This has been another busy week with the Up and Coming project, which I’m still (fingers crossed!) on track to finish (if only by the skin of my teeth) by Wednesday. Probably after that I will take a couple of days to do nothing but play Destiny, but then I will have at least one new project to announce, plus a busy (but exciting) month in April of reading the ARCs I’ve got waiting for me on NetGalley.

My favorite things of the week were all funny things:

• At Entertainment Weekly, Sterling Archer reviews James Bond.
• And at The Onion, Novelist Has Whole Shitty World Plotted Out.
• Microsoft’s teen girl chatbot proves that Twitter is basically trash.
• Ben Affleck realizes that Batman v Superman sucks.

In awards news:

• Ramez Naam’s Apex won the Philip K. Dick Award.
• The winners of the Aurealis Awards were announced.
• The Sad Puppies are still a thing, unfortunately.
• As are the Rabid Puppies.
• On the bright side, Alexandra Erin helps to keep this all in perspective.

In other news:

• Feminist Frequency’s new Ordinary Women project is off to a positive start.
• Entertainment Weekly’s issue focused on women in Game of Thrones is a horrible garbage fire.
• Beverly Cleary is about to turn 100!
• There’s about to be a new edition of Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose.

Interviews I read/listened to this week:

• Ken Liu talked about The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories at Blackgate.
• Joe Abercrombie was on the Grim Tidings Podcast: Part One, Part Two

Miscellany:

• Andrew Liptak wrote a great profile of Jim Baen over at Kirkus.
• Mythcreants listed Five Obstacles to a Realistic Interstellar Empire.
• There’s a Gratuitous List of Twenty Best SF TV Shows at the Wertzone.
• Steve Berman’s heartfelt piece on Gay Tropes and Cliches is a must-read over at SF Signal.
• Myke Cole points out that In History and Fantasy Diversity is the Tradition.
• And Kate Elliot has a great piece on Writing Women Characters Into Epic Fantasy Without Quotas.