Here is a text transcript of Podcast 108: An Interview with Carrie Sessarego. You can listen to the mp3 here, or you can read on!
This podcast transcript was crafted by hand with locally sourced letters by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hello and Happy Friday, and welcome to another DBSA podcast. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today is Carrie Sessarego, who reviews at Smart Bitches. She and I talked about fandoms and the conferences that she goes to where she gets to be with her people who love all the same things she does. We also talk about her own research into the incredibly kickass women of the Victorian era, and then she squees everywhere about all the books she’s excited to read because, well, that’s kind of what we do here, right? You were totally expecting that, of course.
The music that you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater, and I will have information at the end of the podcast as to who this is and where you can buy this music for your very own.
And now a word from our sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by Signet, publisher of the latest in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series from #1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward. The King is now available in paperback.
I have heard from several new listeners who have just found the podcast and subscribed, so if you are new, Hi! Welcome! I hope you enjoy it. We attempt to be marginally inappropriate, so you might want to use headphones if you’re at work. And if you’ve been listening for a long, long time, hello also to you, whatever you’re doing. I know half of you are on the treadmill, so keep going, you’re doing great, and pay no attention to that person over there because you just, you don’t need to worry about them. Just keep going.
And now, on with the podcast.
[music]
Sarah: How are you doing?
Carrie Sessarego: I am good! I am really excited because I’m leaving for Convolution on Thursday, and then I come back, and my daughter’s birthday is Wednesday, and then on Saturday, I am speaking at a steampunk symposium in Sacramento, so –
Sarah: Whoa.
Carrie: – it’s just a whirligig of fun. And I’m kind of feeling like maybe it’s a little too much fun right this minute, but, you know, it’ll, it’s all going to work out.
Sarah: So what are you doing at Convolution that you’re most excited about? And is this the conference that you, that you attend that you like most, or can you not say for fear of hurting the other conferences’ feelings?
Carrie: When I was in high school, I used to go to, like, Star Trek conventions, and they were really fun, but they were very corporate, so basically, at those conventions, it was all Star Trek and you were kind of there to buy Star Trek stuff and listen to Star Trek actors. I really, really enjoyed that when I was in high school, but I’m loving this new fan-based convention thing that I just really got into in the last couple of years because it’s so participatory. I love it that they’re, they’re small enough that there’s not that stressful feeling where you’re packed in with, like, thousands of other people, and it’s become my social base. I mean, the only problem with that is now I want to go to every single one in the bay area because that’s where all my friends are –
Sarah: Of course.
Carrie: – right, so I hadn’t really anticipated that suddenly everybody who goes to Convolution would be my BFF, and I would want to hang out with them all the time. And that’s fantastic, except I kind of wish it was in Sacramento where I live.
Sarah: Yeah, it’s only a little travel, except –
Carrie: Yeah, it’s not bad at all. It’s, like, two hours to drive there, and the really fun stuff happens late at night, so you really do want to stay overnight at these things, ‘cause, you know, you’ve got to go to the, all the parties and all of that are really fun, and I, I’m not really a party person, but again, by now I know everybody, so, you know, it’s like –
Sarah: It’s not as anxiety-inducing to walk in the room, ‘cause you know so many people in the room.
Carrie: Right. Yeah.
Sarah: I remember my first RT, and I was like, I just can’t handle this. I need to go to my room. [Laughs]
Carrie: Right, yeah. And, and San Diego Comic-Con is like a whole different entity, so –
Sarah: I don’t think you could pay me to go to the – I mean, I have heard so many great things about it, and I know you had an amazing time, and I know Marjorie Liu loved it –
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: – and had the best time, ‘cause she had a really great location for her, for her table, but just the number of people in the pictures makes me want to hide under my bed. [Laughs]
Carrie: Oh, my God, it’s really stressful. It’s exhausting. Like, you walk in the front door, and you’re exhausted already. It’s, it’s just enormous, and, and so by the last day – okay, first of all, on the last day, I almost didn’t go, because before that I had done the overnighter camping out to get into Hall H, which I will never do again –
Sarah: Oh, God.
Carrie: – but you know, like, it was on my bucket list, and I did it. You know, I, I’ve earned my geek card, so to speak, but I, no. So I was really tired and like, I’m not going. I’ve been to Comic-Con Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, that’s enough Comic-Con, and my husband kind of got me to go that last day, and it ended up being the best day. But, like, you know, by Sunday, the end of Sunday, I kept saying it every other sentence: Okay, we did Comic-Con, we’re never coming again, and then in the same sentence, I would say, but when we come next year, I need to remember to pack more granola bars.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Like, it was just a done deal that of course I’m, you know, coming next year, if I can get in, so, yeah. I mean, this, this – they’re, they’re hard to compare, even though in a way they’re exactly the same. They’re a bunch of fans, and we all hang out. You know, San Diego Comic-Con, you feel like you’re part of this huge, huge, epic thing, and Convolution and BayCon, which are the two local conventions that I’ve been going to a lot, you’re a part of this small community, and it’s much more familial feeling. Although, even though there are literally hundreds of, like, I think there was 130,000 people at San Diego Comic-Con this year –
Sarah: Oh, my God.
Carrie: – but I still kept running into people that I knew, which I did not expect to have happen. So, yeah, I, I think I lost track of what your actual question was. I love all of them.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: I think my, my favorites – I won’t say my favorite, but my favorites have become these little bay area conventions because that’s become where my buddies are.
