Podcasts

Coode Street, Adventure Rocketship, Translations and Gatekeepers

~ Cheryl

The latest episode of the Coode Street Podcast includes some discussion of political science fiction. Along the way Jonathan makes mention of Adventure Rocketship #1, which he says has some “really strong stories” in it. He singles out Tim Maughan’s story, “Flight Path Estate”, for particular praise. I am a very proud publisher.

Of course, being praised by the Mullahs of Coode Street will ruin Tim’s street cred for all eternity. But I am cruel and heartless, and also I have this new trick of embedding an audio player, so if you want to listen to what Jonathan has to say you can do so here:



Also in the podcast, the boys discuss the short lists for the SF&F Translation Awards. This makes me very happy, and also gives me another opportunity to plug Karin Tidbeck’s wonderful Jagannath. I hope to be recording an episode of Small Blue Planet featuring Karin sometime soon.

Finally the boys discuss how one gets to be an “insider” in the SF&F community. Karen Burnham and I were mentioned specifically by name, and I always try to respond to the Summon Cheryl spell, so I guess I should say something about how it was for me.

I must start by noting that there are all sorts of levels of privilege that facilitated my becoming known by people who might be regarded as gatekeepers (including Gary and Jonathan). I’m white; I come from an English-speaking country; I had a good education, including parents who indulged my reading habit; and I have had sufficient disposable income and work-related travel to allow me to attend many conventions.

On the other hand, I’m also female and trans, which ought to count against me (unless you are one of those people who believe that trans women are “really” men and benefit from male privilege at all times). So how did I get in? Well, I thought to myself, I knew people. Dave Langford and Martin Hoare were friends before I ever went to a Worldcon. I met Kevin at the first Worldcon I attended, and that must have helped.

Then I stopped, because I realized I was telling myself that I only got an in because of who I was sleeping with. And maybe that is true of me, some people certainly think it is, but I refuse to believe that it is true for every woman who makes a name for herself in the community.

(Update: for the benefit of people with over-active imaginations, I should point out that Dave and Martin are just friends. I’m very happy with Kevin and see no need to build up a harem.)

I think it is complicated. And to illustrate that I invite you to consider some of this year’s WSFS business. As many of you will know, someone has decided to propose that we scrap all of the fan Hugos. I’m not going to have a rant about that. Other people have been doing the job for me. What I want to do is note that there are many reasons why people advocate killing the fan categories. They include:

  • That they keep getting won by professionals
  • That they bring the Hugos into disrepute because they result in non-professionals winning awards
  • That they are won by people who are too old
  • That they are won by people who are too young
  • That they are won by the “wrong sort of fan” (i.e., fans of the wrong thing)
  • That they are won by people who are “not part of our community” (i.e., people who might be fans of the right thing, but whom we’ve not heard of before)

What all of these things have in common is that there are people who think that the fan Hugos are being won by people who are, to use the favorite SMOF term, “not worthy”. It is a very common meme, and it doesn’t just get applied to people who win awards. In fandom it tends to get applied by members of one subgroup against any member of another subgroup who achieves success beyond that subgroup.

So yeah, there is plenty of privilege involved. I accept that, and do what I can to make it easier for people who don’t have the advantages I had. But privilege is generally not enough. You do have to be prepared to work at it too.

New Writer & Critic

~ Cheryl

A new episode of the superb podcast, The Writer and The Critic, has gone live. This time Kirstyn and Mondy look at Hair Side, Flesh Side by Helen Marshall. They are very enthusiastic about it, which pleases me because the book happens to be in my bookstore.

The other book that they picked is Light by M. John Harrison. Surprisingly, they didn’t think much of it, which just goes to show how different people can react very differently to the same book. Personally, when I heard Kirstyn say that she felt “trapped” reading the book, I could see Mike smiling happily to himself at a job well done. It is true that Mike doesn’t present much analysis of the various gender issues highlighted in the book. Perhaps that’s a difference between a literary approach to a novel and a more traditional science fiction approach. What Mike does is more like painting a picture. People interacting with it may come away deeply disturbed, but the picture doesn’t tell you why, or what to do about it, it just sends you away to think about your life. One of the beauties of Light is that it presents this amazing science-fictional concept, and yet none of the characters in it are happy. They can’t get what they want and, try as they might, they don’t know what they need.

Of course, your mileage may vary. If you want to hear what Kirstyn and Mondy have to say, check out the podcast.

Fabulous Philippine Fiction

~ Cheryl

Earlier this month I did a Small Blue Planet episode with Charles A. Tan and Dean Francis Alfar that talked about the speculative fiction currently emanating from The Philippines. Since then Charles and his colleagues at Flipside Publishing have been busily providing me with more ebooks to sell. They are now available in the bookstore.

Firstly we have A Bottle of Storm Clouds, a collection of stories by Eliza Victoria. She is one of the authors whom we mentioned in the podcast. I really liked the story that she had in Alternative Alamat, and I suspect this will be a very fine book.

In addition we have two anthologies. Dean and his wife, Nikki, have been editing a series of books collecting the best speculative fiction of the year from The Philippines. They are now up to Volume 8. Previous issues are not available as ebooks, but there is a “best of” volume that collects the finest stories from volumes 1 to 5. These books provide a fine overview of what The Philippines has to offer, and they are very reasonably priced.

If you are not convinced yet, listen to the podcast, after which you’ll be intrigued.

Small Blue Planet – The Philippines

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The latest Small Blue Planet podcast is now live at Locus. It visits The Philippines and features a very fine writer, Dean Francis Alfar, and the inimitable Charles A. Tan.

During the podcast we mention two of Dean’s books — How to Traverse Terra Incognita & The Kite of Stars — plus an anthology of fantasy stories — Alternative Alamat. All of them come from Flipside Publishing, the company that Charles works for; and all of them are in my bookstore. Charles has also just sent me a collection of stories by Eliza Victoria, which I will get in the store as soon as I can.

Karen & Karen on Napier’s Bones

~ Cheryl

The promised episode of SF Crossing the Gulf focusing on Derryl Murphy’s novel, Napier’s Bones is now available for download. It is deeply spoilerific, but as usual Karen Lord and Karen Burnham have a fascinating conversation and I’m delighted to hear that the book is as cool as I thought it would be. Go have a listen, or maybe buy the book. People who like Tim Powers’ more modern-day novels should love this too.

Towards the end of the podcast, for reasons that will be obvious once you know a bit about the story, our hosts get into a discussion of the relative merits of cricket and baseball from the point of view of a stats geek. They cast the Summon Cheryl spell, but Karen Lord did a good job of channeling me so I didn’t really need to respond. My basic point is that baseball, because of its limited field space and fairly fixed fielding positions, has a more simple set of statistics to work with, which probably makes those stats more powerful.

Madeline Ashby Interview

~ Cheryl

One of the things I did while I was in Toronto was meet up with one the the most promising new feminist SF writers, Madeline Ashby. I had originally intended to do an interview with her for my Talking Books slot on Ujima Radio, but as Madeline and I got talking it soon became apparent that this was going to be too long for the show, and probably also it bit too academic for a mainstream radio audience. It is, however, a great interview, and Madeline has some fascinating things to say about how she uses the well-worn trope of the robot to ask interesting questions about gender.

Madeline’s new book, iD, isn’t out in print in the UK until next week, but the ebook and North American releases are tomorrow, so this is an ideal time to air the interview. Hopefully most of you can see the media player below, but for those who can’t you can also find it here, or download it directly from this link. As and when Apple get their act together, it will also appear in the Salon Futura podcast feed.

Neil Gaiman At Apple

~ Cheryl

I really wanted to title this post, “They know him at the Mac Store”. Amanda Palmer fans will know why. But one of the things about blogging these days is that people tend to come here via Twitter, and unless the tweet has an obvious hook people won’t click through.

Anyway, one of the things that Neil did while he was in the UK was a reading at one of the city’s Apple stores. He was interviewed by Mariella Frostrup, and the whole thing is now available as a podcast via the iBookstore iTunes feed. Mariella is far more relaxed about the interview than the Newsnight guy, and there are some good questions too. I love the mix of accents — it is so London.

Included in the show are a short excerpt from the book, the news about the Neverwhere short story that I mentioned in my report on the Bath event, and the stories of how Neil came to write The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish and The Graveyard Book. Neil also talks about a forthcoming movie based on his story, “How To Talk To Girls At Parties” (which was a Hugo nominee and a Locus award winner). If you are not going to be able to make any of the events on the Ocean at the End of the Lane tour, this is just as good as being there, except you don’t get your book signed.

