• 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

• BSFA members: if you’re not going to Eastercon, today is the day to cast your Awards votes. Check the details here, and then email your votes to Donna Scott. Meanwhile, over at NextRead Gav is reviewing the Best Novel shortlist, starting with The City & The City; and Dan Hartland has posted his thoughts on Lavinia here.
• As noted by Lois, Polyphony 7 will go ahead
• Apropos bloggers’ frontlist fetish:
  • Matt Hilliard is revisiting Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners, story by story; see the introductory post, and his thoughts on “The Faery Handbag“, “The Hortlak“, and “The Cannon“
  • Coffee & Ink on three books by Karin Lowachee
  • Jonathan McCalmont is reading The Book of the New Sun; so far, he’s posted about The Shadow of the Torturer
  • Jess McCabe on Daughters of Earth ed. Justine Larbalestier
  • Kyra Smith liked Kage Baker’s In the Garden of Iden
  • Nic Clarke on two books by Joanna Russ: Extra(Ordinary) People and The Adventures of Alyx
  • And Adam Roberts, bless him, has decided to read the entire Wheel of Time: book 1, book 2 and book 3, so far.
• Abigail Nussbaum rounds up more discussion of Jewish fantasy
• Thoughts on recent Caprica
• An overview of 2009 international SF compiled by Jeff VanderMeer
• Daniel Mendelsohn on Avatar
• Elizabeth Hand on several Twilight Zone-related titiles
• Visions of Paradise calculates the most acclaimed books of 2009; no surprise that The City & The City tops the list; see also the SF Site Editor’s Choice for 2009
• Ken MacLeod calls for stranger maps
• The March 2009 Science Fiction Studies is online
• David J Schwartz on The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
• OK, now for some frontlist:
  • Matt Denault’s excellent review of Geoff Ryman’s “science into fiction” anthology When it Changed
  • Jonathan McCalmont’s equally excellent reviews of Moxyland and (wait for it) In Great Waters
  • Two Four views of NK Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms: Nic Clarke; Maureen Kincaid Speller; Kate Nepveu; Vito Excalibur
  • Arthur B on Jedediah Berry’s Crawford Award-winning The Manual of Detection
  • Micah Toub on an interesting-sounding anthology: Darwin’s Bastards
  • Kasia Boddy on Jim Crace’s All That Follows
  • Paul Kincaid on Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs
  • Two reviews of Ruby’s Spoon by Anna Lawrence Pietroni: Carol Birch in the Indie, and Carolyn See in the Washington Post
  • Two views of Ian McEwan’s Solar: Thomas Jones in the LRB, and M John Harrison in the TLS
• And finally, this year’s SFRA Award winners:
  • Pilgrim Award (for lifetime contributions to sf & f studies): Eric Rabkin
  • Pioneer Award (for the most outstanding sf studies essay of the year): Allison de Fren, “The Anatomical Gaze in Tomorrow’s Eve,” published in Science Fiction Studies No. 108, Vol. 36 (2), July 2009: 235-265)
  • Clareson Award (for distinguished service): David Mead
  • Mary Kay Bray Award (for the best essay, interview, or extended review in the past year’s SFRA Review): Ritch Calvin, “Mundane SF 101” (in Volume 289 [Summer 2009]; pdf link)
  • Student Paper Award (for the best paper presented at the previous year’s SFRA conference): Andrew Ferguson, “Such Delight in Bloody Slaughter: R. A. Lafferty and the Dismemberment of the Body Grotesque”

