The podcast Tales From the Trunk hosted me last week on a Book Tour segment. I had a lot of fun; Hilary, the host of Tales from the Trunk, is a witty and welcoming host.
File 770 rounds up Hugo nominees and other anime in this article.
SWFA’s silent auction, fundraising in partnership with Worldbuilders, continues through next week.
John Palisano discusses Jewish heritage in horror.
Nerds of a Feather takes a look at the finalists for the Ignyte awards, created by Fiyah magazine.
I watched the first season of HBO’s Gentleman Jack this week. In addition to everything else, I was stunned by the costumes. Here is an interview with the show’s costume designer. This will be a GJ-themed column, because I’m using pictures of their amazing costumes, and ending with the truly delightful theme song (which actually led to a change in the show’s title.)
Starz has approved a second season of its demonic possession/haunted house/quirky smalltown/horror comedy Shining Vale. The first season was a roller-coaster ride, and I am queuing right back up to ride again in a second season.
Miss Lister in jacket and tophat, courtesy of NationalClothing
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness did respectably at the box office last week, opening to $185 million.
Speaking of Doctors, when Doctor Who regenerates next year, the 14th Doctor will be played by Ncuti Gatwa, a Rwandan-Scottish actor who has Emmy nominations for his role in BBC’s Sex Education.
For unrelated reasons I started researching fungi and forests, and the Oregon specimen (which, I will argue, even featured in an X-Files episode), is one of my favorites, so imagine my delight when Atlas Obscura provided an article. In some cases, fungi “regulate” the health of a forest, but in the case of Humonguous, it seems that the grove’s ill health is causing the fungus to thrive.
Here, as promised, is the nearly eight-minute-long live version of “Gentleman Jack.” If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics.
In sad news, on Tuesday Locus reported that Patricia McKillip had died. For quite a long time she was one of a triumvirate of American fantasy and SF genre writers, along with Ursula Le Guin and John Crowley, who outshone all the prose stylists of mainstream and highbrow literature that typically win prestigious awards in the US. There are very few other authors I can think of whose writing is such a pleasure to read, on many levels, but who never let the writing distract from the story being told.
This was a heartbreaking loss for me. She cast a long shadow in my personal literary landscape, one of the fantasy writers (along with LeGuin and Crowley) who inspired me to try to write.