The Coode Street Podcast

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!

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!

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.

After an unexpected break the Coode Street Podcast returns to discuss the use of terminology in genre, Linda Nagata’s recent io9 articleon 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 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 novelHild.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 atCheryl 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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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 writerPaolo Bacigalupianddiscuss his brand new middle-grade novelZombie Baseball Beatdown, exciting news about his second adult SF novelThe Water Knife, new YA novel The Doubt Factory, and much more.As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!

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!

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 byMalcolm Edwards, Managing Director of Orion Books, andDavid 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.

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