Rocket Talk Podcast – Tor.com

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Deadspin superstar Drew Magary joins Justin to talk about his new novel, The Hike. Jumping into the conversation is Drew Magary superfan, Jared Shurin of Pornokitsch. The trio discuss the intersection of sports and literature, the television show Chopped, Donald Trump, and a smattering of other things. Drew […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Justin invites podcasting guru Alasdair Stuart, of PseudoPod fame to the show. They talk about fiction podcasting, surviving as an upcoming writer, the importance of networking, and other fun stuff. Alasdair Stuart is co-owner of the Escape Artists fiction content network, which includes PseudoPod, PodCastle, EscapePod, and Mothership […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Emo Kylo Ren pays Justin a visit this week, in the form of the woman behind it all—Alexanda Petri! Together they discuss Star Wars, Jeopardy, internet culture, politics, and Petri’s book, A Field Guide to Awkward Silences. Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist and blogger, an International Pun Champion, […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! We’ve got an exciting episode this week as we’re joined by Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim dos Santos—the co-showrunners of the new Netflix show Voltron Legendary Defender! Together we discusses the new show, what attracted them to work on it, and some of the choices they made in remaking an […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! We’ve got some tremendous shows coming in the weeks ahead. So stay tuned! This week’s show features Rocket Talk regular, Amal El-Mohtar. She joins Justin Landon to talk about Hamilton, the musical cultural sensation. The pair discuss what makes the musical so great, how it’s impacting the discussion, […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! We apologize for a few weeks delay, but two recordings had to be discarded due to bad audio. Nevertheless, we return in fine fashion! This episode brings fantasy writing standout Myke Cole back to the show and welcomes BuzzFeed Books Editor, Isaac Fitzgerald for the first time. Isaac gives […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This episode brings ESPN baseball writer Keith Law to the show. Keith is a dedicated fiction reader, who is slowly working his way through all of the Hugo Award-winning novels. The pair discuss his work in baseball, his general love of fiction, what science fiction is all about, and […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Charlie Jane Anders visits the show this week, talking about her new novel All the Birds in the Sky. The conversation covers her ideas about the intersection of literary and genre fiction, her fascination with time, and whether or not she’ll listen to Hamilton before seeing it live. […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week, Justin is joined by V.E. Schwab and Miriam Weinberg, the author and editor team behind  A Darker Shade of Magic and its forthcoming sequel A Gathering of Shadows. They talk about their editorial relationship, Schwab’s path to publication, and the thoughts that went into creating the sensation […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week, Robert Jackson Bennett invites Justin to his favorite restaurant. They share a sumptuous meal together, with wine and fine conversation. Their waiter, Giuseppe, comes by the table from time to time. The conversation itself covers Robert’s intentions with his new novel, City of Blades, his use […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Mur Lafferty pays Rocket Talk a visit this week to talk about her new magazine, Mothership Zeta. The pair discuss the editorial direction of the magazine, Lafferty’s forthcoming new novel Six Wakes, and what it’s like to be an editor in the field today. Note: This episode was recorded […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! The podcast took some time off off to recharge the batteries, but we’re back and ready to go. This week, Justin is joined by Angry Robot author Megan O’Keefe, whose debut novel Steal the Sky was published earlier this month. The conversation covers her path to publication, Reddit, […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode features fantasy and science fiction authors Kate Elliott and Emma Newman. Having read both of their most recent novels, Justin asks them about what it’s like to write aged characters and what kinds of resistance exists in society to hearing those stories. They also discuss […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode features Patrick S. Tomlinson, the author of The Ark from Angry Robot Books. The pair discuss the current status of Milwaukee as a cultural hot bed, the dearth of humor in science fiction and fantasy, and what Tomlinson was trying to accomplish in his new […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Justin is visited by authors Matt Wallace and Kameron Hurley. The trio discuss the current status of Southern California, professional wrestling, reality television, and Playboy‘s decision to nix nudity. They even manage to make it all relevant to genre publishing and their recent releases, Envy of Angels and […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Sam Sykes loves what he calls “formative fiction”. Join Justin and Sam as they discuss what formative fiction means to them, and why it played an important role in their reading life. Be warned: Dragonlance, Drizzt, and giggling abound. Sam Sykes is the author of the Bring Down […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Recently released from Tor, Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant has spawned a multitude of reactions across the genre community. Amal El-Mohtar and Kameron Hurley join Justin on Rocket Talk to discuss how this response reflects a larger conversation: how has social media and online book discussion impacted […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! Fran Wilde, author of Updraft, joins the show this week. Of course, Justin asks her about feast scenes. They also talk about Nature magazine, her editorial process, and debut novel. There’s even a borderline engineering talk, in which Wilde confirms intellectual superiority over the host. Fran Wilde is […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode brings Bradley P. Beaulieu back to the show for his third appearance. Justin and Brad dig into what makes an epic fantasy a commercial success and how his new novel, Twelve Kings in Sharakai, might fit that model. The conversation then turns to Brad’s podcast, […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! This week’s episode features first time science fiction and middle grade author, David Liss. Justin asks Liss about what led him to write middle grade science fiction after a decade of publishing historical fiction, before discussing the differences between children’s literature and adult fiction. Ultimately, the conversation concludes […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin’s originally scheduled guests got bumped due his daughter breaking her arm. Thankfully, the day is saved by a last minute guest, Ken of the genre blog Neth Space. Justin conducts a short interview with Ken about his long standing blog and the state […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin is visited by regular guest, Sam Sykes and first time guest, Tiffany Reisz. The trio discuss sex scenes, including a live reading of one of Joe Abercrombie’s sexual liaisons in his novel, Best Served Cold. Their conversation moves on to discuss why […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin is graced with the presence of the exceptional Diana Rowland and Kameron Hurley. The trio jump into a discussion about the intersectional challenges of the modern workplace, with an emphasis on how it impacts publishing. Diana Rowland is the author of the Kara Gillian […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin is joined by Robert Brockway, the author of the just released new novel The Unnoticeables. The discussion covers who Robert is personally, delving deep into the naming convention of his dogs, to how his novel is oddly enmeshed with Saved by the […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk podcast! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin invites military science fiction authors Linda Nagata and Marko Kloos to the show. The conversation talks about their shared, non-traditional roads to publication, military science fiction as a genre, and some of the mysteries of fiction writing. Linda Nagata is a science […]

