The Sword and Laser discussion

Cucamelons, short lists, long lists, Tom sings Le Sserafim, and we talk about books that changed our view of the world. Plus, what book would you want to portal into? Our first non-spoilery first impressions of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews.

https://www.swordandlaser.com/home/20...

Hate to tell you this, but I did a quick re-read or re listen of the Bobiverse series because there is a new one coming out September 10, The Infinite Extent. Thank you short book A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang. It got an extra star just for being short. My Laser challenge is going way over. What I meant by the Mary Sue and the four doorways comment is that the 4 doorways is a much nicer way to explain why you did not like a book. The literary equivalence of an " It's not you, It's Me" criticism.

Good to hear another K-pop bop on the show. I think the hosts should introduce a new section where they talk about the music they’re listening to and sing a few lines

Haaa, that would be easy for me.

* Pink Floyd
* Pink Floyd
* Roger Waters
* Pink Floyd

The only real question would be, which era. (Pre-Dark Side, Dark Side through Final Cut, Gilmour Floyd. Then solo stuff.)

Veronica wrote: "we talk about books that changed our view of the world. Plus, what book would you want to portal into?"

What fun questions! (Though I can't find the convo in discord so I'll share my answers here) And really, this is what I look for in SFF: A way of seeing the world that I never imagined, so for "Books that changed my view of the world, I could probably list dozens, but I'll just share the first three that come to mind:

The Gods Themselves - my first read that explored the multiverse, a concept I occasionally obsess over still. Also, I was a philosophy student at the time, and I found it an surprisingly strong defense of David Hume b/c it posits "What if all life in our universe was an accident caused by blob monsters having an orgy?"
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia - Made me look at the comfortable life modernity grants me, what the cost is, and whether it's worth fighting for justice when I'm not personally inconvenienced by injustices around me (Answer: YES)
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us - Made me realize that the world as I know it can be a very very different world from non-humans, and that all that we think we know is limited by our senses and what we can deduce from them, and that is actually not very much. It's non-fiction about animals, but excellent fodder for pondering aliens.

For a world I'd want to port into, I agree that it's tricky for a lot of Fantasy, although I'd love to go to a Bed and Breakfast in The Shire. If you get to have special powers when you're there, like Howl from Howl's Moving Castle, that wouldn't be so bad though.
I'd probably want to port into the world of the White Space novels by Elizabeth Bear (see Ancestral Night). It's a future where people live almost totally in harmony with all kinds of super-funky aliens, one person had a custom pet made from the genes of a dinosaur and that kind of tech sounds rad, and my favourite feature: You can manually control your chemical reactions to manipulate things like stress, adrenaline, alertness, depression, etc. The result is a still human but far less toxic world, plus making friends with giant mantis monsters.