• The big UK publishing news: Jo Fletcher is leaving Gollancz to found a new imprint at Quercus, Jo Fletcher books.
• Also of note: Angry Robot’s new digital short story store, launching tomorrow: 59p a story, £3.49 for ten.
• And Orbit have done a good thing by bringing this year’s Nebula- and Hugo-(with-The City & The City)-winning The Windup Girl to the UK
• You can now buy online access to SF Studies for $20 a year, which seems like a very good deal.
• ‘Tis the season for best-of-the-year lists, so here’s Amazon US’s top ten, Amazon UK’s equivalent list, some comment on the differences between the two, and Publishers Weekly’s top five (plus bonus picks)
• Alvaro Zinos-Amaro on Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, 2, covering stories from 1940
• Reviews of Surface Detail by Francis Spufford in The Scotsman, Roz Kaveney in The Independent, Doug Johnstone also in the Indie, and Naomi Alderman in the Guardian; and in a Banksian vein, Abigail Nussbaum on The Player of Games
• An interview with Hannu Rajaniemi
• Daniel Abraham (in his guise as MLN Hanover) talks about rape and sexual violence in urban fantasy (follow-on here and here); anon commenter prompts a second post, and Kameron Hurley on why she doesn’t read much urban fantasy
• Nic Clarke on two novels by Kim Stanley Robinson: Pacific Edge and Galileo’s Dream; and also on The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
• Subterranean have posted the full text of Ted Chiang’s novella “The Lifecycle of Software Objects“; some reviews, by Matt Hilliard, Terry Weyna, Richard at Solar Bridge, and TS Miller at Strange Horizons (the latter also covering Egan’s Zendegi)
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s brief history of Mexican science fiction
• Reviews from Locus: Gary K Wolfe on Michael Moorcock’s Into the Media Web and Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three, and Faren Miller on The Last Page by Anthony Huso
• Sf writers on steampunk: Charles Stross, Catherynne Valente (and follow-up), Scott Westerfeld, Jean-Christophe Valtat, and L Timmel Duchamp
• Other reviews: Adam Roberts on How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe; Dan Hartland on Red Plenty; Patrick Hudson on Super Sad True Love Story (also); Jonathan McCalmont on Fire in the Stone; and Karen Burnham on An Unusual Angle, Greg Egan’s first book (and speaking of Egan, have you seen what he’s working on next?)
• Nic Clarke and Victoria Hoyle on Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
• Some other recent reviews at Strange Horizons: Matt Cheney’s Six Views of Never Let Me Go; Matt Denault on Noise by Darin Bradley; Paul Kincaid on Generosity by Richard Powers; Nick Hubble on Bearings by Gary K Wolfe
• And finally: Karen Burnham’s con panel bingo card

And finally finally: don’t forget that next week around these parts is going to be about sf by women. In particular, if you haven’t voted in the ongoing poll, please do email me your top ten sf novels by women from the last ten years (2001–2010). Deadline 23.59 on Sunday 5 December, results all next week.

• The SFRA Review have been posting a series of their 101 articles from SFRA Review, including so far Scholarly Research and Writing 101, Science Studies 101, Fan Studies 101, Comic Studies 101, and, for anyone who thought Brandon Sanderson knew what he was talking about, Postmodernism 101. (On that last, see also.)
• Reviews of William Gibson’s Zero History by Scarlett Thomas, Steven Poole, Andrew McKie, James Purdon, James Urquhart, and Ed Cumming
• Nic Clarke on two novellas by Vandana Singh
• At Black Gate, Matthew David Surridge is on a quest to find The First Heroic Fantasy: part one, part two, part three
• Jonathan McCalmont liked Baxter’s Stone Spring, and really liked Adam Roberts’ New Model Army
• Dan Hartland concludes that Ian McDonald has “done it again” with The Dervish House
• Duncan Lawie on Greg Egan’s Zendegi
• And finally, something I have been extremely remiss in mentioning: this year’s Strange Horizons fund drive is underway. I sort of assume everyone reading this knows all about Strange Horizons; but you may not know that this September was Strange Horizons’ tenth anniversary. Susan Marie Groppi writes more about the fund drive here, and you can follow fund drive updates here: I’m lacking inspiration to add much, but if you’ve enjoyed Strange Horizons in the past, please think about chipping in. Thanks.

