Warp Drives With Tj & Dave

In this episode, TJ and Dave wrap up their discussion of WorldCon by giving tips and tricks for Panelists as well as for Con-goers attending panels. Take home message...it's not about you. :)

In this episode, TJ and Dave talk about Worldcon, logistics of the convention and some of our observations from Helsinki. It was a great trip, but we have some suggestions for future generations of nerds!

We come to you from Kiel, Germany this week where we’ve just disembarked from the Writing Excuses Retreat 2017. It was an incredible experience and during this episode, we share our favorite parts of the workshops, ports, and activities. The cruise was full of incredible people and we love Tallinn! Also this week, we both read HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, a slow building creepy horror story about being trapped in a small town in America. That’s frightening enough on its own, (believe us, we’ve lived in small towns), but add a silent witch to the mix and we get to see just how low people will go. *shiver* Both of us wish we could read HEX in the original Dutch to see a different take on the same situation. Next week, we’ll be at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, Finland. Come say hello if you’re a listener and you see us!

This week, we’re on the Writing Excuses cruise! We’re recording from the middle of the Baltic Sea, just off the coast of Sweden as we attend the fifth Writing Excuses retreat. We go into some of what to expect on the retreat and the fun things we’ve experienced so far in Europe–for example, a live taping of the Tea & Jeopardy podcast. But we’re really missing our Coke Zero. We also left an impromptu scavenger hunt prize for one of our lucky listeners in a Copenhagen bathroom! We’re discussing Wendy Wagner’s book An Oath of Dogs. We really loved the world building and the sense of danger that we felt from the flora and fauna on Huginn. We’d definitely like to read a sequel. Sadly, we also watched Kong: Skull Island, which was visually lovely, but lacked a cohesive story. Next week, we’ll be recording from Germany as we make our way to Worldcon!  

This week, we talk about most of the trailers that were showcased at San Diego Comic-Con. We watched Stranger Things, Ready Player One, Thor: Ragnarok, Justice League, The Defenders, Westworld Season 2, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Stargate: Origins, Inhumans, The Gifted, The Orville, and our favorite... Star Trek: Discovery. If all the logistics go right, we'll be coming to you from the Writing Excuses cruise next week.   If you're going to be at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki and you'd like to talk about your upcoming publication, contact us at warpdrivespodcast@gmail.com. We'd love to interview you for the podcast!   Warp Drives #15: The Meatsuit Jaeger

We're super excited about the new Doctor Who. If you can envision a 900-year-old time lord with a soft spot for humans, but can't picture them as a woman, GTFO. We also loved the A Wrinkle in Time trailer. Ava Duvernay and Storm Reid are two of our favorite creators! Then, we heard the D23 announcement about dedicated Star Wars and Marvel lands, plus the immersive Star Wars resort hotel. How will the muggles LARP?! We loved Wendy Wagner's reading and trivia game for An Oath of Dogs, but we didn't love the movie Passengers. Spider-Man was earnest and too good for this world. Why on earth was an AI encouraging Peter Parker to kiss a girl during a dangerous moment? We confess that we didn't finish the entire Hugo voting packet, but we did come close, and we got our voting finished. We talk about China Mieville's This Census-Taker, Kai Ashante Wilson's A Taste of Honey and Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric and the Shaman. And finally, even though it's not speculative, we love the Ear Hustle podcast; created by two in

We recorded late this week because of the holiday weekend. Hope all our US listeners had a great July 4th. (And the rest of you had a good Tuesday.) In this week's episode, we talk about Curtis Chen and Jason Hough's not-a-reading for their new books Kangaroo Too and Escape Velocity. Then, we watched the movie Okja, which we thought was going to be cute, but instead scarred us deeply. It's a little heavy-handed with the message and not super fun to watch. We completed the Novelette Hugo finalist category with Carolyn Ives Gilman's "Touring with the Alien" and Nina Allan's "The Art of Space Travel" and read two of the Novellas: Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire and The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson. We loved both stories for vastly different reasons, but the one thing they had in common was that we wanted more of each. We saw the new Transformers film, which was a hot mess, and Despicable Me 3, which was better and hit all the right notes with the '80s crowd. Dave is watching the summer sci-f

We had a week full of SFF events. First, we saw Daryl Gregory reading at University Bookstore. He had a fun way of conducting his Q & A, plus he also read from his newly-released novel Spoonbenders. We also attended the Locus Awards, including the Friday evening readings from Carrie Vaughn and Connie Willis. We both read two more Hugo finalists for Best Novelette: “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay,” by Alyssa Wong and “The Jewel and Her Lapidary,” by Fran Wilde. We loved the complex magical rules and intricate politics of Fran’s story and the western desert magic of Alyssa’s tale.   Dave watched The Girl With All the Gifts and compares it to the novel. (Remember, we talk details of everything, so spoilers in this and every episode!) And hey, Moana is free on Netflix. You’re welcome! (By the way, here’s a link to the video that was cracking us both up: Forever Spinning Kid On Go Cart) Warp Drives #12: The Salacious Fluffernutter

In this episode, we talk about the finale of American Gods, Hugo Finalists for Dramatic Presentation long form, and two of the Hugo Finalists for Novelettes one which we love and one which helps us earn our explicit rating for the episode. Dave very broadly categorizes the movie "Captain Underpants" as a superhero flick, TJ makes a weird comment about our younger son's creepy mustache, and everyone tries to avoid the topic of why Dave edited this episode three days late...sorry. 

