Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for January 15, 2016

Here is our weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with yet more Star Wars discussion as well as tributes to David Bowie and discussion about the the TV shows The Expanse, The Shannara Chronicles, Colony and the revived X-Files. 

Speculative fiction in general:

• The participants of the SF Signal Mind Meld talk about what they want to read in 2016. 
• Paul di Filippo takes a look at upcoming 2016 SFF releases. 
• Andrew Liptak also takes a look at upcoming 2016 SFF releases.
• Veronica Scott talks about science fiction romance. 
• Cora Buhlert talks about SFF, romance and abuse narratives. 
• Leah Rhyne talks about Jessica Jones, Sansa Stark and rape culture in entertainment.
• Tobias Carroll talks about the blurred lines between science fiction and noir.
• Jason Sanford shares his admiration for and frustration with the works of Philip K. Dick.  
• Maddie Crum talks about dystopian novels which put a new spin on an entrenched genre.
• Brian Merchant explains what the science fiction of 2015 tells us about the concerns of today.
• Max Gladstone discusses a year of reading differently.
• Dave Bara explains why heroes are important in science fiction and fantasy. 
• Marcus Sakey talks about moments of heroism which always get him.
• Colleen Gillard attempts to explain why she feels that British children's fiction is superior to American children's fiction.
• Paul St. John Mackintosh discusses the damage that James Patterson Inc. has done to the publishing industry. 
• Doctor Science explains how special effects eat characterisation.
• Scott Mendelson wonders how Avatar managed to become the highest grossing movie of all time, only to be nigh forgotten only five years later.
• Jake Wilson discusses the proliferation of robot movies in 2015.
• Germain Lussier shares his appreciation for the 1984 film The Last Starfighter.
• Sophie Besl shares her thoughts about Quentin Tarantino's movie The Hateful Eight and its main female character. 
• Bob Pastorella shares his appreciation for the TV show Penny Dreadful.
• Mick Joest calls Black Mirror one of the most important TV shows of our time.
• Stuart Starosta shares his thoughts about the streaming video adaptation of Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. 
• Smart Girls Love Sci Fi Romance takes a look at some largely forgotten 1990s time travel shows. 
• Josh Jones shares his appeciation for Delia Derbyshire, the electronic music pioneer who created the original Doctor Who theme. 
• Adam Smith discusses the history of Flash Gordon.
• Chris Kluwe explains why jocks versus nerds is a false division.
• Horror writer A.R. Morlan has died aged 58.
• Actor Alan Rickman has died aged 69.
  

Tributes to David Bowie:

• Adam Sweeting offers an obituary for David Bowie who died of cancer aged 69. 
• Rob Bricken shares all the way that David Bowie changed our lives and expanded our minds. 
• Abraham Riesman explains why David Bowie was a geek icon.
• Rob Salkowitz traces David Bowie's connection to the science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. 
• Danny Lewis explains how David Bowie helped shape science fiction as we know it.
• The Slipper traces how comics influenced David Bowie and vice versa.
• Landon Palmer talks about discovering David Bowie through the movies.
• Charlie Jane Anders shares her tribute to David Bowie. 
• Lou Anders shares his tribute to David Bowie.
• Emily Asher-Perrin shares her tribute to David Bowie.
• Adam Whitehead shares his tribute to David Bowie. 
• C.E. Murphy shares her tribute to David Bowie.
• SF Crowsnest share their tribute to David Bowie.
• David Cardinal shares his tribute to David Bowie.
• Kameron Hurley shares her tribute to David Bowie and talks about mortality.
• Neil Gaiman shares his short story "The Return of the Thin White Duke", which was inspired by David Bowie. 

