The Sword and Laser discussion

Veronica let me know that for June we'll be reading The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe in honor of former S&L member Joanna who passed away recently. It was one of the two books she was currently reading when she passed away and Tom and Veronica thought it would be nice if we could finish it for her.

As a side note, we hit a limit of 100 folders, such that we can't create new folders anymore.

So I'm working on consolidating folders down into years rather than having one for each book. At least for older reads. The current year or so will remain with individual folders. I may only do 2010 to start with, but I'll probably do at least 2011 and possibly 2012 at some point too. That should keep us below the threshold for a bit.

I love this book. The concept is wonderful and I won't say any more.

Good choice. We were going to read a book in honour of Joanna. Having it as an official pick makes it more special.

Rob wrote: "As a side note, we hit a limit of 100 folders, such that we can't create new folders anymore."

Goodreads says it's limit is 500.
The number of folders can be adjusted from this moderator menu:
group page > group info > edit > Click for advanced options

Some mods do point out that only the 100 most recently used Folders (i.e comment posted) are displayed, but all are accessible from searches.

Sweet! The one review of this I read said good things, and I love the nod to Joanna.

Nice thought. Should be an interesting read. I picked it up a while ago but haven't gotten to read it.

A nice way to pay our respects to Joanna. The book trailer from 2011 is at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVQIT...

and links to music from the Tufa at

http://alexbledsoe.com/the-tufa/the-h...

Mark wrote: "A nice way to pay our respects to Joanna. The book trailer from 2011 is at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVQIT...

and links to music from the Tufa at

http://alexbledsoe.com/the-tufa/the-hum..."

Nice find! So cool.

Tassie Dave wrote: "Good choice. We were going to read a book in honour of Joanna. Having it as an official pick makes it more special.

Rob wrote: "As a side note, we hit a limit of 100 folders, such that we can't cr..."

Hmm. Interesting. Their whole folder structure is awful to begin with. Something like that wouldn't surprise me.

Those advanced options only control how much is shown on the main group page. I created a new folder for this book and I couldn't even see it on the list (which is limited to 100) to move that folder to the top, even though it did exist. So allowing more than 100 while not letting you sort more than 100 is kind of pointless IMHO.

I think I may still go ahead and finish consolidating the 2010 threads into a single folder.

Very Cool, and I really like the idea of the unfinished book, being read.

Now the usual question, is the audiobook any good? I'll admit I haven't even looked up the narrator yet, or the sample.

I think I'll just give it a try I have a really long drive coming up next week.

An excellent book, start of an excellent series that I really need to get caught up on.

Doesn't look like something I'd have picked up for myself, but I guess that's the point of a book club! (And I like the sentiment behind the choice.)

I picked this up yesterday evening after it was announced and finished this afternoon. I enjoyed it and thought it felt different than anything else I've read in recent memory.

Excited to read this and to pay respect to Joanna.

I'm listening to the audiobook free from Hoopla through my library.
So far so good!

I didn't plan on reading 160 pages yesterday but I did. So, yeah, so far so good!

Such a sweet tribute.

I've read a couple of Bledsoe's Eddie LaCrosse books, which are basically hard-boiled detective stories in a sword-and-sorcery setting, and enjoyed them quite a bit, so I'm interested to check out the Tufa series.

Listened to the audible sample and didn't like the narrator so I'm picking up the book from my library today.

This is such a nice way to honor her. And this looks like a great read!

FYI. This book is currently on sale at Audible for $3.99. Bonus!

Speaking of sounds ... Here's the video for The Hum and the Shiver, a song inspired by the book as performed by the group Tuatha Dea, whom Alex Bledsoe has worked with and talked about in the past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v18Q...

Doh, bought it a few days to early.

But I got about a third of the way through on audio book today while driving. It's an interesting choice in narration where a man is doing most of the male pov parts, and a woman is doing most of the female pov parts. They switch at obvious breaks, but that seems to be a few times per chapter usually. I've been fine with it, but not in love with it.

Also for those that thought last month's pick was light on plot, so far this is even more so, in my opinion. I'm OK with that, and they have been setting up a few things, but it is slow going for sure.

While I've for the most part been enjoying getting to know the characters, I'd be curious on what others thought of how the female protagonist is written by this male author. To me it doesn't feel quite right, but I'm not a woman, and I might be off base.

