The Half-Made Links (1)

• The first issue of the new review/critical magazine Salon Futura went up recently, including Sam Jordison on The Waterworks by EL Doctorow, Jonathan Clements on Satoshi Kon, Karen Burnham on short fiction and Cheryl Morgan on various books. There are also video interviews with China Mieville and Lauren Beukes (although I wish they were available as text), and a podcast roundtable on the changing conversation (ditto). Grumbles aside, it’s a good project, and they’re open to submissions.
• Some good responses to Elizabeth Moon
• I am frustrated to have not had the time to respond to Andrew Wheeler’s review of How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe, with which I disagree thoroughly (although it’s not as infuriating as Mike Cobley’s take in the latest Interzone); Ander Monson’s review is better, but still feels like it’s skating over the surface of the novel. Which is to say: it’s worth a look.
• Pete Young offers some thoughts on The Windup Girl
• Kate Roiphe on Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay
• Alison Flood on Tanith Lee’s British Fantasy Award-winning Death’s Master
• Reviews of Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Gary K Wolfe, Karen Burnham, and Paul Kincaid
• John Self on Jose Saramago’s Blindness
• Matthew Jones on Doctor Who, series five
• Anil Menon on Narrative Power: Encounters, Celebrations, Struggles, edited by L. Timmel Duchamp.
• Paul Raven faces up to Rob Shearman’s Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical
• Martin Lewis considers the Guardian’s reviews of Super Sad True Love Story and Things We Didn’t See Coming
• Mike Johnstone on this year’s Asimov’s: January, February, March, April/May
• And finally (until part two), hooray for Small Beer Press, for they are publishing a Geoff Ryman short fiction collection, Paradise Tales. I covet it.