Robert Jimenez’s art for a new set of Firefly trading cards is excellent.

The big news this weekend is going to be the Hugo Awards at Sasquan, but before that happens there are a few last minute pieces to read on the controversy:

• Yes! Magazine – “Sad Puppies, Rabid Chauvinists: Will Raging White Guys Succeed in Hijacking Sci-Fi’s Biggest Awards?”
• io9 – “How the Hugo Awards Saboteurs Actually Disproved Their Own Best Argument”
• GRRM – “Handicapping the Hugos” Part One and Part Two
• A final piece by Jim C. Hines over at Zauberspiegel has plenty of links and quotes if anyone is still not quite sure what is going on.

In other, less frustrating news:

• Tor.com Publishing has their 2015 Fall Sampler available for download
• io9 has a comprehensive list of this fall’s new and returning television shows
• Solaris Books is going to be publishing a new book series by the incredible Yoon Ha Lee. Lee’s short story collection, Conservation of Shadows is one of my favorite books I’ve read so far this year, so I can’t wait to read whole novels by him.

Aliette de Bodard’s The House of Shattered Wings hit shelves this week. I haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet (still savoring The Fifth Season), but there’s been plenty of other stuff to read about it in the meantime:

• The Big Idea: Aliette de Bodard
• Aliette de Bodard talks about her favorite bit of The House of Shattered Wings
• In an interview at SciFiNow Aliette de Bodard discusses how she created her vision of a ruined Paris

Notable interviews this week:

• Midnight in Karachi talked with N.K. Jemisin
• Andy Weir (The Martian) was interviewed for Kirkus Reviews

This week, my internet reading seemed to largely focused on just a couple of themes. The first one? Diversity:

• Feminist Fiction wrote about supporting female authors in epic fantasy and YA.
• Tansy Rayner Roberts introduced a new series on SF Women of the 20th Century, which I’m super excited to read.
• Amal El-Mohtar – “Writing the Margins From the Centre and Other Moral Geometries”
• At Fantasy Literature, Jessica Reidy wrote a two part piece on Romani people in sci-fi and fantasy: Part One and Part Two
• A.C. Wise has collected a list of non-binary writers to read: Part One and Part Two

The second major theme in my internet reading this week was nostalgia:

• Salon looks back at Frank Herbert’s Dune after 50 years
• Princess Mononoke gets the 8-bit treatment
• On Dianna Wynne Jones’ birthday, a look at how she subverted and celebrated the genre
• The Atlantic looks at H.P. Lovecraft at 125
• While Open Culture has collected some of Lovecraft’s own drawings
• At New Statesman, a criticism of the nostalgia that keeps the same old regressive books showing up on Best Of lists year after year

Miscellany:

• Book Riot asks “Why do we sanitize fairy tales?”
• The Mary Sue published “A Fangirl Ode to Weird Al Yankovic”
• Gizmodo tells us how to find the best fanfiction on the internet
• Apparently Everquest 2 is opening a whole new server to be a repository for people who don’t know how to behave.

Listicles:

• 8 Dated Science Fiction Novels That Are Still Essential Reading
  I had forgotten about the landline phones in The Silver Metal Lover!
• Flavorwire lists the 10 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels of 2015 So Far
  I’m very surprised that I’ve only read two of these (the Jo Walton ones), although I do have Archivist Wasp on my to-read list.

About Authors:

• Zen Cho on her inspirations and influences
• Wonderfully Weird: The Fiction of Charlie Jane Anders
• An interview with Andy Weir at Chron
• Why You Should Be Reading Cixin Liu

On Writing and Stuff:

• N.K. Jemisin on Creating Races
• Where are all the people of color in sci-fi and fantasy?
• Library Journal’s Spotlight on Science Fiction
• Dastardly Tropes & What to Do With Them

For Funsies:

• Ayn Rand’s Give a Mouse a Cookie
• Quiz! Which Mirror Empire Character Are You?
  (Ahkio, apparently.)

Probably my favorite thing I’ve found on the internet this week is J.R.R. Tolkien reading aloud from The Hobbit, which I’d somehow never heard before.

