The Links We Share Without Knowing

As you may have spotted, I didn’t manage to get that post about Ark finished. I’m now aiming for Monday, although I have a daunting number of other things I need to get done this weekend, as well. In the meantime: some links!

• Hey, you know what I haven’t told you to read, recently? In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield, now out in beautiful UK paperback. Just in time to read before the Hugo nomination deadline next Friday! If you need some more convincing, here are some more reviews: Abigail Nussbaum, Sara Sklaroff, TS Miller. Victoria liked it so much she can’t even write a coherent review yet.
• John Clute’s latest Scores, on the first volume of Peter Straub’s American Fantastic Tales
• The auctions at Con-or-Bust are still open
• The joy of negative reviews! Catherynne Valente has some issues with Yellow Blue Tibia; Jonathan McCalmont has perhaps even more with Red Claw
• Nicholas Whyte has been working his way through this year’s BSFA Award nominees; see his summary posts on the short fiction, novels and artwork
• More best-of-2009 stuff. Abigail Nussbaum’s draft Hugo ballot; Kate Nepveu is looking for short story recommendations, and has links to other draft ballots. The SF Site has published their Readers’ Choice of 2009 Novels
• Dan Hartland on Caprica; NK Jemisin looks at the show’s racial politics
• An interview with Kij Johnson, primarily about her Nebula finalist, “Spar“
• Maura McHugh points out that SFX’s “Horror special” omitted women pretty much entirely; SFX respond
• Two new issues of Bruce Gillespie’s fanzine Steam Engine Time; issue 11 [pdf] features, among other things, JG Stinson on CJ Cherryh, an essay by Pamela Sargent based on a speech given at the SFRA conference in 1996, “Are editors necessary?”, and an interview with Karron Warren; issue 12 [pdf] features Gillespie’s best of the decade, Ray Wood on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and various other essays
• China Mieville on The Complete Stories of JG Ballard
• Victoria Hoyle on Ballard’s Crash
• Matt Cheney interviews James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel about The Secret History of SF
• Nic Clarke on the first two volumes of Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy (her thoughts on the concluding volume can be found in her review of the David Gemmell Legend Award shortlist)
• The io9 Book Club discusses The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi answers questions here
• Richard Larson on Richard Bowes’ Nebula-nominated story “I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said“
• Aqueduct Press is offering a pre-publication discount on its next non-fiction title, Narrative Power: Encounters, Celebrations, Struggles, edited by L Timmel Duchamp
• Sam Jordison’s Hugo reading reaches Stand on Zanzibar (about which we had some good discussion a couple of years ago)
• William Mingin on Shadows in the Wind, a Robert E Howard collection edited by John Clute. I’ve never read Howard, and this review not only made me feel I should, but made me want to.
• Martin Lewis considers the evolution of epic fantasy. His latest project is reading The Ascent of Wonder; interesting discussion about Clarke’s “The Star” here.
• Elizabeth Hand likes The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw; there’s extensive discussion of the book in the Not The TV Book Group here
• John Scalzi says Inglourious Basterds is not sf; Philip Palmer says it is
• Alasdair Czyrnyj on The Fencer Trilogy by KJ Parker
• Pete Young on The Owl in Daylight by Tessa B Dick (fifth ex-wife of Philip K).
• AS Byatt on Wonderland
• Handicapping the Hugo short story contenders
• An article by Michael Weingrad, “Why is there no Jewish Narnia” attracts comment from Farah Mendlesohn, Abigail Nussbaum, The Inferior 4, Rachel Swirsky, Metafilter, and many many many many many others
• And finally: The Epic History of Scifi Weapons from 1726 to 2008