The Coode Street Podcast

For their 500th episode (if you count the shorter “10 Minutes With” episodes they’ve been doing since March), Jonathan and Gary characteristically fail to achieve any sort of clear structure for the discussion but do return to some favourite themes. While we manage to avoid reopening the old canon of worms, we do talk about what science fiction cultural literacy might look like—not in terms of specific works, but in terms of concepts and techniques, and how they might change over time. Would a reader of Gardner Dozois’s first “year’s best” anthology feel any sense of familiarity with Jonathan’s volume from 2020? And as usual, we look at the year so far, some forthcoming books to look for, and the pleasures we’ve had in chatting with new and old friends in our shorter lockdown-era podcasts.

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Only recently back from several months in India, Vandana Singh joins Gary to talk about what experiencing lockdown was like near Delhi and the hardships of day workers suddenly laid off and walking long distances back to their villages, the challenges to a speculative fiction writer of unexpectedly living in a 'bad science fiction novel' and some of the comforts of reading poetry, a novel set in remote Nagaland, 'magical realism' in the stories of Gogu Shyamala, and even Harry Potter. Books mentioned include: Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories by Vandana Singh When the River Sleeps by Easterine Kire Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But... by Gogu Shyamala

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Today Jonathan gets to spend talking to one of New Zealand's finest writers, Elizabeth Knox, who joins the conversation from Wellington (home of the 2020 WorldCon) to talk about living, working and writing during the pandemic, the joys to be found in reading absolutely everything by Diana Wynne Jones and Patrick O'Brian, her new novel The Absolute Book (due in the US in 2021 in a revised edition), and much more. Books mentioned include: The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox Nothing to See by Pip Adam The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Today Gary is joined by Crawford Award-winning and World Fantasy Award- nominated Swedish author Karin Tidbeck, discussing her remarkable 2010 Clarion class (three Crawford winners!), the audio narrating skills of Robin Miles, listening to Sandman as an audio drama, the work of Garth Nix and Tove Janssen, a fascinating new novel still awaiting English publication, and her forthcoming The Memory Theatre. Books mentioned include: Amatka by Karin Tidbeck Jagganath by Karin Tidbeck The Memory Theater by Karin Tidbeck The Sandman (audio) by Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin (narrated by Robin Miles) Harrow the Ninth by Tamsin Muir The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix The Moomin books and others by Tove Jansson Monsters In Therapy by Jenny Jägerfeld & Mats Strandberg

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. World Fantasy Life Achievement winner John Crowley chats with Gary about his oddly prescient horror story “Spring Break” (which he says is his only horror story), the evocative prose of Graham Greene’s thrillers, the terror of Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge, and his own recent collections of essays and stories. Books mentioned include: And Go Like This: Stories by John Crowley Reading Backwards: Essays and Reviews 2005-2018 by John Crowley This Gun for Hire (aka A Gun for Sale) by Graham Greene The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories by Flannery O’Connor The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn The Invisible Valley by Su Wei (trans. by Austin Woerner)

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. World Fantasy Award Life Achievement recipient and WorldCon Guest of Honor Charles de Lint joins Jonathan to discuss living, working, and reading in these strange times, what he's been working on, the relationship between his work and contemporary urban fantasy, the rewards he's found in taking control of his own publishing, and a new series of urban fantasy novels set in Newford, starting with Juniper Wiles, which he is planning for later this year. Books mentioned include: The Wind in His Heart by Charles de Lint Ballistic Kiss: A Sandman Slim Novel by Richard Kadrey Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne Melissa F. Olson is creating stories: A Patreon by Melissa F. Olson Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's by Tiffany Midge

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. One of the UK's most distinguished novelists, Christopher Priest, joins Gary to discuss how from the beginning he strived for consistency in his body of work, how the lockdown seems to represent a historical discontinuity comparable to World War II, the war's effect on writers such as John Wyndham, H.E. Bates, and Rex Warner, his frustrating experiences with the film version of The Prestige, his recent retrospective story collection, and his forthcoming novel. Books mentioned include: The Prestige by Christopher Priest An American Story by Christopher Priest Episodes: A Collection by Christopher Priest The Evidence by Christopher Priest (forthcoming October) The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel V for Victory by Lissa Evans (forthcoming 2021) The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Award-winning novelist and critic Nina Allan talks with Gary about what the lockdown has been like on a Scottish island almost devoid of the usual seasonal tourists, the appeal of golden age crime novels, the fascinating exercise of seeing how contemporary SFF works sometimes map onto older or classic works, the reissue of her collection Stardust (with a new story added!), and her forthcoming novels. Books mentioned include: Ruby by Nina Allan The Good Neighbors by Nina Allan (forthcoming 2021) The Last Astronaut by David Wellington Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke Engine Summer by John Crowley Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Gary is joined by multiple award-winning artist and illustrator Charles Vess, chatting about country living during the lockdown, working with authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Neil Gaiman (including a new collector’s edition of Stardust from Lyra's Books with new illustrations and handmade paper), and Charles’s own novel, The Queen of Summer’s Twilight, available on his Green Man Press website. Books mentioned include: Stardust by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess Honeycomb (forthcoming 2021) by Joanne Harris (ill. Charles Vess) The Queen of Summer’s Twilight by Charles Vess Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert McFarland The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal The World that We Knew by Alice Hoffman The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times. Today Jonathan spends a while chatting with Hugo Award winner Sarah Gailey about reading, writing, and getting through these strange times; the attractions of reading immersive texts (whether fiction or non-fiction); rediscovering The Hunger Games, reading the prequel, and her Medium article "Everything is The Hunger Games now"; her fabulous story from The Book of Dragons; writing YA and her upcoming novels, and more! You can listen to an excerpt from Sarah's story, "We Don’t Talk About the Dragon", right now and if you live in the US and are over 18 you can enter our sweepstakes to win one of ten copies by following this link! Books mentioned include: Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen On the Come Up by Angie Thomas The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins