The Coode Street Podcast

Episode 479: What Comes Next?

Well, without really planning it, we had a bit of a hiatus. It seems like recording over a hundred episodes in a row left us - or at least Jonathan - with the need for a little break, but we're back! We think.

 

With the Virtual ConZealand not quite over, Gary and Jonathan sit down to talk awards, congratulate the award-winners, talk about inclusiveness and the need for a fresher take on the genre, thank the ConZealand team and shout out to coming conventions, and more. Oh, and thank the World Fantasy Awards for a very unexpected nomination! Thank you!

 

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. We should be back soon with more!

 

Episode 478: Ten Minutes with Sarah Monette and Katherine Addison

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 chatting with Sarah Monette about living and writing during the pandemic, her alter ego Katherine Addison, the comforts of immersive reading and true crime, and the recurring attraction of the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the world of his famous detective.

Books mentioned include:

• The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
• The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
• The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (forthcoming)
• The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner
• Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman
• The Baby Farmers: A Chilling Tale of Missing Babies, Shameful Secrets and Murder in 19th Century Australia by Annie Cossins

Episode 477: Ten Minutes with James P. Blaylock

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 calling up Orange Country, California to talk to World Fantasy and Philip K. Dick Award winner James P. Blaylock about reading and writing during these strange times, the allure of crime novels, what's up with Langdon St Ives, his new novel-in-progress, and a lot more.

Books mentioned include:

• The Gobblin' Society by James P. Blaylock
• River's Edge by James P. Blaylock
• Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand
• Freddy's Book by John Gardner
• Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman
• The Easy Rawlins Novels by Walter Mosely
• The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
• City of Fallen Angels by Paul Buchanan

Episode 476: Twenty One Minutes with Peter Watts

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.

With the Ten Minutes with... series complete as a daily thing, Jonathan fires up the computer and calls Hugo and Shirley Jackson award winner Peter Watts to discuss how this apocalypse is only a tiny taste of the real thing, how he's coping with working and reading right now, Jevon's Paradox, the value of depressive realism, and a lot more.

Books mentioned include:

• Peter Watts is an Angry, Sentient Tumor by Peter Watts
• "Incorruptible" by Peter Watts 
• Stealing Worlds by Karl Schroeder
• Gamechanger by L.X. Beckett

 

Episode 475: Ten Minutes with M. John Harrison

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 England’s finest novelists, M. John Harrison, talks with Gary about the paradoxical insights of the poet Charles Simic, the essays of Olivia Laing, the early John le Carré novels, and his own new novel and forthcoming story collection.

Books mentioned include:

• The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison
• Settling the World: Selected Stories 1969-2019 by M. John Harrison
• Things That Never Happen by M. John Harrison
• The Monster Loves his Labyrinth: Notebooks by Charles Simic
• Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency by Olivia Laing
• The Early George Smiley novels by John le Carré

Episode 474: Ten Minutes with Jane Yolen

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.

Legendary Grand Master Jane Yolen shares with Gary some delightful personal news, as well as her advice to aspiring authors on how the lockdown can be seen as a gift to writers, the pleasures of "munchie" writing like Cat Valente or Gregory Maguire, the short stories of Theodora Goss, and Linda Barnes's Carlotta Carlyle mysteries.

Books mentioned include:

• The Midnight Circus by Jane Yolen
• The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen
• How to Fracture a Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen
• The Book of Dragons edited by Jonathan Strahan
• Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
• Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente
• Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire
• Carlotta Carlyle series by Linda Barnes

Episode 473: Ten Minutes with Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead

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

Episode 472: Ten Minutes with Kij Johnson

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, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winner Kij Johnson joins Gary to talk about learning to keep focused during odd times, taking comfort in Defoe, Laurence Sterne, and horror stories, and the perks of doing historical research for a novel-in-progress set in the American Midwest in 1913, and how her "Apartment Dweller’s Guide" series of stories really needs to be a book.

Books mentioned include:

• The River Bank by Kij Johnson
• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
• Short stories by Clark Ashton Smith
• The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' by William Hope Hodgson
• The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne