Fantasy Book Swap

alibaker68
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Books
  • Updated Monthly

Ali Baker and a guest discuss children’s fantasy fiction. The guest chooses a favourite for Ali, and Ali chooses a complementing contemporary book. Jokes and the occasional swear word may ensue. Please contact https://www.instagram.com/fantasy_book_swap_podcast/, @alisonbaker01 on BlueSky or https://www.facebook.com/Fantasybookswap. Ask questions, make comments and join in the discussion!

  1. Sep 12

    Ep 58: A Real Boy with Gary Couzens

    Gary's book choice: The Devil's Children by Peter Dickinson  Ali's book choice: Tin by Padraig Kenny  The book covers while I try to be a book influencer The Changes TV show trailer Anna Home, children's TV producer Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics The TV that made us Gary's website Gary's Facebook Buy Me a Coffee

  2. Aug 19

    Ep 57 Lost boys and celebrity rivers with Tajinder Hayer

    Ali’s choice: The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti Taj’s choice: The Blackthorn Branch by Elen Caldecott Ebbs and Flows by Tajinder on Ragged Edge Productions’ website Taj’s episode of Zog: The Great Gnome Games Ali’s  article on The Borribles, Punk and Protest can be read in this edition of Vector, the BSFA’s journal.  SUS laws Media mentioned in this episode The Warriors   Assault on Precinct 13 The Tribe Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome You can use the TfL Walking website to follow the route from Angel to Farringdon that Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger walked to Fagin’s den.  Three Men in a Boat and The Wind in the Willows are two classics of leisurely life on the river. Former guest Sandra Bond’s Three Men in Orbit relocates Jerome K. Jerome’s characters in space! The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Watership Down by Richard Adams The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo Elidor by Alan Garner Aru Shah and the End of Time I thoroughly recommend Sarwat Chadda’s Ash Mistry series as another brilliant use of Indian traditional stories for children’s fantasy. The Mahabharata and Ramayana are key texts that are the basis of spiritual practices that originated in India Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symonds Roberts Taj’s webpage at Lancaster University My Buy me a coffee link buymeacoffee.com/alibaker68e

  3. Jul 26

    Ep 56: Weird Science with Dr Annie Czajkowski

    Annie’s choice:The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts  Ali’s choice: The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge A short piece by Willo Davis Roberts on writing mysteries for young people Annie has just got back from Finncon where her husband, multiple  award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky was a guest of honour. Rosebud is an excellent bookshop. If you’re ever in Helsinki you should definitely visit. Annie talks about Xan Van Roojen, a South African writer who lives in Finland, and their use of music while writing. My vote for a new National Anthem: Disco Inferno I listen to a lot of Philip Glass music when writing. It calms my brain. This is the beginning of his opera Akhnaten, which I was lucky enough to see staged in Leeds in the mid-90s. The Girl with the Silver Eyes reminds me of Escape to Witch Mountain, a Disney live-action film. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin Shockingly I misremembered the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice. I will retire my English Literature degree. In  my defence, I'm a Victorianist. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  My earworm this week: Mean Green Mother From Outer Space from Little Shop of Horrors Alnwick Castle Poison Garden Maelstrom LARP The Coral Bones by EJ Swift has been on my TBR list for an embarrassingly long time. You can find out more about Annie and her research here and hear some of her music on Adrian Tchaikovsky and Emma Newman’s Starship Alexandria podcast, where Adrian and Emma take it in turns to select a favourite piece of speculative fiction and discuss it.  Fantasy Book Swap has recently been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Society award!  Thanks so much to anyone who nominated.

  4. Jul 5

    Episode 55: Time slips and haunting with Elen Caldecott

    Elen’s choice: A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley Ali’s choice: The Haunting of Aveline Jones by Phil Hickes Elen’s recently-published text book: Writing for Young People: Critical Readings and Discussion on Craft Alison Uttley’s diaries were published in 2009 The history of the Babington plot Books mentioned in this episode: Charlotte Sometimes, Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Borrowers, Tyger. The book by Joan Aiken that I couldn’t remember is In Thunder’s Pocket. We didn’t talk about the awful adaptation from 1978. You have been warned. Elen’s book The Short Knife won the Tir na n’Og award in 2021. Hear her reading the chapter and talking to Nikki Gamble here. Elen teaches at Lancaster and Bath Spa universities. She is one of the managing editors of Leaf Journal on writing for children. You can follow her on Bluesky and Instagram. Fantasy Book Swap has recently been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Society award!  Thanks so much to anyone who nominated.

  5. Jun 6

    Ep 54 Minisode British Fantasy Society Award shortlist

    Hello friends! Fantasy Book Swap has been nominated for a British Fantasy Society Award for Best Audio- Non-Fiction. The others in the shortlist are: Breaking the Glass Slipper, a previous winner and Hugos nominee The Folklore Podcast, hosted by folklorist and author Mark Norman Uncanny, a BBC podcast hosted by comedy writer and performer Danny Robins, investigating supernatural happenings.  It is an honour to be on the shortlist with such amazing creators, some of whom I hope to meet at the awards at FantasyCon in October!

