New Books in Literature
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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1751
Brenda Cooper, “Edge of Dark” (Pyr, 2015)
This episode features author and futurist Brenda Cooper and is the second of my conversations with nominees for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Award. Cooper’s novel Edge of Dark (Pyr, 2015) is set in a solar system where human are forced to confront a civiliz...
24 min
1752
Tina Escaja, “Free Fall/Caida libre” (Fomite Pr...
Tina Escaja‘s, Free Fall/Caida libre, translated by Mark Eisner (Fomite Press, 2015), is an exceptional example of poetry in translation as artistic collaboration. Poetry exists outside of the margins, and this often creates an insurmountable task for ...
42 min
1753
Anjali Mitter Duva, “Faint Promise of Rain” (Sh...
In 1530, Babur the Tiger, the self-proclaimed ruler of Afghanistan, moved south and conquered the northwest section of what was then known as Hindustan. Babur, although accepted as padishah and emperor, never much cared for India,
57 min
1754
Douglas Lain, “After the Saucers Landed” (Night...
In today’s episode, I talk with Douglas Lain, one of six authors whose works were nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. Lain’s novel, After the Saucers Landed (Night Shade Books, 2015) is set in the early 1990s, when aliens,
31 min
1755
Joan Schweighardt, “The Last Wife of Attila the...
Long before Genghis Khan set off to conquer the known world, the pattern of steppe warriors attacking–and often defeating–settled empires was well established. Only a few names of those who led these effective but mostly short-lived campaigns have beco...
50 min
1756
David B. Coe, “His Father’s Eyes,” (Baen, 2015)
David B. Coe just finished a busy year in which he published three novels, two of which we discuss in this episode of New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy. His Father’s Eyes (Baen, 2015) is the second book (the first, Spell Blind,
28 min
1757
James Franco, “Directing Herbert White” (Grayw...
Every poet has their obsessions and for James Franco they are childhood, gender, sex, innocence, and the work place he knows best: the film industry. Within these poetic frames we’re introduced to various voices, landscapes nearly worn out with elegy,
85 min
1758
J. Robert Lennon, “See You In Paradise” (Graywo...
J. Robert Lennon is a novelist, actually–better known for his longer work (Mailman, Familiar, Happyland). His most recent book, though, collects his short stories from the past 15 years: See You In Paradise (Graywolf Press,
40 min
1759
Mary Meriam, Lillian Faderman, Amy Lowell, “Lad...
In Lady of the Moon (Headmistress Press, 2015), the reader is graced not only with the poetry of Amy Lowell, but with sonnets in response and a scholarly essay on the poet’s life, love, and work. Amy Lowell lived and wrote in a time when she could not ...
44 min
1760
Courtney J. Hall, “Some Rise by Sin” (Five Dire...
The reverberations of Henry VIII’s tumultuous reign continued to echo long after the monarch’s death. England teetered into Protestantism, then veered back into Catholicism before settling into an uneasy peace with the ascension of Elizabeth I.
42 min
1761
Anders Carlson-Wee, “Dynamite” (Bull City Press...
Dynamite (Bull City Press, 2015) is transit distilled. Anders Carlson-Wee‘s poems employ movement as mechanism and movement as reverence in a journey that most dream of making yet few ever do. On a cross-country train trip,
14 min
1762
Jane Lindskold, “Artemis Invaded” (Tor, 2015)
At a time when science fiction is more likely to portray ecosystems collapsing rather than flourishing, Jane Lindskold‘s Artemis series is an anomaly. Its eponymous planet is not an ecological disaster but rather full of so many wonders that it was onc...
34 min
1763
Ryan Ridge, “American Homes” (University of Mic...
Ryan Ridge‘s American Homes (University of Michigan Press, 2014) is at odds with category: it doesn’t really fit neatly, or even at all, into any preconceived notion of what prose fiction should read like, or effect in the reader.
23 min
1764
Melinda Snodgrass, “Edge of Dawn” (Tor, 2015)
What do the jobs of opera singer, lawyer and science fiction writer have in common? Answer: Melinda Snodgrass. The author of the just published Edge of Dawn‘s first ambition was to sing opera. But after studying opera in Vienna,
28 min
1765
Abeer Hoque, “The Lovers and Leavers” (Fourth E...
In her first novel, The Lovers and the Leavers (Fourth Estate, 2015), Abeer Hoque undertakes a literary challenge that I suspect even the most seasoned writer would find daunting: how do you tell the stories of those people, old and young,
41 min
1766
James L. Cambias, “Corsair” (Tor Books, 2015)
For his second novel, James L. Cambias chose one of the most challenging settings for a science fiction writer: the near future. Unlike speculative fiction that leaps centuries or millennia ahead or takes place on other planets,
39 min
1767
Peter Oberg, ed., “Waiting for the Machines to ...
There’s far more to Swedish literature than Pippi Longstocking and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s the message Anna Jakobsson Lund and Oskar Kallner are trying to send the English-speaking world through their contributions to Waiting for the Ma...
61 min
1768
Porochista Khakpour, “The Last Illusion” (Bloom...
Porochista Khakpour moved to an apartment with large picture windows in downtown Manhattan shortly before September 11, 2001, giving her a painfully perfect view of the terrorist attacks. “The big event of my life was of course 9/11,” Khakpour says.
31 min
1769
Mark Ehling, “River Dead of Minneapolis Scaveng...
If you’re a reader, then you know the joy of discovering books. You also know that some of those discoveries stand out. Yes, there’s the pleasure of finding a good book. And there’s even those rare occasions where you find the right book: the right boo...
53 min
1770
Ferrett Steinmetz, “Flex” (Angry Robot 2015)
Ferrett Steinmetz first built an audience as a blogger, penning provocative essays about “puns, politics and polyamory” (among other things) with titles like “Dear Daughter: I Hope You Have Awesome Sex” and “How Kids React To My Pretty Princess Nails.
34 min
1771
Meg Elison, “The Book of the Unnamed Midwife” (...
Despite the odds, Meg Elison did it. First, she finished the book she wanted to write. Second, she found a publisher–without an agent. Third, she won the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction,
23 min
1772
Ken Liu, “The Grace of Kings” (Saga Press, 2015)
Short story writing, novel writing, and translating require a variety of skills and strengths that are hardly ever found in a single person. Ken Liu is one of those rare individuals who has them all. He is perhaps best known for short stories like The ...
40 min
1773
Michael Gorra, “The Bells in Their Silence: Tra...
Despite being Germany’s most famous literary lion, in 1786 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had to jump on a mail coach incognito to begin his travels to Italy (of course, he asked permission first from his patron the duke Karl August).
55 min
1774
David Hull (trans.), Mao Dun, “Waverings” (Chin...
David Hull‘s new translation of Mao Dun’s Waverings (Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014)(Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014) is both a beautiful literary work and a boon for scholars and teachers working in the fi...
66 min
1775
Jennifer Marie Brissett, “Elysium, or the World...
Jennifer Marie Brissett‘s first novel, Elysium, or the World After (Aqueduct Press, 2014), portrays a fractured world, one whose seemingly irreversible destruction does nothing to dampen the survivors’ collective will to live.
36 min