It's time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with the best science fiction and fantasy of the year, tributes to Dean Ing, Richard Corben, Ben Bova, Jeremy Bulloch and Phyllis Eisenstein, season 3 of Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek in general, season 2 of The Mandalorian and Star Wars in general, season 2 of His Dark Materials, season 5 of The Expanse, Wonder Woman 1984, Tenet and much more.
Speculative fiction in general:
- Christina Orlando and Leah Schnelbach share 23 SFF novels which put a modern spin on classic stories.
- Tobias Carroll shares six recent SFF works in translation.
- James Davis Nicoll shares five post-apocalyptic novels.
- Phoebe Wagner shares her frustrations with environmental fiction and its lack of engagement with science fiction.
- Nick Hubble discusses how science fiction shaped Socialism.
- Issue 53 of Journey Planet tackles the future of policing.
- James Davis Nicoll lists five SFF authors discovered by the late Ben Bova during his tenure as editor of Analog.
- Penelope Green remembers Ben Bova.
- A.J. Hackwith shares her appreciation for novels with footnotes.
- Eve Taft shares recommendations for regional horror novels from the US.
- Alexander Larman explains why M.R. James is still the greatest writer of ghost stories.
- A.M. Gelberg shares her appreciation for the Percy Jackson middle grade fantasy novels by Rick Riordan.
- Mari Ness talks about the right way to read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
- Elizabeth Connor talks about designing new covers for Octavia E. Butler's novels.
- Timothy the Talking Cat shares his not entirely serious opinions about Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
- Alison Flood reports that an unpublished story by Shirley Jackson will be published.
- Alison Flood reports that the character Tim Fox, who happens to be black, will take over the mantle of Batman.
Tributes to Dean Ing, Richard Corben and Phyllis Eisenstein:
- Science fiction author Dean Ing has died aged 89.
- SFF and comic artist Richard Corben has died aged 80.
- Deuce Richardson remembers Richard Corben.
- Heavy Metal remembers Richard Corben.
- John Freeman shares a tribute to Richard Corben.
- Science fiction and fantasy author Phyllis Eisenstein has died aged 74.
- Adam Whitehead remembers Phyllis Eisenstein.
- Locus remembers Phyllis Eisenstein.
- The Chicago Tribune shares an obituary for Phyllis Eisenstein.
Best of 2020:
- Book Page share their favourite science fiction and fantasy books of 2020.
- Liz Bourke shares her favourite science fiction and fantasy books of 2020.
- Runalong the Shelves shares his favourite science fiction novels of 2020.
- Runalong the Shelves shares his favourite fantasy novels of 2020.
- Runalong the Shelves shares his favourite horror novels of 2020.
- Crime Reads shares the best gothic novels of 2020.
Film and TV:
- Gavia Baker-Whitelaw calls Wolfwalkers one of the best animated movies of 2020.
- Peter Bradshaw calls Jiu Jitsu a rather grim science fiction martial arts movie.
- Benjamin Lee calls Greenland a solid disaster thriller.
- Ignatiy Vishnevetsky calls Monster Hunter a solid videogame adaptation.
- Lucy Mangan calls The Wilds an apocalyptic teen thriller.
- Sarah Gosling shares her appreciation for the web series Star Force.
- Keith R.A. DeCandido shares his thoughts on The Old Guard.
- Paul Levinson shares his thoughts on Black Box.
- Guy Lodge shares the best time travel movies to stream.
- Stuart Heritage ranks the twenty best body-swap films.
- Joe George ranks movies about murderous Santa Clauses.
- Janice Marcus revisits the 1947 holiday fantasy movie The Bishop's Wife and the 1965 holiday movie A Charlie Brown Christmas.
- Jason Sacks revisits the 1965 horror films Die Monster Die! and Planet of the Vampires.
- Leah Schnelbach revisits the 1993 holiday fantasy film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Tom Breihan revisits the 2001 movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
- Nicholas Barber explains how watching all the James Bond movie to date helped him through the corona pandemic.
- Ari Shapiro itnerviews Christopher Nolan, director of Tenet, The Dark Knight and others.
- Ellen E. Jones interviews Brian Young, writer and showrunner of Fate: The Winx Saga.
- Actor Leonard Roberts recalls problems on the set of Heroes.
- Andrew Liptak reports that Disney has announced a whole bunch of upcoming Marvel superhero streaming series.
- Devan Coggan has more information about the upcoming Marvel movies and series.
- Steve Rose wonders whether the repeated delays and postponements of superhero movies have dimmed the public's taste for them.
- Ben Child wonders whether a propsed new Dungeons and Dragons movie could repeat the magic of the Lord of the Rings adaptations and make epic fantasy viable on the big screen again.
- Denis Villeneuve is not pleased that Warner Bros plans to release Dune simultaneously on streaming and in theatres.
- Shannon Miller reports that director Judd Apatow is not pleased at Warner Bros' plans either.
- Adam Whitehead reports about rumours that Disney is planning to reboot Firefly.
- Ruth E. Carter remembers the late Chadwick Boseman.
- Jackie Stewart remembers Sean Connery.
- Mark Gatiss remembers Diana Rigg.
- Wrestler and actor Tommy "Tiny" Lister, who appeared in The Fifth Element, Star Trek Enterprise, Jackie Brown, The Dark Knight and many others, has died aged 62.
- British actress Dame Barbara Windsor, star of the Carry On series and Eastenders, has died aged 83.
Comments on season 3 of Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek in general:
- Keith R.A. DeCandido shares his thoughts on "Terra Firma, Part I", the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery.
- Zack Handlen shares his thoughts on "Terra Firma, Part I".
- James Whitbrook shares his thoughts on "Terra Firma, Part I".
- Camestros Felapton shares his thoughts on "Terra Firma, Part I".
- Cora Buhlert shares her thoughts on "Terra Firma, Part I".
- Keith R.A. DeCandido revisits the Star Trek Voyager episodes "The Omega Directive" and "Unforgettable".
Comments on season 2 of The Mandalorian and Star Wars in general:
- Paul MacInnes shares his thoughts on "The Believer", the latest episode of The Mandalorian.
- Katie Rife shares her thoughts on "The Believer".
- Emmet Asher-Perrin shares his thoughts on "The Believer".
- Germain Lussier shares his thoughts on "The Believer".
- Cora Buhlert shares her thoughts on "The Believer".
- Eric Gansworth explains why The Mandalorian and particularly Baby Yoda/Grogu are so popular with Native Americans.
- Tracy Brown shares the Baby Yoda/Grogu food diary.
- James Whitbrook reports that Pedro Pascal, star of The Mandalorian, is perfectly fine with his character's face being hidden behind a helmet most of the time.
- Andrew Liptak reports that season 3 of The Mandalorian will debut in December 2021.
- Andrew Liptak reports that Lucasfilm has announced a whole bunch of Star Wars spin-off series.
- Aaron Couch shares more details about Disney's plans for more Star Wars TV series.
- Richard Newby shares some takeaways and speculations about Disney's Star Wars plans.
- Patch O'Furr reminds everybody that Disney may have announced lets of new Star Wars shows, but that they still aren't paying Alan Dean Foster.
- Andrew Liptak reports about Disney's failure to pay Alan Dean Foster and other authors of tie-in novels.
- Camestros Felapton shares a theory about the Star Wars universe.
- Watch some behind the scenes footage from The Empire Strikes Back.
- Actor Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, has died aged 75.
- Dave McNary remembers Jeremy Bulloch.
Comments on Wonder Woman 1984:
- Germain Lussier calls Wonder Woman 1984 an enjoyable and engrossing experience.
- Peter Bradshaw thoroughly enjoyed Wonder Woman 1984 and praises the performances of Gal Gadot and Kirsten Wiig.
- Benjamin Bullard reports about the virtual red carpet premiere of Wonder Woman 1984.
- Watch the opening scene of Wonder Woman 1984.
Comments on season 2 of His Dark Materials:
Comments on season 5 of The Expanse:
- Zack Handlen declares that season 5 is another great season of The Expanse.
