Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without books?

Where would we be without good?

No, Timberd.

It's a rhetorical question, sir.

But where would we be without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm happy to have, as my guest, Zachary Mason, who I haven't seen in seven or eight years. He wrote a novel.

Some of you might remember.

It was called The Lost Books of the Odyssey,

but now there's a book called Void Star.

And I'm curious, people who are writing about it,

beautiful title, by the way,

refer to it almost in an automatic, a nidger, who are writing about it, beautiful title, by the way. Thank you.

Refer to it almost in an automatic, a knee-jerk way as cyberpunk.

Is that something you identify with?

Not even remotely.

I'm not even exactly sure what it means.

Bionic implants and just mirrored sunglasses. Yes, the definition alludes me. I think of it more as literary fiction that uses science fiction and genre elements. So like what's science

fiction? It's usually set in the future. It's kind of about technology. Usually it's mostly

about technology. Usually there isn't that much attention paid to the writing.

...