Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Category: World Wide Wednesday

World Wide Wednesday is hosted by Marion Deeds. On most Wednesdays, Marion will take you around the internet, letting you in on some interesting news from the SFF community. If you’ve got a tidbit to share, please comment on the latest post, or contact Marion.

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WWWednesday: March 13, 2024

Tom Doherty will be awarded the 2024 Robert Heinlein Award.

Reactor shares more casting news in the Murderbot adaptation. All the “good” characters appear to be cast.

File 770 recapped the Oscars in case you missed them.

Point Nemo is the most remote spot on the planet, it seems.

According to Beth Ann Malow, “springing forward” is not good for us—and yet we keep doing it. https:

This year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off has identified its 10 finalists.


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WWWednesday: March 6, 2024

Apple TV has cast David  Dastmalchian in the Murderbot adaptation. He’ll play Gurathin.

On his blog, Peter Clines writes about the temptation to complicate things for the sake of complication, and the risks involved.

Nerds of a Feather takes a close look at Dune, Part Two. They review The City of Marble and Blood by Howard Andrews Jones.

The Saint of Bright Doors won the 2024 Crawford Award, which is awarded to a writer whose first fantasy novel debuted the previous year.


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WWWednesday: February 28, 2024

I picked this site because they included Comeuppance Served Cold on one of their “favorite” lists, but the whole place looks pretty fun.

Uncanny Magazine, Issue 57, is available on March 5.

The Crime Writers Association announces its 2024 winners.

Victoria Strauss discusses productive ways to change your mindset when thinking about agent/writing scams. (Thanks to File 770.)

The U.K. Guardian has an obituary for Canadian actor Kenneth Mitchell,


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WWWednesday: February 21, 2024

The saga of the Hugos continues, and now there is documentation of obvious manipulation by the committee. Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford published this article which details most of the problems with the ballot process. They lay most of the blame on Dave McCarty, who has said publicly that he believes he did the right thing. Diane Lacey published a statement of apology when the article came out. Kat Jones released this statement. Glasgow WorldCon  has released Kat Jones from all her assignments.

NBC interviewed Paul Weimer about the fracas.


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WWWednesday: February 7, 2024

Marvel’s Squirrel Girl will finally get her due when the comics release special covers of Marvel heroines. It won’t be until March, but still.

Last week the PBS Newshour did a segment on “romantasy,” the stories that feature magic or a fantastical setting but also have a romance story that is nearly as important. Now the U.K. Guardian has an article about it. I think two things; 1) this is not a new phenomenon, but the mainstream as “discovered” it, and 2) regardless of how I feel about it, “romantasy” as a term is sticking around.


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WWWednesday: January 24, 2024

The Japanese lunar lander made the most precise lunar landing in history. The craft was experiencing a problem with its solar panels, but the earth crew may be able to correct that.

We seemed so far out of the blast radius of any 2023 Hugo fallout (did I just mix metaphors there?) that I was shocked when the latest one(s) blew up. It might be two scandals, it might be more, it might be none. It’s hard to tell. When the 2023 Hugo nominating data was released last weekend, hours before the mandated deadline, people discovered that the nominating patterns in several categories were,


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WWWednesday: January 17, 2024

Effective January 23, Tor.com the website will become Reactor. After Tor.com announced this, there was confusion (even confusion about whether it was tor.com or Tordotcom Publishing. I don’t see how that could have happened, she said sarcastically). Future Reactor addressed those questions.

StokerCon has added Justine Ireland and Nisi Shawl to the Guest of Honor slate in 2024. Thanks to File770.

Atlas Obscura follows the history of forgotten women astronomers at University of Chicago’s Lake Geneva- based observatory.


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WWWednesday: January 10, 2024

To my personal dismay, the Peregrine One lunar lander did not make moonfall because of fuel problems. Space.com has more technical information. (Personal because among the many things meant for the moon is a digitized library that includes a short story I wrote.)

Nerds of a Feather reviews That We Maye with Free Heartes Accomplishe Those Thynges, by Thomas M. Waldroon, as part of their Novella Project.

Tor.com previews Paolo Bacigalupi’s new fantasy novel (that’s right, fantasy), Navola due out in July,


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WWWednesday: January 3, 2024

Let’s start the New Year off right! Here is a chocolate review by Elizabeth Bear.

Tor.com reviews the Doctor Who Christmas episode
, introducing Ruby Sunday, the new companion.

Stubby the Rocket shares seasonal holiday favorites that aren’t holiday themed in this article.

Nerds of a Feather review Marie Vibbert’s new fantasy, The Gods Awoke.

From earlier last month, they also had an interview with Malka Older.

Champagne toasts? Football games? Fireworks? How about getting scared silly by creatures in sealskins,


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WWWednesday: December 20, 2023

File 770 reports that Galaxy Magazine will be relaunched by Starship Sloane Publishing.

