The Coode Street Podcast (Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe)

That’s better! Technical difficulties behind us, Gary and a slightly hungover I jumped into the pod to discuss Carol Emshwiller, the right time to publish a book, optimistic SF, the death of SF and all sorts of other stuff. We hope you enjoy it, as always!

In response to a modest Twitter proposal, some v.quick audio work, with apologies....this one goes out to Gary K. Wolfe.

Welcome to the first episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a new monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. Adam Roberts' The Thing Itself This month James, Ian, and Jonathan discuss The Thing Itself, the latest novel from British Science Fiction and John Campbell Memorial Award winning author Adam Roberts.  The Thing Itself is a powerful and engaging novel described by its publisher as follows:  “Adam Roberts turns his attention to answering the Fermi Paradox with a taut and claustrophobic tale that echoes John Carpenters' The Thing.  Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love-letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant.  As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.”  The Thing Itself has been reviewed by Locus Online and Tor.com. You can order copies of the book from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.Next monthThe Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of February with a discussion of Charlie Jane Anders's second novel, All the Birds in the Sky. 

Welcome to the second episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. 

Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky

This month Coode Street co-host Gary Wolfe joins us to discuss All the Birds in the Sky, the second novel from Hugo Award winning author Charlie Jane Anders. It's a warm, humane, funny, and genuinely engaging novel described by its publisher as follows:

From the editor-in-chief of io9.com, a stunning novel about the end of the world--and the beginning of our future...

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families.

But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's every-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together--to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.

A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse.

We discuss the novel in detail, including how the story develops and ends. If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, All the Birds in the Sky can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Next month The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of March with a discussion of a book to be announced shortly.

Welcome to the third episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.

Patricia A. McKillip’s Kingfisher

This month Tiptree Award winning writer Nike Sulway and Coode Street co-host Gary K. Wolfe join Jonathan and Ian to discuss Kingfisher, the latest novel from World Fantasy Award and Mythopoeic Award winner Patricia A. McKillip. It’s a lyrical, funny, and sometimes challenging novel about family and destiny described by its publisher as follows:

In the new fantasy from the award-winning author of the Riddle-Master Trilogy, a young man comes of age amid family secrets and revelations, and transformative magic.

Hidden away from the world by his mother, the powerful sorceress Heloise Oliver, Pierce has grown up working in her restaurant in Desolation Point. One day, unexpectedly, strangers pass through town on the way to the legendary capital city. “Look for us,” they tell Pierce, “if you come to Severluna. You might find a place for yourself in King Arden’s court.”

Lured by a future far away from the bleak northern coast, Pierce makes his choice. Heloise, bereft and furious, tells her son the truth: about his father, a knight in King Arden’s court; about an older brother he never knew existed; about his father’s destructive love for King Arden’s queen, and Heloise’s decision to raise her younger son alone.

As Pierce journeys to Severluna, his path twists and turns through other lives and mysteries: an inn where ancient rites are celebrated, though no one will speak of them; a legendary local chef whose delicacies leave diners slowly withering from hunger; his mysterious wife, who steals Pierce’s heart; a young woman whose need to escape is even greater than Pierce’s; and finally, in Severluna, King Arden's youngest son, who is urged by strange and lovely forces to sacrifice his father’s kingdom.

Things are changing in that kingdom. Oldmagic is on the rise. The immensely powerful artifact of an ancient god has come to light, and the king is gathering his knights to quest for this profound mystery, which may restore the kingdom to its former glory—or destroy it...

If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Kingfisher can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Next month

The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of April with a discussion of Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere (his second Jackaroo novel).

Welcome to the fourth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.

Paul McAuley's Into Everywhere

This month Coode Street co-host Gary Wolfe joins us to discuss Into Everwhere, the latest novel from Paul McAuley. It’s smart, engaging hard SF adventure described by its publisher as follows:

The Jackaroo, those enigmatic aliens who claim to have come to help, gave humanity access to worlds littered with ruins and scraps of technology left by long-dead client races. But although people have found new uses for alien technology, that technology may have found its own uses for people. 

The dissolute scion of a powerful merchant family, and a woman living in seclusion with only her dog and her demons for company, have become infected by a copies of a powerful chunk of alien code. Driven to discover what it wants from them, they become caught up in a conflict between a policeman allied to the Jackaroo and the laminated brain of a scientific wizard, and a mystery that spans light years and centuries. Humanity is about to discover why the Jackaroo came to help us, and how that help is shaping the end of human history.

If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Into Everywhere can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Correction

During the podcast Jonathan incorrectly says Paul McAuley's next novel, Austral, is due in late 2016. It's actually due in late 2017. Our apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

Next month

The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of May with a discussion of Guy Gavriel Kay's Children of Earth and Sky.

Welcome to the fifth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.

Guy Gavriel Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky

This month we discuss Children of Earth and Sky, the latest novel from Guy Gavriel Kay. It’s a rich, powerful historical fantasy described by its publisher as follows:

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist travelling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request--and possibly to do more--and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor's wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.

The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he's been born to live. And further east, a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif--to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

As these lives entwine, their fates--and those of many others -- will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world...

If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Children of Earth and Sky can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Next monthThe Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of June with a discussion of Madeline Ashby's Company Town.

Welcome to the sixth episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel.

Madeline Ashby’s Company Town

This month we discuss Company Town, the fourth novel from Madeline Ashby. It’s a gripping near future thriller described by its publisher as follows:

New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.

Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig--making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city's stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa's front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to be--but now, the danger is personal.

A brilliant, twisted mystery, as one woman must evaluate saving the people of a town that can't be saved, or saving herself.

If you're keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don't already have a copy, Company Town can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Next month

The Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of July with a discussion of Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station.

Welcome to the seventh episode of The Coode Street Roundtable. The Roundtable is a monthly podcast from Coode Street Productions where panelists James Bradley, Ian Mond, and Jonathan Strahan, joined by occasional special guests, discuss a new or recently released science fiction or fantasy novel. With James busy with housemoving and such, we're joined by award-winning critic Gary K Wolfe.

Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station

This month we discuss Central Station, the latest book from Lavie Tidhar. It’s described by publisher Tachyon as follows:

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is literally a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper.

When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik—a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.

Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation—a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness—are just the beginning of irrevocable change.

At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive...and even evolve.

If you’re keen to avoid spoilers, we recommend reading the book before listening to the episode. If you don’t already have a copy, Central Station can be ordered from:

• amazon.com
• amazon.com.au
• amazon.co.uk

We encourage all of our listeners to leave comments here and we will do our best to respond as soon as possible.

Next monthThe Coode Street Roundtable will return at the end of June with a discussion of Claire North’s The Sudden Appearance of Hope.

PS: During the recording Jonathan incorrectly states this is the sixth Roundtable. It is the seventh. Apologies for any confusion.

It's our 100th episode and our 2nd Anniversary! Bereft of even so much as a good champagne-cork-popping sound effect we discuss the podcast, the recently announced Locus Awards ballot, consensus in science fiction and who is the new Dean of Science Fiction, and touch on what we've been reading lately. We had all sorts of grandiose plans for the 100th episode, but in the end it's just the two of us, rambling. We do want to thank all of our listeners, guests, commentators and friends - anyone who's said anything nice about the podcast at all - for your enthusiasm and support. That's what will get us through the next 100 episodes!

From high atop the Coode Street Motel Six, deep in the Waldorf Room,  Gary and I fired up the podcasting equipment to bring you episode 101 where, finally, we come to an appreciation of which convention we correspond to, while discussing the recently released Campbell Memorial Award ballot, the SF Hall of Fame, and other things.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

With the sun slowly setting over the Coode Street Motel 6, Gary and I headed for the Waldorf Room to record episode 102 of the podcast. For the first time in two years we had show notes, we had plans, and we had news: surely nothing could go wrong!  Surely! We had much to discuss:

• the Nebula Awards winners, which had just been announced;
• feedback from Cheryl Morgan on Episode 101 and whether women write rigorous SF;
• gender and whether the gender of the author affects how we perceive the genre of their work;
• and more! Really.

For those seeking show notes, we did discuss all of the above, along with mention of the Tiptree Centenary (time to start planning!), Gary's upcoming attendance at Wiscon and Readercon, and other stuff. However, this is the Coode St Podcast. It soon became clear Gary had not *read* the show notes, that we couldn't fit in everything we'd planned and...well, we did the best we could. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week, Wiscon!

The Coode Street Productions Multinational World Domination Unit sent Gary to Madison, Wisconsin with the idea that, perhaps, we might do a Wiscon-related podcast. Time and circumstance meant that instead we spent far too long discussing the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. What is it they say: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men. . Gang aft agley". Still, as always we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll try to sneak another episode in before I, Jonathan, head East and into the rising damp of Melbourne and Natcon!

And with the Waldorf Room closed, Gary and I retired to the wine bar high atop the Coode Street Motel 6 to chat about stuff. These notes might be more clear, were I not rushing for a plane, but I can guarantee it contains waffling and is definitely 100% Coode!

Episode 105, in which Jonathan joins Gary in achieving ConventionFail by failing to record a single podcast at Continuum 8 (the Australian National Science Fiction Convention), but instead gets to discuss the convention, the Writer & the Critic podcast, the Tiptree awards and Jonathan possibly having said too much elsewhere, and the recent death of Ray Bradbury.  All in all, an episode we hope you enjoy. We will be back this weekend with #106, where we hope to have Kij Johnson join us as a guest.

With the Locus Awards weekend in full swing in Seattle, Kij Johnson joined Gary in the official Coode St Suite and Jonathan in his office at home via the magic of Skype to discuss her amazing new Small Beer short story collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, transgressive fiction, gender, life and other stuff. The conversation was intriguing and engaging, and one we intend to revisit in coming weeks. A small warning: the Gods of Skype were not on our side and there are some audio difficulties with the recording, though things do improve. Our apologies for the problems, but we feel the conversation was interesting enough to justify releasing as is. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

After much re-scheduling, this weekend authors, editors, and Small Beer supremos Gavin Grant and Kelly Link join Gary and I  in the Waldorf Room to discuss publishing, science fiction and, well, stuff. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we invited new Perth resident and fabulous writer Amelia Beamer, our very first guest, to join us to chat about taking time away from the field, reading science fiction and much else of tinterest. As always we hope you enjoy the podcast!

After a short break, we're back! Gary travelled to Massachusetts to attend Readercon 23 and managed to persuade convention guests of honor Caitlin R. Kiernan and Peter Straub to join us to discussCaitlin's most recent novel The Drowning Girl,  writing, Readercon and much, much more. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

After a final July hiatus we're back! This weekend Gary and I headed to the Waldorf Room to discuss thoughts on Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 and SF set within our Solar System, World Fantasy Award Lifetime Achievement recipients Alan Garner and George R.R. Martin, and recent issues at Readercon. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Once again Gary and Jonathan ascend to the Waldorf Room high above the Coode St Motel Six, to find there's not all that much happening in SF right now (where IS that World Fantasy Awards ballot?), and so they discuss books to give to people who are interesting in reading SF for the first time and a possible Coode St Award.

