Along the way, we talked about Johanna Bell's The Department of the Vanishing, S.L. Huang's The Language of Liars, and Francis Spufford's Nonesuch, which led to the spontaneous inaugural meeting of The Totally Temporary Book Club, because by sheer chance all three had read and loved it.

The books in this episode are:

• Johanna Bell's The Department of the Vanishing;
• S.L. Huang's The Language of Liars; and 
• Francis Spufford's Nonesuch.

Beginning with Jonathan’s account of his recent reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, we speculate on what sort of expectations we bring as readers to novels in which the interiority of the characters is privileged over the SF elements, whether a novel can do both, and whether the reading protocols are different for different genres.

This leads toward a customarily rambling discussion that touches upon everything from Jo Walton and Ada Palmer’s new nonfiction book Trace Elements to novels by Le Guin, Wolfe, Bujold and others, and eventually leads us to a consideration of Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl novels, along with books we’re either reading right now or looking forward to in the next few weeks.

As always, our thanks to Michael for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

Conversation starts off, perhaps incoherently, with dystopias and dystopian fiction, segues to Travis Baldree and the somewhat misdescribed notion of cozy fiction, and then wanders here and there before Jonathan has to head off for a family event. Nothing was resolved, but almost no conversational gambits were harmed during recording.

As always, we hope you enjoy the ramble, and will be back with more before you know it!

Alex's list

• Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud
• Claire North, Slow Gods
• Darkly Lem, Transmentation | Transgression
• EJ Swift, When There Are Wolves Again
• Alastair Reynolds, Halcyon Years
• Emily Tesh, The Incandescent
• The Isle in the Silver Sea, Tasha Surii

Ian's list

• Mark Danielewski, Tom’s Crossing
• Alex Pheby, Waterblack
• Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide
• Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author
• Nick Mamatas, Kalivas!

James's list

• Claire North, Slow Gods
• EJ Swift, When There Are Wolves Again
• Laila Lalami, The Dream Hotel
• Nina Allan, A Granite Silence
• Sarah Hall, Helm
• Catherine Chidgey, The Book of Guilt.

Gary's list

• Alix Harrow, The Everlasting
• Laila Lalami, The Dream Hotel
• Natalia Theodoridou, Sour Cherry
• R.F. Kuang, Katabasis
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Bewitching

Jonathan's list

• Alix E. Harrow, The Everlasting
• EJ Swift, When There Are Wolves Again
• Emily Tesh, The Incandescent
• Nina Allan, A Granite Silence
• Silvia Park, Luminous

After a very busy end of the year, that's the final episode for 2025. See you all in early 2026 with something new! And thank you to Alex, Ian, and James for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Emma for making time to chat with us. Our thanks also to everyone who has taken part in the Advent Calendar. We hope you enjoy this and all of the other episodes.

As always, our thanks to Ursula for making time to talk to us today. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Tochi for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

We also touch upon progress on Daniel's third Kithamar novel and their ongoing project to write an entirely new novel right before your very eyes: James SA Corey writes a novel.

As always, our thanks to Daniel and Ty for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Francis for making time to talk to us today. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Becky for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

We touch upon reading Samantha Harvey’s Orbital and whether or not it’s SF, the brilliance of Vajra Chandrasekera, Natalia’s own first novel, his short fiction, and his current writing plans. 

As always, our thanks to Natalia for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, we'd like to thank Ray for making time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the conversation.

We also touch on his favourite books of the year, what he's planning, and his favourite seasonal reads.

As always, our thanks to Al. We hope you enjoy today's episode.

Our discussion touched on first major nonfiction book, 2022's The High Sierra: A Love Story, his forthcoming nonfiction book The Best Journey in the World, and the fabulous news that he's hard at work on a new novel.

As always, our thanks to Stan for making time to talk to us. We hope you all enjoy the discussion.

As always, we'd like to thank Michael for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Wole for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you all enjoy the chat.

As always, our thanks to Dora for making time to chat with us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

For this episode, Gary chats with the very busy and very talented Nnedi Okorafor, who has had quite a year with the publication of major new novel Death of the Author; One Way Witch, the second novella in her She Who Knows trilogy; Space Cat, a children’s book starring her own cat Periwinkle; and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025, which she co-edited with John Joseph Adams.

We chat about what she’s been reading, her fondness for Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman, and what’s up for next year, including the final volume of that trilogy, set in the world of her World Fantasy winning Who Fears Death.

As always, our thanks to James for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Paul for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thinks to Isabel for making time to talk to us today. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Aliya for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Nancy for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Adrian is the author of the brilliant Tyrant Philosophers series, which has been a highlight of the past couple of years, among many other wonderful books,  and now co-hosts the Starship Alexandria podcast with Emma Newman. 

As always, our thanks to Adrian for making time to talk to us! We hope you enjoy the episode.

Today’s guest is Martha Wells, whose new novel Queen Demon came out in October. The next Murderbot novel, Platform Decay, is due in May, and season 2 of Murderbot is due in 2027.

Today’s guest is China Mieville. We chatted with China recently about Perdido Street Station, and today we get a chance to talk about what he's got coming up.

In amongst the hurly burly of the end of the year and putting together the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Gary and Jonathan found time to sit down with long-time friend of the podcast (and most frequent guest!) Kij Johnson. 

We last spoke when Kij's most recent short story collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending was published. Since then, Kij has been busy working on writing and developing role playing games, most notably the adaption of her fabulous novel The River Bank, which is out now in a gorgeous edition from Kobold Press with stunning art from Kathleen Jennings.

In addition to all that, we talked about books, reading, and for a good while, the nature of farce. As always, our thanks to Kij for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did recording it.

Today’s guest is the wonderful Arkady Martine, whose Hugo nominated novella Rose/House is coming out in a brand new edition.

To kick off the Advent Calendar, December 1st's guest is the wonderful Nina Allan whose incredible novel A Granite Silence was released earlier this year.

As always, our thanks to Kemi for making time to talk to us today, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Jonathan raises an intriguing question about the novella category, with its rather reductive word-length definition of the form. But what, other than length, really distinguishes a novella from a short story or a novel?

We talk a bit about favorite novellas, and specifically a 2013 Locus survey in which readers voted on the best novellas from 2000-2010. Which of those would still make the list today, and how has Tordotcom’s program of standalone novellas affected our view of the form?

Of course, we ramble a bit about other matters and some interesting new and forthcoming books we’re excited about. Then, finally, we shut up.

Today China joins Gary and Jonathan to chat on the podcast for the first time to look back at Perdido Street Station, how it was written and where it came from, and how he feels about it now. We also chat a little about what he's doing next.  

As always, our sincere thanks to China for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the discussion.

Note: The original cover art for Perdido Street Station (shown above) was by British artist Les Edwards (painting as Edward Miller). You can see more of his work here.

We touch upon everything from writing in a believable 18th century voice to the challenges faced by a queer family and a trans protagonist, representing nonhuman points of view, the possibilities of a post-dystopian fiction, and balancing nonfiction and journalism with fiction writing.

As always, Annalee and Charlie Jane make for a lively and unpredictable discussion.

We also discuss her relationships with writers from Lovecraft and James M. Cain to the traditions of Gothic fiction. even touching upon C.L.Moore and some of Silvia’s own contemporaries. It’s a lively chat with an endlessly surprising writer.

We soon drift off into other topics. Gary is looking forward to hosting a panel discussion at the Locus Awards, and is fascinated by Kemi Ashing-Giwa’s 2023 novel The Splinter in the Sky, which leads into a discussion of how space opera-like stories have evolved over generations, what else we’ve read lately, how short story contracts have changed lately, whether there is a dearth of core SF or just an explosion of fantasy, and why Murderbot feels more like classic SF than many franchise properties.

As usual, a laser-like focus on nothing in particular.

As always, we not only touch upon some details of the novel— which takes place in Kay’s own version of an alternate 15th century France, featuring a Parisian tavern poet loosely based on the historical François Villon—but on the perennial question of Kay’s unique mix of history, fiction, and the fantastic.

This leads to a broader discussion of his fiction, the role of art and artists in his work, how fictional events from centuries ago can still resonate with events today, and even a bit on what it means to be a Canadian writer. Guy is as wise and articulate as always, and we never fail to learn valuable insights that leave us with much to ponder.

• Episode 600: The Coode Street Advent Calendar: Guy Gavriel Kay (2022)
• Coode Street Roundtable 5: Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky (2016)
• Episode 216: Guy Gavriel Kay and the Legend of the Lost Podcast (2015)

We later touch upon what we’re reading, mentioning some forthcoming books by Nicola Griffith, Alix E. Harrow, and R.F. Kuang and the spectacular success of the latest novel by Coode Street goest Joe Abercrombie. Somewhere in there we start chatting about collectible editions, how many copies of a book do you really need,  historical fantasy, and even a bit on Robert Holdstock.

Most important, though, is Coode Street’s first commercial. Jonathan and Gary’s common home in SF has long been Locus magazine, and we want to encourage our listeners to take a look at some of the neat perks being offered by this year’s IndieGoGo fundraiser and to make a contribution if you can.

We chat about artificial intellligence, writing about robots and how we use them as surrogates in fiction, different perspectives on fiction and how Luminous  might be read by US and Korean audiences.

As always, we'd like to thank Silvia for making time to talk to us and hope you enjoy the episode.

We touch upon the challenges of building an independent press in a rapidly changing marketplace, the importance of anthologies in identifying and preserving trends in the field, and what to expect next from Tachyon.

As always, we'd like to thank Joe for making time to join us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

• Gollancz (UK Publisher)
• Waterstones
• Waterstones Special Edition
• WH Smith

• Tor (US Publisher)
• Barnes and Noble
• IndieBound
• Lit Escalates Special Editions

Pre-order The Devils in Australia

• Booko

With Peter Beagle's 86th birthday upon us, we thought we'd re-share a discussion we had with him last year about writing and story. We wish Peter a happy birthday and hope you enjoy the discussion!

Sunday Apr 14, 2024

This week we are joined by the  legendary author of The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle, who discusses his new novel I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons (published next month by Saga Press & Gollancz), as well as his storied career, his pals from childhood, influential writers such as Robert Nathan and Avram Davidson, and last year’s important retrospective collection The Essential Peter S. Beagle.

As always, our thanks to Peter for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Along the way we touch on the trend toward glitzy “special editions” of new novels, and various corners of the publishing world, from horror to romantasy and cozy fantasy to audiobooks, ebooks, and what makes a book a breakout bestseller.

Awards season is underway. Nominations/and or votging for the Nebulas, Locus Awards, and Hugo Awards (once again we are eligible in the Fancast category, and Jonathan in the Editor Short Form category) is underway, and just closed for the BSFA Awards. There's also, news from a major distributor in the US that may mark the beginning of the end of the mass-market paperback, while other publishing news involves the consolidation of three major print magazines—Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF—under a single new publisher.

While at this point we don’t know more than anyone else, this leads us into discussions of romantasy (and the growing SF or space opera equivalent), how the way readers have discover new writers has changed over time, the value (if any) of promotional letters and blurbs (which Gary is not very good at, it turns out), the growing popularity of premium and collectors’ editions, and the difference between casual readers, fans, collectors, and simple accumulators of books.

Other topics pop up as well: Jonathan’s forthcoming anthology of stories in honor of Ursula Le Guin raises the question of which authors should be recognized with such anthologies, for example, and which have already been recognized and why. 

During a lively conversation it became clear that, no matter what else is happening in the world, there's a lot of wonderful work coming out in 2025, and this only scratches the surface of it.

As always, our thanks to Charlie Jane and Ian for making the time to join us.

As promised, here are our lists.

Charlie Jane Anders

1. Oathbound, Tracy Deonn
2. Harriet Tubman Live in Concert, Bob the Drag Queen
3. Terms of Service, Ciel Pierlot
4. Notes from a Regicide, Isaac Fellman
5. Meet Me at the Crossroads, Megan Giddings
6. Harmattan Season, Tochi Onyebuchi

Ian Mond

1. Waterblack, Alex Pheby
2. The Crimson Road,  A. G. Slatter
3. Exit Zero, Marie-Helene Bertino
4. Major Arcana, John Pistelli
5. The Antidote, Karen Russell

Gary K. Wolfe

1. Written on the Dark, Guy Gavriel Kay
2. When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory
3. A Granite Silence, Nina Allan
4. Frankenstein Rex, Adam Roberts
5. Lessons in Magic and Disaster, Charlie Jane Anders

Jonathan

1. Luminous, Silvia Park
2. Sour Cherry, Natalia Theodoridou
3. The Devils, Joe Abercrombie
4. The Everlasting, Alix E Harrow
5. All That We See or Seem, Ken Liu

Gary then mentions how hard it is to gain perspective on novels of the past year, and suggests looking instead at important books of the entire past quarter-century from the perspective of 2025.  We only got partway through his list, which included novels by Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia Butler, M. John Harrison, Margaret Atwood, Susanna Clarke, Gene Wolfe, Cixin Liu, and Robert Charles Wilson; collections by Kelly Link, Margo Lanagan, and Jeff Ford; anthologies by Sheree R. Thomas and Gardner Dozois—the last of which leads to a discussion of the durability of space opera as a defining SF theme. Plenty of stuff to argue with this week!

Gary then mentions how hard it is to gain perspective on novels of the past year, and suggests looking instead at important books of the entire past quarter-century from the perspective of 2025.  We only got partway through his list, which included novels by Alastair Reynolds, Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia Butler, M. John Harrison, Margaret Atwood, Susanna Clarke, Gene Wolfe, Cixin Liu, and Robert Charles Wilson; collections by Kelly Link, Margo Lanagan, and Jeff Ford; anthologies by Sheree R. Thomas and Gardner Dozois—the last of which leads to a discussion of the durability of space opera as a defining SF theme. Plenty of stuff to argue with this week!

Ian's list

We probably should have kept lists, but we did not. Ian did, though, and so that's provided to you with our thanks to him.

• Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino
• Walter Benjamin Stares at the Sea by C.D. Rose
• The Repeat Room by Jesse Ball
• State of Paradise by Laura van den Berg
• Changes in the Land by Matthew Cheney
• Absolution by Jeff Vandermeer
• Track Changes by Abigail Nussbaum
• The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
• City of Dancing Gargoyles by Tara Campbell

Two weeks later Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy award-winning writer Jo Walton published a follow-on piece on Reactor, On Selecting the Top Ten Genre Books of the First Quarter of the Century, where she discussed how she went about picking her contribution, while finding a classic reader's workaround that allowed her to name a lot more than ten books.

That caught Locus reviewer Niall Harrison's attention and lead directly to us inviting Jo to join us for a delightful and really interesting conversation on the subject. While we hope you enjoy the podcast, we have to mention their were some audio difficulties. We've done the very best we can to make everything work, but we do apologise for any audio issues you experience while listening to the episode.

As always, Joe’s broad experience as publisher, agent, and bookseller provides some unique insights as to what’s going on and we think makes for fascinating listening as we move towards the end of the year.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic The Dispossessed, we sit down for a chat with award-winning biographer and writer Julie Phillips, author of James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon and The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Body Problem.

Julie is currently at work on the authorized biography of Le Guin, and her insights from her research and her many discussions with Le Guin—not only regarding The Dispossessed but all aspects of her career, and on the challenges of writing biography—were so compelling that we ran a few minutes over our usual hour. We think it’s well worth it, and wish we could have gone on even longer.

After a brief digression (what else?) on novels that extrapolate political decisions more than technological change—like the two novels that preceded the movie Dr. Strangelove, we touch upon the question of whether J.G. Ballard may catch the current zeitgeist in the same way Philp K. Dick did a generation ago.

Finally, a few more short digressions on whether awards like World Fantasy can significantly influence a book's sales or reputation, on the value of “best of” anthologies, and on what makes a good gift book for the forthcoming holiday season.

From that, we not-quite-seamlessly segue into a discussion of Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski’s The Last Dangerous Visions and the problems in presenting stories over 50 years old together with brand-new tales, finally chatting about what makes you want to recommend a book to a friend. 

Along with way, we mention several interesting writers, including Emily Tesh, Wole Talabi, and Kate Heartfield.

We touch upon some works that figure in Emily’s approach to science fiction and fantasy, including Orson Scott Card's Ender’s Game and a children's SF novel from the '90s that she wishes someone would remember the title of (if you know it, let us know in the coments!), her own background in classics and how Some Desperate Glory reflects the military culture of ancient Sparta, the influence of gaming on her work, and what it’s like to be in conversation with the new space opera tradition of Ann Leckie, Arkady Martine, Tamsyn Muir, and others. And, a few insights into her forthcoming novel, due out next year.

As always, our thanks to Emily for joining us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

This week we are delighted to welcome long-time friend of the podcast, Nalo Hopkinson, who joins us to discuss her brilliant new novel, Blackheart Man, and her soon to be released short story collection, Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions. 

As always, our thanks to Nalo for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode. We'll see you in a week or two!

The Forever War, the debut novel from US writer Joe Haldeman, was first published by St Martins Press in 1974. It was shortlisted for the Locus Award, and was awarded the Hugo and Nebula Awards as Best SF Novel of the year.

