Hyperion, Ernest Cline, And... Space Goats? - Sword & laser ep. 4

[MUSIC PLAYING] VERONICA BELMONT: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Sword and Laser show. I'm Veronica Belmont. TOM MERRITT: And I'm Tom Merritt. VERONICA BELMONT: And this is a show for anyone who loves science fiction, fantasy, swords, castles. TOM MERRITT: Lasers. VERONICA BELMONT: Lasers, obviously. TOM MERRITT: Space goats. VERONICA BELMONT: All of that good stuff. And hey, if you're new to the show, then we do a lot of cool stuff. We interview authors, science fiction fantasy authors. We talk about all the discussions you guys are having over on Goodreads. And we talk about the latest news in the science fiction and fantasy world. TOM MERRITT: And today we're very excited to have Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, joining us to talk about his book, as well as hear what you guys thought of our book of the month, Hyperion, by Daniel Simmons. VERONICA BELMONT: Hmm mm. But right now it's time to put up your blast shields and get ready to be blasted by news. It is the Quick Burns. Upcoming4.me reports that Gollancz has revealed cover art for a new Scott Lynch book called The *** and the Knives, The Mad Baron's Mechanical Attic and the Choir of Knives, an Omnibus, the Gentleman ***-- The Prequel. Wow. The subtitle refers to two short stories set in the Gentlemen ***'s universe. Expect the book to come out after the release of the Republic of Thieves, whenever that ends up being. TOM MERRITT: I know. I'm looking forward to that one, too. Have you always wanted to narrate audiobooks? Well, here's your chance to learn from the pros. StarShipSofa is holding an online narrator's workshop June 10 with some of the best voice actors in the genre field. Guest speakers are Kate Baker of Clark's World magazine, Peter Seaton-Clark from Offstimme, Mike Boris of Mike Boris Audio, and Nathan Lowell, author of Solar Clipper. Get trained up onto audiobook reading. VERONICA BELMONT: I want to do that. TOM MERRITT: I want to do that too, actually. VERONICA BELMONT: I just narrated a short story, actually, for Andrew Mayne-- TOM MERRITT: I know, that's awesome. VERONICA BELMONT: --called Secret Identity. It was a lot of fun. TOM MERRITT: Plug. VERONICA BELMONT: It was a little plug. It was a little, tiny plug. But it was super fun. Check it out over at Andrew Mayne short stories podcast. TOM MERRITT: That was not an official Quick Burn. VERONICA BELMONT: That was not an official Quick Burn. I digress. Want to see some Ursula K Le Guin on stage? You can help. SF Signal reports Untitled Theater Company #61 are bringing The Lathe Of Heaven to the stage. And to get top quality visual equipment they've launched a Kickstarter page. Donations will get you a ticket or two to the premier. Music is by Henry Akona, and video design is by Kate Freer and David Tennant. TOM MERRITT: Wait, that David Tennant? VERONICA BELMONT: I believe so. TOM MERRITT: Wow, that's pretty awesome. Got a favorite speculative fiction podcast you listen to? Time to make it an award winning speculative fiction podcast. Nominations for the annual Parsec Awards have opened online. The awards are presented at DragonCon each year in six general categories. Go to parsecawards.com to make a nomination. VERONICA BELMONT: Yes, and in fact we will be at DragonCon as we are always at DragonCon. So if you are going to DragonCon, you should come see us there. TOM MERRITT: Our dragon probably won't be there. VERONICA BELMONT: He probably-- he or she. TOM MERRITT: Oddly. VERONICA BELMONT: Sorry, I shouldn't be so gender biased and just call him-- we haven't figured it out yet. TOM MERRITT: Assumptions. VERONICA BELMONT: We haven't figured it out yet. So the John W Campbell Award finalists have been announced. Among the 11 finalists are China Mieville, Gene Wolfe, and today's guest, Ernest Cline. TOM MERRITT: Hey, congrats. VERONICA BELMONT: The awards will be presented in Lawrence, Kansas on Friday, July 6. And thanks to Charles for tipping us off. TOM MERRITT: Time for your take. And Aaron is setting the bar for all you video reviewers out there. He sent us three white board reviews. This week, we'll show you his take on an Orson Scott Card book. MALE SPEAKER: Everybody knows Orson Scott Card for Ender's Game and its many sequels, except those who know him from the Alvin Maker series or some other third thing. You probably don't know him from his collaborations with Kathryn Kidd. No, you've never heard of her. Lovelock is the story of an arc starship headed for a distant colony led by scholars so busy with lofty thoughts that