Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for April 10, 2015

And here is our weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative fiction from around the web, this time in a special awards debate edition:

Speculative fiction in general:

• At SF Signal, several writers, critics and fans remember Terry Pratchett and Leonard Nimoy.
• At the Guardian, John Mullan talks about Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin and the triumph of fantasy fiction.
• io9 wonders why fantasy versus science fiction has to be an either/or question.  
• Guy Gavriel Kay announces his latest novel Children of Earth and Sky.
• Cat Rambo points out that diversity is not a straightjacket.
• Betsy Dornbush talks about worldbuilding and racism in her Seven Eyes series. 
• At the Fantasy Book Café, Rachel Hartman talks about the gender system in her books. 
• Helen Lowe shares her appreciation of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson.
• Ken Liu talks about Silkpunk and a new aesthetic. 
• Laxmi Hariharan wonders why dystopian YA is so dominated by western settings and characters.
• The Edmonton Journal remembers 17th century proto science fiction writer Margaret Cavendish.
• Arianne Tex Thompson talks about language barriers and translators in SFF.
• Jeff Somers talks about writing and constructed languages.
• Doug Molitor talks about time travel logic.
• At The Verge, Bryan Bishop remembers the 1980s science fiction TV show Max Headroom.
• The Atlantic explains why Atlanta is so popular among directors of dystopian SF movies.
• At Tor.com, Theresa Delucci discusses what to look for in season 5 of Game of Thrones.
• At Amazing Stories, Nina Munteanu explains why she has had enough of Game of Thrones.
• K.L. Phelps remembers The Empire Strikes Back.
  

Awards:

• Voting for the David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy opens April 10.
• The British Fantasy Society's annual short story competition is open.
• The winners of the 2015 Philip K. Dick Award have been announced.
• The winners of the James Tiptree Award for 2014 have also been announced.
• The winners of the 2015 BSFA Awards have been announced.
• The winners of the 2015 Ditmar Awards have been announced. 
• The nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke Awards have been announced.
• The nominees for the 2015 Hugo Awards have been announced to great controversy.
• File 770 has a round-up of reactions to the Hugo Awards announcements.  
• George R.R. Martin weighs in on the Hugo Awards, their history and the current controversy.
• Should you be a Hugo voter and wish to vote "No award" in one or more categories, Kevin Standalee has a handy guide how to do that.

Writing, publishing and promotion:

• Michael Galloway discusses thumbnail novels as a method of idea generation.
• Dean Wesley Smith talks about writing into the dark.
• Thomas Watson talks about blazing trails. 
• Elena Linville talks about the things we do for research.
• Kay Kenyon explains why you might need a writing conference.
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch talks about downturns in writing careers and how writers can prepare for them.
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch also talks about the freelance scramble.
• J.M. Ney-Grimm talks about what happens after the manuscript is complete.
• Alexis Radcliff shares 5 tips for creating your own bookcovers. 
• Sylvia Frost shares some tips for book cover typography.
• Juliet McKenna talks about her adventures in the European Parliament trying to get the new VAT rules changed.
  

Interviews:

• Den of Geek interviews Ursula LeGuin.
• Bibliotropic interviews Ken Liu.
• Kyra Halland interviews K.K. Gould.
• Kyra Halland also interviews J.L. McFadden.
  

Reviews:

• Elena Linville reviews The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley. 
• Paul Weimer reviews The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu. 
• Rachel Cordasco reviews The Old Axolotl: Hardware Dreams by Jacek Dukaj.
• Michael Patrick Hicks reviews Brother Frankenstein by Michael Bunker. 
• Michael Patrick Hicks also reviews Anatomy of Evil by Brian Pinkerton.
• Paul Levinson reviews episode 1.12 of Twelve Monkeys.
  

Crowdfunding:

• The writing team of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller is looking for supporters.
• Broken Saviours, a comic book series by Todd Mitchell, is looking for backers.
  

Con reports:

• Club Jade shares some tips about remaining respectful while photographing cosplayers at conventions.
• At Black Gate, Sean McLaghlan shares his experiences at Dysprosium, i.e. Eastercon 66 in Heathrow.
  

Science and technology: 

• The Scientific American believes that intelligent robots must uphold human rights. 
• Live Science wonders how to raise a moral robot.
• Can NASA send a manned mission to Mars by the 2030s?  And what will this mean for the funding of the Internation Space Station?
• Aliens will probably be quite big, a new study claims. 

Free online fiction: 

• "The Skin Mechanic" by Edward Cox at the Gollancz blog. 
• "Playing with Reality" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
• "Dovecote Red", part 46 of Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts.
• Chapter 1 of "The Ballad of the Bad Lass", part 85 of The Descendants by Landon Porter. 

Odds and ends:

• Watch a trailer for Pixels.
• Watch a trailer for the remake of Poltergeist.
• Watch a TV trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron. 
• Watch another TV trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron. 
• Watch a "Behind the scenes" featurette for Avengers: Age of Ultron.
• Watch a trailer for the new SyFy Channel series Killjoys.
• A stunning street art tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett has appeared in London.