The Hugo Awards were awarded on August 11 at WorldCon in Helsinki, Finland. N.K. Jemisin won for the second year in a row for The Obelisk Gate, the second in her BROKEN EARTH trilogy. The third book in the trilogy, The Stone Sky, just came out yesterday, so anyone who likes to wait until trilogies are complete before reading any of their parts can now dive in!  Oh, and here’s some late-breaking news:  TNT is developing the first book in the trilogy, The Fifth Season, as a TV series.

More awards news: the Dragon Award nominations are out. The voting for these awards is open to anyone with an email address. This is the second year for these awards, which are a tad politically controversial; particular nominations seem to be standing for particular political ideologies. This has caused several nominees to withdraw, including John Scalzi, Alison Littlewood and N.K. Jemisin, fresh off her Hugo win. That said, there are many fine books and stories listed in the nominations along with some dross; you could do a lot worse than reading the nominated books with only a few exceptions.

Barnes & Noble lists the best science fiction and fantasy books of the year so far. It’s enough to make you want to ditch everything else in your life and just read! Of course, for some of us, that’s the default setting.

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman‘s Good Omens is being adapted for television by Amazon. It’s just been announced that Michael Sheen and David Tennant are set to star, which is good news to those of us who first encountered Tennant through his Doctor Who and followed him through Broadchurch and on to Jessica Jones.

Our own star, Marion Deeds, is quoted in a lively article entitled “What Will Be the Next Breakout SF/F Novel?” I’m moving all of the books mentioned to the top of my TBR pile. And if you need even more suggestions for good reading, try some of the uncanny novels discussed here.

Does anyone watch a science fiction movie in the hope that it will accurately predict the future? Me, I just watch them to be entertained and, if it’s a really good movie, to ponder the philosophical, scientific, political and artistic points raised. But if it’s historical accuracy you’re going for, this article from The Telegraph will give you something to think about.

Where have all the good science fiction movies and television series come from? John Tuttle argues that 20th Century Fox is the best source, citing, among many others, The Day the Earth Stood Still. The original, not the Keanu Reeves remake, obviously! But be careful which friends you plan to share your enthusiasm for this older movie; some audiences can’t or won’t look past the special effects, which, truth to tell, are not very impressive by today’s standards. If all you see is the robot’s costume bending at the knee as if made out of fabric instead of metal, well, you’re missing the point.

Why is America, almost uniquely in the world, so obsessed with science fiction? Thomas Olde Heuvelt tries to explain in this article on the Tor.com blog — and to let us in on how delighted he was to discover that genre fiction is taken seriously here.

Looking for more dystopian fiction to make you think that everything today is really okay after all? The Portalist has you covered.

Good news for Star Trek fans: the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery may well pave the way for even more Star Trek. Is there such a thing as too much Star Trek? If so, I’m of the opinion that we haven’t reached it yet.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is coming soon to a theater near you, and it looks fabulous:

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  • Terry Weyna

    TERRY WEYNA, on our staff since December 2010, would rather be reading than doing almost anything else. She reads all day long as an insurance coverage attorney, and in all her spare time as a reviewer, critic and writer. Terry lives in Northern California with her husband, professor emeritus and writer Fred White, two rambunctious cats, and an enormous library.

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