Links

I’d like to thank all the poets who contributed to our series of speculative fiction (or science fiction) poetry. For convenience, this post will have links to all the individual entries in the series and to all the venues recommended for further reading.

Locus Roundtable Posts

• Podcast: Mike Allen and F. J. Bergmann in Conversation
• Let us go then, you and I: an introduction to speculative poetry, by Mike Allen

Strange Horizons is in the middle of their 2011 fund drive–but they’ve only raised a quarter of their goal of $8000. We all should support them, since they are consistently one of the best venues for genre fiction and non-fiction on the internet. Often we’re happy to support a Kickstarter campaign for something that could be new and cool–but might forget to support an established concern that is already awesome ...Read More

• Jonathan McCalmont uses the Dunning-Kruger effect and the Dreyfus Model to discuss How to Write a Good Review.
• Niall Harrison has a four part in-depth review of Karen Traviss’ City of Pearl, the first novel in her Wess’har series.
• The World SF Travel Fund has reached its $6000 goal, so Charles Tan will definitely be coming to San Diego for World Fantasy. Thanks to all donors! With 20 days

• N. K. Jemisin discusses the anthology So Long Been Dreaming, and how its take on post-colonialism changed her worldbuilding for the Inheritence Trilogy.
• The World SF Travel Fund is a Peerbacker project to help international genre pros and fans get to otherwise too-expensive conventions. The first recipient will be Charles Tan, World Fantasy Award nominee for his tireless work in both online, international, and Philippine genre fiction and

• A collection of academic essays on Science Fiction in India, edited by Dr. Arvind Mishra (among others), is available on Kindle for just $6.99. [Via Cheryl Morgan]
• Judith Tarr on Being the Other and empathy, particularly in historical fiction. “History is not a theme park.” [Via SFSignal.com]
• Adam Roberts reviews Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad in PowerPoint form.
• John H. Stevens returns from ReaderCon with some

• In praise of Joanne Rowling’s Hermione Granger series, by Sady Doyle
• Jonathan McCalmont discusses the link between art house films and video games in his review of the game Last Tuesday.
• The most recent SFSignal Mind Meld asks for Favorite International Authors.
• Charles Tan reviews Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo, with interesting comments on World sf/f and Magic Realism.
• Geek Mom compares the word counts of various epic fantasy

• Two views on reviewing. n+1 “Against Reviews” and Los Angeles Review of Books “Odious and Unpleasant.” [via Niall Harrison on Twitter]
• Michael Dirda proposes a simple reform to the NYTimes-style Bestseller list.
• Cat Velente has some interesting thoughts on childhood classing A Wrinkle in Time.
• A nice reminder that though the shuttle program is retiring, NASA is still out there exploring: “NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on Saturday became the first

• Ian Sales’ has a photo tour of his critical bookshelf. Some excellent volumes there.
• Nicola Griffith points out that when a request for favorite SF books was put out to the general Internets, the responses came back with 96% male authors. Ouch. She suggests some possible remedies.
• On a related note, Joanna Russ’ How to Suppress Women’s Writing is now available on Google Books.
• Matt Cheney is blogging the Caine

• Theodora Goss on Reading Protocols by way of James Thurber.
• Andrew Wheeler muses on the Characteristic Ages of Genres.
• Matthew Cheney recounts his experience Teaching with the Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction.
• John H. Stevens on Speculative Fiction as a critical term.
• Tim Harford mentions Cory Doctorow’s For the Win in the context of selecting Five Books on Unexpected Economics.

Also a reminder: we’ll start discussing Kij Johnson’s Nebula ...Read More

• The Guardian has been running quite a bit of material on SF in recent days, partly because of the opening of an sf exhibit at the British Library. Among the pieces featured: China Mieville bringing radical sf into the mainstream, many high profile sf writers talk about their favorite sf novels, Neil Gaiman on Gene Wolfe, and spurring the most discussion: Iain M. Banks on “science fiction is no place

• Paul Graham Raven writes on Transhumanism for the New Scientist.
• Strange Horizons dedicated a week to author Nisi Shawl, including story “Pataki” and an essay by Shawl, “Race, Again, Still.”
• Paul McAuley on “How to Write a Generic SF Novel.” (“No amount of exposure to suffering or slaughter should alter your hero in any significant way, although he is allowed to shed the odd manly tear or to express cold

• In Salon Futura #7, Ken MacLeod writes on “SF and IR” (IR here meaning International Relations).
• An essay by Roundtable contributor Paul Graham Raven on the first essay in Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism. Thoughtful comments by Jonathan McCalmont and Paul Kincaid follow.
• Speaking of Jonathan, he reviews Gary K. Wolfe’s Evaporating Genres on Ruthless Culture.
• This is really cute: Good Night Dune. [via Don Riggs]
• Daniel Abraham wrestles

• SFSignal has the ToC for Thirty-Five Years of the Jack Williamson Lectureship, edited by Patrice Caldwell and Stephan Haffner.
• The Interstitial Arts Foundation is calling for critical essays. [via Salon Futura]
• A most stupendous (and artistic) “Mind Map:” The History of Science Fiction by Ward Shelley.
• It appears that Bruce Sterling’s archive will be given to the University of Texas (Austin).
• Paul Kincaid on Learning to Read Adam Roberts.

• Connie Willis is answering questions about Blackout and All Clear over at io9.com.
• Daryl Gregory will be writing a new Planet of the Apes comic book story, and will also be writing an essay on Philip K. Dick for Issue #16 of the adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Greg Egan has released a video trailer for the first volume of his Orthogonal trilogy. The Clockwork Rocket will

• The Locus Roundtable podcast is now available on iTunes.
• Strange Horizons is looking at Mythpunk and how to define it. Cat Valente sits down with JoSelle Vanderhooft to discuss it. Also, new reviews editor Abigail Nussbaum has also been asking for feedback on new directions for the Reviews section of the magazine.
• Weird Tales has a new website, a new Editor-in-Chief (Ann VanderMeer) and a new submission system. [Via Matt