1.1M
Downloads
724
Episodes
Discussion and digression on science fiction and fantasy with Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan.
Episodes
Sunday Oct 18, 2020
Sunday Oct 18, 2020
After spending a few minutes chatting about what it’s like to live in a relatively safe but relatively sealed-off environment—something Jonathan can experience in Western Australia, but something SFF has occasionally touched upon—your intrepid hosts venture into the questions raised by Time magazine’s much-discussed list of "The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time,” with occasional reference to similar past lists in Michael Moorcock's Fantasy: The 100 Best Books and Locus magazine's All-Time Best Fantasy poll.
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.
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Monday Oct 12, 2020
Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times.
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
 |
 |
 |
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times.
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
 |
 |
 |
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times.
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.)
 |
 |
 |
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Tuesday Oct 06, 2020
Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times.
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
 |
 |
Sunday Oct 04, 2020
Sunday Oct 04, 2020
Jonathan and Gary are back with their usual laser-like focus on a single important topic--or maybe not. Starting at the recent release of the trailer for Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune, which has many of us looking back at Frank Herbert's classic novel, they touch upon re-reading old favourites, books that are genuinely sui generis and whether they have a lasting influence, other books that caused us to rethink the possibilities of SFF, "classics" or classic ideas that really don't hold up that well, and of course what they've been reading lately and might be thinking about for the Locus recommended reading list, which we'll both need to start working on in next month.