Thursday links

I've been trying to finish a book over the last few weeks, hence my relative silence round these parts. However, some links that have got my attention lately:

• Angel Zapata on an apparent case of plagiarism; see also SFWA.
• Jo Walton on Larry Niven's A Gift From Earth.
  
• Charles Stross on Mars and history.
• Lev Grossman meets Iain (M) Banks.
• US gun politics as reflected in spec-fic.
  
• Rewriting Star Wars Non-Violent Civil Disobedience
  
• When Sequipedali-ais rule the Earth.
  
• Somewhat old news now, but the Kim Stanley Robinson/Booker prize/Margaret Atwood flap is set out here; also, thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis.
• A different Margaret Atwood question: how do you review friends?
  
• Also old, but still cool: a concordance to John M Ford's The Dragon Waiting. [1]

[1] ETA: Just after I posted this, the latest issue of David's Langford's irreplaceable Ansible arrived, with the following news: "John M Ford (1957-2006) is still fondly remembered, but his non-fan family would rather we didn't. Rumours of awkwardness have been circulating for some time, and NESFA's Instant Message 825 reports that a hoped paperback reissue of their Ford collection is unlikely: '... it does not appear that the Estate will license any further printings. This appears to be the policy for all of Ford's works, not just the Nesfa Press book, so that only those works under contract can be reprinted." I know I'm a Ford-fan, I have no idea what the Estate's reasons are and, as DL says, these rumours had been circulating for a while; but this just leaves me speechless.