It went on to become recognised as an essential classic of the science fiction field, was listed as #1 in the Gollancz Science Fiction Masterworks, and has never been out of print.

On a Saturday afternoon at the recent Glasgow World Science Fiction Convention, Jonathan and Gary and a boisterous crowd of science fiction fans welcomed John Scalzi, Gay Haldeman, and Joe Haldeman to discuss the 50th Anniversary of The Forever War and why it is so beloved.

Our thanks for Joe, Gay, and John for taking part, to the crowd for their support, and to the wonderful tech team from Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures for making the recording possible.

Since rambling is unavoidable, there is also a brief discussion of how newer readers discover older SFF texts and writers, both in terms of short fiction and novels, anthologies like The Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Dangerous Visions series (which has been in the news because of the much-delayed publication of  The Last Dangerous Visions,) as well as single-author collections like Harlan Ellison's Greatest Hits. That somehow leads to a chat about how reputations are made and sustained, and Gary and Jonathan touch upon a number of contemporary writers—but you’ll have to listen in order to find out which ones.

As usual, we wander a bit, discussing not only Michael's life in SF, but how stories are generated, SF and the mainstream, influential editors, what it means to have a career these days,and a number of classic writers who probably ought to be remembered more than they are.

We touch upon a few novels from 50 years ago, like The Mote in God’s Eye, The Dispossessed, Dhalgren, and The Forever War, books that seem to find new readers in each generation, and writers who seem to fade away with time.

You can order The Underhistory:

in the UK;

in Australia.

We run a bit longer than usual, but that’s a measure of how fascinating it is to chat with Paolo.

We touch upon earlier versions of Arthurian fiction by T.H. White, John Steinbeck, Bernard Cornwell, Nicola Griffith, and others, the balance between historical research and pure fantasy invention, the development of characters based on little or no historical evidence, and even Lev’s earlier career as a critic for Time magazine, when he helped bring fantasy literature into the mainstream.

Order it here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554241/the-bright-sword-by-lev-grossman/

We not only touch upon the venerable history of the anecdote, but upon some other midwestern family memoirs, the use of autobiographical material in fiction, and the possibility of future memoirs. As usual, Ellen is a delight.

• Reactor link to the story: https://reactormag.com/the-scary-ham/
• YouTube video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqvg8N9nc84

We touch upon some of the sources of Vajra’s fiction, the notion of science fantasy, and how his novels incorporate a wide variety of styles and themes, from almost documentary realism about the brutality of colonialism—especially in his native Sri Lanka—to mythic tales and far-future SF. It’s a pretty lively chat!

Note: We experienced some technical difficulties towards the end of the recording so it does end somewhat abruptly.  We do hope you enjoy the recording and we'll come back to some of the topics soon in another podcast.

Winner of the Ignyte and nominee for the BSFA, and Shirley Jackson awards, Tobi discusses growing up in Nigeria reading what SFF he could come across, the importance of discovering FIYAH as a place for his fiction, the relationship between Western and African storytelling traditions, managing viewpoints and voices, and his own plans for the future.

As always, our thanks to Tobi for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the podcast!

We discuss how Nghi has made use of different storytelling modes throughout the series, her novels The Chosen and the Beautiful and Siren Queen, a forthcoming novella (again alluding to the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and a very intriguing novel due in the fall, The City in Glass, which involves doing very interesting things with libraries. There are also, as usual, some totally irrelevant digressions involving everything from writing blurbs to The Clan of the Cave Bear.

After a wide-ranging discussion of the various ways of slicing up genres, we spend some time musing about the hot market for collectible, special, limited, and subscriber editions from publishers such as the Folio Society or Subterranean Press.

This leads to our ongoing discussion of what the Hugo Awards do and do not represent, why voting for your favorite works is important even if you haven’t read all the nominees, what makes a genuine SFF classic, and how the Hugo procedures and categories differ from those of the World Fantasy Awards—which are also accepting nominations from members of the 2022, 2023, and 2024 conventions.

We suggest you take a look at Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos if you're interested in a history of the Hugos, and point out that nominations for the 2024 World Fantasy Awards are now open too.

As always, our thanks to Peter for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the podcast.

On the fiftieth anniversary of his groundbreaking anthology Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy, we’re joined by the terrific author and editor Jack Dann.

During our conversation, we mention his new collection Islands of Time—published almost exactly 50 years after his first book— as well as his The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Alternate History and some of his classic novels like The Memory Cathedral and The Rebel.

Mostly, though, we discuss how that classic anthology evolved, in part from his friendship with Pamela Sargent and George Zebrowski, what the anthology meant in 1974, and how the nature of Jewish science fiction has evolved over the decades.

Not surprisingly, this doesn’t lead to any meaningful conclusions, but we do touch upon whether the notion of cozy has to do with the fiction itself, or just the reader's experience of it. Authors mentioned include Travis Baldree, Becky Chambers, Peter S. Beagle, Martha Wells, and Terry Pratchett.

Then, with our usual lack of grace, we transition awkwardly into a discussion of the new Harlan Ellison’s Greatest Hits, how well Ellison’s fiction holds up, and some brief previews of forthcoming episodes.

By the time we're done, Jonathan begins musing on a possible list of the top five most disappointing SF novels of all time. You'll have to tune in to see what’s at the top of that list—and get ready to argue!

As always, we'd like to thank Premee for making time to join us, and hope you enjoy the episode.

For our second episode of 2024, we’re joined by the inimitable Kelly Link, whose forthcoming first novel The Book of Love is already receiving stellar advance reviews (including one from Gary in Locus). Kelly explains how the novel evolved, it connections to various genres from romance to supernatural horror, the importance of valuable encouragement from friends such as Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, the challenges of shifting from short fiction to a long novel, managing multiple narrative viewpoints, and maintaining the balance between the interiority of the characters and the large-scale history and spectacle of the fantasy elements. She also updates us a bit on Small Beer Press and her own plans for future work.

As always, our thanks to Kelly. We hope you enjoy the podcast!

If you're interested, you can hear the episode here.

As it always is at the start of a new year, it's great to be back and we're filled with optimism for the year ahead. We hope to get at least our scheduled 26 episodes out this year, to do some special episodes, and to travel to Scotland for the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow.

For now, though, we hope you enjoy the new episode!

The books mentioned during the podcast are listed below.

James Bradley recommended:

• The Deluge, Stephen Markley
• Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link
• Translation State, Ann Leckie
• Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh

Alix E. Harrow recommended:

• Menewood, Nicola Griffith
• The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, Roshani Chokshi
• He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan
• The Magician's Daughter, H.G. Parry
• Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett

Ian Mond recommended:

• Conquest, Nina Allan
• Terrace Stories, Hilary Leichter
• In Ascension, Martin MacInnes
• Him, Geoff Ryman
• I am Homeless if this Is Not My Home, Lorrie Moore

Gary recommended:

• Mr. Breakfast, Jonathan Carroll
• The Essential Peter S. Beagle (2 vols.), Peter S. Beagle
• Airside, Christopher Priest
• Lost Places,Sarah Pinsker (and also Monstrous Alterations, Christopher Barzak; Jewel Box, E. Lily Yu; & The Privilege of a Happy Ending, Kij Johnson)

Jonathan recommended:

• The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, Garth Nix
• Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi
• The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
• The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill
• Hopeland, Ian McDonald

This raises the question of forthcoming novels that contain substantial fantasy or speculative elements, but that are marketed almost entirely as general or “literary” fiction. The examples Gary cites are The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard and Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. (Of course, some of our favorites like Kelly Link also get this “mainstream” treatment, as with The Book of Love.)

This is turn raises the question of how we find out about new novels from the margins of the field, how we choose what we read when discovering an exciting new writer may mean forgoing a new novel by a favorite, and how to find a balance.

They then touch upon some books they're looking forward to in 2024, including novels by Kelly Link, Nisi Shawl, Peter S. Beagle, and Paolo Bacigalupi, and some titles they’d recommend from 2023, including novels by Ian McDonald, Nina Allan, Geoff Ryman, Christopher Priest, Francis Spufford, Wole Talabi, and Nicola Griffith, as well as a few story collections, anthologies, and nonfiction books. By the end, it almost all comes into some sort of focus.

The 2023 World Fantasy Convention was held in Kansas City, Missouri over the weekend of October 26-29 2023. The convention was incredibly kind and generous and featured Jonathan as a guest of honour and Gary as a panelist.

During the weekend we grabbed long-time friends of the podcast Kij Johnson and Jeffrey Ford and attempted to discuss 'the art of narrative' or perhaps how you go about finding and telling a story. 

The conversation was interesting and we hope you enjoy it. Our thanks to everyone at the Kansas City convention, but special thanks to co-chair Rosemary Williams and her spouse, both of whom went far above and beyond to make sure you got to hear this recording.

See you again soon!

For this episode, Jonathan and Gary are joined by the distinguished novelist, editor, and scholar Jack Dann, whose new The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Alternate History: A Handbook on Craft, Art, and History has just been published by Bloomsbury Academic.

Jack discusses definitions of alternate history (as opposed to secret history or parallel universes), his own work in developing his da Vinci novel The Memory Cathedral and his more recent Shadows in the Stone, the responsibilities of the alternate history writer, some key writers and texts, and some recent trends in alternate history fiction.

Jonathan starts off by asking why we always seem to say it was a surprisingly good year for collections, when just about every year is a good year for collections. We also touch upon anthologies, such as Jared Shunn’s massive The Big Book of Cyberpunk, and what implicit arguments are being made by such broadly inclusive anthologies.

We also touch upon Jonathan’s brand-new The Book of Witches, the question of whether SFF is starting to mature enough that broadly diverse voices are viewed as simply part of the mainstream of the field, and some of the books we’ve been reading or anticipating, including Elizabeth Hand’s A Haunting on the Hill and Aliz E. Harrow’s Starling House (both will be guests on a future podcast), Tobias S. Buckell’s A Stranger in the Citadel, Nicola Griffith’s Menewood (and how historical fiction relates to SFF),The Best of Michael Swanwick, and Christopher Barzak’s Monstrous Alterations.

We discuss the recent worldwide recognition of African SFF, his use of Yoruba religion and mythology in his novel, the importance of movies (especially heist movies)to his work, the nature of Africanfuturism, his attraction to SF as a professional engineer, and his future plans—including a new volume of short fiction due next spring.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

After an unplanned hiatus, we’re back with the wonderful Kij Johnson, who will be a guest of honour at this year’s World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City this coming October. Small Beer will publish a new collection of Kij's work, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, to coincide with the convention.

We discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching fiction writing in workshops versus university creative writing programs, how the workshop and the reading group have become so important to new writers since the early days of Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight’s Milford, the different problems of writing short stories, novellas, or novels, the balance between estrangement and immersion in stories, and Kij’s own current and recent work, which ranges from experimental fiction to stories that revisit older writers like Lovecraft and Kenneth Grahame.

As always, Kij is bristling with good ideas, and we could easily have gone on for another hour.

We also touch upon some of her best-known works like Nettle and Bone and A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, what she read while growing up, her career from webcomic artist to children’s author to fantasy and horror novelist, the role of humour in horror, and why even stories involving murder priests, child abductions, and gruesomely reanimated corpses are actually sweet romances.

As always, we would like to thank Ursula for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, Alix E. Harrow
• The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang
• Thornhedge, T. Kingfisher
• The Deep Sky, Yume Kitasei
• Translation State, Ann Leckie
• White Cat, Black Dog, Kelly Link (collection)
• The Blue Beautiful World, Karen Lord
• Hopeland, Ian McDonald
• No One Will Come Back For Us and Other Stories, Premee Mohamed (collection)
• The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, Garth Nix
• Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic, Tobi Ogundiran (collection)
• Under My Skin, K.J. Parker (collection)
• He Who Drowned the World, Shelley Parker-Chan
• Lost Places, Sarah Pinsker (collection)
• Machine Vendetta, Alastair Reynolds
• The Navigating Fox, Christopher Rowe
• Joanna Russ: Novels and Stories, Joanna Russ (collection)
• Him, Geoff Ryman
• New Suns 2, Nishi Shawl ed.
• Ghost Engine, Charles Stross
• Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi
• Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh
• System Collapse, Martha Wells
• The Road to Roswell, Connie Willis
• The Wolfe at the Door, Gene Wolfe (collection)
• Jewel Box, E. Lily Yu (collection)

As always, our thanks to Mary and hope you enjoy the episode.

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!

We'd like to thank Liz for making the time to chat with us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

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.

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.

As always, our thanks to Neon, and we hope you enjoy the episode!

As always, our thanks to Richard for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Lavie for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, we'd like to thank Sarah for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Christopher for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

And for the sixteenth day of the Advent Calendar, something a little special. Today Jonathan talks to the delightful C.S.E Cooney about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, her holiday recommendations, and her absolutely wonderful new novel Saint Death's Daughter and collection Dark Breakers.

As always, our thanks to Clare for making the time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Alix for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Hugo and Nebula Award winner Charlie Jane Anders joins Gary for the 14th instalment of the Advent Calendar to discuss what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, her favourite holiday reads, and her fabulous new novel, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, the latest in her new Unstoppable young adult space opera series.

As always, our thanks to Charlie Jane, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

With the Coode Street Advent Calendar now in its second half, Gary sits down with the terrific Stephanie Feldman, the author of Who Will Speak for America? and  Angel of Losses, to talk about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, and her fabulous new novel, Saturnalia. 

As always, our thanks to Stephanie, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Kelly and we hope you're enjoying the Coode Street Advent Calendar!

The holidays are in full swing. Hopefully, everyone is on top of their seasonal shopping and ready to relax and have fun. But if not, we can help. Today Gary sits down with Liz Williams, the award-winning author of Comet Weather, Blackthorn Winter, and the recently released Embertide, to discuss what Liz has been reading, what she'd recommend, what she's been working on, and, maybe, some holiday reading too.

As always, our thanks to Liz. We hope you enjoy the episode.

As always, our thanks to Guy and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

As we move through the first week of December and into day nine of the Advent Calendar series, Gary spends some time chatting with the incredible Rachel Swirsky about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, what she reads on the holidays, what work she has coming out, and her fabulous science fiction novella January Fifteenth (Tordotcom), which looks at how universal basic income might affect some of us.

As always, our thanks to Rachel for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

As always, we would like to thank Tamsyn for taking the time to chat with us and hope you enjoy the episode.

Earlier this year we talked to the fabulous Kate Heartfield about her novel, The Embroidered Book. Now, for day seven of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Gary chats with Kate about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, and her favourite holiday reads. 

As always, our thanks to Kate. We hope you enjoy the episode!

Day six of the Coode Street Advent Calendar sees Jonathan chatting with the incredible Sequoia Nagamatsu about what he's been reading, what he'd recommend, what he might recommend for the holidays, and his fabulous debut novel, How High We Go in the Dark.

As always, our thanks to Sequoia and we hope you enjoy the conversation.

The Coode Street Advent Calendar rolls into the fifth day, and this time Gary takes a little time to chat with the wonderful Sam J. Miller about his new novella, Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy, and his short story collection, Boys, Beasts & Men. There's also, no doubt, some holiday chat with books and such being recommended.

As always, our thanks to Sam and we hope you enjoy the episode!

For the fourth instalment of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Jonathan called New Orleans to talk to exciting debut author Alex Jennings about how he was still envious about not having made it to the World Fantasy Convention there. The conversation also touched on what Alex had been reading, what they have coming out, and their fabulous first novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves, which Alex describes as "a Blaxploitation Pippi Longstocking adventure"!!!

As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

The third day of the Coode Street Advent Calendar sees Gary talking to long-time podcast favourite Aliette de Bodard about their year in reading and writing, their new novella,  Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, and the first ever Xuya universe novel,  The Red Scholar’s Wake. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation!

For the second day of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Jonathan sits down to chat with the delightful Kelly Barnhill, whose novels When Women Were Dragons and The Ogress and the Orphans came out this year. Both are highly recommended. Enjoy!

The end of the year is fast approaching, and this year the Coode Street Podcast is doing something a little different. We've invited 24 creators of some of this year’s best and most interesting books to join us for ten minutes or so to talk about what they're reading now, their favourite holiday reads, what they had out this year, and what they’ve got coming out in the year ahead. It’s a Coode Street Advent Calendar if that’s your thing, or just a run-up to December 24 for book lovers.

Today's guest is the wonderful Nicola Griffith, the multiple award-winning author of Ammonite, Slow River, Hild, and many more. Her brilliant queer recasting of the Arthurian story, Spear, was published earlier this year.

• Kelly Barnhill and When Women Were Dragons & The Ogress and the Orphans
• Richard Buttner and The Adventurists
• C.S.E Cooney and Saint Death's Daughter
• Aliette de Bodard and Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances & The Red Scholar's Wake
• Stephanie Feldman and Saturnalia
• Nicola Griffith and Spear
• Elizabeth Hand and Hokuloa Road
• Alix E. Harrow and A Mirror Mended
• Kate Heartfield and The Embroidered Book
• N.K. Jemisin and The World We Make
• Alex Jennings and The Ballad of Perilous Graves
• Guy Gavriel Kay and All the Seas of the World
• Paul McAuley and Beyond the Burn Line
• Sam J. Miller and Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy & Boys, Beasts & Men
• Tamsyn Muir and Nona the Ninth
• Sequoia Nagamatsu and How High We Go in the Dark
• Tochi Onyebuchi and Goliath
• M. Rickert and Lucky Girl: How I Became a Horror Writer
• Kelly Robson and High Times in the Low Parliament
• Christopher Rowe and These Prisoning Hills
• Rachel Swirsky and January Fifteenth
• Lavie Tidhar and Neom
• Nghi Vo and Siren Queen & Into the Riverlands
• Liz Williams and Embertide
• Neon Yang and The Genesis of Misery

The sharp-eyed among you will notice that there aren't quite 28 entries in our Advent Calendar. You're right! We're still to record a few, but they should all be in place before this is done. But keep your eyes peeled for more.

What else did we do? Well, it's Coode Street, so we rambled about books of the year, short story collections and more. Hope you enjoy it!

And so, as a little bonus, the Coode Street team are reviving the Ten-Minutes with... format and talking to twenty-four writers about what their reading, what they have coming out, and what their favourite holiday season reading is. Twenty-four writers? It's like one of those calendar-thingies you get in shops at this time of the year. Cool!

We are having fun recording these episodes and, come the first of December, we hope you have fun listening!

While we do touch briefly on the etymology of 'space opera', and on the pulp-era adventures that Wilson Tucker had in mind when he rather contemptuously coined the term in 1941, most of the discussion focuses on how the idea has evolved since M. John Harrison set out to demolish the old-school space opera with The Centauri Device in 1974, the efforts of Paul J. McAuley and others to define a new space opera in the 1980s (and Jonathan and Gardner Dozois’s The New Space Opera anthologies of 2007 and 2010), the influence of media, and more recent examples ranging from James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series to Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya universe, Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti series, and other authors who have energetically begun to reclaim space opera for a more diverse cast of characters. We fully expect enthusiastic disagreements.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. See you all again after World Fantasy!

We discuss Eileen’s stories, her essays on Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller, and Gardner Dozois (and her essay on William Gibson's Neuromancer that she could not include in the collection), her earlier collections Stable Strategies and Questionable Practices, the early days of the online zine Infinite Matrix and what it was like in the early days of Microsoft, her wide range of connections in the SF world, and her fascinating novel in progress. As usual, there are digressions, but they’re pretty interesting, too.

We also chat about his eclectic reading habits, from his early passion for Shakespeare to allusions in his novel as varied as Mary Shelley and Jack London. He also discusses his relationship to genre and how his reading and writing fit into the considerable demands of his professional career.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!

We do mention Rich Horton’s recent re-reads of pre-Hugo SF classics, and his contention that 1953 was a high point in SF publishing, but then get into questions of why it was just an impressive year (partly due to a backlog of SF writing that hadn’t previously been widely available in book form), which in turn leads us to another discussion of the familiar periods of SF history still make much sense given the broadening of the field in the last half-century. Are there other Golden Ages? Are we in one now? How do today’s readers decide which earlier SF is worth reading? Is the overall quality of SF stronger today than ever, or are we simply applying different or more stringently literary standards? This leads to a digression about exciting books coming out later this year, and a number of other topics that we challenge you to even try to keep track of. But at least we had fun.

This week we’re joined by the distinguished, multiple award-winning John Kessel, whose collection The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel is recently out from Subterranean Press, representing John’s four-decade career as an SF writer, teacher, editor, scholar, and workshop leader. We touch upon not only his short fiction, but novels like The Moon and the Other and Pride and Prometheus, his early studies under James Gunn, his thematic anthologies co-edited with James Patrick Kelly, and what really happened in SF during the 1980s.

As always, we'd like to thank John for taking the time to talk to us and hope you'll enjoy the episode.

This leads to how SF deals, too rarely, with questions of economic policy and the effects on individual lives —in the case of January Fifteenth, a woman escaping from an abusive ex-spouse, a journalist covering the effects of UBI, a well-off college student whose friends deliberately waste their annual checks, and a young member of a repressive religious cult. As usual, we touch upon what’s next for Rachel, including an intriguing collaboration with Ann Leckie.

As always, our thanks to Rachel for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

We talk about the research that went into her fascinating tale of the sisters Antoine and Charlotte, who grew up to become Marie Antoinette and Queen Charlotte of Naples, and of how magical books of spells secretly helped shape the history of 18th century Europe. We touch upon her earlier Aurora-winning Armed in Her Fashion, the various ways of incorporating fantasy into history, the question of whether historical fiction might be received differently in different cultures and markets, and some hints about her current work in progress.

It’s a pretty lively discussion, and we think a lot of fun. As always, our thanks to Kate for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode!

This week, Jonathan and Gary are joined by the brilliant Christopher Rowe, whose novella These Prisoning Hills appears next week from Tordotcom, revisiting the wonderful and bizarre world first introduced in his earlier stories “The Voluntary State” and “The Border State.”

We cover quite a bit of territory, ranging from Christopher's own influences, what it means to be associated with a particular region (such as Kentucky and Tennessee in Christopher’s case), the nature of influence in SF, and Christopher’s own discovery of the work of Cordwainer Smith, whose stories he’s been assiduously collecting in their original magazine appearances.

As usual, we would like to thank Christopher for taking the time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

Earlier this week, we were all stunned by the news of the tragic death of World Fantasy Life Achievement Award winner Patricia McKillip, whose luminous works have influenced and moved generations of readers and writers for nearly half a century.

Jonathan and Gary are joined by McKillip’s longtime friend, Ellen Kushner, herself a winner of World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Awards, and by Campbell Award winner E. Lily Yu, We talk some about Pat’s personal modesty and sharp wit, but mostly about her astonishing body of work, not only in fantasy but (as Lily points out) in her less familiar forays into SF. Like all tributes, it’s probably inadequate to the work, but it’s deeply felt by all of us.

They kick off chatting about travel during the pandemic and the coming WorldCon, before Jonathan admits he's only just read Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and they then go on to talk about Le Guin's work, the oddities of book buying and collecting, and then our hosts attempt to answer the age-old questions: do you need to read a book? if so, why? do you need to keep book? which ones can you get rid of, and how?  Really, it's a ramble that kicks off with Earthsea and ends up chatting about books. It's a Coode Street podcast.

As always, our thanks for your patience with our rambles. We hope you enjoy the episode, and see you again pretty soon!

Inevitably, we chatted about new or forthcoming books we’re excited about. We both liked Guy Gavriel Kay’s All the Seas of the World, Alix E. Harrow’s A Mirror Mended, and Christopher Rowe’s These Prisoning Hills, while Jonathan is tempted by Karen Joy Fowler’s new novel Booth and Gary’s about to start Samit Basu’s The City Inside. 

Of course, there are lots of digressions in between, including the nature of historical fiction and nostalgia for printed books in the age of e-books (at least for reviewers and critics).

Some of the authors discussed here, and some that Jonathan and Gary are currently reading or expecting to read, include Guy Gavriel Kay, R.F. Kuang, Kelly Barnhill, Nghi Vo, John Crowley, and Karen Joy Fowler. At the end, we touch briefly upon the question of history in fiction, and the different strategies of using entirely fictional characters, almost entirely historical figures, or a mixture of both.

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.

Toward the end, we pay a brief tribute to two Locus Magazine pioneers, reviewer Faren Miller (who was also the magazine's first full-time employee), and bibliographer William G. Contento, who helped establish resources that remain crucial to anyone interested in the SFF field.

While we recognize that many popular subgenres, from military SF to heroic fantasy, have plenty of readers loyal to the old traditions, we muse about whether many of today’s writers feel some pressure to meet both traditional literary and SF standards, and Jonathan namechecks R.F. Kuang. Some writers we mention, such as Arkady Martine, seem to effortlessly do both. On the other hand, why were several genre mystery readers of the 1930s and 1940s, like Hammett and Chandler, were later recognized as major literary figures, the same didn’t seem to have to SF writers of the same period.

Toward the end, we touch upon Paul Kincaid's provocative new essay, "A Taxonomy of Reviewing" and his book on Brian W. Aldiss, amongst other things. 

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. 

All in all, episode two of season 13, sounds pretty much like most of the other episodes we've recorded over the past twelve years, so if they were your jam, this might be too. 

As always, we hope you enjoy it and are very grateful to everyone for listening in...

This week we discuss 25 or so books that we are looking forward to or, maybe, have read already and can recommend that you check out (along with a few strays). Pre-order links are below. We also are clear we've definitely missed books we'll end up loving.

As always, our sincere thanks to James, Alix, and Ian for making time to chat with us.  We hope you enjoy the episode and that you'll see us again in a couple weeks.

JAMES

1. The Candy House, Jennifer Egan
2. To Paradise, Hanya Yanigihara
3. Goliath, Tochi Onyebuchi
4. Sea of Tranquility, Emily St John Mandel
5. A History of Dreams, Jane Rawson

ALIX

1. Siren Queen, Nghi Vo
2. Saint Death's Daughter, C.S.E. Cooney
3. How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia Nagamatsu
4. Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
5. Spear, Nicola Griffith

IAN

1. The This, Adam Roberts
2. Dark Breakers, C.S.E Cooney
3. The Last Blade Priest, Will Wiles
4. Booth, Karen Joy Fowler
5. Hard Places(1), Kirstyn McDermott

JONATHAN

1. The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest, Felix Salten (trans. Jack Zipes)
2. Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution,  R.F. Kuang
3. The Landing, Mary Gentle
4. All the Seas of the World, Guy Gavriel Kay
5. Devil House, John Darnielle

1. A Mirror Mended, Alix E. Harrow
2. Aspects, John M. Ford
3. High Times in the Low Parliament, Kelly Robson
4. The Daughter of Dr. Moreau, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
5. Boys, Beasts, and Men, Sam J. Miller

(1) Pre-order not yet available.

Just a week ago, the members of the World Science Fiction Convention awarded the Coode Street Podcast with the Hugo Award for Best Fancast.  This time out we take a moment, on the very edge of the holidays, to say thank you. Thank you to everyone out there involved, no matter how small or how large your contribution to our ongoing conversation. We will ever be in deeply in your debt for your support.

We'll be back in 2022, but for now we'd like to wish you a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season and a thoroughly magical New Year. See you again soon!

This time out we invited special guests and good friends James Bradley, Alix E. Harrow, and Ian Mond to join us to recommend just a few of the books we'd loved the most during 2021. Perhaps more than in any other year, this was a time when we all were almost surprised at how much great reading we found.

Because this is Coode Street, traditions are traditions and we had some technical issues. All is good for most of the hour of the recording, but there's a jump or two towards the end. We hope you'll excuse this, and that the recommendations will prove of interest.

As always, our thanks to Alix, James, and Ian for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the podcast and that the guide is of some use. To help, the recommendations are below. And we're in talks to maybe return in January for a books we're looking forward to chat as well...

James Bradley recommended:

• Jennifer Mills, The Airways
• Elizabeth Knox, The Absolute Book
• Nina Allan, The Good Neighbours
• Olga Ravn, The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century

and also mentioned:

• Alexandra Kleeman, Something New Under the Sun
• Laura Jean McKay, The Animals in That Country
• Marion Engel, Bear
• Garth Nix, Terciel and Elinor
• Sim Kern, Depart, Depart
• Hari Kunzru, Red Pill

Alix E. Harrow recommended:

• Lee Mandelo, Summer Sons
• Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun
• Ava Reid, The Wolf and the Woodsman
• Nghi Vo, The Chosen and the Beautiful

And I also loved/mentioned/endorsed:

• Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built Angela Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

Ian Mond recommended:

• Build Your House Around My Body, Violet Kupersmith
• The Thing Between Us, Gus Moreno
• The Confessions of Copeland Cane, Keenan Norris
• All the Murmuring Bones, Angela Slatter
• Dead Souls, Sam Rivière
• The Angels of L19, Jonathan Walker
• Mrs Death: Misses Death, Salena Godden
• The Employees, Olga Ravn (translated by Martin Aitken)

Jonathan recommended:

• The Hood, Lavie Tidhar
• A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers
• The Wisdom of Crowds, Joe Abercrombie

and passingly mentioned The Detective Up Late by Adrian McKinty.

Gary recommended:

• Karin Tidbeck, The Memory Theatre
• M. Rickert, The Shipbuilder of Belfairie
• E. Lily Yu, On Fragile Waves
• Nina Allan, The Art of Space Travel and Other Stories
• P. Djèlí Clark, A Master of Djinn

Pus a couple of titles that were also on other folks’ lists, like The Hood and The Chosen and the Beautiful.

As always, our sincere thanks to Sheree Renée Thomas, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Order now!

This time out there were a few technical issues in the final five minutes of the recording, but those have hopefully been addressed by editing. Two episodes remain in the season - a good time to be discussing the year in review and the best fiction of 2021 - before we go on hiatus, but for now we hope you enjoy the episode!

We make distinctions between works that the author clearly wanted to be published (like Philip K. Dick final four novels), works that the author clearly did not intend for publication (like some late Heinlein manuscripts), and works which the author may or may not have tried to publish during their lifetimes (such as a number of R.A. Lafferty manuscripts completed or continued by other hands, including novels by Walter M. Miller, Jr., Robert Jordan, and Terry Pratchett). We even touch upon whether the J. Michael Straczynski The Last Dangerous Visions is a useful idea decades after Harlan Ellison began the project. Do author's estates see posthumous publication as a means of keeping an author’s name alive, as a purely commercial proposition, or as a way of arguing for an author’s canonical status? Other authors touched upon include J.R.R. Tolkien, John M. Ford, Philip José Farmer, and even a few examples from mainstream fiction, such as John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, which won a Pulitzer Prize more than a decade after its author's death.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.

Oghenechovwe joins us from Lagos, Nigeria to discuss growing up reading speculative fiction in Nigeria, his hopes for The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction series, the challenges facing writers from Africa to get a chance to be a part of the international science fiction community, his upcoming anthology African Risen for Tordotcom (co-edited with Sheree Renee Thomas and Zelda K. Knight), and much more.

While there are, later in the podcast, a few moments where static affected our Skype connection, we hope you'll bear with the episode. As always, we'd like to thank Oghenechovwe for taking the time to talk to us, and hope that you enjoy the episode.

Available for order now:

Along the way we pause to note the recent passing of Erle Korshak, one of the last survivors of 1930s fandom; the value and hazards of re-reading old favorites from Gene Wolfe to Dune; the way to arrange stories in an anthology or collection; some newer books by Lavie Tidhar, Joe Abercrombie, and others; the importance of context in reviewing, and, inspired by Matt Bell's My Le Guin Year: Craft Lessons from a Master on Tor.com, how Ursula Le Guin got some things right long before anyone else did, with her own Tehanu. In other words, our usual laser-like focus on whatever comes up in the moment.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.

This leads, somehow, into a discussions of how writers like Dick, Lovecraft, Le Guin, Octavia Butler made it into the Library of America, and finally to the importance of international and regional anthologies such as Oghenchovwe Donald Ekpeki’s new Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction. As always, we also touch upon what we’re reading this week.

As always, our thanks to Arkady for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

Before we get there, however, we touch upon the new Lavie Tidhar novel The Hood, which we’re both in the midst of reading and is due out in October. That leads to a broader discussion of Tidhar's work and an even broader discussion about how historical material is handled differently in fantasy from the way it is in SF, and whether the classic view of SF’s manifest destiny even holds up anymore, given the variety of voices and perspectives now available.

Some of the authors we touch upon are Arkady Martine, John Varley, C.J. Cherryh, Isaac Asimov (and the forthcoming Apple TV+ series derived from the Foundation series), Kelly Robson, John Varley, and a few others. A mixed bag, for sure.

We touch upon how the novel draws from traditions as varied as nautical legends, mysteries, and even Frankenstein, and on  the virtues and challenges of the novel as a form compared to novellas and short fiction, the importance of letting the reader use their own imaginations, whether or not M. Rickert fiction is horror fiction (depending, of course, on how horror is defined), whether a reader missing the point is really such a bad thing, and some earlier classic M. Rickert stories like “The Chambered Fruit,” “Bread and Bombs,” and “The Mothers of Voorhisville.”

As always, our thanks to Mary for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

For the first time in more than two months, it’s just Jonathan and Gary again, talking about science fiction of the anthropocene, whether science fiction has shifted its “consensus future” away from the optimism of past eras, the notion that forms such as space opera have begun to look more like heroic fantasy than old-fashioned extrapolation, and the rapidly multiplying meanings of the term dystopia.

In an unusual departure from our usual literature-based rambles—we also touch on what we both think of recent MCU contributions like Loki, Black Widow, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier—and what they may tell us about corporate storytelling, along with chatter about Miracle Workers and Jonathan's rewatch of The Lord of the Rings.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Welcome to episode 14 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by multiple award-winning author and editor Lavie Tidhar to discuss his brand new anthology, The Best of World SF: Vol 1, his years working to bring SF from around the world to North American and UK audiences, the value of reading widely and from different perspectives, and much more. Along the way we also touch on his forthcoming new novels The Escapement and The Hood, and much more.

As always, our thanks to Lavie for making time to talk to us and we hope you enjoy the episode. See you again soon!

