Starting this week’s links off with the light, fun stuff, there’s a post at io9 on the 8 Types of Expository Beards.

The A.V. Club examines Willow after 27 years, which makes me feel both kind of old (has it really been 27 years?) and a little defensive because Willow is, no joke, one of my all-time favorite fantasy movies.  It’s up there with Dragonslayer and Ladyhawke and Legend in my book.

Web Urbanist looks at 13 of the world’s most beautiful bookstores, any one of which would be an acceptable place for me to go when I die.

Kate Hart has some designs for Book Pumpkins. I’m a little sad to say that I don’t think I’ve read any of these titles since I haven’t read any YA in about a year and a half, but this is such a great idea I had to share.

Looks like Laverne Cox will be the new Frank-N-Furter in a TV version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Brain Pickings has “Ursula K. LeGuin on the Magic of Conversation and Why Human Communication is Like Amoebas Having Sex.”

Margaret Atwood was interviewed by The Millions.

Kameron Hurley was interviewed by A Fantastical Librarian.

Diabolical Plots writes about the unaddressed issues in YA dystopian fiction, which actually explains a good deal of why I’ve shied away from YA recently. Namely, I think the YA dystopia often squanders the storytelling potential of the dystopian setting in favor of telling small, personal stories, dealing with individual issues rather than societal or global ones.

Meanwhile, at Dark Matter Zine, Kameron Hurley asks, “What comes after dystopia?” 

Geek Mom wonders why we’re so hard on heroines (spoiler alert: the answer is sexism) while at Tor.com, Sleeps With Monsters tackles the related issue of strong female characters and double standards.

At Kirkus Reviews, a look at Playboy’s history of publishing science fiction. Maybe with no more nudes in the magazine, we’ll be getting more fiction in the future.

This week saw the publication of one of the books I have been most anticipating this year, Catherynne M. Valente’s Radiance. She talks about the book in The Big Idea, tells about some of her literary influences at the B&N Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog, and answers a ton of questions from fans in a Sword and Laser podcast.

Tor.com has revealed another new round of novella covers for us to drool over. I’m probably most excited about Mary Robinette Kowal’s Forest of Memory. I loved her novelette, “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” when I read it earlier this year, though I haven’t gotten around to reading her Glamourist Histories yet.

At Blackgate, Tor.com’s Mordicai Knode explains, “Why novellas?” This confirms a lot of my own feelings about the current sort of renaissance in short fiction and how ebooks are a perfect format for short novels and novella-length work.

For the 10th anniversary of her book, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer published a gender swap AU of it to, I guess, prove that it’s not sexist. Feministing has a great rundown of how this proves just the opposite.

A bunch of folks from Nightmare Magazine’s Queers Destroy Horror! issue did a Reddit AMA.

At Publisher’s Weekly, Ann Leckie gives us her list of 10 best science fiction books, and it’s a good one, a mix of some old standards and some unexpected titles.

Speaking of Ann Leckie, she’ll be appearing in Microsoft’s Future Visions collection, along with Elizabeth Bear, Greg Bear, David Brin, Nancy Kress, Jack McDevitt, Seanan McGuire, and Robert J. Sawyer. It will be available for free on all ebook platforms on November 17.

There’s a new Ken Liu story, “Crystal”, available now at Daily Science Fiction.

Mythcreants writes about five dualities that can replace good and evil in fiction.

Brain Pickings has collected a bunch of things smart people have said about artificial intelligence.

In These Times interviews Margaret Atwood.

Rich in Color lists six of their favorite 2015 SFF books.

Tor.com hates Pan, but this review describes so much failure that it actually makes me want to go see the film.

MTV’s Shannara Chronicles gets a full length trailer and an air date. I feel like I’m much more excited about this show than I ought to be.

I went and saw The Martian last Sunday. It was excellent. The important thing, though, is that I’m still giving away a paperback copy of the book to celebrate both the release of the film.

At The Guardian, George R.R. Martin talks about our collective literary obsession with Mars. It’s a great read, as Martin is incredibly well-read and has an amazing memory for sci-fi history.

Here’s an interesting discussion about some sexism you can find in The Martian. Personally, I think this is some pretty nitpicky stuff, but I don’t think it hurts to point it out in the hopes that future writers will do better.

It’s October, and in addition to being Pumpkin Spice Season it’s also Let’s Talk About Racist Halloween Costumes Season. I can’t wait until we don’t have to keep having this discussion, but hear it is in the meantime.

In the Halloween spirit, the Hairpin has a list of 32 Horror Movies That [Probably] Aren’t About Women Being Sex-Murdered.

At the London Film Festival, Geena Davis shined a spotlight on gender inequality in children’s and family entertainment. I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, actually, with the release of a new trailer for Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur, which doesn’t seem to have any female characters whatsoever.

That said, this piece at io9 about the making of The Good Dinosaur is pretty intriguing. I’m still thinking I might skip it in the theater, but it sounds like Pixar is doing some really innovative stuff with the animation. It certainly looks like a beautiful piece of work, though that’s never been part of my reservations about the film.

Mattel’s new super hero dolls kind of make me wish my daughter was young enough for me to buy them for her so I could play with them. I’m not sure I really understand why girls can’t just play with regular action figures instead of fashion dolls, though.

It looks like Minority Report is already headed towards cancellation, which sucks. I’ve actually been mostly enjoying the show, and I do plan to keep writing about it, but I really don’t know why I bother with any sci-fi shows on Fox anymore.

Twilight turned 10 years old this week, and Feminist Fiction has a great piece on why Stephenie Meyer’s cash-grabbing genderswap AU fanfic of her own work is a terrible idea.

Also at Feminist Fiction this week: an analysis of Not-So-Strong Female Characters.

The Mary Sue looks back at how Xena: Warrior Princess changed television.

Also at The Mary Sue: What We Can Actually Learn by Reimagining the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl Trope

At Tor.com, Where to Begin With Margaret Atwood. My personal suggestion? Start with The Edible Woman and read every word she’s ever written anywhere. Then, try to live a hundred more years so you can catch her Future Library novel, Scribbler Moon.

Bitch Media interviews Ann VanderMeer, editor of Sisters of the Revolution.

It’s been a pretty rad birthday week for me, with two long-awaited books being released this Tuesday: Kameron Hurley’s Empire Ascendant and Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Mercy. That means both authors have been making the rounds promoting their work.

Kameron Hurley was interviewed at Bull Spec and on Midnight in Karachi and wrote guest posts for My Bookish Ways and the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog.

Ann Leckie did a Reddit AMA (highlights at Tor.com), wrote an FAQ for her Big Idea post, and was interviewed at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog.

Weekend links are super late this week, I know, but it’s been a busy weekend. Friday, I got a new computer (Surface Pro 3!), so I’ve spent quite a lot of time getting things moved around and set up the way I like them (and I’m still not done). Then I spent today taking my kid to a birthday party halfway across town and going to see The Martian. And basically every minute I can spare, I’ve been devouring The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is an incredible book that I both don’t want to put down and don’t want to be finished with yet because it’s so good.

There’s plenty of exciting stuff that’s happened in the last week, though.

Probably the thing that I’ve been most excited about is the release of Nightmare Magazine’s Queers Destroy Horror Special Issue. If you don’t know about the Destroy SF project, you ought to go check it out now.

io9 has a list of all the books you should be lusting after this month. If you just want to see all the covers (with links!), you can head over to My Bookish Ways.

The Golden Compass turned 20 this week, which was news to me. I read it around fifteen years ago and thought it was pretty new then, but apparently I just totally missed it when I was of an age for it.

Flowing water has been discovered on Mars–right as a movie hits theaters that partly depends upon Mars’ lack of running water for its plot. Whoops!

Lady Business breaks down a ton of data on gender discrimination in SFF awards. The good news is that things are getting better. The bad news is that it’s happening in fits and starts. Also, things were really, really bad to start with.

Gizmodo asks why libraries don’t have Dungeons & Dragons gamebooks. It’s more interesting than it sounds.

In a guest post at Fantasy Book Critic, Erin Lindsey asks “Epic Fantasy: Dinosaur or Dynamo?”

At terribleminds, Stina Leicht has some real talk about “message fiction.” Spoiler alert–ALL fiction has a message.

