A rather sombre linkdump

I’ve added some photos of myself at various public readings and literary events to my Amazon Author Central pages. By now I have grown so much into the whole digital author role that I nearly forget the fact that I used to have something of a presence in the local literary scene.

In other news, Rose Lemberg has a great post about feminist characters and why speculative fiction needs more types of female characters than the warrior woman and the professional woman.

At Omnivoracious, Susan J. Morris has a nice post on crossgenre writing.

Kulturzeit, a cultural program on German TV, broadcast a report about Terry Pratchett today. It’s mostly about his Alzheimer’s and the Choosing to Die documentary he did for the BBC, but it’s still a nice report. My Mom even called me up today to ask if I’d seen it.

Finally, there are also two deaths of note for science fiction and fantasy fans.

Ralph McQuarrie, concept designer on the Star Wars trilogy, has died aged 82. The Star Wars universe that we’re all so familiar with wouldn’t have looked the same without him.

Welsh actor Philip Madoc died aged 77. Doctor Who fans will remember him for playing the memorable villains the War Lord in the 1969 story War Games and Solon in the 1975 story The Brain of Morbius. Both stories are in my personal top ten for the original series, not least because Philip Madoc made a great villain. I’m a bit surprised he never showed up in the new series, particularly considering that he’s Welsh. Apparently, he also spent a lot of time playing Nazis and evil Russians (sigh), probably because he happened to speak both German and Russian. The last thing I saw him in was a Midsummer Murders episodes some time ago.