Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Deadspin superstar Drew Magary joins Justin to talk about his new novel, The Hike . Jumping into the conversation is Drew Magary superfan, Jared Shurin of Pornokitsch . The trio discuss the intersection of sports and literature, the television show Chopped , Donald Trump, and a smattering of other things. Drew Magary is a correspondent for GQ and a columnist for Deadspin . He is the author of the memoir Someone Could Get Hurt and the novels The Postmortal...
Aug 08, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Justin invites podcasting guru Alasdair Stuart, of PseudoPod fame to the show. They talk about fiction podcasting, surviving as an upcoming writer, the importance of networking, and other fun stuff. Alasdair Stuart is co-owner of the Escape Artists fiction content network, which includes PseudoPod, PodCastle, EscapePod, and Mothership Zeta. He’s also a freelance journalist and broadcaster and host of the Parsec award winning podcast, Pseudopod. His work h...
Jul 06, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Emo Kylo Ren pays Justin a visit this week, in the form of the woman behind it all—Alexanda Petri! Together they discuss Star Wars, Jeopardy, internet culture, politics, and Petri’s book, A Field Guide to Awkward Silences . Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist and blogger , an International Pun Champion, a playwright, and a Jeopardy! loser, and she’s been on your TV a couple of times. She is also a congressman’s kid, if that interests you. When ...
Jun 20, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! We’ve got an exciting episode this week as we’re joined by Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim dos Santos—the co-showrunners of the new Netflix show Voltron Legendary Defender ! Together we discusses the new show, what attracted them to work on it, and some of the choices they made in remaking an 80s’ icon. Season 1 is available now on Netflix ! Lauren Montgomery is a director, storyboard artist, and producer. She directed the Wonder Woman animated film, did st...
Jun 10, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! We’ve got some tremendous shows coming in the weeks ahead. So stay tuned! This week’s show features Rocket Talk regular, Amal El-Mohtar. She joins Justin Landon to talk about Hamilton , the musical cultural sensation. The pair discuss what makes the musical so great, how it’s impacting the discussion, and whether or not it qualifies as “genre”. Amal El-Mohtar is a Canadian author and blogger. She’s won several awards for her poetry and was nominated for t...
May 27, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! We apologize for a few weeks delay, but two recordings had to be discarded due to bad audio. Nevertheless, we return in fine fashion! This episode brings fantasy writing standout Myke Cole back to the show and welcomes BuzzFeed Books Editor, Isaac Fitzgerald for the first time. Isaac gives us the straight dope on BuzzFeed’s mission and breaks down their approach to content. Myke and Isaac then start a conversation about the intersection of genre fiction a...
Apr 01, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This episode brings ESPN baseball writer Keith Law to the show. Keith is a dedicated fiction reader, who is slowly working his way through all of the Hugo Award-winning novels. The pair discuss his work in baseball, his general love of fiction, what science fiction is all about, and other things here and there. Keith Law is a senior baseball writer with ESPN and ESPN, Scouts Inc . He was previously a writer at Baseball Prospectus and a front office execut...
Mar 07, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Charlie Jane Anders visits the show this week, talking about her new novel All the Birds in the Sky . The conversation covers her ideas about the intersection of literary and genre fiction, her fascination with time, and whether or not she’ll listen to Hamilton before seeing it live. The two also discuss Anders’ long running Writers With Drinks series in San Francisco, among other things. Charlie Jane Anders is an author and blogger, with hundreds of byli...
Feb 26, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week, Justin is joined by V.E. Schwab and Miriam Weinberg, the author and editor team behind A Darker Shade of Magic and its forthcoming sequel A Gathering of Shadows . They talk about their editorial relationship, Schwab’s path to publication, and the thoughts that went into creating the sensation that the series has become. V.E. Schwab is the author of YA novels The Near Witch , The Archived , and The Unbound . Schwab’s first adult novel, Vicious ,...
Feb 19, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week, Robert Jackson Bennett invites Justin to his favorite restaurant. They share a sumptuous meal together, with wine and fine conversation. Their waiter, Giuseppe, comes by the table from time to time. The conversation itself covers Robert’s intentions with his new novel, City of Blades , his use of third person present, and Donald Trump. Note : This episode is totally weird. The music is from Bensound, available here . Robert Jackson Bennett is t...
