The second episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded while on a meal break from this year’s Readercon—which occurred the day after my dinner with James Patrick Kelly—was with award-winning science fiction writer John Kessel. We had lunch by the water on a warm sunny day at Bay Pointe Waterfront Restaurant in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Kessel’s latest novel, The Moon and The Other, was released in April from Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. He’s a two-time Nebula Award winner, first in 1982 for his novella “Another Orphan,” then in 2008 for the novelette “Pride and Prometheus.” He set a new record with that second award, in that the 26 years between the two was (at the time) the longest gap for a winner in Nebula history. His short story “Buffalo”—one of my all-time favorites in or out of genre, and one which I reread often—won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award in 1992.

We discussed why he suddenly has two novels coming out within a year two decades after his last one, how attending the 1969 St. Louis Worldcon changed his life, the ways in which his objections to “The Cold Equations” and Ender’s Game are at their heart the same, his early days attempting to emulate Thomas M. Disch, the time-travel short story he couldn’t whip into shape for Damon Knight, which author broke his 26-year Nebula Awards record for the longest gap between wins, the secret behind the success of his many collaborations with James Patrick Kelly, and more.

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One of the things you’ll hear John talk about is what it was like to attend the 1969 Worldcon in St. Louis. Amazingly, we found a photo of him there just last week in the newly digitized Jay Kay Klein archives. That’s him to the right, with pal Steve Carper gazing at him from the left. John hasn’t changed a bit!

And here’s what we ate during that afternoon by the water—

Baked Stuffed Quahogs

Sauteed Jumbo Shrimp

Broiled Boston Scrod

Caramel Apple Tart

Molten Chocolate Torte

If you’re still hungry for more, come back in two weeks when you can travel with me to Helsinki, Finland for lunch with Johanna Sinisalo, this year’s Worldcon Guest of Honor, whose novel The Core of the Sun recently won the 2017 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

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