The Coode Street Podcast

Welcome to the final episode of the Coode Street Podcast to be recorded for 2015. This week  Gary and Jonathan are joined by award-winning writers and critics Charlie Jane Anders and Nisi Shawl in the Gershwin Room to discuss more of the best science fiction and fantasy books of the year. As with last week, you'll need to listen to the episode to hear what’s recommended, but there are a good handful of familiar books and few surprises that you may want to hunt down before the year is done. We would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to listen to the podcast, for the feedback you've sent in throughout the year, and for your support of Coode Street. We'd also like to thank Charlie Jane and Nisi for making the time to appear on the podcast this week. There will be some new episodes coming up that were recorded back in November, which we hope you enjoy too, but we’re on holidays for a while, relaxing and enjoying the season. We wish all of you the happiest of holidays. See you in 2016 fo

The year is fast running out, but with the holiday season approaching Gary and Jonathan invited award-winning writers and critics Paul Kincaid and Adam Roberts to join them in the Gershwin Room to discuss a small sampling of the best science fiction and fantasy books of the year. They also discussed some of the most interesting and important trends in science fiction during 2015. What books are recommended? Well, you'll need to listen to the episode to get the full list, but there are a good handful of familiar books and few surprises that you may want to hunt down before the year is done. As Jonathan says towards the end of the episode, whether this is the final Coode Street recorded for 2015 (we do have several others recorded for you and there may be a special second best of the year episode) or not, we would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to listen to the podcast, for the feedback you've sent in throughout the year, and for your support of Coode Street. We'd also like to thank

With the year coming all too quickly to a close, this week we are joined by distinguished veteran editor Jim Minz, who discusses his career from his University of Wisconsin days to working for Tor Books in Wisconsin and New York, Ballantine Del Rey, and currently Baen Books in North Carolina. We touch upon the various market segments of different subgenres of SF and fantasy, the various ways in which Baen and its market may have been misunderstood, the role of women editors in SF, and various other matters related to the SF publishing industry over the past two or three decades. As always, we'd like to thank Jim for making the time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the episode! 

This year isn't over yet, but we can just see the end of it over the horizon. Back in Chicago and Perth after their visit to Saratoga Springs, Gary and Jonathan sit down to deliver a classic rambling discussion of science fiction, fantasy and other stuff. They discuss the World Fantasy Awards, lifetime achievement and much more.  As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!

And we're back with a new episode!  This week, from the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, we are joined by the genuinely iconic Pamela Sargent, author of many novels including The Shore of Women and editor of the legendary Women of Wonder anthology series, and Suzy McKee Charnas, author of the classic feminist SF series The Holdfast Chronicles and the equally classic The Vampire Tapestry, for a lively discussion of the changing role of women in SF since the 1970s and digress as usual into some fascinating byways and memories. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast! 

This week, in our continuing series of discussions about the experiences of women writers in the science fiction field, we are fortunate to be joined by Eleanor Arnason and Linda Nagata.   Linda, whose Going Dark appears next week from Saga Press is the third volume in her trilogy that began with the Nebula-nominated The Red, began publishing novels twenty years ago with the nanotech series that started with The Bohr Maker, still available from Mythic Island Press.   Eleanor, winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. award for her classic novel A Woman of the Iron People, is currently completing a collection of her popular Hwarhath stories and has most recently published a collection of her Icelandic fantasies, Hidden Folk.  We touch upon the problems and opportunities presented by self-publishing, working with small presses, and whether women SF writers might more readily disappear from the collective memory of SF readers.  As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.

This week Gary and Jonathan are back in the Gershwin Room, killing time and talking about Jonathan's new anthology Meeting Infinity, which we discuss in some detail. It leads on to a conversation about our perceptions of 'the alien' and 'the other' in science fiction (and how that has changed over time), and quite a lot more in what is a classic Coode Street ramble. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. More next week!

This week Gary returns from the wilds of Virginia or Washington DC or somewhere or other on the US Eastern seaboard. We discuss his experience writing and performing a series of lectures on science fiction; the strengths and weaknesses of Ridley Scott’s The Martian; compiling Gary’s Library of America volumes, and whether or not we kid ourselves on whether a work really is canonical.  All of that and a little bit more. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. We should be back next week with a new episode, as we begin our run down to World Fantasy and the end of the year.

This week we welcome distinguished historical novelist Cecelia Holland back to the podcast to discuss her new fantasy novel Dragon Heart, her classic SF novel Floating Worlds, the relationships between SF, fantasy, and historical fiction, and historical and political themes in the work of writers like Kim Stanley Robinson and George R.R. Martin. As always, our thanks to Cecelia for making time to be on the podcast. We hope you enjoy the episode.

This week we are joined by multiple award winning writer and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch who discusses her long and diverse career in science fiction, as a writer,  as editor at Pulphouse then at F&SF, and her more recent experiences as a writer working in both mainstream and independent publishing. We also discuss her 'Retrieval Artist' saga, including the eight novel 'Anniversary Day' series. We spend most time, though, discussing Kris's work editing a new anthology of science fiction by women, Women of Futures Past, which will be published by Baen Books in 2016, and her new Women in Science Fiction website. As always, we'd like to thank Kris for making the time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the episode!

The glory days of 2003 when I was going to review every short story that I read and publish it at The Coode Street Review of Science Fiction. Sanity prevailed, but reviews did appear.  During 2003 I reviewed Howard Waldrop's "A Better World's in Birth", Ellen Klages' "Basement Magic", and Lucius Shepard's "Liar's House". During the podcast I recommend the following books:Portable Childhoods, Ellen Klages (Tachyon) The Dragon Graiule, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean) Howard Who?, Howard Waldrop (Peapod) Things Will Never be the Same: Selected Stories, Howard Waldrop (Old Earth) More anon!

Every three months Locus publishes a long list of forthcoming science fiction, fantasy, and horror books that are being published in the US and the UK. As we have been doing all year, whenever one of these ‘Forthcoming Books’ issues hits the newsstands and your email inboxes, we invite Locus Editor-in-Chief Liza Trombi to join us to discuss some of the books we’re excited about reading.  This episode is a little different, though. After more than forty years, Locus is moving premises, leaving the home of founder Charles N. Brown in the Oakland hills and moving to bright new digs in San Leandro. Before getting into our discussion of new books, we chat about the herculean task of packing and moving one of the best collections of science fiction books and art in the world, the incredible kindness of Alan Beatts and the Borderlands Books team, and hopes for the future.  As always, our sincere thanks to Liza for taking the time to chat to us. We hope you enjoy the episode and will be back next week with more!

Following on from yesterday's podcast discussion with Zen Cho about her new novel, Jonathan delivers a short audio review of Sorcerer to the Crown.  If you've read the book, or have anything you'd like to add, please leave a comment. 

This week Coode Street welcomes Zen Cho, who received the Crawford Award earlier this year for her story collection Spirits Abroad and whose delightful first novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, is published this week.  We discuss what it’s like to be a Malaysian writer living in London, the influences and background of her new Regency-romance fantasy, the heritage of colonialism, the expectations sometimes faced by writers from non-Western cultures, and her recent anthology of stories by Malaysian writers Cyberpunk: Malaysia.  As always, we'd like to thank Zen for making the time to appear on the podcast and hope you enjoy the episode.

In keeping with yesterday's quick squib about Limekiller, here's another short piece of review/commentary, this time about Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora. With all of the conversation about Hugo Awards at the moment, I (Jonathan) am tempted to make some brief comments about books, stories and other works that I feel are nomination-worthy and that may make my own ballot next year. It is possible that I won't follow through on this, or that the latter half of the year will be such that I won't get to do more. It's also possible that these will get folded into the main podcast (I certainly don't intend to keep bombarding you with new content like this every day), but for the moment here's a sample of a possible 'Jonathan's Personal Thoughts on Possible Hugo Nominees' series. Please, if you have a moment, drop me a note in comments or on Twitter to let me know what you think of the idea for the series and if you'd like to see more.  

Between 1997 and 2003 I was a reviewer for Locus. Growing demands on my time from my work as reviews editor for the magazine and as an anthologist eventually led to me giving that up. But during my tenure I reviewed a number of books I look back on very fondly.  As a bit of an experiment, I've recorded the review I wrote in 2003 and am publishing it here. It stands as a snapshot of my writing at the time, a glance at a good book, and as a test for Coode St audio. Although the book is now twelve years old, you can still order it from Old Earth Books.  I definitely recommend it.  I hope you enjoy the review.

With Gary only just returned from Spokane and the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention, we sit down to discuss the success of Sasquan, the successful site selection for Helsinki in 2017, congratulate our friends at Galactic Suburbia for their big win, and touch on some of the many and varied issues surrounding the 2015 Hugo Awards. During the podcast we:encourage you to join both MidAmerican II (Kansas City) and WorldCon 75 (Helsinki); mention io9s list of alternate Hugo Awards nominees; and discuss Jay Maynard’s article at Black Gate about conservatives in the SF field . This episode was recorded the day after Sasquan and is being sent out early. We expect to return to our usual schedule this coming weekend. Till then, we hope you enjoy the episode!

Two weeks ago we were fortunate enough to have Nina Allan and Renay as guests on the Coode Street Podcast (Episode 244: Renay, Nina Allan & the Weight of Fannish History). We discussed barriers to entry to fandom, inclusiveness and other issues  This week Gary and Jonathan continue that discussion in a fairly typical Coode Street ramble where we talk about inclusiveness, attending conventions, and much more. This episode was recorded prior to WorldCon and the Hugo Awards, which we may get to in coming weeks. Until then we hope you enjoy the episode!

This week saw the release of Nebula Award winning author Aliette de Bodard’s  powerful and engaging fourth novel, The House of Shattered Wings.  Aliette was in Spokane, Washington for Sasquan: the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention when she made to time to sit down and discuss the novel; using the real world in world buildin; urban fantasy; combining work, family and writing; and much more with Gary and Jonathan. “Paris has survived the Great Houses War – just. Its streets are lined with haunted ruins, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine runs black with ashes and rubble. Yet life continues among the wreckage. The citizens continue to live, love, fight and survive in their war-torn city, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over the once grand capital. House Silverspires, previously the leader of those power games, lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

In a recent interview with Locus, Hugo and Campbell Award-winning author Ian McDonald discussed his new hard SF novel, Luna: First Moon: ‘My next books are Luna parts one and two, a duology set on a moon base – Game of Domes. In the Luna books, I’m still writing about developing economies, it’s just that this one happens to be on the moon, about 2089. It was basically Gary K. Wolfe who was responsible for it. On an ancient Coode Street podcast about invigorating stale subgenres in science fiction, he said he’d love to see a new take on the moonbase story. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved moon stories. John Varley did one, Steel Beach. I thought about it, and Enid, my partner, was watching TV, the new version of Dallas. It wasn’t very good, but the old version was great. My book is Dallas on the moon, so it’s got five big industrial family corps on the moon, called the five dragons, and it’s about their intrigues and battles.” Given Coode Street’s part in the history of Luna (see episode 72), we