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TOM MERRITT: Coming up, books about human hunting, Santa's
mortal enemy and soul forging.
VERONICA BELMONT: Plus, we wrap up "Cloud Atlas" like a
Somni-451 wraps up an order of fries.
It's the Sword and Laser Book Club.
Soylent green is people.
TOM MERRITT: Spoiler.
VERONICA BELMONT: Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the Sword and Laser Book Club.
I'm Veronica Belmont.
TOM MERRITT: And I'm Tom Merritt.
Need some fantasy or science fiction to read?
Well, you will not leave this show without an armload of new
things to read.
VERONICA BELMONT: That's right.
Each month, we pick one book that many of us here and
online read together.
You can also find ideas in our upcoming releases calendar, or
get great ideas from our many fine Goodreads forum members.
TOM MERRITT: A calendar, you say?
VERONICA BELMONT: Yes.
TOM MERRITT: Hm, let's take a gander at yon fine calendar.
VERONICA BELMONT: Coming October 30, "Krampus the Yule
Lord" by Brom.
Like a little Halloween in your Christmas story?
Wish somebody would wipe that smug grin off Santa's face?
Well, this is your book.
Also on the 30th, the Fae are free and hunting humans on the
chaos-filled streets of Dublin in "Iced," a Dani O'Malley
novel by Karen Marie Moning.
TOM MERRITT: November 1, All Souls Day, "The Emperor's
Soul" by Brandon Sanderson.
Poor Shai, first a forged moon scepter, now she
has to forge a soul.
Where does it end?
And on November 6, 2012, Book 14 of the Vorkosigan Series.
"Captain Vorpatril's Alliance" by Lois McMaster Bujold.
And another excellent series continues on that same day
with "Flame of Sevenwaters" by Juliet Marillier.
VERONICA BELMONT: I'm sure glad I didn't have
to read any of those.
You got all of the hard stuff.
TOM MERRITT: I got the crazy fantasy names this time.
VERONICA BELMONT: Well, "Cloud Atlas" had a rogue reading
over the summer.
Spurred some debate about how genre-fitting it was, exactly.
And as of today is a movie that hopefully you guys are
all getting together to see.
TOM MERRITT: I can't wait.
I can't wait to see it.
VERONICA BELMONT: Lots to talk about.
Let's wrap up "Cloud Atlas."
TOM MERRITT: So, Ms. Belmont.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yes, that's Mrs. Belmont.
TOM MERRITT: I'm sorry, Mrs. Belmont.
Congratulations.
VERONICA BELMONT: Thank you.
I married myself, that's why I have the same name still.
TOM MERRITT: It was convenient.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah.
TOM MERRITT: You did walk yourself down the aisle.
VERONICA BELMONT: I did.
TOM MERRITT: But you were very skeptical about this nested
story idea when we kicked this off.
VERONICA BELMONT: I wouldn't say
skeptical, I would say confused.
TOM MERRITT: OK.
VERONICA BELMONT: There's a little bit of
a difference there.
TOM MERRITT: You were very confused.
Were you confused by the end?
How did it work for you?
VERONICA BELMONT: I actually really enjoyed reading it.
Tom and I had a moment where we started chatting about the
book early into my reading of it, where I
was a little concerned.
The very first story with Ewing, I was a little bit
like, oh, you know, this is maybe not what I'm into.
But Tom said no, don't lem it, persevere.
I don't think I'm allowed to lem books on
the book club anymore.
TOM MERRITT: No, you really shouldn't.
VERONICA BELMONT: Now that we're a show, I don't think I
can get by with doing that.
But he was like just keep reading, it's all going to
come back around again.
You'll get to see the ends of the stories that you're
reading and it'll all make sense, and it did.
I really enjoyed it.
It wasn't one of those super fun reads.
I wasn't not able to put it down because
it was so much fun.
But I really wanted to know how the stories ended.
TOM MERRITT: And you are not alone, a lot of people in
Goodreads were talking about I'm not sure if I
keep going with this.
I really hate the Ewing story, or I really hate
the Frobisher story.
And people were saying no, no, no, keep going, because every
story's different and you'll like it by the middle.
And most people agreed that if they did keep persevering they
did like it.
But I thought it was really fun.
I loved the Ewing thing because I've
read books like that.
