Two Chairs Talking

Episode 42: Life, the Universe and Everything

Perry and David discuss the fine art of tsundoku and then fire up the Hugo Time Machine yet again to return to the year of 1965, when Fritz Leiber's "The Wanderer" won Best Novel Hugo.
Tsundoku (01:42)
Hugo Time Machine~1965 (01:01:38)
The Whole Man by John Brunner (07:26)
Davy by Edgar Pangborn (08:47)
The Planet Buyer by Cordwainer Smith (11:57)
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber (07:40)
Other possible nominees (02:52)
Short Fiction (00:58)
Little Dog Gone by Robert F. Young (05:04)
Always a Cop by Rick Raphael (04:59)
Soldier, Ask Not by Gordon R. Dickson (05:47)
Other possible nominees (03:54)
Taking a break (02:09)
Wind-up (01:04)
 
Photo from Pxhere.com.

Episode 41: A series of perfect murders

David and Perry return to their love of crime, and discuss both newly released titles in the genre and some old classics.
The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan (10:08)
The Survivors by Jane Harper (08:40)
A Legacy of Spies by John Le Carre (08:28)
The Searcher by Tana French (15:05)
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith (04:39)
Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson (05:38)
Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic (01:55)
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (02:16)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami (07:23)
Windup (02:57)
Image from PXhere.com

Episode 40: Lost in the labyrinth of words

Perry and David discuss their recent reading, ranging over a wide range of genres.
Coronavirus state of play (02:53)
Internet Archive looking for donations (01:43)
World Fantasy Awards (02:04)
Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender (00:57)
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (00:23)
Read After Burning by Maria Dahvana Headley (00:33)
Crime Writers Association Awards (03:02)
Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham (02:38)
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (18:00)
Interview with Susanna Clarke in The Guardian (00:13)
Interview with Susanna Clarke in the Hindustani Times (02:24)
Heatwave in Berlin by Dymphna Cusack (06:38)
The Silence by Susan Allott (08:36)
A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinkster (07:36)
The Mother Fault by Kate Mildenhall (04:22)
Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James (06:11)
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang (07:25)
Wind-up (01:36)
Photo from PxHere

Episode 39: Completely zoned out

David and Perry visit the Eastern Block and discuss novels by Stanisław Lem and the Strugatsky brothers, and the films based on two of their books.
Ebooks or paper books? (05:02)
Going East (00:30)
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (20:00)
Solaris (movie) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (12:20)
Solaris (movie) directed by Steven Soderberg (14:15)
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (11:48)
Stalker (movie) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (26:11)
Windup (00:43)
Image: still from Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. Used here for purposes of review, fair use copyright exemption.

Episode 38: Big, bigger, biggest, bigly!

Perry and David have fun talking about BIG objects in science fiction, from flying cities to spheres totally enclosing stars.
Megastructures (06:36)
Cities in Flight by James Blish (06:05)
Feersum Endjinn by Ian M. Banks (04:32)
Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke (00:39)
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (00:23)
The Web Between the Worlds by Charles Sheffield (03:28)
Eon by Greg Bear (06:14)
Marrow by Robert Reed (09:17)
Pellucidar Series by Edgar Rice Burroughs (07:10)
Dyson Spheres (01:50)
Tabby Boyajian's Star (01:14)
Star Classifications (01:36)
Orbitsville by Bob Shaw (05:47)
Other big objects in SF (10:19)
Riverworld Series by Phillip Jose Farmer (02:15)
Bowl of Heaven by Larry Niven and Greg Benford (01:32)
Fleet of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (02:11)
Culture Series by Ian M. Banks (04:10)
Windup (01:21)
Photo by sergio souza from Pexels

Episode 37: One Hundred Years of Cyberitude

David and Perry discuss the centenary of the coining of the word ‘robot’, the winner of the 2020 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and take the Hugo Time Machine whizzing back to the year 1964.
R. U. R. by Karel Čapek (03:44)
Arthur C. Clarke Award (03:09)
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell (02:28)
Hugo Time Machine~1964 (01:17:03)
Glory Road by Robert Heinlein (02:59)
Witch World by Andre Norton (06:35)
Dune World by Frank Herbert (11:25)
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (08:09)
Way Station by Clifford Simak (12:11)
Voting results - Novels 1964 (02:06)
Other possible novel nominees for 1964 (01:17)
1964 Short Fiction (00:24)
Code Three by Rick Raphael (03:43)
Savage Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs (04:40)
A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny (07:49)
No Truce With Kings by Poul Anderson (05:26)
Voting results - Short Fiction 1964 (01:28)
Other possible short fiction nominees 1964 (01:43)
Internet Archive, SF Database, etc. (02:29)
Other Hugo Awards in 1964 (02:23)
Wind-up (01:08)
Photo of toy robot by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

Episode 36: Marrying the genre next door

Perry and David talk about novels which blur the boundaries between genres: literary novels with strong elements of fantasy or science fiction. We can call them "genre adjacent" fiction.
Children of Men by P. D. James (00:23)
Never Let Me Go and The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (00:52)
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (04:34)
A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer (08:28)
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (07:36)
The Animals in that Country by Laura Jean McKay (08:27)
The Second Cure by Margaret Morgan (00:57)
Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson (10:19)
The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott (08:43)
What the Wind Brings by Matthew Hughes (12:43)
Interview with Matthew Hughes (21:09)
What the Wind Brings (11:29)
Vance Space novel (07:58)
A God in Chains (01:12)
Windup (01:44)
Photo by Emma Bauso from Pexels

Episode 35: The gifted grotesqueries of Terry Gilliam

David and Perry farewell John Bangsund, a stalwart of the Australian science fiction community; and look at three movies directed by Terry Gilliam: Time Bandits, Brazil and 12 Monkeys.
Vale John Bangsund (09:12)
Terry Gilliam (41:07)
Time Bandits (11:26)
Brazil (14:36)
12 Monkeys (09:26)
La Jetée (04:24)
Windup/Next Episode (02:00)
Image: Jonathan Pryce in the movie Brazil. Photo reproduced here for purposes of review (fair use copyright exemption).

Episode 34: Location, location, location

Perry and David return to a life of crime! Well, reading about crime, anyway. They discuss:
Under the lockdown (01:41)
Corrections (06:10)
Kim Huett's articles on the history of the Hugo Awards.
What we've been reading (01:14)
The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey (06:48)
The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey (00:25)
The View from Chickweed's Window by Jack Vance (06:05)
Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay (08:14)
An Isolated Incident by Emily Maguire (05:52)
The Ruin and The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan (13:29)
Where the Dead Go by Sarah Bailey (06:54)
Raven Black by Anne Cleeves (07:15)
Truth by Peter Temple (08:35)
Wind-up (00:16)
Plans for next episodes (00:55)
Photo of Shetland by Neil Roger on Flickr

Episode 33: Translations, transforms and traumas

David and Perry discuss the ConNZealand convention and the 2020 Hugo Awards and then take the Hugo Time Machine back to the interesting year of 1963.
A state of disaster (01:42)
ConNZealand 2020 (12:55)
2020 Hugo Awards (10:20)
Hugo Time Machine~1963 (01:15)
Novels Hugos 1963 (36:27)
Sword of Aldones by Marion Zimmer Bradley (07:39)
Sylva by Vercours (07:54)
Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper (06:28)
Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (01:59)
A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke (07:57)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (02:42)
Other possible novel nominees Hugos 1963 (01:42)
Short Fiction Hugos 1963 (29:40)
Myrrha by Gary Jenkins (04:42)
Where is the Bird of Fire by Thomas Burnett Swann (03:32)
When You Care, When You Love by Theodore Sturgeon (07:39)
The Unholy Grail by Fritz Leiber (02:00)
The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance (08:08)
Other possible short fiction nominees Hugos 1963 (01:14)
Other 1963 Hugos (02:19)
Wind-up (00:48)
Photo of fox by Alex Andrews and photo of woman by Caio from Pexels.