Category Archives: 2015

Episode 256: Suzy McKee Charnas and Pamela Sargent


And we’re back with a new episode!  This week, from the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, we are joined by the genuinely iconic Pamela Sargent, author of many novels including The Shore of Women and editor of the legendary Women of Wonder anthology series, and Suzy McKee Charnas, author of the classic feminist SF series The Holdfast Chronicles and the equally classic The Vampire Tapestry, for a lively discussion of the changing role of women in SF since the 1970s and digress as usual into some fascinating byways and memories.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast! 

Episode 255: Eleanor Arnason, Linda Nagata and Women in Science Fiction

This week, in our continuing series of discussions about the experiences of women writers in the science fiction field, we are fortunate to be joined by Eleanor Arnason and Linda Nagata.  

Linda, whose Going Dark appears next week from Saga Press is the third volume in her trilogy that began with the Nebula-nominated The Red, began publishing novels twenty years ago with the nanotech series that started with The Bohr Maker, still available from Mythic Island Press.  

Eleanor, winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. award for her classic novel A Woman of the Iron People, is currently completing a collection of her popular Hwarhath stories and has most recently published a collection of her Icelandic fantasies, Hidden Folk. 

We touch upon the problems and opportunities presented by self-publishing, working with small presses, and whether women SF writers might more readily disappear from the collective memory of SF readers. 

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.


Episode 254: Meeting Infinity and Losing the Alien

This week Gary and Jonathan are back in the Gershwin Room, killing time and talking about Jonathan’s new anthology Meeting Infinity, which we discuss in some detail. It leads on to a conversation about our perceptions of ‘the alien’ and ‘the other’ in science fiction (and how that has changed over time), and quite a lot more in what is a classic Coode Street ramble.

As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. More next week!

Episode 253: SF Lectures, The Martian and more

This week Gary returns from the wilds of Virginia or Washington DC or somewhere or other on the US Eastern seaboard. We discuss his experience writing and performing a series of lectures on science fiction; the strengths and weaknesses of Ridley Scott’s The Martian; compiling Gary’s Library of America volumes, and whether or not we kid ourselves on whether a work really is canonical. 

All of that and a little bit more. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode. We should be back next week with a new episode, as we begin our run down to World Fantasy and the end of the year.

Episode 252: Cecelia Holland and Dragon Heart


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This week we welcome distinguished historical novelist Cecelia Holland back to the podcast to discuss her new fantasy novel Dragon Heart, her classic SF novel Floating Worlds, the relationships between SF, fantasy, and historical fiction, and historical and political themes in the work of writers like Kim Stanley Robinson and George R.R. Martin.

As always, our thanks to Cecelia for making time to be on the podcast. We hope you enjoy the episode.