[computerized voice] sword and laser. veronica belmont:hello, everyone. and welcome to thesword and laser. i'm veronica belmont. tom merritt: and i'mtom merritt. veronica belmont: and i'mabout to pee myself. tom merritt: oh, is it becausewe're wrapping up tigana? i mean, i like the book but--
veronica belmont: no. i'm looking forward tothat conversation, but that's not why. tom merritt: it's because it'sour game of thrones special. veronica belmont:you're getting a little bit closer, yes. you're getting a littlebit closer. tom merritt: it is because wehave george rr freaking martin on the show?
veronica belmont: [sighs] tom merritt: i supposewe ought to get to the quick burns. can you speak from down there? veronica belmont: wish you couldlive out the adventures of wade owen in ernest cline'sready player one? well, mr. cline isindulging you. he's hidden an easter egg in thetext of both the hardcover and paperback editionsof ready player one.
the clues will lead you toa chain of increasingly difficult video gamechallenges. and the first to complete allthe challenges wins a 1981 delorean, complete witha flux capacitor. tom merritt: i wantto win that. are we disqualified? veronica belmont: probably. tom merritt: oh. all caught up on a song of iceand fire and the game of
thrones hbo series? how about investigatingsome of george rr martin's older works? three new audio books are inproduction read by the actors from the hbo series. ron donachie, aka ser rodrik,will read the historical horror novel fever dream. lady stark, aka michellefairley, voices the sci-fi adventure novel wind haven.
and iain glen, whom may knowas ser jorah mormont, will read martin's first novel,dying of the light. no release date is set yet. but then again, there's also norelease date for this video game either, medal of hodor. i want that to be real. veronica belmont: i wish thatwas real more than-- tom merritt: there'd bea lot of carrying. veronica belmont:--anything else.
yeah. yes. that's not too exciting,is it, i guess. whatever. and finally, we are excited tohave rob reid, author of year zero, on our show next time. what's year zero about? well, random house has a trailerthat helps to explain that for every you.
narrator: every advancedcivilization in the universe is part of the refined league. all of them are obnoxiouslyadvanced, peaceful, and, well, refined. refined aliens can crossgalaxies in an instant. their artwork, architecture, anddecoupage are so brilliant that human minds can barelyprocess their beauty. but there's one thingthey can't do. [record scratches]
aliens suck at music. and we don't. in fact, we make the universe'sbest music by far. and everyone knows it but us. they've known it sincethey first discovered us back in the '70s. american pop music wasimmediately identified as the greatest creative achievementsince the big bang. the entire universe has donenothing but ecstatically
contemplate our musicever since. they've copied it, sharedit, transmitted it, and copied it some more. then finally, just a few weeksago, the refined aliens started getting back totheir normal lives. politicians startedgoverning again. accountants startedaccounting again. most significantly, alienanthropologists began studying other aspects ofhuman society.
and that's when it hit them. they owe us an ungodlyamount of money. you see, america hasthe universe's harshest copyright laws. and the aliens havebeen pirating our music for decades. it was completelyunintentional. but the universe is bankruptall the same. everything in it and all of its
wealth belongs to humanity. certain aliens are notentirely amused. and only one man can stop themfrom exacting revenge. can he save the world,get the girl? he better, or else. it's year zero, a newnovel by rob reid. tom merritt: you know, rob'sthe guy who started the rhapsody music service. veronica belmont: mmm.
i'm seeing some parallels tom merritt: he knowsfrom music. veronica belmont: very cool. we're excited to have him instudio on the next episode. tom merritt: i know. veronica belmont: goingto be a lot of fun. tom merritt: real live human. time for another whiteboardreview from aaron. this time, he encourages younot to fear hp lovecraft.
i mean, be scared of thestory, just don't be afraid to read it. i'll let aaron explain. aaron: hp lovecraft is a bigname in horror and fantasy. but it can be tough to find anentry point into his work. start with the dunwichhorror and others. lovecraft's writingis famously tough. but here, that dense languageis wrapped around engaging stories which move fairlyfast for lovecraft.
the title story is a moody pieceabout a rural family and black magic. others feature genre standardslike pirate ghosts, haunted pictures, and a guy who thinkshe hears rats in the walls. ok. they can't all be winners. but if you've heard aboutlovecraft and you want to know what the fuss is about, thedunwich horror is an excellent place to get your feet wet, orwhatever you use for feet.
