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."
Now, it's easy to say this, and to say that your fiction is about emotional arcs and character moments. But it is also easy to attempt this and have it come off as forced, trite or cliché, particularly within genre fiction. But Daniel pulls it off every time with characters and arcs that feel right to me. This time around he talked a little bit more about how his upbringing played into the fiction, and it explains a lot.
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.
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
