This time we are blessed with two musicians whom we are both fans of. Jonathan Coulton, known best for his Code Monkey and zombie songs, and MC Frontalot, known best, apparently for his back trouble int he nerdcore documentary but really for his amazing nerd rap prowess. We discuss their visions of synthetic life, machine-led government, nanobots and the amazing growth of our brains. Or will we have brains in the future? Listen in!
We spend a good amount of time talking about the President receiving the Nobel Peace prize but also discover some truths about the world economy from zombies and vampires.
Get the episode at this link: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest177-ZombiesEndTheRecession/eastmeetswest177.mp3
It’s time to wrap up Haldeman’s The Forever War, but we still haven’t finished talking about Songs of Ice and Fire. So we start with a quick recap of our thoughts up through A Feast for Crows, then intro our new book choice, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon.
QUICK BURNS – unrelated news of the month
Octavia Butler’s Papers Preserved For Future Generations
Mary Russell has been Twittering at Veronica
October 27th will be a HUGE day for book releases
THE FOREVER WAR – Wrapup
Was it dated by having a date?
Nick W. – What did you think of the ending?
Mists of Avalon – Kickoff
1982 novel. It’s a re-telling of the Arthurian legend from a female point of view.
The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (often called Morgan Le Fay in other works), a priestess fighting to save her matriarchal Celtic culture in a country where patriarchal Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life. The book follows the lives of Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), Viviane, Morgause and other women who are often marginalized in Arthurian retellings. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are supporting rather than main characters. A lot of people accuse the book of being anti-Christian. (Via Wikipedia)
“About the time I began work on the Morgan le Fay story that later became Mists, a religious search of many years culminated in my accepting ordination in one of the Gnostic Catholic churches as a priest. Since the appearance of the novel, many women have consulted me about this, feeling that the awareness of the Goddess has expanded their own religious consciousness, and ask me if it can be reconciled with Christianity. I do feel very strongly, not only that it can, but that it must.” – Marion Zimmer Bradley
Isaac Asimov called it “the best retelling of the Arthurian Saga I have ever read”
Turned into a miniseries on TNT in 2001.
BARE YOUR SWORD – feedback from the audience
Animated Feature-Length Film Suggestions
ADDENDUMS
Say hello to our new partner Sticker Fu. Use the code Sword1 and get 10% off the stickers.
Tom’s scared that we might run out of phosphorus and have food shortages, Roger’s more worried about zombies but hopes there as hilarious as Zombieland. And we all agree Roman Polanski needs to pay for any crimes he may have committed, good director or no.
Get the episode at this URL: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest176-PhosphorusForAllOfUs/eastmeetswest176.mp3
We’re enlisting PodTrac’s help to help us find out more about you, our audience, and hopedully sell some ads to pay for the show. You can totally skip on by this and keep enjoying the shows, but if you have a few minutes, we’d really appreciate you taking the time to answer the questions. It will help us make FourCast better and make it possible to more shows!
Here’s the survey link.
Thanks!
Roger talks about his credit card getting swiped, Tom wants to know what’s up with Qadafi, and everybody has something to say about food.
Get the episode at this link: http://www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest175-YouveBeenRobbed/eastmeetswest175.mp3
Tom and Roger talk food in New York City and beyond including the nature of breakfast.
Get the episode at this link.
Tom and Roger talk about the quality of TV and report live from Dragon*Con. Get the MP3 here.
This time on FourCast comic, movie, and TV writer Gerry Conway and podcaster Brian Ibbott predict a world brimming with superheroes, domed cities and RPGs based on your trip to the grocery store.
We had a fantastic time at Dragon*Con! Thanks to everyone who showed up for the recording, and Timothy Zahn for being an outstanding guest. Special thanks to Swoopy and Derek for inviting us in and helping us out tremendously, Jon for running about the room with a mic so we could the excellent audience feedback, and to all the folks in the Dragon*Con podcasting track who helped us sound perfect. Plus a SUPER thanks to Kathryn for designing and obtaining the t-shirts and Kim for helping us drag them around and distribute them.
QUICK BURNS
New Hitchhiker’s Guide book “not very funny”
Ariel: post-apocalyptic sword-and-sorcery adventure
Casting for Game of Thrones HBO pilot!
BARE YOUR SWORD – feedback from the audience
Mixing Media Alters My Brain – Posted by aldenoneil on September 2, 2009 at 12:22pm A phenomenon occurs occasionally, where I’ll be reading a book concurrently with playing through a videogame, and my reading of the novel is effected. This time around it’s Warcraft III and The Forever War. Reading through a description about a certain base under construction, all I could envision was little soldiers with low polygon counts and blocky grey buildings rising whole from the surface. I don’t believe that was the author’s intention.
Of course it occurs with movies – reading through The Lord of the Rings will never be the same for any of us, for example – but videogames present a more stylized vision, which really f*cks my sh*t up, for lack of a better phrase. It really points to how subjective an experience reading a novel is.
Does this happen to anyone else? Milder forms include casting actors or friends in roles, or envisioning natural settings as versions of places that you’ve actually been to. That’s why descriptions of nature scenes have always been difficult for me; I live in a bubble.
http://swordandlaser.ning.com/group/videogames/forum/topics/mixing-media-alters-my-brain
District 9
Posted by Chris Maler on August 23, 2009 at 8:45am Okay, maybe I’m jaded but I don’t get it. District 9 was a complete let down to me. I left the theater feeling like I’d seen that theme done a dozen times, usually more successfully . I don’t want to drop any spoilers, so I won’t go into detail, but for someone who is into sci-fi, District 9 presents well trod themes in a typical, unimaginative manner. The CGI was pretty interesting, but that’s about the only notable thing for me. I didn’t dislike the movie, but jeeze I’ve seen people raving about it like it’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’d rather watch a rerun of Enemy Mine or Alien Nation.
http://swordandlaser.ning.com/forum/topics/district-9
ENGAGE – Interviews with interesting characters
Timothy Zahn – Our guest is SciFi author Timothy Zahn. He won the Hugo award in 1984 for his novella Cascade Point but is best known for the very popular Star Wars sequels known as the Thrawn Trilogy. They were authorised by Lucas and took place after Return of the Jedi. He has also written the Dragonback series and the Conquerors Trilogy, about a war between humans and aliens.
Listener Questions
What would the galaxy be like if Grand Admiral Thrawn had won? Would it be better or worse than how its turned out under the New Republic?
I’d like to know what he’s reading, and what he’s read this year. I know I bought the first Dresden Files book on Michael Stackpole’s recommendation after he read the galley.
ADDENDUMS
T-Shirts: We’re desciding the best way to distribute them on the Internets, but everybody who attened our panel at Dragon*Con got one.
Tagline: Different worlds, different discussion
Designer: Kathryn Parker
Next episode – Forever War recap and kickoff of the next book, which will be Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
