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Ali Baker and a guest discuss children's fantasy fiction. The guest chooses a favourite for Ali, and Ali chooses a complementing contemporary book. Jokes and the occasional swear word may ensue. Please contact fantasybookswap@gmail.com, @fantasyswap on Twitter or https://www.facebook.com/Fantasybookswap. Ask questions, make comments and join in the discussion!
Episodes
Friday Aug 12, 2022
Ep 27: The Anti-Reepicheep League with Ang Rosin
Friday Aug 12, 2022
Friday Aug 12, 2022
The Anti-Reepicheep League shownotes
Ang’s choice: Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
Ali’s choice: The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
How I imagine Sardines doing his dance
The Secret of NIMH is very weird
The Trailer for the upcoming animated film of Amazing Maurice
Follow Ang on Twitter @ang_grrr
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I know people reviewed on other platforms and I really appreciate it. If you can’t review on your platform, please do share! It all helps.
Find the BSFA discord here: (play nicely)
Thanks as always to Steve Vapour-Trails for production support.
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Ep 26: Fairies and witches and toads, oh my!
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Friday Jul 29, 2022
Show notes ep 26
Fairies and witches and toads, oh my!
Kit’s choice: The Stream that Stood Still by Beverley Nichols (who is a man! And he had quite the life).
Ali’s choice: Otherland by Louie Stowell. Louie’s very funny The Dragon in the Library was one of the books discussed in Episode 1, with Helena McCallum
Kit’s book, In the Heart of Hidden Things, can be bought as a hardback or ePub. Kindle edition here and audiobook via Audible here. You can see Jenna Barton’s artwork here.
Other books with terrifying fairy folk: Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men, discussed with Fran Dowd in episode 6, and Peadar O’Guillin’s The Call and The Invasion. Be warned: these are brilliant books, but very much YA. There’s a lot of body horror involved. I talked about them at Dublin WorldCon and you can read my paper here.
You can follow Kit on Twitter here and #askafairysmith here.
Thanks, as always, to Steve Vapour Trails for production assistance and Jack Sadler-Johnson for the use of his beautiful track Bliss.
Sunday Jul 03, 2022
Ep 25: Timeslips and dreams with Tony Keen
Sunday Jul 03, 2022
Sunday Jul 03, 2022
Apologies for the sound: it was incredibly hot in the kitchen in Hove so we recorded with the window open, so there is some traffic noise in the background.
Tony’s choice: Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Ali’s choice: The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman
Tony mentions the difference in portrayal of Roman slavery in Spartacus and Gladiator; can we only empathise if the protagonist is enslaved unjustly? More information on Spartacus here with links to information about screenwriter Dalton Trumbo who had been blacklisted after appearing before the House of Un-American Activities Committee.
Tony watched this adaptation of Tom’s Midnight Garden; Ali watched this one while at university. There was also a BBC radio dramatization which can be obtained via Audible.
Tony on Twitter: @tonykeen46 and his blog: Memorabilia Antonia.
Thanks as always to Steve Vapour Trails for production assistance and to Jack Sadler-Johnson for the use of his beautiful track, Bliss.
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Ep 24: Look into my eyes with Russell Smith
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Thursday Jun 16, 2022
Russell’s book: The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross
Ali’s book: Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
Catherine Butler wrote a paper about mind control in children’s literature and you can read it here
Russell and I talk about the new series of The Demon Headmaster. You can watch it on BBC iPlayer.
Information about the 1990s series can be found here
There is a second Amari book on the way.
I like the look of this and I saw this on Twitter
Follow Russell at @RASmithPSL, and his blog at https://projectshadowlondon.com/
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Ep 23 Sweet Polly Oliver goes Over The Hills: Sharpe and Monstrous Regiment
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Spoilers for Monstrous Regiment in this episode!
Please note that some women who went to war disguised as men lived as men for the rest of their lives (such as James Barry) while others returned to living as women after their service. Sergeant Jackrum may be considered the former; he may have considered himself a trans man, if such terms were available to him in Discworld.
Alistair’s choice: Sharpe’s Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
Ali’s choice: Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
During the discussion, Alistair and I talked about the representation of women by both novels: while there are no women viewpoint characters in Sharpe’s Eagle they are there. It’s incredible to me that women were so close to the front line in the peninsula wars, and in such a variety of roles. As I mentioned in the podcast, Phoebe Hessel’s gravestone is still (just about) legible in the graveyard of St Nicholas of Myrna, Brighton, which is just down the hill from where I live. You can find out more about the “Stepney Amazon” here.
See Alistair’s wonderful kickstarter for dyslexia-friendly books for adults, including Sharpe’s Skirmish by Bernard Cornwell!
