Episode 549: Lockdown, science fiction, and more

Welcome to episode 7 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week Jonathan and Gary return to form with a classic ramble through a jumble of topics ranging from the postponement of this year’s Swancon in Perth (and a bit of trivia about an American Swanncon from decades ago); the possible effects of the missing convention years on the SFF field; a brief foray into utopian/dystopian fiction; Charles de Lint, urban fantasy, and his new novel Juniper Wiles; our mutual admiration for Catherynne Valente's forthcoming The Past is Red; and bits about what we’ve been reading lately, including Nghi Vo's The Chosen and the Beautiful, fictions that focus on a single technology like Sarah Pinsker's We Are Satellites, alternate histories like P. Djèlí Clark's A Master of Djinn, set in Cairo, and why we’ve been overloaded on London steampunk (especially on TV), while other world cities seem to get short shrift in the whole steampunk/alternate history trend. Some of these authors, we promise, will get a chance to speak for themselves in future episodes. This year has been tough for a lot of people. Swancon has suffered a lot of extra costs and GoH Claire Coleman is running a GoFundMe to help them out. You can donate here. Also, John Varley had major heart surgery earlier this year. They're running a GoFundMe to help him with expenses. You can donate here. Both campaigns are worthy of support. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast. We'll see you again soon!