The Coode Street 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, Tit

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.

This week we are joined by the Hugo and Nebula Award winning Paolo Bacigalupi, who is just about to publish his first science fiction novel for adults since 2009s The Windup Girl.  Picking up from where his harrowing short story "The Tamarisk Hunter" left off, The Water Knife is lean thriller that asks important questions about how global warming will affect us all as seas rise in some places and drinking water becomes scarce in others. The publisher of the book describes  The Water Knife like this: In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg-breaker, assassin and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel “cuts” water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet, while the poor get nothing but dust. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in drought-ravaged Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate.

This week we return, without guests, to a topic with which we have annoyed listeners in podcasts for years—the idea of SF canon formation: who gets dropped from the canon, who gets added, and whether such things as Hugo nominations make any difference at all. The decade between 1985 and 1995 (20-30 years ago now), saw the deaths of many of the writers who helped establish much of the "classic" SF canon — Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Theodore Sturgeon, Frank Herbert, Alfred Bester, Fritz Leiber, John Brunner, Roger Zelazny, James Tiptree Jr, Cliffard Simak, Lester del Rey, Philip K. Dick, C.L. Moore, and more. Who among them are still being discovered by new readers, and which writers and books in the last 20 years are likely candidates for a future canon? Does it take 50 years or more to determine what is canonical? Are Hugos any sort of reliable guide? And what difference do canons make anyway, beyond collective lists of personal favorites? We also have decided, as announced in the podcast, to off

This week James Bradley and Ian Mond join Jonathan to discuss the five novels that have made the final Hugo Awards ballot. The shortlisted novels are: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)  The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)  The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)  The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu (Tor)  Skin Game by Jim Butcher (Roc Books) We almost completely avoid issues surrounding the ballot, and instead focus on discussing the novels and what might make them interesting to read.  Our thanks to James and Ian for making time to record the podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!

This week’s very special episode is a conversation with the superb and formerly mysterious K.J. Parker, whose newest work The Two of Swords begins serialization this week from Orbit, and whose Savages is due later this summer from Subterranean Press.   We discuss the influence of writers as diverse as E.F. Benson, P.G. Wodehouse, Mercedes Lackey, and C.J. Cherryh, the reason there isn’t much overt magic in Parker’s worlds, the freedom offered by fantasy over straight historical fiction, the relative advantages of novellas vs. novels, where all that wonderful dialogue comes from, and—of course—who K.J. Parker really is... As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This has been a busy year for the Coode Street Podcast, talking to interesting guests, covering a wide-range of issues, and being syndicated by our friends at Tor.com. For a bit of change, Gary and Jonathan decided to sit down together and record an old-fashioned Coode Street Podcast, just two guys rambling about science fiction. Topics covered, or touched on, included awards (of course), politics, the anniversary of SF classics, what makes a a work entertaining, and more.  All in all, a pretty typical episode of the podcast.  As always, we hope you enjoy the episode and will be back for more next week!

With Swancon 40, the 2015 Australian National Science Fiction Convention, in full swing Jonathan sat down with convention guest of honour John Scalzi and Twelfth Planet Press editor/publisher Alisa Krasnostein to discuss science fiction, community, Robert Heinlein, having just finished new novel The End of All Things and more! As always, we'd like to thank John and Alisa for appearing on the podcast. John's next novel, The End of All Things, is out for preorder and you can support the Pozible campaign for Alisa's new project Defying Doomsday here.  We hope you enjoy the episode!

This week Gary* is joined by award-winning author Ken Liu and Joe Monti, Executive Editor at Saga Press, to discuss Ken's exciting debut novel The Grace of Kings, his forthcoming collection The Paper Menagerie, and much more. As always we'd like to thank Ken and Joe for making the time to talk to us. And we hope you enjoy the podcast! The Grace of Kings is in stores next week.* Jonathan missed this episode due to illness.

This weekend Silvia Moreno-Garcia joins us to talk about her debut fantasy novel, Signal to Noise.  Described in an upcoming issue of Locus as “one of the most important fantasy debuts of the year”, it’s an engaging and compelling story of a woman returning to her family home in Mexico for her father’s funeral, and of a time in her teens when she discovered that the right music played just the right way could change the world.  It may be that we grew up at the right time, it may be that Meche’s past overlapped mine in just the right way, but we loved this gentle, moving book quite a bit. If you have any interest in fantasy and music, then we think Signal to Noise is for you. It’s the best genre book about music that Jonathan has read since Lewis Shiner’s Glimpses.  The publisher describes the book like this:A literary fantasy about love, music and sorcery, set against the background of Mexico City. Mexico City, 1988: Long before iTunes or MP3s, you said “I love you” with a mixtape. Meche, awkward and fifte

This week Deborah Biancotti, Margo Lanagan, and Scott Westerfeld join Gary and Jonathan in the Gershwin Room (aka Skype) to discuss their exciting new book project, Zeroes. Our discussion ranges from collaborating, and all of the ins and outs of collaboration, to superheroes and the origins of the new series.  Zeroes will be released in September. As always, we would like to thank Deborah, Margo, and Scott for joining us, and hope you enjoy the episode. Next week: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, strong female characters and Signal to Noise.

