So, this has been some kind of week, for sure. Obviously, the biggest news of the week, for bookish folks anyway, is probably the announcement of this year’s Hugo Awards finalists. Once again, the Rabid Puppies have fucked up the whole business, and once again basically everyone has an opinion on it. Personally, I’m still processing my thoughts on the matter, though you might have seen some inklings of my generalized frustration and anger over the last few days on Twitter. I won’t be cluttering up the regular weekend likes with Hugo stuff, though. I’ve been collecting various responses, and will probably be finishing a final post on it in a couple of days so I can have everyone’s hot takes in one place.
On the good news front this week, the shortlist for the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award was also announced. Of the six nominees, I’ve only read two–Nnedi Okorafor’s excellent The Book of Phoenix and Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet–but if those are indicative of the quality of the rest of the list, I’m sure it’s a great one. Also worth a read is current Arthur C. Clarke Award director Tom Hunter’s piece in the Guardian where he shares some of his vision for the future of the award and the genre.
Game of Thrones was back on the air on Sunday night, when I livetweeted my viewing experience (helped along by a bottle of wine), and my recap/review of the episode was posted on Monday. I’ll be doing the same thing every week throughout the season, and you should be able to count on my posts being up by mid-afternoon the day after each episode airs.
Elsewhere, Fandom Following tries to puzzle through what the everloving fuck just happened in Dorne and Feminist Fiction talks about what happens when a show that has built its reputation around being “shocking” isn’t any longer.
At the same time–and I hate myself a little for this–I kind of totally want Game of Thrones Risk.
I also really want (and don’t even have to feel bad about it) this gorgeous poster of Galen Dara Poster’s “Bubbles and Blast Off.” I only wish it was bigger.
It’s been a big week for adaptation news.
- Elizabeth Moss will play Offred in a 10-episode adaption of Margaret Atwood’s classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, on Hulu
- The BBC and Netflix are teaming up for a new animated version of Watership Down, which only serves to remind me that I’ve never seen or read Watership Down. Will definitely be doing so ahead of the new adaptation, though.
- It looks like there really might be a Wheel of Time show in the imminent future. We’ll see. In the meantime, you can head to the Wertzone for some reposts of old speculations on what a Wheel of Time adaptation might look like. I’ll admit that the Wheel of Time is another series I haven’t read (and one that I’m honestly not likely to), but I can definitely get behind another epic fantasy show. I can’t be worse than Game of Thrones, right?
It’s not exactly adaptation news, since the cartoon adaptation of The Killing Joke has been in the works for a while, but Pornokitsch has a good breakdown of why that story kind of sucks.
Have you read Monstrous Little Voices yet? If not, you ought to, immediately. The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog explains more.
If you’re into YA sci-fi and fantasy, Bookish has you covered with an excellent flowchart full of recommendations.
At Kirkus, John DeNardo writes about why science fiction matters.
There’s a neat post at Cosmos Magazine about putting the science in fiction.
SF Signal asks who well-read you are in the genre and makes a great case for joining Worlds Without End.
Ann Leckie writes about omniscient points of view.
Mythcreants offers five tips for emulating successful works.
LitHub has a short history of women detectives in fact and fiction.
Fantasy Faction suggests (and I agree) that diverse fantasy is better fantasy.