Finished the audiobook today, the change in narrators was a little different but I felt they both did a very good job. The story was fine, it went quickly and never seemed like it was plodding or difficult to get through. Would have really like to seen the Tufa background expanded on more, but that may come in the next book.

This is a great way to honour a terrific forum member.

The book had a lot going on and should provoke some interesting discussion.

Since Hoopla had the next book I downloaded it and started to listen. I really like it. I'm so glad we decided to read this and I have to thank Joanna for inspiring us.

I'm only about 7 or 8 chapters in, but I'm getting a real vibe of the long summer days I spent on my aunt and uncle's farm, or exploring along the banks of the Wabash river at my grandma's house. Just a slower pace of life, insular, among people who've known each other for generations, with only two radio stations and two channels in the TV.

But there's a real sense of menace lurking in the background. It's not Southern Gothic, exactly, more like Appalachian Weird.

So far this feels like one of my favorite movies, the 1993 film Flesh and Bone, starring Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan and James Caan (with an early role by Gwynneth Paltrow before she was famous). Even though it takes place in the Southwest, it has that same kind of feel: small town, working class, disconnected from the world, slower pace, folks who aren't real good and some who are real bad. It just kind of burbles along with menace and secrets.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/1SbacB2W1l8

It's written and directed by the same guy who adapted all of the Harry Potter books.

I felt like each time the audiobook shifted to the male narrator, I had to get used to his voice all over again. His voice was fine, but SO DEEP, and it was always just a little jarring after listening to the female narrator.

I listening to Audible and decided I'm spending my audible credits on book picks when possible. I'm half way through this book, and I am really loving these characters!!

I love that you guys did this to honor Joanna, and this is the best possible way ever, for us. I hope that the last book I'm reading before I go gets picked up to be read as well. Of course I don't plan on releasing myself from the mortal coil until I'm a hundred so I hope Tom and Veronica, and the rest, will be around in 51 years because I will be and I'll be reading something.

I'm not always into Fantasy but when a pick like this comes around WOW!

I'm a little over halfway. Last night I finished chapter 17. That last line had me all, "What the WHAT?!" But it was 3:50 am, so I had to put the book down for sleep.

I finished the book in 2 days. I enjoyed this book overall but some parts were hard to read, because I had a cage on my foot due to a botched surgery very similar to Bronwyn's. Reading the book brought up some bad memories

I find the bits about the Tufa and their music interesting but I just don't care enough about the characters to keep going with the book. :(

I REALLY enjoyed this. What a nice surprise and a good way to remember Joanna.

I really was not expecting to enjoy the book as much as I did. It seemed to just start of like quiet meh book but them somewhere along the line I fell in love wit it.

Jessi wrote: "I half wonder if Tufa aren't in some way influenced in their design by the Melungeons (my kin), a group of weird ethnic mix from slightly more northern Appalachia."

...and I just returned from a deep, deep research rabbit hole. Fascinating.

ETA: Dayton represent. Marion's 4eva.

Welp. My copy just arrived today (such are the dangers of ordering the cheapest copy off Amazon, because that one usually comes from the US), so I guess I've got some serious reading to do. I fully expect to suffer, given that it starts with a death omen and that all the blurbs praise its "raw beauty", this does not seem like a light read.

Aaand done. Well, that was interesting. I liked the way (view spoiler)[the mythology about the Tuatha de Danann was "warped" to fit the appalachian setting (hide spoiler)], and while I felt that the story took a while to get going, and that some of the characters were a bit two-dimensional (the villains in particular were basically walking cliches - (view spoiler)[which didn't make it any less gratifying to see them suffer and die, mind you (hide spoiler)]), overall I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Much less "heavy" than I'd expected, too. I'm sure there's a bad pun about tufa in there somewhere.

By the way: Granny Esme? Wonder if that's a coincidence...

well.... I finished it. It was ok, but I honestly couldn't get past my issue with the premise. There were a people living in the Tennessee hills long before white settlers came to them, and I see no reason the Tufa would have been treated any differently then they were. Yes, yes magic but Andrew Jackson called out the Army to force the Cherokee down the Trail of Tears and my suspension of disbelief only goes so far. The book never addressed it and it felt like the elephant sitting in the middle of the room. The author used racism when it allowed the villains to twirl their metophorical mustaches, but otherwise no real consequences.