This week we welcome the remarkable Kelly Link, celebrating her new collection Get In Trouble, her recent anthology with Gavin Grant , her career in general, and what’s coming up from Small Beer Press.  We talk about the differences (if there are any) between adult and YA fiction, genre and mainstream, the possibility of a new novel, and what we did or didn’t read in school.  In addition to discussing Kelly’s own fiction and her rapidly growing reputation between Stranger Things Happen and Get in Trouble, we touch upon other books and authors from T.H. White’s The Once and Future Kingto Peter Straub’s “Hunger: An Introduction,” from Ray Bradbury to Shirley Jackson.  And Kelly, who loves ghost stories, raises the very good question of why we return to the same stories again and again, even long after we know what’s going to happen.  Listen, and see if any of us come up with a good answer for that. 

As the Aurealis Awards reach their twentieth anniversary, Jonathan sits down with Aurealis Awards judging co-ordinator Tehani Wessely, publisher Alisa Krasnostein, and critic Sean Wright to discuss the Aurealis Awards, their history and the recently released 2014 Aurealis Awards shortlist. This is the first time two episodes of Coode Street have been recorded and released on the same day! Our thanks to Alisa, Tehani and Sean for making the time to be available to record the podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!

We are always on the look-out for new and exciting books to read, and always want to know what we should keep an eye out for.  For years we've relied on Locus's quarterly Forthcoming Books issues as a guide on what to look for. One of the very earliest ideas for the Coode Street Podcast was that each month we'd sit down and discuss the newest issue of Locus. That didn't happen, but hopefully this is the start of a new series where, once every three months, we sit down with Locus Editor-in-Chief Liza Trombi to discuss what's new and exciting, and what we all should be looking for in the month's ahead. Our thanks to Liza for making time to record the podcast. The March issue of Locus will be on sale shortly.  We hope to get a list of titles from the episode up here soon. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. More next week. 

Is there a difference to writing for younger readers? Do they want or need different kinds of stories? Do they have different expectations from older readers? How do you structure a series? What makes for a rewarding reading experience and how do genre expectations relate to that?  With new young adult novels published recently, Joe Abercrombie (whose Half the World, second volume in the Shattered Sea series, is just out) and Sean Williams (whose second Twinmaker novel, Crash, came out late last year) sit down with Jonathan to discuss this and more during a fascinating conversation recorded during the Perth Writer's Festival. As always, our thanks to Joe and Sean, and we hope you enjoy the podcast. More next week!

Welcome to The Coode Street Podcast, an informal weekly discussion about science fiction and fantasy featuring award-winning critics and editors Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe.  The Coode Street Podcast debuted in 2010 and has been nominated for the Hugo, British Science Fiction, and Aurealis awards. This week Jonathan and Gary talk to old friend  Chris Brown,  and very special guest  William Gibson , in a discussion that ranges from William’s recent novel The Peripheral to the influences of writers as diverse as Mervyn Peake, Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester, and Avram Davidson and the question of what it means to write in and out of genre. We hope you find it as interesting as we all did recording it.  Coode Street, Episode 220 (1hr 17mins) The Coode Street Podcast is published by The Coode Street Press and Gary K. Wolfe, and is syndicated by Tor.com.

Jonathan returns and our heroes spend some time discussing the history and nature of short story collections in science fiction and fantasy. Warning: Contains some facts and a lot of wild speculation. Next week: William Gibson!

This week, in honor of the new Subterranean Press volume The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, we are joined by Harlan himself, along with Subterranean publisher William Schafer. Although Jonathan wasn’t able to join us on this one, we get into some fascinating stories about Thomas Pynchon, Octavia Butler, Harlan’s famous house (including the “grotto”), the role of small-press publishers in the history of the field, and what it all looks like from the perspective of a legendary writer in his 81st year. Note: There's a break at the 42min mark when Gary's cat stepped on his laptop and paused the recording. A few minutes were missed, but conversation continued!!