And I'm like oh, this feels so real and so 18th, 17th
century, this is great.
And then you get a different change, and then you're into
the Evelyn Waugh type book.
And then you're on to the Mary Higgins Clark type book.
And it kept changing and every genre I was curious to see if
he could really change his tone and really have
believable characters in a different setting, a different
voice as an author, and he did.
And so I kind of found that fun.
VERONICA BELMONT: You did find that fun.
No, then that's fine.
I mean, it did have fun elements to it.
But I was just so impressed by how well David Mitchell was
able to write in all of those different voices, and so
convincingly.
I mean, just the way the language changes from story to
story and how it was so masterfully done.
I think part of it was just me being really impressed.
And some reviewers were actually saying that made it
difficult to read and that it was almost borderline
unreadable.
I think the "Chicago Tribune" said that?
One of the reviewers that I read.
TOM MERRITT: The "Sunday Telegraph."
VERONICA BELMONT: The "Sunday Telegraph."
TOM MERRITT: From London.
VERONICA BELMONT: Different.
That's very different from the "Chicago Tribune."
TOM MERRITT: Well, you know, they're sister papers.
But the "Sunday Telegraph" called it unreadable.
VERONICA BELMONT: Unreadable?
See, I didn't get that at all.
I loved the style of the book.
I definitely had certain favorite characters.
I've loved Robert Frobisher.
Even thought he's kind of an anti-hero, I thought that was
one of my favorite stories.
TOM MERRITT: That was definitely my
favorite story, too.
VERONICA BELMONT: That was your favorite story?
TOM MERRITT: That and "Sloosha's Crossing" were my
two favorites of the bunch.
VERONICA BELMONT: Which is interesting because--
yeah, "Sloosha's Crossing"" was great as well.
I loved the post-apocalyptic feel to it.
And Zachary, I thought, was a great character, too.
I think maybe because both Zachary and Robert Frobisher
are, like I said, anti-heroes.
They've done some things that they're not proud of.
Or in Frobisher's part, maybe he is still kind of proud of
them, I'm not entirely sure.
But he doesn't have that much of a conscious thing going on.
But Zachary, on the other hand, made some cowardly moves
early in his story and then felt as though that made him a
flawed person going forward.
And he always kind of felt like either he was unsavable,
like nothing he was going to do at this point was going to
get him out of--
was it Georgie?
TOM MERRITT: Jeb, the devil character.
VERONICA BELMONT: Was going to keep him out of his clutches
no matter what he did at this point.
But he also kind of felt like he had to redeem himself at
certain times as well.
TOM MERRITT: He does show character growth in amazingly
difficult and short stories.
I mean, "Somni-451" is a clone that barely learned emotions
and shows amazing character growth.
VERONICA BELMONT: I loved the language in that particular
story because I liked how certain words, like car, is
now a Ford.
And like a computer or a handheld device is a Sony.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, that was a nice device.
It didn't strike me at first because I thought oh, I guess
Sony just owns everything in the future because it's a
corpocracy, right?
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah.
TOM MERRITT: And maybe that's still part of it, but as you
go on you start to realize oh, all
coffee shops are Starbucks.
All electronics are Sonys.
And it's like the Kleenexing of everything.
VERONICA BELMONT: Exactly.
TOM MERRITT: They've just oh, well, we'll just call it that.
VERONICA BELMONT: All search engines are Google.
TOM MERRITT: Although that's dangerous because really,
would it be Sony?
VERONICA BELMONT: David Mitchell maybe--
TOM MERRITT: Maybe a little prediction there.
VERONICA BELMONT: What would it be?
They'd be Apples.
TOM MERRITT: Apples or Googles.
VERONICA BELMONT: Googles, yeah.
Googles or Apples, probably.
Well, if our timeline continues the way it's
supposed to.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah right, who knows.
Maybe those will be all obsolete.
VERONICA BELMONT: Did you have any stories that you weren't
that keen on?
TOM MERRITT: I wasn't as big a fan of the Cavendish story.
VERONICA BELMONT: Oh, I loved that one!
TOM MERRITT: I sort of love to hate Cavendish, to be honest.
VERONICA BELMONT: OK.
TOM MERRITT: But I didn't love that story.
And the Luisa Rey story.
