WWWednesday: June 27, 2018

Victor LaValle’s The Changeling won a Locus Award for Best Horror Novel.

Awards:

Tor.com has a list of Saturday’s Locus Award winners, which include The Collapsing Empire (John Scalzi) for Best Science Fiction Novel, The Stone Sky  (N.K. Jemisin) for Best Fantasy Novel; The Changeling (Victor LaValle) for Best Horror Novel. Akata Warrior (Nnedi Okorafor) won Best Young Adult Novel and The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (Theodora Goss) won for best first novel. The John W. Campbell Award went to David Walton for The Genius Plague. (Click on the title link for our reviews.)

Conventions:

It’s not a complete list by any means (WorldCon isn’t on there that I can see) but this site provides a nice list of conventions through the rest of the year.

Books and Writing:

A Kickstarter has begun to get Ursula LeGuin’s first poetry chapbook, Wild Angels, reprinted.

Octavia Butler’s birthday was last week, and there were tributes to her in several places. Tor.com provided this reprint of a brief article from 2013.

Eric Flint took to Facebook to provide fans with a medical update. Much of the news is ultimately positive. (H/T to File 770.)

In 15^th and 16^th century Europe, Christian religious orders branded the tops of their books, so that they could get them back. The books were designed to travel, being in the hands of missionaries, but they were expected to come back too. It’s an interesting article.

PBS’s Great American Read is not limited to speculative fiction. Here are the 100 finalists. Have you voted for your favorite yet? I was disappointed by what wasn’t on there, but happy to see some old standbys and some newer works – and completely baffled by a few.

Mermaids are the rage right now. The UK Guardian shares its thoughts on The Gloaming by Kristy Logan, which may (or may not) contain a mermaid.

Giveaway:

Because it was fun last time, this week I am offering a copy of Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch to one random commenter.

TV and Movies:

Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Warrior won a Locus Award for best Young Adult novel.

A group of unhappy souls have banded together to create this completely plausible crowdfund plea for money to re-make The Last Jedi so it comes out the way they want. They either have every penny of the $200 million already, or they are crowdfunding it. I’m not sure which. They either have a brilliant screenwriter lined up, or they are going to fan-source the script. I’m not sure which of those either. Other than that, it’s quite clear what they’re going to do.

People who tweeted about the Ant Man and The Wasp movie seemed to like it.

Netflix has picked up Season Four of the Neil Gaiman-inspired fantasy detective series Lucifer. It’s hard to really call it a detective series, but there is usually a murder, and detective Chloe usually does manage to solve it, even with Lucifer’s help.

Ars Technica reviewer Sam Machkovech doesn’t think much of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. In other news, “Sharknado” has now become an official benchmark of cheesiness. You go, weird little bad-shark-movie franchise!

Gaming:

The Origins Game Fair is pursuing an investigation of two allegations of sexual misconduct and/or harassment.

Courtest of Ars Technica, here is a gallery of cool pics from this year’s E3 Convention.

The Internet:

Another reason to love ice cream; when hoity-toity restaurants excluded solitary women (another attempt at social control) ice cream parlors welcomed them with open arms! Okay maybe there was a profit motive, but still!

I got distracted by the movie Ocean’s Eight and its plot to rob the Met Gala, and forgot about the actual Met Gala, but thank goodness Genevieve Valentine did not. Here, from her blog, is her recap. The theme of the Gala this year was Catholicism. Weird, but mythologically rich. Valentine is here to tell you who made it work and who didn’t. (Spoiler alert, Chadwick Boseman totally made it work!)

Space:

This Ted lesson explores what it would be like to live on the moon. It’s about five minutes long. (H/T to Kat.)