Sarah: When you go to a conference with your friends and you all love the same thing, it’s really wonderful.
Carrie: It is! And a lot of us love different things within this big umbrella, and that’s kind of fun too, because although, you know, I mean, it’s hell on the to-be-read list, of course –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: – because people keep recommending stuff, but you know there’s, there’s enough of a difference in what we like that you can have these big conversations where you’re telling people about all the things that you adore, and there’s enough similarity that you don’t have to explain to somebody that it’s not dumb that you read comic books. People already know that. You can just, you don’t have to explain your passions, you just, you know, enjoy them.
Sarah: Yep. I also think that in a lot of ways, the, the, the generation of people that are growing up behind you and me are used to going online and connecting with other people that love the same things they do. It’s a normal option. It has always been there. It has never not been there. There’s never been an, an obstacle to them, once they had access to some form of Internet connection, to finding the people who love the things that they love.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: And so the natural outgrowth of that is to go and be with the people who love the things that you love. Even if they’re on the other side of the planet or if they’re really far away, you can connect with them on Skype, you can talk to them visually, someday you might actually meet them, but the concept of having friends that are far away that you see once in a very long time that you formed your friendship out of knowing what you like and going to find the things that you like and meeting other people who like those same things, that’s a very natural and normal way to find friends.
Carrie: Yeah. And I, I also think it’s interesting that even though that’s become such a vital part of our social lives, there’s still simultaneously this deep longing to connect face to face. I mean, there’s really no reason any more to spend $100 to go to a big arena concert. Okay, you can see the concert on YouTube –
Sarah: And the sound is better, and you will be able to hear in the morning, and you won’t smell bad.
Carrie: Right! But you want to be there, and, and even though I have sworn by all that is holy that I would never camp out to get into Hall H again, I know I’ll be tempted to do it again, and I might do it again, because it’s, people crave actually being there. I think that’s fascinating that that hasn’t gone away.
Sarah: It is. And, and the, the fact that there are a lot of people for whom communicating online is much more comfortable than communicating with people in person. I’m definitely one of those people when it comes to large groups. I can be in an online group with, like, 30, 40, 50 people and have a conversation with all of them, and that’s not a problem. Physically being in a room with 30 or 50 people, just, that’s too many people for me. I can’t, that’s, that’s too crowded. I needed a drink or clear access to the door or an aisle seat, ‘cause that’s just too many people for me, for my comfort levels.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: It’s normal, though, to want to go and be with people who love the things that you love.
Carrie: It’s just interesting how much is such a, how personal these connections are that I make at these conventions, or that I make online and then I meet the people at the convention, or – you know, it’s, it’s, it’s an interesting world, and, and I think that our kids are experiencing it differently too, because, like, you know, my daughter goes to these things with me, and she loves them.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: But I don’t think she has the same sense I do of, like, oh, thank God, my people have found me.
Sarah: Yes!
Carrie: Because that sense of isolation, that sense that nobody else understands why you like this thing, she can find people who like the thing, you know.
Sarah: Yes. I mean, and I, I have come along in that perspective. I always felt isolated for liking the things that I liked, especially once I discovered romance and received so many of the very common insults and put downs about my love of that particular reading material –
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: – but I also have, have noticed that I have evolved in my understanding. For a really long time, and I’ve talked about this in a previous podcast, I did not get fanfic. Like, I did not understand it. What, why was this a thing? Why? I don’t understand. Like, really? I’m, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with anyone who writes it. I – if that’s what you love, go ahead, but I just, I don’t understand. And then when somebody explained, we get to live in the world when the, when the book or the film or the show or the comic has ended. We get to go back in our terms, and then we get to explore.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Oh! I get it! Thank – I, it took me a long time to get that one, and I’m kind of embarrassed by how long it took me to get that one, but I get it.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: It’s so comforting to be with your, with your peep, with your people who love you and love the things that you love.
Carrie: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, the other thing I really love about these conventions, and I suspect it’s true, you know, alm-, across almost any field – I mean, definitely when I read the stuff you write about RT book lovers, I get the same vibe – is that, you know, when I drag my daughter to all these things, I really don’t care if she grows up and likes Star Trek or Star Wars or comic books or any of that.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: What I care about and that’s exciting to me about these conventions is the idea that you can love what you love passionately and without embarrassment.
Sarah: And you’re not alone.
Carrie: And you’re not alone, and you don’t have to be all coy. You don’t have to pretend to be cool. You know, you just –
Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah, I, I missed that boat.
Carrie: – go fangirl out. Although I do think that when I meet other authors, I could be a little more cool. Like, I’m going to meet Gail Carriger at this, and I’m just –
Sarah: [Laughs] Did I ever tell you the story about when I met Loretta Chase?
Carrie: I – N-, No!
Sarah: Okay. The, the two times that I’ve, my inner thirteen year old has appeared externally and completely lost her mind, at RT this year, Catherine Coulter walked across the room next to me, and I totally froze and went [GASP] –
Carrie: [Laughs]
Sarah: – and stared at her like a giant dork, ‘cause she was the first romance I’ve ever read, and I don’t, I don’t like any of the romantic suspense she’s written since she left historicals, but her historicals, like, that was the, that was the book. That was the one that brought me into the genre, and that was the one where I was like, oh, my God! There’s, like, there’s, like, racks and racks of these books, and this is so great!