It was a good story, but kind of poorly written.
And I couldn't tell if he was doing that on purpose to be
like well, Cavendish is going to call this a pulp novel, so
I'm going to write it like a pulp novel and have it be a
little bit cliche, a little bit see-through.
VERONICA BELMONT: What I liked about that story is it has the
only true overlap of characters between two
stories, which is Sixsmith.
TOM MERRITT: Right.
VERONICA BELMONT: Although he's not physically in the
Frobisher story, he is the one being directly contacted with.
TOM MERRITT: The letters are written to Sixsmith.
VERONICA BELMONT: And he's also not one of the recurring
characters in terms of he's not one of the reincarnated
characters, is he?
TOM MERRITT: Somni-451 shows up in "Sloosha's Crossing."
VERONICA BELMONT: She does.
TOM MERRITT: So there's a analog there, I guess.
VERONICA BELMONT: Thre's a little bit of overlap there.
But Sixsmith wasn't--
TOM MERRITT: She wasn't alive in "Sloosha's Crossing."
VERONICA BELMONT: But what I mean is, he wasn't a
reincarnated character if that's what you are buying
into with this.
TOM MERRITT: He wasn't turned into a god, nor was he
reincarnated.
VERONICA BELMONT: He was just a guy that happened to be
there at both times.
TOM MERRITT: He was just the guy that all the letters were
addressed to.
VERONICA BELMONT: Exactly.
And that story was--
Bill Smoke, man, what a character.
He's an evil dude for the ages.
TOM MERRITT: Oh, it was a noir story, for sure,
that Luisa Rey story.
And that is interesting that Sixsmith who's sort of from
this '20s comedy shows up in the noir as the early agent.
What is it?
The MacGuffin sort of from a Hitchcock.
Now, I found that because I'd seen the trailer, I definitely
thought of Luisa Rey as Hallie Berry, because that's obvious
from the trailer.
And it's not obvious from the trailer, but the only guy
half-dressed running through a jungle is Tom Hanks, you're
pretty much sure that must be Zachary.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, but Zachary is supposed to be 16
in the book.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah.
VERONICA BELMONT: So that might be one of the points in
the movie that people get a little irritated at.
TOM MERRITT: Maybe people age really fast after the
apocalypse.
VERONICA BELMONT: Maybe they just look a lot older because
they've lived harder lives?
TOM MERRITT: And the life expectancy isn't very much.
He talks about like wait, you're how old?
Well actually, they do talk about that.
Because he is stunned how old she is when she comes off the
boat because she has better nutrition.
VERONICA BELMONT: She's in her 50s, right?
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, or close to it.
I can't remember exactly.
VERONICA BELMONT: I think so.
TOM MERRITT: But he's like wow, people die at your age
and you look like you're 20 or 30.
So maybe that's how they explained that.
VERONICA BELMONT: The thing that I loved about this book
in general is that all of these stories I wanted to read
more about.
I wanted to dive more into those worlds.
I wanted to hear more about the corpocracy.
I wanted to hear more about this post-apocalyptic world
that Zachary lives in and how they got there, and the
Prescients and that whole society.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah.
VERONICA BELMONT: And what exactly
happened with this world?
Was it nuclear disaster?
Was it everything that happened in Luisa Rey's world?
But at the same time, I thought she
had prevented that.
So I was trying to figure out where the timelines connected
or if they did.
TOM MERRITT: There's nothing in Timothy Cavendish's story
that indicates that there was any looming disaster.
And we think that takes place pretty close to our own world.
So I think nothing led directly to Somni 451's story
that we know of.
VERONICA BELMONT: Except humanity just
being *** bags?
TOM MERRITT: Well, just us taking corporate society.
And he shows, I think, a pretty fair understanding of
Korean society from the Koreans that have
commented on this.
And that he's working in lots of different worlds.
He's working in Hawaii, he's working in 17th century New
Zealand, he's all over the place and seems to do it
pretty adeptly.
VERONICA BELMONT: One quote that we pulled up was from the
Cavendish story.
"One or two things will have to go--" and this is
discussion of "Half Lives," which is the novel he's
reading that is Luisa Rey's story.
"One or two things will have to go.
The insinuation that Luisa Rey is this Robert Frobisher chap
reincarnated, for example.
