[Do you have an idea for a future Mind Meld? Let us know!]

Books have been one of the greatest influences on my life. I say this not to downplay the lessons and values taught to be my family and friends, but instead to emphasize the importance of reading in my formative years. A lot of what I believe and how I act is driven by the characters I have encountered and the fictional worlds I have explored. Frequently I remind myself that “Fear is the mind-killer,” a message picked up from Frank Herbert’s Dune years ago – a lesson that has carried me through hard times. There are many more personal examples I could state but I’d rather hear from some of the very writers that inspire me.

We asked this week’s panelists…

Here’s what they said…

The greatest impact it had on me was instilling in me a love of science, questing for information, and a deep love of creative and wild imagination. My life-long walk on the path toward passing those gifts on to others now means I make a living continuing to live all that. So I would say it had quite an impact on my life.

As to if it makes me a better person, I would have no idea. I would hope that my family loved and learned from me whether or not I had SF in my life. In fact, I find a sort of cultish devotion to any mantras learned from just SF to be problematic. I flinch from ideological insistence, and just because I adored a book at an impressionable age… well, I’d hate for that define the rest of my life as a thinking creature.

The lessons involve various snippets of things I’ve picked up over a lifetime that I’ve found useful. I’d hate to highlight a particular phrase out of the stew that makes me a human, as I’ve always loved Bruce Lee’s admonition to “Take what is useful, leave what is not, add something uniquely your own.” I didn’t learn that in SF, but it’s how I’ve approached all text.

But I can’t be the only SF fan who has found himself repeating the Bene Gesserit litany against fear after smacking his hand with a hammer… right?

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Here’s the cover art and synopsis of the upcoming novel The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch, the third book in the Gentleman Bastards sequence.

Here’s the synopsis:

After their adventures on the high seas, Locke and Jean are brought back to earth with a thump. Jean is mourning the loss of his lover and Locke must live with the fallout of crossing the all-powerful magical assassins the Bonds Magi. It is a fall-out that will pit both men against Locke’s own long lost love. Sabetha is Locke’s childhood sweetheart, the love of Locke’s life and now it is time for them to meet again. Employed on different sides of a vicious dispute between factions of the Bonds Sabetha has just one goal – to destroy Locke for ever. The Gentleman Bastard sequence has become a literary sensation in fantasy circles and now, with the third book, Scott Lynch is set to seal that success.

Book info as per Amazon US:

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (October 10, 2013 in the UK and Commonwealth and October 8, 2013 in the US.)
• ISBN-10: 0553804693
• ISBN-13: 978-0553804690

Wow. Just. So. Much.

When we put together this read-a-long for The Lies of Locke Lamora so that each of us had sections to write questions for you, little did I know I was getting the section that would rip my heart out. And I’ve read this before.

Little Red Reviewer not only has a great discussion going on this week, but has an excellent graphic as well. (Yes, that is snickering you hear from the peanut gallery here!)

Follow me after the jump for the this week’s questions –
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It’s week 3 of The Lies of Locke Lamora Read-Along! Questions this week are provided by My Awful Reviews and he’s got some good ones for us, delving into the depths, nooks, and unclean crannies of Locke Lamora’s persona.

Quick Note: Week 3 covers chapter five thru the end of Interlude “The Half Crown War,” so if you’ve got any questions of your own that you’d like to post, make sure they stay within that time-frame.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, follow me after the jump for this week’s questions!
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We’re back!

Wondering what’s going on here? we’re reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch on a five week schedule. Check the link for details – there’s even a slow-a-long for people who don’t have time/aren’t able to whiz through this fast! Something for everyone…

C’mon, you know you want to…

Ready? Take the jump with me and we’ll get into the questions for the week!
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The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch Read-Along is here!

Open your books and go – let’s discuss the questions for week one:
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In episode 112 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester and Jaym Gates (continuing the discussion from Part 1 and Part 2) sit down with a mega panel of authors to discuss modern Sword and Sorcery with the authors who are currently writing it.

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Thanks to everyone who has signed up to participate in the The Lies of Locke Lamora read along. We’re delighted to have you along for the ride! Haven’t signed up yet and want to? Email me at beinganashley (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know that you want to sign up. You’ll receive a confirmation email from me, and then the magic begins…

Have you got your copy of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora? If not, now is the time to run (that’s right, do not walk) to your local bookstore, library, or electronic retailer of choice. A basic paperback should cost you less than ten bucks.