Carrie: [Laughs]
Sarah: And she walked by me, and I, like, I froze. Like, I was a statue that was barely breathing. That was a mild reaction. When I went, when I met – [laughs]. So, I was invited to be on a panel at Yale because Cara Elliott and Lauren Willig were teaching a special course on romances at Yale, and so I was invited to be part of a panel about the publishing world after the book comes out, and I was on the panel with Carrie Feron and Ron Hogan and myself and some other people, and – Yale is weird. Inside Yale, you’re, like, in Gothic Hogwarts land. All of the doors are short and wooden, all the buildings are gray stone, and it’s like, whoa! I am in another planet. So we walk through this tiny little door, and I’m standing there, and there’s this gentleman and this lady and this other lady, and they’re, we’re just standing around talking and they introduce themselves, and I introduce myself, and we’re all joking about how we would never have gotten into this place except for this panel, hahaha, and then Lauren Willing walks up and says, oh, I see you’ve met Loretta Chase!
Carrie: [Whoop!]
Sarah: And I made the following noise: Ghhhhhh!
Carrie: [Laughs]
Sarah: Oh, my God! Like, I, I, I think I scared her, ‘cause she stepped back – [laughs] – and was like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, I’m, I will be. I, I, I, I had no idea. Like, I’d, I’d never seen pictures of her, and I’m just standing there shooting the bull, and, and, like, when I was informed of who I was talking to, it was – I’m turning red right now. It was really embarrassing.
Carrie: [Laughs]
Sarah: Seriously, she is the nicest, most – she’s humble in a completely baffled way. Like, when she comes to conferences and people meet her and they get emotional because her books have meant so much to people, she’s like, why does this keep happening? I don’t understand.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Why is this going on? I really don’t understand why this keeps happening to me. She is truly lovely, and I made a complete bonehead of myself. [Laughs]
Carrie: Well, what can you do? I’m not suave, and it’s, I think –
Sarah: No, no, me neither. [Laughs]
Carrie: No. And I kind of feel like, you know, like, even as a book reviewer, I feel like I’m a little bit unusual in that I’m, really, I’m basically just a big fan. Like, I, I would love to preface all my reviews with, like, the little intro blurb in italics that says, No matter how crappy I thought your book was, I’m still a fan, ‘cause you wrote a book.
Sarah: Yep!
Carrie: Like, I haven’t written a fiction book. I’ve written nonfiction –
Sarah: Yep.
Carrie: – but I haven’t written any fiction, so – and you know, I mean, that’s another thing that’s really fun about the smaller conventions in particular is that a ton of people there are self publishing, they’re indie publishing, they’re hoping to find a publisher. A lot of us are starting out, a lot of us are freelancing, and everybody’s kind of scrambling around, and so there’s sort of this great celebration that whether your work is good or not good, the point is, you did work, you did stuff, you made a thing.
Sarah: Yes.
Carrie: And that once you’ve made the thing, it’s open to critique, it’s okay for us to say, you know that thing that you made? Dude, make it again! [Laughs]
Sarah: Yeah.
Carrie: Better. There’s still, like, the core is that, you know, congratulations, you made a thing! And I think you asked me what I’m most excited to present?
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: At Convolution, I’m doing a solo presentation on Victorian women who out-steampunked steampunk, and, and I have them divided into groups. I have inventors and scientists, travelers, soldiers and spies, and I really thought I would have maybe, like, five women to talk about, and then I started doing my research, and those Victorian women were kickass! Now this is, like, my new passion, and nobody wants to talk to me, ‘cause they come up and they’re like, so, Carrie, and I either start talking about Mary Shelley or I start talking about –
Sarah: Ada Lovelace?
Carrie: Ada Lovelace. I mean –
Sarah: I love her.
Carrie: – Mary Shelley is Regency, but, but I’m talking about her in some other panels – or I start babbling about Ada Lovelace and, and Mary Kingsley who, when she went to West Africa, they gave her a helpful phrasebook, and they said, look, these are the phrases you need to know in English and French; you’ll use them all the time, and the very first phrase was, help, help! I am drowning!
[Laughter]
Carrie: I mean, this is just great stuff. Harriet Tubman led a gunboat raid.
Sarah: Of course she did!
Carrie: Of course she did! I didn’t know that! I knew she was badass; we all knew Harriet Tubman was badass, but I didn’t know that in the middle of the Civil War, she led a gunboat raid and saved, like, 750 people. You know, for her that was Tuesday, but –
Sarah: Yeah. You know, and then Wednesday –
Carrie: Yeah, I mean –
Sarah: – it was something else.
Carrie: So, it’s excit-, it’s so thrilling to me to see not that a few women did these uncommon things, but how common it was, against all odds, for these women to live in ways that we don’t picture them. We have this very strict idea of what a Victorian woman was supposed to be like –
Sarah: Yep.
Carrie: – and, you know, a lot of them were like, yeah, that’s nice, but I have things to do.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: And then they went and did them! So, yeah, I’m really excited about that, obviously. And then at, at the steampunk symposium, I’m talking about Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, and H. P. Lovecraft, and I get all excited –
Sarah: Like you do.
Carrie: Yeah. I’m kind of sad that we don’t do this with video, because you can’t see my arms waving around in the air –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – because I get really excited and talk with my hands.
Sarah: So what are you reading right now, aside from research about women who out-steampunk steampunk?
Carrie: Right now, I’m really madly cramming, so I am reading The Bride of Science, which is a biography of Ada Lovelace, which I have to tell you I’m finding to be pretty slow going. I’m trying to read all the Cthulhu mythos stories again before next Sunday, although that’s a lot of Cthulhu; I might just read a couple. I know I’ve read them all a long time ago, but I sort of wanted to refresh my memory, and now I’m like, ugh. So, and I’m also, at the steampunk thing, I’m doing a panel on steampunk literature today, and I always panic and suddenly decide that actually, I’m not an expert, and I’m not sure how many books I think I would have to read to become an expert, but that, that benchmark just seems to keep changing, so I’m trying to read, like, a lot of steampunk in one week. I’m like all gears, all the time.
Sarah: [Laughs] You’re going to get in the car and be like, my car’s dashboard is so boring.
Carrie: I know, it is –
Sarah: It does nothing. [Laughs]
Carrie: It is, although I also, because I, I do a lot of history and, and I’m often am more interested in the history behind the book than the actual book, and, and, so when people – you know, Mary Shelley I go back to a lot, even though she’s Regency, not Victorian. I consider her kind of the progenitor of steampunk –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: – and, and I’m not nostalgic for that period of our history, no, and if anybody is, I will tell them about Mary Shelley’s horrible pregnancies and how her mother died in childbirth in gory, gory detail. It’s, it’s not, it’s not a time I would want to live in.
Sarah: Yep. I hear you.
Carrie: Yeah. But it’s fascinating to read about, obviously –
Sarah: Of course.
Carrie: – and, so yes.
Sarah: It also makes you appreciate how far we have come in just simple issues like childbirth.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: And pain relief.
Carrie: Yeah. Penicillin. I’m a fan.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: That’d be a good T-shirt. “Penicillin. I’m a fan.”
Carrie: [Laughs] I’m a fan!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: All right. So I just finished reading The Difference Engine, which was really a fascinating book, and it was interesting to see how different it was than a lot of other steampunk I read that’s – you know, steampunk tends to kind of go in these different directions, and a lot of the steampunk I read is just, like, pure madness.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: And it’s, it’s really fun, but there’s also, like, a whole genre of steampunk that’s very intellectual and cerebral and very into kind of saying, well, if this thing changed, what are the other things that would change, and, like, a lot of detail and – it’s interesting to, to compare them.
Sarah: What are some of the things that you love most about steampunk?
Carrie: One thing I like about steampunk is I find it kind of subversive because a lot of times, one of the problems with steampunk is some people end up sort of glorifying the British Empire, which was not altogether something that we want to glorify necessarily, but I think steampunk is interesting because you can either do a, a fairly straight-up depiction of Victorian England but tweak it with the steampunk elements, and it sort of becomes a critique of British Empire, depending on what effect steampunk has on the story, but I also think you can use steampunk almost to sort of go back and fix the problems. If, if you, if you want to imagine this sort of Victoriana world where everything is really elaborate and handcrafted and pretty –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: – but you also think that women in this world should be able to wear pants and be airship pirates –
Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah.
Carrie: – you do that!
Sarah: And that there should be airships.
Carrie: Right! You know –
Sarah: Big ones.
Carrie: You could say, well, I’m going to fix poverty with my steampunk book. You know, I mean, you can – I, I just think it’s interesting how playful it is. And I like the aesthetic.
Sarah: It’s also a fun world to play in because it’s half very much reality and half complete fantasy.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: It’s a fantasy world that is attached to a historical era in which there’s a lot of, there’s already a lot of fantastical things going on.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Like, you read about some of the buildings that were constructed in that time period, and you’re kind of like, wait, how, how did you do that? That – wow.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Dude!
Carrie: And a lot of times when I talk about steampunk, I end up talking about Victorian history, because to me, Victorian history is considerably weirder than steampunk. I mean it’s, it’s – Victorian, the stuff that was going on in Victorian England was so intense, and the, the other thing that I find interesting is that I feel like the Victorian time period has a lot of resonance for us right now, in that it’s, was very, very similar to our time period right now in the United States. So you had this monolithic empire, right, but you, there was a, a superpower, but there was a lot of anxiety about what was going to happen with it and whether it would be able to stay a superpower. There was this huge, intensely, traumatically rapid, technological change and social change and economic change –
Sarah: Scary, scary, scary, scary!
Carrie: Right! You know, a lot of drama. A huge gap between science and religion, you know, at an unprecedented level. The stuff going on with science was phenomenal –
Sarah: And a number of conflicting expectations of women and adults in general.
Carrie: Yes. Absolutely. So I, you know, I, I think that’s part of why I keep going back to that time period. It’s, it’s not a time period I think is terrifically admirable in a lot of ways. I, I don’t think we should glorify the Victorian era, but I think there’s a lot we can, we can take from it.
Sarah: All of the stress of the present, plus corsets! Let’s go!
Carrie: Plus corsets! What could go wrong?
Sarah: [Laughs] So here’s a question:
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: In your researches, you look at the Victorian era and all of the changes that have happened and all of the technological changes that happen now on a daily basis. Do you like change? Or are you the type of person who is like, uh, no, autopilot routine and familiarity. Fuck you, change, go away.
