Cabbages and Kings

This week, Maureen Kincaid Speller and I discuss The Buried Giant, our own responses & critical reactions, and the creation of national myths. (part 2 is here)

Critical Reactions

• Ishiguro in The New York Times
• Ursula Le Guin on "Are They Going to Say It Is Fantasy" (and an Addendum)
• Laura Miller - "A strange hybrid of genre and realism"
• Tom Holland in The Guardian
• Strange Horizons Book Club
• John Clute on The Buried Giant

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and landscapes

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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This episode I'm joined by Carl Engle-Laird, an editor for tordotcom (though Carl is speaking wholly for himself in this episode).  We discuss queer romance in science fiction and fantasy - some of the things that distinguish queer romances from heterosexual romances in the tradition, and the impact this has on readers.  We touch on the trope of the tragic queer & talk about Carl's reading history and the impact of diving through tordotcom's slush pile.

• In the Sight of Akresa by Ray Wood
• Seven Commentaries On An Imperfect Land by Ruthanna Emrys
• Super Bass by Kai Ashante Wilson
• Marigolds by LS Johnson in Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

The "Tragic Queer" trope was discussed on a recent episode of Rocket Talk and Heather Rose Jones tweeted further history & context (compiled here).

Carl's Brooklyn 99 podcast Back in the Field

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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This episode, Troy Wiggins (Twitter, BookRiot) & Khaalidah (Twitter) join me to discuss N. K. Jemisin's brutal and spectacular The Fifth Season, the first book of the Broken Empire trilogy.

We discuss the difficulties in classifying this masterful book, the skill with which Jemisin portrays oppression, and the various relationships in the book.

We also referred to a couple of reviews, from Foz Meadows (reacting to Alabaster's identity as a gay man whose story ends tragically) and Christina Vasilevski (drawing parallels between The Fifth Season and the Black Lives Matter movement)

Jemisin wrote a post about using 2nd Person to narrate Essun's POV.

Podcaster Makes Solemn Promise To Improve Sound Quality Next Episode https://t.co/0SaOwm3UUF pic.twitter.com/AMXtNXeyWR

Previous interview with Troy

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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This episode Cecily Kane (Blog, Twitter) stops by to discuss her history with reading science fiction and fantasy (including the shelves where she didn't find most of her favorite books), and a number of favorite short stories.  Along the way she recommended a lot of favorite books and we talked about author voices.

Books discussed

Short stories - 

A Song For You and The Great Silence which we will be reading and discussing on Twitter this week with the #ShortSFF hashtag.

Ether and Tongtong's Summer, both Chinese stories translated & published in Clarkesworld magazine.  Each story explores the impact of technology on human connection in a near-future setting, but with very different outlooks.  We got deep in our feels.

Malon Edwards - The Half-Dark Promise

Sunny Moraine - Cold as the Moon, and A Shadow on the Sky

Wole Talabi - Crocodile Ark and Eye

Makeisha In Time by Rachael K. Jones

(Cecily also recommended this review of Redemption in Indigo by Nikki of Bookpunks)

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by@etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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This week, a (spoiler-free!) discussion of the heroism of Mata & Kuni, and a look back at what the guests so far have had to say about how they got into the genre. 

@kingcabbagecast ...this answer explains so much about you. :p @QuiteVague

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by@etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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I'm joined this week by Michael R Underwood (@MikeRUnderwood) - Author (most recently of Hexomancy), Sales & Marketing Manager for Angry Robot Books, and co-host of Skiffy & Fanty to talk about folklore and its intersection with science fiction & fantasy.

American Folklore Society - What is Folklore?

Nicola Griffith's essay on Elfshot, medicine, and changing belief systems

Daniel José Older reading from Half-Resurrection Blues

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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This week @afishtrap and I continue our discussion of Grace of Kings & look at nobility in the book (and to some extent various epic traditions more broadly) through the Rima & Jizu episode.  We refer to my reading that every member of the old noble houses acquits themselves with “honor”, which I extend to a reading that there is something inherently special about the DNA of nobles in Grace of Kings, at which point we discovered that (recurring theme!) we read this very differently. Along the way we get into how Kuni (not a noble!) and Mata (a hero from the old noble houses) embody or contradict our readings. Our discussion opens and closes with Mata, his extraordinary heroism, and fitness to rule.

• My readthrough of Grace of Kings
• My post on things I'd like to follow up with more

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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This week, Nick Mamatas (@nmamatas) joins me to talk about short stories - the appeal of the format and some strengths and weaknesses.

Stories discussed (all three are freely available & quick reads)

• The Red Tower (Thomas Ligotti) in Weird Fiction Review
• If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love (Rachel Swirsky) in Apex Magazine
• We Never Sleep (Nick Mamatas) in The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk

Freytag Triangle

Nick's final recommendation is The Masonic Dream Engine (Thom Metzger) in Flurb

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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@afishtrap and I begin our discussion of Ken Liu's Grace of Kings in medias res as all good Epics must.  In this case, with the passage that I highlighted as the one I'd most want to argue with.

For me, this passage is about the conflict between practical engineering and divine intervention, a frequent hobgoblin of fantasy traditions with distant-but-present gods. Coming out of the Chinese traditions the engineering developments and divine influence read very differently.

• My readthrough of Grace of Kings
• My post on things I'd like to follow up with more

This week also concludes with my reminiscing because of a new Black Sun Rising readalong at bibliotropic (@bibliotropic).

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

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My guest this week is Shana (@booksbound on Twitter).  We talk about her own introduction to the genre via horror and science fiction TV shows, The Canon, supporting Small Presses (including some great books!), waiting on a series, and re-reading and marking up books.  Shana also reveals her standard for what makes a book good enough to keep her hooked.

Shana's list of small presses - 

• Small Beer Press: @smallbeerpress
• Raw Dog Screaming Press: @RDSPress
• Tachyon Publications: @TachyonPub
• Crossed Genres: @crossedgenres
• Akashic Press: @AkashicBooks
• Coffee House Press: @Coffee_House_
• A Strange Object: @AStrangeObject
• Tin House: @Tin_House
• Graywolf Press: @GraywolfPress
• Ugly Duckling Presse: @udpbooks
• Dzanc Books: @dzancbooks
• Archipelago Books: @archipelagobks
• Melville House: @melvillehouse
• ChiZine Publications: @chizinepub
• Deep Vellum Publishing: @DeepVellum

Coode St. Podcast discussion of Elysium (ep 209, around 27 minutes)

Discussion with Nicolette of Bookpunks including "collecting" authors

Book Smugglers review of Archivist Wasp

The amazing art which inspired me to actually get this project off the ground was created by @etrandem

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Music - Jazzy Ashes by The Underscore Orkestra

If you want to subscribe to the show, the RSS feed is: http://www.cabbagesandkings.audio/?format=rss