Hey everyone, and Happy New Year! We're back with the second half of our "Year-in-Review" show, and this time, we're focusing on what Shaun, Mike and Adam want to see more of in the coming year. Hint: it's not more Disney+ specials set in the Star Wars Universe.

But it is:

more great anime, like Cowboy Beebop

Fantasy like House of the Dragon

More cyberpunk like 36 Streets

And more!

Since it's that time of year where we reflect on all of the awesome things in our lives, we want to thank you, our listeners for hanging around with us. It's great to know that there are likeminded nerdy fiction fans out there, and that you think we're worth your time. Thanks for listening!

We'd also like to thank our friends over at Za Bills Podcast for not only being a kick ass podcast, but for also giving Shaun some time over on the mic there too. If you need pizza recommendations while you're in the Buffalo Region, give them a listen ahead of time -- they know their za!

If you'd like to support our cast, a simple review on wherever you listen would make a huge difference in helping other people find us. Or, if you prefer, follow us on Goodreads - we tend to know a little about books, if you're looking for recommendations!

Lastly, if you're in the market for a new book, why not use our Bookshop.org shop?  Purchasing anything from Bookshop.org while using that link will send 15% our way, so it helps us pay for the monthly cost to host the show, or new equipment. Like new cables, for example. 

If you're ready to continue your training, young padawan, we're going to be talking about George RR Martin's short work, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms as well as the famous Ghost in the Shell. Make sure to watch the 1995 anime version, not the newer live action film if you want to join along in the convo. 

Till then, cheers!

Hey there! And welcome to Nerds of the Old Republic - we're wrapping up the year with a tentative year-in-review in all things nerdy! On this cast, we're chatting about the following:

Tolkien

Star Wars

George RR Martin

Dungeons and Dragons

And a big shout out to our friends at Za Bills - check out their great pizza reviews, and Buffalo Bills chat.

Lastly, if you need a last minute holiday gift, why not support us AND a book store local to you? With our bookshop.org affiliation, you can do just that. Just use the link in our show notes and that's it! Bookshop.org will fill your order using a books store near you, we'll get 15% of your purchase, and your recipient will know you really, truly do know them because you got them the perfect gift.

Thanks for your time, we know it's precious, and cheers!

Hey there nerds! We're here reading our sub-etha meson reader, and this month it's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Grab your a big glass of gargle blaster and follow along as we discuss whether not it's parody, and whether or not it's worth your time.

But before you get into that, why not dig into our good friend's podcast, Za Bills? Shaun's been invited there a few times and we think they do great work!

Lastly, if you're looking for some gifts this holiday season, why not consider our new affiliation with Bookshop.org? We've curated a list of books that we've read and anything purchased from our link will also send 15% our way, which would go a long way towards things like our monthly hosting costs.

We're going back to the well of The Weird, edited by the Vandermeers. In this cast, we're talking about Shirley Jackson, Jorge Louis Borges, and a story or two we each picked. Cuddle up with the tome, and read along -- this is a perfect fall read.

Something new from us: Check out our Bookshop.org Store!

If you want to support the cast, and read along with us, we're now working with Bookshop.org to help you get your Nerdy hands on what we're reading! Any purchase made through our link provides us a small affiliate percentage of your sale for no extra cost.

AND Bookshop.org is the best way to support local book stores online!

Bookshop.org supports local bookstores by giving local book stores a competitive online presence - and the orders are fulfilled directly by your neighborhood sellers! It's a win-win! 

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! 

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.

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!

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.

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 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 Snow Crash <\i> by William Gibson and 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 Cloud Atlas<\i>!

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!