SF/F/H Link Post for 2014-02-22

Interviews & Profiles

• BN.com interviews Beneath the Surface: Jeff VanderMeer on Annihilation
• The Huffington Post has 10 Questions with indie author AK Butler of The Burning of Cherry Hill
• The IEET interviews Gregory Benford, a scientist-author at the heart of hard science fiction.
• I Smell Sheep chats with author Nancy Northcott about her Light Mage Series.
• Jon Snow himself, Kit Harington, hangs out with the Nerdist to talk about his beloved Manchester United and filming Game of Thrones in freezing Iceland while his co-workers film in sunny Croatia
• Layers of Thought as a Q&A with Anne Leonard author of Moth and Spark
• My Bookish Ways interviews Danielle L Jensen, author of Stolen Songbird
• My Bookish Ways interviews Timothy Schaffert, author of The Swan Gondola
• Sense of Wonder interviews Benjanun Sriduangkaew, author of the recently published short story “Courtship in the Country of Machine Gods” from The Future Fire.
• Tor Books interviews The Problem with Promises author Leigh Evans
• Up Around the Corner has an interview with Anne Leonard, author of Moth and Spark.

News

• Haruki Murakami’s Latest Book Out in English This Summer
• Concluding the SFWA kerfuffle of the past week, Sean Fodera has posted a public apology to Mary Robinette Kowal for his remarks (which she has accepted), along with clarification as to his attitude about women in SF. The apology drew so many hits, it caused SFF.net to crash. (Screencaps)
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has announced a new addition to their annual “Best American” anthology series: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy.
• Paul Tremblay Lands Six-Figure Book Deal with William Morrow

Events & Event News

• The annual Tor Con or Bust auction ends Sunday February 22nd at 5:00pm (EST)!
• Chuck Palahniuk has his schedule of appearances at the Seattle AWP Conference.
• ConDFW starts today. You can check out the panel schedule online.
• Jim Butcher will be the author Guest of Honor for Gen Con 2014 in Indianapolis.

Crowd Funding

• Poe – a self-published pulse-pounding thriller series that follows the sole descendant of Edgar Allan Poe as she battles a curse: the master of the macabre’s horror stories coming to life.
• That Ain’t Right – a Lovecraft-themed anthology of tales from the people of the Miskatonic Valley.
• Yazen – a YA novel that has magic, portals, mystical creatures, adventure, and more.
• The Weapon Bearer – a coming of age story, featuring Magic, Betrayal, and Epic battle.

Articles

• Review: AVClub offers a review of M.D. Waters’ dystopian debut novel, Archetype.
• Review: Paul Di Filippo reviews The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku for In the Margin.
• Review: Urban Fantasy Investigations reviews The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison
• 8 Superhero Tropes Too Silly For Live-Action (and How to Make Them Work)
• A. Lee Martinez discusses Endings, Happy or Otherwise.
• The Book Industry Is So Scared of Amazon, No One Will Talk on the Record… Except these people.
• Book Riot offers an An Apology to Bella Swan that you needn’t have read Twilight to appreciate.
• Can We Avoid a Surveillance State Dystopia? Yes. Yes we can… [via Paul Di Filippo]
• Dare We Laugh at Fandom? No? Can We Laugh at Science Fiction Instead?
• The Daring Novelist plays the Story Game in their discussion about Caring About The MacGuffin.
• The Endangered Art of the Movie Novelization
• Gail Carriger’s Top 3 Under-appreciated Authors in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
• “Gutfoundered” is officially my new favorite word. Thanks to Gail Carriger’s article on 1811 Slang
• The Huffington post argues that If JK Rowling Cares About Writing, She Should Stop Doing It
• Joseph D’Lacey talks Post-Apocalytpic Fiction over at SFFWorld.
• Just Keeping Going; or What Does the Balrog Do All Day?
• A Lover, a Piglet, and a Deep Hole; or, Three Types of Tension
• The Mad Hatter has posted a list of his choices for the Best Books of 2013.
• Margaret Atwood’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction: 1. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, […] Therefore: take two pencils.
• N.K. Jemisin comments on the current SFWA shenanigans.
• Of Selkies and Memory: Reading Short Stories for the Hugo Awards
• Reprogramming science fiction: the genre that is learning to love From Battlestar Galactica to Spike Jonze’s new film Her, modern science fiction is growing up and humanising.
• Surfing The Hybrid Wave of Publishing with Amazing Stories
• There’s No Such Thing as a Real Reader
• Waterstones fail to recognize female fantasy authors
• What is Sword and Sorcery? With recommendations!
• When We Last Left Our Heroes: The Way of Kings Recap you’ll need if you plan on jumping right into the recently released sequel, Words of Radiance.
• Which Books Should We Stop Calling Classics?
• Women’s fantasy fiction: join the quest for a world unknown to bookstores. ‘Blokes in cloaks’ are still the overwhelming presences in the genre section. Who are the writers they’ve overlooked?
• You could have written about ninjas! Space giraffes! Sharks with lasers! Why … Vikings?
• You’re a Beautiful Grain of Sand by J. C. Hutchins

Art

• The Lord of the Rings by Frank Frazetta
• You’ve seen the Disney Princesses re-drawn as Star Wars Sith and Final Fantasy characters, now check them out as the Ladies of Game of Thrones.

More Fun Stuff

• The BlameSociety demonstrates the card game Story War with hilarious results.
• Cover Reveal for Jay Lake’s The Last Plane to Heaven
• Launch Your Universe is surprisingly cathartic new worldbuilding webseries.
• Read an excerpt of The Revenant of Thraxton Hall by Vaughn Entwistle, the first of The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Read an excerpt of the space opera Lockstep by Karl Schroeder.
• Time travellers: please don’t kill Hitler. In almost any science-fiction scenario involving time-travel, the default action is to kill Hitler. There are many reasons why this probably isn’t a good idea
• Watch demonstration of the Bafta-winning visual effects behind Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
• When Will the Earth Get Hit by Another Asteroid? It’s time to test a deflector mission.