The internet is aflame with the news that NBC won't be renewing its iTunes contract with Apple. As NBC accounts for 40% of the videos downloaded from iTunes, this seems like a bad development for Apple. However, Silicon Alley Insider does some quick calculating and discovers that the amount of money invovled really isn't that much, considering. So what's this all about?

It'a about control. NBC isn't happy with the piracy controls on iTunes, and NBC wants to be able to set the price of its videos. With the news that NBC will be jointly launching the YouTube like Hulu, is it hard to imagine NBC using that service to sell its own video dowloads? The prevailing theory is that Apple needs NBC more than the reverse. I'm not sure that is case.

iTunes is the 800 lb. gorilla of media downloading. It accounts for the lion's share of music downloads, and it sells a lot of video dowloads as well. For NBC to just up and leave that means they are leaving millions of downloads, and dollars, on the table. They don't have any service they can turn to that has anywhere near the amount of credibility or mindshare as iTunes. In other words, where ever they decide to sell their videos, many people won't know about it. That's lost eyeballs and revenue. It will cost NBC a fortune to promote any new venture in an attempt to gain consumers, costing them even more money.

Even Hulu has its own war to wage against YouTube. Ask anyone who isn't a tech geek if they've even heard of Hulu. I bet the answer will be 'no'. Hulu may be a great service, but NBC and News Corp. have an uphill battle for recognition, which will cost them viewers in the short run, and potentially in the long run. If Hulu is a YouTube clone, then it won't really be a good place to purchase video downloads anyway. Which leaves NBC with nothing that even comes close to iTunes' reach.

But let's say NBC is able to get a download service up and running. If they think they will be able to charge more per episode while saddling each episode with more DRM, causing more of a headache for the viewers, they are in for a rude awakening. iTunes, as the market leader, has set the cost of a download at $2/episode. While I'm not happy that you are purchasing DRM-riddled video, I do know that for most people, that isn't an issue as they can watch it with no problems. This ease of use will make it difficult for NBC to convince iTunes users to switch to their service to get NBC programs, especially if they charge more per show. Heck, even if they charge the same, people aren't going to switch because I can guarantee NBC's offering will be harder to use than iTunes, and people hate to switch from what they know.

This whole thing smacks of the 'old' media not 'getting' the new media, or its consumers. I don't see this move as being a smart one on NBC's part, and I'm thinking that Steve Jobs has similar thoughts.This move will do nothing other than annoy many NBC/iTunes customers when the December deadline passes.

Maybe NBC will surprise us. Maybe they will actually take a risk and attempt to reach as many people as possible for their videos. They could follow the lead of several of the music companies and offer DRM free videos, this ensuring their videos will play on almost any device, be it PCs, iPods, PSPs or any other video device. Make the downloading of shows simple and reasonably priced and they would have a winner. And, they would have the tech community firmly on their side, acting as free evangelists. But that would require some flexible thinking on their part. Something I don't see happening. I think the big winners with this move will be the torrent sites. Ironic. As NBC tries to gain more control over their videos, they will actually lose it. This is a battle they, or any media comany, simply can't win.

What does this have to do with science fiction you may ask? Well, NBC provides video downloads for a little show called Heroes, as well as for Galactica. There's no telling how much iTunes sales impact the popularity of these shows, but I have seen people on the 'net refer to downloading the shows and then writing about them. That will stop after December. And with new shows like Chuck and Bionic Woman, it seems like NBC is cutting its nose to spite its face.

[Update 1 (09/01/07)]: It gets better! Apparently, NBC wanted Apple to charge $5 per episode for NBC content. And here I was, thinking NBC understood the net better than the other broadcast networks, then they pull this stunt. Good luck charging $5 a pop, $110 for a 22 episode season. I don't need to shell out $5 for low res versions of your episode through iTunes. I'm guessing many people will now discover they can find episodes for a lot less then $5 elsewhere, commercial free and in HD no less. Nice job NBC.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday August 31, 2007 at 5:22 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Because nobody should start an extended weekend with silly news, here's a parody by animator Rich Cando of the Simpson's opening done up like Star Wars...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 31, 2007 at 3:46 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow notes that the Science fiction Writers of America, whose leaders have long taken an anti-piracy stance on behalf of its members, is misusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to have content removed from Scribd (the text version of Flickr). The list of "offending" works appears to have resulted from a blanket search of "Asimov" and "Silverberg".

Sez Doctorow:

This implies that Robert Silverberg and the Asimov estate have asked SFWA to police their copyrights for them, but it's important to note that many of the other authors whose work was listed in the August 17 email did not nominate SFWA to represent them. Indeed, I have told Vice President Burt on multiple occasions that he may not represent me as a rightsholder in negotiations with Amazon, and other electronic publishing venues.

More importantly, many of the works that were listed in the takedown were written by the people who'd posted them to Scribd -- these people have been maligned and harmed by SFWA, who have accused them of being copyright violators and have caused their material to be taken offline. These people made the mistake of talking about and promoting science fiction -- by compiling a bibliography of good works to turn kids onto science fiction, by writing critical or personal essays that quoted science fiction novels, or by discussing science fiction. SFWA -- whose business is to promote science fiction reading -- has turned readers into collateral damage in a campaign to make Scribd change its upload procedures.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 31, 2007 at 12:05 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

From Robot Chicken...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 31, 2007 at 12:28 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Ward at Mod-Blog takes a thoughtful look at Moral Complexity in Sci-Fi:

It's always struck me that considering that science fiction is supposed to be morally complex and supposed to point us to our own humanity, it is often times terribly shallow. And no where does this show up more frequently than in the 'bad guys' in science fiction. Having a cardboard cutout baddie might be sufficient for a summer action flick. But when it comes to science fiction, it always struck me that the evil characters should really drive a lot of the moral issues. But this hasn't been the case, by and large. Instead, they are often times virtually just parodies. They are mostly corporate leaders of some massive conglomerate of the future, or alien invaders simply bent on taking over earth, or some other cheap and easy story.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 31, 2007 at 12:22 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• In advance of the premier of Chuck, NBC has created the Chuck's Secret web site. There you can learn a bit more about the secrets that are accidentally downloaded into Chuck's brain. I'm looking forward to this one. [via TV Squad]
• NBC is continuing their use of the web to reach fans. This time they are parterning with News Corp. to create the YouTube rival, Hulu. Can it beat or even rival YouTube? Probably not.
• Masi Oka recognizes that bittorrenting can be a good thing. I'm not surprised. He is a tech geek after all.
• Mark Wilson at About.com wonders whether to root for Flash Gordon or delight in its failure. I'd like for it to get better, but I don't take any pleasure in how bad it is. It's just seems to be par for the Sci Fi Channel course.
• More YouTube goodness. This time, feast your eyes upon this trailer for a never produced 1999 show, Daena 1. It appears to be French and, once you get past the horrible acting, the actual setup sounds interesting. At least it has ships, in space, shooting at each other. We need more of that.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday August 31, 2007 at 12:11 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Jeffrey Ford (The Empire of Ice Cream).


• Spectrum, an annual compendium of the best in science fiction and fantasy artwork, has issued a call for entries accompanied by artwork by Marc Gabbana. [via The Art Department]


• Free classic science fiction: "The Players" by Everett B. Cole.


• Captain Picard meets Doctor Who...sort of... Patrick Stewart costars with David Tennant in The Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet. [via Comic Mix]


• Will Frank Herbert's Dune see a third rendition on celluloid? UGO takes a look....


• Ever wish you were Steve Austin or Jamie Somers? Then take the bionic assessment test! [via SciFi Chick]


• The folks over at ArsGeek are backing a good cause: trying to get a 15-year-old real-life hero to his dream convention. Stop by to learn more.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 31, 2007 at 12:05 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

As mentioned last week, science fiction publisher Tor is launching a new podcasting program. The program kicks off today with daily coverage of Worldcon.

From today's Tor newsletter:

Marking the first time that Worldcon has ever taken place in Japan, Tor publisher Tom Doherty and senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden will podcast directly from the convention. This international podcasting event will kick off Tor's new podcasting program, which will continue with regularly scheduled podcasts beginning September 12th.

The daily podcasts from the convention will cover the events there, as well as interviews with notable authors and editors and perhaps a few surprise guests. One exciting podcast episode will feature an interview with Star Trek and Heroes star George Takei, speaking on his life and career. Another podcast will join Tor publisher Tom Doherty and renowned author Larry Niven while they discuss a variety of topics over lunch in Tokyo. These podcasts will be available for download from iTunes, Yahoo, and Google and through RSS--and individuals can also tune in to them directly from the Tor website at www.tor-forge.com/podcasts.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 30, 2007 at 12:58 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Well, it certainly looks like the doom and gloom brigade is out in full force this week. First, Ridley Scott dumps all over SF films, then Michael Cassut sees a poor SF TV landscape in his "The Spirit of the Times" article for SciFi Weekly. Basically. Cassutt uses Jane Espenson's article for The New Republic as jumping off point to show that SF, as most SF fans know it, is dead on TV, replaced with the whole 'Chosen One' angle to storytelling.

In an effort to see if Cassutt has a point, and I think he does, SciFi Fodder reviews the current state of SF on TV, and looks at the new SF-ish shows. And what do you know? They all are a form of Espenson's thesis. But I think its actually worse than it appears. Out of all the new shows, the only ones that are really SF are: Bionic Woman, Chuck (light), and The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Journeyman is probationary as we don't know the 'how' of his time travel. So, that's 3 of 28 new shows that I would consider to be SF. Not good. And they all are a variation of the Chosen one theme.

Looking at returning shows, I count 5 shows that are SF: Galactica, Eureka, LOST, Heroes and Jericho. You could argue that Eureka follows Espenson's idea, but the others clearly don't. The thing I notice right away is that the overtly SF shows, Galactica and Eureka are on SciFi, not broadcast TV. And the other three are ensemble shows that have SF elements to their stories. Two are big hits, while the other is on life support for 7 episodes.

Looking at the recent past, we see that Invasion, Threshold and Surface never made it past a first season. All were ensembles, and all were present day alien invasion stories. You could argue that with three similarly themed shows, they were doomed to failure. I'm not sure American audiences are ready for a real SF alien invasion story. Clearly they aren't ready for the watered down ones they got.

I think that SF on TV isn't in as a bad a shape as Cassutt thinks, especially considering LOST and Heroes. But going forward, it looks like the prevailing feeling in TV land is Espenson's idea. Will there ever be another overtly SF hit show like Star Trek on mainstream TV? I don't know, but my guess would be no. The place you'll find it will possibly on cable, but more likely on the Internet. But until then, I'll keep recording and watching the SF shows I like, hoping to see more SF.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 30, 2007 at 10:11 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Ridley Scott, famed director of not one, but two certifiable sci-fi hits (Alien and Blade Runner) said at the Venice Film Festival that science fiction films are riding off into the sunset:

"There's nothing original. We've seen it all before. Been there. Done it," he said. Asked to pick out examples, he said: "All of them. Yes, all of them."

Talking about Blade Runner, which sees life again on DVD as a "Final Cut" 25 years after its original release, Scott says there were "too many cooks in the kitchen."

