During writing breaks, I like to record a podcast or three and I just realized that I haven't mentioned some of the recent ones. This blog is very Bond-focused right now, but in Podcastland I'm all about Star Wars lately. Dragonfly Ripple is the Nerd Parenting podcast I do with Carlin Trammel and our respective kids and the newest episode is all about the Wars. Carlin interviews David and I about our experiences watching animated Star Wars, including both Clone Wars cartoons and Rebels. Then I talk to Carlin and Annaliese about her first experience with the original trilogy. There's also a Jetpack Tiger segment on the Lego video games and a discussion about whether or not it's necessary to introduce kids to all the backstory of a thing before they watch or read the thing itself. As always, I hope you'll give it a listen and then help us continue the discussion here, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
Following up on the previous episode, we'd all watched some weird Westerns and the topic of steampunk came up. Carlin and I admitted that we love the concept, but haven't actually read or seen much steampunk that we liked enough to share with our kids. We put the call out for some recommendations and got a couple.
First was The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Gibson and Sterling are both fathers of the cyberpunk genre and they also helped popularize steampunk with this novel. I've never read anything by either of them, so this sounds like a good way to correct that in a genre that I'm also curious about (unlike cyberpunk).
The other recommendation came from the author himself, Beyond the Rails by Jack Tyler. Jack is a super nice man who came to Dragonfly Ripple by way of Nerd Lunch and Carlin and has commented here a few times. If I enjoy his book half as much as I enjoy talking with him, I'm in for a great read. He offers a free sample of Beyond the Rails on his site and as soon as I get a spare moment, I'm going to check it out. Thanks, Jack!
1 comment:
Michael, I'm so sorry, if I'd known you put this over here I would have rushed right over to thank you tremendously for both the plug and the kind words. I'll have to Google the title more often! This is old-fashioned adventure like I grew up on, before sex and violence took over everything, and if anyone has half as much fun reading it as I did writing it, they'll be in for a fun time, indeed!
Thanks again for the shout-out. Indie authors cry for exposure like this, and here I went and missed it. Bless you, my friend! May the great bird of prosperity poop all over your lawn!
"Blimprider"
Post a Comment