• Trailer: Ghost Rider starring Nicholas Cage.


• The release date of Superman Returns has been moved up to Wednesday, June 29. Also, there's a new trailer.


• Joss Whedon will be writing a Spiderman story. [via Whedonesque]


• A CRACKED Guide to Futuristic Supe Drugs. [via Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing]


• Brothercyst interviews John Crowley, author of Little, Big.


• Jason Nahrung interviews Justine Larbalestier [via Talking Squid]


• SFF Audio podcast interviews Harlan Ellison. (Favorite snippet: When looking for assistance in trying to recall something, Ellison says to the interviewer, "You have access to the Internet. I don't.")

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 31, 2006 at 1:17 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Classic Wolfe - a story set in modern times that manages to brings in tons of fantasy elements and still pulls off an amazing read. It's part thriller, part fantasy, and all Wolfe.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The town of Castleview, Illinois is in for a wild night as a vision of a phantom castle pushes Will Shields, the new owner of the local car dealership, into an adventure involving werewolves (sort of), vampires (maybe), and faries (definitively.) Oh, and there's some Arthurian legend to boot (I'm almost 100% positive.) Oh and the book mentions Sasquatch, but he's not in it really (at least, I don't think so.)

MY REVIEW:
PROS: An intricate and engaging story - Wolfe always makes you pay attention throughout. If you're tired or watching TV you best not try to read it. But the rewards for reading carefully are involvement in a rich narrative that just seems better than most works today.
CONS: You have to have your thinking cap on - Wolfe is a demanding author. If you're looking for a quick read at bedtime this isn't it.
BOTTOM LINE: Fun, interesting, and somewhat enigmatic, the story makes you want to read it and figure out what is going on. Fans of Wolfe should make sure and pick this one up.

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Posted by Scott Shaffer at Wednesday May 31, 2006 at 11:49 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

I know you SFSignal readers love you some Bladerunner. (Sarcasm) So you all should be pleased to know that Warner Home Video is is planning to release a 25th anniversary version of the movie which they claim is the "final cut" of the film. This new DVD will have all previous edits of the film on it to cater to your personal favorite version of the film. I think the big draw here is that the "directors cut" that seems to be the crowning favorite was never released in an optimal aspect ratio and format that is common to most collectors edition DVD's today. This "breaking news" (chuckle) comes courtesy of The Register: Definitive Bladerunner heads for DVD.

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Posted by Trent Ditto at Wednesday May 31, 2006 at 10:39 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

Finalists for the 2006 Aurora Award, given to Canadian works in both French and English, were announced. Here are some of the nominees:

BEST LONG-FORM WORK IN ENGLISH

• Migration (Species Imperative #2) by Julie E. Czerneda


• Cagebird by Karin Lowachee


• Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer


• Silences of Home by Caitlin Sweet


• Lone Wolf by Edo van Belkom


• Spin by Robert Charles Wilson [SF Signal review]

• "She's Such a Nasty Morsel" by Julie E. Czerneda


• "Transubstantiation" by Derwin Mak


• "Identity Theft" by Robert J. Sawyer [SF Signal review]


• "Alexander's Road" by Karl Schroeder


• "Going Harvey in the Big House" by Douglas Smith


• "Like Monsters of the Deep" by Hayden Trenholm


• "Mayfly" by Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 31, 2006 at 12:03 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Batwoman is returning to the comics after a decades-long absence. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


• Dragon page interviews John Meaney, author of The Nulapeiron Sequence: Paradox, Context and Resolution. [via Pyr-o-mania]


• Geodesica author Sean Williams has some things to say about a recent SFWA bulletin that says "time travel is fantasy." [via Emerald City]


• Why Science Fiction is like Diabetes.


• A brief look at the science fiction scene in China. [via SFBC blog]


• Battlestar Galactica goes comic.


• SciFi Ranter Girl is back online!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 30, 2006 at 11:37 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY:

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Ned survives the ending of Zepplins West, and meets up with Mark Twain and Jules Verne to deal with pirates, martians, and time travel.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Ned's narration is fantastic; Excellent mixing of some classics of Science Fiction; Some truely funny moments.
CONS: The ending feels a bit rushed.
BOTTOM LINE: An excellent follow up to Zepplins West with alot more humor. A fine homage to pulp novels of the past.

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Posted by Tim Zinsky at Tuesday May 30, 2006 at 11:19 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Non-traditional story that is still interesting and worth reading.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The narrative surveys the most important steps of primate evolution from the earliest primates at the time of the dinosaur extinction through the current day (and then beyond.) There is a short story along with each one that helps describe the type of life they may have lead. The book finally ends with the destruction of Earth due to the demise of the sun.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Very interesting and realistic look at primate evolution.
CONS: Not a true story with a single set of characters and plot - more a series of vignettes. The ending seems over the top.
BOTTOM LINE: I enjoyed it overall and appreciated the science and fiction present in the story. The speculation on evolution in a post-holocaust Earth at the end of the book just seems too fantastic, but Baxter is unapologetic about it, stating upfront that he's being a bit crazy.

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Posted by Scott Shaffer at Tuesday May 30, 2006 at 6:24 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

File under: Useless Devices.

Numley, a "Web 2.0 copyright and DRM (digital rights management) corporation", has created a BookFob, a USB stick that contains eBooks and the software to read them. The idea is that you could carry around a digital library and plug it into any windows-based PC to read your books. And, in accordance with their DRM roots, the eBooks are protected from copying, printing and distribution.

Is this a good idea? Methinks someone was asleep at the money-making machine. I think MobileRead says it best:

That's exactly what we've craved for ages: crippled e-books that can expire, are not printable and have the copy and paste feature disabled - provided that you are using Microsoft Windows, because otherwise the reader won't work at all. And if this isn't enough to make fresh milk sour, check out their BookFob Library, where you can buy excellent public domain books such as Around the World in 80 Days, assuming that the "buy it now" link would actually work.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 30, 2006 at 6:23 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Flawed but fun.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The two heirs of the Seriatt Royal Household race to claim their rightful position of power.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Brimming with action; relentlessly fast paced.
CONS: Some moments broke suspension of disbelief; Delgado character less likable than in previous book.
BOTTOM LINE: Read this with a reinforced suspension of disbelief.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 30, 2006 at 12:17 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

You want links to interviews? We got your links to interviews right here!

• Meme Therapy interviews Elizabeth Bear, author od Hammered/Scardown/Worldwired


• SF Site interviews Pat Cadigan, author of Mindplayers


• SF Crowsnest interviews Hal Duncan, author of Vellum: The Book of All Hours.


