The Coode Street Podcast

Returning after a brief hiatus, Coode Street welcomes the wonderful multiple award-winning Sarah Pinsker, whose new collection Lost Places has just been published by Small Beer Press, and includes the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning “Where Oaken Hearts do Gather.” We touch upon her career as both story writer and novelist, the relationship of her music performances to her fiction, the balance between teaching and writing, the challenges for new authors entering the field, and of course the stories in her new book.

This week, Jonathan and Gary talk with Kelly Link, whose new collection White Cat, Black Dog is already showing up on bestseller lists. It's her first themed collection, with each of the seven stories linked to a particular fairy tale. We also touch upon several writers whose work has been important to Kelly, including Joanna Russ, Peter Straub, M.R, James, Fritz Leiber, Nicola Griffith, and Shirley Jackson, and even chat a bit about being an author who’s also a publisher (with Small Beer Press) and bookseller (with Book Moon), both co-owned and managed with Gavin J. Grant. We also discuss a few other things, including her highly anticipated forthcoming novel, The Book of Love.

It’s awards season again (or maybe still), so Jonathan and Gary take a moment to remind everyone of the deadlines for nominating candidates for Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula Awards, and to discuss briefly a proposal to add a one-time category of “Best Fantasy Novel” to the Hugos at the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon. They also chat a bit about the Best Related Work Hugo, and whether or not certain categories might be eliminated. First, however, they touch upon whether the central concerns of mainstream SF were laid down in the interwar era, as Paul Kincaid argues in a new essay. And then Niall Harrison's new collection, All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays.  Finally, we touch upon the question of how important opening paragraphs and titles are when it comes to drawing a reader into a work of fiction.

This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by World Fantasy and Newbery Award winner Kelly Barnhill, whose When Women Were Dragons was one of last year’s outstanding fantasy novels. We talk about her just-published The Crane Husband, which powerfully combines aspects of the classic fairy tale, science fiction, horror, and coming-of-age tale. We touch upon mixing genres, writing while raising a family, making up disposable fairytales, how stories involve both the forebrain and the hindbrain, and reading Terry Pratchett.

We are always casting around for inspiration. After getting ChatGPT to provide a new introduction for the podcast, Gary and Jonathan kick off a discussion about the health of the short fiction field, the scope and variety of short story collections due to be published in 2023, and share some (okay, many) thoughts on the history of short fiction collections in the science fiction field.   As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll see you again in two weeks.  

This week, in our more-or-less annual discussion of the Locus Recommended Reading List, we are delighted to be joined by Locus Editor-in-Chief Liza Groen Trombi. We talk about the purpose of the list, how it has changed over the years, how books or stories get on the list, and a few thorny questions about how to decide whether a novel is SF or fantasy if it contains substantial elements of both. In addition to mentioning some of our own favourite works of the year, we touch upon the importance of the First Novels list, which might be a harbinger of what’s to come, and how story collections and YA novels have grown in importance over the years. As always, our thanks to Liza and we hope you enjoy the episode.

It's not been that long since they last discussed it, but this week Jonathan and Gary return to the question of space opera, new space opera, and what contemporary SF authors might make of the concept. Is space opera the core narrative of SF, as Jonathan suggests, or only one of them? What are its essential characteristics? Has the greater diversity of SF over the last decade changed its basic form? It seems that when the term was first coined, it clearly referred to pulp adventure tales that we popular in the 1930s. But later versions have questioned the assumptions of those old chestnuts, redefining the form for each generation. How, for example, do current writers like Arkady Martine, Charlie Jane Anders, and Emily Tesh make use of the form? We definitely don’t settle any of these questions, but we’ll probably keep trying.

To kick off 2023, Jonathan and Gary share their lists of the books that they’re looking forward to reading in 2023. They mention a lot of forthcoming titles, ranging books from old masters like Peter S. Beagle, Howard Waldrop, Joanna Russ, Gene Wolfe, and Connie Willis to newer writers like Samit Basu, Vajra Chandrasekera, Alix E. Harrow, Emily Tesh, and Premee Mohamed, as well as essential collections from Kelly Link, E. Lily Yu, Joanna Russ, K.J. Parker, Sarah Pinsker, and others. The team also cheerfully acknowledge that the year will undoubtedly present us with some complete surprises and that we will be reading fantastic work from authors we haven’t even heard of yet. The field seems as lively and promising as ever! Pre-order links Books mentioned in the podcast include: Blade of Dream, Daniel Abraham Conquest, Nina Allan The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, Samit Basu The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera Furious Heaven, Kate Elliott The Landing, Mary Gentle Menewood, Nicola Griffith Starling House, Ali

There's Christmas and then there's Krampus. Here at Coode Street, there's nothing quite like a little bit more, and as a very special holiday bonus Gary sat down with the wonderful M. Rickert to talk about what she'd been reading, what she'd recommend, and her fabulous Krampus tale, Lucky Girl, one of our favourites and perfect for a cold, winter's night. As always, our thanks to Mary and hope you enjoy the episode.

