Welcome to episode 9 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by Nebula and Philip K. Dick award-winning author and musician Sarah Pinsker, whose new novel We Are Satellites is out this week. We touch upon the actual science of brain implants which served as background research for the novel, her reasons for narrating the story from the points of view of four different family members, the issues of corporate responsibility for new technology, and the surprisingly lax government oversight of medical devices such as those featured in the novel. We also discuss the reception of her much-heralded and prescient novel from last year, Song for a New Day, the challenges of writing near-future SF, her own influences and early reading in the field, balancing a career in music with one in fiction, and some of the stories in her collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea.

As always, we’d like to thank Sarah for joining us and hope you enjoy the episode!

Welcome to episode 8 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This time out, Jonathan and Gary are joined by P. Djèlí Clark, whose novella Ring Shout has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards this year and whose first novel, A Master of Djinn, appears this month.

\We touch upon themes of colonialism and racism, why he decided to set a steampunk novel in 1912 Cairo, his earlier short fiction, how his work as an academic historian informs his fiction, and what it was like, after a lifetime of reading, to discover a community that seemed to welcome his vision. Djèlí’s insights into everything from old Twilight Zone episodes to Birth of a Nation to Robert Jordan’s fantasies make for one of the more stimulating conversations we’ve had in some time.

As always, our thanks to Djèlí and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Welcome to episode 7 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast.

This week Jonathan and Gary return to form with a classic ramble through a jumble of topics ranging from the postponement of this year’s Swancon in Perth (and a bit of trivia about an American Swanncon from decades ago); the possible effects of the missing convention years on the SFF field; a brief foray into utopian/dystopian fiction; Charles de Lint, urban fantasy, and his new novel Juniper Wiles; our mutual admiration for Catherynne Valente’s forthcoming The Past is Red; and bits about what we’ve been reading lately, including Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful, fictions that focus on a single technology like Sarah Pinsker’s We Are Satellites, alternate histories like P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn, set in Cairo, and why we’ve been overloaded on London steampunk (especially on TV), while other world cities seem to get short shrift in the whole steampunk/alternate history trend. Some of these authors, we promise, will get a chance to speak for themselves in future episodes.

This year has been tough for a lot of people. Swancon has suffered a lot of extra costs and GoH Claire Coleman is running a GoFundMe to help them out. You can donate here. Also, John Varley had major heart surgery earlier this year. They’re running a GoFundMe to help him with expenses. You can donate here. Both campaigns are worthy of support.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We’ll see you again soon!

Welcome to episode 6 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by the delightful Nebula and Aurora winning author Kelly Robson, whose first collection Alias Space and Other Stories has just been published by Subterranean Press. Kelly discusses life during lockdown in Toronto, the joys of becoming a widely admired short fiction writer after starting out as a “late bloomer,” how SF and fantasy helped get through challenging times when younger, what she’s learned from writers such as Michael Bishop, James Tiptree, Jr., Howard Waldrop, and Connie Willis, the worldbuilding behind her novella Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach (and other stories set in that universe), and the fun she’s had exploring humorous fiction in new work that she’s completing right now. And, of course, the wonderful stories that go to make up her new collection.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We’ll see you again soon!

Welcome to episode 5 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. After three weeks of unexcused absences, Jonathan and Gary return, just as the world starts re-emerging with the announcement that the Montreal World Fantasy Convention, at least at present, expects to host an in-person event in early November. That led us to return to our occasional discussion of possible candidates for Life Achievement Awards (limited to those over 62 years of age), with Jonathan again presenting his case for Howard Waldrop, which Gary finds it hard to disagree with. But Gary also mentions several other eligible possibilities.

That leads us toward the other categories on the ballot, and we name some possible candidates for novel, novella, anthology, collection, and artist, as well as the more mysterious categories of special achievements, professional and nonprofessional.  As always, we welcome reminders of those we have inevitably overlooked, some of which we will undoubtedly embarrassed about.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We’ll see you again soon!