On our 270th episode, we immediately distracted ourselves from our planned topic of catching up on news, awards nominations, etc., and instead rambled on about various matters of literary influence, of writing sequels or revisionist fictions based on the works of writers ranging from Arthur C. Clarke to H.P. Lovecraft, and other topics neither of us clearly remember.
We did get around to discussing the latest round of awards nominations, celebrating the Grand Mastership of C.J. Cherryh, and finally trying to figure which if any SF works seem relevant to the current U.S. presidential campaign. And with the Hugo nominations closing this month, we shamelessly shill for your vote.
As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. More next week!
A great rambly podcast as usual!
An unrelated question for you, one that’s been puzzling me for a while: how did Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness win the 1970 Hugo? Given the stereotype of the fandom of the time (mostly male, relatively conservative, etc), it would seem miraculous for such a challenging novel about gender to do so well. Did it win in spite of this? Were the other nominees particularly weak? Or is the image we have of the fandom simply inaccurate? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.