Feb 04, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Mur Lafferty pays Rocket Talk a visit this week to talk about her new magazine, Mothership Zeta . The pair discuss the editorial direction of the magazine, Lafferty’s forthcoming new novel Six Wakes , and what it’s like to be an editor in the field today. Note: This episode was recorded before episode 70 and thus lacks our new “review” segment. Mur Lafferty is the author of several novels including The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to N...
Jan 29, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! The podcast took some time off off to recharge the batteries, but we’re back and ready to go. This week, Justin is joined by Angry Robot author Megan O’Keefe, whose debut novel Steal the Sky was published earlier this month. The conversation covers her path to publication, Reddit, and soap making, among other things. Additionally, we’re starting a new segment on Rocket Talk in which Justin reviews a book or short story at the end of every episode. This we...
Jan 25, 2016
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode features fantasy and science fiction authors Kate Elliott and Emma Newman. Having read both of their most recent novels, Justin asks them about what it’s like to write aged characters and what kinds of resistance exists in society to hearing those stories. They also discuss the rarity of anxiety disorders in fiction. Kate Elliott is the author of twenty five novels including the recently released Court of Fives , Black Wolves , and The...
Nov 23, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode features Patrick S. Tomlinson, the author of The Ark from Angry Robot Books. The pair discuss the current status of Milwaukee as a cultural hot bed, the dearth of humor in science fiction and fantasy, and what Tomlinson was trying to accomplish in his new novel. Warning: mild sports talk. Patrick S. Tomlinson is a stand-up comedian and author. His debut novel, The Ark , is a locked room murder mystery where the locked room is a generat...
Nov 11, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Justin is visited by authors Matt Wallace and Kameron Hurley. The trio discuss the current status of Southern California, professional wrestling, reality television, and Playboy ‘s decision to nix nudity. They even manage to make it all relevant to genre publishing and their recent releases, Envy of Angels and Empire Ascendant , respectively. Matt Wallace is a novelist and screenwriter. He used to be a professional wrestler and combat instructor. His debu...
Nov 02, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Sam Sykes loves what he calls “formative fiction”. Join Justin and Sam as they discuss what formative fiction means to them, and why it played an important role in their reading life. Be warned: Dragonlance, Drizzt, and giggling abound. Sam Sykes is the author of the Bring Down Heaven series, which began with The City Stained Red and continues in January with The Mortal Tally —both published by Orbit. His previous series, The Aeon Gates Trilogy, is comple...
Oct 14, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Recently released from Tor, Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant has spawned a multitude of reactions across the genre community. Amal El-Mohtar and Kameron Hurley join Justin on Rocket Talk to discuss how this response reflects a larger conversation: how has social media and online book discussion impacted how we engage one another in dialogue about the things we love? It’s an honest and riveting conversation that doesn’t shy from controversial su...
Sep 30, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Fran Wilde, author of Updraft , joins the show this week. Of course, Justin asks her about feast scenes. They also talk about Nature magazine, her editorial process, and debut novel. There’s even a borderline engineering talk, in which Wilde confirms intellectual superiority over the host. Fran Wilde is an author and technology consultant. Her first novel, Updraft , was released by Tor on September 1— read an excerpt here ! Her short stories have appeared...
Sep 16, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode brings Bradley P. Beaulieu back to the show for his third appearance. Justin and Brad dig into what makes an epic fantasy a commercial success and how his new novel, Twelve Kings in Sharakai , might fit that model. The conversation then turns to Brad’s podcast, Speculate SF, and some new science fiction and fantasy titles of interest to both. Brad Beaulieu is the author of the Lays of Anuskaya Trilogy , and his short story collection L...
Sep 09, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode features first time science fiction and middle grade author, David Liss. Justin asks Liss about what led him to write middle grade science fiction after a decade of publishing historical fiction, before discussing the differences between children’s literature and adult fiction. Ultimately, the conversation concludes with what makes his new novel, Randoms , such a delight. David Liss is the author of many novels. His debut novel, A Cons...
Aug 26, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin’s originally scheduled guests got bumped due his daughter breaking her arm. Thankfully, the day is saved by a last minute guest, Ken of the genre blog Neth Space. Justin conducts a short interview with Ken about his long standing blog and the state of the blogging world, before the pair jump into answering questions submitted via Twitter. Ken is the blogger in residence at the well known genre blog, Neth Space . He l...
Aug 12, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin is visited by regular guest, Sam Sykes and first time guest, Tiffany Reisz. The trio discuss sex scenes, including a live reading of one of Joe Abercrombie’s sexual liaisons in his novel, Best Served Cold . Their conversation moves on to discuss why sex scenes can be rejected in some types of fiction and embraced in others. Note: This episode of Rocket Talk contains explicit language. Sam Sykes is the author of the B...
Aug 05, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin is graced with the presence of the exceptional Diana Rowland and Kameron Hurley. The trio jump into a discussion about the intersectional challenges of the modern workplace, with an emphasis on how it impacts publishing. Diana Rowland is the author of the Kara Gillian Series and White Trash Zombie Series. The former continued recently with Vengeance of the Demon . The latter continues later this year with White Trash...
Jul 27, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin is joined by Robert Brockway, the author of the just released new novel The Unnoticeables . The discussion covers who Robert is personally, delving deep into the naming convention of his dogs, to how his novel is oddly enmeshed with Saved by the Bell . Robert Brockway is a Senior Editor and columnist for Cracked.com. He is the author of The Unnoticeables (available now from Tor Books— read an excerpt here! ), the cyb...
Jul 08, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin invites military science fiction authors Linda Nagata and Marko Kloos to the show. The conversation talks about their shared, non-traditional roads to publication, military science fiction as a genre, and some of the mysteries of fiction writing. Linda Nagata is a science fiction writer, living in Hawaii. After being traditionally published in the early 2000s, she took a hiatus from writing before returning in 2010 a...
Jun 10, 2015
This week’s episode is all about reader response. Justin is joined by podcaster Jonah Sutton-Morse and blogger Mieneke van der Salm to discuss The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Mieneke van der Salm in the blogger in residence at A Fantastical Librarian . By day she’s a university librarian in the Netherlands and a mother of two. In 2014 she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in the Non-Professional category. You find her on Twitter @Palleke...
Jun 03, 2015
Welcome back to the Rocket Talk Podcast! This week, Justin invites blogger and author Aidan Moher on to discuss his new self-published book, Tide of Shadows and Other Stories . The two discuss the state of self-publishing and why Moher chose that route. Afterward, they have a frank discussion about the state of blogging and a few books coming out later this year. Aidan Moher is the 2014 Hugo Award winning blogger in residence at A Dribble of Ink . His first book, Tide of Shadows and Other Storie...
May 29, 2015
Welcome back to Rocket Talk! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin invites fellow blogger Amal El-Mohtar to talk about what makes Naomi Novik’s newest novel, Uprooted , so wonderful. Fair warning, mild spoilers ahead! Namoi Novik’s Uprooted is available now in both the US ( Del Rey ) and UK ( Tor Books UK ) markets, and you can read an excerpt here on Tor.com. Amal El-Mohtar is the Nebula-nominated author of The Honey Month , a collection of short fiction and poetry written to the taste of 28 d...
May 21, 2015
In this week’s podcast episode, Justin talks with Renee Williams and Shaun Duke, editors of Speculative Fiction 2014 . Available now from Book Smugglers Publishing, SpecFic ’14 is a survey of the years best online reviews, essays, and commentary. The conversation covers the contents of the anthology, the year’s themes, and the mechanics of identifying what makes a piece of non-fiction “the best.” Renee is a blogger at Lady Business and Strange Horizons , a staff member at Archive of Our Own, and...
May 06, 2015
In this week’s podcast episode, Justin talks with Andrea Phillips about her new novel, Revision . They discuss how technology has changed the way we perceive reality, and how that same technology is impacting our fiction. Andrea Phillips is a transmedia game designer and writer. She published A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling in 2012, and in 2013 successfully funded a project on Kickstarter called The Daring Adventures of Captain Lucy Smokeheart . Her newest story telling endeavor is ...
Apr 29, 2015
