The Coode Street Podcast

Every three months Locus publishes a long list of forthcoming science fiction, fantasy, and horror books that are being published in the US and the UK. As we have been doing all year, whenever one of these ‘Forthcoming Books’ issues hits the newsstands and your email inboxes, we invite Locus Editor-in-Chief Liza Trombi to join us to discuss some of the books we’re excited about reading.  This episode is a little different, though. After more than forty years, Locus is moving premises, leaving the home of founder Charles N. Brown in the Oakland hills and moving to bright new digs in San Leandro. Before getting into our discussion of new books, we chat about the herculean task of packing and moving one of the best collections of science fiction books and art in the world, the incredible kindness of Alan Beatts and the Borderlands Books team, and hopes for the future.  As always, our sincere thanks to Liza for taking the time to chat to us. We hope you enjoy the episode and will be back next week with more!

Following on from yesterday's podcast discussion with Zen Cho about her new novel, Jonathan delivers a short audio review of Sorcerer to the Crown.  If you've read the book, or have anything you'd like to add, please leave a comment.

This week Coode Street welcomes Zen Cho, who received the Crawford Award earlier this year for her story collection Spirits Abroad and whose delightful first novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, is published this week.  We discuss what it’s like to be a Malaysian writer living in London, the influences and background of her new Regency-romance fantasy, the heritage of colonialism, the expectations sometimes faced by writers from non-Western cultures, and her recent anthology of stories by Malaysian writers Cyberpunk: Malaysia.  As always, we'd like to thank Zen for making the time to appear on the podcast and hope you enjoy the episode.

In keeping with yesterday's quick squib about Limekiller, here's another short piece of review/commentary, this time about Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora. With all of the conversation about Hugo Awards at the moment, I (Jonathan) am tempted to make some brief comments about books, stories and other works that I feel are nomination-worthy and that may make my own ballot next year. It is possible that I won't follow through on this, or that the latter half of the year will be such that I won't get to do more. It's also possible that these will get folded into the main podcast (I certainly don't intend to keep bombarding you with new content like this every day), but for the moment here's a sample of a possible 'Jonathan's Personal Thoughts on Possible Hugo Nominees' series. Please, if you have a moment, drop me a note in comments or on Twitter to let me know what you think of the idea for the series and if you'd like to see more.  

Between 1997 and 2003 I was a reviewer for Locus. Growing demands on my time from my work as reviews editor for the magazine and as an anthologist eventually led to me giving that up. But during my tenure I reviewed a number of books I look back on very fondly.  As a bit of an experiment, I've recorded the review I wrote in 2003 and am publishing it here. It stands as a snapshot of my writing at the time, a glance at a good book, and as a test for Coode St audio. Although the book is now twelve years old, you can still order it from Old Earth Books.  I definitely recommend it.  I hope you enjoy the review.

With Gary only just returned from Spokane and the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention, we sit down to discuss the success of Sasquan, the successful site selection for Helsinki in 2017, congratulate our friends at Galactic Suburbia for their big win, and touch on some of the many and varied issues surrounding the 2015 Hugo Awards. During the podcast we:encourage you to join both MidAmerican II (Kansas City) and WorldCon 75 (Helsinki); mention io9s list of alternate Hugo Awards nominees; and discuss Jay Maynard’s article at Black Gate about conservatives in the SF field . This episode was recorded the day after Sasquan and is being sent out early. We expect to return to our usual schedule this coming weekend. Till then, we hope you enjoy the episode!

Two weeks ago we were fortunate enough to have Nina Allan and Renay as guests on the Coode Street Podcast (Episode 244: Renay, Nina Allan & the Weight of Fannish History). We discussed barriers to entry to fandom, inclusiveness and other issues  This week Gary and Jonathan continue that discussion in a fairly typical Coode Street ramble where we talk about inclusiveness, attending conventions, and much more. This episode was recorded prior to WorldCon and the Hugo Awards, which we may get to in coming weeks. Until then we hope you enjoy the episode!

This week saw the release of Nebula Award winning author Aliette de Bodard’s  powerful and engaging fourth novel, The House of Shattered Wings.  Aliette was in Spokane, Washington for Sasquan: the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention when she made to time to sit down and discuss the novel; using the real world in world buildin; urban fantasy; combining work, family and writing; and much more with Gary and Jonathan. “Paris has survived the Great Houses War – just. Its streets are lined with haunted ruins, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine runs black with ashes and rubble. Yet life continues among the wreckage. The citizens continue to live, love, fight and survive in their war-torn city, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over the once grand capital. House Silverspires, previously the leader of those power games, lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls. Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen, an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction, and a resentful young man wielding spells from the Far East. They may be Silverspires’ salvation. They may be the architects of its last, irreversible fall…” As always, we would like to thank Aliette for making time to appear on the podcast. We hope you enjoy the episode!

In a recent interview with Locus, Hugo and Campbell Award-winning author Ian McDonald discussed his new hard SF novel, Luna: First Moon: ‘My next books are Luna parts one and two, a duology set on a moon base – Game of Domes. In the Luna books, I’m still writing about developing economies, it’s just that this one happens to be on the moon, about 2089. It was basically Gary K. Wolfe who was responsible for it. On an ancient Coode Street podcast about invigorating stale subgenres in science fiction, he said he’d love to see a new take on the moonbase story. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved moon stories. John Varley did one, Steel Beach. I thought about it, and Enid, my partner, was watching TV, the new version of Dallas. It wasn’t very good, but the old version was great. My book is Dallas on the moon, so it’s got five big industrial family corps on the moon, called the five dragons, and it’s about their intrigues and battles.” Given Coode Street’s part in the history of Luna (see episode 72), we decided to invite Ian, a long-time friend of the podcast, back to discuss the new novel, his writing, and much more. As always, we’d like to thank Ian for making the time to be part of the podcast, and hope you enjoy the episode. More next week!

This week we are joined by reviewer, critic, podcaster and one half of the Ladybusiness team, Renay, and British Science Fiction Award winning author of The Race, Nina Allan, to discuss the implications of Renay’s recent essay on Strange Horizons, ‘Communities: Weight of History’. In an engaging discussing we touch on what it is that makes a science fiction fan, what a fan needs to know about SF, whether there is a ‘science fiction canon’, how much of you actually need to be familiar with, whether there is cultural pressure to read stories by men, and if women are being made invisible and written out of SF history. Oh, and probably some stuff we’ve left out.  We are very grateful to both Nina and Renay for making time to be part of the podcast and, as always, we hope you enjoy the episode. More next week!