WWWednesday: April 18, 2018

Awards:

This year’s Man Booker Prize finalist list includes two works of genre interest.

Books and Writing:

Cameron Cuffe as Seg-El and Georgina Campbell as Lyta Zog, star-crossed lovers in Krypton. Photo from SyFy.com

At Tor.com, Seanan Maguire writes about fanfic as the best writing school there is.

For all you writers out there, some of these markets are open through the end of the month, so send them your stuff!

The Stan Lee story gets stranger and sadder, as the iconic comics publisher/cameo artist, who is responsible for the largest comics empire in the nation, releases a video threatening to sue anyone who claims he is being exploited, while it appears that he’s being exploited. Lee is in his nineties and since last year increasingly more disturbing stories have been coming out.

LitHub collected pearls of writing wisdom from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and shares them here.

LeVar Burton’s reading-poscast will feature some of our favorite speculative fiction writers; Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson and Charlie Jane Anders.

Thanks to Kat for this link to an article about the 100 most influential comic books.

In honor of Bookstore Day, April 28, Atlas Obscura is asking you to send in a photo of your favorite local bookstore.

Here is another reader round-up Atlas Obscura did, about fan letters (back when those were a thing) and people’s heroes. It’s charming.

John Scalzi talks with Salon about Head On, the Lock In sequel. The book came out yesterday.

The right design element becomes the focal point of a room. Photo from SyFy.com

Internet:

Cat Rambo posted this on her Patreon page. This is one of the most amazing fight sequences I’ve ever seen… or should I say, fight and flight sequences? Enjoy.

This readable article gives some background on the risks associated with the internet, as the Mozilla Foundation gives the net a health checkup and notices some serious problems, no news to anyone who watched Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony last week, or, for that matter, anyone who uses the internet.

Games:

Twin Galaxies has stripped erstwhile King of Kong champion Billy Mitchell of his title as high-score winner of the game because they determined he used an emulator rather than original arcade equipment as he had previously stated. Emulator scores are allowed but they are tracked in a separate category. Bad form, Billy Mitchell. Bad form.

You can’t call the Voice of Rao two-faced, exactly. Photo from SyFy.com

Science and Tech:

The norovirus invades a specific type of cell in the intestinal tract – tuft cells. This has researchers changing their thinking about the virus and other intestinal disorders as well.

Saturday was the date for the nationwide March for Science.

TV and Movies:

Someone at Netflix thought that yet another reboot of the cheesy 1960s “science fiction” TV show Lost in Space needed a reboot. Ars Technica has a review.

Master of horror Stephen King tweeted a positive statement of the new horror movie A Quiet Place. The film was already doing well at the box office but King’s endorsement can only help.

Syfy provides an interview with the cast of its new pre-Superman show Krypton.

Hat tip to Kat for this one; Neil Gaiman is bringing Gormenghast to television!

Earth:

The proposed Thirty Meter Telescope may shift its site to the Canary Islands as Native Hawaiians continue to oppose another huge installation on Mauna Kea, one of their sacred areas.