SF Signal: SF Tidbits for 1/31/08

SF Tidbits for 1/31/08

The Telegraph lists 100 books every child should read, which includes genre (mostly fantasy) favorites including The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. [via When Gravity Fails]

Jeff VanderMeer has an unscientific (but fun) survey going on book cover art. (via Neth Space)

Here's video of David Brin talking about Science Fiction in Academia.

At Fangs, Fur & Fey, Justin Gustainis lists 13 Things You Didn't Know About Black Magic Woman, his urban fantasy novel.

Discover magazine lists 20 Things You Didn't Know About Science Fiction. My favorite: "Sci-fi author Gene Wolfe helped develop the machine that cooks Pringles"!

SciFi Weekly's Site of the Week: Talking Squids in Outer Space!

Two humorous Star Trek videos for you:
- First: Michael May has a reminder of why the original Kirk is best.
- Second: Double Viking is sharing a video of Star Trek scenes that look NSFW but really aren't. But consider it NSFW anyway.

I think another thing every kid should read would be a book that teaches basic math skills. You know, the kind of books that the people from the telegraph missed, making them think that 1+1=1 (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, one book in total), or that 7+3=2 (The Chronicles of Narnia Box Set, 7 books, and His Dark Materials Box Set, 3 books, come to two books out of a hundred in total).

Then again, I'm just nitpicking. Overall their list seems quite good.

Though I don't quite agree with their recommended age brackets (Do you really need to be older to appreciate Treasure Island than to understand The Wizard of Earthsea ? What, did they watch the mini-series instead of reading the book?)

Posted by Yaron on Monday February 04, 2008 at 9:39 AM