The Coode Street Podcast

We're on a roll! Two episodes in two weeks. Surely it can't last! Gary has been reading Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize-winning novel The Testaments and it's sparked off all sorts of thoughts on that old chestnut: science fiction vs. literary fiction. What are literary writers doing when they write SF? Can SF writers cross-over to the mainstream? Is this purely a generational perspective and does it just not matter any more? All these questions are at least touched on, if not settled (they're not settled), as well as mentions of Lethem, Le Guin, Chabon and others, and a brief discussion of robots and AI in SF. They even discuss some very interesting comments on the Atwood novel by Nina Allan over on her blog. All in all, a typical rambly shambles. As always, we hope you enjoy!

This week, with Jonathan hard at work compiling his year’s best anthology, we revisit one of the oldest questions about science fiction—namely, what is it and how do you decide what to include or exclude from an anthology clearly labelled as science fiction? Rather than trying to offer our own definitions, we discuss the problem of definition in general. Gary argues that the many definitions of SF could be classed as the functional (or purely practical, like Damon Knight’s famous “what I point to”), the rhetorical (definitions designed to promote the importance of the genre), and the theoretical (lit-crit stuff). We agreed that such definitions tend to change over time. That leads us into a discussion of the current state of space opera, and the question of whether the space setting is a defining feature, even when, as with Aliette de Bodard’s The Tea Master and the Detective, the plot is borrowed from mysteries.   Finally, we talk about some of our current reading. Gary mentions Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, which he sees as representing a fascinating collaboration between music and fiction since the central idea began with the techno-electronic duo Drexciya, became a Hugo-nominated rap by Clipping and is now Solomon’s novel.  Jonathan mentioned Leah Bardugo's bestselling new fantasy, Ninth House, which is out now and which he recommends. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll be back soon!

As we approach the October Country, Jonathan and Gary start this week’s podcast discussing Gary’s new two-volume set from the Library of America, American Science Fiction: Eight Classic Novels of the 1960s (which you can order right now) and end with discussing the challenges of editing Jonathan’s new best science fiction of the year anthology series from Saga Press. It’s not all shameless self-promotion, though, since in between we talk about how SF changed from the 1950s to the 1960s, whether there is more high-quality SF published now than ever before, and how new writers face different challenges from those of earlier generations in establishing a career and a distinctive profile in today’s complicated markets. All in all, a pretty full hour. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode and we'll back soon (next week!) with another episode!

Welcome to the first episode of the second season of The Coode Street Roundtable, a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panellists James Bradley, Ian Mond, Gary K. Wolfe, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. Annalee Newitz’s The Future of Another Timeline This month James, Ian, Gary and Jonathan discuss the latest book from Annalee Newitz. It’s described by publisher Tor Books as follows: 1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend’s abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she’s found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost. Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline—a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline? If you’re keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode (serious spoilers start around the ten-minute mark). If you don’t already have a copy, The Future of Another Timeline can be ordered from: • North American booksellers • UK booksellers • amazon.com.au We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible. Books mentioned this episode James mentioned: Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker Paul Kingsnorth, The Wake Alastair Reynolds, Permafrost Michelle Tea, Black Wave Connie Willis, Doomsday Book Gary mentioned: Elizabeth Hand, Curious Toys Ian mentioned: Claire North, The Pursuit of William Abbey Meghan Elison, The Road to Nowhere Trilogy Jonathan mentioned: Kelly Robson, Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach   Next month The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of October with a discussion of Alix E. Harrow's The Ten Thousand Doors of January.  

