Tom starts throwing money at Becky Chambers and Veronica defends her rose quartz. Plus, new Star Wars short stories coming and lots of great tie-in novels up for Scribe awards! Also our first impressions of A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine.

Congrats to the Locus Nominees and Nebula winners! We’ve read a bunch of those but there are some great new picks to be discovered too. Everybody wins! Plus long-time Sword and Laser listener TerpKristin joins us to wrap up Magician: Apprentice.

We’re beefing up our reading lists with Japanese and British award lists. Also it’s fun to see what critically-acclaimed movies are hated by the authors whose books they are based on. Plus, we preview our June pick and have a few thoughts on the May pick!

We’re going to get some good Discworld TV! We talk about why sometimes you don’t want to read old stuff, and whether you’re someone who likes depressing consequences or happily ever after stories. All that and our first non-spoiler impressions of Magician: Apprentice.

We invited Andrew Heaton, Host of Alienating the Audience, to join us! Oh Dune… is there any wrong way to enjoy you? Possibly yes. We also wrap up How to Lose the Time War.

Veronica Roth is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Divergent series, the Carve the Mark duology, The End and Other Beginnings collection of short fiction, and most recently her newest novel, Chosen Ones. We talk to her about the new novel, and what it’s like doing a virtual book tour!

The Hugo Nominees are in! And we’ve read some fo them! Also the Nebula Nominees are in and we’ve read some of them too! And we have thoughts on the beauty of this month’s pick, This is How You Lose the Time War.

Worldcon goes virtual and we totally get it, Tom has a new book out, ways to support your independent bookstore, we kick off our April pick, and FINALLY give our last thoughts on The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.

We’ve got our first impressions of the new Star Wars: High Republic books, some great new award-winning picks, and our first impressions of The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley.

We unveil the 16 books we’ll be pitting against each other in our quite Mad March tournament of polls. We also chat about the Nebula nominees, introduce our March pick, and give our final thoughts on Gideon the Ninth.