WWWednesday: March 26, 2014

Lists and Awards

I’m list-lite this week, so here are Buzzfeed’s reasons that 2014 may be the best year for fantasy books in a long time. These aren’t necessarily my reasons that 2014 will be good for fantasy, because men-posing-with-medieval-weapons just isn’t my genre, but hey.

Articles and Such

And now for all the miscellany I could find! First, from Ryan, here’s a good Atlantic article asking why every YA action heroine has to be so tiny and fragile. Speaking as a girl who spent her middle school years hulking through the halls and reading YA fantasy about bird-boned girls who have mighty adventures—DUDE, WHY. Especially if they’re going to learn a weapon and ride into battle.

From Suvudu, we have a plaintive article asking why there aren’t any good movies based on video games. Except the jokes on them, because Super Mario Bros. was the most amazing/terrible movie of my youth. If you’ve forgotten the glory of Dennis Hopper as King Koopa (it happened, folks), here’s the preview.

Also, i09’s March Madness book competition continues, with many opportunities for voting. Right now I think it’s Lord of the Rings versus Game of Thrones (obviously, there’s only one clear choice to rule them all here). Speaking of Game of Thrones, apparently a teacher cowed his students into silence by threatening to spoil the ending of the show for them. Kind of awesome.

The last piece of news is apparently “groundbreaking” and “important to our scientific future” or whatever. Here’s the Scientific American article about our recent detection of gravitational waves from the Big Bang. And here’s the scientist who first postulated their existence, getting to hear the news.

Publishing and Writing

Courtesy of Bill, we’ve got some really interesting news and discussions about the children’s publishing industry this week. First, the New York Times has a compelling, personal essay asking where all the children of color are in children’s fiction. It explains very clearly why it’s so important for people to see their own lives and experiences humanized in their fiction. On the same subject, here’s a more call-to-action-y article, which calls it the “apartheid” of children’s literature and adds some depressing statistics.

In more exciting kid lit news, a couple of big publishers have said they’ll stop marketing books specifically for girls or boys. It’s based on this radical theory that children are not creepy cardboard cutouts labeled PRINCESSES and MONSTER TRUCKS, and that it’s probably okay for boys and girls to read the same books.

All the Pretty Things

• Here’s some classic books made into brooches. And by “classic,” we mean in the public domain, with an animal as the main character.
• And here’s all the movie posters in GIF form you ever wanted, as long as you wanted more than zero.
• Those who have the power to nominate fan artists for Hugos…check this stuff out.