The Coode Street Podcast

Gary and Jonathan are back with a rambling conversation that touches on epic fantasy and its relationship to privilege, the recently announced Campbell Award ballot, Gary's theory on perspective, recent books they've read and more. They also discuss hiatuses, missed episodes and how to subscribe to the podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!   Subscribe If you would like to subscribe to the podcast, use this link for iTunes.

Any time the Coode Street Podcast connects with the United Kingdom it's a special occasion. Jonathan stays up until the dead of night (often with a whisky in hand), while Gary is driven out of bed and into the arms of coffee. This week, in the face of puzzling technical difficulties, Jonathan and Gary are joined on the podcast by noted critic Paul Kincaid and award-winning writer Ken Macleod to discuss Paul's new book on the work of Iain Banks, science fiction, writing in Scotland, and much more. The aforementioned technical difficulties do mean there's echo on the line from Scotland, for which we apologise. We've tried to minimise it as much as possible, and think the conversation is worth persevering with, but are sorry the overall quality isn't a bit better. We hope you'll enjoy the episode and, as always, we should be back next week.

This week we talk with the multi-talented Theodora Goss, whose forthcoming novel, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, draws not only from her own doctoral research in late Victorian Gothic fiction, but from her earlier story "The Mad Scientist’s Daughter." By focusing on a group of women characters drawn from classic tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, and Mary Shelley—and bearing the familiar names of Jekyll, Hyde, Moreau, Rappaccini, and Frankenstein—Goss gives a voice to the largely invisible figures from classic works of terror. We also touch upon her recent story, “Come See the Living Dryad”—is it fantasy or not?-- as well as the reasons behind the appeal of monsters and the monstrous, and the delights of playing with genre. As always, we'd like thank Dora for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode. Note: We experienced some technical difficulties with this episode. There were issues with the audio (Dora drops out occasionally). We think the episode is interesting enough to release, but do apologise for the problems and hope you'll persevere.

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!