Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for March 5, 2021

 

It's time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this week with the Baen's Bar controversy, the many iterations of Star Trek, WandaVision, Superman and Lois, Raya and the Last Dragon, Debris, Chaos Walking, Boss Level, the 2021 Golden Globes and much more.

Speculative fiction in general:

• James Davis Nicoll shares five science fiction stories about teleportation systems gone awry. 
• Ryan Britt shares six Martian cities from science fiction. 
• A.K. Larkwood shares seven escapist adventure fantasy books.
  
• Tor.com shares eight SFF books that put a new twist on classic gothic stories. 
• James Davis Nicoll shares five books that put a fascinating twist on cosmic horror.
  
• K.T. Howard shares some LGBTQ SFF comford reads. 
• S.B. Divya laments the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of hard science fiction and technothrillers. 
• Sarah Beth Durst shares five SFF books featuring middle-aged or elderly protagonists who still kick arse.
  
• Aliya Whiteley shares five SFF books about division and separation.
  
• Meghan Ball shares fifteen SFF books that demand a soundtrack.
  
• Jonathan Lethem shares his appreciation for the works of Shirley Jackson. 
• Jason Kehe shares his appreciation for the works of R.A. Lafferty.
  
• Lauren Daley profiles Jane Yolen. 
• Camestros Felapton profiles Jim Baen.
  
• Adrian Cole explains how he came to write sword and sorcery.
• Brian Murphy reports that the grave of the late Charles Saunders now has a beautiful headstone featuring his character Imaro. 
• Will Errickson remembers the late Rowena Morrill. 
  
• Julie Strain, actress and model prominently associated with Heavy Metal magazine, has died aged 59.
• Heavy Metal magazine shares artwork featuring the late Julie Strain.
• Lauren Aratani reports that six picture books by Theodore Seuss Geisel a.k.a. Dr. Seuss will cease publication because of racist portrayals.
  

 

Comments on the Baen's Bar controversy:

• Mike Glyer reports that Jason Sanford is still being harassed by Baen authors and fans.
  
• Inspired by the Baen's Bar controversy, Cat Rambo explains why writers shouldn't sic their fans on someone they disagree with. 
  
• Ben Sheffield weighs in on the Baen's Bar controversy.
  

 

Film and TV:

• Lucy Mangan calls The Terror an icy horror chiller.
  
• Rob Bricken calls The Barbarian and the Troll a kid-friendly Red Sonja with puppets. 
• Kevin Johnson calls Pacific Rim: The Black a bleaker take on the Pacific Rim series.
  
• Phil Hoad calls Lucky a time loop home invasion thriller that makes a statement about society's attitude towards women. 
• Peter Bradshaw calls the French movie Petite Maman a spellbinding ghost story. 
  
• Paul Levinson shares his thoughts on the near future science fiction movie Lapsis. 
• Scott von Doviak shares his thoughts on the latest episode of The Flash.
  
• Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Snowpiercer.
  
• Ani Bundel shares her thoughts on the latest episode of American Gods.
  
• Paul Levinson shares his thoughts on the latest episode of For All Mankind.
• Alex McLevy shares his thoughts on the latest episode of The Walking Dead. 
  
• Erik Adams shares his thoughts on Tom and Jerry and goes into the general problem with making a Tom and Jerry movie today.
• Cheryl Eddy interviews Dave Goelz, who plays Gonzo in The Muppets.
• Tim Lewis interviews Lakeith Stanfield, star of Sorry to Bother You, Get Out! and Knives Out.
  
• Jen Chaney shares her thoughts on the Lost finale. 
• Michele Debczak talks about the real life inspiration behind the 1933 King Kong movie.
  
• Jessica Holmes revisits the 1966 Doctor Who serial "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve". 
• Victoria Silverwolf revisits the 1966 horror movies Blood Bath and Queen of Blood.
  
• Mike D'Angelo revisits the 1986 animated movie The Great Mouse Detective.
  
• Joe M. McDermott revisits the 1988 science fiction film Young Einstein. 
• Charles Bramesco revisits the 1998 animated folk tale Kirikou and the Sorceress. 
• Tony Dunnell shares eight facts about the 2011 science fiction movie Attack the Block. 
• Gwen Ihnat revisits the 2014 animated folktale Song of the Sea.
  
• R.S. Benedict complains that there is no sex in superhero movies. 
• William Hughes reports that the so-called "Snyder cut" will end on a cliffhanger, setting up a sequel that will likely never be made.
  
• Lesley Goldberg reports that the new Twilight Zone has been cancelled.
  

 

Comments on Star Trek in general:

• Ryan Britt revisits the 1984 movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and traces its impact on all of Star Trek.
  
• Darren Mooney revisits the 1991 movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and points out that it offers a look forward for Star Trek in a way that later movies haven't. 
• Keith R.A. DeCandido revisits the Star Trek Voyager episodes "Gravity" and "Bliss". 
  
• Christian Kriticos takes a look at the library of Benny Russell, Avery Brooks' character from the celebrated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Far Beyond the Stars".
• The Trek Collective offers a Star Trek tie-in novel reading order flowchart.
• Molly Templeton reports that the first episode of every Star Trek series is currently available for free on YouTube.
  

 

Comments on WandaVision and the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general (spoilers):

• Andrew Ellard shares his thoughts on "Previously On", the latest episode of WandaVision.
• Charles Pulliam-Moore shares his thoughts on "Previously On". 
• Stephen Robinson shares his thoughts on "Previously On". 
• Emmet Asher-Perrin shares his thoughts on "Previously On". 
• Alex Abad-Santos explains the twist of "Previously On". 
• Camestros Felapton shares his thoughts on "Previously On". 
• Cora Buhlert shares her thoughts on "Previously On". 
• Font Folly shares his thoughts on "Previously On".
• James Whitbrook shares his thoughts on "Previously On".
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw shares her thoughts on "Previously On".
  
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw also explains the mid credits scene of WandaVision. 
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw also discusses the online reactions to a specific line in WandaVision. 
  
• Tracy Brown offers an episode by episode explanation of WandaVision. 
• Derek Künsken calls WandaVision absolutely remarkable television. 
• Gavia Baker-Whitelaw discusses magical gender roles as portrayed in WandaVision and Doctor Strange.
  
• Rob Bricken shares his appreciation for the performance of Kathryn Hahn, who plays "Agnes" in WandaVision.
  
• Ben Child wonders how WandaVision will influence the next Spider-Man movie.
  

 

Comments on Superman and Lois: 

• Arturo Serrano declares that Superman and Lois is a lot of fun, but sticks to the established formula for Superman TV series.
  
• Alasdair Stuart shares his thoughts on Superman and Lois. 
• Caroline Siede shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Superman and Lois. 
• James Whitbrook shares his thoughts on the latest episode of Superman and Lois.
  
• Andrew Liptak reports that Superman and Lois has already been renewed for a second season.
  

 

Comments on Raya and the Last Dragon:

• Germain Lussier calls Raya and the Last Dragon an exhilarating animated fantasy adventure.
  
• Danette Chavez calls Raya and the Last Dragon a formulaic but sometimes moving Disney fairytale.
• Benjamin Lee calls Raya and the Last Dragon a charming and stylish Disney movie.
• Germain Lussier interviews Adele Lim and Kelly Marie Tran, writer and star of Raya and the Last Dragon.
• Rebecca Sun interviews Kelly Marie Tran, star of Raya and the Last Dragon.
• Marah Eakin interviews Kelly Marie Tran.
  

Comments on Debris:

• Paul Levinson calls Debris a fast-paced and surprisingly deep science fiction series that has potential. 
  
• Saloni Gajjar shares her thoughts on the first episode of Debris.

 

Comments on Chaos Walking:

• A.A. Dowd calls Chaos Walking a bumpy YA adventure with a great science fiction idea behind it.
  
• James Whitbrook calls Chaos Walking a jumbled mess. 

 

Comments on Boss Level:

• Benjamin Lee calls Boss Level a formulaic macho time loop action thriller. 
• Ignatiy Vishnevetsky calls Boss Level a time loop of bad jokes and tedious action. 

 

Awards:

• The finalists for the 2021 Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards have been announced. 
• The finalists for the 2021 Ray Bradbury Prize and the other Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been announced. 
• The winner of the 2021 IAFA Crawford Award has been announced.
  
• The winner of the 2021 Robert A. Heinlein Award has been announced.
  
• The winners of the Clarkesworld 2020 Reader's Poll have been announced. 
• The finalists for the 2021 Annie Awards have been announced. 
• The finalists for the 2021 VES Awards have been announced.
  
• The finalists for the BAFTA EE Game of the Year Award have been announced. 
• The finalists for the 68th annuval Golden Reel Awards have been announced with some love for genre movies.
  
• The 2021 Golden Globes have been awarded with no love for genre films. 
• Stuart Heritage wonders whether the Golden Globe judges watch anything other than a few popular Netflix shows.
  
• Benjamin Lee reports about a controversy involving the Golden Globes. 
• Chris M. Barkley shares his recommendations for the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Awards. 
• Queer Sci Fi has launched its annual flash fiction contest.
  

 

Writing, publishing and promotion:

• Martin Edwards explains that even if two books are based on the same basic premise or idea, the result is usually very different, because every writer approaches the basic idea differently. 
• Lisa Renee Jones explains how to build an enthralling thriller. 
• Chris Whitaker explains that working at the library helped him to finish his novel.
  
• Cody Delistraty wonders whether it's time to get rid of the celebrity book blurb. 
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch explains how the book business has changed in 2020 and 2021.
  
• Elizabeth A. Harris is worried about the impact of the merger between Penguin Random House and Simon and Schuster. 
• Alison Flood reports that Bookshop.org has earned 1 million GBP for independent bookstores in the UK in four months.
• Carz Nelson offers an update on the state of the Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's SFF and crime fiction specialty bookstores, which were burned down during the riots in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• Aja Romano reports about a problem with the tagging system of the fanfiction site AO3 being abused.
  

Interviews:

• Arley Sorg interviews Becky Chambers.
• Arley Sorg interviews Elly Bangs.
  
• Runalong the Shelves interviews Premee Mohamed.
• Cressida Leyshon interviews Jonathan Lethem.
  
• Alexander Stronach interviews Casey Lucas.
• Janna Miller interviews Emma Schmid.
• Victoria V. interviews Jana Bianchi.
• Scott Edelman interviews Jo Duffy.
• Cora Buhlert interviews Thomas Wagner.
• Cora Buhlert interviews the team behind the Androids and Assets podcast.
  

Reviews: 

• Liz Bourke and Adrienne Martini review Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells. 
• Adri Joy reviews A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine.
  
• Bill Capossere reviews A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. 
• Martin Cahill reviews A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine.
  
• Em Nordling reviews Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell.
  
• Alexis Ong reviews Machinehood by S.B. Divya.
  
• Joe Sherry reviews Battle Ground by Jim Butcher, Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire and The Very Best of Kate Elliott by Kate Elliott. 
  
• Mark Yon reviews A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel. 
• Tobias Carroll reviews A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel.
  
• Runalong the Shelves reviews One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
  
• James Davis Nicoll reviews Symbiosis by Nicky Drayden. 
• Brandon Crilly reviews The Unbroken by C.L. Clark. 
• James Davis Nicoll reviews Storm Warning by Melissa Scott.
  
• Andrea Johnson reviews Lagoonfire by Francesca Forrest. 
• Paul Weimer reviews Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long. 
• A.M. Justice reviews Netherlight by Shaun Paul Stevens. 
• Sarah Hughes reviews The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex. 
• Kat Hooper reviews Call of the Bone Ships by R.J. Barker. 
• Marion Deeds reviews Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson.
  
• Blue Book Balloon reviews The Thief on the Winged Horse by Kate Mascarenhas.
  
• Ian Mond reviews The Only Living Girl on Earth by Charles Yu. 
• Runalong the Shelves reviews The Future God of Love by Dilman Dila.
  
• Matthew Keeley reviews The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox. 
• Rachael McKenzie reviews The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
  
• Paul Di Filippo reviews The Memory Theatre by Karin Tidbeck. 
• Colleen Mondor reviews Kind of a Big Deal by Shannon Hale. 
• Ray Palen reviews The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott. 
  
• Bill Capossere reviews The Conductors by Nicole Glover. 
• Adrienne Martini reviews Red Noise by John P. Murphy and The Preserve by Ariel S. Winter. 
• Alex Preston reviews Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
  
• Peter Conrad reviews Rein Gold by Elfriede Jelinek, translated by Gitta Honegger 
• Jana Nyman, Marion Deeds and Skye Walker review The People's Republic of Everything by Nick Mamatas. 
• Ian Mond reviews Analog/Virtual: And Other Simulations of Your Future by Lavanya Lakshminarayan.
• Harper Campbell reviews Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, edited by Joshua Whitehead.
• Paula Guran reviews Deuces Down, edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass.
• David A. Riley reviews Eccentric, Impractical Devils: The Letters of August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith, edited by David E. Schultz and S.T. Joshi.
• Alvaro Zinos-Amaro reviews Pocket Workshop: Essays on Living as a Writer, edited by Tod McCoy and M. Huw Evans.
  

Classics reviews:

• Michael Kellermeyer revisits the 1891 horror story "The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Ambrose Bierce.
• Paperback Warrior revisits the 1939 Black Bat adventure Brand of the Black Bat by G. Wayman Jones a.k.a. Norman Danberg.
  
• Steve J. Wright revisits the February 1941 issue of Unknown. 
• K.A. Laity revisits the 1950 fantasy novel The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams.
  