- Gavia Baker-Whitelaw declares that The Expanse reaches new heights with season 5.
- Cheryl Eddy calls season 5 of The Expanse the best season yet.
- Molly Templeton shares her thoughts on the first three episodes of season 5 of The Expanse.
- Mike Hale shares his thoughts on The Expanse, which he compares to the 2004 Battlestar Galactica, having never seen the original.
Comments on The Stand:
Comments on Tenet:
Awards:
- The winners of the 2020 Dream Foundry Writing and Art Contest have been announced.
- The winners of the 2020 Game Awards have been announced.
- The US National Film Registry has announced its 2020 selections with some love for genre films.
- The Hugo Book Club takes a look at various SFF genre awards.
- Neil Clarke lists Hugo eligible semiprozines.
- Katarina Betterton shares sixteen motivating reasons to get you out of a writing slump.
- Cat Rambo shares some principles for pantsers.
- Sunny Moraine explains why explicit sex scenes can be helpful for characterisation and worldbuilding.
- Libby Fisher Hellman shares some tips for writing historical fiction.
- Anne Elise Brinich talks about the device of the research montage.
- Crime fiction author Chris Whitaker explains how writing saved his life - twice.
- Alison Flood interviews authors of holiday novels about the difficulties of writing Christmas novels, when one is not feeling festive.
- William Deresiewicz points out that artists and writers still need money to live.
- James Van Pelt talks about book marketing.
- Alison Flood reports how several British small presses survived 2020.
- Mark Wilding reports about a heist in Feltham, UK, where rare books worth 2.5 million GBP were stolen.
Interviews:
- Literary Hub interviews Andrzej Sapkowski.
- Mike Glyer interviews Walter Jon Williams.
- The Los Angeles Public Library interviews David Gerrold.
- Book Marks interviews Carmen Maria Machado.
- The Odyssey Writing Workshop interviews David Farland.
- Locus interviews Victor LaValle.
- Locus interviews Kim Stanley Robinson.
- Jen Gheller interviews Jessica Jackson.
Reviews:
- Paul Weimer reviews Machine by Elizabeth Bear.
- Liz Bourke reviews Architects of Memory by Karen Osborne.
- Blue Book Balloon reviews Gallowglass by S.J. Morden.
- Tadiana Jones reviews The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton.
- Kat Hooper reviews The Tower of Fools by Adrzej Sapkowski.
- Camestros Felapton reviews Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty.
- Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere review The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick.
- Rob Bedford reviews The Last Lies of Ardor Benn by Tyler Whitesides.
- Sarah Ditum reviews The Last Good Man by Thomas McMullan.
- Sean Dowie reviews When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo.
- Joanna Z. Weston reviews The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.
- Alex Brown reviews King of the Rising by Kacen Callender.
- Ian Mond reviews The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyce.
- Eileen Brady reviews Afterland by Lauren Beukes.
- Runalong the Shelves reviews The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani.
- James Davis Nicoll reviews These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong.
- Spacefaring Kitten reviews Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow.
- Bill McKibben reviews The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson.
- Paula Guran reviews Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies by John Langan
- Bill Capossere reviews Wonder Women and Bad Girls: Superheroine and Supervillainess Archetypes in Popular Media by Valerie Estelle Frankel.
Classics reviews:
- The Miskatonic Review revisits the 1931 horror story "The Black Stone" by Robert E. Howard.
- Sandy Ferber revisits the 1942 horror collection Couching at the Door by D.K. Broster.
- Mark Yon revisits the 1948 science fiction novella Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke.
- James Malizewski revisits the 1952 Silver John story "The Desrick on Yandro" by Manly Wade Wellman.
- Paperback Warrior revisits the 1964 science fiction novel Invasion from 2500 by Norman Edwards.
- Kat Hooper revisits the 1965 science fiction novel Monday Starts on Saturday by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.
- Victoria Silverwolf revisits the January 1966 issue of Fantastic.
- James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1974 Gunnar Helm planetary romance Fire Time by Poul Anderson.
- Joachim Boaz revisits the 1974 dystopian novel Albion, Albion! by Dick Morland a.k.a. Reginald Hill.
- Joe Kenney revisits the 1975 sword and sorcery novel Kyrik: Warlock Warrior by Gardner F. Fox.
- James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1984 science fiction novel Voyage to the City of the Dead by Alan Dean Foster.
- Paul Di Filippo revisits the 1988 fantasy novel The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford.
- Alan Brown revisits the 1992 science fiction novel Mars by Ben Bova.
Con and event reports:
- Francesca Myman reports about the virtual 2020 Sirens conference.
- Kellie Doherty discusses the pros and cons of being a panelist at a virtual con.
- Kevin Standlee, Marguerite Smith, Jannie Shea, and Vincent Docherty and James Bacon offer a roundup of the virtual SMOFCon 37 1/4.
- Watch a discussion between Arkady Martine and Amal El-Mohtar at the virtual Brooklyn Book Festival.
- Watch Mary Robinette Kowal's panel at the virtual National Book Festival.
- Goodman Games reports about the sword and sorcery panel at the virtual Bride of Cyclops con and shares several book recommendations.
- Mike Glyer explains how the current membership of DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon in Washington DC, compares to other recent Worldcons.
- The 2021 Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention in Lombard, Illinois, has been rescheduled because of the corona pandemic.
- Jim Milliot bids farewell to Book Expo which has been permanently cancelled.
- Shen Lu and Katie Hunt report that the Chinese government is cracking down on revealing costumes at the ChinaJoy cosplay con.
- SVT Nyheter reports about a Swedish fan who built his own Warhammer 40000 space marine costume.
- Olivia Rutigliano discusses the famously bloody horror plays of the Theatre de Grand Guignol in Paris, France.
Science and technology:
- James Davis Nicoll shares a pessimist's guide to galactic expansion.
- Ian Carlos Campbell reports that Hyundai has purchased Boston Dynamics, manufacturers of Spot, the robot dog.
- Henry Samuel reports that a group of French science fiction writers has been tasked with dreaming up futuristic threats and possible ways to deal with them by the French ministry of defence.
Free online fiction:
- "The Executioner" by Jennifer Marie Brissett in Lightspeed.
- "The Salt Warrior" by Kali Wallace in Lightspeed.
- "Conversations in the Dark" by Robert Reed in Clarkesworld.
- "Forwarded as Received" by Osahon Ize-Iyamu in The Dark.
- "The Ones Who Got Away" by Stephen Graham Jones in Nightmare Magazine.
- "And the Ones Who Walk In" by Sarah Avery in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
- "Anchorage" by Samatha Mills in Uncanny Magazine.
- "Silks" by Jennifer Lyn Parsons in Luna Station Quarterly.
- "The Silent God" by Haku Jackson in Omenana.
- "Christmas Pudding" by L.A. Young in Fantasy Faction.
- "The Clockwork Bee" by Kellie Doherty in Fantasy Faction.
- "The Allegiant" by Carl Gable in Daily Science Fiction.
- "It's a Bird" by M.A. Dosser in Daily Science Fiction.
- "The Bridge Fugue: Variations on Emptiness" by Daniel Ausema in Daily Science Fiction.
- "Nutball Season" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Trailers and videos:
- Watch a trailer for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
- Watch a trailer for Loki.
- Watch a trailer for WandaVision.
- Watch another trailer for WandaVision.
- Watch a teaser for Ms. Marvel.
- Watch a teaser for Andor.
- Watch a trailer for What If...?
- Watch a trailer for The Bad Batch.
- Watch a trailer for season 2 of Batwoman.
- Watch a clip from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
- Watch a teaser for Shadow and Bone.
- Watch a trailer for The Watch.
- Watch a trailer for Outside the Wire.
- Watch a trailer for Resident Alien.
- Watch a trailer for Equinox.
- Watch a trailer for Disenchantment.
- Watch a video featuring the world's largest collection of Daleks.
Odd and Ends:
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