I put the question to our readers: Are sci-fi films dead?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 30, 2007 at 12:27 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Love the mask. As if the bagpipes weren't enough...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 30, 2007 at 12:15 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• From AfterElton.com [via SyFy Portal], we get some serious Torchwood spoilage. Remember that Torchwood starts on BBC America and INHD starting next month.
• Squid News has list of reasons why Halo would make a great TV series (I know Tim is all over this). I think I have to agree here. Halo has a nice big space opera storyline that I'd love to see on the small screen. I like this idea. Especially if they do Red vs. Blue.
• TV anthology series, like Masters Of Science Fiction, aren't just for the US. Dark City is a Malaysian TV show that blends horror, fantasy and science fiction. Each 30 minute episode will end with a twist. Of course! [via Julia Ziegler]
• Dan Iverson, IGN TV editor, apologizes for ignorantly dismissing Eureka without watching it first. He then reviews the Season 1 DVD set and gives it an 8/10. This set actually sounds rather good.
• Masi Oka has been making the rounds in the Far East. First up, Masi says that LOST helped pave the way for Asian characters on American TV. And lastly, Masi appeared on a couple of Japanese shows to talk Heroes. Since your dying to see the video, you can see them below. Watch them with your Japanese speaking friend if you want to know what they are saying...

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 30, 2007 at 12:06 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Guardian lists the Top 10 Dystopian Novels. Sadly, I've only read 3 of them. [via Reading Copy]


• January Magazine talks to John Scalzi about the Hugo Awards, his accidental career as a novelist, "gateway" science fiction and the nature of fame. "Hey, people are paying a not-insignificant amount for the books. They want to have a ride. I think they should get one."


• Sarah Monette lists Five Things She Knows About World-Building. [via Bibliophile Stalker]


• The Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Experience has compiled a list of sf/f pseudonyms.


• Closet Sci-Fi Geek is petitioning for a change of leadership at the SciFi Channel.


• PodShow is hosting Old Time Radio Network Scifi, which rebroadcasts classic science fiction radio programs like Escape, Flash Gordon, Hall of Fantasy and Superman.


• Speaking of radio, XM radio to will air readings of classic books, beginning with Bradbury's Farenheit 451.


• Real Science: NASA's images from the Apollo moon landings, the Voyager planetary flybys and space shuttle missions will soon be accessible through a searchable website.


• From the September issue, SFX interviews Nathan Filion (Firefly, Serenity). [via Jeremiah Tolbert]


• Here's a 4,914-page PDF file (go, go, gadget Foxit!) that includes The Complete Works of H.G. Wells.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 30, 2007 at 12:06 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

In my attempt to both show my true fanboy nature and still maintain a healthy sense of humor, I have taken it to task to find images across the web and then give readers a chance to offer up little quotes that would be appropriate for the image. In this case, I have been given a picture of a younger (and much more hairy) John Scalzi. I really enjoyed the books he has written up to this point, and he has a pretty good sense of humor (bacon cat anyone?). So with that, he becomes the target of the newest caption challenge.

The quote below the image is our weak attempt at LOLcat-speak. I know I am such a geek.

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Posted by Tim Zinsky at Wednesday August 29, 2007 at 9:41 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Quick! How can you tell when a science fiction movie is truly influential?

Is the amount of money it takes in? How about its longevity at the theater? Or maybe the number of prestigious awards it receives? Well, if you guessed those, you'd be wrong. Just ask George Lucas.

Somewhere in the plush acreage of Skywalker Ranch, Lucas is sitting back, smokin' a stogie, and tracking the progress of Luke Sywalker's original lightsaber movie prop on its way into space.

Yesterday, the original lightsaber used by Mark Hamill in 1977's Star Wars landed in Houston after much fanfare surrounding its California send-off. The famed prop is scheduled to be on display through Labor Day at the Johnson Space Center before its round-trip journey to a galaxy far, far away. Or an international space station, whichever is closer.

In Houston, the lightsaber was escorted by a flank of Storm Troopers to a waiting convoy of land vehicles where it was whisked away to the Space Center. There it awaits its berth on the space shuttle Discovery whose mission is scheduled for October. The Jedi weapon is being flown to the space station in honor of the film's 30th anniversary.

There is still no word as to whether Jar Jar Binks will also make the journey and be "accidentally" left behind.

[via Club Jade]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 29, 2007 at 1:48 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• MovieWeb takes a look at the latest Star Trek: Fan Collective DVD set. This one entitled Captain's Log and features various Trek episodes featuring the various captains of the series.


• Jon Turtletaub, show runner for Jericho has inked a deal with CBS to stay on with the network. You decide if its warranted or not.


• Galactica fans will be given the opportunity to vote on the packaging for the DVD release of Razor. Voting has already started on the official site. It's a toss up for me between A and B.


• Maybe that last tube bit will keep fans occupied long enough for them to miss the news that, contrary to previous reports, Kevin Smith will not be directing an episode of BSG because of "scheduling conflicts". [via SyFy Portal]

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday August 29, 2007 at 12:22 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Über-editor John Joseph Adams has created a website for his upcoming post-apocalyptic science fiction anthology, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse.

Besides profiling the authors who contributed to the anthology, the website also includes story excerpts. And check out this lineup:

1. "The End of the Whole Mess" by Stephen King
2. "Salvage" by Orson Scott Card
3. "The People of Sand and Slag" by Paolo Bacigalupi
4. "Bread and Bombs" by M. Rickert
5. "How We Got In Town and Out Again" by Jonathan Lethem
6. "Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels" by George R. R. Martin
7. "Waiting for the Zephyr" by Tobias S. Buckell
8. "Never Despair" by Jack McDevitt
9. "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" by Cory Doctorow
10. "The Last of the O-Forms" by James Van Pelt
11. "Still Life With Apocalypse" by Richard Kadrey
12. "Artie's Angels" by Catherine Wells
13. "Judgment Passed" by Jerry Oltion
14. "Mute" by Gene Wolfe
15. "Inertia" by Nancy Kress
16. "And the Deep Blue Sea" by Elizabeth Bear
17. "Speech Sounds" by Octavia E. Butler
18. "Killers" by Carol Emshwiller
19. "Ginny Sweethips' Flying Circus" by Neal Barrett, Jr.
20. "The End of the World as We Know It" by Dale Bailey
21. "A Song Before Sunset" by David Grigg
22. "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers" by John Langan

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 29, 2007 at 12:15 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Amazon blog interviews Matt Ruff, author of Bad Monkeys. (Also: Matt Ruff has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.)


• Here's a video of Terry Brooks talking about The Elves of Cintra, second book in the Genesis of Shannara trilogy. There's also a written interview.


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Margo Lanagan, author of Red Spikes.


• From The Globe and Mail: China loves Robert J. Sawyer, author of Rollback.


• SFF World interviews Scott Lynch, author of Red Seas under Red Skies. "I like to have it both ways -- beauty and grandeur and mystery piled on top of a grounded sense of the muck and hardships of actual life, especially in this sort of archaic age."


• As per Publisher's Weekly, science fiction author/editor Charles N. Brown (co-founder and editor of Locus magazine) won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 23rd L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards. [via Jonathan Strahan]


• Matt Cheney rounds up all the linkity goodness to be had on Christopher Barzak Day.


• Wyrdsmiths looks at Why Books Fail.


• Blue Moon Rising points us to the fantastic (and amusing) artwork of Michael Dashow.


• Science fiction writer and environmental consultant Nina Munteanu looks at the possible dystopian outcomes regarding the unethical use of AI in her post Cyborgs & Evolution.


• Elvis has left the filming... Bruce Campbell will not be part of Bubba Nosferatu, sequel to Bubba Ho-Tep.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 29, 2007 at 12:05 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Take a trip back to the turn of the century, the 20th century, Y1.9K. What would the Internet be like, if it existed? Literally a series of tubes most likely. What would the video memes be like? Well, you can find out below. The intro starts out a bit slow, but then things pick up.

[Via Brass Goggles]

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday August 28, 2007 at 3:46 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

John Picacio has just posted the cover art for the upcoming book Elric: The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock. Here's the large version.

Man, this looks sweet. I think Picacio has the cover art for the sequel to his awesome book, Cover Story.

I haven't read the Elric books, but I've always wanted to. I've been picking up the White Wolf trade paperback editions when I see them at the used bookstore. They look good on a shelf, at least.

What's your take on the Elric series? Is it a worthwhile read?

Do you have a recommended reading order, either by publishing date or by the story chronology? Or is there a better introductory point?

I'm a casual fantasy fan at best...is this series only for true hardcore fantasy fans?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 28, 2007 at 11:33 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: These are the kinds of well-told stories that make reading such a pleasure.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A researcher is hired to track down the millennia-old tusks of the Kilimanjaro Elephant.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Masterful storytelling; realistic characters; wonderful dialogue.
CONS: I'll have to get back to you on this one. I'm hard-pressed to find anything bad with this. The worst thing I could say (that the realistic-but-fleeting characters are not very memorable) doesn't affect the reading experience.
BOTTOM LINE: A thoroughly engaging read, plain and simple.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 28, 2007 at 12:29 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Canmag.com offers a short article with McG, director of the upcoming NBC series Chuck. I'm kinda looking forward to seeing how this nerd comedy pans out.


• James Rummel at Hell In A Handbasket takes a look at the guns of Battlestar Galactica. Lots of interesting stuff on the personal firearms, including a shot of Tim's obsession, Boomer, with a drawn gun.


• Countess_Baltar takes a seemingly anti-producer stance, using their own words, against the producers of Galactica. Interesting.


• Gramarye has some observations on the BBC show, Jekyll. I know there are ways to see this on this side of the pond, BBC America being on of them, but I haven't caught it yet. Any have any thoughts? Is it worth a view?


• And the Heroes onslaught continues. This time, Kring and Co. have create a website for the Yamagato Fellowship, a fictitious organization with links to Takezo Kensei. Supposedly there will be five short documentaries on Kensei's life and will explain why he is a Caucasian. Could be interesting.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday August 28, 2007 at 12:22 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Edgar Rice Burroughs' Warlord of Mars is available as a free audiobook from LibriVox. There is also the free e-book version. [via Quasar Dragon]


• Neth Space has 5 quick questions for Jay Lake, author of Mainspring.


• Gareth L. Powell lists his 10 favorite short story collections (those written by a single author).


• Michale Swanwick shares an essay he write for a convention, Dinosaurs, Space Flight, and Science Fiction, in which he presents a short sketch of the three literary movements: Interstitial Arts, The New Weird and Mundane Science Fiction.


• James Patrick Kelly is podcasting his novel Look Into the Sun. Here's Part 26.


• The Canadian SF&F Site offers tips on What To Do at an SF Convention. [via Books, Words, Writing]


• Michale Jasper points us to this Raleigh News and Observer book column article about speculative fiction, Eyes wide open, the first in a series of articles to guide the uninitiated genre reader.


• Amy Gahran is looking for a tool that will match specific types of sciences (dark matter, epigenetics) with a science fiction book that portrays it. Does anyone know of such a tool?


• From Scott Karp's Publishing 2.0 article, Bookstores Begin Slow Descent Into Obsolescence: "The bookstore has been replaced by the Web as the place of wonder, and there's no turning back." Well...at least for business books... [via Bibliophile Stalker]


• You think you got it bad? Check out this Zombie Spiderman and Mary Jane Statue. [via Optical Popitude via Nerd Approved]


• School's in! StarWars.com offers up a bunch of Star Wars Art Book Covers for the young 'uns. [via Geek Sugar]


• Looking to learn a new language? Why not modern Kryptonian?


• The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester brought together 67 home-made Daleks in a bid to create a new world record and have the biggest number of people dressed up as Daleks in one location [via BoingBoing]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 28, 2007 at 12:06 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

The 4th episode of Masters of Science Fiction aired this past weekend. This was the final episode to be aired, even though two more were filmed.

Like the ones that preceded it, I thought the episode was uninspired, too long and, ultimately, just plain boring. And that's the general consensus elsewhere. The only reason I gave it a chance was because of the high-caliber talent attached to the project and the fact that they were based on some short stories by big name authors.

So what happened?

I have not read the source material...did it stink because it was adapted poorly? Or was it poor material to begin with? (Did Heinlein and Ellison let us down?) Was it too little material stretched out to cover an hour?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 27, 2007 at 12:53 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Keanu Reeves is set to star as Klaatu in the 2008 remake of 1951's Robert Wise classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Oh, geez.

On the one hand, if Hollywood is gonna do a remake, then this is good source material to crib from. But please, please, please let this be a good remake. Don't soil the name of a scifi classic for the sake of a few quick bucks.

But if you're gonna soil the name of a scifi classic for the sake of a few quick bucks, get Agent Smith to play Gort!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 27, 2007 at 7:00 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Pat's Fantasy Hotlist triple-interviews George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham, co-authors of Hunter's Run, the book-length version of their novella "Shadow Twin" (see SF Signal's review of the novella).


• From SFX: Geoff Ryman reviews Brain Aldiss' HARM.


• "Tate Hallaway" looks at writer pseudonyms. "It's amazing to me how many people who should know better buy into the idea that books survive based on their quality alone." [via Lyda Morehouse]


• Nick Mamatas shows off the new cover of Under My Roof. Note: No gnomes were harmed in the making of this cover.


• Over at the Guardian, Lee Rourke says Don't mistake long novels for deep ones. "...how does one produce a slim volume that contains more literary weight per page than most fat, sprawling, literary epics?" [via Mumpsimus]


• It's a Pulp World has a scan from a 1939 Startling Stories article by Eric Temple Bell (writing as John Taine) called Why Science Fiction.


• David Yuen lists Lesser Known Sci-Fi Films and Miniseries.


• Real Science on the Internet: SciVee is a new video/podcast upload website for scientists.


• Optical Popitude points us to this Uncyclopedia article How to Make Cheesy Sci-Fi.


• Warning: You must be 18 years of age to view the R-Rated Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem trailer. Why the R rating? Probably because the movie is more reminiscent of an early-80's gore fest than science fiction.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 27, 2007 at 12:14 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Monsters and Critics has a nice review up of the Heroes Season 1 DVD set. Looks like a nice package.


• Julie Gardner, executive producer for the Dr. Who spin-off Torchwood, told Sci Fi Wire that the new show was influenced by 1990's American SF, especially The X-Files. Could that be a reason for the critical lambasting the show has taken since its premiere?


• Inner Toob takes the occasion of last weeks Erureka episode, where Fargo tells his grandfather that man has only been 'officially' on the moon since 1969, as a jumping off point to show how Moonbase Alpha actually did become established. Toob World looks at TV as being the actual reality, all others are fake.


• Jam! Showbiz has a nice little article on Jonathan Frakes and what he's been doing since TNG (teaching film making, of course).

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday August 27, 2007 at 12:02 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

"Your reviews of the first two episodes were much kinder than anything I had to say. Man-o-man. What an awful show. It'll probably last for seven seasons or more. Sigh." - Pete Tz.

"I always wondered what "bore worms" felt like. Having seen the first two FLASH GORDON episodes, I now know." - Christian Johnson

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 27, 2007 at 12:00 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

We all know "The Imperial March" from Empire Strikes Back is one of the reasons Empire is probably the best of the Star Wars movie. In other words, it totally rocks, as does the whole soundtrack. But, what does Vader do on vacation? Say he pops on down to Hawaii to choke some tasty waves on a surfboard. The theme might sound a little something like Imperial Surf by Kenny Haining.

Or, lets say Vader's holidaying in Spain. He feels a disturbance in the Force to play a little classical guitar. The results might be something like this:

[via TheForce.Net.]

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Posted by JP Frantz at Sunday August 26, 2007 at 7:12 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

It's amazing the stuff you can find hiding out on these interwebs. Luckily, we have YouTube to actually show us all the weird stuff people have put on video or film. Like this complete rip-off of Star Trek from, I think, Turkey. Just take a gander at the hawsomeness .

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Posted by JP Frantz at Sunday August 26, 2007 at 6:27 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

After 10 years, Infinity Plus, the science fiction website started by Keith Brooke (and later co-edited with Nick Gevers and then Paul Barnett) is calling it quits.

Infinity Plus was publishing free online fiction before it was in vogue. The website is also a great resource for insightful reviews and commentary. It's sad to see it go, but thankfully the current website will remain available as an archive.

And they're not going out with a whimper, but with a bang...check out this final lineup of content:

• "Cross Roads Blues" by Paul McAuley
• "Inheritance" by Paul McAuley
• An interview with Paul McAuley by Stuart Carter
• "Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese" by Nicola Griffith
• "Freezing Geezers" by Kit Reed
• "The Edge of Nowhere" by James Patrick Kelly
• "Distant Galaxies Colliding" by Gareth L Powell
• "Three Days in a Border Town" by Jeff VanderMeer
• "Tall Tales on the Iron Horse" by Colin P Davies
• "What's Up Tiger Lily?" a novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• And in the end..., a last word from Keith Brooke

Hats off to the folks behind Infinity Plus for a job well done!

[via Jason Erik Lundberg]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday August 26, 2007 at 12:29 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

MY RATING:

After a collision with an asteroid, a splinter of the Earth is knocked free and floats through the solar system. As one of the very few humans left, Hector must come to terms with his survival among a cult-like group led by his father, who had visions of the coming impact. After reading Polystom and Gradisil, I was very eager to read this book. Unfortunately, I really disliked the story and had to struggle to get through it. And at just over 200 pages, that's not a good thing.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Saturday August 25, 2007 at 5:40 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Chris Merle podcast-interviews Conestoga 11's Artist Guest of Honor, John Picacio (Cover Story).


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles James Maxey, author of Bitterwood.


• Pat's Fantasy Hotlist interviews Steven Erikson (House of Chains).


• The Bat Segundo #132 has Matthew Sharpe & Megan Sullivan.


• SciFiChick interviews writer and BBT Magazine editor (and SF Signal fanboy) Pete Tzinski about his new web project, God in the Machine.


• Cover Browser collects comic book cover images of Superman's identity being exposed. [via Look at This]


• Locus Online has excerpts from Locus magazine's August Issue, including Heinlein at 100: A Roundtable Discussion and the John Scalzi interview.


• Gravity Lens points us to a gallery of science-fiction spacesuits.


• Quasar Dragon unearths the classic scifi movie First Spaceship on Venus.


• A Fedora-wearing Harrison Ford graces the latest cover of SFX magazine.


• LittleFivers lists The Top 10 Surprises in the First Interstellar Message We Receive. "#4. We're challenged to a duel for supremacy, and must pick our champion: Popeye or the Roadrunner."

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday August 25, 2007 at 1:49 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• John Muir has an incredibly long, incredibly detailed article covering the classic MST3K classic episode "Manos, The Hands Of Fate". You haven't lived till you've seen this one. Then you'll be glad you never saw the movie without Joel and the bots. ("Manos!" "The hands of fate?" "Uh-huh").


• The TV Addict defends his earlier post Heroes: Most OverHyped Show Ever? He has some interesting points, and I agree the hype for it has been everywhere. Can it live up to the hype? Sure. Will it? We'll see.


• Buddy TV has their time slot analysis for Moonlight up. They compare it to Angel, which might be good, except no Joss Whedon, which is bad. Oh, and it isn't SF, which is bad.


• For all you LOST fans who happen to be High Def snobs, you'll be glad to learn that Season 3 of LOST will be available on Blu Ray in full on 1080p. Hmm, might be time to get a larger TV.


• Not TV related, but Live365 has an Internet radio station dedicated to SF&F soundtracks. Cool.


• Kevin Smith is all over TV this season. Now he's signed on to direct and episode of Battlestar Galactica. Hopefully Matt Damon or Ben AFFLACK! won't appear.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Saturday August 25, 2007 at 12:16 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Continuing my renewed fascination with Land of the Lost, I submit the Sleestak bank! This is not to be confused with Sleestak Bank, where all the Sleestaks conduct their financial transactions...

Did they even have any money in Land of the Lost? I'm thinking the economy was more of a first-come-first-served kind of thing. And the Sleestaks were probably the last to get anything since they were as slow as prehistoric molasses, which everyone knows is even slower than modern molasses. I mean, seriously, were these guys (at least I think they were dudes) ever a danger to Will, Holly and their Dad. (Not that we're so concerned about the Dad after he unceremoniously ditched his kids to high-tail it back to the comforts of modern conveniences -- like indoor plumbing and walking in the park without fear of being eaten by a poorly-animated Tyrannosaurus Rex.) I mean, nobody was ever really threatened by these loitering, prehistoric lizard-things with giant gem-like eyes, were they?

WILL: Hey, Holly...we're here in the Sleestak caverns. Let's play a card game!
HOLLY: Er...OK.
WILL: How about we play War?
HOLLY: That game takes forever. What if the Sleestaks come near?
WILL: That's OK, we'll have plenty of time to finish our game.
[ Interlude: poorly-animated herbivore eating plant to signify the passage of time ]
WILL: 1..2..3..War!
HOLLY: Will! Look out! There's a Sleestak right behind you!
SLEESTAK: Ssssssssssssss...
[ Will rolls his eyes, sighs, gathers the cards, gets up, does some calisthenics, and wanders out of the cave for a bit, then leaves. ]
HOLLY: Whew..that was close!

[via Optical Popitude]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 24, 2007 at 12:05 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

MY RATING:

Sometimes a book makes me stop and think after I've finished it. Occasionally a book will make me stop and think during it. Rarely will a book do both. In War Times is one of those rare books whose ideas live in your mind long after you've finished and make you think about them for a time afterward.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday August 24, 2007 at 8:20 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Here's Part 1...follow the YouTube trail to see parts 2 through 5.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 24, 2007 at 12:22 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• The website for Jeff Somers' book The Electric Church is now live. It has a feel that's true to the book, so head on over and find "salvation through eternity". Or don't bother...the brain-stealing cyborgs will eventually find you... [via Orbit]


• Playstation, in conjunction with The Manchester International Festival, has posted short videos based on fiction by Jeff VanderMeer, Nicholas Royle, and Steve Aylett.


• The Agony Column has the scoop on Tachyon's reprint of Harlan Ellison's Shatterday. Check out the back cover for a marketing pitch that only Harlan Ellison could write.


• Also from The Agony Column: an audio-interview with Peter F. Hamilton.


