- The MacArthur Genius grants for 2018 have just been announced. And once again I have been cruelly snubbed simply for not doing anything of any particular note. The system is rigged, I tells ya!
- A good (for certain very depressing values of “good”) essay on why people are getting poorer without necessarily losing money. (from this MetaFilter post)
- Some mad genius has posted over 13,000 playable Commodore 64 programs to the Internet Archive. I would like to hereby apologize to any and all personal responsibilities which existed up to this moment. They will be missed.
- Latest catch-all thread on Metafilter.
- A compelling list of up-and-coming Asian writers, courtesy of LitHub.
- Charles Stross put a post up on his blog asking his readers to come up with story ideas which nobody seems to have done yet. Or more specifically, What are the current blind spots in SF? The (1,000+) comments and ideas therein are very much worth reading.
Category: Links and Notes
Regular(ish) posting of things which have caught my attention.
Links and Notes for the Week of September 23, 2018
- The New Yorker’s first stab at the Canon of the 21st Century.
- After Man. An appreciation.
- 14 Writers Imprisoned for Their Work.
- Tor has posted its excellent lists of October genre releases:
- 31 Movies Based on Short Stories.
Links and Notes for the Week of September 9, 2018
- Pitchfork just posted a list of the Top 200 Albums of the 1980s. They also included a Spotify list for your listening pleasure.
- The National Book Awards longlist has just been published. Once again, I have been unreasonably snubbed simply because I have not written a book. Is that fair?
- Categorizing Types of American Religious Belief. Which is to say, cataloging how Americans believe as much as what they believe.
- For all you Twitter users out there who want Twitter as YOU want it, not as Twitter wants it, user realtwitter.com. No algorithms, no likes or follows or replies. Pure chronological order of first-level tweets.
Links and Notes for the Week of September 2, 2018
- Having recently visited San Francisco for the first time, I found this essay particularly compelling: HAGS In Your Face: A People’s History of the Legendary San Francisco Dyke Gang. Michelle Tea is a superb writer. I read her semi-autobiographical story Black Wave while on a work trip to Sacramento back in 2017.
- Tor.com asks, Who are the Forgotten Greats of Science Fiction? I expect this list will expand as time goes on. It is in the nature of things to be forgotten.
- What would a socialist America look like?
- An overview, description and explanation of Late Capitalism, from the always-excellent Midwest Socialism.
- Metafilter has added a new post containing links and discussion of the deranged and pathetic reign of Daddy Issues Donnie.
Links and Notes for the Week of August 26, 2018
- N.K. Jemisin talks about world building.
- How hyperpolyglots got that way.
- TOR.com’s lists of the new genre books coming out in the next month:
- The Incredible, Rage-Inducing Inside Story of America’s Student Debt Machine. This makes me feel…guillotiney.
- Some new words: guillotainment, guillotaining – respectively, the televised proletariat revolution and the sensation of watching the televised proletariat revolution.
Links and Notes for the Week of August 19, 2018
- N.K. Jemisin has won the Hugo Award for her novel The Stone Sky, the third and final volume of her astonishing and brilliant Broken Earth trilogy. This is the third year in a row she has won the Hugo, and she is the first writer to ever win the Hugo three years in a row, as well as the first person of color to win a Hugo for best novel. Her acceptance speech at WorldCon 2018 follows this list.
- Been aware of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction for a long time but recently discovered its online presence.
- A list of fifty must-read books by women in translation, for Women in Translation Month.
- Places here for future research purposes: A Strangely Funny Russian Genius
- Why Disgust Matters
Links and Notes for the Week of August 12, 2018
- Here is a wonderful speech by V.E. Schwab, on doorways and gatekeepers in the world of Fantasy literature.
- A Survey of Some of the Best Science Fiction Ever Published – brief reviews of “best of” collections of authors going back to the 1920s, along with brief bios of those authors.
- August is Women in Translation month, and here is a great list of recent works by women writers, including several from some of my favorite publishers.
- Good list of Latin American alternatives for some of the books in the English-speaking canon.
- And here is an excellent list of books by Malaysian writers.
- Metafilter posted their latest thread of links and conversation concerning the ongoing pillaging of the USA by the inbred cannibals of the 1%, led by emasculated man-baby iDJiT.
- And finally, blues and soul legend Aretha Franklin passed away earlier this week. Here is a video of a second-line in the Treme district of New Orleans, honoring Aretha.
Links and Notes for the Week of August 5, 2018
- Just finished reading At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell and Paternus: Rise of Gods by Dyrk Ashton. Now reading Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse and Art of War, an anthology commissioned by Petros Triantafyllou, with all profits being donated to Doctors Without Borders.
- Squealing coward white nationalists marched in Portland, OR a few days back. They were met by leftist and antifa counter-protesters. There was some violence, mostly perpetrated by the police upon the anti-fascists. To be clear, the mere existence of white nationalism, as represented by Alex Jones and the majority of Trump supporters, is an act of violence. Therefore any reaction to the existence of white nationalism, in any context, under any circumstances, is automatically an act of self defense. Punching fascists is, in fact, a moral obligation.
- More squealing coward white nationalists marched in Washington, DC over this past weekend. Almost two dozen of them were brave enough to leave their parents’s basement and go downtown, where they were met by hundreds upon hundreds of counter-protesters. And once again, police took the side of the white nationalists and fascists.
- On that note, Metafilter has posted the latest catch-all thread for links and conversation about the increasingly frayed and tapeworm-riddled tenure of emasculated president iDJiT.
Links and Notes for the Week of July 29, 2018
- Tor.com’s lists of books coming out in August
- Metafilter has posted their latest catch-all thread for the increasingly irrational tenure of the increasingly irrational president iDJiT.
- The Believer, one of the best lit magazines out there, has just made its entire archive freely available online. This is amazing!
- Gaming’s Toxic Men, Explained
Links and Notes for the Week of July 22, 2018
- Some words: amuse, bemuse, museum, coliseum, colossus, colonoscopy
- Loneliness is the common ground of terror and extremism
- Like Most Americans, I was Raised to be a White Man
- Charles Stross weighs in on the upcoming Brexit, and the national (to him) and worldwide consequences thereof. Cheerful stuff!
- You know what’s fun? Responding to the tweets of emasculated president iDJiT in the voice of a VERY UNIMPRESSED CROM.
- Trump’s Victory = America’s Ego Death