The Coode Street Podcast

Hugo and Nebula Award winner  Charlie Jane Anders joins Gary for the 14th instalment of the Advent Calendar to discuss what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, her favourite holiday reads, and her fabulous new novel, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak , the latest in her new Unstoppable young adult space opera series. As always, our thanks to Charlie Jane, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

With the Coode Street Advent Calendar now in its second half, Gary sits down with the terrific Stephanie Feldman , the author of Who Will Speak for America? and  Angel of Losses, to talk about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, and her fabulous new novel, Saturnalia .  As always, our thanks to Stephanie, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

As we get towards day 12 and the halfway mark of the Advent Calendar, Jonathan calls up Canada and talks to the always fabulous Kelly Robson about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, what she's working on, and her latest book, lesbian stoner comedy High Times in the Low Parliament , a book that you never knew you needed, but you do. As always, our thanks to Kelly and we hope you're enjo...

The holidays are in full swing. Hopefully, everyone is on top of their seasonal shopping and ready to relax and have fun. But if not, we can help. Today Gary sits down with Liz Williams, the award-winning author of Comet Weathe r, Blackthorn Winter , and the recently released Embertide , to discuss what Liz has been reading, what she'd recommend, what she's been working on, and, maybe, some holida...

It's fitting that the tenth day of the Advent Calendar, which is also the 600th (!!) official episode of The Coode Street Podcast, should feature a dear friend, Guy Gavriel Kay , who chats with Jonathan about what he's been reading lately, what he might recommend, his wonderful book All the Seas of the World , and even recommends a special holiday cocktail! As always, our thanks to Guy and we hope...

As we move through the first week of December and into day nine of the Advent Calendar series, Gary spends some time chatting with the incredible Rachel Swirsky about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, what she reads on the holidays, what work she has coming out, and her fabulous science fiction novella January Fifteenth (Tordotcom), which looks at how universal basic income might affe...

For the eighth day of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Jonathan called Tamsyn Muir , author of the New York Time Bestselling 'Locked Tomb' series, to talk about her somewhat unexpected novel Nona the Ninth , what she's been reading lately, what she'd recommend, and her thoughts on holiday reads. As always, we would like to thank Tamsyn for taking the time to chat with us and hope you enjoy the ep...

Earlier this year we talked to the fabulous Kate Heartfield about her novel, The Embroidered Book. Now, for day seven of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Gary chats with Kate about what she's been reading, what she'd recommend, and her favourite holiday reads.  As always, our thanks to Kate. We hope you enjoy the episode!

Day six of the Coode Street Advent Calendar sees Jonathan chatting with the incredible Sequoia Nagamatsu about what he's been reading, what he'd recommend, what he might recommend for the holidays, and his fabulous debut novel, How High We Go in the Dark . As always, our thanks to Sequoia and we hope you enjoy the conversation.  

The Coode Street Advent Calendar rolls into the fifth day, and this time Gary takes a little time to chat with the wonderful Sam J. Miller about his new novella,  Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy , and his short story collection, Boys, Beasts & Men. There's also, no doubt, some holiday chat with books and such being recommended. As always, our thanks to Sam and we hope you enjoy the episode!

For the fourth instalment of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Jonathan called New Orleans to talk to exciting debut author Alex Jennings about how he was still envious about not having made it to the World Fantasy Convention there. The conversation also touched on what Alex had been reading, what they have coming out, and their fabulous first novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves , which Alex desc...

The third day of the Coode Street Advent Calendar sees Gary talking to long-time podcast favourite Aliette de Bodard about their year in reading and writing, their new novella,   Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances , and the first ever Xuya universe novel,  The Red Scholar’s Wake. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation!

For the second day of the Coode Street Advent Calendar, Jonathan sits down to chat with the delightful Kelly Barnhill, whose novels When Women Were Dragons and The Ogress and the Orphans  came out this year. Both are highly recommended. Enjoy!

The end of the year is fast approaching, and this year the Coode Street Podcast is doing something a little different. We've invited 24 creators of some of this year’s best and most interesting books to join us for ten minutes or so to talk about what they're reading now, their favourite holiday reads, what they had out this year, and what they’ve got coming out in the year ahead. It’s a Coode Str...

With the end of the year almost upon us, Coode Street was looking for a way to celebrate the books we read and loved during 2022. We also wanted to help you find something great to read for yourself or for someone close to you. And so the 2022 Coode Street Advent Calendar was born! Here are twenty-eight books that we loved and that we think you might love too. Space operas and epic fantasies, horr...

The end of the year is nigh. Jonathan and Gary are working on their year-end recommended reading, and many of us are working on our holiday shopping lists. It's that magical time of the year, for many. And so, as a little bonus, the Coode Street team are reviving the Ten-Minutes with... format and talking to twenty-four writers about what their reading, what they have coming out, and what their fa...

With Gary about to leave for the World Fantasy Convention to be held in New Orleans next week, and with Jonathan in the process of assembling anthologies on the most recent iterations of space opera, we spend most of our time discussing the characteristics, history, and too-common misuse of that venerable term. While we do touch briefly on the etymology of 'space opera', and on the pulp-era advent...

This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by the wonderful Eileen Gunn , whose Night Shift Plus... is the latest volume in PM Press’s ongoing series of “Outspoken Authors” collections, which combine fiction and nonfiction with an author interview by series editor Terry Bisson. We discuss Eileen’s stories, her essays on Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller, and Gardner Dozois (and her essay on William...

With the fall season of Coode Street underway, Jonathan and Gary sit down with the brilliant Ray Nayler , whose first novel The Mountain in the Sea has just been published. We touch upon the many themes of the novel, from the problems of alien communication to artificial intelligence, the nature of consciousness, the ethics of science, and corporate malfeasance—not to mention lots of octopuses. We...

After far too many weeks of an unscheduled summer hiatus, Jonathan and Gary are back with a discussion of the recent Worldcon, which felt in many ways like a return to classic Worldcon form. But then we amble into a discussion that ranges from whether there are too many awards in SF to the question of whether “hard SF” is still a viable category that means what it once did—"playing with the net up...

For the handful of listeners who might be nostalgic for those earlier Coode Streets which were mostly just disorganized rambles, this week we return to form—or lack of form, as the case may be. We do mention Rich Horton’s recent re-reads of pre-Hugo SF classics, and his contention that 1953 was a high point in SF publishing, but then get into questions of why it was just an impressive year (partly...

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...

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 recogniz...

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 Napl...

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 particula...