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

• Con or Bust is fundraising to assist people of colour who want to attend Wiscon: you can browse the auctions, or make an auction offer (bidding opens a week today, ie 24th Feb). I’ve put up several lots of books
• The final issue of The Internet Review of Science Fiction has all sorts of good things, and the news that Lois Tilton’s short fiction round-ups will be moving to Locus Online
• The Locus Poll and Survey is online — although if you’re not a subscriber, see Abigail’s commentary
• Iain Sinclair on JG Ballard’s artistic legacy
• Jeff VanderMeer’s best of 2009
• Good news, everybody! PS Publishing will be publishing Ian R MacLeod’s new novel, Wake Up and Dream. No, there’s still no sign of a paperback edition of Song of Time, and that sucks. On the upside, Subterranean were offering a free copy of Song of Time to the first thirty people to pre-order Journeys; no idea if there are any left, but since I already have a copy I’m holding off on my preorder until I can be sure they’re all gone.
• Publisher’s Weekly looks at dystopian YA novels
• Patrick Ness reviews X Isle by Steve Augarde
• NK Jemisin on “Writing a post-feminist character“, and interviewed at length
• Jonathan McCalmont on Ponyo
• Adrienne Martini reviews Connie Willis’ Blackout (although her research doesn’t seem to have been all that it could have been…)
• A very enthusiastic review of Yellow Blue Tibia
• A discussion about gritty fantasy
• Some recent reviews at Strange Horizons: L Timmel Duchamp on The Best with Nine Billion Feet by Anil Menon; Dan Hartland on A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti; TS Miller on Eclipse 3; and David J Schwartz on Avilion
• Graham Sleight on that rare beast, a science fiction play: Really Old, Like Forty-Five
• Judith Woods on Diana Wynne Jones’ Enchanted Glass and Philip Womack’s The Liberators
• Paul Kincaid on the conclusion to David Louis Edelman’s Jump 225 trilogy, Geosynchron; and, relatedly, on the structure of trilogies
• Paul Graham Raven on the marvellously-titled Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep? Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction
• Adam Roberts muses about being interviewed for Newsnight (items starts about 36.05)
• Some thoughts on the end of Dollhouse
• Via James, I am intrigued by Glitch
• Some of Matt Cheney’s books of the decade
• The TV Book Club‘s next pick is The Rapture by Liz Jensen; the relevant episode airs 21st February on More4, and 22nd February on Channel 4
• Finally: I’m off to San Francisco tomorrow, for four days of work and five days of holiday. I’m sure I’ll manage to find some internet access somewhere, though…

EDIT: Actually, finally finally: don’t forget the deadline for applications to this year’s SF Foundation Masterclass in SF criticism is creeping up. (I suddenly realised last night, and sent in my application so that I don’t have to worry about it while I’m away.)

• Reviews of Wyndham’s Plan for Chaos by Leo Mellor in the Independent, Nick Rennison in The Sunday Times, Jake Kerridge in The Telegraph, and M John Harrison in The Guardian; further discussion of the latter here.
• M John Harrison has also republished a review of War Fever by JG Ballard, from 1990
• NK Jemisin on why Racefail was the bestest thing evar for sff
• Jonathan McCalmont on Lem’s Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
• Matt Cheney is comparing sf in 1990 and 2000
• Karen Burnham on George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin
• Two reviews of Lethem’s Chronic City, by Patrick Ness and Thomas Jones; Patrick Ness also not a fan of The Left Hand of God
• Martin Lewis reviews The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood and The Rapture by Liz Jensen; Paul Kincaid also reviews the latter here, and between them I am convinced that I should read my copy sooner rather than later
• Other reviews by the prolific Mr Kincaid: Two New Tales From the Mabinogion, and Avilion by Robert Holdstock.
• And Martin takes on the Kelly/Kessel Secret History of Science Fiction here.
• Gord Sellar on THe Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin
• Nic Clarke on We Who Are About To … by Joanna Russ
• Tim Adams on Generosity by Richard Powers
• David Hebblethwaite on Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett
• Abigail Nussbaum: Chuck vs Half the Human Race, and two zombie novels
• Andrew Seal on Yellow Blue Tibia
• Adam Roberts on Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton and Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
• Alasdair Czyrnyj on Babylon by Richard Calder
• Catherynne Valente’s steampunk story, “The Anachronist’s Cookbook“
• A list of neglected books at Tor.com
• A year of YA reading
• Rachel Swirsky’s Nebula recommendations for short story, novelette and novella
• And finally, The Write Fantastic is celebrating their anniversary with a one-day event in Oxford, on 8th May

