Naomi Alderman, Lauren Beukes and Alastair Reynolds on gender politics and scifi – books podcast
Warning strong language and imagery described in this podcast: This week’s podcast is dedicated to an in-depth and thorny discussion of women in sci-fi and the process of writing in and around the genre.
Subscribe and review: iTunes, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast
On this week’s podcast, we discuss gender dynamics in science fiction with Naomi Alderman, Lauren Beukes and Alastair Reynolds. Naomi and Lauren explain why scifi was invented by women and how the genre lends itself to exploring gender issues, while Alastair shares why he used to make a point of including female protagonists in his books to redress the balance – but often finds himself at the mercy of characters taking hold of the narrative themselves.
Naomi Alderman and Lauren Beukes are appearing at Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival (5 - 16 October). Lauren Beukes will discuss her work and South African scifi; Naomi Alderman will discuss her forthcoming book The Power and they will appear on a panel together Is Sci-Fi a Female Invention?
Reading list
- The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin)
- Slipping by Lauren Beukes (Tachyon)
- Revenger by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)
You can find us at www.theguardian.com/podcasts, email us at podcasts@theguardian.com and tweet us at @GuardianBooks.
The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work.
Support The Guardian
View all comments >