Episodes
Sunday Jul 17, 2022
Episode 583: John Kessel and a Life in Science Fiction
Sunday Jul 17, 2022
Sunday Jul 17, 2022
This week we’re joined by the distinguished, multiple award-winning John Kessel, whose collection The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel is recently out from Subterranean Press, representing John’s four-decade career as an SF writer, teacher, editor, scholar, and workshop leader. We touch upon not only his short fiction, but novels like The Moon and the Other and Pride and Prometheus, his early studies under James Gunn, his thematic anthologies co-edited with James Patrick Kelly, and what really happened in SF during the 1980s.
As always, we'd like to thank John for taking the time to talk to us and hope you'll enjoy the episode.
Monday Jul 04, 2022
Episode 582: Rachel Swirsky and the Universality of Caring
Monday Jul 04, 2022
Monday Jul 04, 2022
For the first week in July, we’re joined by Nebula Award winner Rachel Swirsky, whose novella January Fifteenth ( just out from Tordotcom) is a provocative exploration of the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as it might play out in the lives of four women in very different circumstances. We touch upon Rachel’s decision to focus on characters rather than systems, to set the tale in a recognizable near future, and to deliberately restrain from many science-fictional bells and whistles.
This leads to how SF deals, too rarely, with questions of economic policy and the effects on individual lives —in the case of January Fifteenth, a woman escaping from an abusive ex-spouse, a journalist covering the effects of UBI, a well-off college student whose friends deliberately waste their annual checks, and a young member of a repressive religious cult. As usual, we touch upon what’s next for Rachel, including an intriguing collaboration with Ann Leckie.
As always, our thanks to Rachel for making the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Sunday Jun 19, 2022
Episode 581: Kate Heartfield and The Embroidered Book
Sunday Jun 19, 2022
Sunday Jun 19, 2022
This week, Jonathan and Gary are delighted to chat with Kate Heartfield, whose thoroughly engrossing historical fantasy The Embroidered Book, already a bestseller in the UK and Canada, has just been published in the United States.
We talk about the research that went into her fascinating tale of the sisters Antoine and Charlotte, who grew up to become Marie Antoinette and Queen Charlotte of Naples, and of how magical books of spells secretly helped shape the history of 18th century Europe. We touch upon her earlier Aurora-winning Armed in Her Fashion, the various ways of incorporating fantasy into history, the question of whether historical fiction might be received differently in different cultures and markets, and some hints about her current work in progress.
It’s a pretty lively discussion, and we think a lot of fun. As always, our thanks to Kate for making time to talk to us, and we hope you enjoy the episode!
Sunday May 22, 2022
Episode 580: Christopher Rowe and the Instrumentality of Influence
Sunday May 22, 2022
Sunday May 22, 2022
This week, Jonathan and Gary are joined by the brilliant Christopher Rowe, whose novella These Prisoning Hills appears next week from Tordotcom, revisiting the wonderful and bizarre world first introduced in his earlier stories “The Voluntary State” and “The Border State.”
We cover quite a bit of territory, ranging from Christopher's own influences, what it means to be associated with a particular region (such as Kentucky and Tennessee in Christopher’s case), the nature of influence in SF, and Christopher’s own discovery of the work of Cordwainer Smith, whose stories he’s been assiduously collecting in their original magazine appearances.
As usual, we would like to thank Christopher for taking the time to talk to us, and hope you enjoy the podcast.
Monday May 16, 2022
Episode 579: Remembering Patricia A. McKillip
Monday May 16, 2022
Monday May 16, 2022
Earlier this week, we were all stunned by the news of the tragic death of World Fantasy Life Achievement Award winner Patricia McKillip, whose luminous works have influenced and moved generations of readers and writers for nearly half a century.
Jonathan and Gary are joined by McKillip’s longtime friend, Ellen Kushner, herself a winner of World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Awards, and by Campbell Award winner E. Lily Yu, We talk some about Pat’s personal modesty and sharp wit, but mostly about her astonishing body of work, not only in fantasy but (as Lily points out) in her less familiar forays into SF. Like all tributes, it’s probably inadequate to the work, but it’s deeply felt by all of us.
Sunday May 01, 2022
Episode 578: Kind of dull, but it’s something
Sunday May 01, 2022
Sunday May 01, 2022
This week’s discussion begins with Gary wondering about what he tentatively calls the use of absurdism in some recent novels, mentioning Kelly Barnhill’s When Women Were Dragons and Sunyi Dean's forthcoming The Book Eaters, each of which features a powerful central metaphor that refuses to resolve itself into traditional SF or fantasy systems—somewhat like the old Theatre of the Absurd playwrights like Ionesco. This leads to yet another discussion of what may be happening with the notion of genres, and how an earlier generation of gatekeeping editors has given way to editors more welcoming to a variety of voices and approaches. We more or less conclude that, while this reinvigorates the traditional genres, there are plenty of options for readers who still prefer the familiar formulas and traditions. Finally, we talk a bit about getting together for a possible live podcast at Chicon later this summer.
Friday Apr 15, 2022
Episode 577: Books, classics, and collecting
Friday Apr 15, 2022
Friday Apr 15, 2022
It's only been a week since Jonathan and Gary sat down to chat with Nicola Griffith about her new book, Spear, but in a bid to get back on schedule, they took a moment to record a new episode for the coming long weekend.
They kick off chatting about travel during the pandemic and the coming WorldCon, before Jonathan admits he's only just read Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and they then go on to talk about Le Guin's work, the oddities of book buying and collecting, and then our hosts attempt to answer the age-old questions: do you need to read a book? if so, why? do you need to keep book? which ones can you get rid of, and how? Really, it's a ramble that kicks off with Earthsea and ends up chatting about books. It's a Coode Street podcast.
As always, our thanks for your patience with our rambles. We hope you enjoy the episode, and see you again pretty soon!
Sunday Apr 03, 2022
Episode 576: Nicola Griffith and Spear
Sunday Apr 03, 2022
Sunday Apr 03, 2022
This time out, Jonathan and Gary are joined by the brilliant Nicola Griffith, whose Spear, out this month, revisits Arthurian tales from an entirely new perspective. We chat about how the novel came about, Arthurian literature as fan fiction, the wonderful illustrations by Rovina Cai, and what it was like to record the audiobook. We also discuss its similarities to and differences from her well-received historical novel Hild and its forthcoming sequel Menewood, as well as Nicola’s classic early novels Ammonite and Slow River, her recent So Lucky, and forthcoming reissues of her Aud Torvingen novels, beginning with The Blue Place.