And this week the wonderful Genevieve Valentine joins us in the Waldorf Room to discuss Readercon and harrassment at conventions, steampunk, dystopias and After and the recently released World Fantasy Awards ballot.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week award-winning authors and celebrated anthologists James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel join Gary and I to discuss their upcoming anthology Digital Rapture, their anthology work generally, and whether science fiction has a mission! As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

This week Gary and I have a quick sixty-six minute chat about Fourth Generation SF, some of my anthologies, WorldCon, the SF Awards Database, and so on. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

We are back after an unexpected break over the WorldCon weekend. We intended to have a podcast for you, and to record many, many exciting interviews. Instead, life took over and we did something else. However, we were back in the Gershwin Room this weekend to discuss the Hugo Awards, Paul Kincaid's LA Times article on the exhaustion of science fiction, and steampunk, through the lens of two very fine stories by Caitlin R. Kiernan ("Goggles (c.1910)" from Steampunk 3) and Nick Mamatas ("Arbeitschraft" from The Mammoth Book of Steampunk). As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

During Episode 115 of the Podcast we discussed Paul Kincaid's review essay, "The Widening Gyre" (originally published by the LA Review of Books). In the essay, while reviewing three 'best of the year' anthologies, Paul asked whether science fiction was suffering from exhaustion and, more importantly perhaps, whether writers had lost confidence that the future was comprehensible and therefore storyable. Our original conversation didn't cover the subject well, so we invited Paul to join us in the Gershwin Room to discuss the essay and the issues surrounding it.  Our thanks to Paul for being such a generous guest and, as always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

This week we were joined in the Waldorf Room by Campell Award winning author Kathleen Ann Goonan, where we discussed the future of science fiction, teaching SF, nanotechnology, women writing hard science fiction,  her new collection Angels and You Dogs, the Nanotech Quartet, and her most recent novel, This Shared Dream.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Not so long ago we were lucky enough to have the wonderful Kij Johnson, author of the new story collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees, join us in the Waldorf Room to discuss gender, transgressive fiction and other cool stuff.  That conversation was never completed, so were eager to have her back as our guest. Happily, she joins us to continue that discussion and to consider the importance of not flinching in fiction, and the recent discussion of the state of science fiction by Paul Kincaid, Jonathan McAlmont, and Mike Harrison (among others).  It proved to be a wide-ranging discussion, another total delight, and we hope the precursor to another discussion sometime soon. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week Gary and I sit down with very little planned and just talk about us.  We spent a little time discussing:

• Gary's Library of America series
• Eclipse: Online

We hope you'll forgive our poor planning self-indulgence and that you enjoy the podcast!

With the days flying by as we race towards the official appearance of The Coode St Podcast team at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto in two weeks, award-winning author and critic James Bradley joined us in the Waldorf Room to discuss science fiction, literary fiction and all sorts of other stuff. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Suffering a little from lack of sleep prior to heading off to Toronto for World Fantasy Convention, Gary and I headed up to the Waldorf Room and recorded a short podcast to keep you going till we get back. As always, we hope you enjoy it!

And just like that, World Fantasy Convention is a thing of the past. Awards were won, podcasts lost, and good times had by all.  This week, suffering from terrible jetlag, we muddle through a rambling discussion of some of the high points of the week in Toronto. Apologies for the odd stereo on this one. Another technical glitch, but it will be remedied next week. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

With jetlag slowly disappearing into the haze of memory, we once again ascended to the Waldorf Room high above the Coode St Motel 6 to discuss science fiction, list making, new writers, C.J. Cherryh, recnogition and other stuff. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

And now the podcast that technology did not want you to hear! When the Coode Street team traveled to Toronto, Canada for the 2012 World Fantasy Convention we planned and recorded a series of podcasts that have become known as the Great Lost Coode St Podcasts. Five podcasts cruelly wiped by idiosyncratic technology (and definitely not incompetent users) featuring Jo Walton, Guy Gavriel Kay, Robert Shearman & Ellen Klages, James Blaylock & Tim Powers, and Graham Joyce. This week Graham Joyce incredibly kindly agreed to try again, to join us via Skype and have an entirely new conversation about fiction, fairy tale and much, much more.  And five minutes into recording Skype, for the first time in 124 podcasts, crashed.  Ignoring all of the signals from the universe that this podcast was not meant to happen, we pushed forward and despite a slightly tinny connection and the accidental return of the dreaded stereo, ended up with a conversation that we think totally rewarded our persistence. We hope you'll agree. Our sincere thanks to Graham Joyce who persisted despite our incompetence and was exceediingly kind and generous with his time.

In one of our most problem-free podcasts of recent times, Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan return to the Waldorf Room high atop the corporate tower that is the Coode Street Motel Six to discuss lists, the Locus All-Time Poll that has just closed, and essays/articles by Paul McAuley on "Lets Put the Future Behind Us" and Jonathan McAlmont on "Annoyed with the History of Science Fiction", with passing reference to Gary Westfahl and Paul Kincaid (but only passing). Along the way lists were made, recommendations avoided, and a laugh or two was had. It's one of our longest podcasts of recent times, for which apologies, but as always we hope you enjoy it. See you next week!

After a long delay due to technical issues with our hosting service, Podbean, we are now able to bring you the latest episode of The Coode Street Podcast. Episode 126 was recorded on Sunday, 9 December by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe, who rambled about various subjects to do with science fiction and fantasy. The recording was done so long ago, though, that neither podcaster quite remembers what they discussed or is willing to listen to the podcast to find out what.  If you do listen to the podcast, please consider describing this episode in the comments. "General rambling", commenters are reminded, is a category and not a description.  Although we don't remember the podcast, we still hope you enjoy it. We'll be back next weekend, technology permitting, with a new episode!

This week we return to the Gershwin Room to chat with Maureen McHugh, award-winning author of novels China Mountain Zang, Half the Day is Night, Mission Child, and Nekropolis, and the short story collections Mothers and Other Monsters and After the Apocalypse. We discuss her time in Los Angeles and how it is affecting her writing, the nature of story, and many other things.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast! PS: This podcast is usually cross-posted at www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp, however that site is unavailable at the moment. The episode will be published there when service is restored.

This week we're joined in the Gershwin Room by newly annointed SFWA Grand Master Gene Wolfe to discuss writing, his work, his new novel, and much more.  We had hoped to feature listener questions, and would like to sincerely thank everyone who sent questions in, but they ended up not quite fitting the format. We are sincerely grateful, however, to everyone who wanted to be involved.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week we headed up to the Gershwin Room to discuss the recently announced Locus All Time Poll results, writing for the end of the year and other similarly pre-New Year's Eve kinds of things. As always,  we hope you enjoy the podcast!

The quiet days after the New Year, when Coode Street scribes spend their days slowly summarising the moments of the  year just gone and contemplating what the year ahead might bring, pass slowly in the chill of Chicago and the sweltering heat of the Antipodes. With little specific to discuss, we nonetheless headed to the Waldorf Room high atop the Coode St Motel Six, with no clear intention of what would unfold. Moments before podcasting began, though, a query came through from James Bradley, asking our thoughts on excellent contemporary fantasy. Interest piqued, we discussed, we listed and we chatted. While we would love to hear listeners recommendations, these are the books we discussed (and recommended) during the podcast: Contemporary Fantasy Novels (in the order mentioned on the podcast)

• Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
• The Drowning Girl, Caitlin R. Kiernan
• Last Call, Tim Powers
• Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay
• The Limits of Enchantment, Graham Joyce
• The Wizard Knight, Gene Wolfe
• The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
• Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
• Perfect Circle, Sean Stewart
• Waking the Moon, Elizabeth Hand
• Wizard of Pigeons, Megan Lindholm
• The Scar, China Mieville
• The Prestige, Christopher Priest
• Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
• The Brides of Roll-Rock Island, Margo Lanagan
• Was, Geoff Ryman

The list has its flaws and omissions (one we reason we'd love your recommendations), but it's a starting point for discussing an interesting subject. Our thanks to James for his question. At podcast's end we briefly also discuss some points of comparison with the Locus All-Time Poll recently released, and encourage others to run their own similar polls. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

With Gary's commitments fulfilled, we once again headed to the Gershwin Room, where we were joined by award-winning writer Nancy Kress to discuss writing, science fiction, the future, and all sorts of other interesting stuff. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast and will see you next week!

Back to the Waldorf Room where, in troubled times, the Coode Street podcast team meet to discuss publishing artifacts as framing devices, Bruce Sterling's new book, awards eligibility and possibly other stuff.  We even shamelessly mention that this podcast is eligible for Hugo Award nomination (you have been warned). As always, we hope you enjoy the digression.

This week the Coode Street team headed back to the Waldorf Room high in the Coode Street Motel Six to discuss the annual Locus Year in Review issue, the publishing industry, and other matters.  We also briefly discuss two forthcoming novels, Guy Gavriel Kay's River of Stars and Charles Stross's Neptune's Brood. The Locus Recommended Reading List is online, as is the annual Locus Poll and a list of links to recommended short fiction.  As discussed during the episode, both Gary Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan work for Locus and were actively involved in compiling the recommended reading list.  You can subscribe to Locus here. The Year in Review issue is available as the start of a subscription or as a stand-alone issue. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Once again, with almost no preparation, we head up to the Gershwin Room and end up discussing reviewing, digital texts, and other related issues. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

This week Gary and Jonathan are joined in the Waldorf Room by the fabulous Cecelia Holland, leading historical novelist and author of Floating Worlds among many, many other fine books, to discuss writing, fantasy, and historical fiction. The podcast features a close to spoiler free  discussion of River of Stars, the excellent new novel from Guy Gavriel Kay which is due out in April.  We'd also like to point out that there will be detailed reviews of  f River of Stars from both Gary and Cecelia in the April issue of Locus. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

In amongst life's many demands, the intrepid Coode Street team, madly humming the theme to the Muppet Show, once again ascended to the Waldorf Room to take in the view and to discuss science fiction's many pleasures. This time they touch on a new collection of Algis Budrys reviews, Benchmarks Continued, recently published by Ansible Publications, criticism generally, and the newly released Nebula Awards ballot. As always, they hope you enjoy the podcast!

Back from Gotham and certain celebrations, Gary joins Jonathan in the Gershwin Room to discuss the newly released Tiptree shortlist, Hugo nominations, and to start what will be a continuing discussing of grimdark fantasy. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Returning from a brief hiatus, this week the Coode Street team avoided the Gershwin Room, instead heading down to Florida for the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, where Gary persuaded Joe and Gay Haldeman to join us on the podcast to discuss The Forever War, the writing life and the soon to be published retrospective short story collection, The Best of Joe Haldeman.  As always, we'd like to thank Joe and Gay, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

This morning Lonestarcon, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention, released the 2013 Hugo Awards Ballots.  The Coode Street Podcast was nominated for Best Fancast, and we would like to thank everyone who nominated us. As part of the Hugo Awards discussions, we invited fellow nominee and Coode Street regular Kij Johnson, to join us in the Waldorf Room once more to chat about the ballot, the nominees, and all things Hugo. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

This week we invited award-winning writer and anthologist Nalo Hopkinson to join us in the Waldorf Room to discuss her writing career, science fiction and fantasy, her upcoming visit to Australia as Guest of Honour at Conflux: The Australian National Science Fiction Convention, and her new novel Sister Mine. We'd like to thank Nalo for being a wonderful guest and, as always, hope you enjoy the podcast.

There really wasn't much excuse, except that our two heroes found themselves in the Gershwin Room with no idea at all about what they would discuss and so, with apologies, they ended up discussing awards again.  It wasn't intended, the discussion is being had elsewhere anyway, and solemn promises have been made that it will not happen again (at least for a while). If, however, this doesn't put you off, then sit back and relax while Gary and Jonathan discuss just what the point of awards is anyway and whether there's anything left to say about science fiction.

After an extended break caused by travel and illness, our intrepid science fictioneers return to the Waldorf Room to continue their ongoing discussion of the science fiction field. There's every chance that some week now they'll find something new to talk about, but until now the old topics of awards, anthologies, conventions, and stuff will have to do. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast! More next week, we promise.

