The great Lost Podcasts of 2012 are a part of Coode Street Podcast lore. A sad and painful memory of four wonderful conversations ever lost to perfidious technology. This week one of the participants in those conversations, brilliant short story writer Robert Shearman, and living legend Howard Waldrop, join Gary and Jonathan in a special podcast recorded in Boston at Readercon 24. Much is discussed about the art of the short story, changes in contemporary culture, and more. As always, we hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast!

This week the Coode Street Podcast, or part of it, is on the move! With  Readercon 24  in full swing, Gary has travelled to Burlington, Massachusetts and has corralled award-winning author of  Little Big  and the  Aegypt  sequence, John Crowley, and long-time friend of the podcast Peter Straub to take part in a fascinating discussion of genre and other things. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

00:00  Introduction (flawed)

02:00  Discussion of reading and being influenced by early science fiction from the ’50s and ’60s, and the path from there to reading literature.

12:40  On how genre works and what makes the SF ideational space function. Mention of Bob Shaw’s classic “Light of Other Days”.

19:00  Peter discusses writing about fear, reading Ballard, and other influences.

30:00  On reading work as science fiction, including mention of John’s novel  The Translator.

35:00  On how writing SF/F is accepted to day in a way that it was not before.

40:00  Peter discusses his novel  In the Night Room.

43:00  Story McGuffins and the death of the author.

50:00  Sequels, Lin Carter, book signings.

58:00  A brief discussion of what’s next from Peter and John.

As discussed in the podcast, you can  order the 25th Anniversary Edition  of  Little Big,  or just check it out.

In what is definitely the latest official instalment of the Coode Street Podcast, Gary and Jonathan sneak past the Jerome Kern Memorial Habachi Stand and settle down just near the Richard Rogers Habachi Grill to discuss many things. In an incredible development, this time the Production Gnomes of Coode Street have been able to produce a rough running schedule for the episode. Rejoice!

As any regular listener knows all too well, hotel wifi is an unreliable friend. With Gary away in Seattle at the Locus Awards weekend, we recorded this “safety” episode to make sure you’d have your weekly Coode Street fix, It was recorded on June 23, and amongst other things we discuss the very sad recent deaths of Iain M. Banks, Jack Vance, and Parke Godwin, all of whom made significant contributions to our field As always, we hope you enjoy this latest ramble.

This week M. John Harrison, award-winning author of Viriconium, The Course of the Heart, the “Empty Space” trilogy, and Climbers, joins Gary and Jonathan on the podcast to discuss publishing his new ‘Autotelia’ story “Cave and Julia” as a Kindle single, the literalisation of metaphor, pathways to reading the “Empty Space” trilogy, the influence of Arthur Machen on his work, short story as an experimental laboratory and many other things. It is, we think, a fascinating episode of the podcast and, as always, we hope you enjoy it!

Our sincere thanks to Mike for his time. We hope to continue the conversation some time soon.