The Coode Street Podcast

This week Gary and I invited Ian Mond from The Writer and the Critic to join us to discuss recommending books and how buzz is generated around new or upcoming books each year.  We discuss the very welcome feedback we received on the subject before we began to ramble in earnest, going on to discuss currently overlooked writers like Thomas M. Disch, Michael Bishop and Zenna Henderson,  sport in science fiction and fantasy, the delicate balance between literature and science in hard SF, and many other things.  Gary and I would like to thank Ian for joining us, and I'd like to make it clear, personally, that I was only joking about Alisa and the knitting needles. Really :) Some useful links following on from the podcast: Subterranean are publishing a best of Michael Bishop, and NESFA publish the collected 'People' stories by Zenna Henderson. PS: I apologise.

It doesn't feel like it, but the end of the science fiction year is not too far away, so Gary and I thought, in response to Ian Mond's of Writer and the Critic, that we'd discuss possible award-likely texts, how books get buzz, and much more.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

After a sojourn due to Father's Day, when we ran the very well received Jo Walton episode, Gary and I are are back on deck to discuss young adult science fiction, Ian McDonald, his new novel Planesrunner, Daryl Gregory and his new collection, robots and computerised houses, and a bit of waffle on the subject of Orson Scott Card and "Hamlet's Father". As always we hope you enjoy the podcast. See you next week!

Gary and I travelled to Reno, Nevada to attend Renovation, the World Science Fiction Convention for 2011.  Over the weekend we recorded a handful of podcasts with friends, old and new, that we see to seldom. We'll be publishing these over the coming month.  The first in the series is with Jo Walton, author of Among Others and Farthing, where we discussed that novel, science fiction, her Hugo blogging and many other things. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Last weekend Gary and I were in the slightly surreal space station environment of the Atlantis Casino in Reno, Nevada for the World Science Fiction Convention, where we recorded upcoming podcasts with Ian McDonald, Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Jo Walton. This weekend we're home and discuss the con (briefly), vow to avoid discussing awards too much, look at the work of Caitlin R. Kiernan and discuss the use of language in SF. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

It looked, for a moment, that technical difficulties would prevent us getting this final pre-WorldCon podcast out to you, but we persevered, recording this one twice.  We discussed many things, including changing concepts of the field, books that we're reading and so on.  We'll be at WorldCon and look forward to meeting as many of you there as possible. We'll also be recording, and hope to get something online from there (though it's possible we might not). Hopefully we'll see you here next week. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

With WorldCon bearing down on us like a freight train, there is packing to be done, panel preparation to be considered, and travel details to be finalised. Despite all of that, Gary and I found a moment to record the latest episode.  As always, we hope you enjoy it!

We've experienced some difficulties with episode 61, so we're republishing it. Our apologies for the problem.

In 1975 Peter Nichols, John Clute and Brian Stableford launched a project that would ultimately last for more than thirty six years, exceed four million words of careful scholarship, occupy at least three publishers, win many awards, and be recognised as the most important reference work in the science fiction: The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. This week encyclopedist, writer, editor, and critic John Clute joined Gary and I to discuss the coming September launch of the third edition of the SFE, the history of the project, and the exciting SF Gateway project which is being launched by Gollancz at around the same time. As always, we'd like to thank John for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast!

As the weather in Perth turns cooler, and presumably as Spring prepares to give way to Summer in Chicago, Gary Wolfe and I once again take the chance to ramble on all subjects SFnal. This morning Gary was just home from a local convention and we discussed Marion Zimmer Bradley, art vs. craft, Robert Silverberg, and gender in genre.  A pretty typical day on Coode St. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.