This week we have a lively conversation with the remarkable Ken Liu, whose new thriller All That We See or Seem introduces a new protagonist, the gifted hacker Julia Z, in a tale that explores the growing role of AI, the possibility of a technology of shared dreams, a variety of near-future surveillance tech, and some pretty fearful players with even more fearful schemes. A dramatic shift from his epic fantasy/historical world of the Dandelion Dynasty series or the earlier classic short stories, it seems to represent an exciting new dimension in Ken’s career.

In a rare shorter episode, we chat about the late and much missed Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, with whom Jonathan and Gary had strangely similar encounters some years ago, and her early career as an SF writer before her decades-long success with her Saint-Germain series of vampire novels. That leads, briefly, to considering midlist vs. niche authors, before we get into some of the odd features of American copyright law as revealed by the recent Anthropic AI settlement.

With Gary recently returned from Worldcon in Seattle, we chat a bit about the Hugos (mostly avoiding second-guessing the results), which leads to some discussion of the differences between Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.

Jonathan raises an intriguing question about the novella category, with its rather reductive word-length definition of the form. But what, other than length, really distinguishes a novella from a short story or a novel?

We talk a bit about favorite novellas, and specifically a 2013 Locus survey in which readers voted on the best novellas from 2000-2010. Which of those would still make the list today, and how has Tordotcom’s program of standalone novellas affected our view of the form?

Of course, we ramble a bit about other matters and some interesting new and forthcoming books we’re excited about. Then, finally, we shut up.