We discuss the origins of that story, of the Hugo-nominated Space Opera and its forthcoming sequel Space Oddity, the thriller Comfort Me With Apples (also forthcoming this October), and the importance of working with supportive editors and agents

As always, our thanks to Cat for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

We touch upon issues of Malaysian identity both in the new books and in her popular duology Sorcerer to the Crown and The True Queen, the stylistic and thematic challenges of writing for diverse audiences and writing humor in fantasy (with early influences including Terry Pratchett and P.G. Wodehouse), and the wonderfully inventive dragons in her short fiction, including the Hugo-winning ‘If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again."

As always, our thanks to Zen for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

We discuss the challenges of attempting so much at novella length, the importance of managing tone, and, not least, the sheer fun of the whole undertaking. Along the way, we touch upon some of Daryl’s earlier novels, including The Devil’s Alphabet, Raising Stony Mayhall, We Are All Completely Fine, and Spoonbenders, as well his forthcoming novel Revelator, a gothic tale set in the Smoky Mountains. 

As always, our thanks to Daryl and we hope you enjoy the episode.

We discuss the value of fanfic, the virtues and vacancies of Fitzgerald’s classic novel, the question of whether any narrators are ever reliable, and how Nghi managed to convey the sense of a full epic fantasy in The Empress of Salt and Fortune and then shift to a very different narrative mode in When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, the second novella in the “Singing Hills” cycle.  We also get a preview of the forthcoming novel Siren Queen, with its intriguing exploration—again in fantastic terms—of the early Hollywood film industry as experienced by an Asian actress.

As always, our thanks to our guest, Nghi, for her time. We hope all of you enjoy the episode.

As always, we'd like to thank Sarah for joining us and hope you enjoy the episode!

Welcome to episode 8 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This time out, Jonathan and Gary are joined by P. Djèlí Clark, whose novella Ring Shout has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards this year and whose first novel, A Master of Djinn, appears this month.

We touch upon themes of colonialism and racism, why he decided to set a steampunk novel in 1912 Cairo, his earlier short fiction, how his work as an academic historian informs his fiction, and what it was like, after a lifetime of reading, to discover a community that seemed to welcome his vision. Djèlí’s insights into everything from old Twilight Zone episodes to Birth of a Nation to Robert Jordan’s fantasies make for one of the more stimulating conversations we’ve had in some time.

As always, our thanks to Djèlí and we hope you enjoy the episode.

This year has been tough for a lot of people. Swancon has suffered a lot of extra costs and GoH Claire Coleman is running a GoFundMe to help them out. You can donate here. Also, John Varley had major heart surgery earlier this year. They're running a GoFundMe to help him with expenses. You can donate here. Both campaigns are worthy of support.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll see you again soon!

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll see you again soon!

That leads us toward the other categories on the ballot, and we name some possible candidates for novel, novella, anthology, collection, and artist, as well as the more mysterious categories of special achievements, professional and nonprofessional.  As always, we welcome reminders of those we have inevitably overlooked, some of which we will undoubtedly embarrassed about.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll see you again soon!

Welcome to episode 4 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. Despite an unexpected glitch that caused Jonathan to disappear partway through, he and Gary are joined by Veronica Schanoes, whose Burning Girls and Other Stories is just out, with endorsements from writers and scholars as diverse as Karen Joy Fowler, Jack Zipes, Jane Yolen, Catherynne Valente, Jeffrey Ford, and Roz Kaveny. We talk about fairy tales, anti-Semitism, feminism, labour history, immigrant history, punk rock, and many other elements that go to make up her remarkable short stories.

As always, we'd like to thank Veronica for making the time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

Welcome to episode 3 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week the brilliant Aliette de Bodard joins us from Paris to discuss her new Fireheart Tiger, which is already gathering stellar reviews, as well as the challenges of writing a complex romance with significant political themes, how much world-building is needed for a particular story, her use of mystery plots in recent novellas like Seven of Infinities and The Tea Master and the Detective, and the importance of the city of Paris to her well-received Dominion of the Fallen trilogy.

As always, our thanks to Aliette for making time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode and see you next time!

The second "Ten Minutes with..." chat for 2021 is with Max Gladstone, the acclaimed author of the Craft Sequence, the Empress of Forever and, with Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War.

Max sat down with Jonathan last year and discussed what he had been reading (a lot!), what he'd recommend, and what he had coming up. As always, our thanks to Max for taking the time to chat with us.

The annual Locus Recommended Reading issue is due out at the beginning of February featuring an overview of the year, the 50th Locus Reader's Poll and annual recommended reading list, so it seemed like a good time to talk trends, themes, books, and more.  And, of course, there's the odd digression because it's Coode Street and that's what we do.

As always, our thanks to our guests Liza and Daryl. We hope you enjoy the episode and see you next time!

The first "Ten Minutes with..." chat for 2021 is with Apex Magazine editor and publisher, Jason Sizemore. Apex is an award-winning magazine that publishes fantastic fiction. It paused publication due to illness, but is back with exciting new material in 2021. During our conversation Jason discusses the future of the magazine, watching Deadwood for the first time, and the fiction of Mary Doria Russell.

This week we're delighted to be joined by the venerable John Clute, who talks to us from a weirdly deserted Camden Town in London, discussing the impact of World War I on the surprisingly large numbers of scientific romance writers of the 1920s and 1930s, some provocative ideas which John laid out in his 2017 Telluride talk "Those who do not understand Science Fiction are Condemned to Repeat It", including the notion of “techno-occultism,” what’s happened with space opera, generation starships, and apocalyptic literature, and what’s wrong with the idea of self-driving cars. As usual with John, there are a lot more ideas that pop up along the way.

I suspect, on reflection, some of us are more optimistic about the future of science fiction and the world than this chat suggests, but we hope you enjoy it and want to sincerely thank John for making the time to talk to us.

We start by reminding long-time listeners (or explaining to some for the first time) where the Coode Street name comes from, then honouring major figures we’ve lost in the last couple of weeks, including Ben Bova, Richard Corben, and Phyllis Eisenstein.

Then, as usual at this time of year, we reflect on some of the important and/or overlooked books we’ve read, the continually widening diversity of the field, some of the major works from major writers that appeared in 2020, and the most pleasant surprises of the year.

We wish you the best of holidays and hope to see you in 2021 when everything will be magically all better all at once. (Hey, we’re talking about SF here!)

But, before Gary and Jonathan close the door on the Gershwin Room for the last time for 2020, a special gift guide episode. There were no notes, no plans, no lists - just some off-the-cuff gift suggestions for the holidays.  We hope you'll consider your local independent businesses when choosing gifts for the holidays. They're a vital part of our communities.

While this isn't the last time you'll hear from Coode Street in 2020, we would like to thank you all for listening and wish you and your loved ones a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season.

Hugo and Nebula winner Charlie Jane Anders talks about some new books she’s been reading by Rebecca Roanhorse, Holly Black, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Darcy Little Badger, some past favourites including Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Katherine Dunne, and Ursula K. Le Guin, and her own forthcoming YA trilogy—as well as the differences between writing YA and adult fiction.

Books mentioned include:

• Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders
• Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
• The Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black
• Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Elatsoe by Darcy Little Badger
• Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963–1973 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

We discuss what’s useful about such lists, what’s silly about them, and who are they really for? Who do they include and who do they exclude, and are they really ever anything much more than something to chat about with friends? As usual, we arrive at some definitively non-definitive answers.

Today Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning writer Rebecca Roanhorse chats about living and working through lockdown in New Mexico, the appeal of epic fantasy, reading fantasy for pleasure and science non-fiction for work, her stunning new fantasy novel Black Sun, and her experiences working in the writers' room for an unnamed new TV show.

Books mentioned include:

• Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
• Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
• Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

Hugo Award-winning Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams talk about the early days of the pandemic in Manhattan, the challenges of finding time to read anything other than the 800 submissions per month she sees at the magazine, her good luck to have travelled to Ireland and the Canary Islands just before the lockdown began, her new anthology in the Twelve Tomorrows series from MIT Press, and, of course, what she’s been reading.

Books mentioned include:

• Entanglements: Tomorrow's Lovers, Families, and Friends edited by Sheila Williams
• The Wright Sister by Patty Dann
• Nine Bar Blues by Sheree Renee Thomas
• Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
• A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

Multiple award-nominated novelist Paul Park discusses reading the Book of Mormon in preparation for his new novel, the challenges of writing about a society with no recognition of gender (including the problem of pronouns), reading about the Dreyfuss affair, serializing a 14-part story on his Facebook page, and a possible new collection of short fiction.