Carrie: Oh, yeah, no. I like to read about change. I, I like to – you know, I mean, look at, look at – so, I’ll just share this with our, our listeners. I was up last night until, like, midnight, trying to get frickin’ Skype to work, so –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – people know me as the sci-fi reviewer, and I review all this stuff about crazy technology, but actually, I, I’m, like, a total Luddite. What’s that phrase, early adopter? I’m the latest late adopter –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Yeah. I don’t, yeah – and I, and I don’t like change, but I think, I think also that is also, like, that intense anxiety that I have about these things, I can read fiction that sort of addresses that and, you know, kind of help me, I don’t know, it kind of helps me cope. I mean, a lot of people did not survive the Victorian era, but the world continued to turn. It didn’t just, like, explode. Little pieces didn’t go flying out into space, so, you know, I find that, I find that useful.
Sarah: I’m one of those people who, if change is visited upon me unexpectedly and I need to make a bunch of changes very quickly or adopt or, or react very quickly, I can do it, and then later I’m like, oh, my God, that was awful; I hope that doesn’t happen again. I think everyone is very comforted and, and enjoys autopilot, and for some people, losing your autopilot is incredibly traumatic.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Something that I like in any romance narrative of, of any subgenre, actually, when someone’s autopilot is disrupted, it is, it reveals a lot about that character –
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: – but it’s a very difficult thing to write, because routine is not very exciting, and the loss of routine is not very interesting unless you understand the depth of the change that’s being, that’s being made.
Carrie: Yeah. And I, I think also, like, personally, the change, after I said I don’t like change, I kind of thought about it, and I thought, well, there’s a lot of changes happening right now that I think are really exciting in terms of social change, but I’m not sure that that counts in a way, because, because, partly because I’m, I’m so naïve about certain social issues that to me, things like, you know, the acceptance of, of more gay rights, the acceptance of more civil rights, the acceptance of women in more different fields, like, to me that’s so incredibly obvious –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – that that should be happening. I mean, there’s conversations that I have to keep having, and it, it irritates me. I don’t understand why I have to keep talking about things like, yes, women do write comic books. Just go look at comic books in the comic bookstore! Look at all of the titles written –
Sarah: Somewhere Marjorie Liu just put her head up and went, what?
Carrie: – by women! It’s not, it’s not an abstract concept. You can just go see their names on the title. There they are, they wrote it! Yeah.
Sarah: As you read all of the Victorian research, do you get a sense of, wow, everything is repeating itself over and over again?
Carrie: Yeah, I do. But I also get a feeling of improvement, so I don’t – I mean, that could be a really despairing kind of thing if I thought, oh, man, things never get better, things never get better. I mean, I, I definitely feel a huge sense that things have, things move forward. But another thing that I see is that some of the things that we think, well, at least we don’t have factories like that anymore. Well, they just push farther and farther out to the edges, so it, it kind of is, it’s like a wake-up call. It’s like, wow, it really makes me appreciate how far we’ve come, and it really makes me recognize how much we have to pay attention and, and keep working.
Sarah: Because it’s very easy to solve child labor when it’s in your town and you can see it, but it’s very easy to not care about child labor when it’s 3,000 miles on a completely different country and –
Carrie: Right.
Sarah: – no one else really gives a shit.
Carrie: And it’s easy to get complacent when you read history and be like, well, we don’t have that anymore, but that’s not to say that everything has stayed exactly the same. Hello, penicillin, you know. I mean, it’s –
Sarah: Yes. As you said, you’re a big fan. [Laughs]
Carrie: Yeah. I think so. Yes.
Sarah: So what romances have you read recently that you would recommend to people?
Carrie: Oooooh! Okay, well, it’s –
Sarah: That was a question! [Laughs]
Carrie: Yes. Well, yeah. I think I’ve talked more about Victorian England than anyone wants me to. I’m really excited that in October, His Road Home is coming out. So you can’t read it yet; you have to wait a couple more weeks, but I loved it because it had, like, all these different forms of diversity with, and, and it had really heavy subject matter, and yet it never felt heavy. It never felt like an after-school special. It was funny and sexy and sweet, and I was really excited about it. It was a contemporary about a marine biologist and a soldier who is injured in Afghanistan, and they get together and they road trip, and it’s just, ah, so wonderful. That was a really exciting read, ‘cause I really didn’t expect to like it that much. The heroine is Korean-American, and the hero is Mexican-American.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: It’s just, oh, it’s so good. So October 13. You, you, you guys can do it. You can wait. I have faith in you. Oh, the other one that is out now is that Eileen Rendahl, who’s somebody that I know, ‘cause she’s a local author, but she wrote Un-Bridaled, which was part of the same anthology that had Game Geeks and Fashion Freaks, and Un-Bridaled I basically read because I know Eileen, so I was going to read her book, and I, I’m obviously kind of biased, but I don’t think that my bias is why I liked it. It was, it was fantastic. And it didn’t have any particular geek appeal per se, but it had obvious family issues that were really interesting.
Sarah: Cool. Well that review –
Carrie: Yes.
Sarah: – is going up this week. I think it’s going up Wednesday, so it will be up when this podcast airs, so people can go look at it.
Carrie: Oh, yay. So everybody go read it, and I’m not just saying that ‘cause I like Eileen. I mean I, I really, really loved that book, and that’s another one where I thought, well, you know, I like Eileen, and I like her writing, so I’ll read this book, and it’ll be fine. You know, I didn’t expect it to be, you know, something that I would completely adore, particularly since it’s not a genre that I, I read very often.
Sarah: Right. ‘Cause it fits most likely under the term “chick lit,” which is a horrible term for books –
Carrie: Yes.