they are given genetically modified animal companions. The hook? The book is narrated by Lovelock, a monkey companion to a brilliant scientist. It's a departure from Card's multivolume works while still maintaining his trademark moral quandaries. Plus, hey, monkey. TOM MERRITT: Those are so good. VERONICA BELMONT: That was awesome. That was way more creative than I could ever possibly imagine from a white board video. TOM MERRITT: And he sent us three. And then we said these are great. He's like, don't say that. I'll send you more. That was awesome. VERONICA BELMONT: Send us more. TOM MERRITT: Very good. VERONICA BELMONT: We like stuff like that. Because I'm not creative. But you obviously are. So well done. Hey, you can send us your videos, and you could be on the show next week. And we'll send a package of prizes, including books and stickers. Just upload your message to your favorite video hosting provider, like, say YouTube, for example. And email the link to us at feedback@swordandlaser.com. TOM MERRITT: Coming up, we tear through Hyperion like a Shrike through time. And Ernest Cline reveals cheat codes for all video games. VERONICA BELMONT: What? TOM MERRITT: Maybe, maybe not. But first what did or didn't happen on a day similar to but not the same as this day in alternate history. VERONICA BELMONT: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Sword and Laser. We are extremely pleased to have Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One on the show today. Ready Player One was our book pick last October. So we've had some great discussion on Goodreads and on the audio podcast. But now we get answers from the man himself. Welcome, Mr. Cline. May I call you Ernie? ERNEST CLINE: Of course. Thank you for having me. VERONICA BELMONT: Of course. So for the five people or so out there in our audience who haven't read Ready Player One, can you give us a brief synopsis? ERNEST CLINE: Sure. The story's set from about 30 years from now when the real world is kind of a crappy place due to climate change and peak oil. So a lot of people a big chunk of the world, spend time in a virtual reality simulation called the Oasis, which is kind of the coolest possible future version of the internet, combining social networking and the World Wide Web all kind of mashed into this sprawling virtual reality. And the creator of this virtual reality, James Halliday, dies in the opening pages of the book. And he leaves his entire fortune and control of this virtual world to whoever can solve these video game puzzles that he's left behind to locate this Easter egg that he's hidden inside the game. And the hook is that all of these puzzles and riddles that he's left behind to unlock deal with classic 1980s video games and '80s movies and kind of the pop culture of the 1980s, which he grew up obsessed with. So to win this huge fortune, all of these players have to become experts in 1980s pop culture. TOM MERRITT: I think, obviously, we could spend all day talking about the various influences in the book. But is there a particular influence for Halliday's character? Or is it a combination of like Nolan Bushnell and other folks? ERNEST CLINE: The two guys that were the main inspiration were Howard Hughes, who was a little unbalanced, but also brilliant, and then Richard Garriott, who invented all the Ultima games and Ultima online. And he was a hero of mine growing up. I loved his games. And so I kind of combined Howard Hughes and Richard Garriott. Richard Garriott, if people don't know, he's the video game designer who paid to go into space a few years ago. And he lives in Austin where I do and has a huge mansion full of secret passages and weird artifacts that he's collected. So he's kind of an example of what a really eccentric geek with a huge amount of money can do. And so I kind of conflated Howard Hughes and Richard Garriott for Halliday's character. And guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs and kind of a lot of industry titans are kind of mashed together into that character. VERONICA BELMONT: I think it's worth noting, too, that one of our Geek & Sundry brethren, Wil Wheaton, who does the show TableTop, also narrates the audiobook. How did you guys make that connection? ERNEST CLINE: I've always been a huge fan of Wil. And I used to do spoken word recordings and put them on my website. And at some point, Wil discovered my website and linked to it on a lark. And that resulted in me selling a ton of CDs. And we kind of became online friends as a result that. But I was always a huge fan of his acting. And he's kind of an '80s nerd icon himself, so even before I finished the book, I knew that if there was ever an audiobook, that I would want Wil to do it. So I asked him, and he remembered who I was and said yes. And I know I'm biased, but it's my favorite audiobook of all time. He does all the voices and brings all the characters to life in a way that's amazing. And so I couldn't be happier with the job he did on the audiobook. And I'm powering that connection to get a guest spot in the next season of TableTop. I really wanted to be on that show. TOM MERRITT: I'm sure-- ERNEST CLINE: I'm going to work my way through all the Geek & Sundry shows. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, I'm sure that could definitely be arranged. VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, we know some people. ERNEST CLINE: Right on. TOM MERRITT: One thing just about the audiobook that I found hilarious was when Wil Wheaton is reading the part about how Wil Wheaton had become one of the governors of the online world. Cory Doctorow was the other one mentioned. Would he have been a backup choice for reading Ready Player One. ERNEST CLINE: No, no. Wil was always my first choice to read. And when I put that in the book, Cory Doctorow had also linked to my spoken word stuff on his site. So I felt like I owed Wil and Cory both a favor. And that was why I made them the future presidents of the internet. And having no idea that Wil would end up reading the audiobook, he didn't read the book in advance. He reads the book for the first time as he goes along. So he didn't discover he was in the book until that day when he actually recorded it. TOM MERRITT: That's great. That's really funny. VERONICA BELMONT: So I think the question that everyone wants to know right now is how is the movie coming along? The movie is in the works. Where are we with that right now? ERNEST CLINE: Well, the movie rights were bought by Warner Brothers the day after I sold the rights to the book. And since I had had screenwriting experience with my movie Fanboys and some other screenplays that I'd written, they let me write the first draft of the screenplay, which was one of the hardest writing jobs of my life. It's a really dense book full of a lot of stuff. And shrinking a 400-page book down to a 120-page thing was really hard. And the big hurdle that everyone's worried about is all the licensing, all of the pop culture elements that are included in the book and whether or not that's going to be able to translate directly to the movie. And I feel really lucky in that it's Warner Brothers that bought the movie rights. And they did all the Harry Potter adaptations, which I think are about as faithful as you can be while still making a book cinematic. And since they're Warner Brothers and they're the biggest movie studio in the world, they have a huge back catalog of '80s video games and '80s movies and music. So even if we have to change some stuff, we still have a huge library to work from. So I have really high hopes. There's still not a director attached yet. There are a lot of directors that I am really excited about, that they're sending the script out to. But no one's come on board yet. So until a director comes on board, I'm not going to get too excited. But I have a wish list of guys like Robert Zemeckis who did Back to the Future, people like that, that I would love to work on the movie. But I'm just waiting to see what happens. TOM MERRITT: You hear that Robert Zemeckis? Call this guy. ERNEST CLINE: Please. TOM MERRITT: All right, Andy wrote on a Goodreads, "Ready Player One is a love note to the '80s. Is there a trend that Ernie is happy that we have moved away from, from the '80s?" And then he adds, "Was there any games or movies that you wish you could have worked into the plot that didn't make it?" ERNEST CLINE: A trend in the '80s that we've moved away from? TOM MERRITT: That you're glad we moved away from. ERNEST CLINE: Maybe the hair. TOM MERRITT: Hair. ERNEST CLINE: Yeah. TOM MERRITT: Definitely. ERNEST CLINE: The hair. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, I'm definitley glad about the hair. ERNEST CLINE: And maybe the Cold War. Those would be the two things about the '80s. And his second question was what? TOM MERRITT: Andy, his second question is were there any games or movies that you wish you could have worked into the plot that just didn't make it? ERNEST CLINE: Well, no. When I was writing it, I was kind of throwing in everything in the kitchen sink. Everything that occurred to me, I threw in there. And nobody made me take anything out. But after I wrote the book and then it came out, everybody who reads it is always kind of looking for a reference to their favorite thing from the '80s or something, like whatever their favorite thing was, like Garbage Pail Kids. VERONICA BELMONT: All right. And P Aaron wants to know, on a more biographical note, "Clearly the gaming metanarrative is essential to Ready Player One. How much opportunity does Cline have to actually play games anymore? If so, what forms? Do you do table top, MMO, console gaming, and why those?" ERNEST CLINE: Whenever I go back to Ohio, which is where I grew up, I still play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons with my high school buddies. And then at home, I love Half-Life 2, and I play a lot of first person shooters. I'll jump on Quake Live when I feel like killing some people just to let off stress. I'm excited about Diablo 3, although I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, because I've been travelling. So yeah, I don't have as much time to game as I used to. But I still game whenever I get a chance. Skyrim ate up a whole big chunk of my year. VERONICA BELMONT: Yes. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, Veronica's, too. VERONICA BELMONT: Over 110 hours. TOM MERRITT: Wow. ERNEST CLINE: Oh, I wish they didn't have the time in there. I really don't want to know how much time I've devoted to Skyrim. TOM MERRITT: All right, our last question comes from Michael. He wants to know how you decided what level of explanation to use when referencing elements from pop culture, especially the '80s pop culture. ERNEST CLINE: You know, I think I just played it by ear. I have spent a long time working tech supports and helping people use the internet over the phone. I think that might be why I explain like certain elements of technology or certain things to a degree, Just because I want to make sure people understand them. Some people feel like I overexplain things, where other people tell me they really appreciate when I would explain things. And there's a lot of references that aren't explained. But the one that are kind of integral to the plot or to the puzzles, I would spell those out and make sure people understood what I was talking about, just so they could follow the story, even if they weren't familiar with the pop culture elements that I was talking about. TOM MERRITT: Well, Ernie, thanks so much for taking the time and the persistence. We had some connection errors that we were fighting through here today. We really appreciate you talking with us. ERNEST CLINE: I really appreciate you guys having me on. I love your show. TOM MERRITT: Absolutely. Ready Player One is the name of the book. You can find it in bookstores everywhere or on audiobook. Coming up, the hot books for June. And also we pay off our time debt to the All Thing. Don't farcast away. We'll be right back. VERONICA BELMONT: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Sword and Laser. It's time now to wrap up Hyperion, see what's coming out the first week of June, and check your feedback. But let's start off with a video review of Hyperion from one of our book club members. Keith was good enough to send us a video review of what he thought. KEITH: Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I read this many years ago. I remember I couldn't put it down. The complexity, the scope of it, was amazing. This group of characters on an interstellar spacecraft who find themselves traveling together to the planet Hyperion. This creature known as the Shrike, it was horrifying. Any time the Shrike showed up, you were afraid. And in the sequel, it was completely different. It was so bad, it made me never want to read Dan Simmons again, and I haven't. And because of this, I don't recommend Hyperion. TOM MERRITT: Wow. VERONICA BELMONT: Ouch. OK. TOM MERRITT: OK, so he liked Hyperion. VERONICA BELMONT: Totally understand, though. I totally understand. But I just love how he's like, oh this book is great. I loved this book. It's so complex. The characters are so interesting. I would not recommend it. TOM MERRITT: You know I liked Keith's video at first, because it was compelling and it sucks me in. But then it took a right turn at the end, and for that-- no, I actually loved that. That was a great-- VERONICA BELMONT: That was a great review. No, seriously. And I do have to say, I kind of agree with some of the parts of that. Meaning, I was very upset when I got to the end. But before we talk to that, it's a spoiler warning. [SIRENS] VERONICA BELMONT: We have to let let you guys know that we are going to discuss major plot points of the book. So spoiler warning. TOM MERRITT: OK. You've had a chance to skip ahead. VERONICA BELMONT: You have had a chance to skip ahead. There will be an annotation in the video to put you to the end of the thing if you haven't already. But anyway, yeah, so when I got to the end of the book and things just kind of stopped and we didn't get to see the encounter with the Shrike after all we built up to, I almost through my Kindle across the room. TOM MERRITT: Now, I had been prepared for this, because everybody said, you're not going to like the ending. You're going to have read the second book. And I have started the second book. But I was OK with that. VERONICA BELMONT: I don't know if I expected it to be that much of a cliffhanger, though. TOM MERRITT: I was almost fine with it. I was almost like, you know, it kind of leaves it in my imagination. VERONICA BELMONT: You're mental. TOM MERRITT: I'm good with that. VERONICA BELMONT: No. No. No. You are not good with that. You are going to read the second book. TOM MERRITT: It means it's open to whatever interpretation I want to put on it. VERONICA BELMONT: No, that is baloney. TOM MERRITT: That is a luncheon meat. VERONICA BELMONT: OK, OK, anyways. TOM MERRITT: OK, I've got some representative samples of what the audience thought. And they don't disagree with you, some of them. Brittany was one of the people who said, "this is one of the books that swept me in and kept me reading long past my lunch break was over. I'm already a good part of the way into the second one." So she was among the many people who loved Hyperion. There was also an opposite camp. Caroline said, "Yeah, I finished it a few days ago. I have to say, I really didn't like it. I enjoyed Sol and Brawne Lamia's story. But none of the rest of it captured my attention. It a real slog. To me, it was like a super skilled jazz saxophonist who doesn't know when to stop. You can admire the skill and parts of it will really speak to you. But the rest is whittling." VERONICA BELMONT: Whittling. Ah, interesting. TOM MERRITT: And then there's Tiffany. Tiffany said, "I finished the book yesterday. And to be honest my reaction was, meh. I can take it or leave it. Like many others, Sol's story was the most compelling for me. And I think if I were to continue on to The Fall of Hyperion, it would be to find out what happens to Sol. To be entirely honest, I'm kind of rooting for the AIs and the Ousters in this whole thing. I think that humans have been pretty arrogant. And I don't think that they deserve all the amenities that they have acquired. Let the Shrike have them." VERONICA BELMONT: Oh, man. OK. Well, yes. It was another one of those situations where there-- I mean, we're never going to escape it. We're never going to pick a book that every single person loves. TOM MERRITT: Of course not. VERONICA BELMONT: I thought maybe this would be a little different, though, because-- TOM MERRITT: Did you not like it? VERONICA BELMONT: No, I loved it. TOM MERRITT: OK, you just didn't like that you were cliff-hanged. VERONICA BELMONT: I was just pissed of at the ending. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, yeah. VERONICA BELMONT: But that's beside the point. I should've expected it. People warned us. But let's quickly talk about some of the different parts of the book and the stories. So the first one was the man who cried God, and that was "The Priest's Tale." And that dealt with Father Paul Dure and Lenar Hoyt. And this story, I think, really kicked off the book in a major way. It was gripping. It was terrifying, frankly. TOM MERRITT: Suspenseful, too. You know? VERONICA BELMONT: Very suspenseful. TOM MERRITT: It's hard to tell where it was going. VERONICA BELMONT: And the ending was just so gut wrenching. And the fact that now Hoyt is carrying the cruciforms, two cruciforms, on his body is like, oh, that's not good. And actually, there were a lot of great discussions about the relationship between Christianity and the cruciform that were going on Goodreads. And Alden O'Neil started a great discussion thread about that. TOM MERRITT: Oh, thanks to Alden for leading the discussion. VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, he was our discussion leader for this book. And he did a great job, chapter by chapter, starting discussions. That was one of my favorite stories. Not my favorite, though. I agree with most of the commenters who gave us feedback that the story of Sol Weintrub and his daughter Rachel was the best, in my opinion. I would have liked to have read a whole story about that. Oh, wait, OK, so what's your problem? You sighed. TOM MERRITT: I saw that coming so far away. I'm