The year has flown and we are already to the “Best of…” season. Here’s the Guardian’s take on the best fiction in the speculative genres for 2023. (Sorry about the pledge break in the middle—I don’t think it’s a paywall.)

Investing Magazine… (Yes, I do know how weird that is!)… has an article about famous, and expensive, movie cars. A couple of these go for under $100,000! A virtual steal!


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WWWednesday: December 13, 2023

Lis Carey review Chaos on Catnet, (looks like Audio only) over at I.

Neil Gaiman was interview by the New York Times. Here’s part of the article. It may be behind a paywall. (Thank you to File 770.)

Flory Jagoda wrote “Ocho Kandelikas” in 1983, in Ladino, a Spanish language used traditionally by the Sephardic Jewish community.

Tor.com has a detailed recap of the Doctor Who specials which I will probably not see since they’re on Disney and I don’t subscribe.


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WWWednesday: December 6, 2023

With the IndieInk Awards, independent presses are trying to start formal recognition of indie works.

Mark Shepherd, best known as “Crowley” on Supernatural, reports he survived a “widowmaker” event that involved six heart attacks. The actor, who also appeared on Doctor Who and in a recurring role on Warehouse 13, is 56 years old.

Caution; Wide Load. A section of the Antarctic ice shelf, roughly the size of the island of Oahu, broke off and is now headed for the open ocean,


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WWWednesday: November 29, 2023

Another single topic column. This one Marion’s Own Idiosyncratic, Book-themed Gift Guide for the 2023 year-end holidays. These aren’t new releases or 2023 books—these contain some new books, some old favorites, and a few in between.

For the historian, feminist reader on your gift list:

Library of America: The Joanna Russ Compilation. This collection of three of Russ’s novels, including her best known, The Female Man, as well as the Alyx stories and three other award-winning and finalist stories, restores this intellectual, feminist writer to her place in history,


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WWWednesday: November 22, 2023

This week’s column will be single-topic, and I’m including a giveaway. One commenter will get a hardcover edition of Richard Kadrey’s The Pale House Devil.

In October, 2023, the Library of America released a compilation of the works of Joanna Russ. Russ, a contemporary of Ursula LeGuin, Suzy McKee Charnas, Samuel Delaney, Marta Randall, Kate Wilhelm, Damon Knight and other New Wave writers, was a vocal feminist who brought literary values to her work—even her sword and sorcery stories (a genre she loved).


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WWWednesday: November 16, 2023

Moms for Liberty did not prevail in most of their plans to take over school boards. Most of their 130 candidates across the nation were soundly rejected by local voters, but 50 did win. The group, founded originally to protest Covid-19 responses in schools, has now broadened their platform to an anti-history and pro-discrimination stance.

A pod of orcas sank a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar earlier this week. (I didn’t know that over the last three years they have sunk two others, making this their third. I’m also not sure if this is one pod or several.)

I try to cover awards here,


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WWWednesday; November 8, 2023

SFWA joined several other organizations in correspondence to the U.S. Copyright Office, sending this letter expressing the concerns they have with the potential uses of AI.

The British Library was the victim of a cyberattack. (This article may be behind a paywall.)

For Jim Butcher fans Tor.com offers an excerpt of his latest, The Olympian Affair.

In the Old and Lost Things department, it’s possible a long-missing model of the Enterprise from Star Trak has been located.


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WWWednesday: November 1, 2023

The World Fantasy Award were announced Sunday, October 29. Best Novel went to Saint Death’s Daughter, by C.S.E. Cooney. Priya Sharma took the Best Novella Award for Pomegranates, and Tananarive Due took Best Short Fiction for “Incident at Bear Creek Lodge.”

File770 provided a link to a report on WorldCon, written by someone who was a coordinator for  a Chinese fan group as well as a vendor. It sounds like China’s first WorldCon was rocky, which isn’t surprising. The volunteer group who put it on had never done it before,


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WWWednesday: October 25, 2023

This week’s column will be very short!

The Hugo winners were announced Saturday, October 21, at the Chengdu WorldCon. Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, was awarded Best Novel for Nettle and Bone. Seanan McGuire’s Where the Drowned Girls Go took the award for best novella. Best novelette was awarded to “The Space-Time Painter” by Hai Ya, and Samantha Mills’s “Rabbit Test” won for best short story.

The Ignyte Awards were also announced.


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WWWednesday: October 18, 2023

I re-watched Guillermo del Toro’s gothic ghost story Crimson Peak, and was smitten by the amazing wardrobe, just as I was the first time. I found a nice and spoilery discussion of the costumes of the two female leads, Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain. Kate Hawley is the costumer. (She has since done the costumes for Rings of Power.) In 2015 when Crimson Peak came out, Variety did a profile of her.

Atlas Obscura offers another photography contest.


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Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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