Sarah: – but it – [sigh] – We need a better term for books that have a romance element but are more about female lives.
Carrie: Yes! Can we, like, make that a thing where people go on the comments and come up with one? Because if I have to use the phrase “chick lit” again, I’m going to barf.
Sarah: It’s a horrible phrase.
Carrie: I hate that phrase.
Sarah: It really is terrible.
Carrie: And then I just finished reading the Parasol Protectorate all the way through, and what’s funny is the first time I read the first book, I was like, well, it’s okay. But I don’t, I don’t really know that it’s deserving of all the hype. It’s okay. And then, years later, I read all the other ones, and it was like, this is fantastic!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: And then I, I went back and I read the first book, and I thought, no, really, the first book is good, but it’s, I think, of the series, it’s the weaker of the books.
Sarah: Huh! No kidding.
Carrie: You know, which is a relative term, ‘cause the first book is also really good. But yeah, crazy about that series, obviously. Like, who doesn’t love that series?
Sarah: That’s excellent.
Carrie: But that’s more of a niche one. That’s, so that’s steampunk paranormal.
Sarah: That’s very excellent, though.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: When you, when you come around back to, when you come around back to a book that you thought was okay, and then you go back and you go, oh, now I get it. I was like that with Pride and Prejudice. Every time I read it, I see something more that I missed because I didn’t have the, the brain power in order to make it happen. You know what I mean?
Carrie: That’s what happened when I wrote Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn, which –
Sarah: Yep.
Carrie: – you all can buy for 99 cents on Amazon or Barnes and Noble!
Sarah: [Laughs] Well done!
Carrie: Thank you! I –
Sarah: That was well played. I’m very impressed.
Carrie: I try to practice, like, occasionally mentioning that I, I wrote something.
Sarah: You’re doing better than I do. I always forget. Oh, yeah, I wrote a book.
Carrie: Oh, yeah, Sarah wrote two books!
Sarah: Oh, gosh, you can stop! [Laughs] I did.
Carrie: No, I just got in this big Facebook thread with people about romance, and I plugged your book like crazy, but it wasn’t like –
Sarah: Ohhhh, bless you.
Carrie: – a situation where I wasn’t plugging it, you know, for you specifically, it was ‘cause they really needed a good overview to the romance genre, and I’m like, seriously –
Sarah: Oh, thank you.
Carrie: – just go get Beyond Heaving Bosoms. Come on, guys.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Just, just, really. Well, so anyway, so with Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn, that was one where I really didn’t get Pride and Prejudice until I saw the adaptations and I saw that – when I could see the actors interpreting the lines, even if they all interpreted the lines differently –
Sarah: Yep.
Carrie: – I could see how much the dialogue is all coded.
Sarah: Yes.
Carrie: And once I knew it was a code, all of a sudden I went back and read the book, and it just opened up to me. It just blossomed, and now I’m a huge Pride and Prejudice fan, but it took me years to get that concept across. I, I really didn’t understand Pride and Prejudice for a long time.
Sarah: There’s a lot of classic literature that you, that, that people are assigned to read in high school, or even in college, long before they can actually appreciate what’s going on in those stories.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: And, and that creates a, a really, a challenge, because you, you want to expose people to as much different writing as possible, especially writing that’s much older. One of the best courses that I took in graduate school was writing by 18th century women, and I would never have been exposed to these novels, but –
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: – it was, it was terrific. At the time that I read them, even though I was in grad school, I was missing half of them, because I found one a couple months ago and flipped through it and was like, oh, oh, this is – I don’t remember this being so good. Why, why didn’t I appreciate –
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: – this before? Well, it’s ‘cause you’re like, you know, 15, 20 years older now.
Carrie: Yeah. And Jane Austen is pretty torrid if you know the code.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: And we were like, oh, she’s so prissy, and I’m like, oh, no. No, no, no.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: What do you all think Lydia and Wickham were doing over there in London? I mean, isn’t this some – yeah, it, it’s pretty interesting.
Sarah: Quite a big scandal. And it’s funny, even though I would never necessarily judge somebody based on what their siblings do, that’s still a, a, a theme you see in, in books popping up every now and again.
Carrie: Oh, yeah.
Sarah: Oh, well, you know, his, his brothers are all horrible, liquor-store-robbing, wastrel butt-monkeys, so he must be one too.
Carrie: Right, yeah. Yeah.
Sarah: It’s the, it’s the bad side of all those small towns in romance.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Where people judge you before you’ve had a chance to do anything.
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: So what are you looking forward to reading?
Carrie: I’m reading an anthology called Steampunk World, which is steampunk that is not set in Victorian Britain –
Sarah: Mm.
Carrie: – and that’s really fun. Like, a very diverse set of characters. And I would like to buckle down and read the Infernal Devices, which is a steampunk kind of classic progenitor, and then in October, I have sworn, I promised Elyse, so I have to do it, that I will finally clear the decks and read the Dresden Files, and I’m very –
Sarah: Ooooh.
Carrie: – excited about that. So, yes, that’s going to be my reward for getting through two conventions in one week is that I’m going to get to finally read Jim Butcher, so, that’s very exciting. And there’s a new Terry Pratchett that came out yesterday that’s a collection of nonfiction that I’m really excited about reading, so yayyy!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Yes. And, and I have this, I also have a pile of romances, but now I can’t remember what they actually are, even though this is a romance podcast, so don’t worry, I’m still reading a lot of romance. It’s just, like –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: This is like the, the, the prep, like, this – oh, my God, like, like, right now, I’m sitting at my kitchen table, and I have this desk yanked up to the table, and there are books piled on chairs and the desk and the table, and I’m, like, in this little island.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: You know, looking at my laptop with, with panicky eyes, so –
Sarah: It’s okay. Life is good when you have lots to read.
