The Coode Street Podcast

In the second (or maybe third) episode in our new bi-weekly schedule, Jonathan and Gary eventually get around to the question of what books to recommend to someone new to science fiction and fantasy or someone who’s been away from the field for years or even decades. The standard answer to this a generation ago—Heinlein, Bradbury, Clarke—hardly provides an intro to modern SF, and while names like Le Guin and Butler still seem helpful, the question remains what current authors are good entry points. Along the way, we touch upon N.K. Jemisin’s forthcoming The City We Became, which Octavia Butler novel might be the best to start with, Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels, including the recent reissue of his California trilogy along with Maureen McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang. But first, Gary complains about the overused shorthand of describing a new novel in terms of other novels (“think Novel X meets Novel Y”), and the habit of publicists and even reviewers of describing novels as “for both literary and genre readers.

This week, after more or less inadvertently falling into a discussion of Simon Jimenez’s new novel The Vanished Birds (Del Rey) and whether it will successfully gain attention from both SF and mainstream literary readers, Jonathan and Gary mention a few other forthcoming books and eventually circle in on a discussion of fandom—what it means to be a fan, different kinds of fandom, and questions of what happens when you stop being a fan of a particular series or author, what major works you may have missed or over-looked despite considering yourself a fan of the author, and why some fans drift away in the face of too much sameness, while others remain fans because of that sameness.  Characteristically, we fail to adequately answer any of these questions, but at least we raise them.  Next episode We are officially moving from a weekly schedule to a two-weekly schedule, so look for the next episode on the weekend of Febuary 8th, wherever good podcasts are sold.

After last week’s episode where Jonathan and Gary discussed their favourite books from 2019, this time they talk about books they're looking forward to in 2020 (a few of which, in fairness, they’ve already seen or in Jonathan’s case even edited). It’s a pretty varied list, and probably incomplete, so feel free to suggest more titles that we might not have known about. Overall, though, 2020 is starting off as a pretty promising year. Gary's list Susanna Clarke, Piranesi William Gibson, Agency M. John Harrison, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became Hao Jingfang, Vagabonds Nancy Kress, Eleventh Gate and Sea Change Yoon Ha Lee, Phoenix Extravagant Ken Liu, The Veiled Throne Paul J. McCauley, War of the Maps Tamsin Muir, Harrow the Ninth Tochi Onyebuchi, Riot Baby K.M. Szpara, Docile Lavie Tidhar, By Force Alone Jo Walton, Or What You Will Gene Wolfe, Interlibrary Loan Alexander Irvine, Anthropocene Rag Greg Egan, Dispersion Jeffrey Ford, Out of Body The Best of Elizabeth Bear Ken Liu, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories The Best of Jeffrey Ford Jonathan Strahan (ed.), Made to Order: Robots and Revolution Jonathan Strahan (ed.), The Book of Dragons Jonathan's list Agency, William Gibson (Viking) Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Deepa Anappara (Chatto & Windus) The City We Became, NK Jemisin (Orbit) Burn, Patrick Ness (Walker) Utopia Avenue, David Mitchell (Sceptre) Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) By Force Alone, Lavie Tidhar (Head of Zeus/Tor) Vagabonds, Hao Jingfang (Saga) The Angel of the Crows, Katherine Addison (Tor) Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott (Orbit) The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, M. John Harrison (Gollancz) Or What You Will, Jo Walton (Tor) The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, Garth Nix (Allen & Unwin/Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins) Ghost Species, James Bradley (Penguin) Comet Weather, Liz Williams (Newcon)

It's been a long time! Jonathan and Gary are together again for the first new episode of Coode Street since October! There's a lot to catch up on, ranging from the current climate apocalypse in Australia—and the question of whether SF has done much to prepare us for this sort of thing—to major events of 2019, such as the renaming of major awards, the dramatic growth in awareness of world SF (from Asia in particular, with important recent anthologies of Chinese, Korean, and South Asian fiction), the explosion in the market for novellas and the question of whether short fiction can be similarly profitable for writers after years of getting it for free on the web, and our own lists of major books and likely award nominees from 2019.  Our expectation and hope is that the Coode Street Podcast will return to a more or less regular schedule during the coming year, complete with brilliant guests and our own half-baked ideas and theories. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!

It's been quiet here at Coode Street, of late. Jonathan has been working on books and recommended reading lists, and Gary has been travelling. Just two weeks ago Gary travelled to sunny Los Angeles, California to attend the 2019 World Fantasy Convention. During the weekend Gary was busy, interviewing guest of honour Margo Lanagan, doing some panels, and seeing friends. He did take a moment to sit down with newly minted World Fantasy Award Lifetime Achievement recipient Jack Zipes to discuss fantasy, fairy tales, and more.  As always, our thanks to Jack for taking the time to join us and my thanks to Gary for this special shorter episode of Coode Street.

It's been quiet here at Coode Street, of late. Jonathan has been working on books and recommended reading lists, and Gary has been travelling. Just two weeks ago Gary travelled to sunny Los Angeles, California to attend the 2019 World Fantasy Convention. During the weekend Gary was busy, interviewing guest of honour Margo Lanagan, doing some panels, and seeing friends. He did take a moment to sit down with Margo Lanagan, Eileen Gunn, and Ellen Klages - all long-time friends of the podcast - to discuss fantasy, fairy tales, and more.  As always, our thanks to Margo, Eileen and Ellen for taking the time to join us and my thanks to Gary for this special shorter episode of Coode Street.

We're on a roll! Two episodes in two weeks. Surely it can't last! Gary has been reading Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize-winning novel The Testaments and it's sparked off all sorts of thoughts on that old chestnut: science fiction vs. literary fiction. What are literary writers doing when they write SF? Can SF writers cross-over to the mainstream? Is this purely a generational perspective and does it just not matter any more? All these questions are at least touched on, if not settled (they're not settled), as well as mentions of Lethem, Le Guin, Chabon and others, and a brief discussion of robots and AI in SF. They even discuss some very interesting comments on the Atwood novel by Nina Allan over on her blog. All in all, a typical rambly shambles. As always, we hope you enjoy!

This week, with Jonathan hard at work compiling his year’s best anthology, we revisit one of the oldest questions about science fiction—namely, what is it and how do you decide what to include or exclude from an anthology clearly labelled as science fiction? Rather than trying to offer our own definitions, we discuss the problem of definition in general. Gary argues that the many definitions of SF could be classed as the functional (or purely practical, like Damon Knight’s famous “what I point to”), the rhetorical (definitions designed to promote the importance of the genre), and the theoretical (lit-crit stuff). We agreed that such definitions tend to change over time. That leads us into a discussion of the current state of space opera, and the question of whether the space setting is a defining feature, even when, as with Aliette de Bodard’s The Tea Master and the Detective, the plot is borrowed from mysteries.   Finally, we talk about some of our current reading. Gary mentions Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, which he sees as representing a fascinating collaboration between music and fiction since the central idea began with the techno-electronic duo Drexciya, became a Hugo-nominated rap by Clipping and is now Solomon’s novel.  Jonathan mentioned Leah Bardugo's bestselling new fantasy, Ninth House, which is out now and which he recommends. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll be back soon!

As we approach the October Country, Jonathan and Gary start this week’s podcast discussing Gary’s new two-volume set from the Library of America, American Science Fiction: Eight Classic Novels of the 1960s (which you can order right now) and end with discussing the challenges of editing Jonathan’s new best science fiction of the year anthology series from Saga Press. It’s not all shameless self-promotion, though, since in between we talk about how SF changed from the 1950s to the 1960s, whether there is more high-quality SF published now than ever before, and how new writers face different challenges from those of earlier generations in establishing a career and a distinctive profile in today’s complicated markets. All in all, a pretty full hour. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode and we'll back soon (next week!) with another episode!

Welcome to the first episode of the second season of The Coode Street Roundtable, a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panellists James Bradley, Ian Mond, Gary K. Wolfe, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. Annalee Newitz’s The Future of Another Timeline This month James, Ian, Gary and Jonathan discuss the latest book from Annalee Newitz. It’s described by publisher Tor Books as follows: 1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend’s abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she’s found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost. Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline—a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline? If you’re keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode (serious spoilers start around the ten-minute mark). If you don’t already have a copy, The Future of Another Timeline can be ordered from: • North American booksellers • UK booksellers • amazon.com.au We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible. Books mentioned this episode James mentioned: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker Paul Kingsnorth, The Wake Alastair Reynolds, Permafrost Michelle Tea, Black Wave Connie Willis, Doomsday Book Gary mentioned: Elizabeth Hand, Curious Toys Ian mentioned: Claire North, The Pursuit of William Abbey Meghan Elison, The Road to Nowhere Trilogy Jonathan mentioned: Kelly Robson, Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach   Next month The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of October with a discussion of Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January.