tom merritt: you know, it's lessscary on the whiteboard. veronica belmont: it'sa lot less scary. i'd like them to do a prometheuswhiteboard. i'm too scared towatch the movie. tom merritt: i betyou can do it. veronica belmont: i passed outwatching district 9, so i'm pretty sure that if i-- tom merritt: you passed out? veronica belmont:just like that.
i pass out a lot, apparently. tom merritt: you apparentlyhave a problem. veronica belmont: ithink maybe i'm-- tom merritt: you should getyour circulation checked. veronica belmont: anyhow, sendus in your videos, and you could be on the shownext time. and we'll send you apackage of prizes, including books and stickers. just upload your message to yourfavorite video hosting
provider, like youtube, forexample, and email the link to us atfeedback@swordandlaser.com. tom merritt: coming up, wediscuss game of thrones philosophy with henry jacoby,premier paul and storm's new grrm-related music video, "writelike the wind," and see if veronica passes outwhen we speak with george rr martin himself. don't go anywhere. veronica belmont: and welcomeback to sword and laser where
we're extremely excited to havethe author of the "dunk and egg" stories and of coursethe entire song of ice and fire series. and no, we're not going toask him who his favorite characters are or when thenext book will be done. it'll be done when hefinishes writing it. but we have a lot of othergreat questions. so welcome to mr. georgerr martin. thank you so much forbeing on the show.
george r.r. martin:it's my pleasure. i'm glad to be here. tom merritt: we're big fans ofthe song of ice and fire series and all your writing,to be honest. so it's a pleasureto have you. our first question comes fromour goodreads forum. they want to know, "i'm curiousabout your character creation process. do you decide beforehand theways you want your character
to change and evolve? or do you come up with thecharacter and let the character sort of inform youabout how it evolves as you write the story?" george r.r. martin: it'skind of bit of both. certainly, when we're speakingof the major characters at least, i know their mainfunction in a story. i have a general idea of thebroad arc of their character from the first book throughthe last book.
but at the same time, thecharacters do sometimes seem to have a mind of their own. and when you're actually writingthe stories and you're writing a scene, suddenly it'salmost as if the character is real in some sense. you're writing a scene, you'rewriting dialogue and a character says something thatis completely right for the character, but thatyou hadn't really anticipated ahead of time.
you hadn't known he wasgoing to say that. and suddenly the scene goesoff of a strange direction that you could nothave predicted. and you wind up in a differentplace than you thought were going to wind up. now, admittedly, sometimesthat's a mistake. the characters are treacheroussons of [bleep] and they will lead you down deadends and into the swamp and other places that youdon't want to go.
so sometimes you have to go backand discipline them and make them behave. but other times, the characterswill lead you to treasures and you will come upwith something that you could never have anticipated whenyou were just sort of envisioning the story in broadstrokes and something that's much richer and more interestingthan what you originally started with. tom merritt: are anyyour characters
more unruly than others? george r.r. martin: you know,they've all been unruly from time to time. i know cat has given me a fewcurveballs, from time to time. tyrion. but really, everybody. veronica belmont: anne ongoodreads wants to know, "i would like to know whether heintended our favorite and least characters to be perceivedas such." do you
think are any characters thathave kind of changed from you intending them to be maybe notone of the more likable characters that kindof surprised you? george r.r. martin: well, idon't know if i'd use the word surprised, but it is interestingto see the different reactions to thecharacters that are out there. the popularity of someminor characters sometimes surprises me. and i'm talking about veryminor characters.
i've had people come up to meat conventions and say their favorite character istytos blackwood. tytos blackwood has likethree lines in the entire five books. and he has a really cool cloakmade of raven feathers. i think that's probably whypeople like him, or something like that. but that's a bit of what writerscall the boba fett syndrome, where i think somereaders attach themselves to
characters who have somethingcool about them, but there's really a lot that you don'tknow about them. so the reader can imagine allthe things that he likes best on this character, who'sessentially a blank slate with a few cool accoutrementsor attitudes. but bronn is another characterwho's become very popular. i am sometimes surprised bythe reactions of women in particular to someof the villains. the--
tom merritt: bad boy syndrome? george r.r. martin: --numberof women over the years who have written me that theirfavorite characters are jaime lannister or sandor clegane, thehound, or theon greyjoy. all of these are deeply troubledindividuals with some very dark sides who have donesome very dark things. but nonetheless, they do drawthis response, and quite heavily, i think, in the caseof some of them, from my female readers, in particular.
veronica belmont: i'ma big fan of the hound myself, actually. tom merritt: of sandor? really? veronica belmont: yeah. the hound. and maybe it's not becausei feel any compassion towards them. i'm not really sure whatthe attraction is.
i'm not going to call itattraction, actually. let's just say it's afascination, perhaps. george r.r. martin: well,fascination is one thing. but some of these lettersindicate that there really is a romantic attractiongoing on there. and i do know there's all thesepeople out there who are, as they call themselves,the sansan fans, who want to see sandor and sansa gettogether at the end. so that's interesting, too.
tom merritt: the tv show hassort of played with that a little and probably stoked thosefires, i would think. george r.r. martin: oh, sure. and i've played withit in the books. tom merritt: yeah, yeah. george r.r. martin: there'ssomething there. but it's still interesting tosee how many people have responded to it. veronica belmont: i'm not goingto say that that hasn't
crossed my mind. maybe i need to go joinone of those fan sites and learn more. george r.r. martin: the other,of course, interesting thing is the negative reactions thatyou get to some characters who, to my mind, don'tnecessarily deserve such a strong negative reaction,particularly characters who are themselves perfectly nice. but i think if they're athreat to one of the
characters that the people havealready decided is their favorite, i don't know, you get some interesting reactions. but it is a fascinatingprocess. and what i take pride in as awriter, what gives me great satisfaction is that people arereacting to all of these characters. whether they love them, whetherthey hate them, they care about them.
and they're reacting to them asif they were real people, just as you would if you met20 new people and you were thrown into them in somesetting, like on an island. and in a couple weeks you'dhate some, and you'd like some, and some you wouldn'tbe so sure about. but your reactions would notnecessarily be the reactions of the next person. and to my mind, that's anindication that if you have created characters who havesome basis in reality.
if you create a character andeverybody likes them, you probably created a pieceof cardboard. and similarly, if you'vecreated a character and everybody hates them, then theydon't have their reality. and people's reactions to realpeople are much more complex, much more layered, and much morecontradictory at times. so that's what i'm strivingfor is to make these characters as real as i can. and so i like the complexityof the reactions.
i like the fact that my readersdebate who are the good guys, who are the bad guys,which characters they want to kill and whichcharacters they want to marry and so forth and so on. tom merritt: terpkristin wantsto know of the non-song of ice and fire universes you'vewritten in, which one would you like to revisit the most? george r.r. martin: you know,that's hard to say. i have considerable affectionfor a lot of my older work.
of course, the wild cardsuniverse is one i still revisit regularly. wild cards has been going longerthan ice and fire and is still going. we've just signed acontract for the 23rd book in the series. i've just signed contractsfor a british deal and a french deal. so i think wild cards is goingto be going for a long time.
i wish i had a little more time,because i have some wild card characters that i'vecreated that i would really like to write somestories about. but with ice and fire, i justdon't have the time to do it. so while i'm still doing wildcards, for the most part, i'm simply editing it, and i'mnot able to write it. my old science fiction universe,the thousand worlds, i'd like to writemore about that. at one point i had a sequel tofever dream in mind, which i'd
like to do some days. but at the same time,i'm also always coming up with new ideas. so people do ask me what i'mgoing to write when ice and fire is finally finished, andthe truth is, any answer i give now would be meaningless. because it's going to take meyears to finish ice and fire. and by the time i do finish it,i'll be a different person and may have had adozen new ideas.
and it's whatever idea i am mostin love with, whatever book i most want to write whenthat time actually comes. veronica belmont: levi wants toknow if there any changes from the novel to the show thatyou regret, or to add a new spin on it, thatyou really liked. any changes that you made forthe show that you said, oh, actually that works alittle bit better. george r.r. martin: well, theshow is quite faithful to the books, for the most part.
but david and dan, david benioffand dan weiss, the showrunners, it's reallytheir baby. they have a very difficult jobof trying to tell my story within 10 hours withthe limitations of budget and all that. so i understand why manyof the changes that are made are made. we look at my own episodeof "the battle of the blackwater," episodenine of season two.
that was a spectacularepisode. i'm very, very pleased by theway that episode came out. nonetheless, would ihave liked more? sure, i would have liked more. i'm very greedy. i would have liked to have thegreat chain across the harbor. i would like to have thetrebuchets the three great trebuchets, the three whores, asthey were called, throwing the antler men across the riverto smash into bloody--
george r.r. martin: --smithereens upon their ships. i would have liked to have theships, the two great fleets, crashing into each other withthe oars going and the ships breaking each other apart andlocking together to form that bridge of ships that stannis'men came streaming across from the other bank. i would have likedto have horses. knights, of course, historicallywere mounted
warriors, and theyrode horses. and we don't have so many horseson the show, because horses are, numberone, expensive. and, number two, they oftendon't do what you want them to do. so you're doubling and triplingthe time required to get a shot, because the horseturned the wrong way when he was supposed to turn theother way, et cetera. so i would have liked tohave had all of this.
but if we had added all of to"the battle of blackwater bay," we'd stillbe shooting it. and it would cost as much-- tom merritt: that wouldbe the whole season. george r.r. martin: --asone of the lord of the rings movies. and it would've beenimpossible. so you have to take realityinto account. that being said, i think interms of new material, the
books are written with astripped viewpoint structure. i have a certain number ofviewpoint characters. everything you see and hearis through their eyes. so if the viewpoint character isnot present, you don't see what's going on. now that's not necessarilyto suggest that nothing is going on. lots of things are going on. it's not like the whole worldstops when a viewpoint
character isn't present. so david and dan, who areworking in a medium that does not have the capacity for doingviewpoints as prose does, have opened it up. and they've inserted scenes,like the scene between robert and cersei in season one wherethey discuss their marriage, no viewpoint characteris present in that. cersei is not a viewpointcharacter until book four. robert is never viewpointcharacter.
some of the scenes between varysand littlefinger, both in season one and season two. neither of these charactersis a viewpoint character. so if varys is meeting secretlywith littlefinger, you're never going to find outabout it in the books unless i hide one of my charactersin a curtain. the wonderful tavern scene in"blackwater bay," which was added by david and dan withthe confrontation between bronn and the hound, againnot from the books.
not a scene i could ever do,because there's no viewpoint character present. but i think all of those wereterrific scenes and great additions to the story. veronica belmont: i think that'sone thing i love about the show so much is i thinkinitially a lot of us were watching the show and nitpickingalmost about things that were different from thebooks in a way, just because we're such big fans.
and that's just what nerds do. that's what we do. but then after while, we startedsaying this is almost like additional content, stuffwe never would have seen from the books. it's still followingthe same storyline. it's still dealing with thesame great characters. but now we get all thisnew content in a way. and i think that'sreally cool.
george r.r. martin: i'm verymuch of the nerd persuasion myself, of course. much as i enjoyed the avengersmovie, and i did, the nerd in me is still saying,where was ant-man. i want ant-man. he was one of the foundersof the avengers. get ant-man in there. veronica belmont: maybe we'llget an ant-man origin story movie at some point.
who knows? george r.r. martin: we should. they're supposed to be workingon a ant-man movie. veronica belmont: yes. george r.r. martin: well,george, thank you so much for taking the time to talkwith us today. we really enjoy your work. george r.r. martin:oh, my pleasure. thank you for having me.
good luck with your show. tom merritt: thank you. stay with us. more game of thrones goodnesscoming with henry jacoby. also, the world premiere of pauland storm's music video. and we wrap up tigana. in the game of swordand laser, you keep watching or you die. or at least you getreally sad.
veronica belmont: welcomeback to sword and laser. time to wrap up tigana, look atthe fantastic books being released in the next two weeks,and premiere paul and storm's musical plea togeorge rr martin. but first, we chatted earliertoday with henry jacoby, author of game of thrones andphilosophy, logic cuts deeper than swords. what can we learn about humanityfrom the inhumane actions of some of martin'scharacters?
