In episode 189 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with Author David Annandale.

About David:

David Annandale writes fiction in a variety of genres: SF/Fantasy, horror, thrillers. He writes non-fiction about film and video games, teaches courses on film, games, literature and creative writing.

Links:

• David Annandale (website)
• David on Twitter
• The Black Library

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In episode 188 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with Hugo Award winning Editor, Author and Podcaster, Lynne M. Thomas.

About Lynne:

Two-time Hugo Award winner Lynne M. Thomas is the Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL, where she is responsible for popular culture special collections that include the literary papers of over 60 SF/F authors. She is perhaps best known as the co-editor of the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords (2010) with Tara O’Shea, Whedonistas (2011) with Deborah Stanish, and the Hugo Award-nominated Chicks Dig Comics (2012) with Sigrid Ellis , all published by Mad Norwegian Press. Along with the Geek Girl Chronicles book series, Lynne is the Editor-in-Chief of the Hugo Award-nominated (2012 & 2013) Apex Magazine, an online professional prose and poetry magazine of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mash-ups of all three. She moderates the Hugo Award-winning SF Squeecast, a monthly podcast (with Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, and Catherynne M. Valente) in which a group of SF/F professionals get excited about stuff they like, and contributes to the Verity! Podcast, where a bunch of smart women talk about Doctor Who.

Lynne lives in DeKalb with her husband Michael (a writer and editor), their daughter Caitlin, and a cat named Marie.

Links:

• Lynne M. Thomas (website)
• APEX Magazine (website)
• Lynne on Twitter
• SF Squeecast

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In episode 187 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with APEX Editor/Publisher Jason Sizemore.

About Jason:

Since 2004, Jason Sizemore has followed his passion through Apex Publications, a nationally distributed publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror books. He started with just a small print zine (Apex Digest), then a pro-level online zine (Apex Magazine–still going strong), then books, and then ebooks. He edits anthologies, mostly for Apex, occasionally does copy editing (when pressed) and have done plenty of acquisition editing over the years. He also writes.

Links:

• Jason Sizemore (website)
• APEX Book Company (website)
• APEX Magazine (website)
• Jason on Twitter

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In episode 186 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Douglas Warrick.

About Douglas:

He’s Doug. When he publish things, he’s Douglas F. Warrick. When he works in South Korea, he’s Teacher Doh-gah-las. When he’s speaking to people who have never spoken to him before, he’s frequently (and lamentably) Mr. Warwick. He’s a writer of short stories, an enthusiastic gamer, an archaeologist of gloriously bizarre cinema, an armchair scientist, a graphic design hobbyist, an accidental world-traveler, a reluctant occasional punk-rocker, and an unapologetic neurotic.

Links:

• Douglas F. Warrick (website)
• Douglas on Twitter
• Plow the Bones

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In episode 185 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester assembles a panel to discuss how they came to be fans of speculative fiction.

Topic: Why you became a fan of speculative fiction.

What was the defining moment for you? What sparked that passion for you? Do you still feel it as strongly today? What keeps the passion going?

Listeners: tell us your answers in the comments!

This week’s panel:

• Jeff Patterson
• Derek Johnson
• Regan Wolfrom
• Justin Landon
• Patrick Hester

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In episode 183 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author David Brin.

About David:

David Brin is a scientist, best-selling author and tech-futurist. His novels include Earth, The Postman (filmed in 1997) and Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. A leading commentator and speaker on modern trends, his nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin’s newest novel EXISTENCE explores the ultimate question: billions of planets are ripe for life. So where is Everybody? David’s main thread: how will we shape the days and years ahead — and how will tomorrow shape us?

Links:

• David Brin (website)
• David on Twitter

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In episode 183 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Piper Maitland.

About Piper:

Piper Maitland lives on a Tennessee farm with her family. She is the author of the paramormal romance, Acquainted With the Night (Berkley/November 2011). The sequel, Hunting Daylight, was published in February by Berkley/Penguin USA. Piper has also written novels under the name Michael Lee West.

Links:

• Piper Maitland (website)
• Piper on Twitter

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In episode 180 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Emma Newman about Worldcon, her new book Between Two Thorns, a slew of short stories and an ingenious bit of marketing.

About Emma:

Writer, anxiety wrangler, tea drinker. Author of the ‘Split Worlds’ series coming soon from Angry Robot Books. Yay!

Links:

• Emma Newman (website)
• Emma on Twitter
• Short Story: Overdue by Emma Newman

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In episode 179 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester assembles a panel to discuss something that came up in a recent critique group meeting.

A month ago, I attended a critique group meeting. One of the submissions was a scifi piece that elicited a 25 minute debate on how kinetic energy and the concussive blasts from exploding rockets would ‘really’ impact a telekinetic sphere and whether or not people inside that telekinetic sphere would be turned to mush as a result.

Which caused me to quip, “This is why most of my stuff is fantasy. Tell the reader your characters traveled from the Earth to Mars in the blink of an eye and they will demand you give them every little detail of the science behind how your FTL works or else they won’t believe it. Or you can say, ‘the Wizard raised his hands, a fireball formed and he threw it at the enemy’ and the reader will go, ‘Cool!’ and accept it.”

(this got some laughs)

The gist was that a fantasy reader is more willing to accept the impossible versus the science fiction reader – because of the ‘science’.

I asked our panelists what they thing. Do science fiction readers expect more logic and for the science to ‘make sense’ versus the fantasy readers? Are fantasy readers more ready to accept magic over science fiction? Yes, magic in fantasy has to have rules and the author cannot break those rules, but are the rules less important in fantasy versus science fiction?

This week’s panel:

• Jeff Patterson
• Paul Weimer
• Jay Garmon
• Josh Vogt
• Jamie Todd Rubin
• Patrick Hester

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In episode 180 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author David Boop live from MileHiCon in Denver.

About David:

Dave says he’s a binge writer, which means he writes until he pukes, but is getting into healthier habits. In 1995, he was diagnosed with ADD which gives him medical reasons to hate the revision process, but is working through it thanks to word processors. He started writing in high school, but couldn’t handle typewriters, so he switched to writing commercials because they were shorter. His first paid fiction writing was three one-act gun fights he sold to a costume company he worked for. As “Bad Breath Bart,” he delighted children at a steakhouse family night right before getting shot (twice on Sunday.)

He wrote a web comic before web comics were in fashion. He created a knock off of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote called “Stoney and Utah” about a Gastonia Burgi and Utah Raptor. He also co-created a comic called “Fu Rock – Whoop Ass for Hire” with Eric Rangle. Eric went on to direct Dave’s first screenplay “The Gaunt Man” based on his short story, “Gaunt.” Film critic Reggie McDaniel gave it a great review. Dave’s fiction took off with a third place win in the Opus Imagico Writer’s Contest. Judged by NYT Bestselling Michael Stackpole (who would later blurb Dave’s first novel), Mike suggested Dave form a writer’s group with the other winners. He ran the group for three years, taking 2nd in another Opus contest. He would go on to be published in “Tales of the Talisman” magazine and “SF Trails,” amongst others. To date he has published over a dozen stories.

Hoping to move his writing further along, he went back to college. Dave has two degrees already; one in Broadcasting and Commercial Production from Madison Media Institute (formerly TransAmerican School of Broadcasting) and one in Electronics from Intellitec (formerly Technical Trades Institute). It’s apropos that a mystery writer would want to go in for the third degree, and so he has started. He spent three years part time at Arapahoe Community College studying English and plans to move on to another school this spring. His goal is an English Degree before age fifty.

Links:

• David Boop (website)
• David on Facebook

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In episode 179 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester and Jaym Gates gather a second group of panelists to talk about the past, present and future of Cyberpunk.

This week’s panel:

• James Patrick Kelly
• Ryan Macklin
• Paul Tremblay
• David Viars
• Jaym Gates
  • Underland Press’ Upcoming Cyberpunk Anthology
• Patrick Hester

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In episode 178 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Chuck Wendig.

About Chuck:

Chuck is the author of the published novels: Blackbirds, Mockingbird, Double Dead, Bait Dog, and Dinocalypse Now. He also the author of the soon-to-be-published novels: The Blue Blazes, The Cormorant, Heartland Books 1/2/3, Beyond Dinocalypse, Dinocalypse Forever, Harum Scarum, and Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits.

He, along with writing partner Lance Weiler, is an alum of the Sundance Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab (2010). Their short film, Pandemic, showed at the Sundance Film Festival 2011, and their feature film HiM is in development with producers Ted Hope and Anne Carey. Together they co-wrote the digital transmedia drama Collapsus, which was nominated for an International Digital Emmy and a Games 4 Change award.

Chuck has contributed over two million words to the game industry, and was the developer of the popular Hunter: The Vigil game line (White Wolf Game Studios / CCP). He was a frequent contributor to The Escapist, writing about games and pop culture.

Much of his writing advice has been collected in various writing- and storytelling-related e-books.

He currently lives in the forests of Pennsyltucky with wife, two dogs, and newborn son.

He is likely drunk and untrustworthy.

You may reach him at terribleminds [at] gmail [dot] com.

Links:

• Chuck Wendig (website)
• Chuck on Twitter

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In episode 177 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester and Jaym Gates gather panelists to talk about the past, present and future of Cyberpunk.

This week’s panel:

• Cat Rambo
• Jaym Gates
• David Jarvis (Gunmetal Games)
  • Interface Zero 2.0: Full Metal Cyberpunk Kickstarter
• Patrick Hester

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In episode 176 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester chats with author Mary Robinette Kowal.

About Mary:

Hugo-award winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal is a novelist and professional puppeteer. Her debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor 2010) was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel. In 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, while three of her short fiction works have been nominated for the Hugo Award: “Evil Robot Monkey” in 2009 and “For Want of a Nail” in 2011, which won the Hugo for short story that year. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies, as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean Press. Mary lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Sometimes she even writes on them.

Links:

• Mary Robinette Kowal (website)
• Mary on Twitter
• The Month of Letters Challenge
• Writing Excuses

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In episode 175 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester asks his motley crew of mis-fit panelists to discuss: Which conventions are you looking forward to this year?

This week’s panel:

• Gail Carriger
  • Gail’s New Book: Etiquette & Espionage
• Jaym Gates
• Carrie Cuinn
• Patrick Hester

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Let us know which cons you’re looking forward to in the comments below!