- David Hines takes on John Ringo
- Jonathan Strahan points out that Gwyneth Jones has posted several short stories on her website, and finished a new novel, The Princess of Boi Dormant. Amazon says it’s scheduled for December 2009. Not soon enough!
- Reviews of Strahan’s YA sf anthology The Starry Rift by Gary K Wolfe and Nick Gevers
- And Martin McGrath reviews Strahan’s Best SF and Fantasy 2. I ordered this ages ago from Night Shade, but it hasn’t shown up yet. Woe.
- Some chat about The Carhullan Army (for those who’ve read it)
- An interview with Paolo Baciaglupi
- Sam Jordison’s Hugo blog at the Guardian: Double Star and The Big Time
- Last night’s Doctor Who: an academic speaks
- Nic Clarke on Cities in Flight
- A few reviews from Strange Horizons: Bruce Sterling on The Shock of the Old, Farah Mendlesohn on Little Brother, John Clute on The Dragons of Babel, and Roz Kaveney on Rewired
- An interview with Will Self: “He finds naturalistic novels “preposterous” – he laughs a wheezing laugh – ‘most of the time. They’re far more about an invented reality even than the things I write.'” And M John Harrison reviews Self’s new novel, The Butt
- Mark Chadbourn on the appeal of fantasy
- Paul Kincaid on Dust by Elizabeth Bear
- Ursula Le Guin reviews The Enchantress of Florence
- Matt Thorne reviews The Heritage by Will Ashon: “influenced by JG Ballard and David Mitchell but with a curious combination of English nostalgia and utterly contemporary observation entirely his own.”
- Thomas Jones on JG Ballard’s autobiography in the LRB
- Ian Sales on A Game of Thrones
- James Lovegrove reviews Eric Brown’s Kethani
- Paul Kincaid on Arthur C Clarke
- Martin McGrath responds to a Guardian blog that wonders why there isn’t more sf theatre.
- Re-covering Orwell
- Last but not least: XKCD still brilliant
(Four Clarke books down, two to go; and I’m up to p.217 of Quicksilver.)
vector-bsfa.com 
Thanks very much for pointing to that Carhullan discussion so I could find Adam Robert’s completely wrong-headed review of said text. ;) If only he had review Hall’s second novel I could read a serious defence of that disaster. (I shudder at its memory.)
Oh, I missed that Telegraph article on “the appeal of fantasy”. Who says that it’s all but invisible on the cultural landscape? Are the Whitbreads and the Bookers really such cultural juggernauts in the UK? If Terry Pratchett’s “financial rewards” come from book sales (to, like, actual readers) rather than book prizes I’d say he’s got solid footing.
(And Sebold’s book as “fantasy”? No, no, I’ll happily leave that book to literary fiction aficionados, keep it, keep it.)
Books and art don’t loom that large on the British cultural landscape and when they do surface it tends to be in relation to awards. The only notable exceptions is when an attractive female artist or writer starts generating buzz and then she’ll get a few interviews lobbed her way.
It’s like when the UK papers discovered hip-hop when Ms. Dynamite appeared (whatever happened to her?) or when they took an interest in classical song when Charlotte Church turned legal.
So that explains the Charlotte Church thing. I seee.