Black Sun’s prologue introduces us to Serapio, a boy who is groomed by his mother to become the avatar of a Crow God — a process that entails being ritually blinded. All of this is to prepare him for a specific date in the future: the day of Convergence, when the sun shall turn black…
2021 Hugo Award Review: The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin
In her 2016 short story “The City Born Great” N. K. Jemisin introduced us to a homeless youth who was actually the avatar of New York City. The City We Became is a novel that takes the original short story as its prologue and proceeds to expand on the premise: the city’s avatar has gone…
2021 Hugo Award Reviews: The Empress of Salt and Fortune/Riot Baby
WWAC’s coverage of the 2021 Hugo Award finalists continues with a look at the final two contenders for Best Novella: Tochi Onyebuchi’s Riot Baby and Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune…
Bang in the Coffin: Looking Back at Gatiss and Moffat’s Dracula
The BBC’s three-part adaptation of Dracula, written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, did not air very long ago at all — just last year, in fact. However, it aired in the January of last year. This places it in the slice of 2020 termed pre-pandemic: an already antediluvian era that must surely be due…
2021 Hugo Award Reviews: Ring Shout/FINNA
Welcome back to another instalment of WWAC’s trip through the Best Novella category at the 2021 Hugo Awards. This time, we shall be covering P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout and Nino Cipri’s FINNA…
[Patreon Exclusive] Gangland Dreamland: Batman in 2020
Our monthly Patron-exclusive essay series continues. You can read all of these incredible analyses for as little as a dollar a month on our Patreon. 2020 was not a good year to be Batman. In the pages of the comics, he had his own company and all of the gadgets that come with it swiped from…
2021 Hugo Award Reviews: Upright Women Wanted/Come Tumbling Down
Welcome back to another installment of WWAC’s series discussing the prose finalists for the 2021 Hugo Awards. Having covered the Best Short Story and Best Novelette category, it is now time to start on Best Novella with a look at Sarah Gailey’s Upright Women Wanted and Seanan McGuire’s Come Tumbling Down…
2021 Ignyte Awards: Rebecca Roanhorse and Tochi Onyebuchi Amongst Winners
The second annual Ignyte Awards were presented on Saturday at FIYAHCON, a science fiction and fantasy convention emphasising racial diversity.
2021 Hugo Award Reviews: Two Truths and a Lie/The Inaccessibility of Heaven
WWAC concludes its look at the finalists for the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novelette with reviews of “Two Truths and a Lie” by Sarah Pinsker and “The Inaccessibility of Heaven” by Aliette de Bodard.
2021 Hugo Award Reviews: The Pill/Monster
Thank you for joining us once again as WWAC continues its trip through the 2021 Hugo Award finalists with reviews of two more stories in the Best Novelette category…
Jim Butcher, Andy Weir, T. Kingfisher Amongst 2021 Dragon Award Winners
Atlanta’s Dragon Con was been hit by further disruptions from the ongoing pandemic: last year’s iteration was virtual; this year’s Dragon Con was physical, but operating at reduced capacity. One event unaffected by COVID-19, however, was the presentation of the annual Dragon Awards. Decided with the aid of an online poll open to the public,…
2021 Hugo Award Reviews: Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super/Helicopter Story
Having covered all six finalists for Best Short Story, WWAC’s coverage of the Hugo Awards now moves on to the Best Novelette category, starting with A. T. Greenblatt’s “Burn or The Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super” and Isabel Fall’s “Helicopter Story” (formerly titled “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter”).