On this day in 1933, Hugh Gray took the first known photos alleged to be of the Loch Ness Monster, who appeared again this past week in a photo taken by a Nessie-enthusiast.

fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviews

Famous hoaxed photo of Loch Ness Monster

Writing, Editing, and Publishing: 

On Sunday, the World Fantasy Award winners were announced. Congrats to all the winners!

From SFSignal, Scarlett Amaris and Melissa St. Hilaire discuss the process and the pros and cons of collaboration on their dark fantasy novel Saurimonde.

Publisher’s Weekly published a great interview with Robin LeFevers, author of the YA series HIS FAIR ASSASSIN, the final book of which, Mortal Heart, is due to be released this month.

In response to a fan’s homework assignment, Patrick Rothfuss put forth a passionate defense of fantasy literature (and genre literature in general) as deserving of academic attention and study. He calls out the literary snobs, reminding them that literary fiction is also a genre, and that he will “fight to the death” anyone who denies this.

In this report, Laura J. Mixon examines the recent controversy surrounding author Benjanun Sridaengkeuw and her blogging persona, Requires Hate. On her blog, Requires Hate wrote an apology for some of her actions. And finally Paul Weimer, genre fan and blogger, writes his reaction to the controversy, which is basically that instances like this tend to suck some of the joy out of being a fan.

Kat Howard, a World Fantasy Award-nominated short-story writer, has just signed a two-book deal with Saga Press, Simon & Schuster’s SFF imprint. Howard, described here as a protégé of Neil Gaiman, also wrote a great short story I just listened to recently from Lightspeed Magazine’s podcast, called “A Meaningful Exchange.

Did you know we have a place where you can find and share GREAT SFF reading deals with FanLit readers? We’ve now added a subscription option so you can get email updates when someone posts a great deal. The email list is only for comments on that particular post and won’t be used for any other purpose. (Basically, it’s just an RSS feed via email.) SIGN UP HERE and please be sure to alert us when you see a great SFF deal that you’d like to share. (If you’ve already subscribed to the post because you’ve commented there before, you don’t need to sign up again.)

Also, in the sidebar you’ll see a place to sign up to receive all of our posts by email. This comes in a digest format each day.

fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviews

Oil painting of Nessie by Heikenwaelder Hugo.

Movies and Television:

If, like me, you were bummed that Paramount never followed up its film, A Series of Unfortunate Events, with more from the series, then you may be excited to find out that Netflix is planning (with Paramount) to create a show based on the Lemony Snicket books.

Here on Suvudu, Andy Weir talks about the process of turning The Martian into a film, and tells us what his favorite Ridley Scott movie is.

At Tor.com, Leigh Butler writes convincingly about how Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is accidentally the most feminist animated Disney movie, while also effervescing about the glory that is Disney’s Maleficent. I really love both of these movies, so I’m on board.

Check out the trailer for Chappiean upcoming 2015 movie about the first self-aware robot. It stars Dev Patel, the guy from Slumdog Millionaire.

Jonah Nolan, the director of Interstellar, is also developing an HBO series based on Isaac Asimov’s FOUNDATION series.

This seems weird and unnecessary, but hey! I’m not an expert on superhero movies, so maybe this is something people will be really into? Sony is developing a movie based on the young adventures of Aunt May, Spiderman’s aunt.

Internet Stuff:

If you’d like to take a virtual tour of San Fransokyo, the virtual city, a hybrid of San Francisco and Tokyo, built for Disney’s upcoming film, Big Hero Six, Gizmodo has some awesome images and clips here.

In which Swiss scientists learn to create ghosts . . .

This article by Alex Abad-Santos from Vox examines the history of Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, from the rape apologia roots in her storyline, to her current status as Captain Marvel, going “higher, further, faster, more.”

Ahh! Look at this vintage G.R.R. Martin, from Suvudu’s Throwback Thursday–so cute!

Author

  • Kate Lechler

    KATE LECHLER, on our staff from May 2014 to January 2017, resides in Oxford, MS, where she divides her time between teaching early British literature at the University of Mississippi, writing fiction, and throwing the tennis ball for her insatiable terrier, Sam. She loves speculative fiction because of what it tells us about our past, present, and future. She particularly enjoys re-imagined fairy tales and myths, fabulism, magical realism, urban fantasy, and the New Weird. Just as in real life, she has no time for melodramatic protagonists with no sense of humor. The movie she quotes most often is Jurassic Park, and the TV show she obsessively re-watches (much to the chagrin of her husband) is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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