This week’s episode is all about reader response. Justin is joined by podcaster Jonah Sutton-Morse and blogger Mieneke van der Salm to discuss The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Mieneke van der Salm in the blogger in residence at A Fantastical Librarian. By day she’s a university […]

Welcome back to the Rocket Talk Podcast! This week, Justin invites blogger and author Aidan Moher on to discuss his new self-published book, Tide of Shadows and Other Stories. The two discuss the state of self-publishing and why Moher chose that route. Afterward, they have a frank discussion about the state of blogging and a […]

Welcome back to Rocket Talk! In this week’s podcast episode, Justin invites fellow blogger Amal El-Mohtar to talk about what makes Naomi Novik’s newest novel, Uprooted, so wonderful. Fair warning, mild spoilers ahead! Namoi Novik’s Uprooted is available now in both the US (Del Rey) and UK (Tor Books UK) markets, and you can read […]

In this week’s podcast episode, Justin talks with Renee Williams and Shaun Duke, editors of Speculative Fiction 2014. Available now from Book Smugglers Publishing, SpecFic ’14 is a survey of the years best online reviews, essays, and commentary. The conversation covers the contents of the anthology, the year’s themes, and the mechanics of identifying what […]

In this week’s podcast episode, Justin talks with Andrea Phillips about her new novel, Revision. They discuss how technology has changed the way we perceive reality, and how that same technology is impacting our fiction. Andrea Phillips is a transmedia game designer and writer. She published A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling in 2012, and […]