The Coode Street Podcast

This week Gary and Jonathan are joined by the wonderful Genevieve Valentine who talks intelligently, coherently and very interestingly about television, film, her latest novel The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, writing for comics and her extended run with Catwoman, and a lot, lot more.  Genevieve's brilliance is a little overshadowed by bumbling hosts, who were exceptionally bumbling this weekend, and by perfidious technology (for which our apologies to both you and to Genevieve). Nonetheless, we think there's a lot worth listening to and hope you will persevere.  Our sincere thanks to Genevieve for making the time to record the podcast, and to all of you for listening. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

We went to Washington DC to celebrate the 40th World Fantasy Convention and came back to the first books and stories of 2014. As long-time listeners know, this is the time when the season turns, when work beings on summing up the year we've had, and when the old year ends and the new one begins. This episode, with brief and incoherent gift guide, is the beginning of the end of 2014. As always, we hope you will forgive the rambling and enjoy the episode. See you next week!

This past weekend the World Fantasy Convention was held in Arlington, Virginia.  As part of the festivities, the Coode Street Podcast team produced the second ever "live" Coode Street Podcast. This time the wonderful Caitlin R. Kiernan and Peter Straub joined Jonathan and Gary to discuss: The Literary Uses of FantasyPanelists: Jonathan Strahan, Gary K. Wolfe, Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan Description: The Coode Street Podcast discusses the literary uses of fantasy with Peter Straub and other special guests.  Why do writers clearly capable of realistic, character-driven stories choose to introduce fantastic elements, some of them extreme, into their stories?  What does the fantasy enable them to do that the more realistic narrative doesn’t? The podcast went very well, and we're happy that it's now ready for you. We would like to sincerely thank Caitlin and Peter for making the time available to be part of the podcast again, and the team at WFC2014 for helping us organise and record the episode. It was deeply appreciated. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. We'll be back next week with more!

This week Hugo Award winning author of the God's War Trilogy Kameron Hurley joins Gary and Jonathan to discuss her new novel The Mirror Empire, winning the Hugo Award, social media, and writing SF/F in the 21st Century. As always, we would like to thank Kameron for joining us on the podcast, and hope you enjoy the episode. Next week: World Fantasy!

In recent weeks Coode Street has discussed the national SF scenes in the United Kimgdom, Australia and China. This week we are joined by Peter Halasz and Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Robert J Sawyer, both long-standing advocates of Canadian science fiction, to discuss what's happening in SF/F north of the US border.  We'd like to thank both Bob and Peter for joining us in what was a very spirited and energetic discussion. Next week: Kameron Hurley!  Till then, we hope you enjoy the episode.

Following on from our recent conversations about British and Australian Science Fiction, this week we invited Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award winning author and translator Ken Liu to join us to discuss translating fiction, his experiences with Chinese SF and his forthcoming translation of Liu Cixin's The Three Body Problem (which Gary officially has recommended as a Coode Street Recommended Book). We'd like to thank Ken for joining us in what proved to be an extremely interesting conversation. Next week: Canada! Till then, we hope you enjoy the episode.

This week Gary and Jonathan, aware that the Festive Season and more are in front of us all, sit down with the most recent 'Forthcoming Books' issue of Locus and do their best to assemble a quick, on-the-fly list of books we're looking forward to from October through to May next year. As Gary and Jonathan both say on the podcast, the list has been quickly assembled and certainly misses many worthwhile books. Still, it's a start.  Here's the list. These are books we'll be reading, discussing and possibly recommending in coming months.   October 2014Bacigalupi, Paolo, The Doubt Factory, (Little, Brown, nvl-ya, hc) Bear, Greg, War Dogs, (Orbit US, hc) Carroll, Jonathan, Bathing the Lion, (St. Martin's, hc) Gibson, William, The Peripheral, (Penguin/Putnam, hc) Leckie, Ann, Ancillary Sword, (Orbit US, tp) Newman, Kim, The English Ghost Story, (Titan, tp) Nix, Garth, Clariel, (Hot Key Books, nvl-ya, hc) November 2014Baxter, Stephen, Ultima, (Orion/Gollancz, hc) Herbert, Frank, Frank Herbert: Collected Stories, (Tor, cln, hc) Sherman, Delia, Young Woman in a Garden, (Small Beer Press, cln, tp) Williams, Sean, Crashland, (HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray, hc)  December 2014Ellison, Harlan, The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, (Subterranean Press/Edgeworks Abbey, hc) January 2015 Morrow, James Galapagos Regained (St Martins, hc) Walton, Jo, The Just City, (Tor, hc)  February 2015Abercrombie, Joe, Half the World, (Ballantine Del Rey, hc) Gaiman, Neil, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Discoveries •(HarperCollins/Morrow, cln, tp) Link, Kelly, Get in Trouble, (Random House, cln, hc) McAuley, Paul, Something Coming Through, (Orion/Gollancz, hc) Park, Paul, Other Stories, (PS Publishing, cln, hc) March 2015Robson, Justina, The Glorious Angels, (Orion/Gollancz, tp) Wilson, Robert Charles, The Affinities, (Tor, hc)   April 2015Bacigalupi, Paolo, The Water Knife, (Little, Brown UK/Orbit, hc) Baxter, Stephen, Remembrance: A Xeelee Collection, (PS Publishing, cln, hc) Bray, Libba, Lair of Dreams, (Little, Brown UK/Atom, hc) Liu, Ken, The Grace of Kings (Dandelion Dynasty) (Saga, hc) McDonald, Ian, Mars Stories, (PS Publishing, cln, hc) McDonald, Ian, Only the Best of Ian McDonald, (PS Publishing, cln, hc) May 2015Ashby, Madeline, Company Town, (Angry Robot US, tp) Blaylock, James P., Beneath London, (Titan, tp) Okorafor, Nnedi, The Book of Phoenix, (DAW, hc) Rajaniemi, Hannu, Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction, (Tachyon Publications, cln, hc) Robinson, Kim Stanley, Aurora, (Little, Brown UK/Orbit, hc) Invitation:  As Gary and Jonathan mention on the episode, please feel free to add your own recommendations in comments here or at jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp.

Sure that we were on to something, we decided to follow up last week's discussion of the State of British SF with Paul Kincaid and Nina Allan with a discussion about the State of Australian SF with editor/publisher Alisa Krasnostein of Twelfth Planet Press and bestselling Australian SF writer Sean Williams.   While there is always more that could be said about trends, particular publishers, or individual writers, a fairly-wide-reaching conversation did manage to cover a lot in a little over an hour.  The podcast also includes some recommendations for books we think you should check out if you're interested in current Australian SF. As always, we would like to thank our guests Alisa and Sean for making the time to be on the podcast, and hope that you enjoy the episode. See you next week!

This week something special. Following on from conversations at the London Worldcon and articles by Martin Petto * and others, Gary and Jonathan are joined by Nina Allan and Paul Kincaid to discuss the state of British science fiction. Are we having breakfast in the ruins, or is there hope to be found on the bookshelves? Mentioned during the podcast, Gwyneth Jones's first new novel in six years, The Grasshopper's Child (now available from electronic retailers). Pick up a copy (it's cheap!) and discover or rediscover this marvelous writer. As always, our thanks to our guests. We hope you enjoy the podcast. *Correction: Martin Petto's name was spelled incorrectly in this post. Apologies for the error.

Time to get back to the conversation and put the wonderful LonCon experience behind us. With episode 201, Jonathan and Gary sit down to continue their ongoing discussion of science fiction, fantasy and other stuff. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.