The Coode Street Podcast

Episode 406: On the Ten Minutes With Experience and more

This week, returning to our customary format of rambling aimlessly for an hour or so, Jonathan and Gary share observations on what we are learning from our series of Ten Minutes With... podcasts, how the current crisis may or may not be reflected in tomorrow’s SF, the increasing relevance of Kim Stanley Robinson and others who have addressed global issues in the Before Times, the question of whether SF serves more as a mirror or a lamp (to borrow and cheerfully misuse a phrase from M.H. Abrams’s classic study of Romantic literary theory), and. of course, what we’ve been reading and hoping to read in the next few months.

Episode 405: Ten Minutes with James Patrick Kelly

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 ten minutes or so with Hugo and Nebula-winning James Patrick Kelly, touching upon the challenges of reading during lockdown, the temptation to argue with the page while reading, the appeal of Raymond Chandler, and the virtues of listening to audiobooks and stories, including his own recent King of the Dogs, Queen of the Cats  (also available as an audiobook from his website).

Books mentioned include:

• King of the Dogs, Queen of the Cats by James Patrick Kelly
• Mother Go by James Patrick Kelly
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
• The True Queen by Zen Cho
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
• The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black (John Banville)
• Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
• The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler

Episode 404: Ten Minutes with Nalo Hopkinson

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 the wonderful Nalo Hopkinson, who took a few minutes away from a busy semester of suddenly teaching online to chat about the pleasures of hydroponic gardening, catching up on TV shows like Supernatural and The Murdoch Mysteries, her own work on The New Decameron and DC Comics Sandman story House of Whispers, and Sharon Lewis’s film Brown Girl Begins, inspired by Nalo’s novel Brown Girl in the Ring.

Books mentioned include:

• Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
• House of Whispers (#s 1-22) by Nalo Hopkinson & Dominike Stanton
• How Long Til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
• A New Decameron: Stories for a Plague Year edited by Jo Walton, Maya Chhabra, & Lauren Schiller
• Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia Butler, Damian Duffy, & John Jennings

Episode 403: Ten Minutes with Kim Stanley Robinson

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 one of our most important novelists, Kim Stanley Robinson, joins Gary for a chat that touches upon the challenges of maintaining a consistent narrative voice in longer works, Daniel Defoe and the origins of the historical novel, Stan’s own new monthly column for Bloomberg Green, and his forthcoming novel, The Ministry for the Future.

Books mentioned include:

• Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
• The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
• Daniel Defoe: His Life by Paul R. Backscheider
• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

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Episode 402: Ten Minutes with Kate Elliott

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 chatting with Kate Elliott, who calls in from her home high on a hillside overlooking the Pacific to talk about her love of reading history, Alexander the Great, the naval history of the Second World War, the importance of reading what works for you at a time like this, and her forthcoming novel, Unconquerable Sun.

Books mentioned include:

• Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
• Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great by A. B. Bosworth
• Æthelstan: The First King of England by Sarah Foot
• Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire by Anne F. Broadbridge
• Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal by James D. Hornfischer
• The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour by James D. Hornfischer
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Episode 401: Ten Minutes with M. Rickert

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 World Fantasy Award-winner Mary Rickert on being cautious during the lockdown, reading Dracula for the first time, the rewards of contemplating individual words and their etymologies, revisiting Ray Bradbury, and Mary’s own forthcoming work.

Books mentioned include:

• You Have Never Been Here: New and Selected Stories by M. Rickert
• The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie by M. Rickert (forthcoming)
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury
• Thin Places by Kay Chronister

Episode 400: In which we turn 400...

Well, that was unexpected, wasn't it? After kicking off the Coode Street Podcast in May 2010 with no plans, no skills, and no technical knowledge, Gary and Jonathan race towards their 10th anniversary with no real plans, no skills, and pretty much no technical knowledge at all.

And yet, despite being invited to desist on several occasions, they persist. Four hundred episodes. Enough rambling to get you across England and back again! Probably across Australia and back again. And along the way over 150 wonderful guests, some new friends made and old ones lost, a dubious proposition or two taken about the state of the science fiction and fantasy, seven Hugo Award nominations, and enough incredible memories to fill at least an hour of rambling and possibly a couple of lifetimes. Someone should write a book.

So, with no fanfare but a lot of thanks, a guest-free 400th episode recorded in the time of Pandemic, with some thoughts on what might happen next, a short discussion of books being read, coming to you, as always, from the socially-distanced Gershwin Room, high above a temporarily shuttered Motel Six, with thanks to each and every one of you.

Episode 399: Ten Minutes with Karen Joy Fowler

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.

This time out, Gary talks with PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author Karen Joy Fowler, about the challenges of concentrating in times of stress, but also the value of collective co-operation and respect for scientific evidence and the question of whether the current situation might encourage us to think more broadly about our responsibilities as co-inhabitants of this planet.

Books mentioned include:

• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

• Eye of the Whale by Douglas Carlton Abrams

• The Widowed Warlock by Helen Sanders

• Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes (short story at Tor.com)

• The Overstory by Richard Powers

• Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy