Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
I guess I'm working on the fire sale model of my post from earlier, with lots of stuff going out fast and furious. The SF in SF presentation from February 11 of this year was unusual, in that there were three readers; Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake. I have already podcast the reading portion of the show, which my readers and listeners can find here. I have divvied up the reading for your convenience, and you can find all the permutations at the link.
This multi-podcast will not catch me up, exactly, but I do have a lot of material to go around. I had a grand time talking with all the participants in one-on-one interviews that last in the vicinity of ten minutes, or until the presenters of the show start hovering and making that throat-slicing gesture, which I generously interpret to mean, "Time to Stop."
I always have great discussions with Rudy Rucker, and I am looking forward to another very soon. This time around we talked mostly about his autobiography, 'Nested Scrolls.'
I had never met K. W. Jeter, and really enjoyed doing so. As one of the group who hung out with Philip K. Dick, Tim Powers, James Blaylock and Dean R. Koontz back in Santa Ana in the (80's?), he's a legend even without having invented the term steampunk.
And Jay Lake is always a joy to speak to. He's a man who has mastered the art of taking every sub-genre of the literature of the fantastic and turning it into literature of the "litrachur" variety as well. It's a neat trick.
04-24-12 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 41 Richard Zacks 'Island of Vice' and Gregg Jones, 'Honor in the Dust'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the forty-first 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.
"...good candidates for being thoughts from God..."
— Tanya Luhrman
Tanya (T. M.) Luhrman is waiting for me at KQED when I arrive to speak to her. It's her second time here (the first was for "Fresh Air"), and she knows the routine. I must admit that I was still getting over how good 'When God Talks Back' was. It was definitely not what I might have expected it to be before I read the introduction. But even then, Luhrman goes much farther into that supernatural than I had dared to hope.
To my mind, 'When God Talks Back' is the quintessential Fortean work of the 21st century, and very scientific book that clearly looks at the supernatural in a manner that allows for, indeed accepts the existence of things unknown, and looks to quantify and qualify those things as best as can be done by looking at how humans behave.
Talking to Luhrman, you quickly see how her combination of extreme intelligence combined with an engaging empathy made her the ideal person to study the supernatural as experienced by American Evangelical Christians. Again, I find myself admitting that I had never considered that American Evangelical Christians would experience "the supernatural." In person Luhrman makes all this seem very natural; a talent that itself may be considered something more.
I'll be speaking with Tanya Luhrman again, live at the Capitola Book Café on May 5, at 6:30 PM, and I have invited and hope to have some member of the local Vineyard Congregation in attendance. But in the interim you can hear our all-too-brief conversation at KQED by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
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