• SciFi Weekly interviews Frederik Pohl, author of the Gateway series and numerous short stories, some of which are collected in Platinum Pohl..


• Publishers Weekly interviews Natasha Randall, who offers a new translation of Yevgeny Zamyatin's classic sf novel We. [via Locus Online]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 29, 2006 at 6:03 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 29, 2006 at 12:00 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

For those who don't know, Stephen King has been writing a column for Entertainment Weekly, the magazine in which (I think) JP likes to wrap dead fish before he steps on them and lights them on fire.

The latest issue's column offers King's Summer Book Awards. Along with the The Book of the Summer (The Ruins by Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan which was later made into a movie by Sam Raimi) and Best Outright Horror Novelist (Bentley Little, author of The Store and Dispatch), he also sites Robert Charles Wilson as the Best Science Fiction Writer.

Quoth the King:

I'm not a big science-fiction fan, but I'll read anything with a story and a low geek factor. Wilson is a hell of a storyteller, and the geek factor in his books is zero. Like Battletsar Galactica on TV, this is SF that doesn't know it's SF. His current novel, Spin, is good. Two earlier books, Darwinia and Blind Lake, are even better. There's plenty of imagination here, as well as character and heart.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday May 28, 2006 at 8:20 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: An extremely compelling love story that happens to involve a librarian and his artist wife. I can see why it was a bestseller and why it was critically acclaimed. The sci-fi is overall lighter than most sci-fi books, but the implications of uncontrolled time travel are relevant and dealt with well. Niffenegger demonstrates that you can have a great story involving real, deep characters that also has a pretty massive sci-fi element to it at the same time.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Henry is a dashing, punk-rock loving librarian who also happens to be one of the chrono-displaced. Clair is a debutante artist that falls in love with him throughout their 30+ year relationship. Their life together extends from Clair's childhood - as Henry travels back and meets here - through Henry's whole life. The love story is powerful yet subtle as the characters deal with adversity and death along with the joys of life. Henry can't control his journeys through time - he's pushed out by stress, and travels to destinations without knowing where he is (and the fact that he always arrives stark naked often have disastrous consequences.)

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Great story, fantastic characters, and a strong sci-fi element that matters. It also contains a message about the importance of living in and enjoying the present.
CONS: The adversity might be a bit contrived, and the sci-fi explanations are a bit on the soft side. Some time travel paradoxes don't seem to be adequately explained, for example. None of the characters really recover from the loss of love and it wears thin a bit.
BOTTOM LINE: While I can certainly see some members of the 'he-man woman-haters club' dismiss this book as a pure romance novel, it really deserves a read if you can appreciate the complete scope of the work. And don't be confused, there is real sci-fi here in the personal paradox issues of time travel and an explanation for what turns out to be a growing number of chrono-displaced people. The love story is very strong and palpable - you can feel what Henry feels for his wife, his mother, and ultimately his child despite his travels through time to different parts of their lives. I recommend reading this one.

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Posted by Scott Shaffer at Saturday May 27, 2006 at 9:09 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

SF Signal. Tweaking ad-infinitum for your viewing pleasure!™

We tweaked the website a bit today. We moved the newsfeeds to a more visible location inside its very own widget. We also moved the SF Signal Frappr Map image to the Meta-Signal widget, thus allowing us to do away with the Miscellanea widget.

On to even less important stuff, waxy.org pointed to a website that will display your own website as a graph. Here's what SF Signal looks like. It's much cooler to watch it draw in real-time, though.

Pretty, isn't it? Here's the decoder ring for what the colored nodes represent:

• blue: for links (the A tag)


• red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)


• green: for the DIV tag


• violet: for images (the IMG tag)


• yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)


• orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)


• black: the HTML tag, the root node


• gray: all other tags

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 27, 2006 at 12:45 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• The Book Standard reviews Linklater's A Scanner Darkly. It's not pretty.


• Gamer John Scalzo thinks John Scalzi's Old Man's War would make a great video game. [via Whatever]


• Jonathan Strahan unveils the cool-looking John Picacio cover art for his upcoming anthologies Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005 and Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005.


• There's yet another version of Blade Runner coming out in 2007.


• This weekend is Balticon, the convention staged by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Special guests include Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe.


• Literary Kicks interviews Steve Aylett.


• I'm speechless. Sci Fi Channel to air Pro Wrestling.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 27, 2006 at 12:43 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Zebrowski has great ideas and you can instantly tell they are well thought-out and advanced. Unfortunately there is no real story and as a result it reads like a non-fiction book.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Because resources on planets are inherently finite, life must expand beyond its sunspace and move throughout the galaxies and ultimately the universe. To do so is to become Macrolife - taking it up a level beyond merely a single world. Zebrowski's example of this are hollowed asteroids turned into starships that are really worldlets.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Collection of well-conceived and well-constructed ideas on the future.
CONS: Little that engages the reader beyond pure theory; lack of any relevant story.
BOTTOM LINE: Given that Zebrowski's ideas permeate the rest of the science fiction world you have to give him the nod for creating an extremely compelling set of theories. Unfortunately it feels more like a non-fiction book and is thus somewhat hard to read - be aware before picking this one up and hoping for a piece of pulp-fiction for the summer.

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Posted by Scott Shaffer at Friday May 26, 2006 at 8:50 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

So I was flipping through channels last night and happened to settle on INHD's In Theaters trailer program. They happened to be showing a trailer (trailer #1 at the link) for Superman Returns. That's when I realized they were using the John Williams music from the original movie and how much @$$ that music kicks. I'd say the original Superman score is in the top 3 Williams scores, right with Star Wars and Raiders. It looks like they will be using a mix of Williams' music and new music by John Ottman (he did the music for the X-Men movies). Could be good or bad, depending on how much Williams they use.

I am impressed by their web presence. They have a lot of interesting stuff for webmasters use. I think all movie website should follow this lead.

As for the movie itself, I'm not sure. Brandon Routh looks like a girly-man, too smooth and 'perfect'. I'm just not fired up for this movie. But the music (Williams), makes me want to see the orignal again. Hello Netflix!

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday May 26, 2006 at 11:16 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Anne McCaffrey's The Dragonriders of Pern will be adapted for the big screen.


• Neil Gaiman's Coraline, still headed for the big screen, now has Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher providing voices.


• SFFWorld interviews Kit Reed.


• The Associated Press interviews the women of X-Men: The Last Stand.


• The inaugural Heinlein Prize award of $500,000 will go to Peter Diamandis, who spurred the global competition that produced the first privately financed human spaceflight.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 25, 2006 at 2:26 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

An Asimov's forum post pointed me to an interesting essay by Peter Watts called Margaret Atwood and the Hierarchy of Contempt in which he talks about Atwood's aversion to the science fiction label.

The very first paragraph grabs your attention:

Start with a metaphor for literary respectability: a spectrum, ranging from sullen infrared up to high-strung ultraviolet. Literature with a capital L (all characters, no plot sits enthroned at the top. Genre fiction, including science fiction (all plot, no characters) is relegated to the basement. Certain types of fantasy hover in between, depending on subspecies: the Magic Realists get loads of respect, for example. Tolkein gets respect. (His myriad imitators, thank God, do not. Down in the red-light district, science fiction's own subspectrum runs from "soft" to "hard", and it's generally acknowledged that the soft stuff at least leaves the door open for something approaching art - Lessing, Le Guin, the New Wave stylists of the late sixties - while the hardcore types are too caught up in chrome and circuitry to bother with character development or actual literary technique.

Call me impartial if you will. Although I like literature all over the spectrum, I tend to spend most of my reading time at the "lower" end. Yep, I can enjoy sf adventure that minimizes character development. I call it "fun". I can also enjoy a good literary novel. That's fun, too. It depends on my mood. It also depends on what I'm looking for in a book. I mainly read fiction for entertainment, wherever it resides in the spectrum. I'm not usually reading fiction specifically because it's a Highly-Regarded Work of Literature.

I jokingly refer to those folks who look down on "un-Literary" books as Literary Snobs. There's nothing wrong with preferring books written in literary style. It's the contempt of anything else that seems unfortunate.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 25, 2006 at 12:19 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Here's a Wired article by Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers on The Myth of Superman. (You may also want to check out The Man From Krypton by BenBella Book, essays on the Man of Steel from Lou Anders, Adam-Troy Castro, Keith R.A. Candido, Paul Levinson, Larry Niven, Chris Roberson, Lawrence Watt-Evans and others.)


• A bibliography on Texas in speculative fiction from 2001. [via CoolSciFi]


• If you go to see X-Men 3, stay past the closing credits. [via SciFiBrain]


• The Book Standard interviews Terry Brooks. [via SFBC Blog]


• Humor: Serenity in the style of MST3K. [via SciFiDig]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 24, 2006 at 6:44 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Tor is reprinting Grease Monkey, a humorous science fiction comic written by Tim Eldred, whose website offers the first chapter for free.

From Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing:

Tim Eldred's indie comic book Grease Monkey -- a great, funny space adventure comic -- has been collected by Tor and has just hit the shelves. Grease Monkey is the story of a post-alien-invasion space-station where crack pilots drill ceaselessly to train for the rematch with the aliens -- like Ender's Game, but wicked funny.

The Barbarian squadron are the all-woman leaders of the fleet, thanks in no small part to their mechanic Mac, who is an uplifted gibbon (part of a tribe of sentient apes that mixes with human society). The story is told from the PoV of Robin, Mac's young assistant, who is taken under Mac's hairy arm and treated to a crash-course in beating the system.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 24, 2006 at 11:14 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

Finalists for the 2005 John W. Campbell Memorial Award, honoring the best science fiction novel of the year published in the U.S., are:

• Transcendent by Stephen Baxter


• The Meq by Steve Cash


• Child Of Earth by David Gerrold [SF Signal review]


• Mind's Eye by Paul McAuley


• Seeker by Jack McDevitt


• Learning The World by Ken Macleod [SF Signal review]


• The Summer Isles by Ian R. Macleod


• Counting Heads by David Marusek [SF Signal review]


• Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer


• Accelerando by Charles Stross


• The World Before by Karen Traviss


• Spin by Robert Charles Wilson [SF Signal review]

• "The Calorie Man" by Paolo Bacigalupi


• "Second Person, Present Tense" by Darryl Gregory


• "Magic for Beginners" by Kelly Link


• "Keyboard Practice" by John G. McDaid


• "The Little Goddess " by Ian McDonald


• "Little Faces" by Vonda McIntyre


• "The Blemmye's Stratagem" by Bruce Sterling


• "Panacea" by Jason Stoddard


• "The Inn at Mount Either" by James Van Pelt


• "Inside Job" by Connie Willis

[via Locus Online]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 23, 2006 at 3:04 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Here are the results of SF Signal Challenge #2: A Kid's Introduction to SF/F.

As I feared, the question was too broad and resulted in many different titles with few votes. There were, however, some titles that got more than a single mention. They are:

1. The Iron Giant (3 votes)


2. Star Wars, Episodes IV-VI (3 votes)


3. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis (2 votes)


4. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (2 votes)


5. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (2 votes)


6. Dr. Who, SciFi Channel version (2 votes)


7. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (2 votes)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 23, 2006 at 11:05 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

A while back we enabled moderation on SF Signal's Frappr Map because a@@-clown spammers set their sites on Frappr maps. Frappr has addressed the situation by adding a captcha verification system that will prevent automated programs from doing their dirty work. Therefore, we have removed the moderation.

Thanks, Frappr!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 23, 2006 at 12:25 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

Seems like SnapPoll is offline and has been for a while, so this week's poll is not working at the moment. Bummer.

We are now using FreeBlogPoll, which is not only working but is snappier than SnapPoll. (Translation: Those responsible have been sacked.)

If you already voted in this weeks poll "Your Favorite Marvel Superhero", please take a brief moment to re-vote.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 23, 2006 at 12:18 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Adventure western that meets pulp science fiction with a bit of humor mixed in.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West show find themselves wrecked on the Island of Dr. Momo and then things get really strange.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: A great combination of classic real and fictional characters put together in a quick paced adventure.
CONS: A few too many sexual references, and a plot that is more pulled together to take advantage of the characters versus something that may have been planned ahead of time.
BOTTOM LINE: If you like adventure westerns and looking for a unique take on pulp fiction, look no further.

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Posted by Tim Zinsky at Monday May 22, 2006 at 7:33 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Latino Review interviews Kelsey Grammer who plays Beast in X-Men 3. [via Sci-Fi Brain]


• Meme Therapy interviews sf author David Moles.


• You can listen to the first chapter of Lost novel Bad Twin for free. (Although I can't seem to get it to work. Maybe you'll have better luck.) [via SFX]


• Emerald City Issue #129 is out and includes reviews of Naomi Novik's Black Powder War, David Marusek's Counting Heads, Tom Disch's On SF and Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End.


• SciFi Wire has a write-up of James Patrick Kelly's Hugo-nominated novella, "Burn".

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 22, 2006 at 3:17 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

SFBC editor Andrew Wheeler reports that the Science Fiction Book Club now has a blog. The SFBC blog is a bit sparse right now (being new and all) but will contain general announcements. (Oh, and look! They link to some of our reviews. Sweet!)

This is cool. What I'd love to see are announcements of SFBC-only editions and omnibuses. (Omnibii?) The SFBC puts out some really cool collections and special editions, too, some of which are exclusives. I like that their website also calls out sf/f for younger readers.

Mmmmm...sf-crunchy omnibii...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 22, 2006 at 11:17 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 22, 2006 at 12:00 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Continues the very good story stared in Hammered and leaves you wanting more.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Former Canadian Special Forces operative Jenny Casey must lead humanity to the stars before Earth suffers from ecological collapse.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Cool use of sf tropes; fast-moving story; well-crafted.
CONS: Took a while to organize storylines; distracting use of French.
BOTTOM LINE: I can't wait to see what happens next.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday May 21, 2006 at 11:49 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Well, maybe not hanging out so much as me attending his visit to the awesome (more on that later) Borderlands Bookstore. This was one "SF in SF" opportunity I'm glad I did not miss.

Rather than do a reading - which he said he'd do if we wanted - Foster offered to take questions from the audience of a about a dozen people (and one extremely ugly hairless cat). He talked about his many travels and, or course, science fiction.

I asked which book got him hooked on science fiction. It was The Spaceship under the Apple Tree by Louis Slobodkin. (I personally hadn't heard of that book until last year, after which I bought a copy and read it to my young daughter. She wasn't nearly as impressed as I thought she'd be. Kids.)

He used that question as a springboard to name his favorite writers - Eric Frank Russell, Frederic Brown (if memory serves) and Robert Sheckley. He particularly called out the genius of Sheckley's short fiction stories from the 50's and early 60's. (For the life of me I cannot recall the name of the classic sf book - not Sheckley's - he called the funniest, laugh-your-guts-out, roll-on-the-floor-laughing sf book ever.)

The subject, as it inevitably does, turned to movies. He talked about some movies he liked (Dark City, Alien, Aliens) and movies he didn't (Disney's The Black Hole). He also talked about some of the many novelizations he has done, film adaptations in general, as well as some scripts he has had part in. He worked on Star Trek: The Motion Picture but only takes credit for the first five minutes and making Kirk an Admiral. After that, it was Hollywood's Extreme Makeover as usual. His book The Mocking Program was optioned for a movie, but history has taught him that very few options actually see celluloid. Star Wars also came up. He suspects that Lucas became so overwhelmed with the success of the 1977 film, that he somewhat lost sight of what made the first one good.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 20, 2006 at 7:23 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Separated at Birth? The Doctors from the Twilight Zone Episode "Eye of the Beholder" and Gary Numan (80's singer of "Cars").


• MSNBC offers an X-men trivia quiz. [via Incoming Signals]


• Star Trek props are on the auction block.


• Fantasy Bookspot interviews Hal Duncan, author of Vellum.


• John Scalzi is building his own motivational posters.


• There was once a super-villain based on a chicken. Really. [via Chris Roberson]


• Humor: Top 10 Kids' Sci-Fi Books.


• Astronomy for Science Fiction Writers. [via University of Nebraska Press]


• A map of speculative fiction and a follow-up. [via Andrew Wheeler]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 20, 2006 at 12:04 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• There's a new Superman Returns poster.


• Classic sf art from Frank R. Paul. [via Cynical-C]


• The Guardian asks: Do reviews sell books?.


• An essay on sf/f fandom.


• The Fine Line Between Fantasy and Horror.


• Aquaman goes blub-blub-blub. (Sorry, all the good lines like Auaman Sinks/is Sunk/Drowns were taken.)


• Submitted without comment: Police raid science fiction sex cult based on John Norman's The Chronicles of Gor.


• Science in kids' books - space and science fiction books reviewed for accuracy by Marianne Dyson, former NASA flight controller and award-winning children's author. [via Kids Lit]


• The Mercury News interview Walter Mosley, author of Blue Light and The Wave.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday May 19, 2006 at 1:13 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

Here's a great read [link via Backwards City]: IGN's 5-page article The Influence of Literature and Myth in Videogames.

"It's hard to name a single science fiction author, but Robert Heinlein would be at the top of the list," said Hennig. "He and other classic sci-fi writers like Larry Niven, E.E. Smith and Orson Scott Card have had a huge influence on the development of the science fiction genre in games, from the first mainframe computer games to Halo."

There have been a few direct collaborations between game developers and science fiction writers. Though it didn't fare well critically or commercially, Advent Rising was a rare collaboration between science fiction writer Orson Scott Card and developer Glyphx. Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" was also a standout PC game for many.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday May 19, 2006 at 12:19 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

Tonight was the After Dark Bash at the JavaOne developer conference in San Francisco. The theme was "Weird Science" which, as far as I could tell, was chosen because the guests of honor were those two dudes from Mythbusters. Their very first statement was that they were not going to blow anything up. [Insert sound of thousands of disappointed geeks. With echoes.] They did have a contest to see which team could shoot T-shirts the longest distance from an air cannon. I almost got hit in the head with one. Later, I managed to catch a fumble from a cluster of all-too-eager fellow nerds. Sweet. We likes the freebies. The room had various classic sci-fi-like decorations around the huge, huge room. They even had live-action displays of mad scientists and such. They also projected random scenes from sci-fi movies onto a huge spherical screen in the center of the room. To watch that and listen to the blaring disco-thump of the music (and almost being hit in the head with a T-shirt) was a little on the surreal side.

Pro-gamer Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendell was also on hand and playing Quake with any attendees brave enough to get fragged in front of thousands of their geek brethren. Not being a big gamer, I opted for the plentiful supplies of food. Mmmm...giant oatmeal raisin cookies... We likes the sugary freebies even better.

In a sugar-induced coma, I decided not to stay for the all-girl cover band, Ac/DShe, although now that the sugar buzz is gone, I might be regretting that decision. Or not.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 18, 2006 at 11:41 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: A first-rate science fiction novel filled with thought-provoking ideas.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Genetic engineering produces a race of humans that do not require sleep, thus they become more productive and, through economic pressure, disrupt the fabric of society.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Thought-provoking ideas; lots of things happen; fast-paced plot.
CONS: The last parts of the book felt slightly weaker, but I have to admit that I was only able to read it piecemeal over many days, which weakened my perception the storytelling.
BOTTOM LINE: A book so good, you'll want to read the sequels.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 18, 2006 at 11:20 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Nuttin' but interviews!

