The Coode Street Podcast

This week we welcome very special guest Michael Swanwick, discussing his new 'Darger and Surplus' novel Chasing the Phoenix, the origins of the Darger and Surplus stories, his long-ago discussions with Fritz Leiber about whether the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories were actually horror stories, collaborating with Eilieen Gunn, William Gibson, and others, and what it was like to  work with legendary editors Terry Carr and Gardner Dozois, plus other random-but-related topics. As always, our thanks to Michael for making the time to be on the podcast and to you for taking the time to listen to it!

As time slowly runs out to vote for the most controversial Hugo Awards in recent times, our intrepid commentators sit down to discuss the joy of attending a great convention like Archipelacon, some minor issues surrounding Sad Puppydom, discussion of Stories for Chip, tribute anthologies and much more.  Pig entrails are mentioned, so you have been warned.  As always we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week, while Jonathan is travelling, we expect Michael Swanwick on the podcast to discuss his latest novel.

This week we have a very special episode of the Coode Street Podcast indeed. During his recent appearance as Guest of Honor at Readercon 26 in Burlington, Massachusetts, Gary Wolfe sat down for a wide-ranging informal conversation with SF Hall of Fame inductee and SFWA Grand Master Samuel R. Delany to discuss his work, a recent collection of his early novels, and much, much more. Jonathan was supposed to be part of the podcast, but due to calendar-keeping skills that could at best be described as rudimentary, missed the recording. Nonetheless, we hope you'll enjoy the episode. We would like to thank Chip for making time to be part of the Coode Street Podcast. It's greatly appreciated.

Over the weekend of June 25-28 Gary travelled to distant and beautiful Mariehamn in the land of the midnight sun where he was to appear as a guest of honor at Archipelacon: The Nordic SF & Fantasy Convention. In amongst time spent appearing on panels, making speeches and marveling that the sun was still up as midnight approached, Gary took time to sit down with fellow Archipelacon guest Karin Tidbeck and long-time friend of the podcast Cheryl Morgan to discuss Karin’s writing, Finnish and Swedish SF, some recommended new translations, and much more. As always, our sincere thanks to Karin and Cheryl for taking the time to be part of Coode Street. We hope you enjoy the episode. Next week: Readercon goodness!

This week, with Gary returned from Archipelacon in Finland, we touch once again upon the problems of translation, the Finnish Weird, the international SF community, and such timely matters as the 50th anniversary of Frank Herbert’s Dune, the announcement of World Fantasy Life Achievement winners Ramsey Campbell and Sheri S. Tepper, new critical books in the series from University of Illinois, and even some odd ideas about short books or essays we’d like to see on the model of the 33 1/3 series, as well as the usual random rambles. Next time we'll be back with a special episode recorded at Archipelacon featuring Karin Tidbeck and Cheryl Morgan.  As always, we hope you enjoy this week's show!

This week we are joined by Hugo and Nebula Award winning writer Kim Stanley Robinson to discuss generation starships, how we might live in space, how space opera is becoming a subset of fantasy and his exciting new novel Aurora (due July 7). We are delighted to be able to present what is one of the first major discussions about this extraordinary new novel, which we think will prove to be one of the standout SF novels of 2015. As always, we'd like to thank Stan for making the time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

After a brief, unplanned hiatus due to scheduling and personal issues (meaning that Gary got more involved in the Nebula weekend than he intended to), we return with a discussion that ranges from the Nebula nominees and winners this year, the encouraging sense of the health of the field during the Nebula weekend, the question of whether middle volumes in trilogies are always worth reading, the question of world-building by accretion through a series of stories (as in Fritz Leiber or Robert E. Howard) versus worldbuilding as a pre-writing activity, the question of how to achieves a balance between science fiction and fantasy in anthologies (or if it makes a difference at all), and various other topics that will delight listeners who enjoy our usual rambling, and hopefully not too seriously frustrate others. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week: Kim Stanley Robinson on Aurora.

Every year there are thousands of books published and any one of them could appeal to you. To help you find great new books, Locus publishes a list of forthcoming titles every three months.   And to help you navigate through that, each quarter we invite Locus  Editor-in-Chief Liza Groen Trombi to join us and discuss the books that we think might be most interesting that are due out between now and the end of 2015. This month, unfortunately, Liza was not able to join us. However, we have persevered and have some recommendations for you. Of course, we strongly recommend you pick up a copy of the June issue of Locus and see the full list, which goes through to March 2016.  As promised, here's our list: ABERCROMBIE, JOE Half a War, Ballantine Del Rey, Jul 2015 (eb, hc)  BEAR, GREG Killing Titan, Orbit US, Oct 2015 (hc) BENFORD, GREGORY The Best of Gregory Benford, Sub- terranean Press, Jul 2015 (c, eb, hc) BIANCOTTI, DEBORAH Waking in Winter, PS Publishing, Jul 2015 (na, hc) BLAYLOCK, JAMES P. Beneath London, Titan US, May 2015 (eb, tp) BRAY, LIBBA Lair of Dreams, Little, Brown, Aug 2015 (1st US, ya, eb, hc) CHO, ZEN Sorcerer to the Crown, Macmillan, Sep 2015 (eb, hc) CIXIN, LIU The Dark Forest, Tor, Jul 2015 (eb, hc)  DE BODARD, ALIETTE House of Shattered Wings, Penguin/Roc, Sep 2015 (1st US, hc) DICKINSON, SETH The Traitor Boru Cormorant, Macmillan/Tor UK, Aug 2015 (eb, hc) GORODISCHER, ANGELICA Prodigies, Small Beer Press, Aug 2015 (eb, tp)  HAND, ELIZABETH Wylding Hall, Open Road, Jul 2015  HOLLAND, CECELIA Dragon Heart, Tor, Sep 2015 (eb, hc)  HOPKINSON, NALO Falling in Love with Hominids, Tachyon Publications, Aug 2015 (c, tp) HURLEY, KAMERON Empire Ascendant, Angry Robot US, Oct 2015 (eb, tp) HUTCHISON, DAVE, Europe in Autumn, Solaris, UK/US Nov 2015  (tp) KIERNAN, CAITLÍN R. Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea, Subterranean Press, Nov 2015 (c, eb, hc) KRESS, NANCY The Best of Nancy Kress, Subterranean Press, Sep 2015 (c, eb, hc) LECKIE, ANN Ancillary Mercy, Orbit US, Oct 2015 (tp)  LIU, KEN The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Simon & Schuster/Saga Press, Nov 2015 (c, eb, hc) McDONALD, IAN Luna: New Moon, Tor, Sep 2015 (eb, hc) McDONALD, IAN The Best of Ian MacDonald, PS Publishing, Jun 2015 (c, hc)  McDONALD, IAN The Locomotives’ Graveyard, PS Publishing, Aug 2015 (na, hc)  McDONALD, IAN Mars Stories, PS Publishing, Aug 2015 (c, hc) MIÉVILLE, CHINA Three Moments of an Explosion, Ballantine Del Rey, Aug 2015 (1st US, c, eb, hc) MITCHELL, DAVID Slade House, Random House, Oct 2015 (eb, hc)  MORROW, JAMES Reality by Other Means: The Best Short Fiction of James Morrow, Wesleyan University Press, Nov 2015 (c, hc) NAGATA, LINDA, The Red:Going Dark, Saga Press, Nov 2015 (hc) NIX, GARTH  To Hold the Bridge, Harper, Jun 2015 (c, ya, hc) PRATCHETT, TERRY The Shepherd’s Crown, HarperCollins, Sep 2015 (ya, hc)  REYNOLDS, ALASTAIR The Best of Alastair Reynolds, Subterranean Press, Nov 2015 (c, eb, hc) RICKERT, MARY The Corpse Painter’s Masterpiece: New and Selected Stories, Small Beer Press, Aug 2015 (c, eb, tp) ROBERTS, ADAM The Thing Itself, Orion/Gollancz, Dec 2015 (tp) SCALZI, JOHN The End of All Things, Tor, Aug 2015 (eb, hc) SWANWICK, MICHAEL Chasing the Phoenix, Tor, Aug 2015 (eb, hc)  WESTERFELD, SCOTT Zeroes (with Margo Lanagan & Debo rah Biancotti), Simon Pulse, Sep 2015 (ya, hc) WOLFE, GENE A Borrowed Man, Tor, Oct 2015 (eb, hc) As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!  Correction: During the podcast Jonathan incorrectly said Linda Nagata's Going Dark was the reissue of the first book in her "The Red" sequence. It's actually the third, with The Red: First Light coming in June, The Red: The Trials in August, and series closer The Red: Going Dark in November. All are worth your attention.

This week we pay a return visit to World Fantasy Award winning author Elizabeth Hand, discussing her new short novel Wylding Hall, the British folk revival of the 1970s which provides the novel’s background, the use of multiple narrators (and the advantages of audio-books in differentiating them), and such diverse matters as the legacy of Arthur Machen, why there aren’t more fantasy novels about the arts, and what to expect next in her ongoing series of crime novels involving the troubled ex-punk photographer Cass Neary. As always, our thanks to Liz for making the time to talk to us and we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week we sit down and discuss the World Fantasy Awards, the Life Achievement Award, and quite a lot more. Another old-fashioned ramble for the Coode Street Archives. We would mention that members of the 2013, 2014 and 2015 World Fantasy Conventions are eligible to vote for this year's World Fantasy Awards. A voting form is available, and you may vote via email.  Voting closes 31 May 2015. Support what you think is worthy. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast and will be back next week with more.