Andy Weir's novel has a gloriously unhinged plan to deal with a dimming sun by blowing up a continent, and fans noticed it missing from the film. Drew Goddard explains what was cut and why it still bugs him, which is a nice window into how hard-SF ideas survive, or don't, the trip to the screen. Spoiler-light if you've read the book.

Judith Tarr's SFF Bestiary column picks the animal sidekicks of fantasy, and this time it is the cat in Tanya Huff's 1990s Keeper series. A cozy urban fantasy set in Kingston, Ontario, written just before mobile phones took over, is a pleasant period piece in its own right. Good pick for anyone who likes Pratchett-adjacent cats with opinions.

Steve Davidson spent years reviving Amazing Stories, the magazine where Gernsback first gave the genre its name, and this remembrance comes from the artist who ran the Frank R. Paul website. It's a fan's story of a phone call out of the blue and the project that followed. A gentle reminder of how much of science fiction's history is kept alive by enthusiasts doing it for love.

After 1977 every producer with a smoke machine wanted a space opera, which gave the world Starcrash, Message From Space and the gloriously named The Beast in Space. Evan Puschak uses the knockoffs to work out what Star Wars itself got right, mixing 2001-grade realism with Saturday-serial adventure. Lightsabers sometimes included, at no extra charge.

A low-budget Canadian film with one set, a few strangers and a lot of number theory, which should not work and does. Kali Wallace comes at it from the science side, so the fun is in checking how rigorous the puzzle really is. Fair warning: the opening room is not kidding about the gore.

Lovecraft spent a career being afraid of things; Kingfisher gives you a 75-year-old woman making a sweater for a teddy bear, which is far more alarming to any elder god paying attention. Reading the Weird is one of the better long-running columns around, and the cats appear to be doing some of the heavy lifting here.

The Goldsmiths exists to reward fiction that bends the novel out of shape, which makes Miéville about as natural a winner as the prize could hope for. The news leads a File 770 roundup, so wander on down the list; that scroll is usually good for an idle ten minutes.

Gernsback's Amazing Stories turned 100 this year, a remarkable age for a title that has spent much of its life being declared finished. Davidson was the fan who took on the job of keeping that name alive. File 770's notice is short and fond, and it is a fine excuse to think about who looks after the old magazines.

After Patrick Stewart's death, Kottke did the sensible thing and went looking for what to rewatch, comparing other people's lists rather than adding one more opinion. The Inner Light is on it, naturally, as it is on everyone's. A gentle way to spend an evening with a very good actor.

Filed under science fiction and not Dinosaurs, because no palaeontologist would sign off on this one. A 1993 pitch reel for Saturday-morning raptors is exactly the kind of archival oddity that makes the internet worth keeping. Note the word reportedly: its provenance rests on the channel that posted it, so enjoy with mild scepticism.

An Oscar campaign on behalf of a sentient spider-rock is the most cheerful sentence Hollywood has produced in a while. It also quietly honours puppetry, a craft that rarely gets near this category. Grace may need to explain the ceremony in musical chords.

Award lists are the most honest kind of reading recommendation, since at least a jury had to sit through the whole pile. This one had Tamsyn Muir and Ann VanderMeer on it, which is reason enough to trust the shortlist. Worth a scan of the shorter categories too, where the odd thing you'd otherwise miss tends to hide.