In the brief hiatus between Christmas and New Year, a final episode for 2018. Jonathan and Gary take a moment to sit down in the Gershwin Room and discuss the books they’re looking forward to in 2018, a range of novels, novellas, collections, and anthologies that should interest any genre reader. Of course, to find out what they recommend you’ll need to listen to the episode!

Normal service will resume in the second week of January, but until then sincere thanks to everyone who has appeared on the Coode Street Podcast, contributed to it in any way, and special thanks to everyone who has listened in, either live in Helsinki or to any of our regular episodes.  May the rest of the holidays treat you well, and may 2018 be a safe, happy, and healthy year for you and yours.

After our longest break ever, the Coode Street Podcast returns to regular programming with a discussion of the year in review. Gary and Jonathan discuss their favourite novels, collections, anthologies, novellas, and nonfiction books of 2017, and end up sounding pretty optimistic about the year.

As always, we hope you enjoy today’s episode. We’ll see you next week!

This week we are joined by Chesley and World Fantasy Award-winning designer, art director, editor and publisher Irene Gallo to discuss how she came to join Tor Books back in the 1990s, her career as an art director, her role in helping to establish Tor.com, and her work as Associate Publisher at Tor.com Publishing.

As always, we’d like to thank Irene for taking the time to talk to us and hope you enjoy the episode. See you in  while!

This week we’re joined by the fabulous Nnedi Okorafor, whose Akata Warrior (sequel to Akata Witch) will be published next week, and whose Binti: The Night Masquerade (concluding her award-winning Binti trilogy of novellas) is due in January. We discuss not only these books, but the ongoing excitement about the possible TV adaptation of Who Fears Death?, the forthcoming novel Remote Control, the growing awareness of African and Naijamerican SF and fantasy, her work in comics and graphic novels, her Star Wars short story, and the problems of juggling academic work with writing. Nnedi is one of the busiest writers in the field these days, and her insights, as always, are fascinating.

This week, we are joined by distinguished critics Niall Harrison, late of Strange Horizons, and Liz Bourke, whose latest collection of reviews and essays is Sleeping With Monsters: Readings and Reactions in Science Fiction and Fantasy (Aqueduct), to discuss the debut novels of 2017 that we’re all excited or curious about. Here are some of the titles that come up in the discussion:

• Annalee Newitz, Autonomous
• Theodora Goss, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter
• Karin Tidbeck, Amatka
• Robyn Bennis, The Guns Above
• Lara Elena Donnelly, Amberlough
• Ruthanna Emrys, Winter Tide
• Cat Sparks, Lotus Blue
• Nicky Drayden, The Prey of Gods
• Marek Sindelka, Aberrant
• Prayaag Akbar, Leila
• Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
• Megan Hunter, The End We Start From
• Mohsin Hamid, Exit West
• Christopher Brown, Tropic of Kansas
• Sam Miller, The Art of Starving
• N.J. Campbell, Found Audio

There’s a long list of debuts with links to reviews and ordering here.

Here are specific recommendations and shout-outs from Liz and Niall:

Liz Bourke

• The Guns Above, Robyn Bennis (Tor)
• Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnelly (Tor)
• The Prey of Gods, Nicky Drayden (HarperVoyager)
• Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com)
• The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, Theodora Goss (Saga)
• Lotus Blue, Cat Sparks (Talos)
• Strange Practice, Vivian Shaw (Orbit US)
• Gods & Monsters: Food of the Gods, Cassandra Khaw (Rebellion/Abaddon US)
• The Tiger’s Daughter, K Arsenault Rivera (Tor)
• Barbary Station, R. E. Stearns (Saga)
• Autonomous, Annalee Newitz (Tor)

Niall Harrison

Books that I have read and recommend:

• Leila by Prayaag Akbar (Simon & Schuster India)
• Spaceman of Bohemia, Jaroslav Kalfar (Sceptre)
• Aberrant, Marek Å indelka (Twisted Spoon Press)
• Amatka, Karin Tidbeck (Vintage)

Books that I am particularly keen to read that other people did not
mention (i.e. excluding Goss, Newitz, Brown):

• An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon (Akashic Books)
• American War, Omar Al Akkad (Picador)
• An Excess Male,  Maggie Shen King (Harper Voyager)

A first fantastic novel rather than first novel, but excellent:

• Exit West, Mohsin Hamid (Penguin)

Not a novel at all, but a notable debut:

• Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)

As always, our thanks to Liz and Niall.