WWWednesday: May 22, 2019

Phoenix Sculpture by Xu Bing. Image from Walkaboutny.com

Awards:

Congratulations to Mary Robinette Kowal, Bo Bolander and Aliette de Bodard among others for their Nebula wins last weekend. The full list of winners can be found here. Congratulations and thanks to all the finalists for providing us with such wonderful ideas, characters and stories.

Crimefest awards were announced, with Robert Galbraith AKA J.K. Rowling winning for best novel with her doorstop novel Lethal White. (Tastes differ; for me, that book reached criminal levels of boring.) A couple of the works shortlisted for this award slide over into the speculative.

Books and Writing:

Anna Kashina stops by Nerds of a Feather to talk about six books –six specific books.

W.M. Akers tells a funny story about a lost library book and how it inspired a novel, over on Whatever. The consensus among the comments is that Akers was ripped off by the local library.

Cory Doctorow reviewed Wil Wheaton’s horror novella Dead Trees Give no Shelter over at Boingboing.

NPR reviews The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad. (Thanks to File 770.)

The Little Red Book Reviewer has words for book bloggers; take it easy!

Game of Thrones… I mean, TV and Movies:

The Cathedral of St, John the Divine. Photo from www.stjohndivine.org

HBO’s Game of Thrones finished its eight-season run on Sunday.Warning; Spoilers. In fact, spoilers are kind of the point. Vox.com discusses the person who was chosen to rule and speculates about why and how/whether it was telegraphed. Meanwhile Polygon wonders what Arya Stark will do next. (Note: It’s not a spoiler that she lives; George R.R. Martin had said so before.)

The series finale was HBO’s biggest market share show, with 19+ million viewers (they included streaming viewers). This news was even shared on business news shows like PBS’s Nightly Business Report.

Three Game of Thrones prequels are in the works, and one has actually been cast.

At Tor.com, Theresa DeLucci looks back fondly on her odyssey with the show. (Will someone please explain to me how Game of Thrones has been on for ten years when the internet says it premiered on April 17, 2011? Thank you.)

Another beloved show had its series finale: Big Bang Theory. Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Geller made a cameo that makes the night of lonely Raj, who is on his way, alone, to Stockholm for the Nobel ceremony.

Dark Phoenix, an X-Men story featuring Jean Grey, opens in early June. The movie has a troubled history. Den of Geek tells us what they know about it. Meanwhile, a couple other sites are saying the film is on track for the lowest opening weekend of the franchise, based on presale tickets.

Internet:

I mentioned the possibility of a wildflower superbloom this year in California. Well, there’s a hotline for it! Atlas Obscura shares a number that will tell you what’s blooming where.

Mary Robinette Kowal quickly posted a column about her Nebula Award experience on her website. I especially like that she talked about that dress.

A letter from Alexander Hamilton which was stolen in the 1930s or 40s has been recovered.

Games:

In the Language Can be Complicated category, the mystery-game The Return of the Obra Din nearly went under when the designer realized he had to deal with regionalization and localization in language.

St John the Divine. Image from thousandwonders.net

Science and Tech:

Neil Armstrong’s space suit will go back on public display at the Air and Space Museum, in honor of 50 years since we first landed people on the moon.

Ars Technica likes the innovations in Opera Software’s Opera Reborn browser.

Images:

I just reread a book that featured the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, so I thought I would share some images. Here is an article about those amazing phoenix sculptures and Xu Bing, the Chinese artist who created them.