If you’ve never participated in a “read-along”, here’s a crash course: Your hosts are Dark Cargo, My Awful Reviews, Little Red Reviewer, and me – hosting for SF Signal. I intermittently twitter as @ohthatashley. Finally, the most excellent Dark Cargo Explorer is hosting a “Slow-Along” for those who do not read as fast as the schedule below indicates. So there’s NO reason not to join us!

Because there are a lot of book editions floating around, the reading schedule is based on chapter headings, not page numbers. It works out to about 120-140 pages per week.

Here’s the reading plan:
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[Do you have an idea for a future Mind Meld? Let us know!]

Every reader holds out for a hero, but be it movies or novels, its the antagonists, the villains, that often bring the heat, spice and power to a piece of work and make it sing.

So we asked this week’s panelists…

Here’s what they said…

.I’ve always had a great admiration for the Lady, from Glen Cook’s Black Company series, with an honorable mention for all of the Ten Who Were Taken that serve her. She’s ruthless but multifaceted, a romantic and tragic figure as well as a provisioner of all the dark arts and fell deeds a reader could desire. As for the Ten, they’re just so fun and iconic, sort of more extroverted Nazgul.

If you’ll allow historical fiction as a cousin to fantasy, I’d also vote for Livia, from Robert Graves’ I, Claudius. Subtle, pitiless, and patient, the deadliest woman (hell, the deadliest person) in a deadly milieu.

Last but not least I’d bring up O’Brien, from George Orwell’s 1984, the chillingly contented ordinary man who patiently explains to Winston what it’s all about… that all the chanting and ideology is a fog, that the politics of Oceania are meaningless, the nature of its wars completely unimportant. The whole point of the crushing pyramid of human misery is to keep a tiny elite with their boots on the throats of the rest of humanity, forever and ever, amen. To conceive that sort of thing, to accept it, to rise and sleep as a happy part of such a brutal mechanism… now that’s villainy.

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It’s coming – it will steal your time, it will pick your pocket, and it will win your heart.

We can’t do it without you, so read on!

SF Signal is delighted to announce that we will be participating in a read a long of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora along with you, in concert with the fine folks from:

• Little Red Reviewer
• Darkcargo Explorer
• My Awful Reviews
• and finally, SF Signal!

Who is Chains? Why should he find young Locke a bargain? Who, exactly, are the Gentleman Bastards?

You’ll find out on the first of March. Why do you need to know now? Well, you need the book, don’t you? Or you need time to dig it out of your TBR pile…(yes, I saw that!) Or your TBR again…(that would be MY pile) Kids, it’s going to be epic. Go forth to your book piles, library, or bookshop and get ready.

Your hosts will be reading the book and putting up posts at regular times, rotating around. Our posts will include our impressions of the story as it unfolds and questions zinging around in our heads.

What will you do? The possibilities are endless. What would you like to do? You can follow along and comment on our posts. If you would like to be on an email list for this adventure, email me at beinganashley [at] gmail [dot] com, replacing the [at] and [dot] accordingly. If you have a great idea, email me! Otherwise, pop in when you like and/or sign up to follow the other sites.

The Lies of Locke Lamora has wit, character, intrigue; and also violence, questionable language, and sex. What more could you ask for?

I can’t wait!

• Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies) is serializing a new planetary romance called Queen of the Iron Sands. There is no cost, but the author asks for donations. Chapter on is now up…read “My Father Brought the Sky Home“.[via Chris Roberson]
• Interviews & Profiles:
  • @The World in the Satin Bag: Kage Baker.
  • Agony Column: a podcast-interview with Lev Grossman.
  • SciFiCool profiles Jolene Blalock.
• @Suite101 offers up this Guide to H. P. Lovecraft First Editions.
• Over at SF Novelists, Glenda Larke asks: What makes a successful writer?
• Here’s xkcd’s take on Time Travel.
• John Anealio has posted a “Cylon #6″ remix.
• Subterranean Press shares an image from Nick and the Glimmung By Philip K. Dick.
• Meanwhile, Ian McDonald goes all neener-neener-neener and skips the “show” part of show-and-tell when he tells us he has seen the Stephan Martiniere cover for Pyr’s edition of The Dervish House. The word “awesome” is used.
• @SciFiNow: Top five: horror remakes.
• Unique Scoop lists 101 T-Shirts for Scientists, Science Geeks and Nerds. [via Mike Brotherton]