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Gene Wolfe, author of Soldier of Sidon.


• UKSF Book News interviews Adam Roberts (Splinter). "It's main theme, I think, is about the different ways in which worlds end, and the different kinds of worlds that are subject to that style of catastrophic asteroid-strike dinosaur-killing disaster."


• Neth Space has 5 Question for Chris Roberson.


• Amazon.com Wire's Blog podcast-interviews William Gibson (Spook Country). To skip straight to Gibson's interview, just click his photo.


• Gail Martin has posted a book trailer (in wmv or via YouTube) for her book, The Summoner.


• Real science: Bldg Blog summarizes a subscriber-only New Scientist article about Acoustic Planetology.


• Here's a collection of Powerpoint slides examining Biology in SciFi movies.


• Free fiction watch: Subterranean Press has posted the beginnings of the Fall 2007 issue of Subterranean Online, with the full contents being posted through the next few months. Contributors include Caitlín Kiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, Mike Resnick, Patrick Rothfuss, John Scalzi, Lewis Shiner, Charles de Lint, Elizabeth Bear, David Prill, and Livia Llewellyn.


• Film Threat lists 50 Reasons Why Return of the Jedi Sucks.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 24, 2007 at 12:10 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Rumor has it that a Justice League movie is in the works, based, I have to guess, on the Cartoon Network show. That would be awesome, as the CN version is quite good, and actually has some very heavy SF episodes. I'd watch it.


• TV Squad has some spoilery information on what to expect for this season of Heroes. Some stuff you've seen before, some you haven't. Proceed at your own risk.


• Speaking of Heroes, Ali Larter is appearing in an ad campaign for Dove Hair Care, taking a stand for real beauty by 'going real' at this year's Emmys. This is an effort to combat the negative female stereotypes the media portrays. How will she do this? By doing her own hair. Apparently, the hair is the biggest problem with the portrayal of females in the media. Not unrealistic body types, but hair.


• Networks this year are shying away from serial programming. Most of the new shows return to the stand alone episode model of yore. Definitely a boon for those who don't want to invest a lot of thought in following their favorite show. I do think that a serial program, done right, can be better than stand alone shows, Star Trek not withstanding.


• Buddy TV has the scoop on LOST casting rumors for season 4. As usual, there may be some spoilage here, but really, the powers that be are doing a good job keeping info under tight wraps.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday August 24, 2007 at 12:05 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

MY RATING:

Sex, drugs and rock and roll is how the saying goes. After litening to Warp 11's latest CD, we can add Star Trek to the equation. It's Dead, Jim is a hard hitting album that effectively ties all things Star Trek with a wide range of music. The fact that Warp 11 is not a cover band, but writes their own songs is amazing, and their music is more than good enough for non-Trekkies/Trekkers to enjoy.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 4:55 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

The internets have been abuzz discussing Boston Globe columnist Matthew Gilbert's article Too much, too fast for overreaching 'Heroes'. Basically, his problem with Heroes is that the hype being generated is based on Heroes as a product, and not media-hype about how good the show is.

Well, excuse me, but the media does not decide if a show is good or not, the people watching it do. Now, he does raise some legitimate concerns: too many characters and no logic behind how the powers work. He also complains about the plot being too sprawling, which I don't agree with. And even though the finale was poor compared to the rest of the season, Heroes is still one of the better shows on television.

Which is why NBC is pushing it as hard as they can. Being at the bottom of the ratings barrel for long time will do that for you. NBC will do everything it can to pump up interest in the second season, including all the ancillary stuff like action figures, trading cards, and the like.

And as for there being too many characters, well, Kring stated early on that season 2 would see some characters depart and new ones appear. I like the idea of this approach, as each season becomes more of a self-contained unit. If the writers do their jobs, there's no reason to think new characters will kill the show. Comparisons to LOST's second season aren't relevant as LOST is one story told over many seasons. Heroes is a new story every season. We'll see how well this works starting this September, but to dismiss the attempt before you even see how it turns out strikes me as reactionary.

Gilbert also doesn't like the spin-off idea of Heroes: Origins. I can accept this. The idea seems a bit cheesy to me, sort of a mainstream version of Who Wants To Be A Superhero, only without Stan Lee's disembodied head. I'm not really interested in this, but I bet it gets decent ratings.

NBC is going to milk Heroes for all its worth, which is why we have a the Hayden Panittiere 'Got Milk' ad so prominently displayed. Yes, yes, Masi Oka has one too, but it's not as, ah, interesting. Now, if Gilbert had decried Hayden's ad as an overreach, I'd have to agree. I mean, come on, what, exactly are we pushing here? She turns 18 and this is what we get? I'm sure legions of Claire fanboys suddenly have the urge to run to the grocery store.

Back to point, I think Gilbert is putting the cart before the horse. He is using the actions of NBC relentlessly pushing Heroes as suggestive that the show won't be as good second season. You can't say that as the writers have nothing to do with how NBC promotes the show, they can only write the story. We'll see soon how well the show does. I'm hoping the show does well, although the season finale has lowered my expectations somewhat for the new season. I'm still interested, especially in Hiro's story.

[via John Brownlee at Sci Fi Scanner]

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 3:49 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

[From Sci Fi Wire] Morgan Freeman tells the MTV Movies Blog that he is still working on a film adaptation of Arthur C. Clark's Rendezvous With Rama. I say, "Bring it on!"

I remember reading Rama back in the day and being blown away by the story. What's not to love about a group of scientists exploring a 30-mile long cylinder floating in space? But as Freeman notes, Rama isn't your typical summer SF movie. It's actually quite free of anything exploding or marauding aliens invading Earth. It's about humanity and big science ideas. I'd love to see a film version of the book.

Despite the issues of adapting it to film, Freeman still believes it's worth doing, and I agree. I'd like to see more, smart SF movies. Rama is a good start, if it ever gets made. I'd also like to see Eon as film, or any of the Culture novels by Banks, even though they usually have stuff exploding.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 2:13 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Besides Doctor Who, Eureka is one of the few shows I watch regularly and, for what it's worth, the only other SciFi Channel show I watch. Although the show keeps me coming back, it's not perfect. Here's are my thoughts on Season 2 so far...

• Eureka, as JP has mentioned, is about the characters, and the characters are strong. Mostly. See the exceptions noted below.


• It looks like they are trying to get Carter away from "stupid newbie" to "unintentionally smart Do-Gooder". The crimes that Sheriff Carter has to solve always seem involve Carter's basic understanding of the science that somehow escapes the town full of Braniacs. That dumbing-down they do for him works wonders, but the stories are in danger of becoming formulaic.


• Seeing Carter's ex-wife was a nice glimpse into his personal life. Seeing Carter and Allison get closer isn't. Their chemistry worked better with the unrequited lust spin.


• Speaking of Allison, what's up with her replacing Stark? I guess her "temporary assignment" gig was wearing thin. And what about Stark himself? Stark still annoys me. I thought - no, hoped! - that his dismissal would be the last we saw of him. Sadly, that was not to be. Now he loiters around like a wet napkin, failing to emote anything at all, with his deadpan delivery of every single line of dialogue that the writers are forced to throw his way.


• Taggert (Max Headroom) is virtually gone from this season, which is fine by me. That character did nothing for me. But I still would rather see him stick around instead of Stark.


• Deputy Jo Lupo is emerging as a standout character. Good move.


• Fargo is getting more screen time this season. Every time he appears, I can't help but think of his effeminate house-voice: "Good morning, Sheriff Carter!"


• The story arc of Henry and his wife's accident looks intriguing. I'm interested in seeing where they are going with it, but not if they drag it out too long. They need to ratchet up Beverly's dastardly quotient.


• Speaking of story arcs dragging out, I'm interested to see where they go with the Artifact story line, but they need to show us more and soon.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 1:01 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

I first learned that there were 10 dimensions back when I read the mind-blowing Hyperspace by Michio Kaku. Here's a video explaining how to imagine it...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 12:27 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Tobias Buckell offers a sneak peek at the evolution of a book cover, the subject being his upcoming book Sly Mongoose, sequel to Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin.


• Locus Online has posted Graham Sleight's Yesterday's Tomorrows: Robert A. Heinlein essay from the August 2007 issue of Locus.


• BoingBoing interviews William Gibson. [via Big Dumb Object]


• New Hugo Award website: Science Fiction Awards Watch.


• New York Times profiles Ray Bradbury on his 87th birthday, with quotes from Lou Anders. [via Locus Online]


• While Flagrant Disregard lists 8 SciFi Film You Should See, Ask Rea Maor gives us the first half of The 10 "Geek" Movies That Should Never Have Been.


• The Uncyclopedia has a page of funny William Shatner quotes.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 12:25 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Check out the nifty new features of Google Sky...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 12:15 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Over on Amazon's Screening Room Blog, Stephanie Reid-Simons is
  giving the Flash Gordon a chance. I disagree with the first reason, somewhat disagree with the second, and the third doesn't matter if the show is crap.


• The Age.com (Australian) has a short article on David Duchovny and his new Showtime show Californication. Lots of adult themed discussion here so be warned.


• Buddy TV looks at the recasting of Jamie Sommers' sister in Bionic Woman and decides the show is going for style over substance. And, given the facts, I think they are right. I'll still tune in to see what the show is like.


• Sy Fy Portal takes a look at genre series that died too soon. Lot's of interesting shows here, many of which I've never seen. At all. I may have to check them out. Somehow.


• We've mentioned Sanctuary, the online only SF-ish series, before. All of the episodes are available for purchase from the home sight, and now, many of them are available in HD via Vuze, the online 'network' brought to you by the guys behind the bittorrent client, Azureus. The first episode is free to watch. Mmm, free HD goodness. [Thanks to Shanee Ben-Zur for the tip!]

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 23, 2007 at 12:13 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

That's right, Brass Goggles clues us in that the awesome Larklight will have a sequel in October. Check out the sub-title: A Stirring Adventure of Spies, Time Travel and Curious Hats. What's not to love about that?

And given the terrific universe Reeve has created for this series, I'm excited to read this book when it comes out. Aether-ships, pirates, space spiders and interesting characters made the first one a joy to read. Starcross looks to have more of the same steampunky goodness of the first one. Mark you calendars for October 16th!

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 9:29 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Last season's Who Wants To Be A Superhero? winner, Feedback, will make his movie debut this Saturday on Sci Fi. This isn't a Feedback movie, rather the actor, Matthew Atherton will be starring in the Sci Fi movie, Mega Snake, which is pretty much all you need to know to decide whether to watch or not. I'd choose not.
• Sci Fi Weekly has an interview with Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks and Christopher Judge on 10 years of Stargate SG-1. SG-1 fans ought to find something interesting here. [Via Slice Of Sci Fi]
• Paul Bagosy details his threshold of suspension of disbelief, and uses an episode of Eureka to do so. In my mind, he chose a weaker episode, but Eureka isn't really about the science, its about the characters. I can deal with the technobabble because I like the people in the show.
• Now all you SF fans in Japan will have your very own science fiction channel. Pray that they don't make 'original' movies like Sci Fi. There's no telling the horrors of low budget rubber monster movies waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting Japan.
• Battlestar Galactica will live on after its series finale, but in the form of a six issue comic series. The comic will fill details leading up to the Cylon attack.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 12:29 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

CNN has the skinny on a poll of reading habits in the U.S.