Suvudu interviews Margaret Atwood.

Clarkesworld interviews Catherynne M. Valente.

Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together has 6 Books with Kameron Hurley.

Just in time for this week’s release of Ancillary Mercy, there’s an infographic to explain the ships in the world of Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch. See it full size at io9.

Check out the gorgeous artwork of Morgana Wallace. You can also follow her on Tumblr.

So, Game of Thrones won the Emmys. There’s a logical explanation for why this happened after what is ob-fucking-jectively the show’s worst season to date, but it still sucks.

Ta-Nehisi Coates will be writing a new Black Panther comic for Marvel.

Did you know that cherished childhood movie memory The Fox and the Hound is also a book? Because I did not. And I’m traumatized without even reading it myself.

Geek Tyrant sums up why we should all be at least a little wary of getting to invested in Minority Report. (Spoiler: because Fox.)

Lightspeed Magazine interviews Ken Liu.

Ventures Africa has a great interview with Nnedi Okorafor, whose new novella, Binti, came out this week.

The Robot’s Voice on 10 Ways Deep Space Nine is the Best Star Trek Series

Bustle has 11 Sci-Fi Books Every Woman Should Read. I was a little surprised that I’ve only read a handful of these. It’s nice to see a list that’s a bit less expected than usual.

At the Mary Sue, “Strong Female Characters Are Rarely Strong and Barely Characters”

Jim C. Hines on “Overrepresentation”

At Book Riot, “Black Speculative Fiction is Protest Work”

At Tor.com, Aliette de Bodard writes “On Colonialism, Evil Empires, and Oppressive Systems”

“Navajos on Mars – Native Sci-Fi Film Futures” at Medium

Brain Pickings – “A State of Wonder: Margaret Atwood on How Technology Shapes Storytelling While Obeying Its Eternal Constants”

Today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Mental Floss has a great post up about the origins of several of the most common pirate stereotypes. Spoiler: They can all, one way or another, be attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

I love Halloween, and we’re about a month into Ugly Decorations I Nonetheless Desperately Want Season. Unfortunately, there’s not enough room on my balcony for these zombie flamingos. I might have room for this skeleton cat, though.

Speaking of cats:

In much more serious news, and in light of the Emmy awards being tomorrow, a 10-year study has found–to no one’s surprise–that women are terribly underrepresented at the Emmys.

In infuriating (but also somewhat hilarious) news, The Sarkeesian Effect has been released. You can pay $3.99 to watch it on Vimeo, but I suggest just reading about it over at We Hunted the Mammoth.

Nichelle Nichols went to space, and there were tribbles there.

At io9, Why Captain Kirk is Still One of the Greatest Space Heroes of All Time.

At Kirkus, a History of Serialized Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Suvudu takes on another era of genre history and publishes a nice piece on Lord Dunsany.

The AV Club explains feminist media criticism for those who still don’t get it.

The Mary Sue on The Importance of Race Bending in Fan Art.

Geek.com lists 11 Genres and Subgenres That Need to Make a Comeback. I would love to see a good new sword and planet story.

The Toast presents A High Fantasy Novel Without Incestuous Subtext.

Tor.com announced the 2015 Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition, in association with Nature and Scientific American. You can see the full rules of the competition and submit your work at the official website.

Margaret Atwood writes about freedom (or lack thereof) at The Guardian.

At Tor.com, How Evil SFF Empires Create Ideal Citizens.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I read an interview with Ursula K. LeGuin, but this week there were two: at Huffington Post and Salon.

I’m just going to give up now on ever having another Puppy-free weekend links post:

• John Scalzi – My Almost Certainly Ill-Advised Proposed Award Voting Process
• Jim C. Hines – Cool Kids

“Not even the zombie apocalypse can stop George R.R. Martin from releasing books.”

New tumblr nihilisa-frank is my favorite new thing this week.

Another study has found that women and men make up basically equal portions of the gaming community. Also that women play mostly the same games men play. Unsurprisingly, this will never convince the hordes of sad man children who believe, possibly because they and their friends are so repulsive to women that we don’t hang out with them, that women don’t play games.