• The first issue of the new review/critical magazine Salon Futura went up recently, including Sam Jordison on The Waterworks by EL Doctorow, Jonathan Clements on Satoshi Kon, Karen Burnham on short fiction and Cheryl Morgan on various books. There are also video interviews with China Mieville and Lauren Beukes (although I wish they were available as text), and a podcast roundtable on the changing conversation (ditto). Grumbles aside, it’s a good project, and they’re open to submissions.
• Some good responses to Elizabeth Moon
• I am frustrated to have not had the time to respond to Andrew Wheeler’s review of How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe, with which I disagree thoroughly (although it’s not as infuriating as Mike Cobley’s take in the latest Interzone); Ander Monson’s review is better, but still feels like it’s skating over the surface of the novel. Which is to say: it’s worth a look.
• Pete Young offers some thoughts on The Windup Girl
• Kate Roiphe on Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay
• Alison Flood on Tanith Lee’s British Fantasy Award-winning Death’s Master
• Reviews of Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Gary K Wolfe, Karen Burnham, and Paul Kincaid
• John Self on Jose Saramago’s Blindness
• Matthew Jones on Doctor Who, series five
• Anil Menon on Narrative Power: Encounters, Celebrations, Struggles, edited by L. Timmel Duchamp.
• Paul Raven faces up to Rob Shearman’s Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical
• Martin Lewis considers the Guardian’s reviews of Super Sad True Love Story and Things We Didn’t See Coming
• Mike Johnstone on this year’s Asimov’s: January, February, March, April/May
• And finally (until part two), hooray for Small Beer Press, for they are publishing a Geoff Ryman short fiction collection, Paradise Tales. I covet it.

• This month’s links round-up title is brought to you by a book I encourage you all to read, Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty. See reviews by Adam Roberts, Michael Burleigh, Charlotte Hobson, James Meek, Ian Thomson, and Steven Rose; and also an essay by Spufford setting out the background to the book
• Abigail Nussbaum adjusts expectations for Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Margo Lanagan’s White Time gets a [new] UK edition and a review in The Guardian
• Matt Denault on Chill by Elizabeth Bear; also on Mieville’s The City & The City and VanderMeer’s Finch
• Nic Clarke on The Female Man
• An excellent interview with Ted Chiang; elsewhere, Paul Kincaid on The Lifecycle of Software Objects
• The Rejectionist interviews Elizabeth Hand (as part of a feminist sf week)
• Roz Kaveney reviews Finch and The Dervish House
• Kit Whitfield on watching horror when you’re pregnant and on watching Rosemary’s Baby specifically
• Karen Burnham reviews Shine, Jetse de Vries’ anthology of “optimistic sf”
• Cheryl Morgan’s ICFA paper on “Changing Images of Trans People in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature”
• Matt Hilliard tangles with George RR Martin
• Paul Kincaid’s four-part essay on this year’s Best Novel Hugo nominees: one, two, three, four
• Faren Miller on Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Burning City; also from Locus, Paul Witcover’s review of Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker
• Graham Sleight’s Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Theodore Sturgeon
• Mark Charan Newton has a conversation with Alden Bell
• James Lovegrove reviews four non-anglophone works of sf for the FT
• Colin Greenland on Brian Aldiss’ intriguing-sounding Walcot
• Kelly Jennings on two books by Eleanor Arnason
• Over at Strange Horizons, I review Steph Swainston’s Above the Snowline; somewhat relatedly, see Martin Lewis’ SF Site review of Swords & Dark Magic
• A column by Aliette de Bodard in Asimov’s, responding to Norman Spinrad’s “Third World Worlds“
• And finally: $500, five years, and still no book

• I sort of assume everyone knows about this by now, but I haven’t actually mentioned it here yet: if you’re not following Jonathan Strahan’s podcast discussions with Gary Wolfe, you should be: wide-ranging, informed discussions about all aspects of the sf and fantasy field. You can subscribe via iTunes (search for “Notes from Coode Street”), or here are the links to the posts for the episodes so far — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven (with Amelia Beamer), eight (with Jeremy Lassen), nine — which have some interesting follow-up comments in most cases.
• Night Shade Books have been pulling shennanigans, as summarized here, with their response here and a follow-up from one of the authors involved here; SFWA has put them on probation
• Jeff VanderMeer interviews L. Timmel Duchamp on the occasion of Aqueduct Press publishing its fiftieth book
• Gwenda Bond rounds up Kelly Link’s posts from her recent blog tour
• Currently blogging at Babel Clash: Mark Chadbourn and Justina Robson
• Graham Sleight’s latest Yesterday’s Tomorrows column looks at Robert Silverberg
• Hal Duncan has a long column unpacking the nature of “cultural appropriation”
• A new group blog is aiming to review every Gollancz Masterwork
• Dan Hartland on The Dispossessed
• John Clute’s latest Scores looks at the first volume of William H Patterson’s biography of Robert Heinlein and at Cory Doctorow’s For the Win
• Steven Shaviro’s consideration of Splice
• Gary K Wolfe on China Mieville’s Kraken and The Best of Peter S Beagle
• Dhalgren: a difficult book?
• Shigekuni considers The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
• Roz Kaveney on two apocalypses: Justin Cronin’s The Passage and Mira Grant’s Feed
• Martin Lewis on “Misogyny in the UK“: two recent British horror-comedies
• Jonathan McCalmont likes MD Lachlan’s Wolfsangel, and has some thoughts on fantasy Big Dumb Objects
• Rich Puchlasky on “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, in verse and prose
• Two assessments of Lost: Adam Roberts and Bernadette Lynn Bosky
• Elsewhere, Adam Roberts has finished his Wheel of Time read with a summary post
• Matt Cheney on Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
• Paul Kincaid on Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds and on essay collections by Gwyneth Jones and Ursula K Le Guin
• William Mingin had some issues with Farah Mendlesohn’s The Inter-Galactic Playground
• Patrick Hudson on Jetse de Vries’ anthology of optimistic sf, Shine
• Six female editors are interviewed at Broadsheet
• Some of Jason Sanford’s favourite stories so far this year
• Jose Saramago has died; there’s a nice overview of his concerns at the Guardian blog, and you can read the Paris Review interview with him here. See also Ursula Le Guin’s review of Seeing. I’m still hoping, perhaps unrealistically, to write up my thoughts on that book in the near future.

Well, the reading is done, and the class starts tomorrow, which means I’ll be offline for the weekend and it’s time for a long-overdue links post.

• Abigail Nussbaum’s fascinating review-essay on With Both Feet in the Clouds: Fantasy in Hebrew Literature, edited by Hagar Yanai and Danielle Gurevitch
• A talk by William Gibson given at Book Expo America: “For the past decade or so, the only critics of science fiction I pay any attention to, all three of them, have been slyly declaring that the Future is over.”
• Laura Miller on YA dystopias, in particular The Hunger Games
• Alastair Reynolds has had an excellent stint blogging at Babel Clash, with posts on optimism (… and spaceflight, and plotting), as well as challenging reads, colonisation, and representation
• Mary Anne Mohanraj’s Wiscon Guest of Honor speech
• Graham Sleight’s talk “Excellent Foppery“, on the use of history in the fantastic (and note the shiny new website)
• Helen Oyeyemi on the Library of America Shirley Jackson collection
• John Clute’s latest Scores tackles two books by Michal Ajvaz
• Splice seems to be dividing opinion: the case for, and the case against
• Paul Kincaid on language and science fiction; and on Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction, with some further discussion of Marxist criticism
• Some older books considered: Capek’s The War With the Newts at The Asylum; Greenland’s Take Back Plenty at Follow the Thread; Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus at Number 71; Vonarburg’s The Silent City at Eve’s Alexandria; and an overview of the first four volumes of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars series
• The first half of Lara Buckerton’s review-essay Fauxplexity, examining Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s Lucifer’s Dragon
• Some newer books considered: Steven Amsterdam’s Things We Didn’t See Coming; China Mieville’s Kraken; Joanna Kavenna’s The Birth of Love (and more positively); Matt Cheney enthuses about Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death; and Ken MacLeod really knows how to make me want to get stuck in to Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty: “It’s a bit like reading a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, Neal Stephenson, or Ursula Le Guin – or maybe a mashup of all them”
• Some reviews of short story collections at Strange Horizons: Holly Black’s The Poison Eaters reviewed by L Timmel Duchamp, Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters reviewed by Abigail Nussbuam, and Douglas Smith’s Chimerascope, reviewed by TS Miller
• Interviews with literary review sites: The Quarterly Conversation, The Rumpus and The Millions
• The finalists for this year’s Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short fiction of 2009