Nerds of the Old Republic: The Drinking Person’s #Scifi Club

Nerds Review: Early Weird Fiction

Hey there! Do you like weird fiction? Is your bookshelf filled with Kafka and Algernon Blackwood? Well, then you know more about weird fiction than I did before we read selections from Jeff and Ann Vandermeer's collection of short fiction, The Weird. 
Today, we're reading "The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood and "In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka. After that, we're on to Shirley Jackson's "The Summer People" and "The Aleph" by Borges. Grab a copy of the book, and give 'em a read! 

Nerds Review: The Acolyte and Disney's Star Wars

Hello and welcome to Nerds of the Old Republic! We're three friends who love reading nerdy fiction. We're taking a break from the reading this week to talk about Disney's The Acolyte, and it ended up also being about all of the Disney Star Wars Franchise.
Star Wars not your thing? Next month, for two episodes, we're digging into an anthology of weird fiction appropriately titled, The Weird edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer. We're starting with "The Willows" and "The Penal Colony", but feel free to do your own, weird thing.

Nerds Book Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Welcome back as we return to form with a book review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It's a multi-epoch book spanning the eras of Colonialism all the way through the glories of Neo So Copros with their fantastic clones serving you in the dinning hall, to the fall and eventual resurrection of human civilization in a Hawaiian colony. 
It's not our normal vibe in that it's less sci-fi and fantasy and more "everything bagel" of a novel, but we think you should listen in and maybe read it too.
After this, join us in two weeks for a discussion of Disney's influence on Star Wars, and our takes on properties like Acolyte and the Skywalker Saga. You might want to make sure your volume is down a bit, because we definitely take it to 11.
 
Cheers!

Nerds Movie Review: The Goonies

Hey there and welcome to the first episode in our fourth season! We're stretching our interests a bit with this one, but we're going to talk about The Goonies, that 1985 adventure movie with Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Ke Huy Quan, Kerri Green, Corey Feldman and directed by Richard Donner. Why The Goonies, you ask? Firstly because Mike had vowed never to watch it, and we got him to change a key aspect of his personality for the 'cast. Secondly, the Goonies are a different kind of nerd we've not yet touched upon -- the social pariah who is so simply because they refuse to be anything other than themselves.
Who can't associate with that?
Join us as we enjoy some Rocky Road martinis (if you're like me, you heard that in Sloth's voice), and share our lukewarm takes, it is just a few years old, after all.

Nerds Book Review: Neuromancer by William Gibso

Hello, and welcome to our last episode of season four! We’re reviewing an icon, our idol, and early cast book in William Gibson’s <i>Neuromancer<\i>. It’s got sexy robots, international heists and apartments the size of NYC closets, what more could you need in your cyberpunk? Seriously, this novel is genre defining and explanation avoiding — which is half the fun of listening to this episode. How do Adam, Shaun and Mike try to explain what is inexplicable (and for Adam, unfinished)?
If you want more nerdy goodness while we’re off for the summer, why not check out our back catalogue? We’ve read books like <i>Snow Crash <\i> by William Gibson and <i>Walkaway<\i> by Cory Doctorow that are in the same dystopian-cyber-maker-fi vein. If you’d rather a more known property, we read the Star Wars villain book Thrawn. There’s lots to love for every nerd. 
We’ll see you again in the fall, with <i>Cloud Atlas<\i>!

Nerds Movie Review: Everything, Everywhere All at Once

Hey there fellow nerds! We're talking about the 2022 smash movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once while drinking a smoked, maple bourbon peach smash -- kinda an everything all-at-once cocktail. Listen in if you've already watched it, and if not, grab your favorite chapstick, head to Netflix, and give it a watch.
 
For those mixologists out there, here's my recipe and process for our beverage:
1 oz bourbon (we used Elijah Craig)
1 oz maple syrup
0.5 oz lemon juice
1/2 a peach
Directions: 
Slice your peach into 1/4 and place them in your smoking cloche (or other cocktail smoker)
Smoke the peaches for at least 5 minutes as you mix the rest of the cocktail. We used hickory wood for this.
Muddle the peaches in the bottom of your cocktail shaker, then fill it with ice.
Smoke the drinking glasses, making sure to leave the smoke there for a minute.
Put the liquid ingredients into a shaker filled with ice and shake until frost forms on your shaker.
Remove the glass from your smoking device, or vise-versa and pour the cocktail.
Rim the glass with the unsmoked peach, and leave on glass for garnish.
 
If you want to catch up with our next read, it's the groundbreaking Neuromancer by Neal Stephenson. Genre-defining, compound-adjective-forming, this one is sure to give us a lot to talk about. Until then, stay nerdy!
 

Nerds Book Review: Ray Naylor's The Mountain in the Sea

Today we review a book that's all about our avatar's baby cousin -- the octopus. Ray Naylor's The Mountain in the Sea. What's better than octopodes with a culture and written language? How about a near future where we've created the first sentient android, and a security officer with a first name so long you'd have to scroll down to read it all?
There's more to Naylor's Mountain than this, but after a few surprise beverages from Shaun in our running series of Shaun surprises Mike and Adam with a new brew, what else is there to know? Grab a copy of the book and dive on in!
If first contact with new intelligences isn't your thing, what about the OG cyberpunk from William Gibson? Up next for us is his genre-defining Neuromancer. 

Nerds Movie Review: Dune 2

What do you get when you put three nerds in a room together with spicy margaritas? Our latest 'cast where we discuss the recently released Dune Part 2 based on Frank Herbert's novel, Dune. 
Come for the movie review, stay for the Christopher Walken impressions! And if space operas with intense IR camera filmed scenes of Roman Gladiatorial combat isn't your kind of nerdy, then join us next episode where we discuss Ray Naylor's The Mountain in the Sea, as well as our favorite plural for octopus, what it means to be a sentient human, and bad ass security officers who choose shitty translator devices to stay socially and emotionally distant.

ChatGPT Does our Homework: "Fear and Loathing in Dallas"

In a one-off, we read the ChatGPT generated audio drama we discussed in the previous episode; it's a first for us, and a first for podcasts (as far as we know). Listen in as we read the audio drama "Fear and Loathing in Dallas": three friends trying to escape their rustbelt blues on a road trip to see the Buffalo Bills play in the Super Bowl.
Try not to laugh, or give in and do! Then, listen in next time as we discuss The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. It's got AI powered slave ships, kidnapping, Matrix-esque hackers, octopods trying to communicate with humans, security officers who fight in a fishbowl of gel and the moral quandries surrounding creating the first sentient robot. 
 
We'll see you in the next episode, stay nerdy friends. Cheers! 

Nerds AI Experiment: ChatGPT Does our Writing

Join us as we do something a little weird, even for us. As teachers, we are fighting and intrigued by what AI, specifically ChatGPT, can do. So join us for an episode where we ask Chat to do our homework for us to write a story. 
Then, tune in next time as we unveil, for the first time anywhere, our radio drama written by ChatGPT, and performed by none other than us -- your friendly Nerds of the Old Republic!