Linkbreaker

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

• This Wednesday (or, indeed, tomorrow) sees the announcement of the winner of this year’s Clarke Award, which means there’s reviews and commentary in abundance. My thoughts will follow tomorrow, but in the meantime: Tom Hunter on the trouble with shortlists; David Hebblethwaite picks either Far North or Yellow Blue Tibia; Amanda at Floor-to-Ceiling books has posted her thoughts on most of the shortlist, as well as on what we mean by “best“; the first half of a shortlist review by Dan Hartland is up at Strange Horizons, with part two to follow tomorrow; Jonathan McCalmont has reviewed Far North; and Nic Clarke has reviewed Far North, Retribution Falls and The City & The City
• Perspective: the bestselling sf/f books of 2009
• Matt Denault finally has a blog! With a review of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
• Kit Whitfield on horror (and being the only woman to be mentioned in that SFX horror special)
• Matt Hilliard continues his re-read of Magic for Beginners with thoughts on “Catskin“
• Matt Cheney dissects A Short History of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James
• Martin Lewis on Kick-Ass; see also two posts by Amanda Marcotte
• John Clute concludes his examination of Peter Straub’s American Fantastic Tales
• Rachel Swirsky on passive versus active characters (with a preview of the next book discussion coming this way…)
• Jonathan McCalmont continues his read of The Book of the New Sun with thoughts on The Claw of the Conciliator
• Justina Robson considers Cloud & Ashes by Greer Gilman
• Paul Kincaid’s thoughts on judging the Tiptree Award
• Paul Witcover liked Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Empire in Black and Gold
• Reviews of Jim Crace’s All That Follows: Adam Mars-Jones, John Self, Mark Sanderson
• Adam Roberts tackles Stephen Baxter’s Stone Spring; and continues to soldier through the Wheel of Time. He has also finally read In Great Waters
• Charlie Jane Anders thinks that Ian McEwan’s Solar is one of the year’s best science fiction novels
• Jonathan Strahan has edited the Spring issue of Subterranean
• Jonathan McCalmont’s review of The Windup Girl (also)
• Paul Kincaid examines Cory Doctorow’s Makers, and is blogging the Hugo novels, starting with Robert Sawyer’s Wake
• Pete Young on the interesting-sounding The Last Tobacco Shop in the World by Bjorn Turmann
• Hallie O’Donovan on The Returners by Gemma Malley
• Martin has your reviewing debate for the week: “where is the discernment?”
• Eric M Van offers a taxonomy of science in sf
• An introduction to a Chinese sf/f fanzine
• Jo Walton on Julian Comstock
• Peter Carty on Sunshine State by James Miller
• Some authors comment on the BSFA Survey: Jaine Fenn, Chris Beckett, and James Lovegrove, the latter of whom discovered an award nomination he didn’t know he had.
• David Auerbach on the work of Thomas M Disch
• Rana Dasgupta’s Solo, which I still haven’t got to, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
• And finally: Arthur at FerretBrain has watched the Dragonlance film so you don’t have to. Except I already have. Oops.