Comments on Star Wars and The Force Awakens:

• Austin Walker claims that The Force Awakens retells Star Wars for the so-called Millennial generation. 
• The participants of The Establishment's roundtable talk about the significance of finally seeing themselves reflected in Star Wars.
• Alex Brown talks about the reawakening of Star Wars fandom.
• Stephen D. Greydanus wonders about the influence of gnosticism on Star Wars.
• This Jupiter Ascending fan tumblr compares the role of women in Star Wars and Jupiter Ascending.
• Steven Murphy offers another theory regarding the identity of Supreme Leader Snoke. 
• Mike Ryan explains why he believes that Revenge of the Sith of the worst Star Wars movie.
• Becky Feldmann explains why the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi probably led to the mass extinction of Ewoks.
• Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker or rather their parody accounts get into a (spoilerish) Twitter spat. 

Comments on The Shannara Chronicles:

• Bethonie Butler explains what The Shannara Chronicles is and what it is doing on MTV. 
• Aidan Moher calls The Shannara Chronicles a modern take on a genre classic.
• Rob Bricken shares his thoughts about the pilot episode of The Shannara Chronicles. 
• Andrew Liptak also shares his thoughts about The Shannara Chronicles.
• Reid Nakamura explains why The Shannara Chronicles is more like Star Wars than Lord of the Rings. 
• Dany Roth believes that The Shannara Chronicles is Tolkien meets George Lucas.
• Dave Seitz points out that The Shannara Chronicles isn't entirely sure what it wants to be.
• Den of Geek interviews Terry Brooks, on whose novels The Shannara Chronicles are based. 

Comments on The Expanse: 

• Bookworm Blues share their thoughts about The Expanse, both the books and TV series.
• Rowan Kaiser claims that attention to detail is making The Expanse the best new SF series in years. 
• Elizabeth Howell wonders whether it is possible to colonise Ceres as portrayed in The Expanse.
• Lucas Siegel reports that The Expanse has already been renewed for season 2.
  

Comments on Colony:

• Amy Ratcliffe discusses how Colony explores life in an alien occupied Los Angeles.
• John Jurgensen claims that Colony offers an Orwellian view of Los Angeles under alien occupation.
• W. Alejandro Sanchez points out that the repressive dystopian regime depicted in Colony bears many similarities to real world dictatorships.
• Winston Cook-Wilson points out that Colony asks a lot of big and ultimately pointless question.
• Brendan Gallagher also points out that Colony asks a lot of questions, but fails to answer the most important one, namely why should we watch it.
  

Comments on the revival of The X-Files:

• Savannah Tanbush calls the return of The X-Files glorious.
• Tim Goodman calls The X-Files revival underwhelming.
• Brian Lowry calls the revived X-Files a joyless missed opportunity.  
• Joanna Robinson admits that the first episode of the revived X-Files is bad, but that fans should give up hope.
  

Awards:

• The winners of the 2015 Stabby Awards have been announced. 
• The nominees for the 2016 Philip K. Dick Awards have been announced.
• Irene Gallo, creative director at Tor Books, has won the 2016 Richard Gangel Art Director Award. 
• Voting is open for the British National Television Awards.
• Nominations for the second round of the BSFA Awards are open.
• Submissions are open for the 2016 Baen Books Fantasy Adventure Award. 
• Submissions are also open for the 2016 Jim Baen Memorial Award. 
• Shaun Duke shares a crowdsourced Hugo recommendation list.
• Joe Sherry shares his personal Hugo Awards longlist. 

Writing, publishing and promotion:

• Elena Linville advises writers to let their characters grow and evolve. 
• Marie Brennan talks about creating characters with PTSD.
• Kate Elliott starts a series of posts on worldbuilding.
• Lev Mirov discusses writing related work you are probably not counting.
• Debra Purdy Kong shares her two cents for indie authors. 
• Simon Owens reports how writers are monotising their short fiction via Patreon.
• Read in Colour points out that publishers are underpromoting books by writers of colour. 
• Michael Patrick Hicks talks about cover design.
• Luna Lindsey shares some thoughts for writing an author bio.
• Miral Sattar shares seven ways to nail your author SEO in 2016. 
• Stuart Whitmore shares his appreciation for the Alphasmart Neo.
• Michael J. Martinez shares some money tips for writers and other freelancers. 

Interviews:

• Lauren Sarner interviews John Scalzi. 
• Leo Elijah Cristea interviews Susan Dennard. 
• Francesca T. Barbini interviews Juliet E. McKenna.
• Kristin Centorcelli interviews Megan E. O'Keefe. 
• The Qwillery interviews Emily Foster.
• The Book Plank interviews Lawrence M. Schoen.  
• Paul Weimer also interviews Lawrence M. Schoen.
• Matthew Stott interviews Eddie Robson. 
• Kristin Centorcelli interviews Scott Allan Morrison.
• Quentin S. Crisp interviews Justin Isis.
• Kyra Halland interviews herself.

Reviews:

• Elena Linville reviews City of Light by Keri Arthur.
• Paul Weimer reviews Steal the Sky by Megan E. O'Keefe.
• Bibliotropic reviews Planetfall by Emma Newman.
• Charlie Jane Anders reviews Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson. 
• Paul Di Filippo reviews Eleanor by Jason Gurley.
• Sue Granquist reviews The Box Jumper by Lisa Manetti. 
• Lucy Hounsom reviews Angel of Storms by Trudi Canavan.
• Charlie Hopkins reviews The Last Mortal Bond by Brian Stavely. 
• Michael Patrick Hicks reviews The Dream Beings by Aaron J. French.
• Faren Miller reviews The Pilo Travelling Show by Will Elliott. 
• Robert Kilpatrick reviews The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers.
• Jesse Hassenger reviews the horror film The Forest.

Crowdfunding:

• Guillem March, artist of Catwoman, is looking for funding to make his Spanish graphic novel Laura available in English.
• Ascension, the third book in W.C. Hoffman's Twins of Prey trilogy, is looking for funding. 
• A hardcover reprint of The Dark Verse, an award-winning collection of horror stories, is looking for funding. 
• The magazine Fireside Fiction is looking for donations.
• Hard SF artist William Black is looking for patrons.
  

Con reports:

• Karl-Johan Norén reports about ConFuse, the 2015 Swecon held in Linköping, Sweden
• Darrell Buxton reports about the 26th Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester, UK. 

Science and technology:

• David Brin claims that 2015 was the best year ever in space.
• Scientists in the US may have detected gravitational waves. 
• Why finding gravitational waves would be such a big deal.
• NASA has successfully tested a new engine that could take humans to Mars in ten weeks.
• Why Ghana started a space program.
• Why 3D printing will be a key technology in the next space race. 

Free online fiction:

• "Kaiju maximus®: “So Various, So Beautiful, So New” by Kai Ashante Wilson in Fantasy Magazine.
• "The Padishah Begum's Reflections" by Shweta Narayan in Fantasy Magazine.
• "Finnegan's Field" by Angela Slatter at Tor.com.
• "Breaking the God Partition" by Robert Hood in Cosmos.
• "Two's Company" by Joe Abercrombie at Tor.com. 
• "Next of Kin" by Meg Elison in Terraform.
• "Ephemeron" by Graham Edwards.
• "Calved" by Sam J. Miller. 
• "The Troll and the Garter" by Robert Dahlen.
• "Life and Death in Outer Space" by Floyd Looney.
• "The Heart of Rock 'n Roll", The Descendants Special No. 8 by Landon Porter.
  

Odds and ends: 

• Watch a trailer for season 2 of Daredevil.
• Watch a trailer for the adaptation of Stephen King's 11.22.63.
• Watch a trailer for the live action version of The Jungle Book.
• Watch a trailer for The Witch.
• Watch a trailer for Black Road.
• Watch a trailer for the new season of The 100.
• Watch the pilot episode of the web horror series Red Weather.
• How to make an origami Millennium Falcon.