• SciFiDimensions interviews Paul Di Filippo. [via Locus Online]


• Strange Horizons interviews James Patrick Kelly. [via Locus Online]


• Meme Therapy interviews M.M. Buckner.


• John Scalzi interviews Nick Sagan.


• SFFWorld interviews George R.R. Martin.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 18, 2006 at 3:15 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• An informal poll of The 50 Best Characters from Marvel Comics. (Although it occurs to me that the top 20 are all that matter. I mean, any list that has The Sub-Mariner on it...) [via Backwards City]


• SF Site interviews Pat Cadigan.


• James K. Wong produces some cool retro-sci-fi art. [via Piriquito]


• Subterranean Press has a Tim Powers excerpt: A Soul in a Bottle


• Movie Mashup: Neo vs. Robocop. [via Milk and Cookies]


• Here's the DVD cover art for the upcoming re-re-re-re-re-release of the Star Wars DVDs. [via Club Jade]


• Slate asks: What Are Independent Bookstores Really Good For? [via Jay Lake]


• Reviews of science fiction stories involving moons. [via Vector Sphere, who also links to Wee Toy Soldiers]


• An self-explanatory website: Isultingly Stupid Movie Physics. [via Rabbit and Crow] Maybe this is a distant cousin of Bad Astronomy.


• The NY Times on the future of books. [via Locus Online]


• SciFi Wire profiles author George Zebrowskis' upcoming collection Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 17, 2006 at 12:41 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

The May 2006 issue of Locus Magazine has a fascinating feature story on young adult fiction. They give the statistics that roughly shows that the number of YA genre titles published has more than doubled in the last ten years.

They also capture thoughts on the YA market from some people in the YA community. I found some of their comments to be very interesting and thought I'd share some of them. Keep in mind that (1) these are my summations of their words, and (2) this is a small subset of a very interesting feature - Buy the latest issue of Locus Magazine to see more.

Author Ursula K. Le Guin's thoughts on YA:

• Authors and parents need to be responsible when presenting fiction to kids; some of it can be age-inappropriate.


• Like science fiction itself, young adult fiction is often dismissed by people who haven't read it.


• Young adults are great to write for because they are very vocal and provide good feedback.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 17, 2006 at 12:39 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

I'm San Francisco this week on business. I had hoped to check out the science fiction scene here, by which I mean visit some used bookstores and beef up my already over-beefed sf collection. Another thing I had hoped was to attend some sci-fi events but, alas, they conflict with the business thing.

There's a San Francisco based sf group here, who point to such goodies as Monday's X-Men 3 publicity meet at the Golden Gate Bridge (which appears in the movie). I missed it. I was hoping to meet Halle Berry to, you know, compare notes on sci-fi. Two very large notes. (Did I just type that?)

On Tuesday there's a monthly "SF in SF" author reading by Pat Murphy and Terry Bisson. I'll be missing that too.

I also just learned that this past weekend was the World Horror Convention with attendees including authors, artist John Picacio and the crew from Locus Magazine. Too bad I missed it. I could have asked Locus to send my issues in a metal container as someone in the U.S. Postal Service insists on unsealing all of mine to read it and deliver it late.

This weekend, Alan Dean Foster will be appearing at Borderlands Books. By then, my business will be over, so I hope to be going there. Too bad I haven't read any of his stuff.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 16, 2006 at 1:37 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

A blog post at the University of Nebraska Press ponders the reason most science fiction is absorbed through non-book media like movies, games, etc. They refer to The Golden Age of Readers when sf fans turned to books for their science fiction fix.

I'm not sure what the basis is for saying that most sf is experienced through non-book media. Certainly, the large number of genre books published leads me to think that books do OK. I am one of those who prefer book sf over other forms, but many people don't. As one SF Signal commenter (Dan) noted, even Revolution SF's list of sf heroines is suspiciously lacking characters from books.

Why would readership be declining, the University of Nebraska Press post asks? There are other issues alluded to in that post that muddy the waters (sf as pop literature, for example) but the reason people might turn to other media, I think, is that there are many more choices vying for our attention these days. There's less time to devote to books when the Internet, video games and movies offer alternate - and sometimes quicker - choices. In the early days of Asimov, the only place you could experience a worldwide network was in books. Video gaming was unheard of, let alone home video gaming with thousands of software titles. And the creation of the movie blockbuster pushed Hollywood in the direction of special-effects-laden sci-fi. None of this was around in the early days of sf. Today, our time and money is divided amongst more players.

Do you read less these days? Why?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 16, 2006 at 1:18 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

If you're like me - and I recommend you pause here to hope that you're not - you do much of your blog reading through news readers. When I'm feeling adventurous I like to visit the actual sites to see what I might be missing by reading only newsfeeds. It occurs to me (that happens sometimes...things occur to me) that SF Signal's RSS reader's might be missing some of the crunchy science fictiony goodness that we have to offer. So, to that end, we present:

10 Things SF Signal's RSS Subscribers Might Be Missing

1. SF Signal's Frappr Map - Everyone who signs up gets to be represented by a Google map push pin. For free!


2. Recent Comments - Marvel at the witty repartee of our regular readers and nod at the incoherent babble and smiley abuse by drive-by spammers!


3. SF Quotes - capturing the capturable since 2003!


4. The SF Signal poll - Have you participated? [ ]Yes [ ]No


5. SF Signal bookshelves - See what we dare to read! One day soon. We promise. But only in a non-committal sort of way.


6. Short-Story-a-Day Point Tracker - Check in on the latest progress on what others are calling "WTF?"


7. SF Signal links - Some sites we like, none we don't. We even link to author blogs!


8. Past Ramblings - We've had some great discussions in the past that get hidden under the blog format. These random posts from the past remind us why we are so marvelous.


9. Site Search - Search our vast archives for the stuff you care about. Show us it's more than Kate Beckinsale!


10. Meta-Signal goodies - See what's in the SF Signal library; add SF Signal to your Google toolbar (RSS too!); Mail us; Link to sister-site Gaming Signal; Read about us. (It is, after all, all about us.)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 16, 2006 at 1:08 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

This past Saturday, Stanford University helded the Singularity Summit, where various speakers debated the topic of the Singularity and if one will happen. The ZDnet article is a nice overview of what went on with some links to further responses to the debate. The summit web page has a really nice introductory reading list to get you up to speed on the current thinking.

As for me, I'm not sure what to think. I'm not sure that the holy grail of AI (strong AI in the parlance) is imminently achievable, if we can even get there at all. I think we'll have to get to quatum computers before we can achieve strong AI, IMO. At that point, if we reach it, I can see machine intelligence leaving us far behind. Which is why its a cool concept and certainly a fertile field for SF.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday May 15, 2006 at 3:06 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Vernor Vinge talks about his latest novel, Rainbows End. [via Eternal Golden Braid]


• Paul Di Filippo reviews fantasy for kids. [via Locus Online]


• Meme Therapy interviews Jefrey Ford.


• SciFi Wire has a news item on Charles Stross' latest, The Clan Corporate.


• Salt Lake SciFi & Fantasy Book Group lists there favorite sci-fi movies.


• From Hollywood North Report: Universal Gives The Sci-Fi Boys a Wide DVD Release


• Let Walter Hunt know if you's like to see him publish some Dark Wing fiction on his blog.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 15, 2006 at 2:28 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 15, 2006 at 1:59 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

I often see sf forum posts from bewildered sf fans asking the audience what they should read next. People are quick to offer up their favorite titles, both past and recent. This usually results in the undecided reader having a rather nice selection of titles from which to choose.

Being a self-proclaimed biblioholic, I have the opposite problem. I have no problem finding books to read, I have a problem deciding which books to not read. There are too many from which to choose. I own so many darned books (Hello, my name is John and I'm a biblioholic) that I cannot possibly read them all in my lifetime unless I suddenly develop inhuman Klausnerian powers that would allow me to read about 50 of them at a clip.

On the bright side, picking my next book is a whole lot of fun. When I need to restock my "immediate" to-read pile, I get to rummage through the "library". (The term "library" here is meant to mean an inordinate number of boxes filled with books that I want to read.) This is loads of fun for me because it's like going to a bookstore where every single book is something that interests me. I swear, I'm like a kid in a candy store.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday May 14, 2006 at 2:13 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

Revolution SF has completed their 5-part series on the Top 75 Heroines of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror.

You would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't go read the writeup on each choice. It was done in parts, so they are grouped from 1-10, 11-20, 21-35, 36-55 and 56-75.

For those with short attention spans, here are the Top 10:

1. Ellen Ripley from the Alien Movies


2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer


3. Dr. Dana Scully from The X-Files


4. Wonder Woman


5. Sarah Connor from the Terminator films


6. Princess Leia from the Star Wars Trilogy


7. Xena, Warrior Princess.


8. Trinity from the Matrix films.


9. Emma Peel from The Avengers.


10. Lady Jessica from Frank Herbert's Dune.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday May 14, 2006 at 1:33 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• A Scanner Darkly trailer remix contest. [via Cinematical]


• Flatland: The Movie. [via coolscifi]


• Space Colony art. [via Boing^2]


• Photo humor: The Empire Strikes Bareback [via La Gringa]


• Meme Therapy interviews Karl Schroeder.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 13, 2006 at 5:18 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

From The Movie Blog comes news of some "lost" Star Wars footage. And by "lost" I mean footage I haven't seen. The scene, called "Biggs' Return", shows Luke with his homeys and Biggs talking up the rebellion.

Personally, I think the Gilligan look works for Luke. I can just imagine Han Solo hitting him over the head and calling him "Little Buddy". Maybe Lucas can work some of that in when he CGIs the crap out of it for the 30th Anniversary Super Platinum Mega-pak Uber-Extended Classic edition DVD release. I'm just sayin...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday May 12, 2006 at 2:41 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Robert J. Sawyer has optioned two of his books: The Terminal Experiment and Mindscan.


• A 7-minute X-Men 3 trailer. [via Cinema Blend]


• Subterranean Press announces The Jack Vance Treasury edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan. See a tentative table of contents and help pick the stories! [via Locus Online]


• Fast Forward video-interviews James Morrow.


• The Future and You podcasts interviews M.M. Buckner, Greg Bear, Vernor Vinge, Spider Robinson, and Nancy Kress. [via Locus Online]


• A two-part podcast interview with Slush God John Joseph Adams, Assistant Editor of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. [via Slush God's blog]


• The cover of Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns is unveiled.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday May 12, 2006 at 1:28 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

This week marks the beginning of a year-long weekly comic serial by DC Comics called 52. The New York Daily News picked up the story:

The 52-issue series starts in the wake of the publisher's just-ended "Infinite Crisis," the type of big event mini-series that fans have come to expect annually to kill off a few extraneous super heroes, and sell extra issues. That series left off with the entire DC Universe - home to the likes of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman - pushed forward one year in time.

The aptly named "52" tells the story of what happened week by week in that lost year. While every comic book fan goes into the series knowing what happened before and after the series, DiDio insists there is plenty of room for surprises.

With each issue covering one seven day period, it's the comic book answer to the real-time format of television's "24."

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 11, 2006 at 2:09 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: A very good collection of sf-mystery stories.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Six science fiction mystery novellas.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Every single story was enjoyable.
CONS: The weakest story, while still good, mars an otherwise nearly-flawless collection.
BOTTOM LINE: An anthology that's better than most - including some "best of" anthologies.

Down These Dark Spaceways, edited by Mike Resnick, collects six original novellas combining the genres of science fiction and mystery. The goal set by Resnick was to avoid "cozy mysteries" like Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and deliver the hardboiled mystery in the vein of Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler. Many of the stories succeed with that goal but perhaps more importantly, they are all enjoyable stories

The list of big name authors that contribute to this anthology is impressive. All of them deliver. There was one standout story here: Resnick's own "Guardian Angel", but the others came darned close. Even the weakest story was still worth the read. In the end, Down These Dark Spaceways offers a collection of stories that is better than most - including some "best of" anthologies.

Reviewlettes of the stories follow.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 11, 2006 at 1:09 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• John Scalzi interviews Chris Roberson, author of Paragaea: A Planetary Romance.


• Google Book search launches a blog. [via A Progressive on the Prairie]


• Erica Wagner of the UK Times: "Book Reviews should make you curious, not convinced." [via A Progressive on the Prairie]


• Free fiction: "Harrison Bergeron" by by Kurt Vonnegut (1961). [via Speculative Fiction]


• Elizabeth Bear talks about broken books.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 10, 2006 at 10:09 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

In a cross-pollination of blogs, Meme Therapy has a very interesting post about science fiction memes, by a guest-blogger who writes at Archeology of the Future.

In some ways, all pieces of fiction are attempts to understand, shed light upon or otherwise process current ideas and events. Science Fictional ideas, tropes or concepts are merely the latest in a history of tools that seem to express, enlighten or otherwise enrich our responses to the world. If you read something like Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, you see the ways that certain ideas and structures resurface repeatedly in the stories that humanity tells itself about itself. The hero quest, the return from the afterlife, the secondary reality, all return again and again to make sense of current events. Science Fiction memes aren't much different. They are an apparatus to make understandable events, or to carry out operations on events that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Being responses to events, occurrences or theories, they are then reapplied to new settings, producing new interpretations or ideas.

...Archeology of the Future advances the idea that rather than Science Fiction ideas being more prevalent now in popular culture than in the past , it is that Science Fiction fandom is more watchful and ready to cry foul when the wolf of popular culture snatches an idea from the cosy enclosure labelled SciFi.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 10, 2006 at 9:47 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

There's a short interview with Alastair Reynolds over at Meme Therapy. (From last month - must...catch...up...on...reading...)

In the brief interview, Reynolds drops a few sf-crunchy teasers:

• He gives some background on his awesome novella "Diamond Dogs".


• He mentions his next book, as-yet untitled, that is set about 100 years before Chasm City. It's a police procedural he describes as "24 in space". Here's hoping there are no space cougars in it.


• He's almost done with his collection of "Galactic North" short story collection.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 10, 2006 at 9:29 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Listen up, readers. Especially you, RSS lurker! It's time for another SF Signal challenge!

This one is aimed at identifying good vehicles for introducing science fiction and fantasy to the younger set (12 and under). All of us co-bloggers have kids (or, as I like to call mine, Extra-Mouth-to-Feed, but only to her face) and we have, in one form or another, exposed them to science fiction and/or fantasy. I thought it would be fun to gather a good list - with your help - of introductory sf/f works that appeal to kids.

Some guidelines:

1. Pick 5 vehicles of science fiction or fantasy, where "vehicle" can be anything (books, movies, tv shows, games, whatever).


2. Each pick should be appropriate for kids age 12 or younger. Plugged In Online is a good source to determine this.


3. Post them here in the comment section. Please don't email them where they will lost in the deluge of mortgage refinance opportunities and pleas for Africa-bound MoneyGrams.


4. We'll tally up the votes and generate a list (we likes the lists) in, say, about a week.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 10, 2006 at 10:51 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Media Blvd. Magazine interviews Grace Park (Boomer) of Battlestar Galactica.


• Is Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the best incarnation of Star Trek?


• SF Weekly interviews Nick Sagan.


• Far Section SFFH interviews Paul Levinson. [via Locus Online]


• SF publisher Pyr gets a blog. [via Pyr editor Lou Anders]


• Following his rumination of Episode V, Infoquake author David Louis Edelman recalls Return of the Jedi.


• Happy birthday, Xenu!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 09, 2006 at 4:12 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

I mentioned this in a comment recently, but think it deserves a more noticeable mention...

James Patrick Kelly's Hugo-nominated novella "Burn" is available for free in a variety of formats.

Take you pick: Microsoft Word file, rich text format, Adobe Acrobat file or Microsoft Reader.

There is also a seventeen-part podcast of the author reading the story, which he has since re-cut into a four part podcast.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 09, 2006 at 12:44 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Over on Pantsketch, Quirckybird has drawn the cast of Battlestar Galactica, Simpson's style. Very nice. Especially the Dualla/Billy/Apollo sketch. Doh! indeed.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday May 08, 2006 at 4:00 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Here is John C. Wright's Nebula essay for his nominated novel Orphans of Chaos.
• Keith Stokes' photos from Nebula Awards Weekend. [via Locus Online]
• David Langford's Ansible 226, May 2006.
• Jeff VanderMeer's 64 Favorite Fantasy Novels.
• Free MP3: "The Nameless City" by H.P. Lovecraft. [via SFF Audio]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 08, 2006 at 2:06 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 08, 2006 at 12:00 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

The 2005 Nebula Award winners have been announced:

NOVEL: Camouflage by Joe Haldeman
NOVELLA: "Magic for Beginners" by Kelly Link
NOVELETTE: "The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link
SHORT STORIES: "I Live With You" by Carol Emshwiller
SCRIPT: Serenity by Joss Whedon
ANDRE NORTON AWARD: Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday May 07, 2006 at 12:09 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• SciFiWeekly editor Scott Edelman is blogging the Nebulas.
• Humor: Unpublished Sequels to Famous Science-Fiction Novels. [via John Dupius]
• Top 25 TV Shows-To-Movies. [via Whedonesque]
• Robert J. Sawyer's Nebula essay for his nominated story "Identity Theft".
• Science fiction poetry in a nutshell.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 06, 2006 at 6:45 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

It's award season. The Nebulas are announced tomorrow and there's are plenty of other awards to be had. Do we need yet another?

Someone thinks so. A new award will honor the best in media tie-in writing. The Scribe Award, presented by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, will give awards in the following categories:

Speculative Fiction (Science fiction, Fantasy, Horror)

• Best Novel (adapted) A licensed novelization based on an existing screenplay, whether its a feature film, episodic teleplay, computer game, script, or play.


• Best Novel (original) A licensed, original novel using pre-existing characters or worlds from a movie, television series, computer game, play, or an existing series of novels (ie new novels extending a literary franchise, ie DUNE, James Bond, etc.)

• Best Novel (adapted)


• Best Novel (original)

• Best Novel (adapted)


• Best Novel (original)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 06, 2006 at 6:42 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Winners of Analog Science Fiction and Fact's AnLab Awards and Asimov's Science Fiction's Readers' Awards, chosen by each mag's readers, were announced:

ANLAB WINNERS
NOVELLA: "Sanctuary", Michael A. Burstein (Analog Sep 2005)
NOVELETTE: "NetPuppets", Richard A. Lovett and Mark Niemann-Ross (Analog Jun 2005)
SHORT STORY: "Alphabet Angels", Ekaterina Sedia and David Bartell (Analog Mar 2005)
FACT ARTICLE: "Mission to Utah: A Science Fiction Writer's Adventures at the Mars Society Desert Research Station", Wil McCarthy (Analog Jul/Aug 2005)
COVER: November, George Krauter

ASIMOV'S READERS' AWARD WINNERS
NOVELLA: "Diving Into the Wreck", Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's Dec 2005)
NOVELETTE: "Second Person, Present Tense", Daryl Gregory (Asimov's Sep 2005)
SHORT STORY: "The Children of Time", Stephen Baxter (Asimov's Jul 2005)
POEM: "Newton's Mass", Timons Esaias (Asimov's Dec 2005)
COVER: January, Michael Whelan

[via Locus Online]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 06, 2006 at 6:24 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Some people [looks at JP] like reading multiple books in parallel. JP is currently reading two (three?) books in the same genre (sf). One guy I know (let's call him "Ralmon") reads multiple books in parallel, but only when they are different types - a sf book, a non-fiction book, etc.

