As we move into October and the end of the year begins to come into view, we sit down to talk about whether the SF ghetto still exists, especially after M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and whether SF itself has become thoroughly integrated into the mainstream. We also discuss whether terms like space opera and epic fantasy have meaning beyond their utility in selling books, and just when it's OK to give up on reading a book. We also mention a few novels that we’ve been reading and recommending.

Coode Street picks up our recent conversation about short fiction with James Patrick Kelly and Michael Swanwick with Cadwell Turnbull, whose excellent short fiction collection All the Hidden Places is one of the highlights of the year and is out this month.

As always, our conversation wanders a little, but we touch upon how he assembled the collection, his experiences in both Clarion and an MFA program, SF and fantasy writing from the Caribbean, formative influences such as Orwell and Le Guin, writing about AI, his own earlier Convergence Trilogy, and writing as part of a group with the Darkly Lem group.

Our thanks to Cadwell for making time to take to us. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

This week’s episode is a wide-ranging discussion of robots and AI in fiction, and particularly in the work of our two distinguished guests: James Patrick Kelly, whose The Book of Bots is just out from Fairwood Press, and Michael Swanwick, whose The Universe Box appeared from Tachyon earlier this year.

We talk not only about how each author’s treatment of AI themes has evolved over the years, but how SF in general has dealt with them for more than a century, and what it might have to tell us about our own anxieties and the Awful Warnings that now seem to show up in our inboxes almost daily.

As always, Michael and Jim are thoughtful, witty, and engaging. We hope you enjoy the conversation and will join us next time!