Once again our hardy commentators, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe, climbed the stairs to the Waldorf Room, high above the Coode Street Motel Six, took in the breathtaking views of the science fiction field that can only be seen from the Gernsback Bar, and held forth on matters SFnal, including new and recent SF, awards and anthologies, and just dipped their toes into the beginnings of a possible discussion of politicised editing. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. See you next week!

With Gary just returned from Madiscon, Wisconsin, the glorious Concourse Hotel and the fun of Wiscon 37, where hotel wi-fi frustrated plans for live podcasting, he joined Jonathan in the Waldorf Room high above the Coode Street Motel Six to discuss the role of bookstores in helping readers to find unexpected, books we've not read (The Pride of Chanur and Downwards to the Earth!!), and lifetime achievement.  With nominations closing in just days, they exhorted listeners to nominate for the 2o13 World Fantasy Awards (nomination ballot here), and made special mention of Mary Stewart and Susan Cooper as possible Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. As always, Gary and Jonathan hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week, following a failed attempt at Wiscon, the incredible M. Rickert and Christopher Barzak make the long Skype-complicated journey to the Gershwin Room to talk to Gary and Jonathan about Wiscon, fantasy, living in the Mid-West, tribalism, Christopher's fantastic new collection Before and Afterlives,  and all sorts of other interesting things.  Mary also gave the Podcast a huge news scoop. She has sold her first novel, tentatively titled A Taste of Ash and Honey, to Source Books. It should be out in 2014, which is spectacularly exciting news. We can't wait to read the book and to have her back when it comes out.

This week we're delighted to welcome E. Lily Yu to the podcast. We discuss her work, writing, and all sorts of other stuff.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. And, if you get the chance, try some of Lily's terrific new stories!

• "The Urashima Effect," Clarkesworld (June 2013).
• "The Forgetting Shiraz," Boston Review (May/June 2013).
• "Ilse, Who Saw Clearly," Apex Magazine (May 2013).
• "Loss, with Chalk Diagrams," Eclipse Online (March 2013).

This week M. John Harrison, award-winning author of Viriconium, The Course of the Heart, the "Empty Space" trilogy, and Climbers, joins Gary and Jonathan on the podcast to discuss publishing his new 'Autotelia' story "Cave and Julia" as a Kindle single, the literalisation of metaphor, pathways to reading the "Empty Space" trilogy, the influence of Arthur Machen on his work, short story as an experimental laboratory and many other things. It is, we think, a fascinating episode of the podcast and, as always, we hope you enjoy it!  Our sincere thanks to Mike for his time. We hope to continue the conversation some time soon.

As any regular listener knows all too well, hotel wifi is an unreliable friend.  With Gary away in Seattle at the Locus Awards weekend, we recorded this "safety" episode to make sure you'd have your weekly Coode Street fix,  It was recorded on June 23, and amongst other things we discuss the very sad recent deaths of Iain M. Banks, Jack Vance, and Parke Godwin, all of whom made significant contributions to our field  As always, we hope you enjoy this latest ramble.

In what is definitely the latest official instalment of the Coode Street Podcast, Gary and Jonathan sneak past the Jerome Kern Memorial Habachi Stand and settle down just near the Richard Rogers Habachi Grill to discuss many things. In an incredible development, this time the Production Gnomes of Coode Street have been able to produce a rough running schedule for the episode. Rejoice! 00:00   Introduction 05:00 Discussion of Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel Shaman, Werner Herzog's film Cave of Forgotten Dreams and prehistoric fiction. (This bit's shorter than you'd think it would be). 13:00:  Locus Awards winners, and Gary drops names. 30:00   Richard Matheson. 38:00   The Year in Fiction to Date (including our favorites and must reads of the year so far [though not really "must", just "we like it a lot and you might too"] 1:13:00 End Please let us know in comments about your favorite books of the year too! Next week we hope to be reporting in from Readercon. Until then, as always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week the Coode Street Podcast, or part of it, is on the move! With Readercon 24 in full swing, Gary has travelled to Burlington, Massachusetts and has corralled award-winning author of Little Big and the Aegypt sequence, John Crowley, and long-time friend of the podcast Peter Straub to take part in a fascinating discussion of genre and other things. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

00:00 Introduction (flawed)

02:00 Discussion of reading and being influenced by early science fiction from the '50s and '60s, and the path from there to reading literature.

12:40 On how genre works and what makes the SF ideational space function. Mention of Bob Shaw's classic "Light of Other Days".

19:00 Peter discusses writing about fear, reading Ballard, and other influences.

30:00 On reading work as science fiction, including mention of John's novel The Translator.

35:00 On how writing SF/F is accepted to day in a way that it was not before.

40:00 Peter discusses his novel In the Night Room.

43:00 Story McGuffins and the death of the author.

50:00 Sequels, Lin Carter, book signings.

58:00 A brief discussion of what's next from Peter and John.

As discussed in the podcast, you can order the 25th Anniversary Edition of Little Big, or just check it out.

The great Lost Podcasts of 2012 are a part of Coode Street Podcast lore. A sad and painful memory of four wonderful conversations ever lost to perfidious technology. This week one of the participants in those conversations, brilliant short story writer Robert Shearman, and living legend Howard Waldrop, join Gary and Jonathan in a special podcast recorded in Boston at Readercon 24. Much is discussed about the art of the short story, changes in contemporary culture, and more. As always, we hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast!

After all of the excitement of broadcasting from ReaderCon with Rob Shearman and Howard Waldrop, Gary and Jonathan turn back to more typical discussion of matters science fictional in an all new podcast that, as always, comes to you live from the Waldorf Room. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

It was another typical day in the office for the Coode Street team. Having taken the time and made the effort to ascend to the Gershwin Room (there are a LOT of stairs), having avoided the temptations of the Tiki Lounge, having decided not to simply spend their time gossiping, Gary and Jonathan instead turn their attention to pressing issues like Sharknado and modern SF, whether British SF is more political than its US counterparts, and the growning prominence of non-Anglo SF with a minor sidestep into what it is to be an insider in the SF field. Naked attempts to persuade readers to buy new books are truncated by the sudden termination of the podcast due to Jonathan's PC crashing. Fortunately they were close to done. Still, they hope you enjoy the podcast and remain, now as ever, the mullahs of Coode St.

