The Coode Street Podcast

Every February US science fiction and fantasy industry trade journal Locus  publishes an annual 'Year in Review" issue that includes overviews, summaries, reports and an eagerly awaited 'Recommended Reading List'.  With the February issue safely complete and either already in eager digital reader's inboxes or winging its way to them in print courtesy of international postal services, and with the 2013 Recommended Reading List available to read on the Locus website, editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi joins Gary and Jonathan on the podcast to discuss the year in review issue, the Recommended Reading List, and what it means to try to produce an annual summary of SF/F in 2014. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. See you next week!

It's been a long time since the last episode. In late November Jonathan and Gary sat down to record a final episode before commencing a lengthy hiatus.  After nearly two months, though, normal service returns! This week Jonathan and Gary announce the winner and shortlist for the 2014 Crawford Award, begin thinking about Loncon3 (the 2014 World SF Convention), and discuss the books they're looking forward to in 2014.  Lists will be added, but these are the books Jonathan's Looking Forward to in 2014:Wolves, Simon Ings (Gollancz, January) Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG, February) The Best of Ian McDonald, Ian McDonald (PS Publishing, April) The Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan, May) The Memory Garden, M. Rickert (Sourcebooks, May) Beautiful Blood, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean, June) Academic Exercises, K.J. Parker (Subterranean, August) War Dogs, Greg Bear (Gollancz, August) The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little Brown, September) Echopraxia, Peter Watts (Tor Books, September) with a bonus title of The Just City, Jo Walton (Tor, January 2015) which Jonathan thought was coming in 2014 but isn't.  Gary's list will be up shortly. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience, thank Cat Sparks for her help during our hiatus, and hope you enjoy the new episode. See you next week when we will be talking to Locus editor in chief Liza Trombi about the year in review!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.
 This week Cat has selected a discussion with award winning author Rachel Swirksy. When we spoke to Rachel it was just following the publication of her major short story collection How the World Became Quiet. We discussed writing short stories, the business of science fiction and much more. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.
 This week Cat has selected a discussion with multiple award winning editor Ellen Datlow. Last year Ellen was guest of honor at the San Antonion WorldCon. As part of the run up to the event, Gary and Jonathan spoke to her via the wonders of modern technology from Manhattan in what turned out to be a wide-ranging and interesting conversation. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence. Next up are brilliant short story writer Robert Shearman, and living legend Howard Waldrop, who spoke to Gary and Jonathan in July 2013 live from  Readercon 24 in Boston. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence. First up is Graham Joyce, who Gary and Jonathan spoke to back in November 2012. At the time Graham's novel Some Kind of Fairy Tale has just been released. It went on to win the British Fantasy Award this November in Brighton, and was followed by new novel The Year of the Ladybird. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

Neil Gaiman is always wonderful to sit down and talk to about how great stories are created, and is always ready to discuss how the great writers of the past have influenced him and his work.  During an extra special episode of the Coode Street Podcast, Neil joins Gary and Jonathan in a rare quiet moment at the Brighton World Fantasy Convention, to discuss the work of the late great R.A. Lafferty.  Lafferty is one of fiction's great originals, a teller of tall and extraordinary tales that puzzle and delight. The timing for this conversation was perfect, with the first volume of the Collected Stories of R.A. Lafferty just about to appear from Centipede Press. We would like to thank Neil for making time in what was an incredibly busy schedule for this conversation, and thank you all for supporting the podcast during 2013. This is the final Coode Street episode for 2013. We'll be back in late January with more endless rambling. Till then, safe and happy holidays to you all!!

This October the Coode Street commentary team travelled to Brighton, England for the 2013 World Fantasy Convention. In amongst too much drinking and late night conversation, they managed to record two engaging conversations for your enjoyment. The first of these was with long-time Coode Street favourite, Paul McAuley.  Over the period of about an hour, while hotel airconditioning worked hard to overcompensate for a mild UK autumn, hard science fiction, the state of science and much, more was discussed. Our sincere thanks to Paul for his time. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week: Neil Gaiman discusses R.A. Lafferty.

After an unexpected break the Coode Street Podcast returns to discuss the use of terminology in genre, Linda Nagata’s recent io9 article on hard SF, and other things large and small.  Assuming nothing unexpected happens, this episode marks the final official recording session for the podcast before our long holiday hiatus. New episodes recorded in Brighton will appear December 7 (169) and December 14 (170).  We will be running a series of classic repeats that have been chosen by long-time listener Cat Sparks to hopefully entertain you during the hiatus and will return in late January energised and ready for an exciting year.  In the meantime we wish you, your family, your friends and everyone else a safe and happy holiday season and a wonderful 2014!

This week our two commentators, emerging from the pall of jetlag and the reality of impending deadlines, turn their attentions to what is intrinsic to science fiction as a genre, what SF & fantasy has in common with historical fiction, the terrible burden of having to read lots of books, and Nicola Griffith's acclaimed sixth novel Hild.  There is also, towards the end of the episode, a brief discussion of issues related to this year's World Fantasy Convention, which are outlined in greater depth and with more intelligence over at Cheryl Morgan's blog. We also want to remind listeners that we will be going on hiatus for four weeks, starting 14 December 2013 and returning 18 January 2014. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.