Carrie: It is! And I, I am very excited about all of these things that are going on, so – and I’m, I’m reading another one that I don’t know if it has a romance thread or not called Mona Maclean, Medical Student.
Sarah: Wooooh.
Carrie: Yes! Which was written by this doctor in Victorian England who was a woman, and she was – oh, this is so cool – she was the long-time partner, I mean, you know, they never were able to marry, obviously, but basically the wife of another woman who was one of the very first female Victorian doctors, and so, like, the two of them fell in love, and they were together forever and ever, and then the older one stayed a doctor until she retired, and the younger one turned out to be more interested in writing books than being a doctor, so she did complete medical school, but she, and she did medical practice for about five years, and then she stopped to write books.
Sarah: That’s awesome!
Carrie: Yeah, like, this is, like, what, like, yes, I just walk around all the time going, and then they did this! And I’m not making it up! Like, that’s a thing! That happened! I’m like, wow. Oh, and she, she came up with the word isotope.
Sarah: Really!
Carrie: Yes, she did. I’m looking to see if I can find the book on my, on my stack.
Sarah: Giant pile of stuff?
Carrie: Oh, hey, here it is. Wait, I’m going to pull it out from under a stack, so there’s going to be a lot of noise. [Thump]
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Mona Maclean, Medical Student, a novel, by Margaret Georgina Todd.
Matilda glowed with triumph as she watched her friend move in a sphere altogether above her own. She loved to proclaim to everyone how she had known all the time that Miss Maclean was a princess in disguise.
Wait, what? So, spoilers!
[Laughter]
Carrie: I don’t think, I don’t think she’s literally a princess in disguise. So, yeah, review pending. And we’ll have to find out if she’s actually literally a princess in disguise, or if what she means is, wow, this person’s great.
Sarah: You have many good books sitting around, don’t you?
Carrie: Yeah, right now I’m looking at The Bride of Science, the Infernal Devices, Mona Maclean – by looking at I mean literally looking at, not thinking about – Organizing for Social Change, A Short History of Nearly Everything, A Knight in Shining Armor, Ancillary Sword, Daring, The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, Broken Monsters. That’s what’s in front of me.
Sarah: I feel bad. I feel like I should tell you what I have on my, my, my reading list, which is on my phone, because I tend to travel light. I, I feel bad. You have this awesome list, and I’m like, yeah, that’s great. I feel like I should share with you what I’m reading so that you don’t feel so alone.
Carrie: Yes, share!
Sarah: Okay. So currently sitting on my Kindle app on my phone, in no particular order: The Smoke Thief; Nice Dragons Finish Last; Mental Floss, the magazine, with Daniel Radcliffe –
Carrie: Ooh!
Sarah: – 5-Minute Marvel Stories, which was a book on sale that my younger son really wanted to read; Her Holiday Man, a novella –
Carrie: 5-Minute Marvel Stories? You’re killing me here.
Sarah: 5-Minute Marvel Stories?
Carrie: Yeah! Is it good?
Sarah: Oh, I haven’t started it yet, but he is just seven and is just getting into the part where he likes to read by himself, but he also loves being read to.
Carrie: He should write a review for us.
Sarah: Of 5-Minute Marvel Stories?
Carrie: Yes.
Sarah: I will tell him to do that. He’s obsessed with watching other children’s toy reviews on YouTube. Like, this is my toy, and this is how it works, and this is how, this is why it’s awesome, and this is what happens when the batteries go dead. And he likes for me to tape him playing with his toys so he can tell people about the toys that he loves best and why they’re awesome, so he would do an, actually a really good review.
Carrie: I think that would be great. Oh, hey. Do you think that if I get past these I can finally have an excuse, like, past the, the conventions, I finally will have an excuse to sit down and read Fangirl and Attachments, with are, which are both sitting on my TBR staring at me?
Sarah: [Gasps] Those books give me good book noise!
Carrie: They’re staring at me, Sarah!
Sarah: Yeah, they’re staring at you longingly, because you know that you will like them.
Carrie: Okay, I have to get past this coming weekend and the weekend after that, because I’m cramming. It’s like grad school. But then, then I’ll read Jim Butcher and Rainbow Rowell.
Sarah: Yay!
Carrie: Okay, so what else, what else is on your Kindle?
Sarah: Let’s see, the Timberwolves trilogy by Tammy Blackwell, which was a 99 cent trilogy, so I figure I like shifters; why not?
Carrie: Why not.
Sarah: A Bol-, A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev –
Carrie: Ooh!
Sarah: – which is an arranged, a contemporary romance, but it’s an arranged marriage story. The heroine is betrothed to a man when she’s four or five, and because she’s betrothed, she has a slightly different upbringing in India and ends up going to school in the United States. Her, her betrothed sends his brother to break off the engagement, and when the brother gets there, the book begins, because that’s where the romance happens.
Carrie: Uh-huh!
Sarah: I know! I’m very excited about this. Let’s see, The Other Harlow Girl, which is another book that comes out in the future, and let’s see, Caroline Linden’s Love and Other Scandals and Percy Jackson, The Battle of the Labyrinth, but I already read that. So there you go. That’s my Kindle carousel at the, the present time.
Carrie: Oh, here, when I reviewed Game Geeks and Fashion Freaks, somebody –
Sarah: Yeah?
Carrie: – somebody pointed me to The Heart’s Game, which is about some people who meet at Comic-Con, so –
Sarah: Of course it is.
Carrie: Yes, of course it is. So, you know, like, there’s, there’s just some things that I just have to read.
What happens at Comic-Con, stays at Comic-Con…
Robotics engineer Jenny Nguyen has given up on finding Mr. Right.
Okay, so in two sentences we have Comic-con, female robotics engineer, racial diversity. I really, like, I just bought it right that second. I don’t know what the rest of the book is about.
Sarah: But you were already inclined to like it and hug it and hold it and kiss it and name it George.
Carrie: Oh, yeah, like, I, I, I ordered it, like, that second. I read two sentences, and –
Sarah: Isn’t that the best?
Carrie: Yeah.
Sarah: Like, do you remember when that was an amazing thing? Like, we’re all a bookstore, and we all have a bookstore with us at every moment, and I remember when that was like the most amazing, miraculous development, that I could buy a book whenever the hell I wanted, so long as I had a cellular signal.
Carrie: I know.
Sarah: [Sighs] I take it for granted now, and so do my kids, but oh, my gosh, I love it so much!
Carrie: No, I never take it for granted, and I have that one-click ordering. It’s not my friend.
Sarah: Nooo.
Carrie: It’s, ohhh, it’s not good. Oh, yeah! I wanted to check out – so now I’m looking at, on my email list, like –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: – all the e-pubs, right? Spyfall, and, and, my God, there’s just a lot. See, I told you I had a lot of romance lined up to read. It just wasn’t piled in front of me because I have to set it aside for a week. Even though –
Sarah: I understand. All right then.
Carrie: What’s that?
Sarah: I, I totally understand.
Carrie: Yeah, so, no, I have, I have plenty of romance. Ooh, and, and, you know, in November we have not one but two scientist romance biopics? Movies?
Sarah: Really?
Carrie: Yes! Yes! Benedict is in, Benedict Cumberbatch is in that Alan Turing movie? The Imitation Game? I’m dying. And then they’re also, at the same time, having one about Steven Hawking and his relationship with his wife.
Sarah: Whoa.
Carrie: Yes, November will be a good month. I’m, I’m, like, all for that.
Sarah: And did you ever read The Red Tent by Anita Diamant?
Carrie: Like, years ago, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Sarah: It’s going to be a miniseries on television in December.
Carrie: Ooh, I don’t know what I think about that.
Sarah: I am so curious. It could be epic, it could just be terrible, but I am so curious.
Carrie: Ooh.
Sarah: Yeah, that was kind of my reaction. Hmm. You have all of the good things ahead of you.
Carrie: I do! I, this, this fall is like, is like this playground of, of bliss and excitement.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Carrie: Did that sound sarcastic? ‘Cause I actually meant it sincerely, and then my pile of books started, like, tilting in this sort of ominous way, and I got all stressed out again. You know how, like, little kids go to the carnival, and then they get too over stimulated and they freak out?
Sarah: Yep.
Carrie: Yeah, so that’s kind of like my current mental state.
Sarah: That’s kind of how you’re feeling?
Carrie: Yeah.
[music]
Sarah: And that is all for this week’s podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to Carrie for taking time to talk to me. Hopefully, by the time this airs, she’ll be knee-deep in Convolution and then the following week will take a very long nap. But I’m sure you’re all like, crap, what was that book she talked about? Fear not, I will list all of the books and everything that I can possibly link to that she mentioned in the podcast entry, so don’t worry, and don’t try to write things down while you drive; that will just end badly for everyone.
This podcast was brought to you by Signet, publisher of The King, the latest in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series from #1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward, now available in paperback. That would be The King. J. R. Ward herself is not a paperback, as far as I know. But thank you to Signet and to all of the related Penguin awesomeness for sponsoring the podcast.
The music that you’re listening to was provided by Sassy Outwater. You can find her on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is Duncan Chisholm. This song is called “Running the Cross” and you can find it on his album Affric on Amazon, iTunes, and various other places where music is bought or sold or both.
If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to our feed. We’re on iTunes, we’re on PodcastPickle, we’re on Stitcher, we’re in a lot of places, and if we’re not in a place where you like to listen to podcasts, please email me and let me know. You can email us about problems with the podcast, or you can email us with suggestions, or you can email us to tell Carrie about yet another book she has to read. Our email address is sbjpodcast@gmail.com, and you can also leave a message at our Google voice number, 1-201-371-DBSA. Please don’t forget to give your name and where you’re calling from so we can include your message in an upcoming podcast. I promise, you sound totally normal and very smart; don’t worry. And if you want me to edit your message and take out any time you say “um,” I can totally do that, because editing software is great, especially because it makes my laptop really warm, which makes one of my cats come over and lie down on it and me while I’m editing. So this podcast was produced by myself and Grace, who is 17 and hairy and taking a nap on the laptop right now.
So on behalf of Grace and Jane and Carrie and myself, we wish you the very best of reading and an excellent weekend. Thank you for listening.
[wicked awesome music]
You guys are a lot of fun together. And thanks Garlic Knitter for the transcript!
My pleasure!