When Gary and I signed off last week we agreed we’d plan this podcast to save all you good people from waffling.  Hmm. Well, that didn’t quite happen, so this is a second (shorter) waffly podcast). This week we waffle about Paolo Bacigalupi, awards, the fate of science fiction, and a new book you don’t need to read.  We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!

Well, Gary Wolfe and I got on Skype this morning with no real idea about what we might discuss, other than a passing desire not to retread old grown. After a bit of waffling, we got down to serious waffling and spent some time discussing:

• William Gibson’s Zero History and what makes a book that isn’t SF feel like SF. This follows-on from comments by Alex, Alisa and Tansy on the most recent Galactic Suburbia podcast
• why SF loves novellas
• the influence of Charles N. Brown on science fiction, us and the podcast;
• our second official “Book You Don’t Need to Read”; and
• sundry other stuff.

In amongst it all I spend some time recommending Galactic Suburbia (go listen!) and we sort of natter for a good while. We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!

Gary Wolfe and I are back by ourselves, guest-less, recording the podcast live from Chicago and Perth on a sunny Sunday morning. We spend some time discussing:

• The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
• how quantum mechanics has changed hard SF and whether hard SF really can continue to exist as we once knew it;
• Zendegi by Greg Egan;
• What I Didn’t See: Stories by Karen Joy Fowler;
• James Tiptree Jr, feminism, diversity and SF;
• what a great year 2010 is proving to be; and
• our first official “Book You Don’t Need to Read“.

This is our longest ever podcast, so our apologies for going on a bit.  We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!

Gary Wolfe checks in from Readercon in Burlingham MA and brings guests Elizabeth Hand and Peter Straub to the table. This time we discuss:

• the art of the novella
• why Readercon is worth attending
• outsider art, Henry Darger, crypto-aviation,
• and all sorts of other neat stuff.

We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!

Gary Wolfe and I are back for a new podcast, and this time with no added guest magic.  This time we discuss:

• how some awards work, including the World Fantasy Awards,
• believing in science fiction and its futures,
• and a lot of other stuff too.

There’s probably some other stuff, but we recorded this this morning and I’m not going to re-listen to the whole thing. We hope you enjoy it as always and will see you next weekend!