Some interesting take-aways:

• One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year.
• Of those who did read, women and seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.
• The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year -- half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.
• Analysts attribute the listlessness of book sales to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.
• Among those who said they had read books, the median figure -- with half reading more, half fewer -- was nine books for women and five for men.
• People from the South read a bit more than those from other regions, mostly religious books and romance novels.
• Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics
• Democrats and liberals typically read more books than Republicans and conservatives.
• Men tend to prefer nonfiction.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 12:22 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Harken back to yesteryear with this documentary that chronicles television science fiction. Included for free is a peek at a Superman Frosted Flakes commercial and some Star Trek bloopers!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 12:21 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

I'm still lovin' Doctor Who.

After a strong season two finish, I was waiting for season 3 to start and, so far (8 episodes in) I am not disappointed. Here's why:

• So far the episodes have a nice mixture of adventure, special effects and humor. And Daleks. (Why is it that a Time Lord is ever surprised to learn that they are once again not yet completely eliminated?) My daughter and I have enjoyed all the episodes so far. This is one show she actually looks forward to. I like to think it's because of time spent with her old man instead of pig people and one-eyed squid heads.
• In the "Runaway Bride" premiere, The Doctor was essentially flying solo. It was a nice break from the Doctor/sidekick formuala.
• Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) is turning out to be a decent sidekick. She's a tough, likabale female character - easily able to meet any situation.
• It looks like they are trying to create a multi-episode story arc with the mysterious people who know about the Doctor and who are trying to track him via Martha's mother. Insert ominous music here. Perhaps this will be this season's "Lone Bad Wolf"?
• In one episode ("Daleks in Manhattan" or "Evolution of the Daleks" - can't recall), the writers made an effort (however brief) to show that the sonic screwdriver is not the Universal Fixxer-Upper Device by having the Doctor drop it beyond his reach. He had to find other means to foil the Daleks. Of course, Martha handed it back to him just before the episode ended. Welcome to equilibrium.
• The show is still loads of campy fun and one of the few shows we keep watching every week. Unlike a certain other show I could name. (Ah-Aaaaah!)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 12:20 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Google Earth now includes a "book layer" that "allows you to explore locations through the lens of the world's books", as per Google LatLong Blog:

Now when you turn on the "Google Book Search" layer in Google Earth (found in the "Featured Content" folder in the "Layers" menu), you'll see small book icons scattered around the globe. When you click on one of the book icons, a pop-up balloon will display a snippet of text from one of Book Search's public domain books that references that location. You'll also find links to the Google Book Search page for that snippet so that you can learn more about what it has to say about the city or town.

For example, let's say that you're interested in Detroit, Michigan. After flying there in Google Earth, you'll find that one of the book icons is for "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson." Clicking on the book icon brings up the pop-up balloon with the following text snippet:

[via O'Reilly Radar]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 12:11 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Tor Art Director Irene Gallo shows off the cool Stephan Martiniere cover for Jay Lake's Escapement, the sequel to Mainspring.


• More Tor news from Irene Gallo: Tor announces its first podcast - from the 65th World Science Fiction Convention in Japan, and they now have a facebook page.


• In a guest-post at Solaris blog, Chris Roberson offers an apology for the lack of monkeys, pirates, ninjas, and airships in his book Set the Seas on Fire: "...as everyone knows, ninjas and pirates are somewhat past their sell-by date, having been somewhat over-represented in popular culture these last few years. ...I would like to propose that we substitute some new alternatives for these tropes from this point onwards. ...going forward all ninjas shall be replaced with birthday clowns, and all pirates shall instead be railroad conductors."


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Brian Herbert, author of Sandworms of Dune, co-written with Kevin J. Anderson.


• Penguin podcasts William Gibson (Spook Country).


• Free fiction: "Gene Wars" by Paul McAuley. [via Big Dumb Object]


• The Guardian asks: Why are there so few serious book programmes on television? [via Tobias Buckell]


• SFF World interviews Daniel Abraham (A Betrayal in Winter).


• Jupiter magazine is offering a chance to win a copy of The Science of Doctor Who published by Icon Books. [via UKSF Book News]


• Suicide Girls' list of "The 10 Most Worst Films Of All Time" includes Batman & Robin and Zardoz.


• All Things Digital interviews George Lucas. [via Star Wars Blog]


• Here's a scene from Alien (you know the one) captured in the glory that is Lego. [via Texas Best Grok via Neatorama]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 22, 2007 at 12:05 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

NBC has released a new promo video for season 2 of Heroes. You can see the video below. It's very cinematic, but surprisingly content free. Although Hiro wielding his sword is always cool.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday August 21, 2007 at 10:49 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Jim Baen's Universe made a splash last year as an online-only, DRM-free short fiction magazine. It has since attracted big-name authors and numerous accolades. The June 2007 issue (Issue #7, also known as Volume 2, Number 1) is my first opportunity to try it out.

Ever since my first short-story-a-day project, I've warmed up to reading fiction online. What's particularly nice is the ability to download a version to my PDA, so I always have it with me. It's also nice to be able pull it up on a full size monitor when the situation allows. Jim Baen's Universe proves that online delivery mechanisms can work and work well.

The fiction (reviewed below) is grouped into sections: science fiction, fantasy, classic, serial (a story I did not read since I missed the first 6 parts), and first-time authors. Some illustrations (some decent, some amateurish) accompany the stories. Rounding out the issue are non-fiction pieces by Gregory Benford, Stephen Euin Cobb, Eric Flint, Barry N. Malzberg and Mike Resnick. Resnick also offers a great editorial about the silliness of defining science fiction, a genre which refuses to be put in a "straightjacket". The closing quote sums it up nicely: "About the only valid definition [of science fiction] that I'm willing to accept is this: all of modern, mainstream, and realistic fiction is simply a branch, a category, or a subset of science fiction."

But the real proof with fiction anthologies - printed or online - is in the content. Since my reading preferences tend towards science fiction, it might not be a big surprise that the sf stories were found to be more enjoyable overall, particularly Mike Resnick's heartfelt "The Big Guy" and the adventure "Running Water for L.A." by Eric Witchey. However, one of the fantasy stories ("The Littlest Wyrm-Maid" by Rebecca Lickiss) did surprise me by being lots of fun.

Reviewlettes follow...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 21, 2007 at 12:28 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Free fiction: "The Man Who Evolved" by Edmond Hamilton. [via Free SF Reader]


• Here's the reason Paul McAuley writes short fiction. "I do it because I like to play with ideas - not just the ideas that form the story's backbone, but with ideas about structure and form, voice and pace. It's a form of play."


• John Joseph Adams is working on a reprint zombie anthology and is interested in story suggestions at the Zombie Fiction Database.


• Justine Larbalestier looks at adult impressions of young adult fiction: "...reviews written by adults are close to collapsing under the weight of their insane expectations about what YA books should do and rigid ideas about what teenagers are like."


• The Swivet examines why mass market originals get no respect.


• Over at Amazon blog, Jeff VanderMeer talks about the Best American Fantasy anthology and Shriek: The Movie.


• James Patrick Kelly is podcasting his novel Look Into the Sun. Here's Part 25.


• Don Sakers has posted the latest chapter of his online book, Hunt for the Dymalon Cygnet, the latest in his Scattered World series.


• Rick Kleffel launches The Agony Column Daily News podcast, the first episode of which features Gavin Grant, Karen Joy Fowler, and Kelly Link talking about Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.


• There's a new blog-like website devoted to The Hugo Awards.


• SciFi Weekly let's the cast of Stargate SG:1 look back on 10 years of the show.


• Colors Pretty lists the best and worst TV SciFi opening sequences. [via Freyburg]


• Talk about Beauty and the Beast...Michael Bay offers links to Wonder Woman and Cthulhu.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 21, 2007 at 12:14 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• In case you've been under a rock, it seems that Veronica Mars' Kristen Bell is set to appear on Heroes. She'll play a mysterious yet sexy stranger who commits a horrible crime in a multi-episode story arc. Image of Ms. Bell as Princess Leia (you're welcome John) courtesy of GiveMeMyRemote.com.


• BuddyTV analyzes Chuck's timeslot. As a lead in to Heroes, you'd think it would have an advantage. But its up against the Dancing With The Stars juggernaut, so its already fighting for ratings leftovers before it even starts. This is one show I'm looking forward to seeing. NBC can chalk up my infinitesimal rating point right now.


• Following in the hallowed footsteps of the Sci Fi Channel, RHI Entertainment announced a slate of made for Video On Demand movies. Each movie will be made for about $3 million a piece, which is what Sci Fi strives for in its cinematic offerings. After their runs, the movies will be made available on iTunes at to cable channels like Sci Fi. But do we really need more Mansquito-quality movies, from providers not named Sci Fi?


• 80's Actual takes a look at the 1980's version of Dr. Who, post Tom Baker. They call it an 'unsettled time' for Dr. Who. Never being into the show, I can't say, but Colin Baker's outfit is tasteless.


• Brit_actors points us to the news that the David Tennant version of Dr. Who will be getting a comic book in 2008. The sketches actually look pretty good.


• And the Dr. Who info keeps coming. (Spoiler alert for Series 4) How about a little Doctor on Doctor action? If Peter Jackson says it, it must be true! Thanks to Bill S. for the link.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday August 21, 2007 at 12:04 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

I had a chance to look over the latest issue (September 2007) of SFX magazine and thought I'd share my thoughts. You know SFX...it's that newsstands magazine that causes double-takes because there's a running gag of having some foreground element blocking the lower part of the "F", making it look like an "E". SFX covers science fiction in all its forms: TV, film, books, DVD, audio books...even games and toys.

Being a U.S. resident reading a U.K. media magazine is always illuminating because it makes me keenly aware of my America-centric view of genre, even in this age of global InterTubes. Take television shows, for example. U.K. shows like Primeval, Hyperdrive and Jekyll fall below my radar, so it's nice to learn about them. But I'm not a total TV noob, so it's also nice to see coverage of shows I'm familiar with, too. One of those U.K./U.S. moments is with schedule-shifted shows; like Doctor Who, whose episodes run in the U.K. months before they do here in the States, or like Heroes whose airings lag behind the U.S. With the former, there is the mental wrestling between my desire to learn juicy morsels and my fear of spoilers. With the latter, it's either a nice recap or a way to to catch up on missed episodes. Speaking of spoilers, the magazine comes with a sealed interior section called "Spoiler Zone" that offers 30 spoilery episode summaries/reviews for 9 different shows.

A big plus of SFX is that it does not gloss over science fiction in printed form. Twenty-two of the eighty-eight (!) reviews cover new book releases. Another eight reviews cover book re-issues. They are not in-depth critiques by any definition, but they do give you a feel for the book. The issue also features interviews with authros Stephen Baxter (author of Navigator and a frequent book reviewer for SFX), Brian Aldiss (HARM), Jasper Fforde (First Among Sequels)and Austin Grossman (Soon I Will Be Invincible). That's above-average author coverage for a magazine that covers multiple media formats, methinks. (Other interview subjects in this issue include Nathan Filion (Firefly) and Adrian Pasdar (Heroes), among others.)

The issue really has lots of cool articles and information. Here are but some of the interesting tidbits:

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 20, 2007 at 12:28 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Pete Tzinski of Blood, Blade & Thruster magazine is embarking on an ambitious writing project. It's an online fiction serial called God in the Machine and features cool illustrations (like the one shown here) by Christoffer Saar.

Season one is called "Cold Machines". Here's the synopsis:

A freak encounter with an electromagnetic storm shuts down all the ship systems of the starship Damocles, as well as the whole robotic crew. Everyone, that is, except for an engineering droid and a 'Lifter, clinging to the outside of the ship. They're still active. They're awake...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 20, 2007 at 12:14 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

"...I get review copies..." - Frank

"I don't spend money on short sf because it's not a habit with me. I'm used to going to the bookstore and picking out books, not to getting journals in the mail and reading them. I didn't even know magazines with sf & fantasy existed until I started college. Now I'm just leery to subscribe to a magazine when I'm not sure which would be the best fit for my reading tastes." - Rachel

"I prefer to wait around until an editor I know and respect puts out an anthology, or to get a collection of shorts by one author that I can expect quality from than just getting the latest issue of Asimov who's content I've found can sometimes be let down. I also read a lot of the free stuff online (or even blog posts) to get an idea about someone, which is what usually leads me to these judgments of which writers and editors I like." - DJ

"Negative bias in the question....aagghh! Short stories are what the field is all about. The germ of an idea, a character, a world given life. Bountiful abundance is great, yet there is a tendancy, especially in fantasy/sf, to forget our foundations." - Richard Novak

"Asimov's are worth a purchase, and I'm always willing to check out year's best anthologies from the library...." - platyjoe

"I'm not a big fan of short fiction. I prefer novels. More time for plot, character development etc... I've bought some collections of short fiction from a few of my favorite authors but I even have trouble getting into those. I like a long story." - Eric

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 20, 2007 at 12:00 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Even though I was in agreement with John's review of Flash Gordon, I didn't feel I could just give up on the show after one 90-minute episode. I decided to watch the second episode this past Friday night.

Yeah, I gave up 30-minutes in. I'm done, here's why.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Sunday August 19, 2007 at 6:35 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Buddy TV wonders if LOST will be spoiled again? If you remember, the season finale was leaked online, just waiting to spoil the unwary. Well this time, 10 or so episodes will be in the can before the season premier, and those who want to, can find the spoilers. Ultimately, its up to the fans to avoid them if they want. For me, I will definitely be steering clear of any.
• The National Post online has a rundown of the pilots for the new TV season. Looks like NBC does well for itself. At least in Canada.
• Sticking with NBC, they have struck a deal with most major cable providers to allow VOD viewing on Sept. 10th of Bionic Woman, Journeyman and Chuck. If you happen to have Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, Cox, DirecTV or Dish Network, you can see the pilots before they are broadcast. NBC seems to have its act together recently to use alternate viewing modes to increase the hype about its shows. Of course, I'm guessing you'll be able to 'find' the episodes online before they air as well.
• Trek Today has a boatload of info from the 6th annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, with lots of alumn news.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Sunday August 19, 2007 at 7:38 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Issue #949/#950 (August 24, 2007) of Entertainment Weekly offers some brief reviews of science fiction and fantasy books. Here's a snippet...

Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
For Fans of... The original Dune novels by Herbert's late father, Frank.
Bottom Line: After slogging through a desert's worth of rote Star Warsisms and Sahrara-dry prose, you'll wish Frank had been at the helm.
Grade: C+

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch
For Fans of... Robin Hood; Oceans Eleven; Pirates of the Caribbean.
Bottom Line: In the second installment of the Gentlemen Bastards series, Lynch's fast-paced storytelling is slightly stalled by a propensity for clumsy romance and action-flick banter.
Grade: B-

Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery
For Fans of... The surreal urban odyssey of Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man; Plan Nine From Outer Space.
Bottom Line: For all its colorful characters and gonzo thrills, Slattery's debut is first and foremost a moving portrait of Wendell's grief.
Grade: A-

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
For Fans of... Time travel, "hard SF," and slacker antiheroes.
Bottom Line: The comparisons may be unfair, but this smart, brisk, and even charming tale has none of the emotional or philosophical heft of Haldeman's Forever books.
Grade: B

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday August 19, 2007 at 12:20 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Free Speculative Fiction Online adds links to new fiction by Cordwainer Smith, Edmond Hamilton, Mike Resnick, Harry Harrison, Gene Wolfe, Charles de Lint, Joe R. Lansdale, David Drake, Steven Utley, Elizabeth Bear, Damien Broderick & Barbara Lamar, Walt Willis & Bob Shaw, Gareth L. Powell.


• SFF Audio finds two pieces of free audio fiction, both written by (and read by) by John Kessel: "A Clean Escape" (source story for an episode of The Masters of Science Fiction) and "Some Like It Cold".


• Jason Stoddard has released his novel Winning Mars on his website for free under a Creative Commons license. [via Jason Erik Lundberg]


• The Art Department looks at the Jon Foster's cool artwork for Timothy Zahn's Dragonback series.


• At Locus Online, Gary Westfahl reviews The Invasion, the latest adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.


• MWB World looks at media tie-ins and manages to make a connection between Space: 1999 and Family Affair.


• List Universe list Top 15 Great Science Fiction Books. Many of the usual suspects...


• SF for vegetarians, or vegans as the case may be... (Is it me or is that whole thing like Trekkers avoiding the Trekkie label?) Check out this awesome rendering of H.R. Giger's alien constructed from vegetables. [via Fazed]


• Finally, an answer to the question: What do you get when you cross The Terminator with Cthulhu? The Cthulhinator! [via Raincoaster]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday August 19, 2007 at 12:05 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

We've talked about Literary Snobs before.

Here's Elizabeth Moon's take:

What literary snobbism does hurt is the public--people who are taken in by the ignorant assertions of "experts" who don't even read what they claim to despise (or read it so carelessly that they might as well be reading a cereal box.) It hurts the students who think their natural taste for plots that are plots and characters who are interesting is the literary equivalent of original sin and must be excised before they're fit to be called educated.

Anyone who thinks there's no "complexity, depth, and originality" in commercial fiction needs an education. Anyone who thinks mysteries (or any other genre) are all "trashy" needs an education. (Start with Aristotle, whose _Poetics_ lay out the criteria. Continue through centuries of fiction that worked, up to the present day, being sure to take in multiple genres in each era.)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday August 18, 2007 at 12:23 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Karl Schroeder gives us a sneak peek at The Sunless Countries, the 4th book in his Virga series (after Sun of Suns, Queen of Candesce, and Pirate Sun).


• John Scalzi interviews Tobias Buckell.


• The Alternate Reality webzine has Q&A with Matthew Hughes. [via Locus Online]


• Two (count 'em) pieces of free fiction by Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Mark Janifer: The Impossibles and Supermind.


• Prehistoric Pulp lists some free paleo-stories on the web.


• Elizabeth Moon has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.


• Lou Anders has posted the tentative (and quite impressive) table of contents for his anthology Sideways in Crime: An Alternate Mystery.


• David Louis Edelman offers A Guide to Ethical Self-Promotion.


• Tangent is conducting a major SF/F/H survey for all U.S. original short fiction markets, collecting such information as pay rates, number of stories published in 2007 and word counts.


• Cameo Wood has put together an Amazon list of Science Fiction that takes place in San Francisco. [via Whump]


• One for fantasy fans; Andrew Wheeler takes issue with the supposed "changing of the guard" of fantasy fiction.


• NPR podcast-interviews Seth Green, the mastermind behind Robot Chicken. They talk about Star Wars, directing George Lucas and even mention the Sleestaks in the Library bit.


• WorstPreviews has a bat-load of pics from The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins. [via Empire]


• Big Blog of Cheese points us to a Firefly video using a Rodeohead soundtrack...Rodeohead being a country version of the band Radiohead.


• Top5 SciFi lists Things Overheard on a Sci-Fi Cooking Show. "10. TAKE YOUR PAWS OFF MY BANANA NUT MUFFINS, YOU DAMN DIRTY APES!"

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday August 18, 2007 at 12:04 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• On December 4th, Universal Studios will release Battlestar on HD-DVD. You'll get the usual extras, including a picture-in-picture behind the scenes look, perfect for those who want a more in-depth look at Grace Park's scenes.


• CHUD has a short article discussing the weakness of Peter and Hiro from Heroes.


• The Gemini Division is a new Internet based SF series that will star Rosario Dawson. There will be 100 three-minute episodes produced, with a potential for a TV series later. No link to a site yet, but it sounds interesting.


• Star Trek alumnus, Colm Meaney, is in final talks to star in David E. Kelley's Americanized version of the BBC's Life On Mars. I really liked the original British version, so I'll definitely tune in to see how this show turns out.


• And finally, NBC has posted their fall preview online, for all to see. Check it out for sneaks of Heroes, Journeyman, Chuck and Bionic Woman.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday August 17, 2007 at 12:29 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

New at Project Gutenberg: Brain Twister by Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Mark Janifer.

In nineteen-fourteen, it was enemy aliens.

In nineteen-thirty, it was Wobblies.

In nineteen-fifty-seven, it was fellow-travelers.

And, in nineteen seventy-one, Kenneth J. Malone rolled wearily out of
bed wondering what the hell it was going to be now.

One thing, he told himself, was absolutely certain: it was going to be
terrible. It always was.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 17, 2007 at 12:15 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• The Book Swede interviews Brian Ruckley, author of Winterbirth. "I admit there are a few more deaths in Winterbirth than is common in a lot [of] fantasy. I've got a vicious streak, though I'm not sure I'll ever quite match GRRM's bodycount." [via Orbit]


• The latest SF Site column Books I've Been Avoiding: Overlooked or Over-hyped? by Neil Walsh looks at The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by Robert A. Heinlein and "The Insipid Profession of Jonathan Hornebom" by Jonathan Lethem.


• Lou Anders captures Robert Charles Wilson's definition of "core sf".


• Rhonda Leigh Jones conjures up Three World-Building Essentials You Need To Know Before Writing Your Fantasy Novel. Short version: setting, culture and magic.


• Free fiction from Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine: "Angry Duck" by Scott Bradfield.


• J.V. Jones has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.


• News-a-rama has uncovered the settlement agreement of the Fantagraphics/Ellison brouhaha (PDF Link).


• Real science: Geekend looks at Metal Storm, a real-world super-weapon based on inkjet printer principles.


• John Joseph Adams has created some Flash Gordon quizzes for SciFi.com. Ah-Aaaaah!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday August 17, 2007 at 12:06 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

PhyOrg.com has an article entitled UCF physicist says Hollywood movies hurt students' understanding of science. Basically, the professors who were interviewed take issue with the implausible physics scenarios we see in movies all the time. From there, they go on to say that many students who take physics classes in college are scared of the course, and are in dire need of re-medial classes just to come up to speed.

To help, Prof. Efthimiou created a class called "Physics in Film" to help alleviate the problems many students have. Not surprisingly, its one of the most popular courses on campus. Now all this is interesting in itself, but the fact that a course like this is needed at all is an indication of the serious lack of science education in pre-college schools today. As stated in the article, this lack of education leads people away from the sciences, and will result in America losing its technological leadership.

The headline really doesn't capture the real message of the story, that America needs to get is science act together, but reaches for sensationalism, which is another problem in today's society, but I digress. The upshot: we need better science education at the lower school levels. I'm pleased that my oldest son's two favorite subjects are math and science. But we can't expect the school's to do it all for us. I think we, as parents, need to do more to encourage our kids' interest in science. That's where SF comes in.

Yes, SF stories don't always hew rigorously to science fact. But, they are a gateway to the imagination. Many scientists today where influenced by the original Star Trek TV show and entered various technical fields. So we see that visual SF can have a positive effect on people. What would help would be for Hollywood to produce better, more accurate films and TV programs, but we also need better educational curricula and more engaged parents. I think we can, as a society, interest our kids in science, but it will take a lot of work on the part of a lot people to get there.

I think handing a child an appropriate SF book is a good place to start.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 16, 2007 at 7:53 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Since a few people out there love Land of the Lost so much - and who doesn't? - here's Robot Chicken's takes on the Sleestaks...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 16, 2007 at 2:30 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Borders is holding a contest to turn one of their employees into a full-fledged, published author:

Borders Group, Inc. is offering its more than 30,000 employees nationwide the opportunity to become a published author under the company's exclusive and proprietary publishing program. Borders Group is holding a fiction writing contest open to all employees in Borders and Waldenbooks stores, the distribution centers and the company's corporate office. Employee authors are eligible to submit manuscripts appealing to readers in any of the fiction categories. At least one employee whose title is selected as the winner by a panel of judges at the corporate office will be awarded a book deal including the full support of Borders merchandising and marketing arsenal. This includes being featured in the Borders "Shortlist," an e-mail promotion for Borders Rewards(R) members, which now number more than 19.5 million.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 16, 2007 at 1:19 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Shriek: The Movie, promoting Jeff VanderMeers' book, is released on the internet. [via Locus Online]


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Jeff Carlson, author of Plague Year, a "high-concept tech thriller about mankind's last-ditch efforts to defeat a nanotech plague"; and Richard Kadrey, author of Butcher Bird, in which the protagonist Spyder Lee is bitten by a demon who "infects him with sight, with the truth about the world".


• Chris Roberson's next Celestial Empire project will be Three Unbroken, an online serialized novel that will start appearing this fall.


• James Patrick Kelly is podcasting his novel Look Into the Sun. Here's Part 24.


• Prehistoric Pulp looks at dinosaurs in science fiction. [via Robert J. Sawyer whose book Far-Seer makes the list]


• The members of MetaFilter are listing science fiction books that appeal to mainstream readers.


• Bibliophile Stalker looks at shelving books based on RPGs.


• Woot (!) has posted the results of a contest to create a movie poster combining two or more movies. Thus you get posters for Transformers of the Carribean and a mashup of The Simpsons and Spiderman 3.


• A UCF physicist says Hollywood movies hurt students' understanding of science. "...he uses a scene from Superman when the hero flies around the earth an in effort to reverse time and save Lois Lane from death. When students show up to class, they dissect the scenes and learn the real laws of physics. In the Superman example, he explains the real way angular momentum works." [via SlashDot]


• The Hacks zine points us to a label maker for Atari 2600 games.


• Geekend looks at owning your own Star Wars arcade game. Man, I spent hours in that thing. Mmmm...vector graphics....

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday August 16, 2007 at 1:17 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• In a move surprising to no one, Painkiller Jane received the axe from Sci Fi. I was never interested in it, did anyone else watch it?


• Phantom Reflections suggests the reason The Dresden Files and Painkiller Jane failed was because they were adaptations of books, and doomed to disappoint the built-in fans, thus leading to poor ratings. He also suggests that there can never be a successful adaptation of a book to TV/film. I'm not ready to go that far, as The Lord Of The Rings shows it can be done for film. But I'm not ready to trust the wizards at Sci Fi with any adaptations. You have to actually like SF to be able to adapt properly.


• The Daily POP has a nice article on Dr. Who, reminiscing about the good Doctor's 45 year run(!) on TV. And for good measure, he as four YouTube links to a 1992 documentary of Dr. Who, called Resistance is Useless.


• There's a new Video On Demand channel on the block, and its all about SF&F. Called Illusion, it debuts in October and promises to have over 300 programming hours of TV when launched. I'll be interested to see the lineup and if Comcast will carry it.


• From SFX, Brannon Braga finally admits the last episode of Enterprise sucked rocks. Well, it didn't fit 'creatively' with the rest of the season. I think the whole show didn't fit 'creatively' with the rest of Trek, but that's just me.


• And finally, a little Cpt. Picard humor for you, from YouTube. Feast your eyes on the awesomeness that is The Picard Video. Who knew he could dance?





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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday August 16, 2007 at 12:03 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Way back in 1995, Japanese animation studio GAINAX produced what may be the most influential anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. NGE is the story of mankind's struggle against invading alien entities called Angels. Aside from being chock full of giant mech fights, it was also an impressive feat of storytelling, alternately deep, complex and confusing. The ending of the original TV show was so completely unexpected and storyline free that GAINAX had to create a movie that actually covered what happened. Now, ripping a page from Hollywood's recent re-imaging kick, GAINAX announced its Rebuild of Evangelion. The official site has more, but is, of course, in Japanese. Good luck.

Set to release in Japan this September, this rebuild will re-tell the story in a more accessible manner, make use of CG effects that weren't available in 1995, and create a different ending (I think that's 3 endings now for the story). And instead of being a TV series, it will be release as a set of four movies. Aside from making it more accessible, it shouldn't come as a shock that NGE is being re-done. It's one of the most successful series in anime history and, of course, there's money to be made! The fact that NGE is ripe for a more accessible version is just icing.

NGE made my Top 10 Science Fiction Anime list, and is almost a required viewing for anime fans. I'm actually kind of excited to see this, as I enjoyed the TV series. And with the help of copious internet resources, I have a good grasp on just what the heck happened.

And for your viewing pleasure, the first trailer:

Now I just need my brother to acquire these for me...

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday August 15, 2007 at 1:44 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

• The Philadelphia Inquirer has a short piece on the book What's Science Ever Done For Us: What The Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life and the Universe (what a long title). I always like it when The Simpsons foray into science and all I can say is, "Mmmm. Forbidden donut."


• Despite the horribleness that is Flash Gordon, it still managed to pull in a 1.5 rating, which isn't bad for a cable show, but doesn't come close to Galactica's premier. It should be very interesting to see the second episode's ratings. Can you say disappearing faster than Ming's masculinity?


• SciFi Chick (hi Angela!) has a couple of nice NBC items: a Heroes clip and a link to the Bionic Woman related website, Ethical Bionics. NBC really seems to have its internet act together. Now if they would just put the HD versions of shows on their website for later viewing, like ABC.


• How much of a SF fan are you? Are you man, or woman, enough to name your child after a SF character, but can't figure out the right name? Well Sci-Fi Baby Names offers 500 names to choose from, including Jabba. Seriously. That's just asking for trouble. Greedo is a much better name.


• Chris Weigant offers 4 things Hollywood gets wrong about SF. I will say I think people are catching on to the 'no sound in space thing'. I'd also like to add 'There's no up or down in space." Why do all spaceships seem to face each other and all have the same orientation? Just once, I'd like to see a ship attack at an angle from below. Which points out that the best shape for a warship in space should be a sphere...


• Buddy TV offers us two shows that evoke similar feelings to LOST, and then asks for your recommendations. If Nowhere Man is on DVD, I may have to check that out. Another canceled Fox show I think.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday August 15, 2007 at 12:25 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Shiny metal things are a lot easier to bite when they're tiny. For Futurama fans, ThinkGeek has 3-inch mini die cast Bender for $10.


• Free Fiction #1: Electric Velocipede offers the World Fantasy award-nominated story "The Way He Does It" by Jeffrey Ford.


• In 1998, Michael Gordon and Matthew Maguire wrote a science fiction opera called Chaos. Here is the script (in PDF). "Chaos is harmonious, continuous, circuitous. Chaos is industrious, meticulous, and rigorous. Chaos is inebrious, hilarious, melodious, mysterious and...Chaos is heaven for us."


• Free Fiction #2: Fictionwise has "Eight Episodes" by Robert Reed. [via Fred @ Texas Best Grok]


• Over at Locus Online, Howard Waldrop & Lawrence Person review Stardust, the film based on Neil Gaiman's book.


• Free Fiction #3: Cosmos offers "Time Traveling: A Quick Reference Guide" by Robert Friedman.


• Christopher Barzak has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog. [via The Swivet]


• Here's a parody of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" involving a certain Amazon reviewer. I'm just sayin'... [via Pat's Fantasy Hotlist]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 15, 2007 at 12:08 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday August 15, 2007 at 12:04 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

The New York Times today has an article cover the notion that our universe is really just a computer simulation. While this isn't really new, the angle John Tierney takes is rather humorous: the 'creator' in this case is really just a posthuman geek, sitting at home creating an ancestor simulation while drinking the posthuman version of Mountain Dew.

While this may be rather silly, the idea that our existence is really a simulation is rather mind blowing. We've all seen The Matrix, but unlike the movie, we can't wake up from the simulation, pull the cranial plug and then act all emotionally cool like Keenu. As Dr. Bostrom, director of the Future Of Humanity Institute at Oxford (how do you get that gig?) put it:

technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or "posthumans," could run "ancestor simulations" of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

Assuming we last long enough and are able to create powerful enough computing devices that is. This causes me to think of the book, Programming The Universe by Seth Lloyd. Lloyd looks at cosmology through the lens of information theory. Basically, the universe is a giant quantum computer that just happens to be computing everything we see around us, in effect, a galactic scale simulation. One that is indistinguishable from a big enough 'artificial' simulation, with the unanswered implication being we are in a simulation created by someone/thing. A very interesting read.

Back to the story, many things could happen in the future to prevent a 'simulation' from being created, such as humanity wiping itself out, losing interest in the past, or even having other, better methods for investigation the past. So there are some outs in this theory if you wish. It all depends on what you feel our chances of survival as a species are.

It's rather scary to think that everything around us is nothing but a World Of Worldcraft 'game', created by posthumans for entertainment. If so, you have to wonder at the huge level grinds they've implemented. Maybe being a pocket god isn't as exciting as you'd think. And what about all the PKers (player killers) or what happens when the server crashes?

Anyway, this is one of those philosophical discussions that is interesting to think about, even if there is little to no practical use to the theory. I just find it interesting how the simulation notion actually has some support from branch of cosmology.

I also thought I'd try something a little different. Below you will find a list of books and movies that touch upon this notion. Enjoy. But a word of warning, if you haven't seen/read what's mention below, you may be spoiled by knowing they are included in this post.

Books

• Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson


• The Last Legends Of Earth by A.A. Attanasio (to the best of my recollection)


• The Reality Matrix by John Dalmas. (Thank you anonymous commenter!)