I know I post a lot of stuff about Ursula K. LeGuin, but a week doesn’t go by but that there’s at least a couple of interviews, profiles, or blog posts by/about her. This week in LeGuin Watch:

• Ursula K. LeGuin’s take on Go Set a Watchman
• Ursula K. LeGuin: By the Book

Other interviews and profiles of note this week:

• Genre and Margaret Atwood
• Samuel Delaney and the Past and Future of Science Fiction
• Q&A Ken Liu on Science Fiction and Chinese History
• Writing for Video Games: A Conversation With E. Lily Yu, Yoon Ha Lee, Robert Reed, Seth Dickinson, and Karl Schroeder

Barnes & Noble’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog presents Dune at 50: A Newbie’s Guide, which reminds me that there really is no good reason why I’ve never gotten around to reading it. Meanwhile, someone has made a 3-hour long fan cut of the movie, which I have likewise never seen. I guess I know what I’m going to be doing sometime relatively soon.

The B&N blog also wrote about one of my favorite pieces of sci-fi history trivia this week: “How One Misunderstanding in the 1870s Created an Entire Sci-fi Subgenre”

The Atlantic asks “Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?”

S. Andrew Swann lists 7 Things in Every SF/F Story.

Target stores are phasing out their heavily gendered toy aisles in favor of something more neutral. . . literally announced the same week that my 12-year-old got rid of basically all of her non-Lego toys.

Jim C. Hines has 10 Hugo Predictions now that Hugo voting has come to a close. We’ll find out how accurate these are in a couple of weeks, but I’m guessing they’re pretty right on.

Clarkesworld published a story that I can’t tell if I love or hate but that I think is fascinating either way: “Security Check” by Han Song (trans. by Ken Liu)

And Lexus has made a hoverboard. What a time to be alive:

https://youtu.be/ZwSwZ2Y0Ops

Den of Geek celebrates the sci-fi movies of Jeff Goldblum.

My Bookish Ways covers all of August’s new releases in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Movie Pilot asks (and answers) Why Are We Obsessed With the End of the World?

Apparently “cli-fi” is a thing now, and people have thoughts on it:

• “As the weather shifts, ‘cli-fi’ takes root as a new literary genre”
• “Cli-Fi; Climate Change Fiction as Literature’s New Frontier?”
• “Can cli-fi save us from ourselves?”

Speaking of climate change, Margaret Atwood says “It’s not climate change–it’s everything change.”

The Mary Sue writes about anti-heroines and flawed female protagonists…

And Rejected Princesses explains why so many of the princesses featured there are so evil.

I wrote about the movie Advantageous earlier this week, but there’s plenty of other great stuff to read about it, too:

• Advantageous: Feminist Science Fiction at Its Best
• Advantageous: A Dystopian Film That’s Packed With Hope
• Shut up and go stream Advantageous, a feminist sci-fi stunner now on Netflix
• Phang imagines feminist dilemmas of the future in Advantageous
• The Woman in the Mirror: Talking With Advantageous Director Jennifer Phang
• The Mary Sue Interview: Advantageous‘ Jennifer Phang

The Awl on The Pixar Theory of Labor

Five Ways to Add More Diverse Writers to Your White Mail Dominated Reading Lists at Lady Business

Aliette de Bodard picks apart Chose Ones, Specialness, and the Narrative of the One.

“It’s the End of the World As She Knows It” – The New York Times discusses how women envision our dystopian and postapocalyptic futures.

Speaking of. . . Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together has 11 Tips For Surviving Our Current Dystopia

Den of Geek lists 50 Forgotten Sci-fi Movies From the 90s, just in case you’re bored this weekend.

The Earliest Science Fiction at Motherboard

The Mary Sue cover’s how Steam’s Rust takes on race and gender issues.

Portland Monthly profiles Ursula K. Le Guin.

io9 on Ursula K. Le Guin, Fyodor Dovstoevsky, and the Snuggly Comfort of Evil

Air & Space Magazine on The Pluto of Science Fiction 

N.K. Jemisin on The Shannara Chronicles and the implications of an all-white post-apocalyptic world

Ken Liu discusses The Grace of Kings over at io9

The Subversive Sci-Fi of Hip Hop

Why Social Justice is Intrinsic to Storytelling

Feminist Fiction on the modern Cinderella 

At the Guardian, the rise of African Science Fiction

How medieval is GRRM’s ASOIAF? Spoiler alert: not very.

