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.
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In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we tackle Star Maker, the 1939 classic by Olaf Stapledon.
One moment a man sits on a suburban hill, gazing curiously at the stars. The next, he is whirling through the firmament, and perhaps the most remarkable of all science fiction journeys has begun. Even Stapledon’s other great work, LAST AND FIRST MEN, pales in ambition next to STAR MAKER, which presents nothing less than an entire imagined history of life in the universe, encompassing billions of years.
This relatively short novel is jam-packed with all the sense of wonder you could ask for. We talk about the seeds of any number of sf stories found within its pages, its perspective on aliens, the Omega Point, and much more. If you read Star Maker and enjoy it, we strongly recommend that you also read Last and First Men, Stapledon’s earlier work of science fiction.
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In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, we enthuse about Jagannath, the award-winning collection from Karin Tidbeck.
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Welcome back for Season 2, Part 1 of SF Crossing the Gulf!
Here’s our notional reading list for the coming season:
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In this episode, we (fondly, sadly) wrap up the first season of SF Crossing the Gulf. We reflect on what we’ve read so far, with discussions of POV, hard sf, immigrant tales, and international vs. slipstream fiction. While we’ve enjoyed this immensely, we both have deadlines to meet and other projects that need some TLC.
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In this episode we discuss Ghosts, a family drama set in the near future by Jamaican author Curdella Forbes. We talk about unreliable narrators, culture, symbolism, and snails.
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This week the two Karens squee mightily about 1998′s The Sparrow–and then get down to the nitty gritty of characterization, structure, theology, colonialism and intricate detail. The Sparrow is a novel rich in detail, as evidenced by this being our longest podcast yet. But like the novel, it is packed with speculation and revelation.
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This is THE Greg Egan podcast. In this episode we cover Egan’s stories “The Planck Dive,” “Glory,” “Singleton,” “Oracle,” and “Oceanic.” We talk about Egan’s approach to science and art, quantum mechanics, history, biography, religion, sexuality, and much else, putting these works into the context of all his other fiction and what little is known about his life experiences. In the process, Karen Burnham realizes that she will need to considerably re-write the introduction to the book on Egan’s work that she is currently finalizing.
Next episode we’ll be talking about the 1998 Clarke Award-winning novel The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
In this episode we discuss The Rainmaker’s Mistake by Jamaican author and sociologist Erna Brodber.
Karen Lord recommends that you also listen to this short (15 minute) reading and interview with the author.
The Rainmaker’s Mistake isn’t classically science fictional, and definitely not magical realism. It is slipstream in the mode that should be perfectly comfortable with any and all who love fiction by folks like Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford and Theodora Goss.
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In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, Karen Burnham and Karen Lord discuss the Ted Chiang story “Hell is the Absence of God” as well as the Greg Egan stories “Crystal Nights,” “Yeyuka,” and “Closer.” They talk about topics such as third person omniscient narrators, villains, suffering, and the trope of Westerners sacrificing fingers for Africa. Karen Burnham would like to add that the story “Microcosmic God,” whose author she forgot, was written by Theodore Sturgeon.
Next week we’ll be discussing Erna Brodber’s The Rainmaker’s Mistake, and after that we’ll return to Greg Egan’s short fiction.
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In this episode of SF Crossing the Gulf, Karen Burnham and Karen Lord discuss Edgar Mittelholzer’s My Bones and My Flute, a ghost story/thriller from 1955. This leads to a discussion of prose style, craft, imagery, jungles, race, racism, misogyny, and much else. We understand that most people won’t be able to get a hold of this book, so we start off the discussion with plenty of summary to get everyone on the same page. [Spoiler Alert!]
Next week we’ll continue with a discussion of stories from Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life and Others, particularly “Hell is the Absence of God” and start talking about Greg Egan. We’ve decided on the following list of Egan short stories:
After that we’ll be talking about Erna Brodber’s The Rainmaker’s Mistake, Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, and Cordelia Forbe’s Ghosts.
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Welcome to the debut episode of SF Crossing the Gulf with Karen Burnham and Karen Lord.
We’ll be discussing contemporary hard sf and Caribbean speculative fiction over the course of our new, twice-monthly podcast. We spend most of this first episode discussing “Exhalation” and the collection Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.
Other books we’ll be discussing in the future:
- My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer
- A selection of short stories by Greg Egan
- and The Rainmaker’s Mistake by Erna Broadber
- More titles to be announced when we’re sure we can actually lay our hands on them ourselves.
We look at these stories from our perspectives as readers, writers, critics, scientists, sociologists, women, etc.
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