This week writer, editor and now publisher Jack Dann, a long-time friend of the podcast, joins Jonathan and Gary to discuss his role in launching new small press publishing imprint PS Australia and his forthcoming anthology, Dreaming in the Dark.
In a wide-ranging discussion, we touch on the plans for the new imprint, the state of the market for short fiction, the state of the Australian genre marketplace, and the historical role of the ‘Dreaming’ series of anthologies.
As always, we’d like to thank Jack for being a guest on the podcast, and hope you all enjoy the episode!
And now my nominees for Best Novelette. There were some other terrific novelettes, but these ended up on my ballot. Looking at them, they’re all from anthologies, which is unusual for me, and there’s a real gender issue. That tended to balance over my ballot, but not here. Although there were a lot of great novelettes published in 2015, I don’t think you’d regret reading any of these.
“Another Word for World,†Ann Leckie (Future Visions)
“Capitalism in the 22nd Century,†Geoff Ryman (Stories for Chip)
“Black Dog,†Neil Gaiman (Trigger Warnings and Other Disturbances)
“My Last Bringback,†John Barnes (Meeting Infinity)
“Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan,†Ian McDonald (Old Venus)
If 2015 was a good year for novels, it was an even better for year for novellas. With Tor, Subterranean, PS Publishing and a whole range of other publishers committing to novellas, there’s more interesting long SF/F being published than in a long, long time.
There were a number of long stories, like Kai Ashante Wilson’s Sorcerer of the Wildeeps and Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall which sit on the cusp of being novels, but belong on any list of the year’s best fiction.
I could have named another handful of stories, but I loved all of these. Any would have made a terrific winner, and I’m delighted Al Reynolds’ story actually made the final ballot. You should see all of these out, if you haven’t already done so.
Best Novella
The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred, Greg Egan (Asimov’s)
The Hugo nominations came out last week.As is always the case, they are the tabulated nominations from a wide variety of people. And is often the case, they don’t quite fit with the views of an individual voter.
Given that, and given the various parties involved these days, I thought I might list some of what went on my own ballot, if only because it might be of some interest to people as a reading list.
Best Novel
Aurora Kim Stanley Robinson Orbit US; Orbit UK
Europe at Midnight Dave Hutchinson Solaris
Clade James Bradley Allen & Unwin
The Water Knife Paolo Bacigalupi Knopf
Luna: New Moon Ian McDonald Tor; Gollancz
2015 was a strong year for science fiction novels, which made this a hard choice. I also had limited reading time, which means I’m yet to read the latest Anne Leckie and Nora Jemisin books (though they’re at the top of the ‘to read’ pile). I could have listed books by a number of others, including Paul McAuley and Adam Roberts. I also definitely would have listed books by Aliette de Bodard and Naomi Novik, but my personal preference/choice is to only nominate SF for the Hugos. The Novik was a favourite from 2015, though, and I loved Aliette’s book.
Of the books listed, Stan Robinson’s smart, thoughtful, challenging Aurora was my favourite of the year. I wish it had made the Hugo and Nebula ballots — I think it’s the sort of science fiction we need right now — but so be it.
Welcome to the fourth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.
Paul McAuley’s Into Everywhere
This month Coode Street co-host Gary Wolfe joins us to discuss Into Everwhere, the latest novel from Paul McAuley. It’s smart, engaging hard SF adventure described by its publisher as follows:
The Jackaroo, those enigmatic aliens who claim to have come to help, gave humanity access to worlds littered with ruins and scraps of technology left by long-dead client races. But although people have found new uses for alien technology, that technology may have found its own uses for people.
The dissolute scion of a powerful merchant family, and a woman living in seclusion with only her dog and her demons for company, have become infected by a copies of a powerful chunk of alien code. Driven to discover what it wants from them, they become caught up in a conflict between a policeman allied to the Jackaroo and the laminated brain of a scientific wizard, and a mystery that spans light years and centuries. Humanity is about to discover why the Jackaroo came to help us, and how that help is shaping the end of human history.
If you’re keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don’t already have a copy, Into Everywhere can be ordered from:
We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.
Correction
During the podcast Jonathan incorrectly says Paul McAuley’s next novel, Austral, is due in late 2016. It’s actually due in late 2017. Our apologies for any confusion this may have caused.
Next month
The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of May with a discussion of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky.