Book Riot on Station Eleven, Science Fiction, and Hope

The Mary Sue recommends Star vs. the Forces of Evil, which looks pretty freakin’ adorable. If I don’t watch it, I’ll definitely suggest it to my daughter if I can tear her away from her current FairyTail obsession.

Paul Feig tweeted the first picture of the new Ghostbusters cast in costume with the Ecto-1.

SFF Around the World:

“Rockets, Robots, and Reckless Imagination” – Usman Malik on science fiction in Pakistan

“The weird worlds of African sci-fi” at African Business Magazine

“On Chinese Science Fiction and Reading Internationally” at Book Riot

SFF History:

“The Simple Feeling and Beyond: Kirk and Spock’s Place in Queer History” at The Mary Sue

“The Women You Didn’t See: A Letter to Alice Sheldon” by Nicola Griffith at the Los Angeles Review of Books

“Influential Fantasy for Heroines” at Book Review Cafe

Miscellany:

Bitch Magazine on how Terminator Genisys got Sarah Connor wrong

K. Tempest Bradford on the importance of supporting marginalized voices

A review of Ernest Cline’s Armada over at Slate manages to cover all the reasons why I probably won’t ever read the work of Ernest Cline (or anything else in that same vein).

And a short film to enjoy: One Minute Time Machine, which is hilarious:

https://youtu.be/vBkBS4O3yvY

Funko is releasing Fifth Element Pop! Figures

David Bowie is Sci Fi and Fantasy Personified

Entertainment Weekly interviews Supergirl Melissa Benoist

A Neuroscientist’s Perspective on Inside Out

Zadie Smith is going to be writing a sci-fi movie

The New York Times asks “Do Genre Labels Matter Anymore?”

io9 talks about eight books you need to know about to understand this year’s Hugo Awards controversy

We’ve also got our first image of Bruce Campbell’s return as Ash from Ash vs. Evil Dead:

Weekend links are a little late this week  because Patch 6.2 happened this week in World of Warcraft. After a bit of a slump in my interest in the game, I’m excited to report that Tanaan Jungle is fun, shipyards are pretty cool, and I have learned that druids in deer form ride on top of Goblin Gliders like badasses. Other things happened this week, too, though.

Amy Schumer dismantled the ideal of being a princess on Inside Amy Schumer:

https://youtu.be/vOIuwNeS-gU

Margaret Atwood is making comic strips for the geek girl anthology, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls. For a $25 contribution to the Kickstarter, you can get digital and physical copies of the book.

The New York Times has the scoop on Cuban Science Fiction, and Tor.com has a Cuban Sci-Fi giveaway.

The Mary Sue interviews Jane Espenson

Over at Kirkus Reviews, there’s a great interview with Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, and Jonathan Strahan for anyone who has ever wondered about the process of creating all the “Year’s Best” anthologies that we love.

Gail Z. Martin guest posts at SciFiChick.com about Mary Sues and how the concept has been used to deride female characters in general

Finally, composer James Horner, who was responsible for the music in basically every film you loved as a child, has died in a tragic plane crash.

On Worldbuilding

The Fantasy Worlds That Short Stories Built at Book Riot

Guest Post: Goldilocks and the Art of Worldbuilding by Marc Turner at Fantasy Book Critic

On a Lack of Originality in Science Fiction and Fantasy Game Settings at Gamasutra

Sense8 and the Failure of Global Imagination at Racialicious

The Future of SF

Muslim fiction writers are turning to genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and comics at John Hopkins Magazine

Race, Speculative Fiction, and Afro SF at the New Left Project

Bring the Structure of the Hugo Awards into the Modern World by Eric Flint –Also worth a read is Eric Flint’s real talk piece on the futility of trying to keep literary awards from having literary standards

Miscellany

Michael Moorcock: My Family Values

The joy of reading role-playing games

One Star Reviews of The Handmaid’s Tale