The Coode Street Podcast

Episode 143: A journey from new SF to politicised editing

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:19:35 +0000

Once again our hardy commentators, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe, climbed the stairs to the Waldorf Room, high above the Coode Street Motel Six, took in the breathtaking views of the science fiction field that can only be seen from the Gernsback Bar, and held forth on matters SFnal, including new and recent SF, awards and anthologies, and just dipped their toes into the beginnings of a possible discussion of politicised editing. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. See you next week!

Episode 142: After an unexpectedly long hiatus, a return!

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 11 May 2013 09:31:35 +0000

After an extended break caused by travel and illness, our intrepid science fictioneers return to the Waldorf Room to continue their ongoing discussion of the science fiction field. There’s every chance that some week now they’ll find something new to talk about, but until now the old topics of awards, anthologies, conventions, and stuff will have to do. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast! More next week, we promise.

Coode Street on hiatus

jonathanstrahan — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:19:59 +0000

With family and travel plans complicating things, the Coode Street Podcast is going on a brief hiatus. We’ll be away for the next two weeks, returning 5 May 2013. We hope life treats you gently between now and then, and look forward to being back in your podcast lists soon!

Episode 141: Oh, no! Another awards discussion

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 06:39:02 +0000

There really wasn’t much excuse, except that our two heroes found themselves in the Gershwin Room with no idea at all about what they would discuss and so, with apologies, they ended up discussing awards again. It wasn’t intended, the discussion is being had elsewhere anyway, and solemn promises have been made that it will not happen again (at least for a while). If, however, this doesn’t put you off, then sit back and relax while Gary and Jonathan discuss just what the point of awards is anyway and whether there’s anything left to say about science fiction.

Episode 140: Live with Nalo Hopkinson

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 09:25:55 +0000

This week we invited award-winning writer and anthologist Nalo Hopkinson to join us in the Waldorf Room to discuss her writing career, science fiction and fantasy, her upcoming visit to Australia as Guest of Honour at Conflux: The Australian National Science Fiction Convention, and her new novel Sister Mine.

We’d like to thank Nalo for being a wonderful guest and, as always, hope you enjoy the podcast.

Episode 139: Live with Kij Johnson

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:45:36 +0000

This morning Lonestarcon, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention, released the 2013 Hugo Awards Ballots. The Coode Street Podcast was nominated for Best Fancast, and we would like to thank everyone who nominated us.

As part of the Hugo Awards discussions, we invited fellow nominee and Coode Street regular Kij Johnson, to join us in the Waldorf Room once more to chat about the ballot, the nominees, and all things Hugo.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Episode 138: Live with Joe and Gay Haldeman

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 23:51:06 +0000

Returning from a brief hiatus, this week the Coode Street team avoided the Gershwin Room, instead heading down to Florida for the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where Gary persuaded Joe and Gay Haldeman to join us on the podcast to discuss The Forever War, the writing life and the soon to be published retrospective short story collection, The Best of Joe Haldeman. As always, we’d like to thank Joe and Gay, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

Episode 137: The rambling continues

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 23:06:41 +0000

Back from Gotham and certain celebrations, Gary joins Jonathan in the Gershwin Room to discuss the newly released Tiptree shortlist, Hugo nominations, and to start what will be a continuing discussing of grimdark fantasy. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 136: On Benchmarks, Budrys and awards

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 23:57:30 +0000

In amongst life’s many demands, the intrepid Coode Street team, madly humming the theme to the Muppet Show, once again ascended to the Waldorf Room to take in the view and to discuss science fiction’s many pleasures. This time they touch on a new collection of Algis Budrys reviews, Benchmarks Continued, recently published by Ansible Publications, criticism generally, and the newly released Nebula Awards ballot. As always, they hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 135: Cecelia Holland on River of Stars

jonathanstrahan — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:00:37 +0000

This week Gary and Jonathan are joined in the Waldorf Room by the fabulous Cecelia Holland, leading historical novelist and author of Floating Worlds among many, many other fine books, to discuss writing, fantasy, and historical fiction. The podcast features a close to spoiler free discussion of River of Stars, the excellent new novel from Guy Gavriel Kay which is due out in April. We’d also like to point out that there will be detailed reviews of f River of Stars from both Gary and Cecelia in the April issue of Locus. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 134: On digital texts

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 09:16:26 +0000

Once again, with almost no preparation, we head up to the Gershwin Room and end up discussing reviewing, digital texts, and other related issues. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Episode 133: On Locus, recommended reading, Neptune’s Brood and more

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 07:06:57 +0000

This week the Coode Street team headed back to the Waldorf Room high in the Coode Street Motel Six to discuss the annual Locus Year in Review issue, the publishing industry, and other matters. We also briefly discuss two forthcoming novels, Guy Gavriel Kay’s River of Stars and Charles Stross’s Neptune’s Brood.

The Locus Recommended Reading List is online, as is the annual Locus Poll and a list of links to recommended short fiction. As discussed during the episode, both Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan work for Locus and were actively involved in compiling the recommended reading list. You can subscribe to Locus here. The Year in Review issue is available as the start of a subscription or as a stand-alone issue.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 132: On context, books, and awards

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 19:51:09 +0000

Back to the Waldorf Room where, in troubled times, the Coode Street podcast team meet to discuss publishing artifacts as framing devices, Bruce Sterling’s new book, awards eligibility and possibly other stuff. We even shamelessly mention that this podcast is eligible for Hugo Award nomination (you have been warned). As always, we hope you enjoy the digression.

Episode 131: Live with Nancy Kress!

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 04:24:35 +0000

With Gary’s commitments fulfilled, we once again headed to the Gershwin Room, where we were joined by award-winning writer Nancy Kress to discuss writing, science fiction, the future, and all sorts of other interesting stuff. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast and will see you next week!

Episode 130: Contemporary fantasy, lists and other things

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 09:03:42 +0000

The quiet days after the New Year, when Coode Street scribes spend their days slowly summarising the moments of the year just gone and contemplating what the year ahead might bring, pass slowly in the chill of Chicago and the sweltering heat of the Antipodes. With little specific to discuss, we nonetheless headed to the Waldorf Room high atop the Coode St Motel Six, with no clear intention of what would unfold.

Moments before podcasting began, though, a query came through from James Bradley, asking our thoughts on excellent contemporary fantasy. Interest piqued, we discussed, we listed and we chatted. While we would love to hear listeners recommendations, these are the books we discussed (and recommended) during the podcast:

Contemporary Fantasy Novels (in the order mentioned on the podcast)

Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
The Drowning Girl, Caitlin R. Kiernan
Last Call, Tim Powers
Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay
The Limits of Enchantment, Graham Joyce
The Wizard Knight, Gene Wolfe
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
Perfect Circle, Sean Stewart
Waking the Moon, Elizabeth Hand
Wizard of Pigeons, Megan Lindholm
The Scar, China Mieville
The Prestige, Christopher Priest
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
The Brides of Roll-Rock Island, Margo Lanagan
Was, Geoff Ryman

The list has its flaws and omissions (one we reason we’d love your recommendations), but it’s a starting point for discussing an interesting subject. Our thanks to James for his question. At podcast’s end we briefly also discuss some points of comparison with the Locus All-Time Poll recently released, and encourage others to run their own similar polls.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 129: In which the year ends….

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 09:59:53 +0000

This week we headed up to the Gershwin Room to discuss the recently announced Locus All Time Poll results, writing for the end of the year and other similarly pre-New Year’s Eve kinds of things. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 128: Live with Gene Wolfe

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 03:00:33 +0000

This week we’re joined in the Gershwin Room by newly annointed SFWA Grand Master Gene Wolfe to discuss writing, his work, his new novel, and much more. We had hoped to feature listener questions, and would like to sincerely thank everyone who sent questions in, but they ended up not quite fitting the format. We are sincerely grateful, however, to everyone who wanted to be involved. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 127: Live with Maureen McHugh

jonathanstrahan — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:55:13 +0000

This week we return to the Gershwin Room to chat with Maureen McHugh, award-winning author of novels China Mountain Zang, Half the Day is Night, Mission Child, and Nekropolis, and the short story collections Mothers and Other Monsters and After the Apocalypse. We discuss her time in Los Angeles and how it is affecting her writing, the nature of story, and many other things. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

PS: This podcast is usually cross-posted at www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp, however that site is unavailable at the moment. The episode will be published there when service is restored.

Episode 126: In which rambling continues…

jonathanstrahan — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:29:24 +0000

After a long delay due to technical issues with our hosting service, Podbean, we are now able to bring you the latest episode of The Coode Street Podcast. Episode 126 was recorded on Sunday, 9 December by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe, who rambled about various subjects to do with science fiction and fantasy. The recording was done so long ago, though, that neither podcaster quite remembers what they discussed or is willing to listen to the podcast to find out what. If you do listen to the podcast, please consider describing this episode in the comments. “General rambling”, commenters are reminded, is a category and not a description. Although we don’t remember the podcast, we still hope you enjoy it. We’ll be back next weekend, technology permitting, with a new episode!

Episode 125: Of lists and rambling

jonathanstrahan — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 05:17:45 +0000

In one of our most problem-free podcasts of recent times, Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan return to the Waldorf Room high atop the corporate tower that is the Coode Street Motel Six to discuss lists, the Locus All-Time Poll that has just closed, and essays/articles by Paul McAuley on “Lets Put the Future Behind Us” and Jonathan McAlmont on “Annoyed with the History of Science Fiction“, with passing reference to Gary Westfahl and Paul Kincaid (but only passing). Along the way lists were made, recommendations avoided, and a laugh or two was had. It’s one of our longest podcasts of recent times, for which apologies, but as always we hope you enjoy it. See you next week!