The Sword and Laser discussion

what book, show, comic, game, etc and so on are you looking forward to, currently reading, or cant wait to get your grubby little hands on?

I did a similiar thread last year and once again I am in search of the awesome.

Agent Carter is rocking my socks! So much fun and really well done.

Dragon Age Inquisition is becoming an obsession.
I've watched Guardians of the Galaxy an unhealthy number of times.
I just binge watched the entire Futurama and it was great.
Also, Monkey 47 Gin is amazing.

Agent Carter is suprisingly fun so far.

Agent Carter is rocking it.

With her takedown of the bad guy just before the last commercial break I just taglined her: "Working smarter, Agent Carter."

Trike wrote: "Agent Carter is rocking it.

With her takedown of the bad guy just before the last commercial break I just taglined her: "Working smarter, Agent Carter.""

Awesome.

I was going to post Agent Carter until everyone else mentioned it. So I won't :-) Looking forward to it, as I haven't yet downloaded it watched it. ;-) Probably see it tomorrow.

I'm also looking forward to:
Seeing the final "The Hobbit" movie.
Playing "Rise of The Tomb Raider" for Xbox One at the end of the year.
Reading Volume 4 of Saga and hopefully another story arc by years end.
Reading the next Game of thrones book. (Cut and Paste each January until it finally gets published) ;-)
Watching "12 Monkeys" TV Show.

Any more room on the Agent Carter bandwagon? I just watched it, my expectations non-existent, and HOLY COW, was it good.

Good to hear. I was raiding last night and didn't get to watch it. Something to look forward to after work.

I have the latest Stephen Baxter in my to-read pile and a new Neal Asher due at the end of the month. Also have too many TV shows to mention to catch up on as the last few months have been so busy that I've hardly had time to catch my breath. I'm planning on spending a big chunk of January sat on my ass.

I'm stoked for Jo Walton's The Just City. The premise seems great. We'll see if it matches my expectations. Also looking forward to finishing the Inheritance trilogy now that I finally have the omnibus.

Looking forward to the return of Arrow and the Flash - both have been really fun and had great mid-season finales.

My current music obsessions:

Taiga by Zola Jesus
Black Messiah by D'Angelo
Opera singer Anna Netrebko - I especially love her in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.
Opera singer René Pape - his perfomance as Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal might be one of the most beautiful things I've heard. It's amazing. http://metopera.org/video/watch/parsi...

I am really looking forward to Gemini Cell by Myke Cole. His books keep getting better.

I am also really looking forward to the last season of Justified. It started with a bang, now how does it end?

Gemini Cell did rock socks, (i reviewed it) and Justified is awesome, I hope to get seasons 4 and 5 to add to my collection.

I love Justified. Season 2, with the amazing Margo Martindale as Mags Bennett, is my favorite. Great stuff.

Definitely yes to Arrow and Flash. Sleepy Hollow, not so much - it really lost steam after the first season.

Agent Carter was interesting. It reminded me of the Dick Tracy movie in that color and old-style sets were a big part of the show. Action was good. The sexism felt weird but that was a part of life then.

Not sure I liked the "fat=bad" bit where the fat guy was sloppy, didn't wear a tie, and had a mustard stain on his shirt in one scene. C'mon Hollywood.

well my musical twitter station is still up and having fun with it, I got a huge stack of books to read and Justified is in 13 days, soooooooo the world is good :)

I have watched the first two episodes three times now and it is still rocking my socks: Galavant.

For those who don't know, it's a musical miniseries on ABC very much in the vein of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here's the trailer: http://youtu.be/hPNVhGbw_Sg

Just seeing Vinnie Jones dance is worth it.

Trike wrote: "I have watched the first two episodes three times now and it is still rocking my socks: Galavant."

The trailer you linked to is region locked. I presume this is the same one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HebCU...

It looks interesting. But those songs could get annoying real fast if they over do it :-?

I watched Agent Carter last night, and quite enjoyable so far. I'm not sure why it's only going to be 8 episodes. I guess they just to tell a specific story about the origins of Shield and not have a spin off?

I'm OK with that if that's the reason. Often times things that are popular and would work better with fewer episodes get dragged out for the money.

Oh the first season of 24 was popular? Then let's do that concept that made it cool to death and have it more and more over the top each time we do..

Wil Wheaton interviewed Patton Oswald recently and he talked about how TV has transformed, and many of the best shows don't really for syndication, which personally I prefer. I'd rather them tell one continuing story than have a "story of the week".

