SF/F/H Link Post for 2014-03-17

Interviews & Profiles

• BuzzFeed interviews Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation. “Full Disclosure, I’m Really A Komodo Dragon” VanderMeer talks about the importance of literary cross-pollination, binge-watching TV.
• Divergent director Neil Burger: Tris Prior’s tale is a hero myth
• Flickering Myth interviews J.C. De La Torre, author of Star Mage.
• Game of Thrones Actors Cast Themselves As Other Series Characters.
• My Bookish Ways interviews Matt Whyman, author of The Savages.
• Project Sunlight talks to Sarah Michelle Gellar about Buffy and the Veronica Mars Kickstarter.
• The Qwillery interviews Cleve Lamison, author of Full-Blood Half-Breed.
• The S&L Podcast interviews Adam Christopher, author of Hang Wire.
• Suvudu interviews Michio Kaku, author of The Future of the Mind.
• Suvudu interviews Mur Lafferty, author of Ghost Train to New Orleans.

News

• 2014 New Pulp Awards Winners have been announced
• A New Reality Series From Lionsgate TV & Roy Bank To Chronicle Mission To Colonize Mars
• Pew Study: Many Technophiles Also Love Libraries
• Syfy Gives The Green Light To Space Adventure Ascension

Crowd Funding

• Cataclysm – an art book of miniatures, exploring a world after humans.
• Eidolon – a scifi short film and album about loss and humanity in the midst of technology.

Articles

• Reviews: The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Some Recent Good Urban Fantasy Reads: The Cormorant, Black Arts, and Ghost Train to New Orleans
• The Almighty Star Trek Lit-verse Reading Order Flow Chart by TrekBBS members Thrawn and 8of5 is an optional but relatively complete guide to the modern continuity in Star Trek novels, including “relaunch” titles and crossover series.
• Den of Geek Asks Does bad science ruin science fiction?
• Felicia Day recently wrote a lengthy rant explaining why casting a black man as the Human Torch in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie is not the same as whitewashing Tiger Lily.
• Game Over: Why Is It So Hard to Make a Video Game Movie?
• Hell on earth: What happens to life sentences if the human lifespan is radically extended? A philosopher talks about future punishment
• How Serenity ended up in Battlestar Galactica
• The HuffPo thinks Ice Pirates ruined space adventures, but Guardians of the Galaxy could save it.
• Hvngry considers Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mental Illness
• Is genre fiction creating a market for lemons?
• Mark Lawrence examines the difference between the style of U.S. and U.K. book covers.
• Screening Notes: Romance & The Role of Women in 50’s Sci-Fi Movies
• Sci-fi inventions you don’t really want: Five of the most awesome, unrealized inventions of science fiction that you think you want, but really aren’t that practical.
• Screenbot names the silver screen’s ten greatest movie hedonists.
• Top ten villains never to make a top villains list
• Transformative or just taking? Lawyers struggle to define fair use in wake of Google Books case.
• Truer Detective: The sleuthing plot of the Veronica Mars movie gets all the technology right.
• Where did the story of ebooks begin? Peter James’s Host, published on two disks, was an early example – but exactly where the medium started life is surprisingly tricky to identify
• Why Marvel’s The Avengers Was Almost Rated R
• Why So Hungry for the Hunger Games? Why Readers’ Imaginations Caught Fire

Art

• The Black Cherry Cake Company has once again demonstrated why it is the greatest bakery on the web! This time, it’s a gob-smackingly beautiful cake celebrating Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal.
• Robot Jackalope, “a blog about design, programming and general geekery,” tackles The Geometry of Starship Design with the USS Enterprise
• Steam in the Willows: Artist Krista Brennan has created a series of wonderful steampunk style art inspired by Kenneth Grahame’s classic novel The Wind in the Willows.

More Fun Stuff

• Constantine and Castiel fans square off over ‘Hellblazer’s angelic fashion
• Cover reveal for Broken Soul (Jane Yellowrock) by Faith Hunter
• Cover reveal for Peter F. Hamilton’s new novel, The Abyss Beyond Dreams.
• Fodor’s Travel has posted a gallery of World’s 20 Most Stunning Libraries.
• The Future of Brain Implants: How soon can we expect to see brain implants for perfect memory, enhanced vision, hypernormal focus or an expert golf swing?
• Listen to Bruce Sterling’s closing remarks from SXSW Interactive.
• Modern Twilight Zone Plots In 10 Horryfing Tweets
• Read an extract from Operation Shield by Joel Shepherd.
• ScaryLetter.com brings you a new kind of horror fiction: tales which take the form of terrifying letters, mailed to you. They are available both as ebooks or personalised paper letters mailed to you.
• Venture Aboard the Steampunk Cruise: Join Victorian gentlemen, mad scientists and others on a journey to the Bahamas. [via Paul Di Filippo]