SF/F/H Link Post for 2013-09-17

Interviews & Profiles

• Art Spiegelman talks about his life and work, touching on writing vs. art, how Maus came into being, and his lack of depth perception: “I don’t really see stereo, so it’s not good for getting in and out of cars, but when I draw something, it looks real.”
• Cat Rambo interviews Django Wexler of The Thousand Names on behalf of the SFWA.
• Colleen Gleason discusses her novel The Clockwork Scarab with My Bookish Ways. She describes her work as an historical urban fantasy with a steampunk setting.
• Comic books are home for ‘Locke & Key‘ creator Joe Hill
• The Endless Lives of Iain M. Banks: The late science fiction novelist grappled with a fundamental existential—and libertarian—question.
• Five questions with Kinslayer author Jay Kristoff
• GenCon 2013 Interview: Mike Stackpole
• The Kindle Post offers this Q&A with Yasmine Galenorn of Autumn Whispers.
• Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee Talks Favorite Superheroes, Andrew Garfield vs. Tobey Maguire
• My Bookish Ways interviews Risa Green, author of Projection
• Rick Riordan plugs the fourth book in his Heroes of Olympus series in a super short interview
• Robert Sawyer on dystopian fiction and his utopian sci-fi vision

News

• 10-Book Deal for Terry Pratchett: Terry Pratchett, the best-selling fantasy author, has struck a 10-book deal with Doubleday and Anchor Books, the publisher said on Sunday. The first book, “Raising Steam,” will be released in March as part of a seven-figure deal.
• Winners of the 2013 National Book Award Longlist for Young People’s Literature.
• AMC Announces Plans for a The Walking Dead Companion Series
• We finally have a U.S. release date for Miyazaki’s final film!

Events & Event News

• Andromeda One is a one-day SF, fantasy and horror convention taking place on Saturday 21st September 2013 at the Custard Factory in Birmingham, U.K.
• Over 80 Authors to Participate at MileHiCon 45, the Largest Science Fiction/Fantasy Literary Convention in the Rocky Mountain Region. MileHiCon 45 happens at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center October 18, 19, and 20, 2013.

Crowd Funding

• Books: A Documentary – filmmaking husband-and-wife team Sara Ossana and Mathew Provost are appealing to the general public to help them finish a film about books and bookselling.
• Cartozia Tales – a ten-issue fantasy anthology with all the stories set in a shared world, created by a team of top-notch indie cartoonists.

Articles

• 7 Craft Lessons Every Writer Must Learn
• 10 characters TV Guide wants to see on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
• 11 Ways Video Games Make You Smarter And Healthier
• 14 things that made Star Trek Into Darkness so controversial
• 25 Steps To Edit The Unmerciful Suck Out Of Your Story
• At What Point Will The Next Generation Kill The Copyright Monopoly Altogether?
• Because of the Times… “You get all worked up because these men couldn’t imagine a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent…”
• The Best Historical Literary Cameos on Time-Traveling TV Shows
• Books for Boys and Books for Girls: Problems with Gendered Reading
• Brooklyn’s Newest Made-Up Job Title Is “Book Therapist” ($30 Per Hour)
• Comics in School: Why Study Comics?
• Dear Readers: A Letter from Emma Jane Holloway, author of A Study in Silks.
• The Door into Summer: Four Reasons Why I Adore Time Travel by Connie Willis
• The first manuscript page from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness.
• Geeking Out in a Vacuum: Life Before Fandom
• How The Rules Of Screenwriting Can Improve Your Prose Fiction
• How to Learn Story Structure Without Even Trying
• If you read Italian, you may enjoy this recap of Delos Days 2013, which Paul Di Fillippo attended via Skype. Otherwise, just flip over to Google Translate.
• In Anna Smith’s recent article for The Guardian, she asks, “Why Can’t Women Time Travel?” and points out the paucity of female protagonists in time travel capers. SL Huang asserts that The Reason Escapist Time Travel Doesn’t Star Women Is That We Haven’t Written It Yet.
• In LOTR, how come Gimli had no idea Balin had been dead for so long when they entered Moria?
• Moral Ambiguity in Percy Jackson and the Olympians
• More Science Fiction Poetry Awards – The Rhysling Award
• Sorcery That Stands Out: Scott Lynch, author of the upcoming releaseThe Republic of Thieves, provides a rundown of standout magic systems in fantasy.
• Star Trek is not broken
• Why Every Storyteller Should Be Watching Orphan Black
• Why It’s Trendy to Hate on Amazon
• Why The Harry Potter Spinoff Is A Fantastic Idea
• The X-Men turn 50. Catch Up on 50 Years of the X-Men With These 10 Key Stories

Science and Technology

• Are Robots Going To Kill Your Next Job Or Create It?
• Artificial muscles to give robots superhuman strength. Cue ominous music.
• Attempting to explain Thor’s Hammer with science.
• The International Space Station is one of humanity’s great engineering triumphs. But what is it for?
• Mid-Century Life, on Mars
• Professor Brian Cox: time travel IS possible – but only if you want to go to the future.
• Terminator Town USA: the Rise of the everyday robots. One-pound robots are now working as police and firemen, making millions, and changing life in the heartland.

Art

• 11 Amazing Librarian Tattoos
• Back To The Future Cake
• The wonderful, virtual world of Minecraft libraries

More Fun Stuff

• Awesome fire-breathing dragon is world’s largest walking robot: At 30 feet tall and 51 feet long, Tradinno is a gargantuan mechatronic beast you don’t want to mess with.
• In “Writers Cabin,” the raging fangirl gathers the greatest television writers together to write the best TV show of all time! Hilarity ensues.
• Read “The Love and the Oath,” a poem written by Jo Walton for the Sundown Kickstarter, online.
• Read Paul Di Filippo’s introduction to the Evangeline Walton novel She Walks in Darkness