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Discussion and digression on science fiction and fantasy with Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan.
Episodes
Tuesday Feb 14, 2017
Tuesday Feb 14, 2017
Repost
With awards season upon us, we thought it might be worthwhile to re-release our spoiler heavy roundtable discussions for last year. The first 2017 awards-eligible book we discussed was Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky.
Welcome to the third episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.
Patricia A. McKillip’s Kingfisher
This month Tiptree Award winning writer Nike Sulway and Coode Street co-host Gary K. Wolfe join Jonathan and Ian to discuss Kingfisher, the latest novel from World Fantasy Award and Mythopoeic Award winner Patricia A. McKillip. It’s a lyrical, funny, and sometimes challenging novel about family and destiny described by its publisher as follows:
In the new fantasy from the award-winning author of the Riddle-Master Trilogy, a young man comes of age amid family secrets and revelations, and transformative magic.
Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. “Look for us,” they tell Pierce, “if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden’s court.”
Lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his choice. Heloise, bereft and furious, tells her son the truth: about his father, a knight in King Arden’s court; about an older brother he never knew existed; about his father’s destructive love for King Arden’s queen, and Heloise’s decision to raise her younger son alone.
As Pierce journeys to Severluna, his path twists and turns through other lives and mysteries: an inn where ancient rites are celebrated, though no one will speak of them; a legendary local chef whose delicacies leave diners slowly withering from hunger; his mysterious wife, who steals Pierce’s heart; a young woman whose need to escape is even greater than Pierce’s; and finally, in Severluna, King Arden's youngest son, who is urged by strange and lovely forces to sacrifice his father’s kingdom.
Things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory—or destroy it...
If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Kingfisher can be ordered from:
We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.
Next month
The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of April with a discussion of Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere (his second Jackaroo novel).
Monday Feb 13, 2017
Monday Feb 13, 2017
For our 299th episode, we are joined once again by Locus editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi for our annual discussion of the Locus Magazine recommended reading list, covering the history of how the list evolved, who participates in compiling it, what its purpose is, and what our own thoughts are about the titles included this year in the book categories of the list(included the newly reinstated Horror Novel category). We also pay a brief tribute to our old friend and former Locus columnist Ed Bryant, who passed away earlier this week.
Links for this episode:
- Locus Recommended Reading List
- Locus Poll and Survey (vote here!)
Our thanks for Liza for making the time to join us. As always we hope you enjoy the episode. See you next week!
Sunday Feb 12, 2017
Sunday Feb 12, 2017
For our 299th episode, we are joined once again by Locus editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi for our annual discussion of the Locus Magazine recommended reading list, covering the history of how the list evolved, who participates in compiling it, what its purpose is, and what our own thoughts are about the titles included this year in the book categories of the list(included the newly reinstated Horror Novel category). We also pay a brief tribute to our old friend and former Locus columnist Ed Bryant, who passed away earlier this week.
Links for this episode:
- Locus Recommended Reading List
- Locus Poll and Survey (vote here!)
Our thanks for Liza for making the time to join us. As always we hope you enjoy the episode. See you next week!
Thursday Feb 09, 2017
Thursday Feb 09, 2017
Repost
With awards season upon us, we thought it might be worthwhile to re-release our spoiler heavy roundtable discussions for last year. The first 2017 awards-eligible book we discussed was Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky.
*
Welcome to the second episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.
Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky
This month Coode Street co-host Gary Wolfe joins us to discuss All the Birds in the Sky, the second novel from Hugo Award winning author Charlie Jane Anders. It's a warm, humane, funny, and genuinely engaging novel described by its publisher as follows:
From the editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning novel about the end of the world--and the beginning of our future...
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families.
But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's every-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together--to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.
A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.
We discuss the novel in detail, including how the story develops and ends. If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, All the Birds in the Sky can be ordered from:
We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.
Next month
Saturday Feb 04, 2017
Saturday Feb 04, 2017
This week we are joined in our luxurious Coode Street studio by Lisa Yaszek, co-editor (with Patrick B. Sharp) of Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction, and our old friend Kathleen Ann Goonan, whose essay “Challenging the Narrative, Or, Women Take Back Science Fiction” serves as a provocative afterword to the anthology.
We discuss how and why women were largely written out of early histories of science fiction, their contributions as writers, editors, journalists, poets, and artists during the pulp era, and how the situation has evolved from the pulp era to the present, and how American women SF writers might be represented in Lisa’s forthcoming Library of America anthology.
As always, our thanks to our guests for making the time to join us. And see you next week!
Sunday Jan 29, 2017
Sunday Jan 29, 2017
This week we return to the Gershwin Room to discuss what we’ve been reading lately, what we’re anticipating, what do you when you encounter a story by an idol or a good friend which isn’t quite up to standard, and what the state of political science fiction is, with both Orwell’s 1984 and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here returning to the U.S. bestseller lists for the first time in decades. We also discuss political action within the science fiction field towards the end of the podcast, and touch on Norman Spinrad's new novel.
As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.
Saturday Jan 21, 2017
Saturday Jan 21, 2017
It's a brand new day. A dark, scary depressing day, maybe, but a brand new one. With the 45th president of the United States of America sworn in, Gary and Jonathan turned their attention to more typical things in the first rambling chat of the year.
This week they start by chatting about recent trends in science fiction, most notably science fiction influenced by man-made climate change like Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 and Cat Sparks' Lotus Blue, before talking at length about the upcoming World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, nominating for the Hugo awards (with some nomination suggestions), and finishing up talking about the recently released ballot for the Philip K. Dick Award.
As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. And if you do, please consider mentioning it to a friend!
Tuesday Jan 17, 2017
Tuesday Jan 17, 2017
As promised, the wonderful Ellen Klages reads from her forthcoming book Passing Strange. The short reading starts about halfway into a story about two women living in San Francisco in 1940 and what happens to them. Our sincere thanks to Ellen for taking the time to record the reading. Passing Strange is due out on January 24.
© 2017 Ellen Klages. All rights reserved.