The Coode Street Podcast

We’re delighted to welcome to Coode Street Lev Grossman, bestselling author of The Magicians trilogy, to discuss his major new Arthurian novel The Bright Sword , which appears from Viking in July. We touch upon earlier versions of Arthurian fiction by T.H. White, John Steinbeck, Bernard Cornwell, Nicola Griffith, and others, the balance between historical research and pure fantasy invention, the d...

For this special short episode, Jonathan and Gary are joined by an old friend, Nebula and World Fantasy winner Ellen Klages, who recently gained an entirely new kind of recognition when she appeared on the long-running TV quiz show Jeopardy and recalled the “scary ham” story , which she first improvised at a Nebula ceremony ten years ago , when called upon to fill time during a technical glitch. W...

This episode is a wide-ranging discussion with two important guests: the brilliant Vajra Chandrasekera, whose amazing first novel The Saint of Bright Doors is currently nominated for both Hugo and Nebula Awards, and whose even more adventurous Rakesfall will be published in June, and our old friend, the excellent critic, reviewer and fellow podcaster (The Writer and the Critic) Ian Mond. We touch...

Gary and Jonathan are joined by Tobi Ogundiran , whose novella In the Shadow of the Fall is the first of the “Guardian of the Gods,” and whose first story collection Jackal, Jackal , was published to considerable acclaim last year. Winner of the Ignyte and nominee for the BSFA, and Shirley Jackson awards, Tobi discusses growing up in Nigeria reading what SFF he could come across, the importance of...

This week, we’re joined by the wonderful Nghi Vo, whose The Brides of High Hill is out this week. It’s the fifth of her ongoing “Singing Hills” sequence of novellas about the peripatetic Cleric Chih and their sharp-tongued companion hoopoe, Almost Brilliant. We discuss how Nghi has made use of different storytelling modes throughout the series, her novels The Chosen and the Beautiful and Siren Que...

This week Jonathan and Gary start out with something resembling a topic: the proliferation of subgenres, movements, and marketing categories in SF and fantasy: from the evolution of space opera in SF to the rise of epic fantasy (and Ballantine’s earlier term “adult fantasy”), as well as consciously developed movements such as the New Wave, cyberpunk, or Africanfuturism and new market categories su...

Once again with no guest to give us focus, Jonathan and Gary return to rambling mode, spurred on by the observation that voting for the 2024 Hugo Awards  is now open. This leads to our ongoing discussion of what the Hugo Awards do and do not represent, why voting for your favorite works is important even if you haven’t read all the nominees, what makes a genuine SFF classic, and how the Hugo proce...

This week we are joined by the  legendary author of The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle, who discusses his new novel I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons  (published next month by Saga Press & Gollancz), as well as his storied career, his pals from childhood, influential writers such as Robert Nathan and Avram Davidson, and last year’s important retrospective collection The Essential Peter S. Beagle ....

On the fiftieth anniversary of his groundbreaking anthology Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy, we’re joined by the terrific author and editor Jack Dann. During our conversation, we mention his new collection Islands of Time —published almost exactly 50 years after his first book— as well as his The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Alternate History and some of his classi...

This time out, Jonathan and Gary consider the meaning of "cozy" (or "cosy") SF and fantasy, and whether cozy horror is even a thing. We trace the term back to cozy mystery novels and Brian W. Aldiss’s characterization of certain British writers of the 1950s—especially John Wyndham—as "cozy catastrophes". Not surprisingly, this doesn’t lead to any meaningful conclusions, but we do touch upon whethe...

Somewhat hesitantly, Jonathan and Gary return to the mics, sans guests, and somehow get into a discussion of various SFF listicles—partly because of Gary’s recent contribution to fivebooks.com of a list of five novels about science fiction . Why are such lists so appealing and so ubiquitous these days, and who are they for? By the time we're done, Jonathan begins musing on a possible list of the t...

This week Nebula and World Fantasy award winner, Premee Mohamed , joins Gary and Jonathan from somewhere in the wilds of Canada to discuss writing, reading, building a career, and her fabulous new novella, The Butcher of the Forest. We also discuss the projects Premee has planned for the rest of the year, including forthcoming new novel  The Siege of Burning Grass,  which you can pre-order now. As...