Thank you Alistair! Follow Books on the Hill on Twitter: @Booksonthehill
Thanks as always to Steve Vapour Trails and Jack Sadler-Johnson
Tuesday May 10, 2022
Ep 22: I’m just a teenage necromancer, baby
Tuesday May 10, 2022
Tuesday May 10, 2022
I recorded this episode after having Covid, which affected my asthma. Apologies for the audible wheezing.
Scott’s choice: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
Ali’s choice: Sabriel by Garth Nix
Buy from your local bookseller, such as Bert’s Books in Swindon!
The awful adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea: Legend of Earthsea and a much better one: Tales from Earthsea
HP Lovecraft Band’s song Country Boy and Bleeker Street
Scott mentions the Caryl Churchill play Vinegar Tom
Tim Curry narrates the audiobook of Sabriel
Authors that Scott mentions reading to his son:
- Vashti Hardy
- G. Leonard
- Jakob Wegelius
We also talk about Chris Riddell’s Goth Girl discussed by my dad and me on episode 16, and L.D Lapinski’s Strangeworlds Travel Agency, discussed with Phil Dyson in episode 2. The final book in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency is now published- The Secrets of the Stormforest.
Find Scott on Twitter: @stumpyduck77 and on Instagram @doggerelg
Thursday Apr 21, 2022
Episode 21: Fantasy Book Swap Live!!! at Reclamation 2022, with Tasha Suri
Thursday Apr 21, 2022
Thursday Apr 21, 2022
Shownotes
Recorded at Reclamation 2022, the British Science Fiction and Fantasy Fan convention. Join us next year with Conversation 2023!
With guest Tasha Suri
Tasha’s pick: Alanna, The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
Ali’s pick: Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve
Follow Tasha on Twitter and Instagram
Many thanks to everyone who got up before 10:30am on Bank Holiday Monday to be at the recording! And thanks to you for listening.
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Deploy Emergency Podcast
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
Thursday Apr 07, 2022
A very short emergency podcast due to life, the pandemic and the general state of things that have disrupted my recording schedule. How rude.
This episode is inspired by Octothorpe’s episode 54, Embrace the Sweat, where in discussion about Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education Alison suggested that it was the first book to challenge the classism of the Harry Potter series. I disagree!
You can find out more about Jonathan Stroud here. I think he’s a fantastic author. The first of the Bartimaeus books is The Amulet of Samarkand . We meet Kitty Jones and the Resistance in The Golem’s Eye and the final novel of the original trilogy is Ptolemy’s Gate.
The next scheduled recording is live on Easter Monday at EasterCon, Reclamation 2022, with Tasha Suri as guest. We will be discussing Tamora Pierce’s Alanna: The First Adventure and Philip Reeve’s Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep. Please come along if you’re there, and send questions via @fantasyswap or fantasybookswap@gmail.com
Friday Mar 18, 2022
Ep 19: Fairytale retellings and socialist fantasy with Ali Williams
Friday Mar 18, 2022
Friday Mar 18, 2022
Please note that there is mention of transphobia in this episode.
Warning: there is mild swearing and a lot of cackling.
Ali Williams’s book: Beauty by Robin McKinley
Ali Baker’s book: Magyk by Angie Sage
Robin McKinley’s website here
Angie Sage’s website here
This is Laurie Pink, Angie Sage’s child, who is an artist: https://mobile.twitter.com/lauriepink
Ali Williams’s website: https://www.aliwilliams.org/ where you can find links to her lectures, Romancing the Discourse, her editing and writing. You can find the booklist for her paranormal romance lecture here.
You can follow Ali on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok @claficionado
Ali’s paranormal romance novel, Forged in Flames, is published later this year. You can see the gorgeous cover here
Thanks to Ali for being an emergency stand-in guest!
Sunday Mar 06, 2022
Sunday Mar 06, 2022
Aisha’s book: Is by Joan Aiken
Ali’s book: A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge
You can find out about all of Joan Aiken’s books here and follow her daughter, Lizza on Twitter.
Aisha mentions The Harp of Fishbones, The Kingdom under the Sea and A Necklace of Raindrops with Jan Pienkowski’s illustrations, such as these ones
You can hear LeVar Burton reading ‘Furry Night’ from The People in the Castle here
Frances Hardinge’s website, Facebook fan page and Twitter
Ali’s editions here and Aisha’s
Dr Aishwarya Subramanian’s staff profile on Strange Horizons. You can follow her on Twitter.
Strange Horizons Critical Friends podcast with Aisha, Maureen Kinkaid Speller and Dan Hartland discussing Science Fiction criticism.
The news from Ukraine is terrible. If you’re looking for a bookish charity to support, you might like to try PEN International, which supports authors. Those in Ukraine critical of Russian politics will be in particular need.