{"id":28943,"date":"2022-09-09T09:03:29","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T13:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=28943"},"modified":"2022-09-09T09:03:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T13:03:29","slug":"max-gladstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2022\/09\/09\/max-gladstone\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Max Gladstone for a Mexican meal in Episode 180 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m just back from the 80th World Science Fiction Convention — and I suppose I should point out it wasn’t my<\/em> 80th Worldcon. Though I\u2019ve been attending cons since I was 15, I\u2019m not that old. Chicon 8 was merely — merely!<\/em> — my 36th. <\/p>\n

And I’ve brought back conversations for you with Wesley Chu, Carol Tilley, Eileen Gunn, Michael Swanwick, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Tim Waggoner. But what I haven’t brought back — at least as of this morning — is a case of COVID-19. Which as far as I’m concerned is a miracle, considering my anxiety levels going into the con.<\/p>\n

But before we get to any of those six conversations, I’d like you have lunch with Max Gladstone<\/a>. Max is perhaps best-known for his Craft Sequence\u00a0of fantasy novels which began in 2012 with\u00a0Three Parts Dead<\/em>, continued in 2013 with\u00a0Two Serpents Rise<\/em>, and so far consists of six volumes, which considered as a whole were nominated for a Best Series Hugo Award.\u00a0His interactive projects include the Choice of the Deathless<\/em> and Deathless: The\u00a0City\u2019s Thirst<\/em>, which both take place in the world of the Craft Sequence. With previous guest of the podcast Amal El-Mohtar<\/a>, he wrote the\u00a0internationally bestselling\u00a0This is How You Lose the Time War<\/em>, which was published in 2020 and won the Hugo, Nebula, and Ignyte Awards. Gladstone also created the Serial Box series\u00a0Bookburners<\/em>, and the interactive television series\u00a0Wizard School Dropout<\/em>. His most recent novel, Last Exit<\/em>, was published in March.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We discussed what a Godzilla movie has to tell us about the way future art will likely deal with the pandemic, our differing ideas over what we mean when we say we’ve written another draft of a story, how we’d be willing to dispense with the art inspired by tragedy if we could only skip the tragedy as well, the differences between his early and final drafts of Last Exit<\/em>, how to make us care equally when writing from multiple points of view (and how doing so could cause the reader to trust the writer even more), what it is about science fiction that attracts dystopias, how our dreams have changed due to COVID-19, what we get wrong when we write about civilizations lasting thousands of years, and much more.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how you can join us — <\/p>\n

1) Subscribe at Apple Podcasts<\/a> — where I hope you’ll be tempted to sample a few of the 179 previous episodes.<\/p>\n

2) Listen via the RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a> on the device of your choice.<\/p>\n

3) Or simply use the embed below.<\/p>\n