With WorldCon looming in the near future and news of the World Fantasy Awards just around the corner, award-winning writer and critic James Bradley joins Jonathan and Gary in the Waldorf Room to discuss the best in recent science fiction and fantasy. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast! 00:00 Introduction 01:50 On Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Lord of the Rings and consolation in modern fantasy. 16:10 Arthur C Clarke Award winner Chris Beckett's Dark Eden. 18:00 On Paul McAuley, Evening's Empires, and the mission of modern science fiction. 33:00 On the movies Oblivion and Pacific Rim. 36:00 Climate change, recent science fiction and Patrick Flanery's Fallen Land. 43:00 On Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam 53:00 On Graham Joyce's The Year of the Ladybird.

A little late due to technical issues, but here is Episode 155 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week we asked master storytellers Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages to join us in the Gershwin Room to discuss the writing life, short fiction, collaboration and their forthcoming Tor.com novella "Wakulla Springs". As always, our sincere thanks to Andy and Ellen for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you enjoy the episode!

This week Jonathan and Gary are joined in the Gershwin Room by Sofia Samatar, author of the brilliant debut fantasy novel A Stranger in Olondria, which was published by Small Beer Press this April. In a wide-ranging discussion, we look at the origins of  A Stranger in Olondria, re-encountering genre fiction, the power of language and how we encounter it, and much, much more. As mentioned in the podcast, you can read more of Sofia's fiction here:

• Dawn and the Maiden (Apex Magazine, 2013)
• Selkie Stories Are for Losers (Strange Horizons, 2013)

Another new story is coming up shortly at Lightspeed, and a sequel to A Stranger in Olondria is in the works. As always, we would like to thank Sofia for taking the time to join us, and hope you enjoy the podcast.

This weekend in San Antonio, Texas the 71st World Science Fiction Convention is in full swing. Parties are being held, discussions had, panels attended and science fiction celebrated. In amongst it all, Ellen Datlow is being toasted as Guest of Honour, a richly deserved recognition of the amazing contribution this nine-time World Fantasy and five time Hugo Award winner has made to the science fiction and fantasy field. As a run-up to the weekend, Gary and Jonathan sat down with Ellen to discuss editing, anthologies, her career, and many other things in a frank conversation. The connection to Ellen's Manhattan pied-à-terre was erratic, so much editing was necessary. The sound quality is fine, but there are one or two spots where the editing may be noticeable. Our apologies for that, and our sincere thanks to Ellen for being part of the podcast.   Next week, most likely, a podcast from WorldCon. Till then, we hope you enjoy the episode.

Recorded live in San Antonio, Texas at LoneStarCon 3, this week's episode sees our intrepid podcasters once again depending on the vagaries of hotel internet connections and Skype calls to bring you the very best in science fiction podcasting. This week Gary and Jonathan are joined by Malcolm Edwards, Managing Director of Orion Books, and David G. Hartwell, senior editor at Tor.  In a freewheeling discussion, these two enormously experienced and respected giants of the science fiction publishing industry discuss contemporary publishing, editing, and their deep and abiding love for science fiction. We would like to thank David and Malcom for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. We would also like to thank everyone who nominated The Coode Street Podcast for the Hugo Award this year (it's greatly appreciated) and send out our sincere congratulations to all the 2013 Hugo Awards winners.

At the recent San Antonio WorldCon, Gary was joined by special guest co-host Kij Johnson and award-winning author John Kessel (both long time friends of the podcast) to discuss the works of the late, great Alfred Bester. Our sincere thanks to both Kij and John. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

On 21 August 2010 Gary and I recorded and published Episode 16 of the podcast. There have been historic problems with the upload and so, in attempt to fix this, I'm republishing it here at the new host. I do apologise for any duplication people might experience by my doing so.  We will be recording the new podcast shortly and it will be up in the next day or so. Here is what what we said of Episode 16 all those months ago: "Although we’re having a Federal election here in Australia, and I had to get out and fulfil my democratic obligations, I still found time to jump on to Skype and call Gary to talk about things science-fictional.  We covered reviewing, the end of “books you don’t need to read’, The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, our awesome technical skills as podcasters, the Coode Street Feminist Advisory Committee (we may need t-shirts), and all sorts of other things in another longish podcast.  We have also accepted we could talk forever – I think we chatted for more than an hour that we didn’t record.  We hope you enjoy it!"

With WorldCon a dwindling memory, Jonathan and Gary are joined by passionate, articulate and always fun to talk to special guest Printz, Hugo, Nebula, Campbell and Sturgeon award-winning writer Paolo Bacigalupi and discuss his brand new middle-grade novel Zombie Baseball Beatdown, exciting news about his second adult SF novel The Water Knife, new YA novel The Doubt Factory, and much more.   As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

After a long sequence of discussions with wonderful guests, it's just Gary and Jonathan alone in the Waldorf Room once more. This week, after a brief chat about the forthcoming World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, their attention turns to how literary canons are formed, the potential toxicity of the canon forming concept and other matters. No books were sold in the making of this podcast. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week we'll be back with special guest Rachel Swirsky.

This week, just following the publication of her major short story collection How the World Became Quiet, we are joined by Nebula Award and SFWA Vice President Rachel Swirsky to discuss writing short stories, the business of science fiction and much more. As always, we would like to thank Rachel for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast!

