The Coode Street Podcast

This week we are joined by Nebula, Clarke, Tiptree, Campbell, and World Fantasy Award winner Geoff Ryman to discuss his important new project, 100 African Writers of SF/F, which sees Ryman traversing the African continent meeting new creators of science fiction and fantasy to discuss their careers, their work and the places they find themselves working.   We also discuss the recently announced 2017 nominations for the African Speculative Fiction Society's Nommo Award, which will be presented later this year, and a diverse range of other work.  Toward's the end of our discussion Geoff mentions Adofe Atogun's novel, Taduno's Song which we promised to list here so listeners could find it. As always, we'd like to thank Geoff for making the time to join us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. If you'd like to do some further reading in African SFF some resources are listed below. We'd also strongly recommend checking out the voters packet for the Nommo Awards, which will be released shortly. Some online resources: Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine Jalada - A pan-African writers' collective AfroSF Facebook Group DADA Books - delightful reading Chimurenga - A pan African publication of writing, art and politics African Fantasy Reading Group

This week we're joined by the delightful and provocative Kim Stanley Robinson, to discuss his new novel New York 2140, his “comedy of coping” about dealing with catastrophic climate change in the next century, as well as how his previous novel Aurora challenged one of the cherished ideas in science fiction, the literary and artistic function of exposition in fiction, the relationship of science fiction writers to “futurists” or to MFA programs in creative writing, and his own distinguished career in the context of both science fiction and contemporary environmental literature. As always, our thanks to Stan for making the time to tallk to us.  We hope you enjoy the episode and will be back next week!

That sounds a bit grandiose, doesn't it? We're back rambling, and this week we discuss some of our recent reading (Jonathan finished reading his second novel of the year!!), Gary's convention, the history of the Crawford Award, voting, and Gary's new History of Science Fiction. There's rambling, diversions, and parts of the conversation that just trrail off into the ether, as you might expect. As always, our thanks to everyone and we hope you enjoy the podast. More next week.

This week Gary is in Orlanda, Florida for the International Conference on the Fantastic Arts. Despite being thousands of miles away, across aligator-infested waters, he took the time to sit down with long-time friends of the podcast John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly to discuss John's new novel The Moon and the Other (Saga Press, April) and Jim's new novel, Mother Go, which will be out from Audible later this year. As always happens on Coode Street, the conversation started on new books, new publishers, and publishing methods, and wandered far and wide. As always, our sincere thanks to John and Jim for making the time to join us. We hope you enjoy the episode and will be back with more next week!

This week we welcome a record number of guests for a lively discussion of the state of short fiction. We discuss whether or not we’re currently in a “golden age” of short fiction; the welcome growth of multicultural voices; the economic realities of the short fiction market; and how authors can build careers in such a diverse and complex publishing environment. Our guests are: Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld; Charles Coleman Finlay of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; Irene Gallo of Tor.com; and Sheila Williams of Asimov's Science Fiction. We encourage you to support each of their fine publications. We'd also like to thank Charlie, Irene, Neil and Sheila for making the time to be part of the podcast.  

This week, after an unintended break because of deadlines and workload, Gary and Jonathan return to the Gershwin Room to discuss the burning question of literary fiction vs genre fiction, what exactly literary science fiction might be, recent books they've read, awards nominations, when is a writer a new writer, and so on. Books mentioned during the podcast include: The Moon and the Other, John Kessel Luna: Wolfe Moon, Ian McDonald New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson Agents of Dreamland, Caitlin R. Kiernan The Book of Swords, Gardner Dozois The Girl Who Drank Down the Moon, Kelly Barnhill. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We hope to be back next week with #302.    

This week Gary and Jonathan are joined by Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winning writer Kij Johnson to discuss her Nebula Award nominated novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe and her forthcoming novel The River Bank, how it's possible to re-imagine the worlds of classic fiction in bold and useful ways, recording audiobooks and how reading aloud changes what you write, and much more. As always, we'd like to thank Kij for making the time to join us, and hope you enjoy the episode. We'd also note that this is our 300th episode. So our sincere thanks to you, our listeners, for sticking with us!

Repost With awards season upon us, we thought it might be worthwhile to re-release our spoiler heavy roundtable discussions for last year. The fourth 2017 awards-eligible book we discussed was Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere. Welcome to the fourth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere This month Coode Street co-host Gary Wolfe joins us to discuss Into Everwhere, the latest novel from Paul McAuley. It’s smart, engaging hard SF adventure described by its publisher as follows: The Jackaroo, those enigmatic aliens who claim to have come to help, gave humanity access to worlds littered with ruins and scraps of technology left by long-dead client races. But although people have found new uses for alien technology, that technology may have found its own uses for people.  The dissolute scion of a powerful merchant family, and a woman living in seclusion with only her dog and her demons for company, have become infected by a copies of a powerful chunk of alien code. Driven to discover what it wants from them, they become caught up in a conflict between a policeman allied to the Jackaroo and the laminated brain of a scientific wizard, and a mystery that spans light years and centuries. Humanity is about to discover why the Jackaroo came to help us, and how that help is shaping the end of human history. If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Into Everywhere can be ordered from: amazon.com amazon.com.au amazon.co.uk We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible. Correction During the podcast Jonathan incorrectly says Paul McAuley's next novel, Austral, is due in late 2016. It's actually due in late 2017. Our apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

Repost With awards season upon us, we thought it might be worthwhile to re-release our spoiler heavy roundtable discussions for last year. The first 2017 awards-eligible book we discussed was Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky.   Welcome to the third episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. Patricia A. McKillip’s Kingfisher This month Tiptree Award winning writer Nike Sulway and Coode Street co-host Gary K. Wolfe join Jonathan and Ian to discuss Kingfisher, the latest novel from World Fantasy Award and Mythopoeic Award winner Patricia A. McKillip. It’s a lyrical, funny, and sometimes challenging novel about family and destiny described by its publisher as follows: In the new fantasy from the award-winning author of the Riddle-Master Trilogy, a young man comes of age amid family secrets and revelations, and transformative magic. Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. “Look for us,” they tell Pierce, “if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden’s court.” Lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his choice. Heloise, bereft and furious, tells her son the truth: about his father, a knight in King Arden’s court; about an older brother he never knew existed; about his father’s destructive love for King Arden’s queen, and Heloise’s decision to raise her younger son alone. As Pierce journeys to Severluna, his path twists and turns through other lives and mysteries: an inn where ancient rites are celebrated, though no one will speak of them; a legendary local chef whose delicacies leave diners slowly withering from hunger; his mysterious wife, who steals Pierce’s heart; a young woman whose need to escape is even greater than Pierce’s; and finally, in Severluna, King Arden's youngest son, who is urged by strange and lovely forces to sacrifice his father’s kingdom. Things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory—or destroy it... If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Kingfisher can be ordered from:   amazon.com amazon.com.au amazon.co.uk We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible. Next month The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of April with a discussion of Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere (his second Jackaroo novel).

For our 299th episode, we are joined once again by Locus editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi for our annual discussion of the Locus Magazine recommended reading list, covering the history of how the list evolved, who participates in compiling it, what its purpose is, and what our own thoughts are about the titles included this year in the book categories of the list(included the newly reinstated Horror Novel category). We also pay a brief tribute to our old friend and former Locus columnist Ed Bryant, who passed away earlier this week. Links for this episode: Locus Recommended Reading List Locus Poll and Survey (vote here!) Our thanks for Liza for making the time to join us. As always we hope you enjoy the episode. See you next week!