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Around the Podosphere #5: Podcasts of Note for 1/25/15

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As always, the podcast world is full of interesting things.  Here are some episodes we’ve enjoyed last week: On Writing: The Coode Street Podcast brings together Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press and the infamous Harlan Ellison to talk about small presses and writing things. Jeanne Cavelos joins the folks on Speculate! to talk about the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Mahvesh Murad’s excellent podcast, Midnight in Karachi, brings on Adam Roberts to talk about his various novels, including some of his recent satirical work. On Books: The fine folks at Sword & Laser wrap up their discussion of The Sparrow and talk about some exciting book-related news. On Movies: Curious about Dracula Untold?  We Hate Movies covers it in their latest episode.  You may or may not have second thoughts… On Conspiracies: The latest episode of The Doorway to the Hidden World exposes the totally unknown secrets of the Pyramids.

Announcements and Errata

The 2015 “Women and Non-Binary in SFF” Theme Begins: Announcements, Details, and Guest/Author Calls

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As you may well be aware by now, we have a new theme in 2015:  Women and Non-Binary in SFF.  This post will serve as a handy guide to our show for the next 11.5 months and as a nice place to go in case you want to be a part of the show or the blog at some point in 2015. The Theme:  What We’re Doing Throughout 2015, we are going to put particular focus on the contributions of women and non-binary people to science fiction and fantasy.  The majority of our interviewees, as such, will be women and non-binary; additionally, a good portion of movies, tv, and discussion episodes will be in some way related to this theme.  Though we’re not setting a hard quota for the year, we expect that roughly 75% of our content will be women- and non-binary-centered. As such, we have two levels of “open calls” for guests:

Blog Posts

Around the Podosphere #4: Podcasts of Note for 1/19/15

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The holidays are long over, but there’s still time to catch up on some of your favorite podcasts!  Here are some of our favorites from the last week or so: On Genre: The latest Coode Street Podcast features legendary author Guy Gavriel Kay as a special guest to talk about writing and genre history. The first episode of a brand new podcast entitled The Adventures of Yellow Peril and the Magical Negro just dropped. It’s all about representation and sf/f media, so it’s sure to provide the fix you’ve been craving. Interviews: The fine folks at Sword and Laser talk to Daniel H. Wilson about his new story/app, Mayday: Deep Space. Lev Grossman joins the Speculate! podcast to talk about his trilogy of novels and writing genre. Susan Jane Bigelow joins Julia on The Outer Alliance Podcast to talk about her latest novel, The Seeker Star. Justin Landon uses his magic to interview Brian Staveley on Rocket Talk. The latest episode of Midnight in Karachi features an interview with Megan Abbott, the Queen of Noir. On Movies: The latest episode of We Hate Movies tackles the film adaptation of Winter’s Tale. On Games: The Incomparable dedicates an entire episode to a discussion about Portal.  A whole friggin’ episode! On Comics:  Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men have as a guest G Willow Wilson, creator of the Ms. Marvel comic. And there you have it.  What are you listening to?

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Partial Book Review: Dangerous Games edited by Jonathan Oliver

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(This is a partial review, as I did not read the entire anthology for Reasons*.) Dangerous Games, edited by Jonathan Oliver, is a 2014 horror and dark fantasy anthology whose stories are united by gaming. The games featured are pretty diverse; I initially thought (for some weird reason) it’d be all western gambling, which I find pretty boring, but not so much. There are games from all over the world, as well as several stories revolving around RPG’s (of course, silly me). I found three stories conceptually very interesting. “The Yellow Door” by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia is a Lovecraftian story. While it ended a little abruptly, it does what only great horror writers can do in rendering the completely innocuous — things you cannot fathom being creepy — frightening. In this case, it’s the generic westernized Chinese restaurant — and component parts thereof. This I found more interesting than the Cthulhian element, not being a Lovecraft person. Though I must say, shoggoth soup. Ahem.

Blog Posts

My Superpower: Nicholas Kaufmann (Die and Stay Dead)

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My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Nicholas Kaufmann to talk about how the power of patience relates to Die and Stay Dead. It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly which of my innate mutant abilities is my true superpower. Is it my unerring talent for arriving on the subway platform at the exact moment the train I need is pulling away? Is it my almost creepy aptitude in recalling all manner of trivia related to Doctor Who, the classic series? (Go on, ask me who knit the Fourth Doctor’s scarf, or why the Fifth Doctor keeps a stalk of celery on his lapel, or how Davros lost his only remaining functioning hand. I dare you. How many hours do you have?) Or perhaps my superpower is actually a curse in the form of a last name that is almost constantly misspelled, sometimes even in print by professional publications.

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