like, oh, Rachel is the baby. VERONICA BELMONT: Well, like as soon as they announce that he had a daughter? TOM MERRITT: Yeah, I was like, oh, OK, so I know what this story is about. I just felt like I-- VERONICA BELMONT: Didn't you enjoy figuring out how they got there? Didn't you like to see the progression of the story? TOM MERRITT: I'm not saying I didn't like it. I enjoyed it. But it wasn't my favorite. I thought the Fedmahn Kassad story with the historical allusions was really-- VERONICA BELMONT: And the surprise, like, ***. TOM MERRITT: Well, that part was not so much why I liked it. I'm sure that's what everybody-- oh, you just liked the ***. No, I liked the historical bits-- VERONICA BELMONT: It wasn't really ***. TOM MERRITT: --at the beginning of it. VERONICA BELMONT: No, that was super cool. That made me think of old Star Trek holodeck days. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, my least favorite was Brawne Lamia. I just felt like it was too trying to be like a Raymond Chandler novel and not succeeding. VERONICA BELMONT: But I really liked the John Keats connection. TOM MERRITT: I did like the Keats character. VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah. I thought that character, Johnny, was really interesting. And I connected with him in a lot of ways, even though he was basically like an android, cylon-ish type of character. TOM MERRITT: But a much more interesting of that type of character than usually you get. A lot more depth to him. VERONICA BELMONT: My least favorite story was "The Poet's Tale." TOM MERRITT: I think that was probably my second least favorite. VERONICA BELMONT: A lot of people agreed with me, I think, on that front. There were a lot of complaints that that was the point at which they lemmed the book. TOM MERRITT: Lemming meaning just abandoning, stop reading the book. VERONICA BELMONT: Abandoning the book. Yes. That is one of our Sword and Laser terms, in case you haven't heard us use it liberally. TOM MERRITT: You know what I loved about "The Poet's Tale," which redeemed it for me. I didn't so much like his story, but I liked seeing the sweep of history that was in this universe and what happened to Earth and why and where he went. I liked that background part of it. VERONICA BELMONT: What a sad story. I mean, I still don't fully grasp, I think, what happened to old Earth. Do you remember? I think I may have---- TOM MERRITT: A singularity. That's all I remember being explained. VERONICA BELMONT: But I guess it was the singularity. Well, not the singularity. TOM MERRITT: Well, not the singularity, like, we're all going to be-- like a black hole type singularity. VERONICA BELMONT: Oh, oh. TOM MERRITT: That kind of-- VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah. TOM MERRITT: Yeah. VERONICA BELMONT: Well, I guess there was kind of a singularity, because there were, artificial life, alien intelligence. TOM MERRITT: Right, that's a different kind of singularity. VERONICA BELMONT: That was the singularity that I thought you were talking about. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, no. I'm talking about black holes. VERONICA BELMONT: OK, black holes. TOM MERRITT: Yeah. VERONICA BELMONT: That was sad, though. It was very touching starting with his childhood and him growing up in the South of the Americas is the feeling I got. And just not having any kind of outside connection with the rest of the universe at that point. Being very sheltered. I liked that part of it. But he's not my favorite character, Martin Selinus. TOM MERRITT: All right, well we could talk about this forever, honestly. The discussion will continue at goodreads.com and on our audio podcasts, which actually we mentioned this on the audio podcast. But Chris, I think, had the best line on Goodreads. He said, Jorge Luis Borges wrote about lemming books. Lemming is our term for abandoning a book in the middle. VERONICA BELMONT: So he didn't really, literally write about lemming the book, he just-- TOM MERRITT: He didn't call it that. VERONICA BELMONT: Same idea. TOM MERRITT: Chris says, he said something like if you start a book and it doesn't speak to you, put it down. It wasn't written for you. But there are plenty of books that are. And I think that's good advice to folks who are like, I didn't like The Magicians. I didn't like Hyperion. There's a book coming that you will like. VERONICA BELMONT: And thanks again to Alden O'Neil. For kicking off so many of the great discussions happening over on Goodreads. We do need to pick a new discussion leader for our next pick, which we will discuss shortly. But we