In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic The Dispossessed, we sit down for a chat with award-winning biographer and writer Julie Phillips, author of James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon and The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Body Problem.

Julie is currently at work on the authorized biography of Le Guin, and her insights from her research and her many discussions with Le Guin—not only regarding The Dispossessed but all aspects of her career, and on the challenges of writing biography—were so compelling that we ran a few minutes over our usual hour. We think it’s well worth it, and wish we could have gone on even longer.

For our first October episode, we try out another new opening, touch upon the recent catastrophic weather in Florida and the hazards of attempting near future SF in a rapidly changing world, with Norman Spinrad’s Russian Spring as one example.

After a brief digression (what else?) on novels that extrapolate political decisions more than technological change—like the two novels that preceded the movie Dr. Strangelove, we touch upon the question of whether J.G. Ballard may catch the current zeitgeist in the same way Philp K. Dick did a generation ago.

Finally, a few more short digressions on whether awards like World Fantasy can significantly influence a book's sales or reputation, on the value of “best of” anthologies, and on what makes a good gift book for the forthcoming holiday season.

As we gear up for the inevitable year-in-review discussions, and the annual semi-hiatus between the fall and spring convention sessions (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), we return to our familiar questions of canon and influence, noting that while some books seem to drop out of the discussion within months of being published, others,like Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, continue to generate responses despite controversy.

From that, we not-quite-seamlessly segue into a discussion of Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski’s The Last Dangerous Visions and the problems in presenting stories over 50 years old together with brand-new tales, finally chatting about what makes you want to recommend a book to a friend.

Along with way, we mention several interesting writers, including Emily Tesh, Wole Talabi, and Kate Heartfield.