Episodes
Monday Aug 31, 2020
Episode 501: Ten Minutes with Chen Qiufan
Monday Aug 31, 2020
Monday Aug 31, 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.
One of China’s most widely-honoured SF writers, Chen Qiufan (or Stanley Chan, for English speakers and as a tribute to Stanley Kubrick) joins Gary for a fascinating discussion of apocalyptic literature seen from a perspective of a culture that views the future as repeating itself rather than ending, the importance shifting patterns of growth to stress employment and sustainability, neuroscience as it might relate to meditation or Buddhism, and the uses of AI (including the language model GPT-2) in fiction as it develops its capacity for natural language.
Books mentioned include:
- Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- The Wastelands by Stephen King
- Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy by Evan Thompson
- AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee
Saturday Aug 29, 2020
Episode 499: Ten Minutes with Vandana Singh
Saturday Aug 29, 2020
Saturday Aug 29, 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.
Only recently back from several months in India, Vandana Singh joins Gary to talk about what experiencing lockdown was like near Delhi and the hardships of day workers suddenly laid off and walking long distances back to their villages, the challenges to a speculative fiction writer of unexpectedly living in a 'bad science fiction novel' and some of the comforts of reading poetry, a novel set in remote Nagaland, 'magical realism' in the stories of Gogu Shyamala, and even Harry Potter.
Books mentioned include:
- Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories by Vandana Singh
- When the River Sleeps by Easterine Kire
- Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But... by Gogu Shyamala
Sunday Aug 23, 2020
Episode 493: Ten Minutes with Nina Allan
Sunday Aug 23, 2020
Sunday Aug 23, 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.
Award-winning novelist and critic Nina Allan talks with Gary about what the lockdown has been like on a Scottish island almost devoid of the usual seasonal tourists, the appeal of golden age crime novels, the fascinating exercise of seeing how contemporary SFF works sometimes map onto older or classic works, the reissue of her collection Stardust (with a new story added!), and her forthcoming novels.
Books mentioned include:
- Ruby by Nina Allan
- The Good Neighbors by Nina Allan (forthcoming 2021)
- The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
- Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
- Engine Summer by John Crowley
- Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
- China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
Episode 488: Ten Minutes with Brooke Bolander
Tuesday Aug 18, 2020
Tuesday Aug 18, 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 fires up Skype and calls sunny New York to talk to the fabulous Nebula Award-winning author of The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander, about reading, writing and living during the pandemic, the comfort of reading somewhat grim nonfiction, and her contribution to The Book of Dragons.
You can listen to an excerpt from Brooke's story, "Where the River Turns to Concrete", right now and if you live in the US and are over 18 you can enter our sweepstakes to win one of ten copies by following this link!
Books mentioned include:
- The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander
- The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger
- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
- Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner
- Every Bone a Prayer by Ashley Blooms
- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
Episode 485: Ten Minutes with A.T. Greenblatt
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
Saturday Aug 15, 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.
Gary chats with A.T. Greenblatt -- this year’s short story Nebula winner for "Give the Family My Love" -- about the pleasures of escape reading even in normal times, listening to romances, mysteries, and memoirs, the graphic novels of Marjorie Liu and Neil Gaiman, the Murderbot stories of Martha Wells, and serious walking as an inspiration for fiction.
Books mentioned include:
- Educated by Tara Westover
- Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- The Beastie Boys Book by Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz
- Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
- The Sandman by Neil Gaiman et al.
Monday Aug 10, 2020
Episode 480: Ten Minutes with K.M. Szpara
Monday Aug 10, 2020
Monday Aug 10, 2020
Ten minutes with... is a regular series of short podcasts 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.
Gary kicks of the second series of Ten Minutes with by spending a few minutes with Hugo and Nebula-nominated K.M. Szpara discussing the appeal of audiobooks, young-adult mysteries and horror stories (and their value in learning about plotting), what it’s like to launch a novel at the very beginning of the lockdown, and his own forthcoming work.
Books mentioned include:
- Docile by K.M. Szpara
- First, Become Ashes by K.M. Szpara (forthcoming April 2021)
- Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
- The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson
- The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson
- In the Hall with a Knife: A Clue Mystery by Diana Peterfreund
- Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall
- Here for It; Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas
Thursday Jul 09, 2020
Episode 473: Ten Minutes with Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead
Thursday Jul 09, 2020
Thursday Jul 09, 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.
Gary spends a few minutes with Jack Skillingstead and 2021 WorldCon Guest of Honor Nancy Kress talking about reading science; Jane Austen, Star Trek, and the comforts of an orderly world; the appeal of Hollywood biographies; and revisiting old favorites like Philip K. Dick, Robert Bloch, and Roger Zelazny.
Books mentioned include:
- Sea Change by Nancy Kress
- The Eleventh Gate by Nancy Kress
- The Chaos Function by Jack Skillingstead
- Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe by Brian Greene
- The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene
- The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
- Zelda: A Biography by Nancy Mitford
- The Ragman's Son by Kirk Douglas
- Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand by William J. Mann
Monday Jul 06, 2020
Episode 470: Ten Minutes with Premee Mohamed
Monday Jul 06, 2020
Monday Jul 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 spends ten minutes or so talking to exciting debut novelist Premee Mohamed about reading, writing, and working during the pandemic; the work of Alan Moore, Umberto Eco, and Amitav Ghosh; the experience of publishing her debut novel in 2020; and how it was to effectively collaborate with her younger self on Beneath the Rising and writing A Broken Darkness.
Books mentioned include:
- Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed
- A Broken Darkness by Premee Mohamed
- Jerusalem by Alan Moore
- Chronicles of a Liquid Society by Umberto Eco
- Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh