With Swancon upon us, Gary and I pre-recorded (!) a chat about epic fantasy and such. Enjoy!

Fighting the flu, and with Swancon just around the corner, I got Gary on the line to discuss small presses, Geoff Ryman and The Child Garden, new Joan Aiken, Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch, and some other things. Rambling conversation ensued…

In last week’s episode Gary and I discussed the work of the late Diana Wynne Jones.  Our discussion raised comments from several people that we’d not done justice to Jones, and so we invited Farah Mendlesohn (author of Diana Wynne Jones: Children’s Literature and the Fantastic Tradition) and author and critic Tansy Rayner Roberts to join us to discuss Jones’ work, legacy and place in the science fiction and fantasy field. We’d like to thank both of them for joining us in the pod.

Well, the world turned upside down. For scheduling reasons we recorded at a new time, so it was morning in Chicago and late in the evening in Perth. We barely knew what to do, but we did discuss Diana Wynne Jones, Shaun Tan, cover art, framing questions, and other stuff. We’ll return to normal next week, but hope this works (Apologies for a brief glitch at the 9min mark or so).

And we’re back to normal. Gary returned to Chicago from ICFA to dine with China Mieville and write his column, while Jonathan was struck down by an unpleasant bug. Nontheless, climbing from his sick bed, he called Gary to discuss awards, book collecting, using genre as a lens, and some other stuff. As always, they hope you enjoy this podcast!

Oh,  and thank you! The Coode Street Podcast has been nominated for a 2011 Ditmar Award. Thank you to every one who nominated and congratulations to our fellow nominees from Galactic Suburbia, Bad Film Diaries, and The Writer and the Critic!

Note: We have moved The Coode Street Podcast to a new hosting service. Please consider updating your subscription to this iTunes subscription link, or use the embedded player below. We will continue to copy the podcast here and to the old iTunes subscription for a while, but it would help if you updated. Thanks!!!