The Coode Street Podcast

Episode 670: Why is some work overlooked

For those who might have been hoping our 2025 podcasts might get a little more focused and coherent, our apologies. Following up on several discussions on social media about how to learn about overlooked but deserving novels (mostly fantasy), we speculate on the factors that help a book or author gain and keep some sort of traction. Reprint programs like the Gollancz Masterworks or Tor Essentials might help, but we mention a handful of authors who have written wonderful work that is worth a fresh look, including Tanith Lee, Michael Bishop, Lisa Goldstein, Tim Powers, Michael Moorcock, Graham Joyce, and others. We also touch upon the notion of formula in SF and fantasy, and end with some of our current reading.

Episode 645: Jack Dann and Fifty Years of Wandering Stars

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.

Episode 621: Coode Street’s Books for Look Forward to in 2023

To kick off 2023, Jonathan and Gary share their lists of the books that they’re looking forward to reading in 2023.

They mention a lot of forthcoming titles, ranging books from old masters like Peter S. Beagle, Howard Waldrop, Joanna Russ, Gene Wolfe, and Connie Willis to newer writers like Samit Basu, Vajra Chandrasekera, Alix E. Harrow, Emily Tesh, and Premee Mohamed, as well as essential collections from Kelly Link, E. Lily Yu, Joanna Russ, K.J. Parker, Sarah Pinsker, and others.

The team also cheerfully acknowledge that the year will undoubtedly present us with some complete surprises and that we will be reading fantastic work from authors we haven’t even heard of yet. The field seems as lively and promising as ever!

Pre-order links

Books mentioned in the podcast include:

• Blade of Dream, Daniel Abraham
• Conquest, Nina Allan
• The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport, Samit Basu
• The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera
• Furious Heaven, Kate Elliott
• The Landing, Mary Gentle
• Menewood, Nicola Griffith
• Starling House, 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)

Episode 604: The Coode Street Advent Calendar: Charlie Jane Anders

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.

Episode 599: The Coode Street Advent Calendar: Rachel Swirsky

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!

Episode 592: The Coode Street Advent Calendar: Kelly Barnhill

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!

Episode 590: The Coode Street Advent Calendar 2022

With the end of the year almost upon us, Coode Street was looking for a way to celebrate the books we read and loved during 2022. We also wanted to help you find something great to read for yourself or for someone close to you. And so the 2022 Coode Street Advent Calendar was born! Here are twenty-eight books that we loved and that we think you might love too. Space operas and epic fantasies, horror stories and comedies. Six-hundred page immersive tomes and light-footed short story collections.  A little bit of everything! To make this more than just a list, though, we're going to do something else. Every day between now and December 25 we're chatting with the wonderful creators of these books and asking them about what they've been reading, what holiday story they'd recommend, their own books for this year, and the ones they might have coming in 2023.

• 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!

Episode 588: Let’s Talk About Space (Opera), Baybee...

With Gary about to leave for the World Fantasy Convention to be held in New Orleans next week, and with Jonathan in the process of assembling anthologies on the most recent iterations of space opera, we spend most of our time discussing the characteristics, history, and too-common misuse of that venerable term.

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!