(1) THE SHARP END OF SCIENCE FICTION. At Reactor, James Davis Nicoll delivers a highly scientific “Ranking of Science Fiction’s Most Dangerous Awards”. … Most awards are woefully unfit as weapons3. Authors with a mantlepiece loaded with award trophies would … Continue reading
(1) THOUSANDS SIGN AUTHORS GUILD LETTER CALLING ON AI INDUSTRY TO PROTECT WRITERS. Over 9000 authors, including genre-recognizable names like Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Carmen Machado, Joe Hill, Edward M. Lerner, Brendan DuBois, Terri Windling, Matthew Kressel, Sean Wallace, and … Continue reading
(1) AN ALIEN STUDY. Charlie Jane Anders tells what problems are caused when TV aliens are just minority groups given forehead bumps: “Star Trek, Star Wars reveal the cultural minefield of inventing aliens” at Polygon. … Alien characters don’t just … Continue reading
Spain’s Festival Celsius 232 committee revealed the 2021 shortlists for its Premios Kelvin 505 on May 11. Congratulations to authors including Thomas Olde Heuvelt and Joe Abercrombie whose works in Spanish translation made the finals. The winners selected by the award juries … Continue reading
(1) EVADING DUTIES. Richard Garriott’s announcement that he secretly hid some of James Doohan’s ashes on the ISS inspired Steven H Silver’s post “A Brief History of Space Smuggling” for Amazing Stories. …The first mission to orbit the moon was … Continue reading
The voters have spoken: here are the Best Books 2020 — Goodreads Choice Awards winners. Goodreads also has posted the vote totals for the top 20 finishers in each category. There were in aggregate 5,674,480 votes cast in all rounds. … Continue reading
Amazon released its picks for the twenty Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Year on November 23. N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became was named the best sff book of 2020. Here’s the complete list: Devolution: A … Continue reading
(1) PAPERS PLEASE? Here in the future, an unpredictable surge in demand for books on paper has run afoul of a world-threatening pandemic: “Printer Jam: Serious Supply Issues Disrupt the Book Industry’s Fall Season” reports the New York Times. This … Continue reading
By JJ: To assist Hugo nominators, listed below are the series believed to be eligible as of this writing for the 2021 Best Series Hugo next year *†. Each series name is followed by the main author name(s) and the … Continue reading
The 20 books picked by Amazon editors as “Best Books of 2020 so far” include works by sff authors Max Brooks, Suzanne Collins, N.K. Jemisin, and John Scalzi. They also picked these 20 sff category books as Amazon’s Best science … Continue reading