  6. May 17

    Ep 53: Lord of the Rings, but with mice with C. L. McCartney

    Chris’s choice: Mossflower by Brian Jacques Ali’s choice: The Spick and the Span by Pil Van Martin, longlisted for the Carnegie award Mossflower cover art for the 1989 Red Lion edition by Pete Lyon Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques Robin Hood and Maid Marion Warrior Cats by Erin Hunter. I met Cherith Baldry, one of the Erin Hunter writers, at Glasgow WorldCon. Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz; Young James Bond by Charlie Higson I made a recipe from the Redwall cookbook A journal article by Christopher Quah Wai Kheong and Anita Harris Satkunananthan on othering in Outcast of Redwall Professor Dimitra Fimi ‘Was Tolkien really racist?’ Cluny the Scourge.   The first two episodes of the Redwall cartoon series feature Cluny. Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley Marvel: Damage Control was a limited series of comics, a TV show was in development but never made. The Superhero Clean Up Squad was a comedy series from 2015. The Rest Of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness is the story of the other students of the high school infested by zombies and vampires, not the chosen ones; the ones who just want to graduate before school blows up again. Check out Bona Books Follow Chris on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/chrismccartney.bsky.social

  7. May 3

    Ep 52: Team Binabik with Stewart Hotston

    Stewart Hotston is the chair of the BSFA. Stewart’s choice: Memory, Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams (First in the Dragonbone Chair trilogy. It is 5 1/2 cm deep. You can see the original cover on Tad Williams’s website Ali’s choice: Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa. It is considerably less thick.   The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey. A novel about a child, but not a children’s book. Aliette de Bodard’s essay On Motherhood and Erasure. Anna Smith Spark’s  A Sword of Bronze and Ashes is one of the few fantasy books where a mother is the protagonist. Catherynne M. Valente’s excellent The Refrigerator Monologues addresses the phenomenon of fridging women characters as a plot device and motivation for male superheroes. Stewart recommends Richard Swan, David Wragg and Neal Stephenson’s Baroque cycle for interesting takes on mythology and folklore. Wuxia such as Monkey adapted from Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. Zen Cho’s novelette The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water. Historical C-dramas are very big on yearning glances. Stewart is currently watching Veil of Shadows. Stewart recently read The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson. The most challenged books. The CLPE’s Reflecting Realities report demonstrates that the number of children’s books with protagonists of colour published in 2025 was lower than in previous years. Stewart wrote a blog about representation and the Clarke Awards. EasterCon is the British SFF fan-run con that travels around the UK. Next year it is in Glasgow! Find Stewart online! Website, Bluesky, Nerds of a Feather. Read Project Hanuman.

  8. Apr 11

    Ep 51: A snake out of water with Emily Tesh

    Emily’s choice: Briar’s Book/ The Healing in the Vine by Tamora Pierce Ali’s choice:  A Snake falls to Earth by Darcy Little Badger Darcie Little Badger's website EasterCon- the annual British fan-run Science Fiction and Fantasy convention Emily was on a panel celebrating the centenary of Anne McCaffrey Scholastic Book Fairs are still going! Tamora Pierce’s books have been challenged and removed from libraries. Attempts at censoring reading are rising in the UK. If you want to read to support authors, please bear in mind that LGBTQ+ authors and authors of colour are more likely to be under threat of having their books  removed from libraries and schools. See the list of books removed from Lowry Academy in Manchester where a librarian has lost her job and is unlikely to work with young people again. For more information on the effects of book banning on authors, listen to this episode of Our Opinions Are Correct with Maggie Tokuda-Hall. Food in SFF- Dr Fiona Moore cooks recipes from SFF cook books so we don’t have to. She found this recipe for cherry tarts inspired by Alanna: The First Adventure. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones has been nominated for several awards. Stephen Graham Jones is also a Native American (Blackfeet) author who writes mostly in horror. I also really enjoyed Monoquill Blackgoose’s To Shape a Dragon’s Breath. Darren Chetty’s ‘You can’t say that! Stories are supposed to be about white people!’ from Nikesh Shukla (Ed) The Good Immigrant. This book was published by Unbound, which has collapsed. The amazing Petronella Breinburg, who was born in Suriname, not the Caribbean. You didn't hear it from me, but Emily's website is https://emilytesh.net/ and you can follow her on Bluesky @emilytesh.net. You should definitely listen to Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, though.   Thank you as always for listening, sharing and engaging!

See All (60)

Ratings & Reviews

About

Ali Baker and a guest discuss children’s fantasy fiction. The guest chooses a favourite for Ali, and Ali chooses a complementing contemporary book. Jokes and the occasional swear word may ensue. Please contact https://www.instagram.com/fantasy_book_swap_podcast/, @alisonbaker01 on BlueSky or https://www.facebook.com/Fantasybookswap. Ask questions, make comments and join in the discussion!

Information

  • Creator
    alibaker68
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    60
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Fantasy Book Swap