In the run up to the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton our podcasting heroes are keeping it pretty much one-on-one, with no guest again this week.  In amongst other rambling, Gary and Jonathan they talk about some overlooked books of 2013 (Gary had a list), what "overlooked" means, and how a book gets to be noticed in the first place.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

In which the Coode Street team philosophize about the nature of science fiction, what the future means, whether it is inevitable or knowable, and what that means for science fiction.  Other matters are also discussed. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

While our intrepid podcasters brave the wilds of London, a new episode for you (hopefully)! With no specific topic in mind, and having sent a greeting to Sleepless in Wagga, Gary and Jonathan answer questions:

• from Guy in Toronto about single malt whisky;
• from Fred in New Jersey on:
  • Clifford Simak. Cordwainer Smith. Fritz Leiber. Are they forgotten?;
  • Agents of SHIELD; and
  • making a pitch for a Greg Egan retrospective short story collection; and
• from Michael about how crowd-funding has changed the anthology market.

All in all, thanks to the friends of the podcast, it made for an interesting and entertaining episode. We hope you enjoy it. We'll be back soon!

A re-upload of the most recent episode. The previous version omitted 2-3 mins from the end of the file. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Warning: This Podcast Contains Incoherent Rambling.  Freshly returned from the 2013 World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, England, our intrepid podcasters peer through a veil of jetlag to discuss the World Fantasy Awards and the happenings of what was a wholly memorable trip. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

This week our two commentators, emerging from the pall of jetlag and the reality of impending deadlines, turn their attentions to what is intrinsic to science fiction as a genre, what SF & fantasy has in common with historical fiction, the terrible burden of having to read lots of books, and Nicola Griffith's acclaimed sixth novel Hild.  There is also, towards the end of the episode, a brief discussion of issues related to this year's World Fantasy Convention, which are outlined in greater depth and with more intelligence over at Cheryl Morgan's blog. We also want to remind listeners that we will be going on hiatus for four weeks, starting 14 December 2013 and returning 18 January 2014. As always, we hope you enjoy the episode.

After an unexpected break the Coode Street Podcast returns to discuss the use of terminology in genre, Linda Nagata’s recent io9 article on hard SF, and other things large and small. 

Assuming nothing unexpected happens, this episode marks the final official recording session for the podcast before our long holiday hiatus. New episodes recorded in Brighton will appear December 7 (169) and December 14 (170). 

We will be running a series of classic repeats that have been chosen by long-time listener Cat Sparks to hopefully entertain you during the hiatus and will return in late January energised and ready for an exciting year. 

In the meantime we wish you, your family, your friends and everyone else a safe and happy holiday season and a wonderful 2014!

This October the Coode Street commentary team travelled to Brighton, England for the 2013 World Fantasy Convention. In amongst too much drinking and late night conversation, they managed to record two engaging conversations for your enjoyment. The first of these was with long-time Coode Street favourite, Paul McAuley.  Over the period of about an hour, while hotel airconditioning worked hard to overcompensate for a mild UK autumn, hard science fiction, the state of science and much, more was discussed. Our sincere thanks to Paul for his time. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week: Neil Gaiman discusses R.A. Lafferty.

Neil Gaiman is always wonderful to sit down and talk to about how great stories are created, and is always ready to discuss how the great writers of the past have influenced him and his work.  During an extra special episode of the Coode Street Podcast, Neil joins Gary and Jonathan in a rare quiet moment at the Brighton World Fantasy Convention, to discuss the work of the late great R.A. Lafferty.  Lafferty is one of fiction's great originals, a teller of tall and extraordinary tales that puzzle and delight. The timing for this conversation was perfect, with the first volume of the Collected Stories of R.A. Lafferty just about to appear from Centipede Press. We would like to thank Neil for making time in what was an incredibly busy schedule for this conversation, and thank you all for supporting the podcast during 2013. This is the final Coode Street episode for 2013. We'll be back in late January with more endless rambling. Till then, safe and happy holidays to you all!!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence. First up is Graham Joyce, who Gary and Jonathan spoke to back in November 2012. At the time Graham's novel Some Kind of Fairy Tale has just been released. It went on to win the British Fantasy Award this November in Brighton, and was followed by new novel The Year of the Ladybird. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence. Next up are brilliant short story writer Robert Shearman, and living legend Howard Waldrop, who spoke to Gary and Jonathan in July 2013 live from  Readercon 24 in Boston. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.


This week Cat has selected a discussion with multiple award winning editor Ellen Datlow. Last year Ellen was guest of honor at the San Antonion WorldCon. As part of the run up to the event, Gary and Jonathan spoke to her via the wonders of modern technology from Manhattan in what turned out to be a wide-ranging and interesting conversation.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

The Coode Street Podcast is a full service podcast. While Gary and Jonathan are on vacation, we asked long-time listener Cat Sparks to select some classic episodes that we could send out to entertain and enlighten in their absence.
 This week Cat has selected a discussion with award winning author Rachel Swirksy. When we spoke to Rachel it was just following the publication of her major short story collection How the World Became Quiet. We discussed writing short stories, the business of science fiction and much more. We hope you enjoy the podcast and our thanks to Cat!

It's been a long time since the last episode. In late November Jonathan and Gary sat down to record a final episode before commencing a lengthy hiatus.  After nearly two months, though, normal service returns! This week Jonathan and Gary announce the winner and shortlist for the 2014 Crawford Award, begin thinking about Loncon3 (the 2014 World SF Convention), and discuss the books they're looking forward to in 2014.  Lists will be added, but these are the books Jonathan's Looking Forward to in 2014:

• Wolves, Simon Ings (Gollancz, January)
• Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG, February)
• The Best of Ian McDonald, Ian McDonald (PS Publishing, April)
• The Cuckoo Song, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan, May)
• The Memory Garden, M. Rickert (Sourcebooks, May)
• Beautiful Blood, Lucius Shepard (Subterranean, June)
• Academic Exercises, K.J. Parker (Subterranean, August)
• War Dogs, Greg Bear (Gollancz, August)
• The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little Brown, September)
• Echopraxia, Peter Watts (Tor Books, September)

with a bonus title of The Just City, Jo Walton (Tor, January 2015) which Jonathan thought was coming in 2014 but isn't.  Gary's list will be up shortly. In the meantime, we thank you for your patience, thank Cat Sparks for her help during our hiatus, and hope you enjoy the new episode. See you next week when we will be talking to Locus editor in chief Liza Trombi about the year in review!

