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

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. 

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.

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! 

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!

Here we go with a new book: Jordan Peele’s Out There Screaming, a collection of new black horror. 
We at Nerds are HUGE fans of the editor’s work so we wanted to see what his taste in literature would be like. And man is there a lot to talk about! 

Well, now, this is an end of an era. The last Tarantino movie to review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Listen in as Mike, Shaun and I give the director one last send off, and add a bit of a retrospective as well.
 
Then, get ready to return to form: we're heading back to books! First, we're going to read Jordan Peele's collection of new black horror in Out There Screaming, then have a little fun with AI in what I'm calling, ChatGPT Story Hour. We've got plenty more cued up after that, but I like to play it close to the chest. 
If you enjoy what we're doing, the best way to support our nerdy selves is to share our podcast with a friend. Just find that "share" button on your podcast player, and think of one person whose as smart as you are. They'll appreciate it!
Cheers!