Despite this being another week of helplessly spectating the death of US American democracy, I’m, personally, feeling pretty good. I haven’t exercised as much as I’d hoped, and I haven’t eaten as healthy as I’d like, and I’m watching the future of my country be gleefully pissed away by Republicans, but I’ve read quite a bit and been fairly productive, writing three book reviews and accomplishing a ton of research on a series of posts I’m hoping to get out in the next week or two.

We’re still early enough in the year that a lot of what’s being blogged about is still best-of and looking-forward-to posts, so I’ll spare you much of that. The only truly essential reading on that front this week was John DeNardo’s first installment at Kirkus of 225 Speculative Fiction Books to Look Forward to in 2017.

That said, this list of 13 LGBTQ Comics to Look Forward To This Year is pretty exciting as well if comics are your thing. They aren’t usually mine, but I have been getting more interested in them the last couple of years, and a couple of these look like must-reads.

The comic I’m most looking forward to this year, though (aside from new volumes of Saga and Monstress and Bitch Planet, natch), is Ladycastle. It looks delightful.

I’m not at all getting my hopes up, but George R.R. Martin thinks he might get The Winds of Winter out this year.

This Tor.com roundtable on speculative fiction in translation is a must-read.

Nisi Shawl continues her Expanded Course on the History of Black Science Fiction with a look at “The Goophered Grapevine” by Charles W. Chestnutt.

Mari Ness starts what I hope is going to be a long series on the history of fairy tales with a post on Madame d’Aulnoy.

Fantasy Faction wrapped up their series on Gender and Stereotyping in Fantasy with a post on Historical Accuracy.

Yoon Ha Lee wrote about Fruitcake and Gimchi in SPAAACE.

SyFy recapped The Expanse with cats:

Amazon released an English-language trailer for Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter from Studio Ghibli, and it looks magical:

This trailer for Sleight looks excellent:

Finally, there’s a proper trailer for season two of Into the Badlands, which I still consider one of the best and most sadly ignored shows of 2015. I am so stoked for this, you guys: