It’s been a bit of a rough week, productivity-wise, for me. Monday, I ended up having to take my car to have its transmission rebuilt, which left me without a car until Friday, which–it turns out–is still an inconvenience even when you do live within walking distance of everything truly essential. It also meant that my partner was working from home all week, which is fine, but I’m definitely looking forward to having my alone time back this coming week.

On the bright side, I read quite a bit, finishing three novellas (All Systems Red, Killing Gravity and Reenu-You) and a novel (The Guns Above), and I’m hoping to finish the rest of The Radium Girls tonight. After several weeks of what, for me, was a reading slump, I’m starting to feel somewhat normal, at least in this one aspect of my life. The other good thing this week was finally getting some flowers for my balcony yesterday. I spent more than I wanted (I was hoping to spend under $20, but ended up closer to $30), but the two big hanging baskets of fuchsias I got were definitely worth it. I cannot wait til all the buds on them start opening up in a few days.

The finalist list for this year’s Locus Awards is out, and it’s excellent.

Maurice Broaddus’s post about wrestling with writer’s block has been helpful to me this week.

There’s an amazing Humble Book Bundle going on right now: the Super Nebula Author Showcase, which is full of wonderful work by a great selection of diverse authors.

Sleepy Hollow has finally been cancelled.

There’s a new Andy Weir book, Artemis, coming out November 17.

Michele Tracy Berger wrote about the Big Idea in her novella, Reenu-You.

Paul Semel interviewed Martha Wells, the author of All Systems Red, book one of her Murderbot Diaries series.

Speaking of robots, there’s a ton of neat real robot photos right now over at The Big Picture.

At Nerds of a Feather, Joe Sherry talked 6 Books with John Joseph Adams, editor of Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far-Away Galaxies, which I reviewed a couple days ago (spoiler: it’s awesome).

Lady Business is the place to go this week if you’re looking for some woman-focused space adventure recs.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show tackled the topic of inclusivity in fairy tales.

At Tor.com, my current favorite re-teller of fairy tales, Ursula Vernon, wrote “Reshaping the Bizarre Structure of Fairy Tales.”

Mari Ness’s series of fairy tale posts also continued this week with a look at Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

There’s an interesting piece at Pornokitsch about the tendency of SFF readers to separate art from the artist.

At the Millions, Daniel Jose Ruiz wrote about the friction of geekdom and race.

Finally, this Fantasy Faction post about how the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) is revitalising SFF is a must-read.