thanks, henry for joining us. can you give us an overviewof the book? henry jacoby: yes. thanks for having me on. well, the book is part of thewiley-blackwell series on philosophy and pop culture. and the aim of the series is tointroduce philosophy to the general public. we think philosophy's good foryou, and so we want expose as
many people as possible tophilosophical ideas. and this particular book, weuse the tv series, game of thrones and the books on whichit's based, the song of ice and fire series. and we those as our exampleswhen we discuss various philosophical issues. tom merritt: do i have to knowa lot about philosophy? do i have to have readkant or something? or can i just dive in?
henry jacoby: no, not at all. not at all. that's the point of these. most people aren't going to gointo a bookstore and pick up a copy of kant or aristotleor someone like that. but they will read a book likethis because they're interested in game of thrones. but yeah, this presupposesno knowledge of philosophy at all.
veronica belmont: so other thanjust its popularity, what about game of thrones and a songof ice and fire made you and the publisher say, thisneeds a closer look? henry jacoby: well, there's acouple things i could say, a lot of things. i had worked withwiley before. i had edited their book on houseand the tv show house, and i wanted to doanother book. and the books are a lot of work,and they take a of time.
so it had to be something thati was really passionate about and excited about. and it had to also be somethingthat the publishers were excited about too. that always doesn'tgo together. and in the fall of 2010, i readthat hbo was going to be doing this series,game of thrones. and i had not yet read thebooks, and i started investigating them.
and everyone was raving abouthow great these books are. so i started reading, and theni was instantly hooked. and then i started pestering thepeople at wiley every day saying, we got todo this book. we got to do this book. and they were interestedin doing it. and finally when the show cameon, they gave the go ahead. but anyway, that's howit came about. but why i wanted to do it aboutthis particular one is
george martin has created such awonderful world, so rich and filled with incrediblecharacters who are so interesting. they're morally ambiguouscharacters. and they're justfun and smart. and this whole world just criesout for more thought. the philosophical issuesjust jump out at you. there's, of course, all themachiavellian kind of social and political stuff going on.
and there's all theethical issues. and there's the stuff aboutthe wars and prophecy and our free will. and there's all the magic andsupernatural creatures and the gods they worship. so there's just so many thingsfor a philosopher to sink his teeth into. it's really wonderful. tom merritt: terpkristen on ourgoodreads forum wanted to
know, "obviously some of thetopics you delve into are applicable to the societyat large. do you try to make any largerrevelations or statements about society and thecurrent world?" henry jacoby: no. we really don't doa lot of that. that's really not thekind of book it is. but having said that, a lot ofthe chapters in the book defend a certain philosophicalpoint of view.
and that conclusion that'sdefended is meant to apply to the real world too. let me give you a couplequick examples. for instance, if you're talkingabout the relationship between morality and happinessand you ask the question, can an immoral personreally be happy? well, you start talking aboutsome characters from game of thrones, like cersei, forexample, and you draw some conclusions.
but the conclusions that aredrawn are meant to be general conclusions about therelationship between morality and happiness. or take another example, oneof the chapters argues that chivalry's a bad idea, thatit's not good for women. and if that's true, then it'salso true that it's not good for women in ourworld as well. to take one more example thati think illustrates the kind of thing we want our readers toget from the book, there's
a chapter on the natureof a just war. and so the chapter listsdifferent criteria that must be met in order for war tobe considered a just war. and then he looks at whetherrobb's war, in particular, meets those conditions. but we would hope that someonereading that chapter would not only then think about whetherrobb's war is just, but they would also use those ideasto think about some wars in our world too.
tom merritt: huge thanks tohenry for taking the time to chat with us. if you'd like to hear more frommr. jacoby, pick up his book, game of thrones andphilosophy, logic cuts deeper or we'll have a bonus interviewwith him next time. and now it's time fora spoiler alert as we wrap up tigana. [sirens sound] veronica belmont: so i finishedtigana today.
