Charlie Jane Anders joins Jonathan and Gary to discuss her second novel, The City in the Middle of the Night, which will be in shops during the coming week. Her powerful and engaging new novel follows her award-winning debut, All the Birds in the Sky, and we chat about following that novel, her hopes for the new book, and much more.

As always, our thanks to Charlie Jane for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode and the shorter format.

Coode Street for February 3rd

• Episode 345: Liza Trombi, Locus, and the Year in Review
• Episode 346: Neil Clarke and the State of Short Fiction in 2018
• Episode 347: Charlie Jane Anders and The City in the Middle of the Night

This week, as part of Coode Street’s experimental trio of shorter episodes, Clarkesworld publisher Neil Clarke joins Jonathan and Gary to discuss the state of short fiction in 2018. How is the field doing artistically? How is to doing in publishing terms? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? We take half an hour to talk about all this, trends in the field and more.  The fourth volume of Neil’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of Year will be out in July.

As always, our thanks to Neil for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode and the shorter format.

Coode Street for February 3rd

• Episode 345: Liza Trombi, Locus, and the Year in Review
• Episode 346: Neil Clarke and the State of Short Fiction in 2018
• Episode 347: Charlie Jane Anders and The City in the Middle of the Night

 

This episode is our more-or-less annual discussion with Locus magazine’s editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi, with whom we chat about the Recommended Reading List which appears each February in the magazine’s Year In Review issue.  How is the list compiled, who contributes to it, and perhaps most important of all, what’s it for? How does it differ from other “best of the year” lists? What does it tell us about the current state of the field, and where it’s going? We touch upon not only the major novels in SFF, but also about first novels, YA, collections, nonfiction, and the various categories of short fiction. Plus, we corner Liza to talk a bit about her own favourites from the year.

You can buy a copy of the February issue of Locus, check out the Recommended Reading List, and vote in the Locus Awards. Our thanks to Liza for making time to talk to us. As always we hope you enjoy the episode.

And we’re back with our 344th episode, which one of us incorrectly thought was our 343rd because we counted 342 twice. Ugh. Apologies for the confusion! This week:

The rise and rise of the time travel story

Dr Who has been telling time travel stories for fifty years. Robert A. Heinlein made his name with a time travel story. Kids grow up watching Back to the Future. Time travel is a well-established theme and story device, and it seems to be enjoying prominence at the moment. Kelly Robson used it in Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach. Ian McDonald used it in Time Was. What makes time travel an attractive idea? Have we changed how we’re treating it as a trope in fiction?  

How urbanisation is impacting how we’re looking at the city in SF

7.5 billion people live on Earth, up from 1.5 billion in 1900. Likely to increase to 10 billion by 2050. Levels of urbanisation – people living in cities – are increasing, especially in Africa, China, and India. The largest cities in the world are in those places. How does this growing urbanisation appear in SFF? Has our vision of cities in SF changed from James Blish and Isaac Asimov when you now look at Paolo Bacigalupi and Sam Miller?

Why are looking to move to the Arctic?

Antarctica, Black Fish City, Austral, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Climate change is heating up the world and we’re heading to the poles.  Read Charlie Jane talking about climate change. 

Epilogue: You don’t need to read . . . The Drowned World, J G Ballard

Readers don’t need to read Ballard’s novel if you think it ’s an early climate change warning novel, because it isn’t. If you want to understand Ballard’s ideas about “inner space” or psychic spaces, it’s a pioneering work, but it’s in no way a serious precursor of “cli-fi.”

Every episode starts with a blank slate, even when perhaps it should not. This week we start with the recent announcement that William Gibson has been named as this year’s Damon Knight Grand Master by SFWA, which is well-deserved. Gibson’s most famous novel, Neuromancer, won the Philip K. Dick Award back in 1985 (along with a slew of other awards). 

This, in turn, takes us to the just-announced nominees for the 2019 Philip K. Dick Award:

• Time Was, Ian McDonald (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Body Library, Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)
• 84K, Claire North (Orbit)
• Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories, Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press)
• Theory of Bastards, Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions)
• Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories, Vandana Singh (Small Beer Press)

and this leads into a discussion of the history of the award and of the evolving role of original paperbacks in science fiction. We then venture on to the hoary old question of whether our field has too many awards, and what actually constitutes progress or excellence in a field with so many familiar themes and ideas.  

We’re not sure where we ended up but did manage to mention some exciting books that we’re reading right now.