Far too hippie, druggy, new age."
TOM MERRITT: So he's poking fun at himself here.
Because he's the one who puts the birthmark in and put it on
all these main characters in all these stories.
VERONICA BELMONT: David Mitchell is
poking fun at himself.
TOM MERRITT: So David Mitchell is putting some words in
Cavendish's mouth that are making fun of David Mitchell.
VERONICA BELMONT: Right.
TOM MERRITT: Now, some people looked at this and said oh,
this is self-referential and they don't like it.
I felt like this was him indicating
that that was a MacGuffin.
That the birthmark is there to kind of indicate to anybody
too slow to catch on that there's a relationship between
these stories.
But I don't think it's significant in any way.
I don't think it's supposed to be reincarnation.
I know that Luisa Rey has that moment where
she remembers things.
But I think that's just supposed to be like oh, it's
the '70s man.
Everybody thinks they remember weird things.
I think that's over-interpreted.
VERONICA BELMONT: It's not really clear what exactly
we're supposed to believe.
If it is supposed to be direct reincarnation or if it is just
that these theme, these things will just keep happening over
and over again.
These kinds of things are just part of human nature.
These kinds of things are just part of the human condition
and they will continue to reoccur.
TOM MERRITT: What do you think of the style of the different
parts compared to other writers?
That's a thread that I started on the Goodreads forum, and
I'd like people to maybe answer this
in the YouTube comments.
What parts of the book do you think work
as different authors?
So I feel like the Frobisher story is a very Evelyn Waugh
sort of thing.
I've seen people say that "Sloosha's Crossing" reminds
them of William S. Burroughs.
That "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish" reminds
them of Martin Amis.
We mentioned Mary Higgins Clark for the Luisa Rey
mystery, or maybe Sue Grafton.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah.
TOM MERRITT: So I'd be interested if people can sort
of identify these different styles that he was imitating.
VERONICA BELMONT: Post-apocalyptic style for me
as always goes to Margaret Atwood for "Sloosha's
Crossing." The writing style's not the same, but the world
felt very similar to a "Oryx and Crake" kind of situation.
TOM MERRITT: Very, very definitely.
VERONICA BELMONT: Where technology still exists in
bursts and there's even the finding of a
facility like that.
Yeah, I would like to know what you guys think in the
YouTube comments.
That would be pretty cool.
Overall, I would give it a thumbs up for sure.
Like I said, not a super fun read, but definitely the kind
of read that I would recommend to people because it's so
interesting, there's so many connecting parts, there's so
many ligaments tying one story to another story.
So it's fascinating.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, don't pull a ligament reading it.
Next time we'll kick-off our November book, "The Dirty
Streets of Heaven" by Tad Williams.
But before we go, let's see what else folks are saying in
email and on Goodreads.
VERONICA BELMONT: Now Aaron is pretty famous in the Sword and
Laser annuls for his awesome whiteboard videos.
We've roped him into doing one for each of our author guide
episodes, which you've probably
seen and they're awesome.
I love all the whiteboards he's done for those.
The Gail Carriger one is amazing.
But he still had one more classic version left in him.
And if you've been decrying the lack of hard sci-fi out
there, you need to watch this one closely.
AARON: John Barnes' Amazon author page introduces him as
an "Abundantly published, very obscure writer." That's just
wrong, because every time I hear some old school science
fiction fan decrying the lack of hard SF with thought
provoking commentary, I want to shout at them.
Why aren't you reading more John Barnes then, huh?
Rant over.
Barnes' "Orbital Resonance" is like the YA that Hylan would
have written if he'd stuck with the genre instead of, you
know, dying.
It's got a plucky, first-person narrator in
space, and a plot that sucks you in like the orbital energy
exchange between Earth and Asteroid 3753.
[CRICKETS]
OK, that was an awkward metaphor.
Good book though.
TOM MERRITT: I'm going to have to add some John Barnes to my
to-read list for sure.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, that was great.
TOM MERRITT: I don't want to let Aaron down.
VERONICA BELMONT: I'm always down for
some more hard sci-fi.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, for sure.
I got an email from Sarah who writes "Hey guys, I wanted to
make a suggestion and ask a question.
First, I'm kind of new to the show." Welcome.
