Hey everyone! We’re going to be recording a live episode of The Sword and Laser at this year’s Dragon*Con in Atlanta! The live recording is at 8:30pm on Friday night; check your schedule for more details.

We’re also planning a little meetup for Saturday evening! We’re still working out the details for that, so make sure you check Veronica and Tom’s Twitter pages for updates. We’ll probably also post the info here.

Hope to meet some of you there!

UPDATE: Meetup will be at 5pm on Saturday the 5th at the Pulse Bar & Loft at the Atlanta Marriot Marquis.

Tom and Roger talk Inglorious Basterds, anonymity and free speech, more accents and announce they’re joining the TWiT network.

Listen to the show at this URL: http://www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest172/eastmeetswest172.mp3

Tom and Roger are joined by Patrick Beja to talk about how we all pronounce, butcher or over-pronounce foreign words as well as how gaming differs in France.

Get the show at this link:http://www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest171-HowDoYouSay/eastmeetswest171.mp3

Tom and Roger talk about District 9, stereotypes in SciFi, and go off on US news coverage.

Get the episode at this link: http://www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest170/eastmeetswest170.mp3 or listen below.

It’s time to pick a new book, but for some reason we just can’t stop talking about George R. R. Martin. And in some cases singing about him. But we DID pick a new book and it’s The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It involves relativity, interstellar war and sad soldiers. In fact it’s sometimes thought of as an anti-Starship Troopers. We think this book is a timely choice as Ridley Scott is making a 3D movie out of it. More on that in this and future episodes. If you want a sneak peek, take a look at this Forever War’ Concept Art .

Also don’t forget we’re doing a live Sword and Laser in Atlanta at Dragon*Con! The show takes place Friday evening, September 4 at 8:30 PM in Hilton room 204. It will be Veronica, me and special guest Timothy Zahn. Other guests may be announced as well.

BARE YOUR SWORD – feedback from the audience.
Audio books are no good for SF
Do you like your endings with everything-wrapped-up or open-ended?
Hi Tom and Veronica,
John Anealio’ George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.

QUICK BURNS – unrelated news of the month
Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov’s 3 Laws
A Game Of Thrones pilot script leaked
A brief history of SteamPunk
Personal Effects: Dark Art by JC Hutchins. The book with a lot of cool extra materials.

Tagline Contest
Congratulations Barry O’Neil “Different worlds – different discussion”

Do you have your own prediction for the future? We’re interested to hear. Use the form on the FourCast Podcast site, post a comment to this post, or just email us at fourcastpodcast@gmail.com. We’ll read a selection of some predictions on the show.  It could be yours!

Tom and Roger talk about the lack of news in August and the meaning of hispanic, and whether the southwest will ever secede.

Listen to the episode at this link: http://www.archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest169/eastmeetswest169.mp3

For our next trick, Scott and I got Leo Laporte of TWiT fame, and Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback to square off with their visions of the future.  You may think Leo is the optimist, but you’d be wrong.  Witness the title of our episode.  It was Jim that has the rosier view of the future. Including the chance for all of us to someday become Ashton Kutcher.  Listen in folks, it’s a good one. (We did have some issues keeping Jim’s Skype connection going, so forgive the occasional Skype ring or beep).

Listen to the episode at this link: http://www.archive.org/download/FourcastEpisode2/2fourcast.mp3

Tom and Roger discuss their favorite TV shows for newbies, and debate the reason message boards always degenerate into trollism.

Listen to the episode at this link: http://ia301537.us.archive.org/2/items/EastMeetsWest168/eastmeetswest168.mp3