Science fiction

My 2019 in Books and Stuff

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What a long, strange year it’s been. Lots and lots of work, for which I’m deeply grateful. And, with the new year not far away, it seems like the right time to update you on everything I’ve had out this year.

It was a year when I edited three new anthologies, a single-author collection, four novellas for Tor.com Publishing (with a handful more in train), six stories for Tor.com, appeared on and produced 23 episodes of The Coode Street Podcast episodes, acted as reviews editor for Locus for the 17th consecutive year, and I was lucky enough to be a tutor at Clarion West in July!

My sincere thanks to everyone at Tor.com, Solaris, Gollancz, and Locus, and to Gary Wolfe, my patient podcast co-host.

Fiction edited in 2019

 

Anthologies

As a guide, fiction in Mission: Critical is science fiction, and probably most relevant for the Hugo and Nebulas.  The novellas range from hard science fiction to weird  fantasy.

Novellas

Novelette

  • By the Warmth of Their Calculus, Tobias S. Buckell (Mission Critical)
  • Rescue Party, Aliette de Bodard (Mission Critical)
  • This is Not the Way Home, Greg Egan  (Mission Critical)
  • Zeitgeber, Greg Egan (Tor.com, 9/25/19)
  • Genesong, Peter F. Hamilton (Mission Critical)
  • Something in the Air, Carolyn Ives Gilman (Mission Critical)
  • Dislocation Space, Garth Nix (Tor.com, 12/11/19)

Short story

  • The One Who Was There, John Barnes (Mission Critical)
  • Hanging Gardens, Gregory Feeley (Mission Critical)
  • Mutata Superesse, Jason Fischer and Sean Williams (Mission Critical)
  • The Empty Gun, Yoon Ha Lee (Mission Critical)
  • Lost in Splendour, John Meaney (Mission Critical)
  • Devil in the Dust, Linda Nagata (Mission Critical)
  • More Real than Him, Silvia Park (Tor.com, 8/5/19)
  • The Agreement, Dominica Phettaplace (Mission Critical)
  • Ice Breakers, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Mission Critical)
  • Blood is Another Word for Hunger, Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 7/24/19)
  • The Fires of Prometheus, Allen M. Steele (Mission Critical)
  • In Xanadu, Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com, 11/6/19)
  • Cyclopterus, Peter Watts (Mission Critical)
  • The Time Invariance of Snow, E. Lily Yu (Tor.com, 14/4/19)

Editor, Short-Form (Hugos)/Professional Achievement (WFA)

  • Jonathan Strahan (Mission Critical, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen, Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #5, The Best of R.A. Lafferty, Permafrost, Perihelion Summer, The Gurhka and the Lord of Tuesday, The Menace from Farsi, Tor.com stories, Locus [reviews editor]

Best Fancast/Podcast

I hope you’ll consider supporting the talented people that I’ve worked with during the year.

Podcasts

Episode 361: Jack Zipes at WFC 2019

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jackzipes.jpg

It’s been quiet here at Coode Street, of late. Jonathan has been working on books and recommended reading lists, and Gary has been travelling. Just two weeks ago Gary travelled to sunny Los Angeles, California to attend the 2019 World Fantasy Convention.

During the weekend Gary was busy, interviewing guest of honour Margo Lanagan, doing some panels, and seeing friends. He did take a moment to sit down with newly minted World Fantasy Award Lifetime Achievement recipient Jack Zipes to discuss fantasy, fairy tales, and more. 

As always, our thanks to Jack for taking the time to join us and my thanks to Gary for this special shorter episode of Coode Street.

Podcasts

Episode 360: Margo Lanagan, Ellen Klages and Eileen Gunn at WFC 2019

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Margo-Frame.png

It’s been quiet here at Coode Street, of late. Jonathan has been working on books and recommended reading lists, and Gary has been travelling. Just two weeks ago Gary travelled to sunny Los Angeles, California to attend the 2019 World Fantasy Convention.

During the weekend Gary was busy, interviewing guest of honour Margo Lanagan, doing some panels, and seeing friends. He did take a moment to sit down with Margo Lanagan, Eileen Gunn, and Ellen Klages – all long-time friends of the podcast – to discuss fantasy, fairy tales, and more. 

As always, our thanks to Margo, Eileen and Ellen for taking the time to join us and my thanks to Gary for this special shorter episode of Coode Street.

2019, Podcasts

Episode 359: That Old Literary Divide

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testaments.jpg

We’re on a roll! Two episodes in two weeks. Surely it can’t last! Gary has been reading Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning novel The Testaments and it’s sparked off all sorts of thoughts on that old chestnut: science fiction vs. literary fiction. What are literary writers doing when they write SF? Can SF writers cross-over to the mainstream? Is this purely a generational perspective and does it just not matter any more? All these questions are at least touched on, if not settled (they’re not settled), as well as mentions of Lethem, Le Guin, Chabon and others, and a brief discussion of robots and AI in SF. They even discuss some very interesting comments on the Atwood novel by Nina Allan over on her blog.

All in all, a typical rambly shambles. As always, we hope you enjoy!

2019, Podcasts

Episode 358: Science fiction, open borders, and porous boundaries

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9781473227965.jpgThis week, with Jonathan hard at work compiling his year’s best anthology, we revisit one of the oldest questions about science fiction—namely, what is it and how do you decide what to include or exclude from an anthology clearly labelled as science fiction?

Rather than trying to offer our own definitions, we discuss the problem of definition in general. Gary argues that the many definitions of SF could be classed as the functional (or purely practical, like Damon Knight’s famous “what I point to”), the rhetorical (definitions designed to promote the importance of the genre), and the theoretical (lit-crit stuff). We agreed that such definitions tend to change over time.

That leads us into a discussion of the current state of space opera, and the question of whether the space setting is a defining feature, even when, as with Aliette de Bodard’s The Tea Master and the Detective, the plot is borrowed from mysteries.  

Finally, we talk about some of our current reading. Gary mentions Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, which he sees as representing a fascinating collaboration between music and fiction since the central idea began with the techno-electronic duo Drexciya, became a Hugo-nominated rap by Clipping and is now Solomon’s novel.  Jonathan mentioned Leah Bardugo’s bestselling new fantasy, Ninth House, which is out now and which he recommends.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We’ll be back soon!

…unavoidable stuff from jonathan strahan…