WWWednesday: August 28, 2019

After the Hugos:

There are, as always, a few controversies in the wake of this year’s WorldCon. One is about a possible WorldCon being held in China. Chengdu has a bid for the 2023 WorldCon, along with Nice, France. Cheryl Morgan discusses some pros and cons about Chengdu and Nice. (There is apparently a large group of fans who have a fixation with it being in the USA, which I don’t get, since the Con’s name is WorldCon. On the other hand, we call a national sporting event the World Series, so maybe it is consistent.)

Nicholas Whyte, this year’s Hugo Administrator, delved deeply into the Hugo nominations and final votes. Enjoy the details. He also discusses the apparent dissatisfaction with the Best Fanzine category, which had more No Award votes than other categories. And Cheryl Morgan had a response to that.

Jeanette Ng. Image by Red Sofa Literary

And then there was Jeanette Ng’s acceptance speech for the Campbell award, in which she identified Campbell as a fascist. Cory Doctorow has thoughts about it, and so does John Scalzi. (All I can say is the part of her speech about the pro-Democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong brought tears to my eyes.)

File 770 provided this update; the sponsor of the John W. Campbell Award is willing to discuss changing the name.

And then, this happened.

Awards:

The Ringo nominees, an annual award celebrating the “creativity, skill and fun of comics,” have been announced.

Not an award, a contest: The National Fantasy Fan Federation is accepting stories for its amateur short story contest. There is no entry fee. There are cash prizes. The word limit is 8500, the deadline is December 31, 2019 and they define “amateur” clearly in the guidelines. (Thanks to File 770.)

Fibonacci Spiral. Image by ScienceABC

Books and Writing:

Nerds of a Feather talks about six books with Rhett J. Evans.

Publishers Weekly has a list of the most anticipated books of fall; there are several in the genre category (including a new Stephen King) and two clearly genre books that are presented in general fiction because the authors are Margaret Atwood and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Tor.com wants you to know about new fantasy releases this fall.

TV and Movies:

From last month, Black Girl Nerds shares a column on Black talent that will be coming to Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

IT, Chapter Two, opens September 6. Screenrant has a list of all the returning characters.

Screenrant also puts forth a persuasive argument that the Spiderman movies will be better, not worse, without the MCU connection. I’m with them on this one.

Here’s a nice article about Brad Pitt’s upcoming SF film Ad Astra.

Internet:

Math nerds: This is a Fibonacci sequence. (About 3.25 minutes long.)

Games:

Kotaku has a very long, in-depth article about the true “godfather” of Dungeons and Dragons, with a look at the persuasive evidence that it isn’t Gary Gygax.