Current Geek Episode 181: You’ve got the shinning

Hosts: Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson

We all create the movies we want in our bater society, when we’re into playing realistic D&D sims. But we’re all part of the AI game.

Guests: Natania Barron and Zak Holder

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/fc.

Got a prediction of your own? Guest you’d like to see? Question for the show? Email us at fourcastpodcast@gmail.com.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 58:29

We wrap up Ready Player One, give away a Kindle, get psyched up for NaNoWriMo, and discuss whether virtual worlds will lead to the decline of cvilization. Ready Player One spoiler’s ahead!

QUICK BURNS

These Are the Greatest Geek Books of All Time, Readers Say

WINNERS: 2011 World Fantasy Awards and Lifetime Achievement Winners

CALENDAR

See what’s coming up.

Sean sent in an email and an MP3 with some books to add to the calendar.

Hey T&V,

Here are a few upcoming books that would make interesting additions to the calendar:

15 November – Ten Billion Days and a Hundred Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse

13 December – Spice and Wolf Novel 5 by Isuna Hasekura

24 January – Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel by Mizuki Nomura

BARE YOUR SWORD

Virtual Reality and the end of Civilization

Was I-rok underused, or overused?

All Hallow’s Read

TV, Movies and video games

James Cameron’s Fantastic Voyage is a doomed ‘love story’

WILD CARDS optioned for a movie

BOOK Wrap-up

Ready Player One

Giveaway Announcement? Winner! Icelord!

NEW MEMBER HELLOS

Casey, Amanda, Michael, Ian, Erik, Scotty, MonkeyButler, Michael, Michael, Alan, Rich, Ben, Noel, Jay, NCGrimbo, Robert, Micah, Philip, Vaugh, Andy, Zach, Stephen, Nathaniel, Domenico, Ken, Joshua, Sean, Matthew, Bill, Kyle (aka Khet), Nick, Eric, Erica, Ed, Quasar, Richard, Jon and Maxwell!

ADDENDUMS

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 75,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, non-fiction and periodicals. For a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.

I know what some of you are saying. I need to do another podcast like I need to be locked inside a testing facility with a mad artificial intelligence. But this is different. Justin Robert Young and I are kicking off a limited series. We promise. Only 13 episodes. You’ll be wrapped by January.

It’s an experiment based on an idea we started joking about at Dragon*Con. Essentially it’s a SciFi/Fantasy sports league. Each week, we’ll look into the fates of 8 teams like the Mordor Crows, Serenity Valley Fireflys and Arrakis Barons. So it’s SportsCenter for SciFi nerds. Sort of.

You’ll just have to listen to the season preview episode which is up now at FSLTonight.com And then make your predictions in the comments there.

Justin Robert Young and Tom Merritt break down the teams and what to expect in the upcoming season. Can anyone beat Mordor? Will Alderaan survive in the face of their rivals, the newly elevated Coruscant Empire? Will Vulcan or Serenity Valley win the East? Our hosts deal with all these questions and more as we head towards the Thursday kickoff of FSL play.

Get the episode at this link.