I think Person of Interest is a much stronger show when they are just telling one big story rather than the person of the week format they started with. They seem to go back to it from time to time, but I find those weaker than say this week's episode, which was fantastic.

Cable is making better shows because they don't seem to be afraid to make shows that don't work as well in syndication. Or instead of making a single episode you can watch, they make a season long story arc to follow.

It seems like Network TV is finally coming around on the idea, at least in some shows..

I suspect that telling longform stories rather than episodic nuggets has a lot to do with the change in technology. (Which is a very Science Fictional thing of technology changing society in ways large and small. My favorite quote on this topic is, "A good science fiction writer invents the car; a great science fiction writer comes up with the traffic jam." I only wish I could recall who said it first. Maybe I did.)

Anyway, today with DVRs and on-demand viewing and online streaming, it seems like most TV series are available all of the time in one format or another. VCRs were already changing our TV habits to more time-shifted viewing, but the transformation is complete nowadays when even regular folks speak of "binge watching" and "viewing marathons."

Back in the day it made more sense for shows to be stand-alone, because if you missed an episode then you missed it, period. Maybe you might get to see it during summer reruns, but you couldn't count on that.

I remember when The WB demanded that Whedon make Angel more episodic back around the turn of the century. Even then it felt like that was oldthink; I can't imagine a network actually demanding that today.

That said, all of the most popular TV series still seem to be a mix of episodic and continuing stories, because I don't think people over 50 binge watch as much as youngsters do, plus there's a certain inertia society has even when changes are afoot.

Trike wrote: "My favorite quote on this topic is, "A good science fiction writer invents the car; a great science fiction writer comes up with the traffic jam." I only wish I could recall who said it first. Maybe I did.)"

A quick Google search indicates that Larry Niven may have come up with it.

Along the same lines, I know John Scalzi has commented on how the threshold has changed in terms of people appreciating their technology--he usually uses a smartphone example, like a standard character would think, "Wow, what an amazing technology of the FUTURE!" but one who grew up with it would be "Ugh, it doesn't load my videos quickly enough!" Much more realistic in my view! Haha. :)

Agent Carter is a lot of fun. It is perfect comic book material. I hope they keep it super hero/villain free. It doesn't need to be that type of show to work.

Rob wrote: "Oh the first season of 24 was popular? Then let's do that concept that made it cool to death and have it more and more over the top each time we do.."

Agreed, the first 2 series were great. It got too unbelievable after that.
Though I thought the last series being only 12 episodes long was a lot tighter.

I remember thinking at the time that 24 should end as a single season with Jack dying at the end. If I remember correct it had a lot of traditional tragedy elements in it that would have made that make sense.

I've said it before, but the season long arc was one of the things that drew me to anime in the first place. I liked that most of the shows I liked were only 20 something episodes with a distinct beging, middle, and end.

David wrote: "A quick Google search indicates that Larry Niven may have come up with it."

Except that I'm the one who attributed it to Niven. Everyone keeps quoting my original statement from back in the 90s on rec.arts.sf.written.

I probably misquoted Niven, but my misquote seems to be stickier. At this point I can't recall where I read it and I was never able to track it down again.

Trike wrote: "My favorite quote on this topic is, "A good science fiction writer invents the car; a great science fiction writer comes up with the traffic jam." I only wish I could recall who said it first. Maybe I did.)"

It is probably someone paraphrasing an Isaac Asimov quote:

"Keep in mind the fact that social science fiction is not easy to write. It is easy to predict an automobile in 1880; it is very hard to predict a traffic problem. The former is really only an extrapolation of the railroad. The latter is something completely novel and unexpected."

Isaac Asimov from an essay titled "Social Science Fiction" (1953)

It is mentioned on this site:
http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0109/re...

High five to you, Tassie Dave.

Henceforth I shall take partial credit for the saying, since I'm the one who turned it into a phrase that will fit on a bumper sticker or t-shirt.

I finally saw the last Hobbit movie, which I thought was awesome.

I blow peoples minds around my neck of the woods by saying I have no intention of watching the Hobbit LOL

Waiting to get the next Ben Aaronovich novel, Foxglove Summer. One of the downsides of having a birthday late in January, trying to leave a couple easy things on the wishlist...

I just finished reading the Rook by Daniel O'Malley. It was fantastic.

Justified! Yeah! Although I'm sad it'll be the last season. Same with Parks and Rec :( Two of my faves will be leaving after this season.

Archer is always good fun.

I'm never too up to date on what books are being released when so I can't get excited yet, but ones I know for sure are The Autumn Republic and Queen of Fire.