Books mentioned include:

• A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park
• All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park
• A City Made of Words by Paul Park
• An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
• The Odyssey by Homer  Emily Wilson (trans.)

Today Jonathan chats with S. Qiouyi Lu about being highly prolific during the pandemic, the pleasures of immersive reading, reading work in translation (especially in Chinese), the growth in diverse voices, how changing times impact on stories, the recently announced novella In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu, and much more.

Books mentioned include:

• In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu (2021)
• Inhalations: Collected Works Vol. 1 by S. Qiouyi Lu 
• The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Award-winning critic and biographer Julie Phillips talks about listening to audiobooks while biking in Amsterdam, enjoying Martha Wells's Murderbot series, reviewing classic American books newly translated into Dutch, her own fondness for Willa Cather, and her current biographical work on women authors as mothers (including Doris Lessing) and her biography-in-progress of Ursula K. Le Guin.

Books mentioned include:

• James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Today Jonathan calls up Tordotcom Publishing editor Ruoxi Chen to chat about revisiting all-time favourites and how re-reading can help keep editors in touch with the readers they need to be, the therapeutic values of disaster nonfiction, dipping into audiobooks, the state of speculative fiction and why there’s a lot to be optimistic about, and a lot more.

Books mentioned include:

• The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (forthcoming, June 2021)
• The Queen's Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner
• The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix
• We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
• The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

In what is easily the longest episode of Coode Street for this strange pandemic year, Gary, Jonathan, and Stan discuss his brand new novel, The Ministry for the Future, the value and purpose of science fiction, Stan's important working relationship with editor Tim Holman, experimenting with form, what comes next, and more.

As always, we'd like to thank Stan for making the time to talk to us and hope you enjoy the episode.

Madeleine E. Robins, author of the Sarah Tolerance historical mysteries, SF and fantasy, and historical novels, talks about starting her career with Regency novels influenced by Georgette Heyer, how "fluffy bunny" reading doesn’t necessarily mean fluffy, making masks and researching mask laws from a century ago (and the “mask riots” in San Francisco then), and her own recent work and work-in-progress.

Books mentioned include:

• Sold for Endless Rue by Madeleine E. Robins
• "Omunculus" by Madeleine E. Robins
• Whitehall by Liz Duffy Adams, Mary Robinette Kowal, Madeleine E. Robins, Barbara Samuel & Delia Sherman
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• The Lord Peter Wimsey Series by Dorothy L. Sayers
• The Complete Novels by Jane Austen
• R.U.R. by Karel Čapek
• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Nebula and Locus award-winning Linda Nagata talks about what life in Maui is like with almost no tourists, how audiobooks have improved in recent years, her experiences in running her own publishing company and establishing her own deadlines, and her timely forthcoming novel Pacific Storm.

Books mentioned include:

• The Red Trilogy by Linda Nagata
• Edges by Linda Nagata
• Silver by Linda Nagata
• Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
• Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition by Buddy Levy
• The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life by David Quammen

Multiple award-nominee Benjamin Rosenbaum discusses the pandemic as seen from Switzerland, learning to write in his garden when cafes are no longer available, designing board games with his son, the reboot of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, rereading classic SF, and his own recent stories and forthcoming genderless novel.

Books mentioned include:

• The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum (forthcoming)
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier
• This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
• The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
• A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Startide Rising by David Brin
• The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

Award-winning author, editor, and scholar Delia Sherman talks about reading old French newspapers and memoirs; the rewards of research; listening to audiobooks during long walks (including a lot of Dickens!); the orderly appeal of good murder mysteries from Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and others; missing out on being a teenager; and how political themes are finding their way into her novel in progress.

Books mentioned include:

• The Porcelain Dove by Delia Sherman
• The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman
• A Quiet Life in the Country by T.E Kinsey
• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
• Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• The Phryne Fisher Series by Kerry Greenwood

Writer, professor, and Strange Horizons founder Mary Anne Mohanraj chats with Gary about launching a new cookbook just as everything got locked down, how virtual conventions seem to be improving—and are likely to change the way all cons are conducted in the future, keeping busy sewing masks, serving as a public library board member, and teaching online, why SF doesn’t have enough food in it, South Asian SFF writers, and even how the word serendipity came into the language.

Books mentioned include:

• A Feast of Serendib by Mary Anne Mohanraj
• A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
• How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher
• Best American Food Writing 2019 edited by Samin Nosrat
• Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee

Playwright, professor, director, and Carl Brandon and Otherwise-award winning writer Andrea Hairston talks with Gary about the necessity of reading during hard times, the appeal of hefty nonfiction titles as well as epic fantasy, the odd satisfaction of a virtual book tour, Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurisms, and her new novel Master of Poisons.

Books mentioned include:

• Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff
• The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty
• The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
• The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel José Older
• Nine Bar Blues by Sheree Renee Thomas
• Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

American Book Award winner Lisa Goldstein talks with Gary about her recent novel Ivory Apples, surviving California’s smoky air and a pandemic, trying to read The Decameron, the British comedian Jack Whitehall, comfort to be had from Tana French mysteries and Kage Baker time travel stories, and wrangling the characters in her novel in progress.

Books mentioned include:

• Ivory Apples by Lisa Goldstein
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• The Dublin Murder Squad series by Tana French
• The Company Series by Kage Baker

Hugo, Astounding, and British Fantasy Award-winning Jeannette Ng joins Gary from northern England, discussing what it’s like to live near stands of ancient trees, learning to "read" the trees, the folklore and symbology of yew, hawthorn, and mistletoe, the advantages of reading manga on e-devices, and the rewards of reading Jasper Fforde and D&D-related manga.

Books mentioned include:

• Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng
• The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History by Rian Thum
• The Thursday Next novels by Jasper Fforde
• Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
• The Delicious in Dungeon series by Ryuko Kui

Crawford Award winner Stephanie Feldman joins Gary to talk about the unexpected complexities of virtual Kindergarten; writing about young adult characters and their attraction to the unknown; the appeal of short fiction by Daphne Du Maurier, Joan Aiken, and Angela Carter; the rewards of reading nonfiction; and her recent story "The Staircase" (published in the July 2020 issue of F&SF).

Books mentioned include:

• The Angel of Losses by Stephanie Feldman
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
• How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France
• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
• The Wolves Chronicles by Joan Aiken

Today Jonathan spends ten minutes or so chatting with exciting debut novelist Andrea Stewart about living and working through the pandemic, the pleasures of reading, exciting new books by Kerstin Hall, Megan O'Keefe, and Lisbeth Campbell, and her own book, The Bone Shard Daughter.

Books mentioned include:

• The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
• Star Eater by Kerstin Hall
• Inherit the Flame by Megan E. O'Keefe
• The Vanished Queen by Lisbeth Campbell

Today Jonathan is joined by Aurealis Award-winning writer Jane Routley and they chat about how Jane's coping with the Melbourne shutdown and with being an essential worker, enjoying and participating in the New Zealand Worldcon, reading the Hugo nominees, watching The Umbrella Academy, American Gods, Tales from the Loop, and lots more.

Books mentioned include:

• Shadow in the Empire of Light by Jane Routley
• The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and others
• Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
• Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge
• A Memory of Empire by Arkady Martine
• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Science journalist, novelist and Hugo Award-winning podcaster Annalee Newitz joins Jonathan to chat about living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area during the pandemic, the joys of modern science fiction, their novel-in-progress The Terraformers, and much more.

Books mentioned include:

• The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
• Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz
• Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Titles mentioned include:

Multiple award-winning author, editor, narrator, and radio personality Ellen Kushner chats with Gary about moving back to New York; ordering favorite children’s and YA books from independent bookstores; reading Edward Eager, E. Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Joan Aiken; the brilliance of Frances Hardinge; group reading Shakespeare with friends online; the University of Glasgow’s new fantasy study center; and odd historical genres like “silver-fork novels.”

Books mentioned include:

• The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
• Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken
• Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken
• Deeplight by Frances Hardinge
• The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk
• Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
• The True Queen by Zen Cho
• Silk & Steel: An Adventure Anthology of Queer SF&F with High Femmes & Dashing Women edited by Janine A. Southard (forthcoming)

This time the wonderful Alix E. Harrow, author of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy nominated The Ten Thousand Doors of January and the forthcoming The Once and Future Witches joins Jonathan and Gary to chat about reinventing fairy tale materials for the modern age, the recent resurgence of novels about witches, the difference between secret histories (as in her earlier novel) and alternate histories (as in the new one), using fantasy to address social and historical issues such as women’s suffrage, and her short fiction including "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies".

As always, our thanks to Alix for making time to join us, and we hope you enjoy the episode. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode of "Ten Minutes with..." and will see you back here in two weeks with another special guest!

Books mentioned include:

• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (due Oct 15)
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow