Here’s my weekly list of interesting SF&F-related links, which in a fit of originality I decided to call… The Week That Was! Previous installments can be found here. As always, this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but instead just a collection of articles that struck my interest this week. If you’re looking for something more comprehensive, I suggest the daily Tidbits posts over on SF Signal.

Probably the biggest news in SF&F this week: Tor announced that it would be releasing its books DRM-free as of July 2012. They’re obviously not the first genre publisher to do this, but they’re definitely the biggest. Let’s hope others follow suit. Also worth a look: Charles Stross’ reaction to that last bit of news.

Is realism in fantasy a requirement or an excuse when it comes to portraying race or gender roles? Aidan at A Dribble of Ink posted a thought-provoking article by Daniel Abraham this week. Make sure to check out the comments too.

You’ve probably seen this gorgeous infographic about the Hugos already, but just in case, here it is again. Can you guess who will get my vote in the Best Fanzine category of the Hugo Awards this year?

Jo Walton is, in addition to being a great author, also one of my very favorite genre commentators. Her reviews, essays, articles and other writings are consistently entertaining and insightful. Her writing style is something I wish I could pull off, but my brain just isn’t wired the right way to write in that conversational “let’s chat about this cool idea I just had” style. Also, her reading tastes and lists of favorite authors and books are remarkably similar to mine. So anyway, I’m a fan of her as an author and a blogger. One of my favorite posts by her offered a classification of the different types of series, and this week she wrote a great follow-up to that post.

And finally, two of my reviews were posted on Tor.com this past week: Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig and The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin.  (Depending on when you read this, they may also be posted here on Far Beyond Reality – I generally wait about a week before I post the reviews I write for them here.)

And that’s it for this week! Coming up for next week, I hope to post a huge interview – huge as in “very long” but also as in “with a famous author.” The interview’s in the can – I just have to format and post it. I’m also about to start work on another interview with another Big Name Author. That one will probably go up in a few weeks, around the time that author’s new novel hits the shelves. Yes, I could probably be more vague, but only if I tried. Finally, I have a bunch of review assignments for Tor.com, so many that I literally have no time to read anything else. As a result, you’ll probably see a few more links to reviews I posted there coming up here on FBR, but I’m hoping to supplement that with some short non-review articles, the aforementioned interviews and maybe a Fifty Page Fridays post or two. As always, thanks for reading!