After acknowledging that we failed to record a single podcast during the Dublin Worldcon, Jonathan and Gary compare notes about the con and the general wonderfulness of being in Ireland, than discussed perhaps the most debated bit of news emerging from Dublin: the renaming of the John W. Campbell award following the passionate acceptance speech by Jeanette Ng. This raised the issue of whether it’s a good idea to name an award in honour of any past figure in the field, given the shifting historical and literary influences of modern writers, and the problems that might arise concerning such figures. Then we spent a bit of time talking about a new kind of "new space opera” such as Max Gladstone’s Empress of Forever, and how space opera, like time travel, seems to survive and get reinvented in each new generation of writers. Finally, we recommend a couple of forthcoming books we’ve both been reading, Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January and Dominic Parisien and Navah Wolfe’s anthology The Mythic Dream.

Just before Gary K Wolfe and I went to Dublin for the WorldCon we recorded a short episode. We've been too busy to publish until now. And we do have new plans for new episodes. We will be back!!!

This week marks the publication of Jonathan’s new hard-SF anthology Mission Critical, the title of which reminded Gary of the first SF serial he read, Hal Clement’s Close to Critical. This lead, by our usual process of carefully structured random free association, to a discussion of Clement as an example of an author whose fiction is not widely read anymore, but whose influence nevertheless shows up even in writers who may not have read him. In Clement’s case, it was carefully extrapolated SF environments and creatures, but Jack Vance and Clifford Simak are also mentioned as writers whose influence has long outlived their popularity. This somehow led to a discussion of SF’s oldest saw, the sense of wonder, how it can be achieved by current writers, and whether the SFnal sense of wonder can really be achieved in fantasy or horror. After rambling through a few other topics, including our favourite dragons, we mentioned a few new and upcoming books we're looking forward to (see the links below).  And then we noted that this week represents the 10th anniversary of the death of our old friend, Charles N. Brown, who in many ways was the inspiration for this podcast. Links for the episode Remembering Charles N Brown (1937-2009) Close to Critical, Hal Clement The Gurka and the Lord of Tuesday, Saad Z Hossain The Menace from Farside, Ian McDonald Mission Critical, Jonathan Strahan ed. Selected Stories, Theodore Sturgeon

This week Jonathan and Gary are back, fitting another episode in between travel, work, and family commitments. Gary opens up with a thoroughly reasonable discussion about writers from the 1990s and 2000s who may have published major works but have fallen from sight in recent years, while Jonathan attempts to get Gary interested in a new segment. Along the way there's discussion of the history of anthologies and whether genre fiction is more likely to be the home of theme anthologies, a new Gwyneth Jones book on the work of Joanna Russ, the state of various Library of America projects, and more. All in all, a typical ramble. In coming weeks Gary will be in Seattle for the 2019 Locus Awards weekend, Jonathan will be in Seattle for Clarion West, and both of them will be in Dublin for WorldCon 2019. Hopefully more podcast episodes will be recorded before then.  

With the Nebula Award winners about to be announced, we took a look this week at the question of whether science fiction has demonstrated much continuity of theme and style since the 1969 Nebulas, or whether the field has essentially reinvented itself in the last few decades. But before we even get around to that, we note the death of bestselling author Herman Wouk, whose only science fiction work was the relatively undistinguished The "Lomokome” Papers, which raised the issue of mainstream writers who attempted SF with limited success vs. those who approached the material with respect. Then we spent some time talking about the different generations of science fiction writers, the role of nostalgia in science fiction, the value of differing perspectives even on familiar themes, and somehow touched upon the New Wave somewhere in there as well. As usual, we started with interesting ideas and ended up with a farrago.  

After a much longer than expected hiatus, we're back (sort of)! Gary's been working and travelling and Jonathan's been working and planning to travel and it's made it very difficult to squeeze recording time in.  Or even to plan recording time. Still, for a moment, early on Mother's Day in Australia and late in the evening in Chicago, Gary and Jonathan stop to discuss the books they've been reading, the movies they've been watching, the stuff they've been working on, awards and ballots, and  Joanna Russ. There are mentions of fiction in translation, Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide (and Liz Bourke's Tor.com review of it), Avenger's Endgame, and much more. I don't think either of our hosts is sure the conversation is coherent or intelligible but here it is, along with a promise to try to do better in the coming months.