All posts by Jonathan Strahan

Episode 643: All Time Top 5s

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 top five most disappointing SF novels of all time. You’ll have to tune in to see what’s at the top of that list—and get ready to argue!

Episode 642: Premee Mohamed and The Butcher of the Forest

thebutcheroftheforest.jpegThis 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 always, we’d like to thank Premee for making time to join us, and hope you enjoy the episode.

Episode 641: Kelly Link and the love of books

bookoflove.jpegFor 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 Clare, the challenges of shifting from short fiction to a long novel, managing multiple narrative viewpoints, and maintaining the balance between the interiority of the characters and the large-scale history and spectacle of the fantasy elements. She also updates us a bit on Small Beer Press and her own plans for future work.

As always, our thanks to Kelly. We hope you enjoy the podcast!

Episode 640: A new year begins. Shenanigans ensue?

And just like that, our end-of-year hiatus is done and the Coode Street Podcast is back! Gary and Jonathan return from their annual break and kick off a brand new season with discussions of recent news events in science fiction, how our thoughts about books and ideas change over time, 50th anniversaries of famous books, the delightfully happy news that Gary got married(!!!), and the sad news about the passing of several friends of the podcast, including Howard Waldrop, Terry Bisson, and Rick Bowes.

As it always is at the start of a new year, it’s great to be back. We’re filled with optimism for the year ahead and plan to get at least our scheduled 26 episodes out this year, as well as some special episodes, and to travel to Scotland for the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow.

For now, though, we hope you enjoy the new episode!