The Coode Street Podcast

And now for something special! During the recent WorldCon, held in Helsinki, Finland, Gary and Jonathan took to the stage to talk to WorldCon guest of honor Walter Jon Williams and Campbell Award nominee Kelly Robson to discuss Walter's career and his new novel, Quillifer. During recording we were fortunate enough to be able to give away copies of Quillifer to lucky convention attendees thanks to...

We were away! We came back! We missed you! After an unexpected four week hiatus, and with another four week hiatus coming up, Gary and Jonathan took some time to catch up with one another, discuss what they'd both been reading lately, consider the XPrize fiction projection Seat 14C, and have a chat about the best books of the year they've read so far. A lot for a chat a little under an hour, but r...

Gary and Jonathan are back with a rambling conversation that touches on epic fantasy and its relationship to privilege, the recently announced Campbell Award  ballot, Gary's theory on perspective, recent books they've read and more. They also discuss hiatuses, missed episodes and how to subscribe to the podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode!   Subscribe If you would like to subscribe t...

Any time the Coode Street Podcast connects with the United Kingdom it's a special occasion. Jonathan stays up until the dead of night (often with a whisky in hand), while Gary is driven out of bed and into the arms of coffee. This week, in the face of puzzling technical difficulties, Jonathan and Gary are joined on the podcast by noted critic Paul Kincaid and award-winning writer Ken Macleod to di...

This week we talk with the multi-talented Theodora Goss , whose forthcoming novel, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter , draws not only from her own doctoral research in late Victorian Gothic fiction, but from her earlier story " The Mad Scientist’s Daughter ." By focusing on a group of women characters drawn from classic tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, a...

This week we are joined by Nebula, Clarke, Tiptree, Campbell, and World Fantasy Award winner Geoff Ryman to discuss his important new project, 100 African Writers of SF/F , which sees Ryman traversing the African continent meeting new creators of science fiction and fantasy to discuss their careers, their work and the places they find themselves working.   We also discuss the recently announced 20...

This week we're joined by the delightful and provocative Kim Stanley Robinson, to discuss his new novel New York 2140 , his “comedy of coping” about dealing with catastrophic climate change in the next century, as well as how his previous novel Aurora challenged one of the cherished ideas in science fiction, the literary and artistic function of exposition in fiction, the relationship of science f...

That sounds a bit grandiose, doesn't it? We're back rambling, and this week we discuss some of our recent reading (Jonathan finished reading his second novel of the year!!), Gary's convention, the history of the Crawford Award, voting, and Gary's new History of Science Fiction. There's rambling, diversions, and parts of the conversation that just trrail off into the ether, as you might expect. As...

This week Gary is in Orlanda, Florida for the International Conference on the Fantastic Arts . Despite being thousands of miles away, across aligator-infested waters, he took the time to sit down with long-time friends of the podcast John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly  to discuss John's new novel The Moon and the Other  (Saga Press, April) and Jim's new novel, Mother Go, which will be out from Au...

This week we welcome a record number of guests for a lively discussion of the state of short fiction. We discuss whether or not we’re currently in a “golden age” of short fiction; the welcome growth of multicultural voices; the economic realities of the short fiction market; and how authors can build careers in such a diverse and complex publishing environment. Our guests are: Neil Clarke of Clark...

This week, after an unintended break because of deadlines and workload, Gary and Jonathan return to the Gershwin Room to discuss the burning question of literary fiction vs genre fiction, what exactly literary science fiction might be, recent books they've read, awards nominations, when is a writer a new writer, and so on. Books mentioned during the podcast include: The Moon and the Other, John Ke...

This week Gary and Jonathan are joined by Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winning writer Kij Johnson  to discuss her Nebula Award nominated novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe  and her forthcoming novel The River Bank , how it's possible to re-imagine the worlds of classic fiction in bold and useful ways, recording audiobooks and how reading aloud changes what you write, and much more. As...

Repost With awards season upon us, we thought it might be worthwhile to re-release our spoiler heavy roundtable discussions for last year. The fourth 2017 awards-eligible book we discussed was Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere. Welcome to the fourth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley ,  Ian Mond , and...

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 ,...

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 Ho...

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 Ho...

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 Brad...

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 ea...

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...

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 S...

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.

And we're back! The bar has been re-stocked, the carpets have been steam cleaned, and we're ready to go. For the first podcast of 2017, long time friend of the podcast Ellen Klages joins us to discuss her wonderful new book, Passing Strange . Described by the publisher like this: San Francisco in 1940 is a haven for the unconventional. Tourists flock to the cities within the city: the Magic City o...

The end of the year is upon us, and plans are subject to change. Our intention to do a bunch of end-of-the year episodes has been set aside because of deadlines and other commitments. Instead here’s a conversation about the history of the podcast, about our most disappointing and surprising books of 2016, and much more. During the episode we discuss the hiatus, and whether we’ll be returning in 20...

It’s the end of the year and time to talk about how it went, what’s worth reading, what could end up on your holiday gift lists, and what could be avoided. To kick off Coode Street’s end of year coverage, this week Roundtablers James Bradley and Ian Mond join Gary and Jonathan to discuss books they’ve loved during the year and would recommend to you, if you’re looking for some great reading. To he...

This week we find ourselves talking about the resurgence of the novella in fantasy and SF, the possible reasons behind it, the changes in recent print magazines Asimov’s and Analog, the question of why short fiction seems to be moving in a digital direction whereas the novel not so much--and then we segue unconvincingly into questions of what gets reviewed and by whom, finally ending up with the p...