For our second episode of 2024, we’re joined by the inimitable Kelly Link, whose forthcoming first novel The Book of Love is already receiving stellar advance reviews (including one from Gary in Locus ). Kelly explains how the novel evolved, it connections to various genres from romance to supernatural horror, the importance of valuable encouragement from friends such as Holly Black and Cassandra...

All round good guy Scott Edelman was at the recent World Fantasy Convention, and took Gary and Jonathan out for lunch and a chat. That chat became the latest episode of  Eating the Fantastic , Scott's terrific podcast. If you're interested, you can hear the episode here .

And just liked that, our end of year hiatus is over and the Coode Street Podcast is back! Gary and Jonathan return from their annual break and kick off a brand new year with discussions of recent news events in science fiction, how our thoughts about books and ideas change over time, 50th anniversaries, the delightfully happy news that Gary got married(!!!), and the sad news about the passing of s...

For the 2023 instalment of the Very Coode Street Gift Guide, we invited some old friends to share their recommendations of books read in 2023:  Alix E. Harrow (whose very worthy Starling House was a favorite, officially excluded from discussion because of her participation in the episode), award-winning Locus reviewer Ian Mond, and distinguished novelist James Bradley, whose nonfiction Deep Water:...

The end of the year may be fast approaching, but this episode isn’t quite our usual year-in-review discussion (which will come up later), or our books-we’re-looking-forward-to episode. Instead, we spend some time musing about books we maybe should be looking forward to, if we only knew about them. This raises the question of forthcoming novels that contain substantial fantasy or speculative elemen...

With plans for are promised chat with Elizabeth Hand and Alix E. Harrow on temporary hold, Jonathan and Gary share some pleasant memories of the World Fantasy Convention, muse about whether the nature of conventions has changed in the wake of the pandemic, and speculate about next year’s events in Glasgow, Niagara Falls, and elsewhere. They then touch upon some books they're looking forward to in...

The 2023 World Fantasy Convention was held in Kansas City, Missouri over the weekend of October 26-29 2023. The convention was incredibly kind and generous and featured Jonathan as a guest of honour and Gary as a panelist. During the weekend we grabbed long-time friends of the podcast Kij Johnson and Jeffrey Ford and attempted to discuss 'the art of narrative' or perhaps how you go about finding a...

Responding in part to some issues raised by Niall Harrison in The Los Angeles Review of Books , Jonathan and Gary discuss the value and purpose of year’s best anthologies, whether it’s even possible to still represent such a diversified international field, and how stories we read in anthologies frame our own reading experiences and help us discover exciting new writers. Needless to say, a lot of...

For this episode, Jonathan and Gary are joined by the distinguished novelist, editor, and scholar Jack Dann, whose new The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Alternate History: A Handbook on Craft, Art, and History has just been published by Bloomsbury Academic. Jack discusses definitions of alternate history (as opposed to secret history or parallel universes), his own work in developing his da Vinci nove...

In a return to classic rambling form, Jonathan and Gary begin thinking about the waning months of the year, and the inevitable recommended reading discussions. Jonathan starts off by asking why we always seem to say it was a surprisingly good year for collections, when just about every year is a good year for collections. We also touch upon anthologies, such as Jared Shunn’s massive The Big Book o...

This week Hugo and Nebula nominee Wole Talabi joins Jonathan and Gary for a wide-ranging discussion celebrating the publication of his wonderful first novel Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon and his Hugo Award-nominated novelette, " A Dream of Electric Mothers ". We discuss the recent worldwide recognition of African SFF, his use of Yoruba religion and mythology in his novel, the importance o...

After Gary enjoyed a weekend at Readercon, we’re back with another one-on-one ramble that covers topics from the proliferation of SF awards (and what they really might be for), to some recent and forthcoming books we’re excited about (including Kemi Ashing-Giwa's The Splinter in the Sky , Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors , Wole Talabi’s Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon , and E...

After an unplanned hiatus, we’re back with the wonderful Kij Johnson , who will be a guest of honour at this year’s World Fantasy Convention in Kansas City this coming October. Small Beer will publish a new collection of Kij's work, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, to coincide with the convention. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of teaching fiction writing in workshops versus univers...