A few links of interest from around the web:

• On dystopias: Kevin Bankston at Slate considers the popularity of the dystopic novel: “The fact that so many people are turning toward these dire visions of the future may seem like cause for worry, but it is also a sign of hope.”  From “Prototyping a Better Tomorrow: How science fiction can help us create a better future.”
• On power: From “The Guardian view on feminism and sci-fi: asking what if women ruled the world“: “science fiction, as a genre, is especially adept at challenging the balance of power between the sexes, for its job is to ask the question “what if?”, and it has, as such, frequently been the site of pointed societal critique.”
• NPR profiles new poet laureate, Tracy K. Smith, author of Life on Mars: “Poems, Smith says, house contradictions and disrupt certainties — and, fundamentally, ‘connect us more fully to our own inner lives and to the lives of others.”‘”  From “Tracy K. Smith, New U.S. Poet Laureate, Calls Poems Her ‘Anchor’“
• On terminology: Compelling Science Fiction editor Joe Stech on hard, soft, and plausible SF: “Plausible Science Fiction“