And that's a wrap. Time to hang up the headphones and take a short break. The Coode Street Podcast is going on hiatus for the remainder of 2022 and will return early in 2023. Just before the Gershwin Room closes for the holidays, though, Gary and Jonathan take a moment to chat about the Advent Calendar, the year just gone, and more. Doing something like the podcast is a joy and a privilege, so Gary and Jonathan would like to thank everyone who has appeared on the podcast, everyone who has listened to it, and everyone who has supported it in any way. We'd also like to thank everyone who has appeared on the podcast this year and everyone who has taken the time to listen. It's a privilege to do this, and we're grateful. See you next year!  

And so we come to the final episode of the 2022 Coode Street Advent Calendar. Gary sits down to chat with a dear friend of the podcast, Elizabeth Hand, about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, her holiday recommendations, her own classic Christmas story, "Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol", and her fabulous new novel Hokolua Road. We'd like to thank Liz for making the time to chat with us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Way back in March 2020 we sat down with N.K. Jemisin to talk about her then-new fantasy novel, The City We Became. It was great. Then we had a whole pandemic, so we thought we'd check in to see how things are going. The holidays are literally upon us and Jonathan and Nora chat about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, and the sequel to that 2020 novel, The World We Make. As always, our thanks to Nora. We hope you enjoy the episode.  

We spoke with Tochi Onyebuchi back in 2020 as part of "Ten Minutes with...", when his award-winning novella Riot Baby was still new in the world. Since then Tochi's been busy but has still managed to deliver another incredible novel, this time Goliath. Today Jonathan and Tochi discuss what he's been reading, what he'd recommend, his holiday reads, and what he's been working on. As always, our thanks to Tochi. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Although Nghi Vo published her first short story all the way back in 2007, it's only been in the last five years that she's really grabbed everyone's attention, first with the 'Singing Hills' cycle of novellas, then with her stunning debut novel, The Chosen and the Beautiful. This year she has two books among the year's very best: 'Singing Hills' novella Into the Riverlands and her fabulous sophomore novel, Siren Queen. Today for the Coode Street Advent Calendar Gary sits down to talk to Nghi about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, her holiday reads, and what she's got coming out. As always, our thanks to Nghi for making the time. We hope you all enjoy the episode.

There are friends of the Podcast, and then there's family. We've been talking to the great and glorious John Clute -- writer, critic, encyclopedist, and more -- since 2010. Whether it's been about events at the SF Encyclopedia, happenings in SF, or some other thing, he has always been warm, witty, and wise. Today Gary called John in Camden to talk about what he's been reading and what he'd recommend, while also spending some time chatting about his latest collection of essays, Sticking to the End. As always, our thanks to John for making the time. We hope you enjoy the podcast.    

Depending on where you are in the world the weather is either turning chilly or it's becoming warm and sunny, but either way, it's not long till the end of our Advent Calendar. Today Gary talks to Naseem Jamnia about what they've been reading, what they'd recommend, and their exciting new novella, The Bruising of Qilwa. As always we'd like to thank Naseem for making the time to talk to us and hope you all enjoy the episode!  

John Kessel has long been a favourite of the podcast. We spoke to him in July about his major new retrospective short story collection, The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel, so it's no real surprise that he's part of our Advent Calendar.   Today Gary had the pleasure of calling John and chatting about what he's been reading, what he'd recommend, and what he's been working on. As always, we thank John for taking the time to talk to us and hope you enjoy the episode.

With a week left to go in the Advent Calendar, Jonathan sits down with Neon Yang to discuss what they've been reading, what they've read that they'd recommend, their holiday recommendations, and their exciting debut novel, space opera The Genesis of Misery! As always, our thanks to Neon, and we hope you enjoy the episode!

The Coode Street Advent Calendar rolls on through December and today Gary sits down with Shirley Jackson and Locus Award nominee Richard Butner to discuss what he's been reading, what he'd recommend, his holiday reads, and his wonderful new collection, The Adventurists. As always, our thanks to Richard for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

We're halfway through December and more than halfway through our Advent Calendar. Today Gary sits down with one of the most interesting and diversely creative writers working in science fiction today, Lavie Tidhar, about his new novels Neom and Maror, his many other projects, as well as what he's been reading lately and would recommend. As always, our thanks to Lavie for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.