Sword & Laser

Popular book club podcast, Sword & Laser, comes to life with an irreverent show hosted by Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt. The show features interviews with top authors, reviews of the hottest science fiction and fantasy books, discussion of the essential news of the week, and lots of participation from the vibrant Sword and Laser community.

Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt give you the scoop on the Sword and Laser show including a sneak peek at the first episode and their pet dragon!

We ask author Scott Sigler more questions than could fit in the main episode. Plus he tries to guess the name of the dragon.

We ask author Saladin Ahmed more viewer questions. Plus he describes his new book and how he became a DM for Joe Abercrombie

Tom and Veronica sat down with 6 of the 7 authors of the Mongoliad, including Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, E.D deBirmingham, Cooper Moo, Neal Stephenson, and Mark Teppo.

We've used our remedial magic to convince The Magicians author to stick around for a few more questions!

Author and screenwriter Ernie Cline (Ready Player One) sticks around for a few more questions from the audience in our bonus video!

Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (a.k.a. James S.A. Corey) chat with us about Leviathan Wakes!

George R.R. Martin stopped writing the next book for a bit to answer a few more of your questions! Just kidding. We also chat more with Henry Jacoby!

We discuss our brand new "laser" pick for July, Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey!

We wrap-up our July pick, Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey!

We kick-off our latest Sword pick, Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice!

We wrap-up our August pick, Assassin's Apprentice, and Veronica uses the Skill* to check in with everyone over on GoodReads. *Tom's pretty sure she just used the internet.

We kick-off this month's pick, Isaac Asimov's classic Foundation, and check with everyone over on GoodReads!

September is drawing to a close, and that means its time to wrap up this month's Laser pick, Foundation by Issac Asimov! We wonder if Hari Seldon could have predicted it was this month's pick...

With a movie adaptation coming to theatres on October 26th, we kick-off David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, check in with the folks over on Goodreads, and giggle like schoolboys at the titles of a few of Tom's favorite pieces of pulp fiction!

It's our first LIVE Sword & Laser video show, filmed this summer at the San Diego Comic-Con! Like our live audio specials from Dragon*Con and Bay Con, we sat down with one of the best authors in the biz to talk their canon of works and upcoming projects and then turned the mics on the audience for a live Q&A. This year, John Scalzi, author of Old Man's War and Redshirts, joined us at the YouTube Fan Lounge to talk his take on the ever ill-fated Starfleet ensigns and his next project, The Human Division. Enjoy!

Before you head to the theatres to see the film adaptation of Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, join us in the space pub as we wrap-up our October pick and check in with everyone on GoodReads!

It's November, and while its not quite time for turkey, it is time for us to kick-off our book for the month, Tad Williams' The Dirty Streets of Heaven! Enjoy!

We kick-off a Classic Sword pick, J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit, find out what THE Cloud Atlas is all about, and reassure Lem that he's still our favorite dragon.

We've survived the Mayan Apocalypse, which means its time to wrap up our final pick of 2012, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, let you know how we enjoyed the movie adaptation, and check in with everyone over on Goodreads. See you in 2013!

Its time to wrap up our January pick, John Scalzi's Old Man's War, check in with everyone over on GoodReads, and get momentarily excited for a new excerpt from GRRM...before remembering that its still going to be a long wait for Winds of Winter. Enjoy!

Thanks to an overwhelming response to one of Aaron's recent Whiteboard Review, we're kicking off our February pick, Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart! Plus, we check in over on GoodReads to talk Gaiman, refreshing Science Fiction, and libraries that don't have any books.

It's time to find out what everyone thought of Number Ten Ox, and check in on Goodreads for suggestions on good old-fashioned popcorn sci-fi and amateur cartography for our favorite fantasy realms. Enjoy!

We dive into CJ Cherryh's classic Downbelow Station, try to settle the age old question of "which was better: the book or the movie?" and give you the inside scoop on how to become a part of the first ever Sword & Laser anthology! Enjoy!