February: a few links

Self-publishing vs. (or, and) traditional publishing. Chuck Wendig plays indie publishing Bingo. Damien G. Walter asks if self-publishing is killing the mainstream and welcomes our new viral bookseller overlords. Charles Stross buys Baboon Fart Story. Ramez Naam says we're all on the same side. You know what traditional publishing seems to have that indie publishing doesn't have so much? Prizes. You know what we could do? Have a big prize thing where every entrant reads three randomly assigned books, to filter out a short list. You know what we need? A patron.

SFWA stupid petition snafu. Steven Brust on the petition. SL Huang's timeline of the 2013 SFWA controversies. Sarah Hoyt's perspective, with some animated GIFs. Black Gate on ew, and Mary Robinette Kowal responding. Juliet E. McKenna on why the SFWA shoutback matters. Challenge for 2014 is to see who can get even better writers than Harlan Ellison, Mike Resnick, Gene Wolfe, Larry Niven, Barry N. Malzberg and (my old MindFlight buddy!) Amy Sterling Casil to sign something even dumber. I want stuff like "We, John Le Carré, Doris Lessing, and Salman Rushdie, are a total duoche LOL. PSP We will du the prise for indys thing you made up kx." Earlier: Mary Robinette Kowal requests the twelve weasels of the SFWA shut the fuck up.

& recently here at Aargh! né Lorraine:

• Worldbuilding, intertextuality, negative capability
• Complete Draughtsman's Contract bungle-thru
• Note on Elysium and Christ
• A snippet from a work-in-progress
• Review of Fearsome Journeys: the New Solaris Book of Fantasy, first published in Interzone
• A sexist rant
• A detailed take-down of a sexist rant
• David Graeber and SF
• Free ebook: The Owl, the Pussycat and the Jetpack (three SFF stories) 
• Does .@ exist in science fiction?
• The science fiction of gamification (a bit updated)

Or even ... here's a screwy, moonstruck old thought! Could some of the established awards open up a new self-published category?