Blinks: Two by Ted Chiang

» New York Times: Ezra Klein: The Author Behind ‘Arrival’ Doesn’t Fear AI. ‘Look at How We Treat Animals.’, subtitled, “The award-winning author and Ezra Klein discuss A.I. suffering, free will, Superman’s failures and more.

» The New Yorker: Ted Chiang: Why Computers Won’t Make Themselves Smarter, subtitled, “We fear and yearn for ‘the singularity.’ But it will probably never come.” ...Read More

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Blinks: Indian sf/f novels; Slate on DeLillo, Lethem, and Forster; Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy

» Washington Post: Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar: Let’s talk about wonderful Indian science-fiction and fantasy novels

» Slate: COVID-19 Isn’t the Apocalypse We Expected—or the One Some Wanted, subtitled “Recent novels from Don DeLillo and Jonathan Lethem fantasized about turning off screens forever,” beginning with a look back at E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”

» NYT: Kermit Pattison reviews associational book THE ZOOLOGIST’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY: What Animals ...Read More

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Blinks: Octavia E. Butler; Chen Qiufan; Elizabeth Hand; Lisa Tuttle’s Guardian reviews

» The New Yorker: Julian Lucas on How Octavia E. Butler Reimagines Sex and Survival, subtitled, The parasites, hybrids, and vampires of her science fiction make the price of persisting viscerally real.

» Wired: Sci-Fi Writer or Prophet? The Hyperreal Life of Chen Qiufan, subtitled, As China’s science fiction authors are elevated to the status of oracles, Qiufan’s career—and his genre’s place in society—have gone through the looking glass.

» ...Read More

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Blinks: Jonathan Lethem in The New Yorker, with a tribute to Robert A. Heinlein; NPR’s Fran Wilde reviews S.B. Divya; Wired’s Jason Kehe on R.A. Lafferty

» The New Yorker: Jonathan Lethem’s story The Crooked House, with an interview with Jonathan Lethem on Robert Heinlein and Other Influences

» Another review of Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, by NPR’s Annalisa Quinn

» Also at NPR, Fran Wilde reviews S.B. Divya: ‘Machinehood’ Upgrades Asimov’s 3 Laws Of Robotics

» Wired’s Jason Kehe asks, Who Is R. A. Lafferty? And Is He the Best Sci-Fi Writer Ever?, ...Read More

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Blinks: Kazuo Ishiguro; reviews of his new novel; new laws or robotics; Shippey reviews Weber & Kenney

» NYT Magazine: Kazuo Ishiguro Sees What the Future Is Doing to Us, by Giles Harvey

» Reviews of Ishiguro’s new novel Klara and the Sun at NYT, by Radhika Jones; Slate, by Laura Miller; Guardian, by Anne Enright; and Wall Street Journal, by Sam Sacks

» Boston Globe: Frank Pasquale suggests Now that science fiction is reality, it’s time for new laws of robotics

» Wall Street Journal: Tom ...Read More

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Blinks: Lisa Tuttle at Guardian; Bill McKibben cites KSR; Greg Bear’s life story

» Guardian: Lisa Tuttle takes over from Eric Brown: The best recent science fiction and fantasy – review roundup covering titles by Samantha Shannon, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Roberts, Marian Womack, and Tim Pratt

» The New Yorker: Bill McKibben’s The Enormous Risk of Atmospheric Hacking cites Kim Stanley Robinson’s “masterly new novel” “The Ministry for the Future”.

» Seattle Times: Lynnwood’s Greg Bear, stalwart of modern science fiction, starts writing ...Read More

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Blinks: Bloom on Le Guin; LARB on Dune; WaPo’s Best SF/F/H Books of 2020

» The New Yorker: Harold Bloom on The Strange Friendships of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness”

» Los Angeles Review of Books: Daniel Immerwahr on Heresies of “Dune”

» Washington Post: Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar select Best science fiction, fantasy and horror books of 2020; they’re by Stephen Graham Jones, Zen Cho, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Agustina Bazterrica, translated from the Spanish by Sarah Moses, and Paul ...Read More

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Blinks: Reviews at Guardian, New Scientist, WSJ; Kim Stanley Robinson; Penguin SF classics

» Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Christopher Priest, Kate Mascarenhas, Jonathan Sims, Tom Fletcher, Chloe Gong

» New Scientist: Will Heath reviews Micaiah Johnson

» Wall Street Journal: Tom Shippey reviews Cixin Liu’s To Hold Up the Sky

» Jacobin interviews Robert Markley about Kim Stanley Robinson

» The Irish Times: Science fiction: Fast forward into a universal future, about Penguin’s new line of SF classics ...Read More

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Blinks: NYT, Guardian reviews; Cory Doctorow; Andrew Liptak

» NY Times: Amal El-Mohtar reviews C.L. Polk, V.E. Schwab, Susanna Clarke

» Slate: Cory Doctorow: The Dangers of Cynical Sci-Fi Disaster Stories: I’m changing how I write fiction—for the benefit of the real world.

» Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Andrzei Sapkowski, Tony Ballantyne, Peter F. Hamilton, Kate Elliott, Graham Masterton

» Polygon: Andrew Liptak selects 15 recent sci-fi books that forever shaped the genre and other articles in its ...Read More

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Blinks: Butler; KSR; Pullman; Dirda; reviews of Flynn, Chang, Martine; Edelman dines

» LA Times: 5 paths to continue your Octavia E. Butler discovery after ‘Parable of the Sower’

» Guardian: ‘There is no planet B’: the best books to help us navigate the next 50 years, by Kim Stanley Robinson

» Guardian: 25 years of His Dark Materials: Philip Pullman on the journey of a lifetime

» Washington Post, Michael Dirda: Can’t get enough Game of Thrones or Star Wars? New ...Read More

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Blinks: Mental Resiliency, John Scalzi, Guardian reviews, Scott Edelman practices social distancing

» The Conversation: Science fiction builds mental resiliency in young readers

» New York Times: By the Book: The Science Fiction Writer John Scalzi Readily Quits Reading

» Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Nick Martell, Hao Jingfang, Ian Whates, Breanna Teintze, Kat Dunn

» Scott Edelman practices social distancing while answering 95 questions from George R.R. Martin, Sarah Pinsker, Greg Bossert, Barry N. Malzberg, Michael Dirda, and many others ...Read More

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Blinks: David Mitchell, N.K. Jemisin, Marlon James, Desert-island SF books

» Guardian: David Mitchell on Earthsea – a rival to Tolkien and George RR Martin

» Guardian: NK Jemisin: ‘It’s easier to get a book set in black Africa published if you’re white’

» LA Times: Dystopian fiction has always been real for Ray Bradbury prize winner Marlon James

» Washington Post: Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar on Desert-island books: Science fiction tales set in isolation that feel just right ...Read More

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Blinks: Two Talks with Kim Stanley Robinson; Eric Brown’s reviews in Guardian

» Slate: Isaac Butler talked with Kim Stanley Robinson about Three Californias, Infinite Futures

» And at Wall Street Journal: Russell Gold talks with Kim Stanley Robinson: A Sci-Fi Author’s Boldest Vision of Climate Change: Surviving It

» Guardian: Eric Brown reviews Anne Charnock, Marc-Uwe Kling, AJ Hackwith, Andrew Hunter Murray, Menna van Praag ...Read More

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Blinks: William Gibson, Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, Best of 2019, reviews, dinner

» The New Yorker: How William Gibson Keeps His Science Fiction Real

» The Nation: The Rest Is Up to Us: Ted Chiang’s science fiction helps us look past the power of technology

» New York Times Magazine: How Chinese Sci-Fi Conquered America, about Ken Liu

» Wall Street Journal: Tom Shippey picks his Best Science-Fiction of 2019 by David Walton, Daniel Suarez, Cory Doctorow, Erin Craig, Michael Swanwick

» ...Read More

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Blinks: PW’s Best of 2019; NYT essays and reviews; Slate roundtable with Anders and Ashby

» Publishers Weekly’s Best SF/Fantasy/Horror of 2019 are by King, Turnbull, Hurley, Starling, McGuire, LaValle/Adams, and Wendig

» Recently in NY Times: For Some Horror Writers, Nothing Is Scarier Than a Changing Planet by Naomi Booth, discussing Amitav Ghosh and Jeff VanderMeer and others

» Also, Danielle Trussoni reviews horror by Lovecraft (annotated by Klinger), nonfiction by Kröger and Anderson, a novel by Marente de Moor, and a collection by ...Read More

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Blinks: Dirda on F&SF; Moreno-Garcia and Tidhar on SF/F; NYT reviews Tremblay, Booth, Winterson

» Washington Post: Michael Dirda celebrates anniversaries, including the 70th anniversary issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

» Washington Post: Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar discuss The weird, the wacky, the underappreciated: A new look at science fiction and fantasy

» NY Times Book Review: Danielle Trussoni reviews horror by Paul Tremblay and Naomi Booth

» NY Times: Dwight Garner reviews Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein ...Read More

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Blinks: Oates reviews Chiang; critics’ picks; sniffy about SF

» The New Yorker: Science Fiction Doesn’t Have to Be Dystopian; Joyce Carol Oates reviews Ted Chiang’s Exhalation

» Guardian: Jim Al-Khalili: Top 10 end-of-the-world novels – from Ballard to Pratchett with other titles by Crichton, Niven & Pournelle, Baxter, Brin, Sawyer, Mandel, Vonnegut, and Jones

» MIchael Dirda: Book World: Beyond George R.R. Martin: A critic’s pick of science fiction and fantasy reviewing Sladek, Ortiz, Langan, and others

» ...Read More

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