I'm more of a serial reader myself. Well, maybe not entirely, since I do tend to sneak in some short fiction stories while reading novel-length stuff. Like Ralmon, reading two science fiction books in parallel is out of the question. I'm sure to confuse universes or essential plot elements. I'd constantly be asking myself why Paul Atreides just doesn't slip off his VR mask to get off that accursed planet.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday May 06, 2006 at 6:15 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• An interview with Harlan Ellison^®, recipient of this year's Grandmaster Award. [via Locus Online]


• A look at various incarnations of The Cybermen from Doctor Who. [via Big Dumb Object]


• Video: Geek Week vs. Joss Whedon. [via Chris Roberson]


• Video: Terry Bisson's short story "They're Made of Meat". [via Tobias Buckell]


• DoubleViking's Top 9 TV Sci-Fi Babes of all time.


• Infoquake author David Louis Edelman recalls The Day The Empire Strikes Back Changed Everything. [via Slush God]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday May 05, 2006 at 3:03 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• Director Christopher Nolan isdeveloping a movie based on Christopher Priest's novel, The Prestige. Sweet. See our review.
• A couple of interviews with Lost creator, J.J. Abrams.
• Has anyone seen any of Bill Shatner's best underground SF movies? Actually, I have Immortal on my NetFlix list...

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday May 04, 2006 at 4:58 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

The Alien Online has an update from Kevin J. Anderson on his progress in writing the sequel to A.E. van Vogt's classic novel, Slan:

"When I read the outline and partial manuscript, and reread Slan, I decided to take on the project. My primary goal is to make a sequel that all fans of the original novel will enjoy. It carries forward many of the original ideas, with plenty of additional twists and turns, lots of action, even one of Van's signature surprise endings. I think it's very important to call more attention to one of the great early writers of the genre and to acknowledge the contribution he made to all of science fiction.

"Because Slan was originally published in 1940, the writing style is somewhat dated and pulpy for modern readers. Nevertheless, the feel of the book, the super-science, the vast ideas, the plot twists, the surprise ending, the spectacular setting - everything is perfectly compatible to a current audience. I worked hard to maintain the 'flavor' of van Vogt, while still polishing the manuscript so that the prose is equal to the very best I can do.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 04, 2006 at 2:20 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

G4TV comes out with some hilarious Star Trek stop motion animation from 72andSunny to help G4TV advertise for Star Trek 2.0 the networks attempt to breathe life back in to the troubled G4TV channel. The animations feature the original Star Trek figurines (dolls?) with revised voices for the characters who speak using modern urban language in an attempt to bring a little "street cred" to the otherwise stiff dialog from the original TV series. They are very inventive commercials that I find truly hilarious, especially the one called "Star Trek Cribs" which features Spock having a house party. If you would like to view them they can be seen in a few video hosting sites. Youtube is where I'm sending you for a gander. Youtube search "Star Trek G4TV"

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Posted by Trent Ditto at Thursday May 04, 2006 at 11:05 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

If you've come to this website because your interests are in science fiction and fantasy, chances are that you feel at home on the Internet. I would bet that many of you have already trolled the web looking for the websites or blogs of your favorite sf/f authors. Did you find them?

More and more authors are turning to the Internet to publicize their work and increase their profiles. (See the Publishers Weekly article Innovative PR in SF/Fantasy, the piece that initiated this one.) But are web-savvy authors precluding the need for publicists? No, they are supplementing their publicists' efforts. And why not? Getting noticed is the biggest hurdle for an author to overcome. In one of the simplest but most insightful quotes (in this case regarding copyright violations of books, but still appropriate here), Cory Doctorow says "The biggest threat [authors] face isn't piracy, it's obscurity."

Getting your name out there, then, is the name of the game. But how many authors take advantage of the Internet? Relatively few. Some of those few are longtime Internet mainstays [looks at Bruce Sterling] but several-up-and coming genre authors have also become big names; at least in the blogosphere. The relatively recent boom in electronic self-publishing - blogs - has allowed these innovative upstarts to become their own publicists. To name-drop a few genre authors who have reaped the popularity benefits that blogs can bring, there's Doctorow, John Scalzi, Charles Stross and Jeff VanderMeer. And still many others are hot on their heels.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday May 04, 2006 at 12:04 AM
© 2006 SF Signal

• There's going to be another adaptation of Jules Vernes' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.


• Meet George Jetson...live and on film.


• Jeff VanderMeer answers 6 questions. [via Emerald City]


• It's VanderMeer Day! VanderWorld makes SciFi Weekly's site of the week.


• John Scalzi elaborates on the InfoDump.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 03, 2006 at 11:02 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

Christmas comes early for JP this year.

This September, in response to overwhelming demand (to be read: huge market potential), Lucasfilm will release "the long-awaited DVD release of the original theatrical incarnations of the classic Star Wars trilogy."

You heard me. The original "Han Shot First" versions. (StarWarsShop even has Han shot first t-shirts for the occasion.)

From their website:

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie, as well as the original theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

See the title crawl to Star Wars before it was known as Episode IV; see the pioneering, if dated, motion control model work on the attack on the Death Star; groove to Lapti Nek or the Ewok Celebration song like you did when you were a kid; and yes, see Han Solo shoot first.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday May 03, 2006 at 10:30 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

• The Honest Hypocrite offers a Lovecraft Potpourri.


• There's a new trailer for Superman Returns.


• Iron Man moves to Myspace, courtesy of director Jon Favreau. [via Sci-Fi Brain]


• The next marvel superhero to come to the big screen is...the hammer-wielding Thor!


• Dark Horse Comics has acquired the rights to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser fantasy stories.


• Polite and brave and honest?: DC's hit-and-miss attempt to make its superheroes inspiring again.


• A feminist sf Wiki. [via ozarque]


• Matt Cheney reviews Thomas Disch's On SF.


• Ten years later, the hidden story behind one of Hollywood's biggest flops: The Island of Doctor Moreau 1996 (or how to make a mega flop with Val Kilmer), part one and part two.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday May 02, 2006 at 6:28 PM
© 2006 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 01, 2006 at 12:01 AM
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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday May 01, 2006 at 12:00 AM
© 2006 SF Signal