed with the whole theological dilemma that’s hoisted and hung on the hook. Is there a God? If there’s a God, why do bad things happen? Oh, they happen because we have freewill? Oh, we have freewill, and God feels guilty because he gave it to us?

There’s nothing wrong in asking these questions or writing a story about them. I’m grousing because for as much as these issues were intended to drive the narrative, they’re never satisfyingly resolved. In the end, they act as more of a distraction (allegorically ironic?) and less centrally relevant. I just wish Russo had been subtler and allowed the reader to make more of the connections rather than painting such a vivid theological landscape.

As previously mentioned, the book’s conclusion is a bit flat. But the best part, my favorite part, was when they were exploring the enormous alien ship. So good, why didn’t we get more of this? I could have been as happy as a clam at high tide to be shown more of those endless passages and odd little rooms with their secrets.

New Sword and Laser T-Shirts!

We whipped together some new t-shirts for the Kickstarter last year, and if you weren’t able to pledge at the level you can get them now from Slashloot!

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For the first time our album art is available as a t-shirt featuring the expertly characterized demon-hunting Veronica and spaceman Tom.

And the lovely 3 Lem Moon concept by Scott Johnson will definitely impress the cyborg-dragon lovers in your life.

Of course the original logo shirt is till available too.

Get these and many shirts related to podcasts you love at slashloot.com.

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S&L Video: Author Spotlight – Anne Leonard

Anne Leonard’s first book JUST came out. Congrats Anne! Moth and Spark is about a Prince who has been chosen to free dragons from bondage to the Empire, but nobody’s exactly sure how he should do it, not even their riders. He meets a doctor’s daughter who discovers she’s a seer. She’s also a commoner, so he really shouldn’t fall for her How do you shine a spotlight on such a young career? It’s all in the backstory! Just watch.

Download direct link here!

Download the video here. 

Now accepting your book reviews!

As you guys know, we don’t typically post reviews here on the website, and this is mostly because Tom and I rarely have time to read books outside of the actual book club. However, we’d love to feature reviews from you, our audience! 

If you think you’d like to submit a book review for the blog, head over to the Reviews FAQ and learn more! We think this will be a great way to highlight other books as well as highlighting the talented writers we have in our very own community!

S&L Podcast – #165 – SciFi is Finally Literature!

We kick off our March book pick, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, ponder the brief career of Jonathan Ross as LonCon MC, and discover that at least Houghton Mifflin thinks SciFi is lit.

Direct download here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    
Tom: Yorkshire Gold Tea    
Veronica: Napa Smith Brewery Wheat Beer    
    
QUICK BURNS    

The Wertzone: WorldCon 2014 announces Jonathan Ross to host Hugo Awards, controversy follows, Ross withdraws    

Another Layer of J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst’s Book Onion   

Science fiction and fantasy are now officially part of American Literature   

FINALISTS: 2013 Nebula Awards (With Free Fiction Links!) – SF Signal    

FINALISTS: 2013 Aurealis Awards – SF Signal    

CALENDAR    

TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES    

Lara Takes On HBO and Game of Thrones in an Open Letter | Saurian Saint    

The Wertzone: GAME OF THRONES Season 4 fan trailer   

NBC’s ‘Heroes’ is coming back | Inside TV | EW.com    
    
BOOK KICK-OFF    

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan    
Altered Carbon Wikipedia article    
Richard K. Morgan Wikipedia article    

BARE YOUR SWORD    
    
Did you get to read fantasy in school?
    
Written accents annoying or what?    
    
Anthology cover reveal.