Neil Clarke, publisher and editor of Clarkesworld, is developing a Statement of Beliefs around the use of AI and LLMs in the world of writing. Here are his thoughts.
I’m sure it’s been at least a couple of weeks since I’ve published someone Best Of Something list, so here’s one; the 100 “best children’s books.”
Variety takes a moment to break down the costuming of Andor.
Karen Gillan “smuggled” her iPad into filming of GOTG3 and created an “unfiltered” behind-the-scenes video. More like cinema verite and less like the polished short features Marvel prefers, it looks pretty fun. She warns about spoilers at the top of each section.
Do you sometimes root for the villain? Then you might want to check out this article by James Davis Nicholl, “Five Surprisingly Sympathetically Supervillains.”
Ars Technica likes the Lenovo Thinkpad best among the new generation of laptops.
John Scalzi was presented with the Heinlein Award last weekend at BaltiCon. He provides a picture and an update of the convention on his blog.
Knopf has purchased rights to a novel Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote before he died, but never published.
Radim Schreiber tells us about his love for Iowa, and photographing fireflies.
I wish the media organizations publishing Best Of lists would commit to not including any works appreciably less than twenty years old in their lists. Faddish obsessions of the recent past rarely stand the test of time and shouldn’t be ranked with works that have. The BBC list isn’t terrible on that score, but they seem to have an overly flexible definition of what “children’s literature” is. The Lord of the Rings, Watership Down, and The Thousand and One Nights are not children’s literature by any stretch of the imagination, although they may be appreciated by some children. Depending on where you make the break between children and young adults, a lot of great literature can be appreciated without it ever having that cohort as its target audience.
Right now, THE WOMAN WHO SMASHED CODES by Jason Fagone and A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES by T. Kingfisher would tie for Best Book.