This week Bee is joined by writer & artist Kathleen Jennings to talk about her book Flyaway.

Flyaway is a fairy tale-influenced (or structured?) Australian Gothic novel (or novella?). Small town landscapes and linguistics, productive misinterpretations of fairy tales, Kurt Vonnegut, and what it's like to write a strict first-person novel with a slew of other voices in it are some of the topics discussed.

 

* Kathleen's website: https://www.kathleenjennings.com/   

* Flyaway on Kindle: https://amzn.to/3n21V6Q

* Flyaway on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250260499 

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Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

This week, Adrian is joined by Somaiya Daud to discuss her new book, Court of Lions, the 2nd in the Mirage Duology (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250126450). 

Somaiya and Adrian discuss genre mash-ups, body doubles, court politics, the legacy of French colonialism on Moroccan culture, the lack of beautiful dresses in the newest Star Wars trilogy, and how our cats are handling quarantine. I had a wonderful time talking to her and am absolutely loving Mirage, the first book in this duology, so I hope you listen, pick up her books, and enjoy!

 

* Mirage on bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250126436 

* Court of Lions on bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250126450

* The Mirage Duology on Kindle: https://amzn.to/3khFfxl 

* A Phoenix First Must Burn: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781984835659 

* Somaiya on Twitter (https://twitter.com/somaiyadaud) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/somaiiiya/)

 

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As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment.

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

This week we're joined by WM Akers to promote his new novel, Westside Saints (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780062854049). 

Bee and WM talk Westside Saints (and its predecessor, Westside), an alternate history detective novel about a woman who solves "tiny mysteries" until they get much bigger. They also talk about how tabletop RPG design reflects and influences novel writing, the uprising in Philadelphia (Lakay Nou has since been renamed Camp JTD and is still regularly facing evictions), the scope of sequels, and more.

Westside Saints on bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780062854049

Westside Saints on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2CECqq0 

 

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Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

Today Bee is joined by Nick Mamatas, Bram Stoker award-winning editor & author of the just-re-released novel Move Under Ground. (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780486841861)

Bee & Nick talk about writing modern Lovecraftian stories & his looming influence, the joy of reading referential stories, and typographic style as a carrier of meaning. 

The audio is a bit rough in this one, apologies! Nick was a pleasure to have on the pod though, and we're glad we were able to work through those audio issues. 

* Move Under Ground on Amazon
* Move Under Ground on Bookshop

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Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

Sometimes a book comes along that is both so unlike anything that came before it, but also so vital & perfectly voiced that once reading it, it's impossible to imagine a world where that book hasn't always existed. Nino Cipri's novella Finna (bookshop or ebook) is one such book. 

It's a story about life under late capitalism, about that eerie feeling you get whenever you get lost in one of those large Swedish furniture stores, about navigating awkward post-breakup feelings, and about labor. 

Bee interviews Nino about the book, their writing process, and labor organizing. It's a wonderful conversation, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have.

* Nino's twitter: https://twitter.com/ninocipri

* Nino's newsletter, Cool Story, Bro

* And their website: https://ninocipri.com 

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Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

For our fourth Digital Book Tour episode, Adrian is joined by Serje Jones, whose new book The Fortress (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781645660026) has been published by our friends at Erewhon books

Serje & Adrian discuss restorative justice, writing trans-inclusive feminist science fiction, and feeling emotions in the body instead of in the mind. She also performs two readings from the book. 

As a personal asside, I think this is the best novel I've read so far this year, and I really hope folks enjoy this episode & pick up the book. It's a startling, difficult, and radical look at another possible world. 

Description from Erewhon:  

Jonathon Bridge has a corner office in a top-tier software firm, tailored suits, and an impeccable pedigree. He has a fascinating wife, Adalia; a child on the way; and a string of pretty young interns as lovers on the side. He’s a man who’s going places. His world is our world: the same chaos and sprawl, haves and have-nots, men and women, skyscrapers and billboards. But it also exists alongside a vast, self-sustaining city-state called The Fortress where the indigenous inhabitants—the Vaik, a society run and populated exclusively by women—live in isolation.

When Adalia discovers his indiscretions and the ugly sexual violence pervading his firm, she agrees to continue their fractured marriage only on the condition that Jonathan voluntarily offers himself to The Fortress as a supplicant and stay there for a year. Jonathon’s arrival at The Fortress begins with a recitation of the conditions of his stay: He is forbidden to ask questions, to raise his hand in anger, and to refuse sex.

Jonathon is utterly unprepared for what will happen to him over the course of the year—not only to his body, but to his mind and his heart. This absorbing, confronting, and moving novel asks questions about consent, power, love, and fulfillment. It asks what it takes for a man to change, and whether change is possible without a radical reversal of the conditions that seem normal.

Content notice: The Fortress contains references to objectification of and violence against women, pedophilia, sexual assault, submission, and toxic masculinity.  

 

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Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. (They didn't do this interview, but have several already recorded & others in the making.)

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Bee is joined by Melissa Caruso, author of the Sword & Fire trilogy, and the upcoming Obsidian Tower, available June 2nd. 

One woman will either save an entire continent or completely destroy it in a captivating epic fantasy bursting with intrigue and ambition, questioned loyalties, and broken magic.

Bee & Melissa discuss her new book, role playing & LARPing, writing buildings as characters, how the book's map was made, and as always Melissa offers a few short readings from the book. 

The Obsidian Tower is out June 2nd, and Melissa is on twitter at @melisscaru.

---

Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Bee is joined this time by Veronica Roth, bestselling author of the Divergent series, to discuss her new adult novel, Chosen Ones. Chosen Ones takes place after a group of people has saved the world from the Dark One.

After the Dark One fell, the world went back to normal . . . for everyone but them. After all, what do you do when you're the most famous people on Earth, your only education was in magical destruction, and your purpose in life is now fulfilled?

Veronica and Bee chat about researching sonar & MK Ultra, how to write characters with PTSD, and what their respective Animal Crossing islands are looking like. Veronica does a few short readings from the book, which includes found articles & textbooks from the world the character live in.

Chosen Ones is out now.

Links:

* Chosen Ones on ebook

* Chosen Ones hardcover at bookshop.org

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Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Welcome to our inaugural Digital Book Tour, featuring Laura Lam, author of Goldilocks. Five women steal a space ship to save a human race beset upon by climate change, even while society doesn't believe they should be able to work due to their gender.

Our host Bee interviews Laura about genre conventions, found family, what to do when your novel becomes unexpectedly relevant, and eating algae. Laura also does a few short readings from the upcoming book.

Goldilocks is available for pre-order now, and will be released on May 5th. 

Links:

* Goldilocks on bookshop.org 

* Laura's Instragram, featuring live events w/ Laura

* Laura's patreon, featuring writing about crafts, writing, & more

 

---

Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon.

As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. 

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop.

Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Happy New Year, Spectologists!

Late in 2019, Matt sat down with Chen Qiufan / Stanley Chan, the author of Waste Tide, to discuss the book, the process of translating & editing it for an American audience, the importance of prose in genre fiction, how science fiction & startup culture interact in China, some of his favorite upcoming authors, and much much more. 

The conversation took place in English, although the conversation took place while Stanley was calling from the Hong Kong airport between flights so the audio is a bit more rough than usual. However, the conversation they had should more than make up for that.

If you enjoy this interview, make sure to check out our episodes on Stanley's book (18.1 & 18.2), as well as our discussion of the mentioned Ning Ken essay on the Ultra Unreal. You can find many of Stanley's stories at Clarkesworld, and follow Clarkesworld generally for many other translated Chinese SF stories. 

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As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment.

And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends!

Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

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