Paolo Bacigalupi, author of the critically-acclaimed The Windup Girl (which was named one of Time Magazine‘s top ten novels of the year) joins us this week to talk about global warming, the horrors of travel, the current state of literature for boys, and his own forthcoming YA novel, Ship Breaker. John and Dave discuss their own experiences with literature when they were growing up, and how they became science fiction fans.
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Introduction
0:00 Introduction by Tor.com
00:38 Dave and John introduce the show
Dave and John discuss this week’s guest, Paolo Bacigalupi
01:00 About Paolo and his work
Interview with Paolo Bacigalupi
06:35 Interview with Paolo Bacigalupi
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6:55 How Paolo became a science fiction fan, beginning with Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy
08:09 Becoming a science fiction writer, and the advice William Gibson gave him on breaking in
09:17 The pitfalls of instant success, and emerging from a slump
11:05 Developing his writing skills
13:23 Other books and authors that influenced his writing, From Hemingway to Cormac McCarthy.
15:24 About The Windup Girl
17:38 Researching The Windup Girl: why Thailand, and how the SARS epidemic influenced the development of the story
21:26 Paolo on travel: “Almost all of my travel experiences are horrifying.”
22:49 On global warming, geo-engineering, and what we can do
25:54 Will Paolo’s YA novel Ship Breaker be the “sweetness and light” story that reviewers predicted he would never write? “What I thought was an upbeat adventure story other people seem to find fairly devastating anyway.”
27:11 Bringing up the next generation and reasons to write for young adults
28:28 Science fiction as a predictive medium and a vehicle for inspiring progress and change
29:54 Finding gateways to reading for boys, and which medium is filling the role of “boys’ narrative” today
33:08 Paolo gives advice to John about editing the new online magazine Lightspeed
35:20 Paolo talks about what’s out, and what’s next: Pump Six and Other Stories, The Windup Girl trade paperback release, release of Ship Breaker in May of 2010, the sequel, and the secret project he won’t tell us about (but if we’re lucky maybe he’ll return to the show to tell us soon?)
Dave and John on science fiction at home and in schools
36:17 Dave and John talk about their families’ reading choices and how they influenced them as science fiction readers.
38:19 Dave talks about science fiction as a social adhesive among fans, and how collections get passed down
40:21 Further discussion of boys’ literature and the guys’ experiences of reading science fiction and fantasy in school
44:11 The storytelling lesson of Narnia’s lamp post
46:16 An example of passion for fantasy literature changing a person’s life
47:53 Literature in schools, the present and future of education, and the role the internet may play
52:32 The importance of supporting a passion for genre literature in kids
54:22 John and Dave give their recommendations for kids: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld; the works of Tamora Pierce, Holly Black, and Timothy Zahn; Robert Asprin’s Myth Series; William Sleator’s Interstellar Pig, The Green Futures of Tycho, and Singularity
Other works mentioned in this podcast
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Empire of the Sun, by J. G. Ballard
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
The White Mountains by John Christopher
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Short Story: “The Fun They Had” by Isaac Asimov
Thanks for listening!
John Joseph Adams (www.johnjosephadams.com) is an anthologist, a writer, and a geek. He is the editor of the anthologies By Blood We Live, Federations, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), Seeds of Change, and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. He is currently assembling several other anthologies, including Brave New Worlds, The Living Dead 2, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, and The Way of the Wizard. He worked for more than eight years as an editor at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and is currently the fiction editor of Lightspeed Magazine, which launches in June 2010.
David Barr Kirtley (www.davidbarrkirtley.com) is a writer living in New York who has been called “one of the newest and freshest voices in sf.” His short fiction appears in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy and Weird Tales, and in anthologies such as The Living Dead, New Voices in Science Fiction, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition.
Show notes compiled by podtern Christie Yant. Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