Today, in things I want: Star Trek printed EVERYTHING.

Speaking of Star Trek, it’s been around for 49 years as of September 8! The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi and Fantasy blog has a list of 12 books to read if you’re in the mind to celebrate.

Black Girls are Magic Lit Mag is a new literary magazine that will be focused on stories of the SFF persuasion by and about black girls. They will be accepting submissions starting Sept. 14.

The Book Smugglers newest SFF in Conversation is about culture, history and novels and features Aliette de Bodard, Zen Cho, Kate Elliot, Cindy Pon, and Tade Thompson.

Black Nerd Problems calls for no more diversity panels.

At Feministe, a follow up to a question asked at a Dragon Con panel: on female heroes and feminity.

Feminist Fiction asks, “Does Cersei’s Walk of Shame deserve an Emmy?”

The Toast discusses the problem with Trillian in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide books. My favorite part, which happens to be totally accurate:

Trillian has never been able to escape being buffeted by conventions and expectations. When she’s good, she’s either a spoof on the “token girl” or a by-the-numbers Strong Female Character. When she’s bad, she’s a security hole – a way for lazy, shitty tropes about women to hitch a ride, Ford Prefect-style, on a series that otherwise bucks cliché.

And because this Hugo Awards stuff is just never going to die:

• GRRM talks about SF awards in general and suggests that the Puppies just make their own award if they don’t like any of the ones already out there. Which is entirely sensible and reasonable.
• Jay Maynard comes up with a plan over at Black Gate on how such an award might be run. Apparently it involves a secret cabal to decide on a ballot that only people they like would then be allowed to vote on. Whatever floats one’s boat, I guess.

In sad/exciting news this week, Aidan Moher announced the closing of A Dribble of Ink. However, he’s already got a new website up and running so we can see what he does next.

In case you missed it, this week saw the release of a brand new Feminist Frequency video, “Tropes vs. Women: Women as Reward.”

It’s September now! And there are guides to this month’s new releases at both io9 and My Bookish Ways.

My own fall reading list will be coming out in a few days, but in the meantime you can check out my Summer Reading List Report.

I know we’d all like to be done with the Hugo Awards controversy, and I’m hoping that this is my last round of links about it until, oh, January or so, but there are a few worthwhile reads about it this week:

• Eric Flint on The Divergence Between Popularity and Awards in Science Fiction. I disagree with Flint’s analysis, but there’s been a good discussion over there and Flint has been a consistently sensible and level-headed voice throughout this whole mess.
• Mary Robinette Kowal: “The Hugos, the Puppies, and why this is more important than just a rocketship”
• Elizabeth Bear: “How I learned to stop worrying and love the concept of punitive slating”
• George R.R. Martin: “Next Year’s Hugos” and “Hugo Reform”
• And in still annoying but also slightly hopeful news, Sad Puppies 4 is already a thing, but it looks like the plan this time is to do a comprehensive reading list rather than a slate. If that’s the case, good for them and good luck to their nominees. It goes without saying, though, that Vox Day is still a total douchebag, and it remains to be seen what he and his more successful Rabid Puppies do next year. I suspect mostly more stupid, counterproductive bullshit accompanied by paranoid conspiracy theorizing and megalomaniacal posturing, but I do expect 2016 to be an even more hilaritragic year for the Puppies than this year has been.

This has been a good week for interviews with authors I’m interested in.

• Zen Cho (Sorcerer to the Crown) was interviewed at Apex Magazine, The Qwillery, and on the Midnight in Karachi podcast.
• Fran Wilde (Updraft) was interviewed by A.C. Wise and A.M. Dellamonica.
• Ursula K. LeGuin was interviewed at NPR.
• N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season) was interviewed at Electric Lit and on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

The Mary Sue was on a roll this week, with several excellent reads:

• Nobody’s Damsel Study Looks at Modern Female TV Characters and the People Who Love Them
• 10 Sci-Fi Stories Created by Women of Color
• How Wes Craven’s Influence Made Horror Movies More Subversive

Black Gate published a nice piece: “Cixin Liu the Superstar: How Taking a Risk on a Chinese Author Paid of Big For Tor”

At Tor.com, “The Dragonlance Reread: Guest Highlord Erin Lindsey On Fun Fantasy”

Book Riot has a great piece about the authors we hypothetically like. For me, it’s Kate Elliot–I keep reading her stuff and just never quite manage to love it the way I feel I ought to, no matter how much it ticks off boxes on my list of things I love to read.

Black Girl Nerds: “Why Black Science Fiction Studies Matter”

Geek Mom: “When the ‘Strong Female’ Trope Becomes the ‘Emotionally Unavailable’ Trope”

At io9, Lavie Tidhar writes about “What Happened When I Set Out to Celebrate Science Fiction From Around the World”

Fantasy Faction published Part Two of their series on Gender and Stereotyping in Fantasy. (Part One here.)

The Wertzone is up to Part 7 in a series on the history of epic fantasy.

At Vice, “How Dungeons & Dragons Went Mainstream”

These gorgeous Godzilla posters by illustrator Laurent Durieux have already sold out over at Darkhall Mansion, but you can see more of his work at his website. (h/t io9)

Probably the biggest news of the week has still been Hugo Awards stuff. I said my last piece on it (previous pieces are on my personal Tumblr) the day after the awards, but there have been a lot of other great pieces published this week:

• Foz Meadows – “Hugos & Puppies: Peeling the Onion” is probably my favorite thing I’ve read about the issue since the awards, although I do think that Meadows’ sense-making will be largely lost on the Puppy crowd.
• Wired seems to have published the sort of definitive (albeit imperfect) news piece on the awards.
• From Playboy, of all places, comes a necessary addendum that addresses both the biggest flaw in the Wired piece and the biggest misconception perpetuated by the Puppies.
• The Guardian – “Diversity wins as the Sad Puppies lose at the Hugo Awards”
• Terribleminds – “The Obligatory Hugo Awards Recap Post”
• Cora Buhlert – “How the 2015 Hugo Awards proved against all odds that SF is becoming more international and more diverse”
• Feminist Fiction – “Analyzing the Hugo Award Results”
• Dreaming About Other Worlds – “Biased Opinion – 2015 Hugo Awards Post Mortem”
• Matthew M. Foster (husband of late SF writer Eugie Foster) – “The Hugo Results – Don’t Be a Dick”
• Arthur Chu – “The scifi fans are alright: I saw the future at the Hugo Awards–and it will never belong to the toxic right-wing trolls”
• We Hunted the Mammoth – “Puppies soundly defeated at Hugo Awards; Vox Day declares ‘I meant to do that'”
• Eric Flint – “DO WE REALLY HAVE TO KEEP FEEDING STUPID AND HIS COUSIN IGNORAMUS?”
• Alexandra Erin has written no less than three excellent pieces about the Hugos and the Puppies this week.
• John Scalzi has turned in two pieces that are both worth a read.
• THIS happened.
• Finally, George R.R. Martin took a break from (no doubt) busily finishing The Winds of Winter to write FOUR posts about the Hugos.
• FINALLY, finally, for anyone who is planning on nominating and voting for the awards next year, there’s a wiki for listing eligible works.

In other, less frustrating, news:

• io9 has a great preview of this fall’s most exciting sci-fi and fantasy books.
• Think Progress looks at what happens when pop culture collides with real-life violence.
• iDiva has an excellent list of must-read women sci-fi writers.
• Book Riot is searching for a faithful adaptation of Frankenstein.
• A Dribble of Ink presents “A Fantasy Foodie’s Baker’s Dozen” by Fran Wilde.
• The Atlantic examines of the failure of the 1990 Handmaid’s Tale film.
• Open Democracy was on a roll this week with two excellent pieces: one on Afrofuturism and another discussing the Manic Pixie and Cool Girl tropes.
• James Tiptree Jr./Alice Sheldon gets profiles at Conceptual Fiction AND Tor.com.
• Erin Kisane writes about quitting male-written fiction.
• Amanda Palmer writes an open response to an incredibly insulting question from a fan, and G. Willow Wilson has some additional thoughts on it.

Finally, if you’ve already read N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, go read her most recent blog post about it. If you haven’t read The Fifth Season, what on earth are you doing reading anything else?