Karen & Karen: Back in the Saddle

~ Cheryl

I have joyous news. One of my favorite podcasts is back in action. Yes, there is a new episode of SF Crossing the Gulf. And in this Karen Burnham and Karen Lord talk about Gene Wolfe.

Well, to be precise, they talk about The Shadow of the Torturer, which is merely the first volume in the first series of Wolfe’s magnus opus. And they only have an hour or so of podcast in which to talk. All of which means that they hardly scratch the surface of the complex edifice that Wolfe is building. This does not detract from the interest of the episode. Indeed, it is a positive delight to hear someone as smart as Karen L. discovering Wolfe for the first time (because, you know, no one can have read everything).

I note also that the next episode will be devoted to Derryl Murphy’s novel, Napier’s Bones (which Karen L. describes as “math-fi”). This is a book that I have been wanting to read for some time, but have never found the time for. I look forward to hearing what Karen and Karen make of it. Should you want to read along with them, ebook copies are available in the bookstore.

Small Blue Planet: Israel

~ Cheryl

I may be in Canada, but Small Blue Planet is in Israel. Thanks to the hard work of our wonderful producer, Karen Burnham, the latest episode is now available to listen to at the Locus website. My guests for May are Gili Bar Hillel and Didi Chanoch. As ever, the conversation is very wide-ranging. We do talk about Lavie Tidhar, and many other interesting Israeli writers. And we talk about the wonderful things you can do in Hebrew that you can’t do in other languages. I hope you enjoy it.

I Get Podcast

~ Cheryl

I am so behind on podcast listening. There are episodes of Coode Street, Galactic Suburbia, The Writer & The Critic, Shout Out and For Books Sake that I need to listen to. I have, however, managed to catch the latest Outer Alliance podcast. Yes, that’s ego-driven. I’m on it.

In episode #31 the fabulous Julia Rios talks to a number of Outer Alliance members on a variety of subjects. I get to pontificate about awards, recycle an old joke about the difference between Raiders and 49ers fans, and enthuse about Caitlín R. Kiernan, Gail Simone, Stephanie Saulter and other great people. The other guests have really good contributions as well, and the variety of reactions to QUILTBAG as a term is fascinating. You can listen here.

By the way, the recording was made a couple of week ago, so neither Julia nor I was able to react to the Aurealis Awards being just as much of a vagfest as the Ditmars.

Thanks as always to Julia for having me as a guest.

Small Blue Planet: France

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

C’est animé? C’est vivant? Je ne sais pas. La traduction, elle est difficile.

Especially when you are as bad at languages as I am.

Thankfully my guests on Small Blue Planet are very good at English. Many thanks to Mélanie Fazi and Lionel Davoust for their wonderful tour of French science fiction and fantasy. Also thanks as ever to our wonderful producer, Karen Burnham, and to Kevin for being the emergency holographic sound recordist.

Along the way we talk about French conventions, the best award trophy in the world, how the UK came to be a fundamentalist Mormon state, Brian Stableford’s amazing translation work, and some of the best SF&F writers working in French today.

As ever, the podcast is available via the Locus Roundtable.

Coming Soon – La France

~ Cheryl

Today I recorded episode #4 of Small Blue Planet, which takes us to France. My guests are two very fine French writers: Mélanie Fazi and Lionel Davoust. We talked about a whole range of subjects from Dumas and Verne to Moebius and Houellebecq. That will be online in a week or two once Karen has had time to process it. Many thanks to Kevin for agreeing to be the emergency holographic sound guy.

Podcast Recommendation

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

One of the things I discovered at the Bristol Women’s Literary Festival was a website called For Books’ Sake. It is a general literary blog run by women, and the people at the festival sounded interesting. When I got home I checked out the site.

You can probably imagine my disappointment when the closest reference to SF&F I could find in their menu was a listing for “Crime, Horror, Pulp”. Oh dear, is that what they thought of us? Still, I’m a mouthy bitch so I had a few words with them on Twitter. Much to my delight, they got back to say, no, they were happy to include SF&F, they just didn’t know a lot about it. But hey, here’s an article on top women fantasy writers. So I looked, and sure it includes Robin Hobb and Trudi Canavan, but is also has Angela Carter, Ursula K. Le Guin and N.K. Jemisin.

