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• Cover pr0n from Solaris: Kéthani by Eric Brown.


• More cover pr0n from the Genre Files: Ian Iain M. Banks' next Culture book, Matter.


• Still more cover pr0n from Subterranean Press: Pilot Light, a William Ashbless story found by Tim Powers and James P. Blaylock.


• Audible has a half-hour podcast interview with Orson Scott Card and Ben Bova.


• The Onion AV Club has posted a long interview Joss Whedon about Buffy, comics, Wonder Woman, Goners. [via Cultural Gutter]


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Susanna Clarke, author of the collection The Ladies of Grace Adieu.


• Free eBook: Halo by Tom Maddox. [via Quasar Dragon]


• Joe Haldeman is doing a book reading in Second Life. [via VCTB]


• Following his must-read comments in our unfinshed books post, John C. Wright lists books he could not put down.


• The folks at Yahoo Answers attempt to distinguish the difference between science fiction and fanasty. "uhhh. Sci-Fi is like things based on science but are not real and Fantasy comes from the imagination like unicorn and the Loch ness monster" [via Robert J. Sawyer]


• Two bits from Star ars Blog: BusinessWeek profile LucasFilm and Ain't It Cool News interviews Frank Oz.


• Real Science: Now that I can get a jetpack, there's nothing left to gripe about. Except the price. [via Optical Popitude]


• Fake Science: Seven warning signs of bogus science.


• Live Science lists The Top 10 Immortals.


• Blogzarro lists the Top 10 Signs You Might Be a Zombie.

Share: | Posted by John on Friday August 10, 2007 - 1:00 AM | Category: Tidbits | © 2007 SF Signal

I saw a friend of mine the UK yesterday and he talked about the Banks book. Can't wait. Don't know if it'll make it into the book, but the draft included a massive appendix of notes by banks on the background.

Posted by Fred Kiesche on Friday August 10, 2007 at 9:22 AM

""uhhh. Sci-Fi is like things based on science but are not real and Fantasy comes from the imagination like unicorn and the Loch ness monster" [via Robert J. Sawyer]"

I think this answer should be accepted as the final and definitive exegesis of this perennial conundrum. Because Mr. Sawyer says "uhhh..." before answering, it is clear that he was asked this question suddenly, as if stepping out of the shower, or startled out of deep sleep, by an unexpected and inopportune interviewer. Such unreflective ejaculations presage a spontaneous, hence authentic, answer.

Let's be fair. If you have to answer qucikly, you would not go on about the degree of verisimilitude of counterfactual assumptions in a secondary-world setting. If someone jumped out of an ally and asked you to say the difference between SF and Fantasy or he would dash your brains out with a baseball bat, and you only had one second to answer:

"uhhh. SF! Rocketships! Fantasy! Unicorns!"

You know you would. You were thinking it. You were.

Posted by John Wright on Friday August 10, 2007 at 10:21 AM

My bad. To clarify, that quote was from some user on the Yahoo forums, and not Sawyer.

Not that that makes your answer any less entertaining.

Posted by John on Friday August 10, 2007 at 10:27 AM

oops! I attributed the "uhh" quote to Sawyer. Sorry.

Posted by John Wright on Friday August 10, 2007 at 10:28 AM

More cover pr0n from the Genre Files: Ian M. Banks' next Culture book, Matter.

I read that his new book will have an appendix in order to explain its story better....

Just because he divorced his Wife does not mean he should divorce his editor as well.

By the way it is Iain, not Ian.

Posted by joshua corning on Friday August 10, 2007 at 7:45 PM