WWWednesday: June 22, 2016

Books:

Joe Zeija summarizes five books he hasn’t read, based on their covers. A couple of his summaries have real potential as stories… just not the stories of these books.

Helen Oyeyemi shares her thoughts on fairy tales and writing with Book Forum. A lot of us here at the site like retold fairy tales. Oyeyemi has some interesting thoughts on the topic.

Fantasy Book Café offers a guest column by Brenda Cooper, about her new book Spear of Light.

James Davis Nicoll introduced old science fiction to young people. His first choice was a John W Campbell (writing as Don A. Stuart) novella called “Who Goes There?” This was inspired by a remark made by Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook, that old SF would not resonate with a younger generation. Nicholl has put that to the test. The readers’ comments are thoughtful and really to open a window into the mindsets of the different generations. (Thanks to File770.)

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood won the PEN Pinter prize for her commitment to environmental causes. Here’s a little more about the prize, from Locus.

Fables is returning to Vertigo with a whole new story.

This is a year old, but it’s still funny. This map went viral in 2015, with people wondering why they hadn’t been taught about the expanse of the First Nations in the time before European colonization. In fact, the map is not a map of the  pre-colonial American continent, it’s an alternate history map. I’d make fun of people, but I can’t distinguish satire from actual news articles anymore, so I have no room to talk.

Justin Cronin, author of the recently released City of Mirrors, participated in an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. (Thanks to Ryan.)

Cool Things:

Would this rocket-supported coffee table fit with your décor?

Finding Dory

Movies and TV:

Finding Dory breaks US box office records, earning $132.6 million its opening weekend. Here is a review.

Tor.com reports that they are making a movie of M.R. Carey’s amazing novel The Girl With All the Gifts.

Another unexpected celebrity loss. Anton Yelchin, who played Chekhov in the Star Trek reboot, died unexpectedly over the weekend in a bizarre accident. 2016, I hate you.

Here’s a little more on Person of Interest, which signed off on June 21^st. In this interview, Michael Emerson talks about his character and the ending.

Warning; Spoilers. Penny Dreadful may have broken some hearts with its season finale, which also appears to be the series finale. Variety has the story.

Ghostbusters opens in three weeks, and it does look pretty funny.

NBC is going to have a series based on Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. Normally this wouldn’t impress me, but Tarsem Singh, who made the movie The Fall, is attached to this project. All in all, it looks like it could either be great, or a spectacular disaster.

Earth:

These guys piloted a drone through a cathedral and the result was… well, pretty cool.

Summer Solstice, Strawberry Moon

Okay, I think I will give 2016 credit for; a full moon on summer solstice. The photo is courtesy of Space.com.

Giveaways:

We announced the winners of our 9^th Birthday Giveaway, but some other giveaways are still active, including Kat’s cool interview with Dexter Palmer.

Enjoy the start of summer!