Then I tried the podcasts, and a light bulb went off. It’s a measure of how much we have won the culture war that people these days talking about fiction automatically include a lot of SF&F without even thinking that they need a category for it. There are two podcasts up thus far. They discuss the new Gail Carriger series, and Anne Rice’s vampire novels. There’s a review of the new Jeanette Winterson, The Daylight Gate, which is all about witches. They the had segment about Michelle Tea, including the news that she has a YA fantasy novel, Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, due out soon. Michelle Tea, people! Why did I not know this? (I am looking at you, Charlie Jane Anders…)

FYI, The Winterson does not count as Crawford reading. The Stone Gods is science fiction, but she wrote Weight as part of Canongate’s myths series. The Tea, on the other hand, probably does.

Other parts of the podcasts opened my ears wide too. I hadn’t expected them to be quite so feminist as they are. Galactic Suburbia ladies, you should listen in. I particularly enjoyed the way they excoriated Robert McCrum over his 50 Most Influential Books posts at The Guardian. The FBS ladies also read 50 Shades of Grey so that we don’t have to, and reveal that the dire prose is probably not the worst aspect of those books.

In other words, I was entertained, and definitely intend to listen to future episodes as and when they are podcast. It will help me keep up with things outside of my specialisms, and amuse me, both of which are good things.

Karen Lord on ABC

~ Cheryl

Karen Lord was a guest at the Adelaide Writers’ Festival earlier this month. While she was there, she recorded an interview with Richard Fidler of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It is a great interview, and you can listen to it here.

Many thanks to Sean the Blogonaut for pointing me at this. Oh, and Karen, thank you! I’m sure you know what I mean. 🙂

Small Blue Planet, Episode 3: Brazil

~ Cheryl

It lives! Karen Burnham has just posted the latest episode of Small Blue Planet to the Locus Roundtable blog. You can find it here. Many thanks to Fábio Fernandes and Jacques Barcia for being such great guests. I particularly enjoyed the tale of author Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro who maintained a female alter-ego for 6 years, producing the Xochiquetzal stories along the way. So, break out the Caipirinhas and head on over to Locus for some fine entertainment.

Meanwhile I am lining up the guests for the next three episodes. In the next few months we will be visiting France, Israel and The Philippines.

India and Brazil

~ Cheryl

Today I spotted an academic paper on this history of science fiction written in Hindi. You can read it here. It is great to know that people were writing SF in Hindi at the end of the 19th Century.

And talking of SF that I can’t read, this evening I recorded episode 3 of Small Blue Planet. It features Brazil, and the guests are Fábio Fernandes & Jacques Barcia. Karen Burnham should have it online in a week or so. We talked about a whole range of issues, from Brazilian steampunk to a male author who created a female alter-ego and kept up the masquerade for 6 years, and of course caipirinhas.

Got Radio (with added Tim Maughan)

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

As I said yesterday, there’s a problem with the Ujima website, as a result of which the Women’s Outlook shows do not appear in the Listen Again section. However, the shows are online, so with the application of a little bit of my cunning hacker skills I was able to work out how to give you access to then. For today’s listening enjoyment I give you last week’s show, which featured Tim Maughan as our special studio guest. The links below should take you directly to the mp3 files.

The first hour contains four segments and is all about getting boys to read. In the first quarter we talk about books that young boys might enjoy. I review Ian McDonald’s PlanesRunner, while Tim recommends A Clockwork Orange. The second segment talks about ways we might encourage boys to read (and many thanks to Stefano for agreeing to be our token “boy who hates books”). Next up I talk to Tim about his work, and the two conventions he attended in February. Finally we have a segment on the importance of libraries.

The second hour starts off with some discussion of pornography, during which I make a practical suggestion as to how we can prevent the media being full of stories about men sexually assaulting and raping women. After that there is some serious discussion about violence again women, and female genital mutilation, which is all very valuable. Right at the end I get to complain about First Great Western.

By the way, it is now over a week since I sent a complaint to FGW about the behavior of their staff. They have not yet acknowledged receipt.