This week, we're again spoiling everything that we talk about, so don't listen until you're ready! We talk about "A Prayer for Mad Sweeney" from American Gods. This episode had a lot more movement than the last few. We enjoyed Essie's story, though there were a few moments that gave us pause. We both absolutely loved the Black Panther trailer. TJ is excited about seeing the Dora Milaje and Dave is interested in T'Challa's sister Shuri and her vibranium weapons.  Then, we discuss all six of the Hugo finalists in the Short Story category: “The City Born Great”, by N. K. Jemisin (Tor.com, September 2016) “A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers”, by Alyssa Wong (Tor.com, March 2016) “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies”, by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine, November 2016) “Seasons of Glass and Iron”, by Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, Saga Press) “That Game We Played During the War”, by Carrie Vaughn (Tor.com, March 2016) “An Unimaginable Light”, by John C. Wright (God, Robot, Castalia

We’re going to Worldcon! TJ and Dave just booked our flights to Helsinki, with a detour to Germany for the Writing Excuses 2017 Cruise. There is a batch of new cabins that have just been released. Go to writingexcuses.com to register for the trip. This is our first WX cruise! The shortlist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award were released today. You’ll find them up here. We’re both a little exasperated with American Gods. It’s going really slowly and the creators have mentioned that they think the first book’s story might take years to finish. Ugh. We both loved Wonder Woman… with the exception of three little words. We have started the visa application for Themyscira. We had a little less love for King Arthur. The SciFi Dustup of the Day is this awful interview with N.K. Jemisin in which the article’s author spends 90% of the article (including huge block quotes and a 30-line poem) talking about herself, her struggles, and her work. Nora is kind enough to phrase her criticism as “how not to interview an

This week TJ and Dave get some new equipment for the podcast and Dave gushes over the quality of XLR vs. USB, Tara gets bored. Then we chat about the season finales of Flash, Arrow, Supergirl and 12 Monkeys. Generally, TJ thinks these shows are lame and she's probably right, but Dave loves them. Lastly, we spend about 25 minutes talking about all of the nominees for the Hugo Finalists for "Dramatic Presentation: Short Form" including: Black Mirror, San Junipero - Netflix Doctor Who, The Return of Doctor Mysterio - Amazon Video, $2.99 The Expanse, Leviathan Wakes - SyFy Channel Game of Thrones, Battle of the Bastards - HBO Game of Thrones, The Door - HBO  Splendor & Misery - Science fiction rap concept album   Next week, TJ and Dave are going to go see Wonder Woman, talk about some of the Hugo nominated short stories and figure out why it's ok for them to switch between tenses when talking about themselves in these descriptions...

Dave and TJ talk about the Nebula Awards, American Gods Episode 4 "Git Gone," Alien: Covenant and the "Tessa Told Me" episode of Pseudopod. We also delve into season two of Master of None, Aziz Ansari's charming Netflix show.

Warp Drives #6: The Djinn Digression In this week's episode, TJ and Dave talk about seeing Radiotopia Live--we both loved Phoebe Judge's performance in the Criminal podcast. Then, we review this week's episode of American Gods (Head Full of Snow). We both liked the Anubis and djinn digressions, but the Shadow Moon story still felt a little slow. We both read up to issue #6 of World of Wakanda, spinoff of the Black Panther series. The Dora Milaje kick ass, but we're not sure why Black Panther needs bodyguards in the first place. Dave shares his new audiobook narration gig, Some Demon by Mel Murphy, which is available on Audible. And TJ talks about how she learned how to edit using Scrivener. Finally, the SciFi Dustup of the Day was the pronouncement of the Arthur C. Clarke Award shadow jury that the award is sliding too far into commercial writing. We wonder if commercial success or sophistication needs to be factored into awarding quality literature at all. Find us at warpdrives.wordpress.com and on Twitte

This one turned out to be a double episode, so strap in and get ready for an hour of nerdy goodness. WARNING: There are spoilers in this episode for a few things we'll be talking about. This week TJ and Dave talk about American Gods Episode 2, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, Secret Empire (and evil Captain America) as well as why Dave is such a bad father.   We also went on an adventure for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and visited 4 awesome Seattle comic book shops. We hit; Zanadu, Phoenix Comics where we got to meet G Willow Wilson author of Ms. Marvel (Happy 4th Anniversary Phoenix), Outside Comics and Geek Boutique where we met Paul Morrisey co-author of Teen Titans Go, and lastly Comics Dungeon where we met Paul's better half and co-author of Teen Titans Go, Heather Nuhfer!  

In this episode, TJ & Dave talk about the movie Sleight and the first episode of American Gods. Dave read the short story Needle Nose by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam and TJ has read Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. Also, they discuss the #sfdod where Captain America is apparently an agent of Hydra and everything to date was just a snow globe.

TJ and Dave talk about all things John Scalzi. This past week we had the chance to attend his reading in Seattle, and we talk about his new book "The Collapsing Empire" as well as how much he loves his wife. We also cover why TJ doesn't like the Expanse, Butter-gate, and how Dave needs to prepare better for this podcast by remembering the names of the characters he is referring to. 

TJ and Dave talk all about Norwescon 2017, Mishell Baker's Phantom Pains & Borderline, Annie Bellet. They also talk about Dave's favorite podcast The Adventure Zone as well as how much TJ has to pay her writing pimp. Lastly, you can never be too careful with ghosts.

TJ and Dave talk about Neil Gaiman's appearance at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, playing Dungeons and Dragons with TJ's mom, and the meat scientists at expensive restaurants.