Welcome to episode 10 of Season 12 of The Coode Street Podcast. This week Jonathan and Gary have a delightful conversation with Nghi Vo, whose The Empress of Salt and Fortune won this year’s Crawford Award and is a Hugo finalist, and whose debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful, a fantastical revisioning of The Great Gatsby with a queer, Asian Jordan Baker as narrator, is out this week.
We discuss the value of fanfic, the virtues and vacancies of Fitzgerald’s classic novel, the question of whether any narrators are ever reliable, and how Nghi managed to convey the sense of a full epic fantasy in The Empress of Salt and Fortune and then shift to a very different narrative mode in When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, the second novella in the “Singing Hills” cycle. We also get a preview of the forthcoming novel Siren Queen, with its intriguing exploration—again in fantastic terms—of the early Hollywood film industry as experienced by an Asian actress.
As always, our thanks to our guest, Nghi, for her time. We hope all of you enjoy the episode.
Episode 472: Ten Minutes with Kij Johnson
Episode 471: Ten Minutes with Alaya Dawn Johnson
Episode 470: Ten Minutes with Premee Mohamed
Episode 469: SF, 2020, and the Anxiety of Influence
Episode 468: Ten Minutes with Tad Williams
Episode 467: Ten Minutes with Stefen Brazulaitis and Tim Thomas
Episode 466: Ten Minutes with Ursula Vernon
Episode 465: Ten Minutes with Walter Jon Williams
Episode 464: Ten Minutes with Derek Künsken
Episode 463: Ten Minutes with Sam J. Miller
Episode 462: Ten Minutes with Catherynne M. Valente
Episode 461: Ten Minutes with G. Willow Wilson
Episode 460: Ten Minutes with F. Brett Cox
Episode 459 Ten Minutes with P. Djèlí Clark
Episode 458: Ten Minutes with Raymond E. Feist
Episode 457: Ten Minutes with Sean Williams
Episode 456: Ten Minutes with Isobelle Carmody
Episode 455: Almost Outta Gas, But We Can See The Golden Age...
Episode 454: Ten Minutes with Adam Roberts
Episode 453: Ten Minutes with Gregory Norman Bossert
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