Last weekend, Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon; Ng's acceptance speech calls Campbell, one of the field's most influential editors, a "fascist" and expresses solidarity with the Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters. Read the rest

Escape from the Haunted Mansion is a massive, ambitious free papercraft project to download, print, mount on coreboard, cut out, assemble and play. I have no idea if the gameplay is any good, but the model is freaking gorgeous. It's from the good folks at Disney Experience, who have a wealth of papercraft Disney projects and other fan media for you to play with. (via Metafilter) Read the rest

Pillman is Oscar "Nanochess" Toledo's reimplementation of Pacman ("a game about a yellow man eating pills") in 512 bytes -- small enough to fit in a boot sector -- written in 8088 assembler. (via Four Short Links) Read the rest

Ben writes, "First featured on Boing Boing in 2010, the fan-supported TV series JourneyQuest has continued for nine years(!) and is now Kickstarting a fourth season. It's an open world with a copyleft license, proving that encouraging sharing, remixing, allowing commercial derivatives, and not treating fans like criminals can still lead to success." Read the rest

Noah Scalin (previously) writes, "I'm so devastated to learn about Mad magazine's imminent demise. I just recently finished my own portrait of Alfred E. Neuman, made from stickers, inspired by the reboot of the magazine (which features new works by artists inspired by growing up reading Mad). Mad was such a seminal part of my childhood. As a budding activist I loved seeing popular culture, politics and advertising skewered in such a clever & subversive way (as children's entertainment!). The world is losing a shining beacon just as it needs it most." Read the rest

Leo Corvaisier, an art student in Paris, created this 3D rendered "bio-modem" based on an illustration from Things From the Flood, an alternative future-history of Sweden published in 2016 by Simon Stålenhag (previously), which was turned into a crowdfunded RPG last year. Corvaisier notes, "Tried getting a handpaint feeling to stick with Stålenhag's illustration style." (via JWZ) Read the rest

Charlie ("Charles N") Brown was the force behind Locus Magazine (previously) until his death in 2009; he hired me to be a columnist for the magazine in 2006 and I've been writing for them ever since. Read the rest

Deities and Demigods is a storied resource book from the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: between being copyright trolled by false claims of infringement on the Lovecraft estate (and a more valid copyright claim over the use of Elric of Melnibon mythos), and the general uselessness of gods and demigods to the vast majority of D&D campaigns, and the book's usefulness to nutjobs who claimed that D&D was a trojan horse for occult indoctrination, Deities and Demigods is a title whose reputation redounds even today. Read the rest

Jamelle Bouie (previously), has proposed an alternate Black Batman, with an accompanying background story that goes beyond race-switching Bruce Wayne and instead looks at the cultural and racial politics of America and finds exactly the right niche where a Black vigilante in a mask would fit. Read the rest

You can make your own perfectly adorable chibi crocheted AT-AT Walker with this $5.90 pattern from Polish textile artist Kamila Krawczyk, AKA Krawka. (via The Stars My Destination) Read the rest

If you attended the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose last year, or if you're signed up to attend or support the next Worldcon in Dublin, Ireland, you're eligible to nominate for the Hugo Award; you should have received an email this week about it with a link to follow. Read the rest

The Alien Chestburster Christmas Ornament is just the thing to finish your nerdmas tree; it's from Pittsburgh's Creature Replicas, who will also sell you a life-size 'burster, a fossil Tremors graboid, or some damned fine Aliens magnets. Read the rest

Russell Walks' astounding and vast collection of licensed, retro-styled Star Wars propaganda posters are also available in postcard form. Read the rest

Spoonflower's gorgeous selection of Haunted Mansion patterns can be printed on demand on wallpaper, giftwrap, or fabric: from the green strips of the maids' uniforms to the purple and black stripes of the butler's vests, to motifs picked up from the characters and decor (tightrope walker girl's floral print, hitchhiking ghosts, Leota's seance room), the variety is amazing. (via Disney's Haunted Mansion) Read the rest

It's the 20th anniversary of Anchorhead, Michael Gentry's seminal horror text adventure; to commemorate the occasion, Ryan Veeder and Jenni Polodna worked with 84 developers to create Cragne Manor, a tribute, whose puzzles are ingenious, frustrating and amazing. Read the rest

Combine a paperclip, tin foil, a cereal box, and a print out to make the Die Hard John McClane Air Duct Christmas Ornament. PS: Die Hard is a Christmas movie. (via Kottke) Read the rest

Joel Bonasera liked my novel Walkaway so much that he made a 3D-printable bookmark based on Will Stahle's amazing cover art! Read the rest