tom merritt: wow. so it's fresh in your mind. veronica belmont: it isdefinitely fresh in my mind. tom merritt: ok. the big criticism on ourgoodreads forum was the flowery language. what did you thinkof the writing? veronica belmont: well, wetalked a little bit about this in the first episode when wekicked it off, because we'd
both started reading at it. and i loved his writing style. i thought it was fantastic. but i feel like people who werereally into hyperion and the way that dan simmons writeswill also probably be a little more accepting of the wayguy gavriel kay writes his books as well. because they have a similarkind of style where they really elaborate on the scenery,on what's going on in
the characters' minds, on everylittle nuance of that particular chapter. so if you like that kind offlowery, over the top, maybe, prose, then i think that you'll definitely enjoy this book. but people who like a morestraightforward approach, it may not be for them. tom merritt: and usually i'mthat kind of person. i like a vonnegut.
i like somebody who is tightwith their writing and gets right to the point. i still love guy gavriel kay. now it took a little while forme to get into it, as i mentioned last time. but once we got the plot going,i didn't mind the long descriptions. it helped me immerse myself. but i needed that actionto suck me in first.
so it took me a while. i think some peoplewere less patient. a lot of people in the goodreadsforums lemmed this pretty early, like beforechapter five. tom merritt: sorry. veronica belmont: sorry, lem. no offense. they couldn't get past some ofthe early introductions, like with devin's story,for example.
because we kind of jumpinto devin's story. we get his whole childhoodbackstory before we really care enough about him to want toknow all of those details. so i think that putsome people off. they were like, this isa little bit too much information for me notreally caring about this character yet. and it also kicked off thestorylines of a lot of different characters thatwe didn't pick back up
on for a while too. so there was a sense ofdisconnect, i think, from the early chapters to what we getlater on in the book. tom merritt: i don't mindintroducing new characters wholesale when we shiftedperspective entirely to the island and we started toget dianora's story. that was fine. i don't mind that at all. but i do want the earlydescriptions and delving into
characters to pay off later. and there is a sense that maybedevin's character isn't going to get his due. but i think he doesin the end. veronica belmont: does he? tom merritt: well, wedefinitely get a payoff to his story. he isn't as integralto the story. and i think that's what a lotof people reacted to.
veronica belmont: thatis interesting. because you start off with devinfeeling as though he is a main character. and he is absolutelya main character. tom merritt: and the storyends with him, too. veronica belmont: itdoes end with him. but i think the centralcharacters in this book were really-- even though we didn'thave a point of view perspective from alessan.
dianora, i think, was absolutelyprobably one of the top characters for me. baerd, i loved himas a character. and their interplay wasinteresting too. obviously we've come back fullcircle to this whole incest discussion, which happened thevery first time we talked about a song of ice and fireand talked about games of thrones, the very firstbook in that series. tom merritt: obviously.
veronica belmont: and i don'tknow if that paid off. there was a thread in goodreadsabout whether the sex scenes and whether theincest storyline between baerd and dianora came to anysort of conclusion that was worth it. did we need those scenes? i'm all for having a sexy sceneevery once in a while in a book-- check out my otherpodcast, vaginal fantasy-- but there didn't seem tobe a reason for it.
it didn't seem to move theplot forward at all. we just get a lot of guiltyfeelings from baerd and dianora about it. tom merritt: and that's a reallyinteresting point. because when that scene betweendianora and baerd was played out, i thought, ok,i don't really love this. but it obviously is going tobe integral in some way. there's going to be somedefinitive reason why we're learning all of thisbackstory.
and when we got to the point atthe end of the book-- and this is huge spoilers, if you'rewading into this-- we get to the point at the endof the book when dianora has gone off, given the instructionsto relate her story, and it's not related. and so baerd doesn't knowthat was dianora. doesn't have that connection. i'm actually ok with that,in and of itself. i kind of feel like instead ofa pat, expected ending, it's
like oh, we're left, like inreal life, with something that just doesn't work out theway it's supposed to. and i'm fine. i feel good for baerd that he'snot going to have these conflicted feelings aboutdianora anymore. but then i wonder, well, whydid i have to know all this stuff about his pastwith dianora? was it just to build up thetension for that point? veronica belmont: maybe.
tom merritt: you could have justsaid baerd really missed his sister. you didn't have to go intothe whole incest thing. when i got to that point in thebook, the very, very end where the truth is not told,even though dianora wanted the truth be told, and i felt likeat first that i was really upset by it. i was like oh, just tell them. why aren't you telling them?
