Speculative Fiction links of the Week for January 9, 2015

And here is our weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web:

Speculative fiction in general:

• Damien Walter declares 2014 the year science fiction woke up to diversity.
• Malinda Lo talks about diverse books that are too diverse for mainstream sensibilities.
• Michael R. Underwood shares his list of his most anticipated books of 2015 and calls for more diversity on such lists in general.
• The Book Smugglers look back on the bigger genre controversies of 2014.
• At io9, Charlie Jane Anders takes a look back at where publishers thought genre publishing was headed in 1991.
• At Nerds of a Feather, Maureen Kincaid-Speller, Jared Shurin and Jonathan McCalmont discuss the positive value of negative reviews. 
• Brandon Sanderson explains why superhero books are so hard to get right. 
• Alex Bledsoe tackles the problematic women in refrigerators trope in comics.
• Marina Finlayson wonders why there are so few mothers in urban fantasy. 
• Claire Ryan critiques the dual swordwielding skills of Drizzt Do'Urden and analyses how realistic they are. 
• Fantasy Fraction looks at the weird western subgenre.
• Kotaku lists the 15 strangest dystopias in gaming. 
• TV Guide has the scoop on Marvel's new Agent Carter series starring Hayley Atwell. 
• James Whitbrook shares the lesson he hoped comic book movies and TV shows have learned from 2014, namely "Don't forget to have fun."
• At Den of Geek, Andrew Younger remembers the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace and how she set the template for the new series companions.
• At Tor.com, Emily Asher-Perrin points out some disturbing implications of the Star Wars movies.
• IGN explains how Star Wars ruined Star Trek.
• At The Nerdist, Kyle Anderson remembers some of the obscure space opera movies that came out in the wake of Star Wars.
• Allison Flood wonders whether Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels are filmable, since Christopher Nolan's brother Jonathan, Interstellar screenwriter, seems to be interested. 

Best of 2014 lists:

• Bookworm Blues share their favourite books of 2014.
• At Sci-Fi Fan Letter, Jessica Strider shares her favourite books of 2014.
• The staff of the Fantasy Book Café shares their favourite reads of 2014.
• Jodie of Lady Business shares her favourite reads of 2014. 
• Sophia McDougall shares her favourite books of 2014.
• Rob Bedford shares his favourite books of 2014.
• Elena Linville shares the best books she read in 2014.
• Shaun Duke shares his favourite works of 2013 and 2014.
  

Writing, publishing and promotion:

• Damien Walter explains what is stopping people from being creative.
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch explains why writing fast and "churning out" a lot of books is a good thing.
• In his New Worlds of Publishing series, Dean Wesley Smith talks about what to do in case you get knocked off a goal. 
• At Writer Unboxed, Julianna Baggot discusses writer's block and strategies to deal with it.
• Deanna Chase shares a simple trick to beat writer's block. 
• INC lists 6 ways the pros beat writer's block.
• Writers Write has a checklist for testing whether your novel has enough conflict. 
• Lisa J. Goldstein criticises the seven point plot outline.
• Harry Manners introduces his character Billy Peyton.
• At the USA Today's Happy Ever After blog, several SF and fantasy authors share their characters' new year's resolutions. 
• Wayne Stinnett shares his method for self-editing.
• Jo Clendening discusses her process for designing the cover for Alice on the Rocks.
• Steve Vernon discusses his writing and publishing strategies for 2015. 
• Joanna Penn discusses the importance of multiple income streams. 
• Camille Laguire talks about the state of indie publishing in 2014 and offers some prognoses for 2015.
• Clare Josa shares some way indie writers and others can take action against the ill thought-out EU VAT legislation. 
• Martyn V. Halm reviews the Hemingwrite, a new digital typewriter for distraction-free writing.

Interviews:

• At USA Today, Jessie Potts interviews Amanda Hocking.
• Andrea Johnson interviews Karen Lord.
• Urban Fantasy Investigations interviews Eden Ashley.
• The Maldon Standard interviews Anthony Hudson.
• Michael Brookes interviews Andrew Stanek. 
• David Neth interviews Andrei Cherascu.
• Harry Manners interviews Justin Bilyk. 
• Spectrum Books interviews Rich Amooi.
• Ethan Jones interviews Janet Evanovich.
• The SF Signal podcast interviews Rachel Aaron/Rachel Bach.
  

Reviews:

• Paul Levinson reviews #Berlin45 by Philip Gibson. 
• Alasdair Stuart reviews White Rabbit by K.A. Laity.
• Elena Linville reviews Hotter than Helltown by S.M. Reine.
• Carly Fjeld reviews the movie Under the Skin. 

Crowdfunding:

• Lesley Smith is looking for backers for her novel A Star-Filled Sea.
• Goblin Fruit, a quarterly journal of speculative poetry, is looking for patrons.
  

Con reports:

• At Concatenation, Peter Tyers shares his impressions of the 2014 Eurocon in Dublin. 
• At Nerd Reactor, Cory Vincent reports on the SacAnime con in Sacramento.
• The Sacramento Bee also shares some photos of the SacAnime con.

Science and technology:

• Elon Musk believes that we must put one million people on Mars, if humanity is to have a future.
• NASA has designed an ape-like robot for disaster response.
• Universe Today shares 10 space science stories to watch in 2015.
• Motherboard reports about the search for starivores, i.e. intelligent lifeforms that eat suns. 
• In Iceland, a city is being built inside the Langjökull glacier. 
• Check out Raybot, the autonomous solar-panel cleaning robot.

Odds and ends: 

• This is what will play on CNN when the world ends.
• Watch a trailer for Marvel's Ant-Man. io9 also has a shot by shot dissection of the trailer. 
• Watch a preview of the new 12 Monkeys TV series.
• Check out these great maps of fictional places.
• The Strange Horizons 2014 reader poll is now open.