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.

Today Jonathan spends about ten minutes or so talking to Nebula Award-winning writer P. Djèlí Clark about reading, writing, and working during these strange and difficult times, what he's been reading and what you might read, his novella The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (and accompanying story "A Dead Djinn in Cairo"), his upcoming novel, and much, much more.

Books mentioned include:

• The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark
• Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
• Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi
• Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland
• The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
• The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden
• A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia Butler by Lynell George

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 international bestselling writer and creator of the Riftwar Cycle, Raymond E. Feist, about Shakespeare; reading, writing, and working during this strange and difficult time and; briefly, that time he saw The Beatles. 

Books mentioned include:

• King of Ashes by Raymond E. Feist
• Queen of Storms by Raymond E. Feist
• Master of Furies by Raymond E. Feist (forthcoming in 2021)
• Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

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 Adelaide to chat to one of Australia's best and most adept writers of speculative fiction, Sean Williams, about reading, writing and working during the pandemic, what he's reading, what he'd recommend, what he's working on, and his terrific new middle grade novel, Her Perilous Mansion.

Books mentioned include:

• Her Perilous Mansion by Sean Williams
• Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Deeplight by Frances Hardinge
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Songs for Dark Seasons by Lisa L. Hannett

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 calling farthest Brisbane to talk to national treasure and author of the Obernewtyn Chronicles, Isobelle Carmody, about reading and writing during the pandemic, the creative challenges of writing, what she's been reading, and much, much more.

Books mentioned include:

• Evermore by Isobelle Carmody
• Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
• Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
• Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
• Raising the Stones by Sheri S. Tepper
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
• Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins
• The Jack Reacher Series by Lee Child
• The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin

Left once again to their own devices, Jonathan and Gary turn to the question of what was science fiction’s real golden age—not in terms of overall literary history or the old cliché that “the golden age of science fiction is twelve,” but rather what seemed like a golden age in terms of reading habits: when you fell in love with SF, how the genre continued to be rewarding during that time, and what was especially important about it. For Jonathan, that looked more like the 1980s, while for Gary it was basically the 1950s. Both agreed, however, that the current era might itself be seen as a golden age, for many reasons.

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 more (somewhat more) talking to Adam Roberts about the joys and challenges of reading every single H. G. Wells book ever written (there were a lot!), being a judge for the World Fantasy Awards, reading and writing during these strange and difficult times (even when you usually stay in a bit), and much more.

Books mentioned include:

• H G Wells: A Literary Life by Adam Roberts
• Purgatory Mount by Adam Roberts (forthcoming in 2021)
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow‎
• Ghost Species by James Bradley
• The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
• The Devil's Blade by Mark Alder
• By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar
• Paradise Lost by John Milton

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 is joined by award-winning author and ILM filmmaker Gregory Norman Bossert to talk about how the changes facing the movie industry may actually help new voices and new forms, the appeal of not-quite-classifiable stories of the New Weird and other contemporary movements, a new anthology in support of the nonprofit RAICES, podcasts and movies, and his own new short fiction.

Short fiction mentioned includes:

• "The Night Soil Salvagers" by Gregory Norman Bossert (Tor.com, July)
• "Dear Boy" by Gregory Norman Bossert (Weird Fiction Review #10)
• "The Hearts of All" by Gregory Norman Bossert (Black Static #73)
• "Zima Blue" by Alastair Reynolds (and its TV adaptation on Love, Death, and Robots)

Books mentioned include:

• The Unnamed Country by Jeffrey Thomas
• The Punktown series by Jeffrey Thomas
• The Troika by Stepan Chapman
• Vermilion Sands by J.G. Ballard
• Made to Order: Robots and Revolution by Jonathan Strahan, ed., 
• Rambunctious by Rick Wilber
• Smoke Paper Mirrors by Anna Tambour
• The Finest Ass in the Universe by Anna Tambour
• The Well-Built City trilogy by Jeffrey Ford

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 Stoker and British Fantasy Award winner Usman T. Malik to discuss living in Lahore during the current times, how it impacts reading, writing and the ability to work, classic horror, the tales of your culture, and much more.

Books mentioned include:

• The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn by Usman T. Malik
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights (in 3 vols) translated by Malcolm Lyons 
• The Merman and the Book of Power: A Qissa by Musharraf Ali Farooqi