Getting Medieval on To the Best of Our Knowledge

Just gone live: "Getting Medieval," the one-hour episode of To the Best of Our Knowledge which includes my interview about Hild.

There are several segments, all interesting.

The show begins to air tomorrow (check your local NPR listings), the same day as the premier of HBO's Game of Thrones Season 4. There's stuff from a medieval weapons expert, Kelly DeVries. There's a brief conversation with George R.R. Martin and why today's audiences might prefer fiction about the past whereas a previous generation liked thinking about the future. Add in a segment with Karen Joy Fowler on her latest, the PEN/Faulkner-winning We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and this is a very satisfying show.

If you just want to listen only to me talking about Hild as butcher-bird, Hild as seer, Hild as political spin-meister, then of course feel free to stream or download just my segment (a smidge under 12 minutes). But you'll be missing out--not least because they use snippets of Heningarna's "Viima," or "Cold Wind,"* as incidental music...

* Also the title of my most recent short story, due out in a couple of weeks from Tor.com