WWWednesday: January 20, 2021

The Ursula LeGuin postage stamp

In the USA a new administration takes office today. Yesterday, President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris held a service for the more than 400,000 people in the USA who have died of Covid. The service included lighting the lights around the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial.

Writers, Writing, Reading, Books:

Locus published an obituary for Storm Constantine, who died last week. Constantine’s work embraced the weird. She was an expert in Tarot and the occult, and worked to amplify the voices of new writers.

A large number of speculative fiction writers signed an open letter to Big Five publishers, opposing books deals for Donald Trump or for those who orchestrated or took part in last week’s attempted insurrection and failed coup.

In the London Review of Books, Colin Burrow writes about Ursula Leguin’s career and her legacy.

Speaking of LeGuin, she gets her own postage stamp this year.

A Seattle law firm is suing Amazon and naming the Big Five publishers as “co-conspirators” for price fixing of ebooks. This firm won a similar suit ten years ago; we’ll see what happens.

LitHub interview Kim Stanley Robinson about his new climate-fiction novel, The Ministry of the Future.

Doors of Sleep by Tim Pratt

Last week, the servers for An Archive of One’s Own collapsed under the volume of use, leading people to conclude that during the pandemic, people are writing/reading more fanfic than before.

Here are Five Thrilling Stories about Patrolling Space, courtesy of Tor.com.

Last week, The Whatever hosted Tim Pratt as he wrote about his new novel The Doors of Sleep.

Movies, Streaming, TV:

Camestros Felapton reviews the first two episodes of WandaVision, on Disney+, after reminding us that Disney has yet to pay Alan Dean Foster the funds they owe him.

IGN does not give Season 3, Episode 1 of the Starz adaptation of American Gods a good grade.

The Watch has delivered four episodes now. Den of Geek reviewed Episode 3 and concludes that there is not much resemblance to anything Pratchett-like at all. Readysteadycut liked it a little better.

Internet:

If you are on Twitter, you know that sea chanties were the rage last week. This one is great.

Another great stamp comes out this year, NASA’s solar stamps.

The Smithsonian Institute’s open access offers you some luscious backgrounds for your next video conference.