The Coode Street Podcast

Episode 179: James Bradley, Garth Nix, Sean Williams and Australian SF

Faced with another relentless summer's day in Perth and icy Chicago winter evening, Jonathan and Gary turn to long-time friends of the podcast James Bradley, Garth Nix, and Sean Williams, luxuriating in a cool Sydney summer afternoon, to discuss Australian fiction, young adult fiction, and the works of Neville Shute in a wide-ranging conversation that is only occasionally interrupted by the vagaries of Skype.

As always, our thinks to James, Garth and Sean, and we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 178: On importance and important science fiction

With a new season of the Coode Street Podcast well under way, Gary and Jonathan connected up between the icy wilds of Chicago and the sunny streets of Melbourne, to discuss "importance" in science fiction. What does "important" mean anyway, what works are "important" and so on.  

As always, we hope you enjoy the discussion!

Episode 177: Kij Johnson, science fiction and the Booker Prize

As snow and ice freeze the North American heartlands, long-time friend of the podcast Kij Johnson agreed to travel across a frozen Kansas City to find a place where she could Skype in to the Waldorf Room to join Gary and Jonathan in discussion. 

This time Gary threw out a question to kick start the discussion: which science fiction writer is most likely to win the Booker Prize, and which one is most likely to top the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists? It proved a good start to a thoughtful discussion that wandered far and wide, although we’d contend not much rambling happened this week.

As always, we’d like to thank Kij for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week Jonathan travels to Melbourne, so who knows what will happen there!

Episode 176: Liza Groen Trombi and the Locus Recommended Reading List.

Every February US science fiction and fantasy industry trade journal Locus  publishes an annual 'Year in Review" issue that includes overviews, summaries, reports and an eagerly awaited 'Recommended Reading List'. 

With the February issue safely complete and either already in eager digital reader's inboxes or winging its way to them in print courtesy of international postal services, and with the 2013 Recommended Reading List available to read on the Locus website, editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi joins Gary and Jonathan on the podcast to discuss the year in review issue, the Recommended Reading List, and what it means to try to produce an annual summary of SF/F in 2014.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. See you next week!

Episode 175: We return and talk about new books in 2014

It's been a long time since the last episode. In late November Jonathan and Gary sat down to record a final episode before commencing a lengthy hiatus.  After nearly two months, though, normal service returns!

This week Jonathan and Gary announce the winner and shortlist for the 2014 Crawford Award, begin thinking about Loncon3 (the 2014 World SF Convention), and discuss the books they're looking forward to in 2014. 

Lists will be added, but these are the books Jonathan's Looking Forward to in 2014:

• Wolves, Simon Ings (Gollancz, January)
• Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG, February)
• The Best of Ian McDonald, Ian McDonald (PS Publishing, April)
• The Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan, May)
• The Memory Garden, M. Rickert (Sourcebooks, May)
• Beautiful Blood, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean, June)
• Academic Exercises, K.J. Parker (Subterranean, August)
• War Dogs, Greg Bear (Gollancz, August)
• The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little Brown, September)
• Echopraxia, Peter Watts (Tor Books, September)

with a bonus title of The Just City, Jo Walton (Tor, January 2015) which Jonathan thought was coming in 2014 but isn't.  Gary's list will be up shortly.

In the meantime, we thank you for your patience, thank Cat Sparks for her help during our hiatus, and hope you enjoy the new episode. See you next week when we will be talking to Locus editor in chief Liza Trombi about the year in review!

Episode 174: Rachel Swirsky Redux

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.


This week Cat has selected a discussion with award winning author Rachel Swirksy. When we spoke to Rachel it was just following the publication of her major short story collection How the World Became Quiet. We discussed writing short stories, the business of science fiction and much more.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

Episode 173: Ellen Datlow Redux

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.


This week Cat has selected a discussion with multiple award winning editor Ellen Datlow. Last year Ellen was guest of honor at the San Antonion WorldCon. As part of the run up to the event, Gary and Jonathan spoke to her via the wonders of modern technology from Manhattan in what turned out to be a wide-ranging and interesting conversation.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

Episode 172: Robert Shearman and Howard Waldrop Redux

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.

Next up are brilliant short story writer Robert Shearman, and living legend Howard Waldrop, who spoke to Gary and Jonathan in July 2013 live from  Readercon 24 in Boston.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!