Episode 332: Frankly, this one’s a grab bag

With our customary meticulous planning, we manage this week to veer from the topic of what causes you to bounce off a particular book—or to keep reading—to the Clarke Awards, which will be announced in a few weeks (Gary volunteered to be on the Shadow Jury this year), to the question of how mainstream writers handle science fiction or fantasy elements in their fiction, and then to the issue of why many excellent British or Australian writers have either failed to gain much traction in the U.S., or in some cases seem to have lost the traction they once enjoyed.  In other words, we had no idea where we were going until we got there.