Every February US science fiction and fantasy industry trade journal Locus  publishes an annual 'Year in Review" issue that includes overviews, summaries, reports and an eagerly awaited 'Recommended Reading List'. 

With the February issue safely complete and either already in eager digital reader's inboxes or winging its way to them in print courtesy of international postal services, and with the 2013 Recommended Reading List available to read on the Locus website, editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi joins Gary and Jonathan on the podcast to discuss the year in review issue, the Recommended Reading List, and what it means to try to produce an annual summary of SF/F in 2014.

As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. See you next week!

As snow and ice freeze the North American heartlands, long-time friend of the podcast Kij Johnson agreed to travel across a frozen Kansas City to find a place where she could Skype in to the Waldorf Room to join Gary and Jonathan in discussion. 

This time Gary threw out a question to kick start the discussion: which science fiction writer is most likely to win the Booker Prize, and which one is most likely to top the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists? It proved a good start to a thoughtful discussion that wandered far and wide, although we’d contend not much rambling happened this week.

As always, we’d like to thank Kij for joining us, and hope you enjoy the podcast. Next week Jonathan travels to Melbourne, so who knows what will happen there!

With a new season of the Coode Street Podcast well under way, Gary and Jonathan connected up between the icy wilds of Chicago and the sunny streets of Melbourne, to discuss "importance" in science fiction. What does "important" mean anyway, what works are "important" and so on.   As always, we hope you enjoy the discussion!

Faced with another relentless summer's day in Perth and icy Chicago winter evening, Jonathan and Gary turn to long-time friends of the podcast James Bradley, Garth Nix, and Sean Williams, luxuriating in a cool Sydney summer afternoon, to discuss Australian fiction, young adult fiction, and the works of Neville Shute in a wide-ranging conversation that is only occasionally interrupted by the vagaries of Skype. As always, our thinks to James, Garth and Sean, and we hope you enjoy the podcast!

Battling the fickle beast that is Skype, this week Jonathan and Gary talk to Kelley Eskridge and Nicola Griffith about the recently released Nebula ballot and what it might say about SF today, Nicola's recent novel Hild, Kelley's novel Solitaire, science fiction as a way of reading, language, politics and a lot more. In many ways this episode isn't so much a conversation, as what feels like the beginning of a long and interesting one to be continued at conventions and elsewhere in the future. As always, our sincere thanks to Kelley and Nicola for making time to appear on the podcast and for being such interesting and engaging guests.  As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

This week Jonathan and Gary are joined by Nebula Award winning writer Eileen Gunn to discuss her new short story collection, Questionable Practices, her upcoming article for the Smithsonion magazine on the purpose of science fiction, her novel in progress(!), and much, much more. As always, our sincere thanks to Eileen for being part of the podcast. We hope you enjoy the episode. See you next week!

This week Gary is in Florida at the International Conference in the Arts where he is joined by Steven Erikson, author of the bestselling 'Malazan Empire' series of epic fantasy novels, and Ian McDonald, author of River of Gods, Dervish House, and the Planesrunner series.  The sound quality is not ideal, but the conversation is fascinating, and a rare one Jonathan gets to experience as a Coode St listener. As always, our sincere thanks to Steven Erikson and Ian McDonald for being part of the podcast. We hope you enjoy the episode. See you next week!

As always, we get everything the wrong way round. Having just returned from the glades of Florida, a land of mocktails and alligators, Gary joins Jonathan to discuss the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, nominating for the Hugo Awards, and the career of the late Lucius Shepard (which they should have started with, as you'll discover if your patience holds out). As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

On the eve of the publication of her new adult science fiction novel, Lagoon, the wonderful Nnedi Okorafor joins our intrepid podcasts to discuss the evolution of the book, what she's been working on since we last spoke in April 2012, Nigerian literature, and much more.

As always, our thanks to Nnedi and we hope you all enjoy the podcast.

Other books mentioned in the podcast:

• Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiong'o
• Lagos 2060, Ayodele Arigbabu (ed.)

NB: This post was retitled from Lagoon and Nigerian Fiction to more correctly reflect the content of the podcast.="">

With awards season picking up, we try to avoid talking about them and pretty much fail. There is other stuff: on reading Heinlein today and the new bio that's coming out, who would make the Big 5 in SF now etc. It's a bit rambly, it's a bit Coode St. As always we hope you enjoy it!

Loncon 3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, has announced the nominees for the 2014 Hugo and Campbell Awards. As is our practice, this week we have a special episode of the podcast devoted to discussing the awards and all of the wonderful nominees. We are very grateful to John De Nardo (of SF Signal) and Tansy Rayner Roberts (Galactic Suburbia and Verity) for joining us for what we think is an interesting conversation.  We would also like to thank all of our listeners for nominating Coode Street for our third consecutive Best Fancast Hugo Award. We could not be happier, or more grateful. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast and we’ll be back next week with more! Other links:

•  Larry Correia and the Sad Puppy Hugo slate.

It's been a while since our two intrepid podcasters journeyed together to the Gershwin Room high above the Coode Street Motel Six to ramble over an early morning cup of coffee and late evening glass of wine, but with little else to discuss that is just what they did. In a rambling discussing they touched on how science fiction is perceived today, whether the views of an author should impact on how you read their written work, awards (of course), and what they mean by 'of this parish'. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We're still setting the schedule for the next few weeks, but expect to hear from Joe Abercrombie, Anne Leckie, Jeff VanderMeer, and others.

With debut novel The Memory Garden just days from release, and a major new novella "The Mothers of Voorhisville" out at Tor.com, Mary Rickert joins our intrepid podcasters to discuss her novel, writing, mid-West Gothic, and many, many more interesting things. As always, we'd like to thank Mary for joining us and hope you enjoy the podcast!