Interviews with Claude Lalumière and Dick Lupoff; Panel with Claude Lalumière and Dick Lupoff
Yes, I am late to the party but I'm bringing some great listening. On March 17, 2012, I was honored with the duty of moderating the panel discussion with Claude Lalumière and Dick Lupoff. You've heard the readings, now we get the interviews and the panel discussion with the two of them, three podcasts for the price of one.
If you are going to host a panel with two authors, it's not a bad idea to talk to them alone in advance. Claude and I talked about his process of myth making and his new book, a mosaic novel titled 'The Book of Lost Pages.' It's heady stuff, of the sort that is fun to talk about.
Dick Lupoff and I have been talking for years now, and this time was just as easy as any before, especially given the performance of his material. Lupoff is one of the old-school writers who can write in any genre, or rather in one genre — the Lupoff genre, characterized by whimsy, intelligence and imagination.
Put the two of them together, and toss in the SF in SF audience and you get a great discussion. As a moderator, I was in the enviable position of having to do less. You just make a tiny snowball, send it down the mountain and let the writers talk. It's a matter of staying out of the way.
06-26-12 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 50: Peter Carey, 'The Chemistry of Tears'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the fiftyth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
"We're not done with our civil rights movements, and I don't know that we ever will be."
— Daniel H. Wilson
I've been talking with Daniel H. Wilson for as long as he's been publishing books, and it's always a pleasure to speak with him. Here's link to our conversation about his book 'Where's My Jetpack?', and here's a link to our conversation about his book 'Robopocalypse'. This time around we spoke in his hotel room about his second novel, 'Amped.' He and I had talked about this novel, already in progress when we spoke about 'Robopocalypse.' To be honest, I wasn't sure if it would be as much to my taste as his first novel, but I'm happy to report that it is every bit as good. The reason is — and this comes out in the interview — is that, even though Daniel is a gadget guy, for him, the fiction is, and I quote, "not about the gadgets."
Of course, it's also fun to talk with Daniel about the tech, because it's clear he finds joy in all the gadgetry, and knows it well. 'Amped' finds him looking into something that I've been reading a lot about lately, that is, the nature of consciousness. In fact, lots of the material in Leonard Mlodinow's 'Subliminal' shows up here spun out for fiction. And for readers who wonder why I review so much non-fiction, here's why; there is lots of great material in non-fiction for those who want to write fiction. A book like 'Subliminal' has enough ideas to fuel a library's worth of SF novels.
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Mary Robinette Kowal Reads "Evil Robot Monkey" at SF in SF on April 20, 2013 : "...not that there's anything remotely Regency about evil robot monkeys..."
05-06-13: Commentary : Glennon Doyle Melton Suggests 'Carry On, Warrior' : Fighting for Life in the Too Much Information Age
05-04-13: Commentary : Reasons Not to Leave the House, Reality Check : The Truth Hurts Edition: 'Down the Up Escalator' by Barbara Garson, 'The Wolf and the Watchman' by Scott C. Johnson,'The Book of Woe' by Gary Greenberg, 'Confessions of a Sociopath' by M. E. Thomas
05-01-13: Commentary : Mario Guslandi Reviews An Emporium of Automata by DP Watt : "...from the bizarre to the grotesque, from the baroque to the uncanny..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : : Rick Klaw Reads at SF in SF on April 20, 2013 : "...those are the kind of people that don't get work anymore..."
04-29-13: Commentary : Ben Katchor Catalogues 'Hand Drying in America' : Subversive Cities of the Heart
04-27-13: Commentary : Mark Morris Introduces 'Toady' : A New World of Horror
Agony Column Podcast News Report : : Thomas Frank from The Easy Chair and Harper's Magazine: TV's DC Fantasies : "... basically, everyone is corrupt ..."
04-22-13: Commentary : Danielle Trussoni Maps 'Angelopolis' : The Afterlife of Angels
04-17-13: Commentary : How Not to Leave the House : Reach for the Recycling
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Matt Richtel, Sophie Littlefield and Terry Bisson at SF in SF on February 9, 2013 : "You cannot do this all day long." Sophie Littlefield
04-16-13: Commentary : Stephen Kessler 'Scratch Pegasus' : Lens of Language
04-08-13: Commentary : Ruth Ozeki Clocks 'A Tale for the Time Being' : Reading is the Future
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2013 Interview with Ruth Ozeki : "...through the act of writing, she would somehow conjure the reader into being..."
