WWWednesday: March 27, 2019

Wow, that month went by fast.

Awards:

Gabriela Damian Miravete has won the James Tiptree award for 2018 with They Will Dream in the Garden.

The Horror Writers Association awarded their Specialty Press award to Raw Dog Screaming Press. There’s an evocative name.

Conventions:

(Re)Generation Who 5, a Doctor Who convention scheduled for this upcoming weekend, has cancelled abruptly. (Thanks to File 770 for this item.)

Author Brian Fies with his graphic memoir at Copperfields Books Sebastopol, CA

Giveaway:

This column’s pictures are from an author event I attended. Brian Fies is a friend and an Eisner and Emmy award winning cartoonist and author. One random commenter will win a signed copy of his new graphic memoir A Fire Story.

Books and Writing:

This is an excerpt from a book about a book collector’s quest for an original Gutenberg bible.

Kris Kathryn Rusch writes about punctuation as a function of narrative voice.

If you loved Love, Death + Robots, The Verge has a recommended reading list for you.

We already knew that the Booker Prize lost their “Man,” but the news here seems to be that they are again restricting the award to books published within the United Kingdom. They plan to continue the prize this year and next while they formalize discussions with a new funder.

A recent US Supreme Court 9-0 decision about copyright stirred up concerns on Twitter and other places. In Fourth Estate Benefit Corp vs Wall Street.com LLC, the court codifies and makes consistent the requirement of a copyright registration in order to pursue an infringement lawsuit. Once you have

Slide show of A Fire Story, by Brian Fies

the registration (which, okay, can take months) you are able to sue for infringement that happened before or after your receipt of the registration. Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s opinion is so clear that even I could understand it and I’m no lawyer.

Strange Horizons announced editorial staff changes.

Black Girl Nerds profiles Karyn Parsons, discussing her new novel and her nonprofit organization.

TV and Movies:

Yes, the trailer for the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones is out. (Thanks to Black Girl Nerds.)

SyfyWire gives us a short introduction to a video of Jordan Peele explaining the origins of his horror film Us.

Speaking of Us, it set a box office record for horror films, grossing over $70 million in its opening weekend. Some industry publications acted surprised, but I don’t know why. If you like horror movies, didn’t you know as soon as you say the first terrifying trailer that you were going to go see it?

Devery Jacobs talks to Collider about bringing the two-spirit character of Sam Two Crows to life for American Gods.

Internet:

Dennis R Upkins shares some of his personal story and gives his opinions on Afrofuturism.

In 450, Herodotus described a type of river boat he saw in Egypt. Millenia later, many if not most historians doubted his description because no evidence of such a boat had been found… until now. You go, Herodotus!

Venus, it’s made of toffee! Not really. Image from the Planetary Society

The kids are all right. This study compared USA college seniors majoring in computer sciences with the same students in India, China and Russia, and the US kids were better prepared. Yes, there are caveats, and the article addresses those.

Space:

Venus, it’s made of toffee! Er, no, that’s not it, it’s a “toffee planet.” There is renewed interest in Venus and some attractive theories that the planet’s surface is not as geologically dead as we previously thought.

The Venus image came from The Planetary Society.