Lists and awards
An award for every man, woman, and child! First up, the British Science Fiction Association has announced their shortlist, which includes such near-to-my-heart things as Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, and Sofia Samatar’s “Selkie Stories are for Losers.” Then there’s the Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition, which has released their shortlisted stories. Locus Magazine also has their reader’s survey and poll open for voting. And Strange Horizons has the results of their poll of reader’s favorites up on their site.
As far as upcoming books, I should first like to direct your attention stage left, where you’ll see that Fantasy Literature has our very own constantly-updated list of upcoming speculative fiction. Which is a great way to end up literally suffocating in books. My Bookish Ways also has a nice list of books coming in February, for those still keeping their heads above the rising book-water.
Articles and such
In the slightly more random vein of stuff-I-read-this-week, we’ll start with this very, very irritating debate that sprang out of Alex MacFarlane’s Tor.com post on post-binary gender systems in science fiction. The less upsetting side of the debate is addressed here. Do yourself a favor and don’t read the comments.
But I digress. For fun, go check out this roundtable on food in science fiction, which features all your (read: my) favorite authors. And then go check out Anna Redmond’s thoughts on writing female protagonists who aren’t Bridget Jones. And then—because I have no shame at all—here’s Benedict Cumberbatch on Sesame Street.
Writing and publishing
This isn’t terribly writer-ly, but Books, Brains and Beer offers us a list of the 10 types of obnoxious book people. Would we say “obnoxious” though? Perhaps, “lovably neurotic?” And also, dudes, American Gods and Anansi Boys will both be put onto your television, via magic. This fills me with great excitement and great fear.
Oh, and here’s an interview with Elizabeth Bear about all things Writerly at Tor.com.
Pretty things
Whew, bullet point time:
- I don’t care that this isn’t science fiction, I love it to death. All of human evolution in a single GIF.
- In honor of the Year of the Horse, here’s a whole bunch of fantasy horses.
- You know that thing where fan artists redraw the Disney princesses in all kinds of weird mashups? Here’s a Guardian article analyzing that trend.
Whaddaya mean it’s not writer-ly! Me write good!
Matt, I like your book people list!
Bahaha–you write plenty good! I just stuck myself with the slightly-arbitrary categories of “writing and publishing” and “articles and such,” and didn’t know where to stick your lovely book people post.
Thanks for the content (which I heartlessly stole)!
;-)
Alix, you could start a new category called “random cool book stuff”.