The distinguished Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Locus Award winner Paolo Bacigalupi joins us this week to talk about his forthcoming historical fantasy Navola, as well as the challenges of shifting from a focus on environmental SF to epic fantasy, the liberation that comes from being able to invent a world (and partly a language) that echoes Florentine history without being bound by it, the importance of following one’s own choices and needs in writing fiction, and his own earlier classics like The Windup Girl and The Water Knife.

We run a bit longer than usual, but that’s a measure of how fascinating it is to chat with Paolo.