Sword and Laser – Page 45 – Tom Merritt .com

S&L Video REWIND – #10 – Interview with Adam Christopher

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 23rd, 2013

Download the episode here.

Subscribe to the video encores as a podcast, and in iTunes!

And of course get all the show notes at the original post from last year.

S&L Video REWIND – #09B – Assassin’s Apprentice Kick-off

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 16th, 2013

Download the episode here.

Subscribe to the video encores as a podcast, and in iTunes!

And of course get all the show notes at the original post from last year.

S&L anthology acceptance emails have been sent!

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 15th, 2013

Hello everyone!

After many months of reading, arguing, fighting, blood oaths, sacrificing to the gods of literature, shoot-outs at dawn, etc… we have picked our twenty selections for the Official Sword & Laser Anthology!

If you have received an email from us, congrats! If you have not (by the time of this blog posting) then you didn’t make this round. But let us just say that this task was nearly impossible, considering the amazing talent and writing skills that so many of you exhibited with your submissions. We are truly awed by all of you, thank you.

Also thanks to our crew of intrepid submission readers, including Josh, CJ, Becca and Aaron. The final judgments came down from Tom and me, so please direct all of your hate mail to us specifically 😉

Again, I can’t stress enough how difficult it has been to make these choices. We all became very protective over our favorites!

If you want to discuss more, please head over to Goodreads. Congrats again to our anthology contributors!

Catch Tom on the SF Signal podcast!

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 12th, 2013

Patrick Hester from SFSignal was nice enough to have Tom on the excellent (and Hugo-nominated!) SF Signal podcast this week. we had a fun time talking about what you’d expect, science fiction and fantasy, and a few things you might not expect!

Get the episode here.

S&L Video REWIND – #09 – Interview with John Scalzi

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 9th, 2013

Download the episode here.

Subscribe to the video encores as a podcast, and in iTunes!

And of course get all the show notes at the original post from last year.

S&L Podcast – #138 – Why Scott Lynch and Neil Gaiman are awesome

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 6th, 2013

We give our final views on Ringworld, and Veronica reveals her secret love at the end of the show. Plus we kick off our August pick, the Curse of Chalion. Nothing very shocking there. BUT we DO deliver a Yet-sized serving of news about books becoming movies. Don’t sasquatch our dreams. Bigfoot your way into the show now.

*(editor’s note: Tom is no longer allowed to write show descriptions after beer)

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?

Tom: Fuller’s ESB

Veronica: 2011 Hangtime Cellars Pinot Noir California

QUICK BURNS

Sneak Peek: Cover art for Hang Wire by Adam Christopher

Scott Lynch auctioning REPUBLIC OF THIEVES for charity

Cover art for Brandon Sanderon’s WORDS OF RADIANCE

One of the world’s most popular SF novels finally coming in English

172 Reasons To Read Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror in August 2013 (A GIANT Book Cover Gallery)

CALENDAR

TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES

Disney wants to turn Artemis Fowl into the new Harry Potter

GAME OF THRONES finds its Mace Tyrell (plus a general series update)

Bridge Of Birds Movie being made by Vispop

David Weber’s ‘Honorverse’ books to be turned into movies

Sandman author Neil Gaiman ventures into gaming with Wayward Manor

BOOK KICK-OFF

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Curse of Chalion Wikipedia article

Lois McMaster Bujold interview on Sword and Laser

BOOK WRAP UP

Ringworld by Larry Niven

BARE YOUR SWORD

I have never finished the Dune series due to dislike.

What’s so wrong about giving up on a book?

EMAIL

New comment from Francisco on S&L Podcast – #137 – A rasher of Abercrombie.

On race and genre novels:

I know that Pratchett has his characters (in the City Watch novels) reference the problems of policing in a muli-vital society.

Here’s a question for you:

If you assume that race is not going to be an issue in the future do you mention it?

ADDENDUMS

This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com the internet’s leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times Best Sellers. For listeners of this podcast, Audible is offering a free audiobook, to give you a chance to try out their service. For a free audiobook of your choice go to audiblepodcast.com/sword.

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Direct download link!

Sneak Peek: Cover art for Hang Wire by Adam Christopher

Shows/ Sword and Laser / August 6th, 2013

We’re big fans of Adam Christopher here at Sword and Laser and he’s buttering us up some more (as if he needs to) by giving us a sneak peek at the cover for his next book, Hang Wire (Coming January 28th from Angry Robot Books).

He mentioned the book took place in San Francisco the last time we talked. Here are some more details. Poor Ted Hall’s Chinatown birthday dinner ends in an explosion. It gets worse. Ted finds fortune cookies from the exploded restaurant with personalized messages scattered around his apartment. There’s also a Celtic circus, some immortals searching for an ancient power, and your basic primal evil lurking beneath the San Andreas fault which might destroy the world. Sounds like good fun.

Will Staehle (Empire State, Kavalier & Clay) did the cover and it’s stellar. Christopher said Staehle surprised him with something “entirely unlike anything I had imagined, for any of my books.”

For his part Staehle said the cover was “a tough one” with all the disparate elements in the book. He played with several styles including Chinese brush illustrations, victorian circus signage and ended up with, “a graphic circus ringleader puppet hung up by strings.”

So take a look for yourself. You can see the different approaches in the gallery below. It starts with the main black book cover, then the limited edition in red and a few book posters showing the circus images and the Chinese brush strokes.

Just click the image to flip through the different examples.

Enjoy!