Here’s Far Beyond Reality’s weekly roundup of articles and reviews from around the web. Keep in mind: this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list of every important SF&F news item, just a look at a few things I found interesting and wanted to share. Enjoy!

To balance out the Things I Know? post by Jeff VanderMeer I linked to last week, here’s the other side of the coin: Ten Bits of Advice Writers Should Stop Giving Aspiring Writers by Nick Mamatas. This is a funny post, and all too true, even if it may offend a few folks.

(By the way, speaking of that post by Jeff VanderMeer and how those ideas can also apply to bloggers? This is how not to do it. I have opinions about the original review and the subsequent back-and-forth, but I’m not taking sides here because hoo boy am I glad I wasn’t involved. I may post my own review of the book later on, once the dust has settled!)

And here is my last “10 Rules for SFF Writers” link for a good long time: “rules” i09 wishes more SFF writers would break. Do you agree?

The shortlist for this year’s British Science Fiction Awards has been announced! What are your favorites?

I love this quote from a recent interview with one of my all time favorite authors, Neal Stephenson, about the title of his recent novel Reamde: “We were thinking of just calling it “Readme” so we wouldn’t have to keep explaining it, but after some consideration we decided maybe that wasn’t distinctive enough, and maybe a little too plaintive, and so we went back to Reamde.”  Plaintive. I just love that choice of words.

Cory Doctorow (another favorite author) sent this exciting tweet on January 26th: “2nd draft of HOMELAND (Sequel to Little Brother) now complete; estimated pub 2013.” I’m definitely looking forward to that one!

Fair reader, there is something you must know about me: I am a giant Monty Python geek, of the own-almost-everything-they-did-on-DVD  level. When I saw this announcement of a reunion, for a science fiction comedy movie no less… well, I got really excited, to put it it mildly.

File under Maybe a Small Pat on the Back: my Tor.com review of City of Ruins got quoted on the back cover of Boneyards, the newest novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Also for the Maybe a Small Pat on the Back section: Rachel Aaron posted a wonderful open letter To Book Reviewers. I’m obviously a reviewer, but another reason this goes in that section: Rachel’s tweet to announce that post read: “New blog post! Open letter to book reviewers, aka, amazingsauce people http://bit.ly/zvZLZf @SmartBitches @booksmugglers @sraets @robwillb.” I’m very flattered to be included in that list — and to be called “amazingsauce”!

“Genres create a false paradigm.  One that presumes that every book is like another, when in fact they are all unique.” Read this excellent article by Justin at Staffer’s Musings. Then go browse through the gallery at Good Show Sir for a comical way to make a similar point.

And that’s it for this week! Were there any other SF&F news items this week that you thought were particularly interesting, or any reviews or articles you want to share?