are out of the spoiler zone. TOM MERRITT: OK. We're clear. VERONICA BELMONT: We're out of the spoiler zone. TOM MERRITT: Spoiler zone is clear. VERONICA BELMONT: Clear, you're clear. TOM MERRITT: Everyone, come back. VERONICA BELMONT: Come back and watch the rest of the show. Because as Tom mentioned, there are many other books that you may want to pick up. Yes, next episode we will kick off a Sword pick. It's Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. But that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other new books coming out. It looks like June 5 is actually going to be huge. Let's check in with the calendar. TOM MERRITT: The first of our June 5 titles is Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds. This has been out in the UK since January. And if you didn't order a UK copy, like I did, get ready for the first of the Poseidon's Children series that starts in industrialized Africa and hits the moon, Mars, Mercury, and beyond. VERONICA BELMONT: Also out on June 5, Home From the Sea, an Elemental Masters novel by Mercedes Lackey. The eighth book in the series combines East of the Sun and West of the Moon, as well as Tam Lin with The Silkie of Sule Skerry. TOM MERRITT: Continuing the June 5 festivities, Redshirts, a novel with three codas, by John Scalzi. Ensign Andrew Dalh is very excited about his post in xenobiology on the Intrepid until he realizes what it truly means to wear a red uniform. VERONICA BELMONT: And finally on June 5, is also 1636, The Kremlin Games, Ring of Fire by Eric Flint. Number 14 in the series sees the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia fighting for it's life in a war-torn Europe just emerging from medieval madness. TOM MERRITT: Medieval madness is my King Crimson cover band. Before we go, let's see what folks are saying in email and on Goodreads. VERONICA BELMONT: All right, so this is a thread that's been going on since the end of April, but shows no sign of losing steam. It starts out kind of sad. TOM MERRITT: It is a sad story, yeah. VERONICA BELMONT: It starts out pretty sad. Nick let's us know that his cat passed away. But the other good news is that he's getting a new cat. And he needs a name. He wanted to name her after a sci-fi book or character. And the suggestions and stories are just pouring in. Tons and tons of great suggestions. TOM MERRITT: Someone had a guinea pig called Bilbo. Someone has cats named Drusilla, Darla, and Evil after the First Evil in the final season. Not after just evil. VERONICA BELMONT: That's great. And Nick finally went with Daenerys or Khaleesi for just around the house. TOM MERRITT: You would think it would be the opposite. Khaleesi formally and just Daenerys around house. VERONICA BELMONT: Just Dani around the house. TOM MERRITT: Dani. Hi Dani. Ready to eat, Dani? VERONICA BELMONT: Actually we've been calling our cats at home-- this is really embarrassing-- Sir Pounce and Lady Whiskers after the cats from Game of Thrones. TOM MERRITT: Well, I can't judge. We have a dog named Jango after Jango Fett and a dog named Sawyer after the con-man from Lost. VERONICA BELMONT: There you go. TOM MERRITT: So there you go. VERONICA BELMONT: Equally nerdy. TOM MERRITT: Let's move on to Maravian's post. He says, "What I'm wondering is are fantasy sci-fi series getting to be too long? I have some examples here. The Wheel Of Time, 14 books, 22 years, 11,000 pages. The Sword Of Truth, 13 books, 17 years, 9,000 pages. The Dark Tower, eight books, 30 years, 4,700 plus pages. A Song of Ice and Fire, five books so far, 16 years, 5,000 plus pages and still going. Do we really need or want stories to be 5,000 to 10,000 pages long spanning 20 plus years of releases?" VERONICA BELMONT: Um, yes. Yeah. TOM MERRITT: Yeah? VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah. TOM MERRITT: I think a qualified yes. If they're good enough, sure. VERONICA BELMONT: If the story still needs to be told TOM MERRITT: Yeah, I mean, I'd rather they come out a little faster than George RR Martin puts them out. But as long as he puts out awesome stories, I'm not going to quibble. VERONICA BELMONT: We all complain about Georgie RR Martin. But when you put it in perspective to these other tales, he's on the low end. TOM MERRITT: That's true, actually, pace-wise. VERONICA BELMONT: So far, he hasn't written as many books. But comparatively, The Dark Tower was eight books and 30 years. And Song of Ice and Fire is five books over 16 years. So that's telling. TOM MERRITT: I'm saying yes. If I like the story, I want it to keep going. If I don't like the story, I don't really care. VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah. TOM MERRITT: They can keep putting them out. I just won't read them. VERONICA BELMONT: I got a lot of crap last week for saying I only read to book four of The Wheel of Time. TOM MERRITT: Oh, yeah. You know what? The whole Wheel of Time series thing, that is a defect in us. We're not saying it's a bad series. VERONICA BELMONT: You just said that if a book doesn't capture your interest, that you should just let it go, because there are plenty of other books to read. TOM MERRITT: That's right. Yeah. VERONICA BELMONT: And that's how I felt about it. TOM MERRITT: There you go. VERONICA BELMONT: I'm sorry. I really super respect Robert Jordan. And, of course-- TOM MERRITT: And Brandon Sanderson, absolutely. VERONICA BELMONT: Brandon Sanderson. I love Brandon Sanderson. But maybe at some point, I'll start over again and see how it goes. But yeah, I just got a lot of books to read. Moving on, Oscar posted, "What is the most difficult book you have read?" Maybe that should be book four of Wheel of Time for me. TOM MERRITT: Oh, now. Please. VERONICA BELMONT: He says, "For me, The Lord of the Rings, I had to reread some pages. It was very hard to keep up, especially when English was my second language." TOM MERRITT: Yeah. VERONICA BELMONT: What about you? TOM MERRITT: And he's writing in Elvish a lot of the time. VERONICA BELMONT: Alice says, the Bible. That makes sense. That makes sense. TOM MERRITT: Ulysses is the hardest book I ever attempted to read. VERONICA BELMONT: But if we're keeping it the speculative fiction? TOM MERRITT: But keeping it in the genre, probably The Silmarillion. VERONICA BELMONT: Really? TOM MERRITT: Yeah. What, you found that easy? VERONICA BELMONT: Well, not easy. But it wasn't-- TOM MERRITT: It was hard to keep track. Because there's not as much of a story. VERONICA BELMONT: I think you're going to have the same reaction that I just had for you for the one I'm about to say, which was Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. TOM MERRITT: Really? Really? VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, Something about the language, I couldn't deal. TOM MERRITT: It's very complex. I didn't have a hard time with it. VERONICA BELMONT: I would love to go back and pick it up again and restart. TOM MERRITT: You have to be really interested and maybe even have a little of that historical background. VERONICA BELMONT: But I hadn't had trouble with Anathem or with Snowcrash. TOM MERRITT: Well, Anathem doesn't have historical background, right? Because it's all-- VERONICA BELMONT: Or with Reamde. TOM MERRITT: They're all in sort of universes where you either already know the historical background. Or in Anathem's case, it's just made up. VERONICA BELMONT: Yeah, OK. Fair enough. TOM MERRITT: Last but definitely not least, we are officially kicking off our Guess the Dragon's Name contest. If you guess correctly, you get a fistful of books. Actually, it's more like a Hulk fist full of books. It's a lot of books. And much swag form Sword and Laser and Geek & Sundry, including a real genuine Sword and Laser t-shirt. To make your guess, head to swordandlaser.com, find the contest link, click on that. And you have until June 4 to make your guess. We'll be announcing the winner on our next show, June 8. VERONICA BELMONT: I am very excited about that. TOM MERRITT: I can't wait to discover. VERONICA BELMONT: I can't wait to know. TOM MERRITT: We'll just read the names off to the dragon and see when he acknowledges-- or she-- VERONICA BELMONT: See? See you said he. TOM MERRITT: --she may acknowledge. VERONICA BELMONT: We ask in the post if it's male, female, gender nonspecific. We don't know. TOM MERRITT: Yeah, could be both. VERONICA BELMONT: All right, thanks everybody for watching. If you want to subscribe to our channel, it's up here. The little green button is somewhere floating around. TOM MERRITT: Subscribe. Tell your friends. VERONICA BELMONT: It's at youtube.com/geekandsundry or you can head over to swordandlaser.ge ekandsundry.com. You can send us an email to feedback@swordandlaser.com And even call us at 415-779-6736 or 415-7-SWORD-6. Actually, a gentleman named Ben called in and said we should name the dragon Ben because his name is Ben. TOM MERRITT: Thank you, Ben. VERONICA BELMONT: So thanks, Ben. TOM MERRITT: We tried Ben. No response yet. VERONICA BELMONT: Ben? No? No. Not a Ben. And, of course, you can join in all the fun over on Goodreads at goodreads.com. Search for Sword and Laser. We will see you guys next time. TOM MERRITT: Bye everybody. VERONICA BELMONT: Bye. [MUSIC PLAYING]