July 17, 2025

139: Mostly Just a Wide Spot on the Road

1 hour 15 minutes

John was at the business meeting, Alison was at the cricket, and Tammy is Liz.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Bluesky or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

Find Tammy at her podcast, my tiny bottles

Letters of comment

Chris Garcia (email)

Colette Reap (email)

Farah Mendlesohn (email)

Ivan Sinha (Facebook)

Mike Glyer (email)

Niall Harrison (email)

Here are Niall’s 10 recommendations for you, listeners! [Interestingly, Niall did not mention any of the translators except for one, and so I had to go and look them all up—John]

A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran, translated by Chi-Young Kim

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda

Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, translated by Rahul Bery

Sea Now by Eva Meijer, translated by Anne Thompson Melo

House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa, translated by Polly Barton

Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-Il Kim, translated by Anton Hur

Ice by Jacek Dukaj, translated by Ursula Phillips

Raj (Mastodon)

We also heard from Ali Baker Brooks, Brian Nisbet, Fredrik Coulter, Neil Ottenstein, and Sandra Bond

2027 Worldcon: Montreal bid

The timeline so far:

Terry Fong steps down, replaced by Darin Briskman

CanSMOF adds Bruce Farr as bid co-chair

Tammy writes “The Worldcon is in Trouble” on File 770

Site selection

2025 Worldcon: Seattle

Business Meeting, part 1

Business Meeting, part 2: this was entirely in executive session and so none of it ended up on YouTube. Sorry, listeners! You had to be there…

Further meetings will occur on 19 July and 25 July at 17:00 BST/09:00 PDT

2023 Worldcon: Chengdu

Chris Barkley’s 100th column

Picks

John: DIE by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles

Read the first issue free!

Future issues will eventually be available on Sweet Shop

My First Dungeon

Alison: After Us, the Flood and We Are Aliens

Tammy: The Nine Worlds by Victoria Goddard

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Credits

Cover art: “Our Tiny Bottles” by Alison Scott

Alt text: The words “Octothorpe 139” appear at the top and the words “…our tiny bottles…” appear at the bottom. Three bottles are drawn in the middle. The left-hand bottle is a Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Coca-Cola bottle. The middle bottle is a bottle that looks a bit like a moose. The right-hand bottle is Bottle #18, “The Original Canton Delicate Ginger Liqueur”.

Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

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By John Coxon, Alison Scott, Liz Batty

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