And then ones I'm hoping for: The Thorn of Emberlain from Lynch and Doors of Stone from Patty Rothfuss but I doubt either will be this year.

Pat said in a recent tweet that Doors of Stone would not be released in 2015.

I believe the fourth installment in the Warded Man series is coming out soon. The third one ended on... well, not a cliffhanger, exactly, but certainly cliff-adjacent, so I'm curious to see what he does with that.

It's got a cool cover. I forget the character's name, but it looks like the girl who hangs out with ol' Wardy.

I really need to pick that series back up. I loved the first, but got bogged down and moved on to other things.

I feel like I'm excited by ALL THE THINGS right now. It's a good feeling, knowing there's so much I wish to read and watch and listen to that I can't possibly keep up.

Yeah, I've been stuck in the third book of Demon Cycle so far. Thinking I'll pick it back up soon.

Trike wrote: The third one ended on... well, not a cliffhanger, exactly, but certainly cliff-adjacent, so I'm curious to see what he..."

heh.

I'm about 85% of the way through The Republic of Thieves. Holy crap, I'm enjoying it. Some of the things that annoyed me about the first book (which nevertheless still forcibly removed my socks) have been addressed here. I wonder if the author listened to feedback from fans, or he meant to get around to that character all along?

I recently started watching the 2005 BBC TV adaptation of Dickens' novel Bleak House. I'm really enjoying it, especially Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock and Charles Dance as Mr. Tulkinghorn.

I'm gobsmacked that the Pirate King Peter the Pillager from last night's Galavant was played by Hugh Bonneville, aka Lord Grantham from Downton Abbey. Even after watching the video clips multiple times I still can't see him. Kudos to Hugh for being able to disappear into a role like that.

Check out the second video: http://www.screenfad.com/galavant/gal...

I just rewatched S1 of Orphan Black and started S2 -- need to get caught up before S3 begins in April. I cannot say enough good things about that show, and about Tatiana Maslany in particular.

I'm also thrilled that Cowboy Bebop is now out on Blu-ray -- again, a convenient excuse to revisit it.

And I got the first Rat Queens trade paperback collection.

Joseph wrote: "I just rewatched S1 of Orphan Black and started S2 -- need to get caught up before S3 begins in April. I cannot say enough good things about that show, and about Tatiana Maslany in particular."

I'm really enjoying Orphan Black, though I'm still in the middle of Season 1 (watching it for the first time, but not binging it). Trying to avoid spoilers, but hard with the blogs I follow.

Orphan Black is the #1 show I'm geeked for in 2015

I am about 1/2 way through this month's selection, The Sparrow, and it is rocking my socks!

I also have a couple new musical obsessions:

Too Bright by Perfume Genius
Vulnicura by Bjork

The Flash! How far we've come from the "no tights, no flights" days of early Smallville. Actual superheroes and Supervillains on television. How refreshing! I couldn't care less about the DC movies. Keep bringing the weekly action.

Ben wrote: "I'm stoked for Jo Walton's The Just City. The premise seems great. We'll see if it matches my expectations. "

Second this. Jo Walton i great and The Juts City looks incredible.
Also looking forward to Neil Gaiman's new short story collection!

Thane wrote: "The Flash! How far we've come from the "no tights, no flights" days of early Smallville. Actual superheroes and Supervillains on television. How refreshing! I couldn't care less about the DC movies..."

Amen!

Joel wrote: "I just finished reading the Rook by Daniel O'Malley. It was fantastic."

Stiletto (Rook 2) is slated to come out this year!

I think I first heard about The Rook on one of the video shows, a viewer taped a review of it. I love it a lot more than I thought I could love a main character whose name I cannot pronounce. "Myfanwy" My midwest upbringing did not prepare me for that.

Andy wrote: "Joel wrote: "I just finished reading the Rook by Daniel O'Malley. It was fantastic."

Stiletto (Rook 2) is slated to come out this year!

I think I first heard about The Rook on one of the video sh..."

I wonder if O'Malley will continue with the letters from Thomas in Stiletto. I really enjoyed that aspect of the Rook, but it seemed by the end of the book that Myfanwy would no longer need those letters. If the author doesn't continue with Thomas, I don't know if I'll end up liking it as much as the first. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Joel wrote: "I wonder if O'Malley will continue with the letters from Thomas in Stiletto. I really enjoyed that aspect of the Rook, but it seemed by the end of the book that Myfanwy would no longer need those letters. If the author doesn't continue with Thomas, I don't know if I'll end up liking it as much as the first. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. "

Agreed, I loved the premise of the book. The mystery and letters really brought me into the world. I will walk into the sequel hopeful.