With a new season of the Coode Street Podcast well under way, Gary and Jonathan connected up between the icy wilds of Chicago and the sunny streets of Melbourne, to discuss “importance” in science fiction. What does “important” mean anyway, what works are “important” and so on.
As always, we hope you enjoy the discussion!
After a very difficult Wednesday where my ears continued to act up and bother me, I opted to visit the doctor again. That lead to a new advanced even more serious anti-allergy medication and a referral to see an allergy specialist. I then headed in to work in time to have a farewell lunch with my work colleague, Ivy.
Ivy’s been amazing to work with and will be sorely missed, so the team (Sarah, Drew, Garth and I) headed out to the Gordon Street Garage for lunch. It was my first time and it was not too bad.  Great staff and a nice atmosphere (with good air-conditioning, so take note Marianne), was slightly compromised by a short menu, no real dessert selection and the lack of a chance to really kick on. I did have a moment where I realised the reason it was called “Garage” is I that it formerly was a garage and that I used to get my car repaired there back in the day. The interior still retains some of the original structure. Weird.
We did not give up, though, for OLS is a formidable good times seeking machine. We headed in to the city to Bar Halcyon where mid-afternoon cocktails were definitely on the menu, and espresso martinis were chased down by a Smoky Berry Smash. Â Wonderful drinks (though I’m still reeling from seeing Laphroaig poured down the sink!) and great company made for a good farewell.
I then headed home where the new medication seemed to do my head in and for a moment or two I seriously wondered if I’d make it to Melbourne, but by Friday morning the all-new improved vertigo had disappeared and under slept and a little washed out, I headed to the airport and Melbourne (after farewelling the family and wishing the youngest luck on her quest to become a school counsellor).
The Qantas flight was uneventful. Â I watched some Justified and Person of Interest to while away the flight, and arrived late afternoon. A short cab ride saw me, rather surreally for me, back at the site of the 2010 Melbourne WorldCon. As I type I’m sitting the executive lounge of the same hotel where I had such a memorable time (for good and ill). Great breakfast with Stan, panicked conversations with Cheryl, prep for the ill-fated Hugos and all sorts of things. Last night a maxi-taxi stopped outside the hotel, and I was flashing back to jumping into a very similar cab with Bob and Karen Silverberg, Marianne, Jessica and Sophie. Â I had a lovely dinner with Stephen and Jenny in the same restaurant where a samba bad just about deafened us four years ago. And I’m pretty sure I’m sitting at the table where Greg Benford, Stan Robinson and I had a terrific conversation, so it’s interesting to be back.
But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here for the music. Assuming my old ears hold up, tonight will be the first of two nights to rock. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play AAMI Stadium. I saw them twice in Perth and, to round out MidLife Crisis 2014, I’m seeing them twice hear too. Â I expect the shows of my life. Â If they’re a patch on Perth they’ll be astounding.
This coming June the team at Solaris Books will publish the third book in my ‘Infinity Project’ series of anthologies, Reach for Infinity.
I’m still tinkering with the running order, but these are the stories you can expect to find in the book when it hits the shelves:
Many thanks to all of the authors, to my editor Jon Oliver and the Solaris Team, and to Adam Tredowski for a very fine cover indeed!
Imagine that you are cold. Imagine that you have been cold for years, that the marrow in your bones has chilled and the very core of your body has almost come to a standstill.  Then imagine that, surrounded by snow and ice, you climb a hilltop and, after years, the sun rises. A flare of light on the horizon, then a haze of retreating shadows before it hits you and you begin to warm. Your blood flows faster, your skin flushes with the heat, and you begin to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster.  The barriers between feeling and thought disappear as you become lost in the balm that the distant sun brings to you on that hillside, as winter falls away and spring begins.
That’s what a Springsteen show is like, what a truly great rock show is like. Somewhere between “Is there anybody alive out there?” and “The E Street Band loves you” comes a point where, if you are open to it, you become lost in the music, thought almost disappears and feeling dominates. You move your body because you couldn’t do anything else. You sing along with the anthems because they are your anthems, their stories are your stories. And with the people around you, you rise and transcend the moment of sitting in a concert hall surrounded by strangers on a warm February evening and become one with them and one with the music. And you heal and can face tomorrow with renewed spirit, with renewed energy, with the belief that it will be better because today was better.
Somewhere between “Badlands” and “Tenth Avenue Freezeout” that is the gift of the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking, love-making – Le-gen-dary E – Street – Band!”  I’m grateful for it.
As snow and ice freeze the North American heartlands, long-time friend of the podcast Kij Johnson agreed to travel across a frozen Kansas City to find a place where she could Skype in to the Waldorf Room to join Gary and Jonathan in discussion.
This time Gary threw out a question to kick start the discussion: which science fiction writer is most likely to win the Booker Prize, and which one is most likely to top the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists? It proved a good start to a thoughtful discussion that wandered far and wide, although we’d contend not much rambling happened this week.
As always, we’d like to thank Kij for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week Jonathan travels to Melbourne, so who knows what will happen there!