Here are a few good things I have been listening to of late.
First up we have The Writer and the Critic, featuring Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond from Australia. They only have two episodes up this far, but they are doing really good in-depth book discussions. Personally I wish they were less hung up about spoilers, but they still manage to find lots of good things to talk about.
The next one should need no introduction, as it is part of the great io9 plan for galactic domination. This is The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, featuring John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley. The first part of the show is always an interview, and they have had some really high profile guests. For the latest episode, however, they talk to Jennifer Finney Boylan about her new YA book, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror. The book is all about kids at a school for monsters where they have to learn to pretend to be ordinary people so as to fit in with society. Jenny talks about her life and how the book relates to her experiences growing up trans.
Finally back to Australia and the latest episode of Galactic Suburbia. The second half of this show is all about life as an indie publisher. Obviously that’s a subject close to my heart, but the conversation is well worth a listen.
And one more thing. If you do podcasts yourself and, like me, you record off Skype, you may well have trouble with different sound levels on different people’s voices. If you do, you need The Levelator. Sadly it doesn’t take MP3 inputs, so you need a format converter as well, but those are pretty common. Having it has made producing The Salon so much easier. I can’t remember now who I saw recommend it — I think it was Patrick Hester — but whoever it was, thank you!
I’ll second The Writer and The Critic.
Much like Wolfe and Strahan’s Notes from Coode Street, the podcast benefits hugely from the chemistry between the two presenters. Yes they’re both pretty sharp and I actually really like their decision to focus on specific books and delve into them quite deeply but I think that their on-air charisma goes quite a long way to explaining why the podcast is so enjoyable to listen to.
It’s interesting that the Australian genre people seem to be punching above their weight in podcasting terms.
Agreed, the chemistry is very good. I believe they are in the same room when they record which helps, but you still have to get on well to do that.
OTOH, if their content was no good, we’d not listen to them. (Well, you and I wouldn’t.)
As to Australians, it is a geography thing and I applaud them for making use of the technology. After all, it was being in Australia that encouraged me to distribute Emerald City electronically.
Cheryl (and Jonathan),
Thanks for the kind words. I’ve been re-thinking the whole spoiler situation, considering I’m the one who harps on about it. The thing is, the real spoiler-phobes don’t listen to a chunk of the podcast if they haven’t read the book and want to. So I’m not sure why we’re being so careful.
So while I don’t want to ruin large chunks of the novels we look at, I think I’m going to be more relaxed on the subject of spoilers. Because it does get in the way of discussing the books. (As it does with book reviews).
Mondy