Yesterday I promised you some more words on the podcast that I did with John Clute, Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan. Here they are.

As we were in the Clute apartment, John, Gary and I had been chatting about a bunch of issues beforehand (most interesting about Thomas More’s Utopia, but that’s another post entirely). As a consequence we got into our stride very quickly on the podcast. However, due to the technical difficulties at our end, much of what we said early on got lost. Also I know that not all of you like listening to podcasts, so here’s a few highlights.

We started out with discussion of genre definitions. I know that there are critics who are obsessed with such things, but I find them quite annoying and between us we came up with what I think is a much better way of looking at such things. When you apply a genre label (e.g. steampunk, epic fantasy or whatever) to a piece of fiction, what you are doing is not putting it in a box that defines its nature, but observing it through a particular colored lens. Some stories, of course, make no sense unless you look at them through the correct lens. But there are many stories that can be viewed through more than one lens, and which look like different stories each time you change lenses. There are some writers who enjoy creating stories like this, and those tend to be my favorite writers. Naturally such stories, and writers, infuriate those who want to use genre descriptions as rigid boxes, with a story only being allowed into one.

We also talked a bit about allegories, and how good fantastic fiction should not be written as, or read as, an allegory.

At one point I said something that I thought might have provoked debate, either during the podcast or in comments afterward. From memory it went like this:

There are only two possible endings for a story: “and then I woke up”, and “to be continued”.

I’m prepared to defend that, though I admit that the first is problematical if the story is not narrated. Hopefully you will see what I mean, though.

By the way, a lot of the discussion on the nature of genre is very relevant to the essays in Gary’s new book, Evaporating Genres, due out early next year.

The full podcast is available here.

It was obvious really. There is a Science Fiction Oral History Association that collects recordings of things to do with science fiction. Now they have a podcast. The first episode features features Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Lester del Rey, Frederik Pohl, and Gordon R. Dickson. What more could you ask for? My friend Anne Gray has more details. Alternatively, go direct to Space Dog Podcast.

I had a lot of housework to do today which meant I could catch up on a bunch of podcasts. I am totally addicted to the weekly chats between Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe, and thanks to Finncon I had two episodes to listen to. Amongst the topics in this week’s episode the boys once again talk about the sadly missed Charles N. Brown, including the story of how he met my friend Karen Burnham.

Also in this week’s episode, Jonathan recommends another podcast: Galactic Suburbia. This one is much more like Geek Syndicate, in that it has a regular structure and planned topics. It features a regular cast of three Aussie ladies, so if you want to get your ear adjusted to the accent before Worldcon you should definitely check it out. Also there’s some interesting discussion.

The topic that caused Jonathan to mention Galactic Suburbia is that old chestnut of “what is science fiction”. Pattern Recognition (and the rest of what I tend to think of as the Hubertus Bigend trilogy) comes under the microscope once again, as does Karen Joy Fowler’s Shirley Jackson Award winning story, “The Pelican Bar”. Sometimes it is the atmosphere of a novel that renders it SFnal (for some readers), sometimes it can be a single sentence. And this reminded me of something else.

In the past week on Twitter one of my friends took Locus to task for reviewing David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet on the grounds that it clearly wasn’t SF. Having had the pleasure of listening to Mitchell talk about the book, I know that one of the characters in it is immortal, though you have to read carefully to notice that. What’s more Galley Cat has reported that the book is the first part of a planned trilogy on the subject of immortality that will get more SFnal as it goes on. I’m looking forward to that.

Back with podcasts, I’ve just finished listening to the latest episode of Geek Syndicate. The final segment of the episode sees Nuge and his guest co-presenter, Stacey, speculate on the subject of their dream convention. In stark contrast to the Finncon panel on a similar theme, they said nothing about who would attend, but focused instead on the guests and the panels they would like to see. Nuge’s con would take some staging as many of the guests and panelists are dead, but he has some great ideas. And I definitely want to see Stacey’s “Neil Gaiman interviews Douglas Adams” panel.

Another weekend, another wonderful conversation between Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan. In this edition Gary and Jonathan talk about Fred Pohl, the history of the SF community, First Fandom, and the need for more books about the early years of the genre. They also get onto the subject of graphic novels.

Parallel to his series with Gary, Jonathan has also launched a solo podcast series. “Books I’m Looking Forward To” covers what Jonathan thinks are the most exciting releases in the coming month. The first episode covers June 2010. Given that Jonathan is the reviews editor for Locus, he has an almost unparalleled access to forthcoming books, so his views are well worth listening to.