why aren't you telling them alsoabout prince valentin? i was really shocked about that,because i thought that was going to be a majorplot reveal. and it doesn't happen. tom merritt: i liked that too. but you didn't like,it sounds like. veronica belmont: i didn'tlike it at first. and then when i actuallylistened to the author's commentary, when i listened toguy gavriel kay explain some
of his motivations behind thestoryline points, and it's like well, would it havedone any good? is it better this way? yes, they don't know the truestory, but would it have made it more painful for baerd andfor alessan to know the full truth of the situation withdianora and braden? sorry. i'm saying his name wrong. tom merritt: baerd
veronica belmont:no, not baerd. brandin. tom merritt: brandin. veronica belmont:brandin ygrath. tom merritt: yeah. i feel like the point that kayseemed to be trying to make-- and he says this in thatcommentary you're referencing-- is that the past is important,but we can overemphasize the
importance of it. and what is the line that weshouldn't cross in trying to achieve our goals of rememberingthe past or vengeance for past wrongs? and he explores those. should alessan have boundthe magician? should he have donethat at all? it's a violation of his rights,and he does the right thing in the end.
but is that by any meansnecessary sort of situation? i was kind of a jerk move toput it in pg territory. but it did serve an end. but at the end, he did come overto their side on his own free will, which was cool. more interestingly, i like tothink had the palm been left alone, had alberico and brandinygrath had stayed the two tyrants, was it reallyin that bad of a place? minus the whole tiganasituation, the roads were
safer because of alberico. tom merritt: well, that's thetrains run on time defense for any kind of dictator. tom merritt: and i think it'sless interesting with alberico than it is with brandin. because brandin almost comes allthe way around, except for the curse on tigana,to the point where you're like actually-- veronica belmont: ikind of like him.
tom merritt: --he does likethe palm, and dianora has changed him. and maybe he couldunite the palm. but of course, he's stillgot that one last thing. he's got his revenge thathe won't let go of. so nothing is ever a clear-cutsituation. and that's what i like. it's more interestingthat way. veronica belmont: he's a verycomplicated character.
and i thought my favoritestoryline was probably dianora and brandin. i think that was my favoritepart of the tale. and i thought she wasa great character. she was struggling so muchinternally with all that turmoil of missing baerd,feeling like she had to follow through with this-- what's the word i'm lookingfor?-- this promise that she made to herself yearsand years ago to--
tom merritt: the twin snakes-- to assassinate-- tom merritt: --aroundher heart. veronica belmont: --brandin. tom merritt: do you think sheshould have assassinated him? veronica belmont: i don't knowif at that point it would've been true to herself. so i think it worked outwell in the end. i was sad when she had to kindof follow the risekla's vision
and meet her own end. but i think she was better offthat way than going the route of staying on that hilltop-- tom merritt: well, she's goingto end up in the ocean drowning anyway. she should have doneit in the cause of defeating brandin, right? veronica belmont: but if shehad done that, none of the stuff that happened between thetwo tyrants fighting would
have happened. tom merritt: she didn'tknow that. veronica belmont: she didn'tknow that, but it was part of the, not the prophecy, iguess, but it was fate. tom merritt: thebalance, yeah. it was totally fate. tom merritt: the one lastmystery that i wish i had been resolved is why alessan alwayshad to have the blue wine. it's our third drink, bythe way, so cheers.
veronica belmont: cheers. we never find that out, do we? did i miss something? veronica belmont: yeah, theyexplained it in the book. they explained it. i don't remember whatthe answer was, but they explained it. tom merritt: all right. i'm going to have to go back,because i don't remember that.
veronica belmont: therewas the reason. i just can't remember it rightnow, because i've had three glasses of wine. tom merritt: of the blue wine,which isn't really wine. veronica belmont: mm hmm. tom merritt: exactly. well, that's it for thismonth's book pick. but the vote for our july laserpick is still going on at goodreads.
