In this much-too-long-delayed episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we revisit stories from Cordwainer Smith’s The Rediscovery of Man, with especial focus on “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard”. More importantly, we discuss these stories with senior SF critic Gary K. Wolfe, who brings quite a bit more biographical information about Smith to our attention, to our mutual enlightenment. Many apologies to those (Fred!) who have been waiting for this episode–I (Karen Burnham) can only plead extreme mental discombobulation. And we hope it is worth the wait!

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we revisit Season 2. There’s general consensus that our podcasts on Jagannath and Distances are among our favorites ever, and that there’s still a lot of value found in some of the older science fiction such as Olaf Stapledon and Cordwainer Smith. We will have a little bit of in-between-season content, since Gary K. Wolfe has agreed to join us and talk a little bit more about Cordwainer Smith. And of course we reserve the right to throw out a “special” podcast when the mood suits us! But the main plan is to start Season 3 in the Winter, focusing on international (non US/UK/Australia) science fiction and only tackling one short story per episode. A few that we’re definitely going to cover include “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” by Xia Jia and translated by Ken Liu, and Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” in the original Spanish. We’ll also be choosing stories from Ann & Jeff VanderMeer’s The Weird, Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic ed. by Eduardo Jimenez Mayo and Chris N. Brown, and AfroSF, ed. Ivor Hartmann. If you have any short fiction [...]

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle two short pieces from contemporary authors on our mathematical theme. We start out talking about Ken Liu’s “Single-Bit Error” and then we wind up raving about Vandana Singh’s novella Distances. We recorded this podcast live when Karen Lord visited me in Houston, TX. As such, I managed to screw up the recording in a whole new way. The sound level is very low even after boosting, and yet you can easily hear my dog chewing a bone through the first half of the podcast (we didn’t have the heart to kick her out of the living room), and the fireworks from the next town over in the second half. I had the best luck listening to this episode on headphones with the sound cranked up. My apologies as always, but for our next season wrap-up episode we’ll be back in the comfortable realm of Skype recordings.

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle two more short stories from The Rediscovery of Man, the complete collection of the short fiction of Cordwainer Smith from NESFA Press. We wound up finding so much to say about Smith’s stories that we decided to break this episode into two parts. In this installment we discuss “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961) and “On the Gem Planet” (1963).

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle two short stories from The Rediscovery of Man, the complete collection of the short fiction of Cordwainer Smith from NESFA Press. We wound up finding so much to say about Smith’s stories that we decided to break this episode into two parts. In this installment we discuss “Scanners Live in Vain” (1950) and “The Lady Who Sailed the Soul” (1960). In the next installment we’ll finish the conversation with “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (1961) and “On the Gem Planet” (1965).

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle Flatland (1884) by Edwin A. Abbott and “The Shadow Postulates” from Yoon Ha Lee’s debut collection, Conservation of Shadows. In one fell swoop we cover some of the most recent fiction yet (2008) and some of the oldest (1884). We hope you will agree that they are worth talking about together. Math fiction of many dimensions.

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle Napier’s Bones by Derryl Murphy. Murphy introduces some fascinating ideas, but undercuts them with info-dumping and a muddled ending. Dom has the ability to see and control numbers. After running from a desert confrontation between two other numerates, he ends up in a small Utah town with an adjunct spirit called Billy riding along in his head. Along with a raw numerate named Jenna, Dom and Billy head north while avoiding their foes. The magic system itself is fascinating, if dubious at times, but the lengthy explanations often slow the story down. The final 50 pages then turn into a race to cram too much action into a sloppy and chaotic ending. Murphy’s nifty ideas might be enough to sustain the plot for some readers, but few will come away wholly satisfied. –Publisher’s Weekly Math-Fi and Magic and History and Myth, all wrapped up in a fun (possibly urban fantasy-style) adventure!

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, the first volume of the Book of the New Sun quartet, published in 1980. This is the first-person narrative of Severian, a lowly apprentice torturer blessed and cursed with a photographic memory, whose travels lead him through the marvels of far-future Urth, and who–as revealed near the beginning–eventually becomes his land’s sole ruler or Autarch. On the surface it’s a colorful story with all the classic ingredients: growing up, adventure, sex, betrayal, murder, exile, battle, monsters, and mysteries to be solved. … For lovers of literary allusions, they are plenty here: a Dickensian cemetery scene, a torture-engine from Kafka, a wonderful library out of Borges, and familiar fables changed by eons of retelling… The Book of the New Sun is almost heartbreakingly good, full of riches and subtleties that improve with each rereading. It is Gene Wolfe’s masterpiece. –David Langford Despite reading this book in isolation from its series — which means that we are looking at all the set-up and none of the payoff — we find a lot to discuss and a lot to love in this classic novel.

After our previous episode discussing Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, the last novel written by C. S. Lewis, we decided that we needed a little more expertise than we were able to bring to bear. To that end, we’ve invited Beth Potterveld, a graduate of Wheaton College who has volunteered with the Wade Center and studied Inklings scholarship (a group which includes Lewis as part of its focus). In this supplemental podcast we discuss some of Lewis’ history with the Psyche myth, different ways of reading the somewhat less clear Part II of the novel, and other influences in Lewis’ work.

In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, the last novel written by C. S. Lewis, published in 1956. At once more human and more mythic than his Perelandra trilogy, Lewis’s short novel of love, faith, and transformation (both good and ill) offers the reader much food for thought in a compact, impressively rich story. Less heavy-handedly Christian-allegorical than Narnia, Till We Have Faces gives us characters who remind us of people we know facing choices and difficulties we recognize. This deceptively simple book takes on new depth with each rereading. We strongly recommend that you read this one for yourselves; we had rather divergent readings of it just between the two of us, and we’re already tempted to revisit this discussion later, possibly with a scholar in tow. There is no doubt that this is a complex and complicated story that will reward your attention.