The Coode Street Podcast

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-nominated biographer, Analog contributor, and novelist Alec Nevala-Lee talks with Gary about his current research for a biography of R. Buckminster Fuller, who was a good friend of Arthur C. Clarke but also once gave a lecture at a Hubbard organization in the early 1950s; Alec’s own fascination with the cultural history of the 1960s, the evolution of futures studies, and the comfort to be found in returning to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes tales, and the metafictional “grand game” that has evolved from them. Alec’s first collection, Syndromes, is available now as an audiobook original from Recorded Books.

Books mentioned include:

• Syndromes: Science Fiction Stories by Alec Nevala-Lee
• Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlen, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968 by Norman Mailer
• The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer 
• The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by W.S. Baring-Gould
• The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes by Leslie S. Klinger

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 calls up newly minted Hugo Award winner for Best Novel, Arkady Martine, to talk about reading, writing, and working during the pandemic, how influence on writers is often quite different from what a reader might expect, the current state of space opera, her next novel, and a new novella coming late next year from Subterranean Press.

Books mentioned include:

• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
• A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
• Rose House by Arkady Martine (forthcoming)
• Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
• Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear
• The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future by Gretchen Bakke
• Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler
• Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer

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.

World Fantasy Award nominee Molly Gloss joins Gary to chat about listening to fiction on her commute to the horses, taking some solace in novels with pastoral settings (including SF), the eerie feeling of reading Sarah Pinsker's A Song for a New Day at the very beginning of the lockdown, recent reprints of her classic novels by Saga Press, her long friendship with Ursula K. Le Guin, and her award-nominated retrospective collection Unforeseen.

Books mentioned include:

• Unforeseen: Stories by Molly Gloss
• The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss
• Wild Life by Molly Gloss
• Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
• Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
• A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
• The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
• The Horseman by Tim Pears
• This is Happiness by Niall Williams

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

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!

 

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

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

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