• One more day to send in your BSFA Award nominations — they must be received by 23.59 tomorrow (Saturday 16th). And then you could vote in the SF Site Reader’s Choice awards. (You can do that if you’re not a BSFA member, even.)
• An open letter to fans, authors and critics of the male sex, and a related post by Liz Williams
• Sad news: the Internet Review of SF will be suspending publication after the February issue; so enjoy the January issue
• David Ketterer’s introduction to Plan for Chaos by John Wyndham
• China Mieville is blogging
• Kristin Cashore on writing fantasy
• Kari Sperring reviews The Cardinal’s Blades and L’Alchimiste des Ombres by Pierre Pevel
• My review of The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham
• L. Timmel Duchamp on Total Oblivion, More or Less by Alan DeNiro
• Graham Sleight interviews Farah Mendlesohn about On Joanna Russ
• A discussion about difficulty at The Valve
• Patrick Ness reviews Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
• Adam Roberts on Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
• A round table on Australian sf at the World SF blog
• Discussion of cover art, with reference to Lauren Beukes’ forthcoming fantasy Zoo City
• Tony Keen and Tim Phipps on “The End of Time” (and the end of a Doctor Who era)
• More Avatar links: a round-up by Abigail Nussbaum; elsewhere, Roz Kaveney; Caleb Crain; Jonah Lehrer; Andres du Toit
• David Hebblethwaite on Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Nic Clarke on The Road (the book)
• Mark Charan Newton asks: what do people mean when they say “clunky”?
• Realms of Fantasy is having an all-woman issue, which has attracted much comment
• Dan Hartland on Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley, and The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw; on the latter I echo much of his ambivalence, though I was more won over by the book in the end. Also over at Strange Horizons with a review of Sherlock Holmes, with further thoughts back on his blog here.
• New Peter Watts story at Clarkesworld: “The Things“; see Jonathan Strahan’s account of how this didn’t end up in Eclipse 3
• Books-of-2009 lists from Martin Lewis (and films), David Hebblethwaite, Abigail Nussbaum (and worst reads of the year, and best short stories).
• Science fiction is annoying Bruce Sterling Everett
• Guardian books podcast on sf, including interview with China Mieville.
• And finally: so at Worldcon, I was on a panel about the Terminator franchise with Abigail, and James Zavaglia. After the panel, we were approached by a chap from Electric Playground asking if he could interview us. We said yes, and they’ve used the material for this segment. (Also including coments from Russell Blackford.)

• First up: BSFA members! Time to get your nominations in for this year’s awards, if you haven’t already. Send your nominations for Best Novel, Best Short Fiction, Best Non-Fiction and Best Artwork to the awards administrator forthwith. This will not be your last reminder on this subject, but since you can always send more nominations later if you forget something now, if you’ve read something you think is good enough to be nominated, there’s no point in delaying. OK? Good.
• Over at the Aqueduct Press blog you can read pleasures of 2009 lists from Nisi Shawl, Cheryl Morgan, Rachel Swirsky, Jeffrey Ford, Lisa Tuttle, and others.
• Reviews of Avatar : Alan DeNiro , Annalee Newitz , Peter Watts , Paul McAuley EDIT: and Greg Egan
• Nic Clarke on Fire by Kristin Cashore
• On those Year’s Bests : some other suggestions .
• Anil Menon on Makers by Cory Doctorow
• Gary K Wolfe on The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory
• NK Jemisin argues that the gap between new and old urban fantasy isn’t so large after all. Hmm.
• Steven Shaviro has posted an essay on Gamer
• Marcus Chown reviews Geoff Ryman’s science-into-fiction anthology When it Changed for The Guardian
• Adam Roberts’s Lord of the Rings re-read ; also, his review of the forthcoming Wolfsangel by MD Lachlan ; some more discussion about the language of fantasy, with response by Lachlan here
• TS Miller on the film of The Road
• Dan Hartland on In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield and The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
• Jonathan McCalmont on Where the Wild Things Are : ” Lost in Translation with Muppets ”
• Jonathan Strahan’s top ten genre short story collections of the decade
• And last but not least, SFFMeta : MetaCritic for sf and fantasy books.