The Coode Street Podcast

As snow and ice freeze the North American heartlands, long-time friend of the podcast Kij Johnson agreed to travel across a frozen Kansas City to find a place where she could Skype in to the Waldorf Room to join Gary and Jonathan in discussion.  This time Gary threw out a question to kick start the discussion: which science fiction writer is most likely to win the Booker Prize, and which one is most likely to top the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists? It proved a good start to a thoughtful discussion that wandered far and wide, although we’d contend not much rambling happened this week. As always, we’d like to thank Kij for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week Jonathan travels to Melbourne, so who knows what will happen there!

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

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.

A re-upload of the most recent episode. The previous version omitted 2-3 mins from the end of the file. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Warning: This Podcast Contains Incoherent Rambling.  Freshly returned from the 2013 World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, England, our intrepid podcasters peer through a veil of jetlag to discuss the World Fantasy Awards and the happenings of what was a wholly memorable trip. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

While our intrepid podcasters brave the wilds of London, a new episode for you (hopefully)! With no specific topic in mind, and having sent a greeting to Sleepless in Wagga, Gary and Jonathan answer questions: from Guy in Toronto about single malt whisky; from Fred in New Jersey on: Clifford Simak. Cordwainer Smith. Fritz Leiber. Are they forgotten?; Agents of SHIELD; and making a pitch for a Greg Egan retrospective short story collection; and from Michael about how crowd-funding has changed the anthology market. All in all, thanks to the friends of the podcast, it made for an interesting and entertaining episode. We hope you enjoy it. We'll be back soon!

In which the Coode Street team philosophize about the nature of science fiction, what the future means, whether it is inevitable or knowable, and what that means for science fiction.  Other matters are also discussed. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

In the run up to the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton our podcasting heroes are keeping it pretty much one-on-one, with no guest again this week.  In amongst other rambling, Gary and Jonathan they talk about some overlooked books of 2013 (Gary had a list), what "overlooked" means, and how a book gets to be noticed in the first place.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week, just following the publication of her major short story collection How the World Became Quiet, we are joined by Nebula Award and SFWA Vice President Rachel Swirsky to discuss writing short stories, the business of science fiction and much more. As always, we would like to thank Rachel for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast!

After a long sequence of discussions with wonderful guests, it's just Gary and Jonathan alone in the Waldorf Room once more. This week, after a brief chat about the forthcoming World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, their attention turns to how literary canons are formed, the potential toxicity of the canon forming concept and other matters. No books were sold in the making of this podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week we'll be back with special guest Rachel Swirsky.

With WorldCon a dwindling memory, Jonathan and Gary are joined by passionate, articulate and always fun to talk to special guest Printz, Hugo, Nebula, Campbell and Sturgeon award-winning writer Paolo Bacigalupi and discuss his brand new middle-grade novel Zombie Baseball Beatdown, exciting news about his second adult SF novel The Water Knife, new YA novel The Doubt Factory, and much more.   As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

At the recent San Antonio WorldCon, Gary was joined by special guest co-host Kij Johnson and award-winning author John Kessel (both long time friends of the podcast) to discuss the works of the late, great Alfred Bester. Our sincere thanks to both Kij and John. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Recorded live in San Antonio, Texas at LoneStarCon 3, this week's episode sees our intrepid podcasters once again depending on the vagaries of hotel internet connections and Skype calls to bring you the very best in science fiction podcasting. This week Gary and Jonathan are joined by Malcolm Edwards, Managing Director of Orion Books, and David G. Hartwell, senior editor at Tor.  In a freewheeling discussion, these two enormously experienced and respected giants of the science fiction publishing industry discuss contemporary publishing, editing, and their deep and abiding love for science fiction. We would like to thank David and Malcom for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. We would also like to thank everyone who nominated The Coode Street Podcast for the Hugo Award this year (it's greatly appreciated) and send out our sincere congratulations to all the 2013 Hugo Awards winners.

This weekend in San Antonio, Texas the 71st World Science Fiction Convention is in full swing. Parties are being held, discussions had, panels attended and science fiction celebrated. In amongst it all, Ellen Datlow is being toasted as Guest of Honour, a richly deserved recognition of the amazing contribution this nine-time World Fantasy and five time Hugo Award winner has made to the science fiction and fantasy field. As a run-up to the weekend, Gary and Jonathan sat down with Ellen to discuss editing, anthologies, her career, and many other things in a frank conversation. The connection to Ellen's Manhattan pied-à-terre was erratic, so much editing was necessary. The sound quality is fine, but there are one or two spots where the editing may be noticeable. Our apologies for that, and our sincere thanks to Ellen for being part of the podcast.   Next week, most likely, a podcast from WorldCon. Till then, we hope you enjoy the episode.

This week Jonathan and Gary are joined in the Gershwin Room by Sofia Samatar, author of the brilliant debut fantasy novel A Stranger in Olondria, which was published by Small Beer Press this April. In a wide-ranging discussion, we look at the origins of  A Stranger in Olondria, re-encountering genre fiction, the power of language and how we encounter it, and much, much more. As mentioned in the podcast, you can read more of Sofia's fiction here:Dawn and the Maiden (Apex Magazine, 2013) Selkie Stories Are for Losers (Strange Horizons, 2013) Another new story is coming up shortly at Lightspeed, and a sequel to A Stranger in Olondria is in the works. As always, we would like to thank Sofia for taking the time to join us, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

A little late due to technical issues, but here is Episode 155 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week we asked master storytellers Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages to join us in the Gershwin Room to discuss the writing life, short fiction, collaboration and their forthcoming Tor.com novella "Wakulla Springs". As always, our sincere thanks to Andy and Ellen for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!