The Coode Street Podcast

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Episode 536: Time for another list Oct 18, 2020

Show notes

After spending a few minutes chatting about what it’s like to live in a relatively safe but relatively sealed-off environment—something Jonathan can experience in Western Australia, but something SFF has occasionally touched upon—your intrepid hosts venture into the questions raised by Time magazine’s much-discussed list of "The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time,” with occasional reference to similar past lists in Michael Moorcock's Fantasy: The 100 Best Books and Locus magazine's All-Time Best Fantasy poll.

We discuss what’s useful about such lists, what’s silly about them, and who are they really for? Who do they include and who do they exclude, and are they really ever anything much more than something to chat about with friends? As usual, we arrive at some definitively non-definitive answers.

Episode 535: Ten Minutes with Rebecca Roanhorse Oct 12, 2020

Show notes

Ten minutes with... is a special series presented by Coode Street that sees readers and booklovers from around the world talk about what they're reading right now and what's getting them through these difficult times.

Today Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning writer Rebecca Roanhorse chats about living and working through lockdown in New Mexico, the appeal of epic fantasy, reading fantasy for pleasure and science non-fiction for work, her stunning new fantasy novel Black Sun, and her experiences working in the writers' room for an unnamed new TV show.

Books mentioned include:

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

Episode 534: Ten Minutes with Sheila Williams Oct 11, 2020

Show notes

Hugo Award-winning Asimov’s editor Sheila Williams talk about the early days of the pandemic in Manhattan, the challenges of finding time to read anything other than the 800 submissions per month she sees at the magazine, her good luck to have travelled to Ireland and the Canary Islands just before the lockdown began, her new anthology in the Twelve Tomorrows series from MIT Press, and, of course, what she’s been reading.

Books mentioned include:

Entanglements: Tomorrow's Lovers, Families, and Friends edited by Sheila Williams
The Wright Sister by Patty Dann
Nine Bar Blues by Sheree Renee Thomas
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

Episode 533: Ten Minutes with Paul Park Oct 07, 2020

Show notes

Multiple award-nominated novelist Paul Park discusses reading the Book of Mormon in preparation for his new novel, the challenges of writing about a society with no recognition of gender (including the problem of pronouns), reading about the Dreyfuss affair, serializing a 14-part story on his Facebook page, and a possible new collection of short fiction.

Books mentioned include:

A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park
All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park
A City Made of Words by Paul Park
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
The Odyssey by Homer Emily Wilson (trans.)

Episode 532: Ten Minutes with S. Qiouyi Lu Oct 06, 2020

Show notes

Today Jonathan chats with S. Qiouyi Lu about being highly prolific during the pandemic, the pleasures of immersive reading, reading work in translation (especially in Chinese), the growth in diverse voices, how changing times impact on stories, the recently announced novella In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu, and much more.

Books mentioned include:

In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu (2021)
Inhalations: Collected Works Vol. 1 by S. Qiouyi Lu
The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Episode 531: On reading and re-reading speculative fiction Oct 04, 2020

Show notes

Jonathan and Gary are back with their usual laser-like focus on a single important topic--or maybe not. Starting at the recent release of the trailer for Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune, which has many of us looking back at Frank Herbert's classic novel, they touch upon re-reading old favourites, books that are genuinely sui generis and whether they have a lasting influence, other books that caused us to rethink the possibilities of SFF, "classics" or classic ideas that really don't hold up that well, and of course what they've been reading lately and might be thinking about for the Locus recommended reading list, which we'll both need to start working on in next month.

Episode 530: Ten Minutes with Julie Phillips Oct 01, 2020

Show notes

Award-winning critic and biographer Julie Phillips talks about listening to audiobooks while biking in Amsterdam, enjoying Martha Wells's Murderbot series, reviewing classic American books newly translated into Dutch, her own fondness for Willa Cather, and her current biographical work on women authors as mothers (including Doris Lessing) and her biography-in-progress of Ursula K. Le Guin.

Books mentioned include:

James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead

Episode 529: Ten Minutes with Ruoxi Chen Sep 28, 2020

Show notes

Today Jonathan calls up Tordotcom Publishing editor Ruoxi Chen to chat about revisiting all-time favourites and how re-reading can help keep editors in touch with the readers they need to be, the therapeutic values of disaster nonfiction, dipping into audiobooks, the state of speculative fiction and why there’s a lot to be optimistic about, and a lot more.

Books mentioned include:

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (forthcoming, June 2021)
The Queen's Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner
The Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Episode 528: Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future Sep 27, 2020

Show notes

Coode Street has a long history of talking to Kim Stanley Robinson about the world and his work, starting back in 2011, continuing in our 200th episode in London, and on the publication of 2312, Aurora, and New York 2140, so we couldn't pass up the chance to talk to him now.

In what is easily the longest episode of Coode Street for this strange pandemic year, Gary, Jonathan, and Stan discuss his brand new novel, The Ministry for the Future, the value and purpose of science fiction, Stan's important working relationship with editor Tim Holman, experimenting with form, what comes next, and more.

As always, we'd like to thank Stan for making the time to talk to us and hope you enjoy the episode.

Episode 527: Ten Minutes with Madeleine E. Robins Sep 26, 2020

Show notes

Madeleine E. Robins, author of the Sarah Tolerance historical mysteries, SF and fantasy, and historical novels, talks about starting her career with Regency novels influenced by Georgette Heyer, how "fluffy bunny" reading doesn’t necessarily mean fluffy, making masks and researching mask laws from a century ago (and the “mask riots” in San Francisco then), and her own recent work and work-in-progress.

Books mentioned include:

Sold for Endless Rue by Madeleine E. Robins
"Omunculus" by Madeleine E. Robins
Whitehall by Liz Duffy Adams, Mary Robinette Kowal, Madeleine E. Robins, Barbara Samuel & Delia Sherman
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Lord Peter Wimsey Series by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Complete Novels by Jane Austen
R.U.R. by Karel Čapek
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

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