In sad/exciting news this week, Aidan Moher announced the closing of A Dribble of Ink. However, he’s already got a new website up and running so we can see what he does next.
In case you missed it, this week saw the release of a brand new Feminist Frequency video, “Tropes vs. Women: Women as Reward.”
It’s September now! And there are guides to this month’s new releases at both io9 and My Bookish Ways.
My own fall reading list will be coming out in a few days, but in the meantime you can check out my Summer Reading List Report.
I know we’d all like to be done with the Hugo Awards controversy, and I’m hoping that this is my last round of links about it until, oh, January or so, but there are a few worthwhile reads about it this week:
- Eric Flint on The Divergence Between Popularity and Awards in Science Fiction. I disagree with Flint’s analysis, but there’s been a good discussion over there and Flint has been a consistently sensible and level-headed voice throughout this whole mess.
- Mary Robinette Kowal: “The Hugos, the Puppies, and why this is more important than just a rocketship”
- Elizabeth Bear: “How I learned to stop worrying and love the concept of punitive slating”
- George R.R. Martin: “Next Year’s Hugos” and “Hugo Reform”
- And in still annoying but also slightly hopeful news, Sad Puppies 4 is already a thing, but it looks like the plan this time is to do a comprehensive reading list rather than a slate. If that’s the case, good for them and good luck to their nominees. It goes without saying, though, that Vox Day is still a total douchebag, and it remains to be seen what he and his more successful Rabid Puppies do next year. I suspect mostly more stupid, counterproductive bullshit accompanied by paranoid conspiracy theorizing and megalomaniacal posturing, but I do expect 2016 to be an even more hilaritragic year for the Puppies than this year has been.
This has been a good week for interviews with authors I’m interested in.
- Zen Cho (Sorcerer to the Crown) was interviewed at Apex Magazine, The Qwillery, and on the Midnight in Karachi podcast.
- Fran Wilde (Updraft) was interviewed by A.C. Wise and A.M. Dellamonica.
- Ursula K. LeGuin was interviewed at NPR.
- N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season) was interviewed at Electric Lit and on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
The Mary Sue was on a roll this week, with several excellent reads:
- Nobody’s Damsel Study Looks at Modern Female TV Characters and the People Who Love Them
- 10 Sci-Fi Stories Created by Women of Color
- How Wes Craven’s Influence Made Horror Movies More Subversive
Black Gate published a nice piece: “Cixin Liu the Superstar: How Taking a Risk on a Chinese Author Paid of Big For Tor”
At Tor.com, “The Dragonlance Reread: Guest Highlord Erin Lindsey On Fun Fantasy”
Book Riot has a great piece about the authors we hypothetically like. For me, it’s Kate Elliot–I keep reading her stuff and just never quite manage to love it the way I feel I ought to, no matter how much it ticks off boxes on my list of things I love to read.
Black Girl Nerds: “Why Black Science Fiction Studies Matter”
Geek Mom: “When the ‘Strong Female’ Trope Becomes the ‘Emotionally Unavailable’ Trope”
At io9, Lavie Tidhar writes about “What Happened When I Set Out to Celebrate Science Fiction From Around the World”
Fantasy Faction published Part Two of their series on Gender and Stereotyping in Fantasy. (Part One here.)
The Wertzone is up to Part 7 in a series on the history of epic fantasy.
At Vice, “How Dungeons & Dragons Went Mainstream”
SF Bluestocking 