"I was wondering if you had read any Connie Willis for the
Sword and Laser yet." We have not, a good suggestion.
She says, "I really enjoy her as an author and would love to
hear your discussions.
Also, my suggestion is that you make a list of the books
that have been read on Sword and Laser, and maybe a list of
interviews." We can help you out there.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yes, actually, the community has
been working on a wiki.
I started the wiki, but then I just said, go.
TOM MERRITT: Go wiki, be free.
VERONICA BELMONT: Go, be free into the world.
TOM MERRITT: Be populated by the crowd.
VERONICA BELMONT: It's SwordandLaser.wikia.com, and
you can see a list of all the books we've read,
why we chose them.
All the author interviews, what they talked about.
All the video episodes, who we had on, what was discussed, et
cetera, et cetera into perpetuity.
They've done an amazing job.
And it's a great resource if you want to catch up on some
of the stuff we've read in the past.
Also, it should be on our store and on the Goodreads
page
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, I think on the Goodreads.com bookshelf
you'll also find a list of all the stuff that we've read in
the Goodreads forum as well.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, Sarah, go to take a look.
And then once you've used it to satisfy your curiosity, be
one of the people that helps keep it up to date.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, please.
We always can use that.
Sean posted on Goodreads, "I know some people like to
complain that it's 2012 and we still don't have jet packs
and--"
TOM MERRITT: Where are jet bags?
VERONICA BELMONT: "--flying cars.
But who cares when we live in a world with this?
A device that will monitor your moods and upload your
current state of mind to a map, creating a record of what
places or people make you happy or sad.
Oh, and it comes with a dog tail that will
wag when you're happy.
Because, Japan."
TOM MERRITT: That is the most hilarious video
I've seen in a while.
VERONICA BELMONT: Little wag butt.
TOM MERRITT: Right, because it is because Japan.
VERONICA BELMONT: The one thing I noticed though is that
when she got scared with the dog attack, she didn't tuck
her tail between her legs.
TOM MERRITT: Ah, that's a feature for 2.0.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, for the 2.0 launch.
TOM MERRITT: But definitely go take a look at this video.
We'll have a link in the show notes.
Sarahnar was asking on Goodreads, "Anyone know of any
books about AI taking over the world?
Something like "Terminator?" I've always liked the concept
behind these movies."
There's some good suggestions in the thread here.
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" isn't exactly AI taking
over the world, but it's the basis for "Blade Runner" and
there's something to that.
Bunch of other good ones.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, I was trying to think of some of the
other ones because I can't bring the page up right now.
TOM MERRITT: "Robopocalypse?"
VERONICA BELMONT: Oh, "Robopocalypse," that was one.
Yeah, that's a good book too.
And an audio book, too, that you can sometimes get for
free, I think.
TOM MERRITT: Aloha mentioned that-- well, actually Aloha
was filling out most of this stuff.
"RUR" is a Czech play that was the play in which the term
"robot" was coined.
VERONICA BELMONT: I just burped robot, I think.
Excuse me.
TOM MERRITT: That happens sometimes.
VERONICA BELMONT: I've had too much bubbly wine from the bar.
TOM MERRITT: "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" actually, was
suggest by Chris.
VERONICA BELMONT: Is there a lot of AI in that?
TOM MERRITT: There's an AI that sort of helps them rebel.
VERONICA BELMONT: I lemmed that one halfway through.
TOM MERRITT: Ah, that's why you don't know.
VERONICA BELMONT: Maybe I didn't quite get to the AI.
But definitely a lot of good suggestions.
If you have a favorite, make sure to mark it off in the
comments on the YouTube page.
We'd love to hear them.
TOM MERRITT: All right, that about does it for us today.
But don't forget, The Sword and Laser author guide show
where we interview the best authors in the biz and submit
your questions to them.
Last time we talked to Gail Carriger, go
watch that one, too.
VERONICA BELMONT: Yes, you don't want to miss that.
So subscribe to our YouTube channel.
It's green button up there in the corner at
YouTube.com/GeekandSundry.
Send us email to feedback@swordandlaser.com.
And of course, join in the fun at our Goodreads forum at
Goodreads.com.
Search for the Sword and Laser or find it from our website.
We will see you guys next time.
TOM MERRITT: Bye!
VERONICA BELMONT: Bye!