Blake Charlton, author of Spellwright, joins us to talk about fantasy, dyslexia, and medical school. Dave and John discuss magic and medicine in fiction.
Introduction
00:00 Introduction by Tor.com
0:42 Dave and John introduce the show
Interview: Blake Charlton, author of Spellwright
01:35 Interview begins
01:47 Growing up dyslexic, and how SFF saved his education
05:53 On discovering writing while at Yale, a.k.a “Hogwart’s with more beer.”
08:17 About Blake’s debut novel Spellwright
10:10 How the idea for Spellwright emerged from a rivalry in Biochemistry
14:08 The language of Blake’s magic: constructs, textual extensions, and subtexts
16:57 Podcasts and audio books as legitimate forms of ‘reading’
18:18 The journey from medicine to noveling and back again
23:04 How medical school has influenced his writing, including his short story “Endosymbiont” (which you can find in John’s Seeds of Change anthology)
23:44 No, it’s not a pseudonym
26:04 On asking a stranger who fouled him on the court exactly who he thinks he is and being told “Tad Williams”
28:42 Blake’s other literary influences
29:33 End of interview
Dave and John completely geek out on the rules of magic and medical thrillers
29:43 Text-based games as learning tools
35:41 The Great Debate: should magic follow rules?
45:01 Dave poses a question that those burning Harry Potter books really should ask themselves
46:37 Interesting portrayals of magic in fiction: Illusion by Paula Volsky; Robert Asprin’s Myth series; Star Wars; The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny; Jeremiah Tolbert’s short story “Captain Blood’s B00ty“; The Magicians by Lev Grossman
56:27 Medicine in science fiction and medical thrillers: Chromosome 6 by Robin Cook; The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer; the Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell; James White’s The Sector General series; S.L. Viehl’s Stardoc series
01:00:18 The problem of the ‘big twist’ in mystery and science fiction: Jack McDevitt’s Omega series
01:02:26 Storytelling as a tribal social endeavor vs. a solitary pursuit, and why you should get out to readings more!
01:06:40 Show wrap-up: have you posted a comment on Tor.com yet? Tell us what you think!
Next week: Carrie Vaughn, author of the best-selling Kitty Norville series
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 Scientistís 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.
