"There needs to be an explanation for that person."
—Geoffrey Dunn
Performing an interview live in the studio, while soliciting call-ins, is a very different environment from my usual style of conversation. For one thing, I have to operate a console and make sure that if we get phone calls, everyone is patched through and heard. But more importantly that console is between me and my guest so there can be a kind of barrier. But not if you've got a great guest with a great book and real questions to which you do not know the answers. It's tense though, you have to hit the ground running and never stop until you're through. Geoffrey Dunn made it easy.
Still, live radio is something of a sprint, since there are no chances to go back. But there was so much to cover in Dun's book that I knew we'd have to really skip lightly just to give readers a sense of what to expect. To be honest, I was hoping for some call-ins and I thought that Sarah Palin might be divisive enough to bring them in. Also, call-ins fill time. We did get some calls after the show and I['d like to thank those callers.
I must say that I feel lucky to have two such super-stars willing to join me. Rudy Rucker is one of the creators or founders of the cyberpunk movement. I remember reading the paperback editions of the Wares novels shortly after my arrival here and my re-introduction to science fiction. I really had to wonder what else I'd been missing.
Kim Stanley Robinson entered my reading world before I fell off the wagon, as his Three Californias trilogy was set in Orange County. If, as William Gibson suggested, the future has arrived but it is not evenly distributed, then I'd have to say a bigger chunk of that future has been dumped into OC, for both good and ill. Not surprising then that Robinson picked up on that.
I've spoken with Rucker many times, both at SF and for an NPR report I did on the suit against the LHC, files to help prevent the end of the world. Stan has also contributed to my NPR work, in a piece I did on the discussion that was going in within the science fiction genre about what we now call "Global Climate Change."
This coming Saturday, we'll be talking about their new books; Rudy's is 'Jim and the Flims,' set in Santa Cruz and "the Flimsy," a netherworld next door that might be the afterlife, but in Rudy's hands is considerably stranger than the average afterlife. Stan's newest novel is 'Galileo's Dream,' a delightful comic look at Galileo and his life; both the one we know about, and the other one, that involved time travel. Readers who'd like a preview can follow this link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation.
05-30-11:A 2011 Interview with Eugene Linden
Click image for audio link.
"While I was there, there was a very dramatic meeting."
—Eugene Linden
You can imagine that Eugene Linden might be the guy to find himself amidst a "very dramatic meeting," simply because he is so even-keeled. As I sat down to talk to him at KUSP, the clouds scudded overhead in the skylight, changing the color of the light in the room. It was eerie, and the right kind of eerie for a conversation with Linden.
It was interesting to speak with this talented writer not just about the subject of the book, and his many intriguing journeys, but as well about the creation of such a book. It's one he has been working on for many years. This shows in the craft of the prose and the construction of the book. Linden has been writing for magazines for long enough to know the virtues of brevity.
We also talked about many of the specifics in the book. One expects places like Vietnam and Africa to show up in such a book. One does not expect Cuba, or his experiences with healers and shamans. It is one thing to be open to physical exploration of the frontier. But Linden also takes himself to psychological frontiers as well, and manages to write about everything with the eye of a scientific artist.
05-16-12: Commentary : Mark Sundeen Pays Out 'The Man Who Quit Money' : Over the Edges
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Mark Sundeen and Daniel Suelo : "What would happen if we actually practiced this stuff?"-Daniel Suelo
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
