This week saw the publication of Margaret Atwood’s new book of essays, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, which discusses her thoughts on science fiction in some detail. We invited Ursula K. Le Guin to join us on the podcast to discuss Atwood, science fiction and her new book. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.
Note: As mentioned at the end of the podcast, this will be the last newly recorded episode until mid-November. The next three episodes will be interviews with Alastair Reynolds, Ian McDonald, and Kim Stanley Robinson recorded in Reno at WorldCon.
After a lot of discussion about buzz and best of the year matters, Gary and I wrench our attention away from such matters and move on to discuss the one true mission of science fiction, the matter of small presses in SF (a little), and the new new new new new space opera. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!
As a continuation of our discussion on finding the best books of the year and understanding how buzz is generated, this week Gary and I turned to our reader’s comments (both here and over at my blog) about buzz; the New Wave and women in SF, and much more. We also repeat our call for reader’s to tell us about their best books of the year, which we hope to continue to discuss in coming months. Listener Tansy Rayner Roberts has posted her terrific ‘Best of the Year so far‘ list, and we’d like to see yours!
This week Gary and I invited Ian Mond from The Writer and the Critic to join us to discuss recommending books and how buzz is generated around new or upcoming books each year. We discuss the very welcome feedback we received on the subject before we began to ramble in earnest, going on to discuss currently overlooked writers like Thomas M. Disch, Michael Bishop and Zenna Henderson, sport in science fiction and fantasy, the delicate balance between literature and science in hard SF, and many other things. Gary and I would like to thank Ian for joining us, and I’d like to make it clear, personally, that I was only joking about Alisa and the knitting needles. Really :)
It doesn’t feel like it, but the end of the science fiction year is not too far away, so Gary and I thought, in response to Ian Mond’s of Writer and the Critic, that we’d discuss possible award-likely texts, how books get buzz, and much more. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.