• G.W. Thomas revisits the February and May 1957 issues of Dream Worlds. 
• John O'Neill revisits the 1964 science fiction novel The Space Barbarians by Tom Godwin. 
• Paul Fraser revisits the February 1966 issue of New Worlds.
  
• Gideon Marcus revisits the March 1966 issue of Analog. 
• David Levinson revisits the April 1966 issue of If - Worlds of Science Fiction. 
• Joachim Boaz revisits the 1974 collection Survival Ship and Other Stories by Judith Merril. 
• Alan Brown revisits the 1978 Star Wars tie-in novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster (for which Disney is refusing to pay Mr. Foster) and the 1979 Star Wars tie-in novel Han Solo at Star's End by Brian Daley.
  
• James Malizewski revisits the June/July 1979 issue of Different Worlds.
• James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1979 science fiction novel Leviathan's Deep by Jayge Carr.
• Judith Tarr revisits the 1982 fantasy novel Moon Called by Andre Norton.
  

Con and event reports:

• DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon in Washington DC, shares an update regarding its hotel woes. 
• Rob Bricken reports that the 2021 San Diego Comic Con will be a virtual event. 
• The 2021 WonderCon, originally supposed to take place in Anaheim, California, will be a virtual event as well.
  
• The virtual 2021 FIYAHCon announces its guests of honour. 
• The 2021 Viable Paradise writing workshop in Northhampton, Massachusetts, has been postponed until 2022. 
• The official bid documents for the 2023 Worldcon are now available online.
  
• Michael Jackman reports about the RoboCop statue that will be set up in Detroit, Michigan, eventually.
  

 

Crowdfunding:

• The documentary Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters - The Secret Origin of Hellboy is looking for funding.
  

 

Science and technology:

• George Dvorsky shares some intriguing photos the Perseverance rover took on Mars. 
• Hannah Frishberg reports that the first ever space hotel will be operational by 2027. 
• Lizzie Roberts reports that the origin of our sun's solar storms has been discovered.
  
• Julie Nováková talks about the trouble of finding alien life. 
• Erika Engelhaupt takes a look at the most murderous mammals and notes that humans are not actually the worst.
  
• Patty Hemrick shares eleven incredible things found in bogs. 
• The BBC reports that a medieval tunnel system has been discovered by technicians in Tintern, Wales.
• Jim Cornelius reports that the remains of some crewmembers including the captain have been found in the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah, which sank off Cape Cod in 1717.
• Gavriel Savit talks about the loss and recovery of Ashkenazi Jewish folk magic.
• Rhea Woltman, pilot and one of the Mercury 13 female astronaut trainees in the 1960s, has died aged 93.
  

Free online fiction:

• "The Amazing Exploding Women of the Early Twentieth Century" by A.C. Wise in Apex Magazine.
  
• "Trash Fairies" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman in Daily Science Fiction. 
• "The Pull of the Herd" by Suzan Palumbo in Anathema Magazine.
• "To the Pole!(TM)" by Lisa Gregoire in Luna Station Quarterly.
• "Mamaborg's Milk and the Brilliance of Gems" by D.A. Xiaolin Spires in Clarkesworld.
  
• "Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self" by Isabel J. Kim in Clarkesworld. 
• "Homecoming" by Claire Wrenwood in Lightspeed. 
• "Olvia's Table" by Alyssa Wong in Lightspeed.
  
• "The Void" by Leigh Alexander in Slate Future Tense.
• "Where We Will Go On Together" by J.S. Breukelaar in The Dark.
• "A Cast of Liches" by Woody Dismukes in Nightmare Magazine.
  
• "#Spring Love, #Pichakl Pairi" by Usman T. Malik in Tor.com.
  
• "The Code for Everything" by McKinley Valentine in Fantasy Magazine. 
• "Sugar" by Ashley Park in Fireside Magazine.
  
• "Bite" by K.C. Shaw in Daily Science Fiction.
• "Murky Waters" by Shannon Fay in Daily Science Fiction.
• "The Man of To-morrow's Lament" by Vladimir Nabokov in The Times Literary Supplement.
  

Trailers and videos: 

• Watch a trailer for season 4 of The Handmaid's Tale. 
• Watch a trailer for Thunder Force.
  
• Watch a trailer for Shadow and Bone. 
• Watch a clip from season 7 of The Flash.
  
• Watch a trailer for The Underground Railroad. 
• Watch a trailer for Voyagers. 
• Watch a trailer for The Barbarian and the Troll. 
  
• Watch a trailer for M.O.D.O.K. 
• Watch a clip from Justice Society: World War II.
  
• Watch a trailer for season 2 of Solar Opposites.
• Watch a clip from The Maestro: Symphony of Terror.