so head over there andcast your vote. in case you're looking for evenmore to read, let's check the calendar. on june 26, caliban's war byjames sa corey, the sequel to leviathan wakes brings you asuper soldier, interplanetary war, and more on thatprotomolecule you know and revile. veronica belmont: also on june26, sky dragons, dragonriders of pern by anne mccaffrey andtodd mccaffrey, the final
installment in the rivetingpern saga. tom merritt: and again on june26, edge by koji suzuki. california falling into thesea doesn't seem laughable anymore when the world isfalling apart because of quantum instability. particle physics and horror,i love this. veronica belmont: moving aheadto july 3, the 29th annual collection of the year's bestscience fiction brings together masters of the field,like robert reid, alastair
reynolds, damien broderick,elizabeth bear, paul mcauley, and john barnes it's thedefinitive must-read anthology for the year. tom merritt: and finally, july3 also brings us the apocalypse codex, a laundryfiles novel by charles stross. computational demonologist bobhoward is on the track for a promotion in the super secretbritish government agency tasked with defending the realmfrom occult threats. but then he gets assigned toexternal assets, and it all
falls apart. veronica belmont: well,that sounds boring. what are you gonna do? tom merritt: no, actually idon't think it's going to be very boring. veronica belmont: no,you don't think so? tom merritt: no. veronica belmont: because-- tom merritt: it's allfalling apart!
veronica belmont: --the entireplot is based on? veronica belmont: gotcha. tom merritt: charles strossdoes not do boring. veronica belmont: all right. well, we are almostout of time. we have some thin leek soupand trenchers to go eat. but before we go, let's takea quick look at goodreads. hmm. that's good.
tom merritt: oh, sorry. chris has been doing somesketches while listening to the audiobook of tigana andposted one of his sketches up on goodreads. nice devin. he's hanging from the tree. veronica belmont: upsidedown from the tree, trying to make himself. taller.
tom merritt: if you have someartwork of your own you'd like to share, add it to thethread, goodreads.com. veronica belmont: you reallyshouldn't read goodreads threads with your mouth full. tom merritt: i'm sorry. i apologize. veronica belmont: it'sreally rude. and on a sad note, right afterwe recorded our last show, ray bradbury passed away.
tributes have been goingon everywhere. and one of our favorites is neilgaiman reading his short story "the man who forgotray bradbury." tom merritt: fantastic read. veronica belmont: hmm mmm. which you can find on soundcloudor over at neilgaiman.com. we've had lots of memorialthreads in the goodreads forum too.
tamahome started one wherefolks are sharing their favorite bradburyshort stories. if you have one to share or wanta great list of stories to read, check out the threadin the sword and laser group he will be greatly missed. veronica belmont: absolutely. tom merritt: absolutely. well, thanks everybodyfor watching our game of thrones special.
you can subscribe to ouryoutube channel at youtube.com/geekandsundry. email us,feedback@swordandlaser.com. but now, as promised, the worldpremiere of paul and storm's plea to george rrmartin, "write like the wind." if you like it you can share itwith friends and thumbs up it at the geek andsundry channel, enjoy everybody! [music - paul and storm,"write like the wind"]
paul and storm: (singing)"george rr martin, please write and write faster. you're not going to getany younger, you know. winter is coming. i'm growing impatient, andyou've still got two whole damn books left to go. so write, george, writelike the wind." i curse the day that my friendever loaned me an old dog-eared paperback calledgame of thrones.
how could i know that the seedwould grow into an addiction that held me rightdown to my bones? now five books later, i lurkwith the masses, indignant, entitled and waiting for wordthat the great bearded glacier has finally published 900 morepages of crack for the nerds. why does every new verse of yoursong keep taking you so goddamn long? george rr martin, pleasewrite and write faster. please give us boiled leatherand sigils and steel.
we need our allotment ofincest and intrigue and six-page descriptionsof very last meal. so write, george, writelike the wind. lewis took five yearsto chronicle narnia. tolkien had 12 years,and rowling took 10. lucas spent nearly three decadeson star wars, and we all know how that one turnedout in the end. you're not our bitch, andyou're not a machine. and we don't mean to dictatehow you spend your days.
but please bear in mind, inthe time that you've had, william shakespeare turnedout 35 frigging plays. and if you keep writingso slow, you'll hold up the hbo show. because we won't stop whininguntil we're appeased. crap out the chapters, andgeorge, while you're at it, stop killing our favoritecharacters, please. and write, george, writelike the wind. before you are dead, george,please write like the wind."
paul and storm: (singing)"and write, george, write like the wind.