WWWednesday: December 5, 2018

A Joyous Hanukkah to all those who observe.

A Joyous Festival of Lights.

Conventions:

In addition to electing new officers Arisia has banned some people and restricted the involvement of others, in the wake of the report of their mishandling of a sexual assault complaint.

Scotland, known already for its Fringe Festival, will hold its first speculative fiction/horror fiction literary festival.

Afua Richardson will be a featured artist at WorldCon in Dublin, Ireland in 2019.

Various Controversies:

I mean, I take one week off, and…

The perfect gift for Robert Silverberg?

Back in August, Robert Silverberg scolded N.K. Jemisin on a restricted chat group. Silverberg chastised the 3-time Hugo winner for her acceptance speech, which he found “vulgar and graceless.” (Silverberg once, from the podium, told a about SF writers’ penis sizes at an event he was MCing, demonstrating that he knows about vulgar.) Someone in the 200+ member group leaked Silverberg’s statements and there was a flurry of reaction, but then things quieted down. In November, Silverberg reached out to File700 wanted to share his side of the situation, and Mike Glyer provided the space. Apparently, Silverberg felt the need to reply to some comments that SF writers had made on Facebook. The essay is long and there are many comments. Silverberg has noted elsewhere that he is not on social media and he doesn’t read the field anymore.

Gregory Benford’s panel remarks about THE BROKEN EARTH trilogy at LosCon got him temporary removed from the con. Later he was reinstated and got an apology. I’m guessing from the statements as reported here that he hasn’t read Jemisin’s book either.

Neil Degrasse Tyson was accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault by two women.

Books and Writing:

Atwood is working on a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale.

Thanks to File 770 for this video clip from Late Night with Stephen Colbert, in which George R.R. Martin explains about his first conceived fantasy… A Game of Turtles, excuse me, I mean “The Turtle Castle.”  The interview is about eight minutes long.

Dictionary.com chooses “misinformation” as its Word of the Year for 2018. On the other hand, “illusory information” and “virality” sound pretty cool too.

Speaking of N.K. Jemisin, here’s her GQ interview. Oh, and here’s her Paris Review article. I hope she isn’t feeling too bad over Silverberg’s disapproval.

Here are some pretty coffee table books for your holiday giving.

This round-up article provides the U.K. Guardian’s opinions on the best SF books of 2018… just in time for the holidays.

Movies and TV:

Here is the extended trailer for Aquaman, which opens later this month. It is five+ minutes long and very pretty.

Starry winter night.

Vulture provides a mildly-spoilery review of the entire ten-episode arc of Syfy’s Nightflyers, which is based on George R.R. Martin’s novella of the same name.

Netflix has cancelled Daredevil, which strengthens the theory that these shows may end up of Disney’s new streaming platform. 

Internet:

Update to the “Satanic versus Netflix” story of a few weeks ago; the Satanic Temple has settled.

Nerdmuch has the geek gifts you are looking for, or maybe Den of Geek does.

Space:

Insight safely landed on Mars and has already sent back some cute selfies. Hurray! Meanwhile, Curiosity, somewhat sidelined by the new baby in the house, has found an interesting shiny rock.

Earth:

Two beavers visited a convenience store in Massachusetts. I didn’t link to the local CBS affiliate, which was the two anchors talking about the video, but the male anchor said, “What would beavers want in a convenience store?” and the female anchor didn’t miss a beat. “Pop tarts,” she said.

Disclaimer (sort of):

Was I a little hard on Robert Silverberg? I don’t think so. He’s a SWFA Grandmaster and used to being a celebrity. If he can dish out, he can probably take it.