Movies

• eXistenZ


• The 13th Floor

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday August 14, 2007 at 1:22 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Pacing issues mar this sequel, but it's still a worthwhile read, provided you read the The Traveler. And you should.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Two brothers, Gabriel and Michael, both Travelers able to move between dimensions of consciousness, race to locate their father.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Engrossing plot; smooth prose; more details given about the "secret history"; we get to see "surprise" characters.
CONS: Pacing issues after the first quarter of the book; Maya comes off as a weaker character; abrupt ending.
BOTTOM LINE: Even with its flaws, this is a better read than most "mainstreamy" novels.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 14, 2007 at 12:28 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• SF Author Sean Williams (Saturn Returns, The Hanging Mountains) weighs in on Mundane SF. [via Pyr-o-Mania]


• At SciFi Wire, John Joseph Adams profiles Timothy Zahn, author of Dragon and Judge, the fifth book in his young-adult Dragonback series.


• ActuSF interviews Vernor Vinge. "I think technological acceleration could fail in two rather different ways: (1) Some things may turn out to be much more difficult than we think. Technological trend curves are not laws of nature, (2)Physical disasters (human-made and/or natural) could intervene. As long as we are trapped on Earth, all our hopes are at risk." [via Velcro-City Tourist Board]


• Joe Clark is annotating William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Is it me, or is this a strange choice from his canon of work?


• Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker profiles Philip K. Dick. "Of all American writers, none have got the genre-hack-to-hidden-genius treatment quite so fully as Philip K. Dick, the California-raised and based science-fiction writer who, beginning in the nineteen-fifties, wrote thirty-six speed-fuelled novels, went crazy in the early seventies, and died in 1982, only fifty-three." [via Locus Online]


• Free fiction (in PDF) at Concatenation: "Reality Check" by David Brin.


• Robin Hobb humorously argues that blogging will suck away all your writing time. Justine Larbalestier respectfully disagrees.


• Michael Swanwick has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog. [via Locus Online]


• Now casting: Lost Boys 2. Coreys Haim and Feldman will be appearing. Did anyone ever doubt they would be? [via SFX]


• REMINDER: Chat with authors and artists! Felix at the #comments blog reminds us that this week is Sci-Fi Week at XFire.


• A.R. Yngve has posted YouTube videos featuring Tim Powers giving a talk about writing. Marginal video quality, but good audio.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 14, 2007 at 12:15 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

Over at WorldChanging, sf author Karl Schroeder talks about Colonizing Planet Earth:

if you ask where we should have been building our cities over the last century or so, the answer is in the Gobi desert, and the Sahara, and the barest and emptiest rocky plains we could find.

We should have been colonizing Earth as though it were a planet with no ecosystem resources to exploit.

Look at the difference between what we do when we settle a new area on Earth, compared to what we'd do on a planet like Mars. On Earth we'd take advantage of the free air and water, ready-made soils provided by local fauna, pollination provided by the local bees, all to minimize the costs of building and maintaining our colonies. This process is documented expertly by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel; he points out that the conquest of the Americas was really the invasion of one ecosystem by another, rather than a simple matter of moving human populations. North America is the greatest success story of European expansionism because its ecology was most similar to that of Europe, more than for any political or social factors."

[via BoingBoing]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday August 14, 2007 at 12:11 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• The Collector's Edition Serenity DVD is now available. Whedon has said that any future Firefly activity will depend on how well the DVDs sell.


• From the Unintended Consequences Dept., ABC is having trouble selling commercials to insurance companies for their new Caveman show. Even more interesting is that Geico isn't sure how to support the show. I'm guessing it has more to do with how bad the show is, rather than being based on Geico related characters.


• NBC outfitted 20 regular viewers of Heroes with specialized biometric vests, all in an attempt to measure viewer response during DVR playback. They found people were 'active engaged' as they fast forwarded through commercials. Well, duh. We're trying to time the PLAY button just after the last commercial, thanks to the MPAA and others 'removing' the 30 second skip feature from most DVRs.


• An Infinite Number Of Monkeys offers us ten reasons why Battlestar trump Trek. A very interesting read.


• Pictures of Bulgari points us to The Babylon Project, a wiki whose 500 articles cover a lot of ground. Use in conjunction with The Lurker's Guide To Babylon 5 to get satisfy your B5 needs.


• Masters Of Science Fiction nearly doubled its ratings last week to a 1.5 rating. Still really bad, but look at how awful the ratings are for all shows on Saturday night. I wonder how many of those new viewers were LOST fans tuning in to see Terry O'Quinn....

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday August 14, 2007 at 12:09 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Director Richard Linklater's faithful adaptation of Dick's classic 1977 novel uses a unique film style that immerses the viewer in a comic-book like world of depravity and darkness. Overall, a movie that fans of the book will definately enjoy.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A cop is sent undercover to help deal with a major society-impacting drug craze and ends up addicted and in way over his head.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: The movie does a great job capturing the feel of the book - oppresive, foreboding, and with a heavy dose of scary reality; Keanu Reaves, Robert Downey Jr, and Winona Rider all give excellent performances; destined to be a cult classic.
CONS: Wierd rotoscoping technique somewhat distracting; not paced like a traditional film and so might throw some viewers off (non sci-fi fans especially); the villianous corporation from the book isn't quite sinister enough in the film.

BOTTOM LINE: One of the best film adaptations of a sci-fi novel I've seen. There is comedy here that works along with brilliant social commentary and solid acting to deliver Dick's message.

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Posted by Scott Shaffer at Monday August 13, 2007 at 1:07 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Locus Online has posted the finalists for this year's World Fantasy Awards:

NOVEL

• Lisey's Story, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner (Bantam Spectra; Small Beer Press)
• The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch (Gollancz; Bantam Spectra)
• The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, Catherynne M. Valente (Bantam Spectra)
• Soldier of Sidon, Gene Wolfe (Tor)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 13, 2007 at 12:54 PM
© 2007 SF Signal

Stephen King has a really interesting article in this week's Entertainment Weekly (issue #948, August 17, 2007) called J.K. Rowling's Ministry of Magic in which he slams early critics of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has some very good things to say about the book and J.K. Rowling, and talks about the state of kids' literature.

Here's an excerpt:

The problem with the advance reviews — and those that followed in the first post-publication days — is one that has dogged Rowling's magnum opus ever since book 4 (Goblet of Fire), after the series had become a worldwide phenomenon. Due to the Kremlin-like secrecy surrounding the books, all reviews since 2000 or so have been strictly shoot-from-the-lip. The reviewers themselves were often great [...] but the very popularity of the books has often undone even the best intentions of the best critical writers. In their hurry to churn out column inches, and thus remain members of good standing in the Church of What's Happening Now, very few of the Potter reviewers have said anything worth remembering. Most of this microwaved critical mush sees Harry — not to mention his friends and his adventures — in only two ways: sociologically (''Harry Potter: Boon or Childhood Disease?'') or economically (''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Discount Pricing''). They take a perfunctory wave at things like plot and language, but do little more...and really, how can they? When you have only four days to read a 750-page book, then write an 1,100-word review on it, how much time do you have to really enjoy the book? To think about the book? Jo Rowling set out a sumptuous seven-course meal, carefully prepared, beautifully cooked, and lovingly served out. The kids and adults who fell in love with the series (I among them) savored every mouthful, from the appetizer (Sorcerer's Stone) to the dessert (the gorgeous epilogue of Deathly Hallows). Most reviewers, on the other hand, bolted everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book pages of their respective newspapers. [...] The blogs, by and large, haven't been much better.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 13, 2007 at 12:26 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Continuing the it's homage to Star Trek fans, Nichelle Nichols will be joining the cast of Heroes for five or six episodes. At this rate, it looks like Heroes will resurrect Kirk before the franchise does. And in related news, James Kyson Lee (Ando) is actively campaigning to for the role of Sulu in the upcoming Trek movie. This relationship is becoming incestuous. [via Trek Today].


• Charlesblog, after a savage review of Flash Gordon, calls for a holy war against the SciFi Channel before other SF propertied undergo the 're-imagining' process which will turn them into crap. I'd just like to see more good SF on Sci Fi.


• Here's a dissenting opinion of Flash Gordon. Makes me wonder if we saw the same program. Potentially as good as Galactica? Only if they completely re-vamp the entire show and get some new producers...


• You knew it would happen. After the success of the Transformers movie, Hollywood is looking for the next franchise. Sci Fi Wire is reporting that Voltron: Defender of the Universe is in the sights of New Regency, and Mark Gordon and Justin Marks are adapting it as a 'post-apocalyptic tale of survival in New York City and Mexico'. Yeesh, make it stop!


• The latest TV Ate My Dinner podcast is out and it covers all things Star Trek, including can the new film save the franchise? My guess: No.


• Imagi-nation points us to YouTube videos of the Canadian TV show Prisoners Of Gravity, which has a lot of author interviews. You can find more videos on YouTube. It's kinda campy, but fun. Unlike Flash Gordon.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday August 13, 2007 at 12:20 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

• Over at UKSFBN, Chris Roberson talks about his new novel, Set The Seas on Fire. "...at the core of nearly all of my books is a notion of family or friendship, regardless of the setting against which the story plays out. I think it comes of having been a sad, lonely bastard for a few years during my twenties, angst-ridden and loveless, after which I knew the value to place on the relationships that meant the most to me."


• Jesse Willis at SFFAudio digs up a contentious 1992 audio interview with Harlan Ellison.


• Escape Pod podcasts Neal Asher's story "The Veteran".


• New/Updated at Gutenberg: "Valley of Dreams" by Stanley G. Weinbaum.


• Warren Ellis on Philip K. Dick: "Philip Dick, to my mind, was the great visionary writer of the 20th Century. Alan Moore thinks it's Lovecraft, but I think Dick contains Lovecraft, and Kafka, and in his own visions recontextualises and adds to them both." [via VCTB]


• Mike Sellers at Terranova sez "Death to Snow Crash" - "So it needs to be said: Death to Snow Crash. Death to the sugarplum visions of the 3D Web World that dance in our heads. It's time to move on." [also via VCTB]


• The Agony Column podcast interviews William Gibson (Spook Country). [via Fred K.]


• The Swivet points us to an open letter to authors and publishers of fantasy novels and lists 20 reasons to put a (fantasy) book back on the shelf.


• Alan Chudnow asks Why Collect Science Fiction Books?


• What happens when you mix Disney with The Daleks? You get live pantomime, of course! [via SFX Blog]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 13, 2007 at 12:12 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

"I think that we will be selling HP to aliens. That is how good I think it is." - General X

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday August 13, 2007 at 12:00 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

The original Flash Gordon comics and serials were before my time and the atrocious 1980 film has been successfully purged from my memory. Well, all except for that tiny, persistent snippet of the Queen soundtrack, of course. (Ah-Aaaaah!) So SciFi Channel's remake (sorry…I mean "re-imagining") was my chance to finally see what the hubbub was about.

Or not.

Generally speaking, I tend to like the things I choose to consume for entertainment. And when I don't, my misfire usually ends in an experience of mediocrity. But Flash Gordon blows. If anyone ever asks why sci-fi TV has the reputation it does, point them in this direction.

I'm not sure where to begin. Is it the uninspired acting? Or should I blame the infantile script that the actors had to work with? How about the unresolved scenes like the one involving an alien disintegrating a bowling ball? Or the illogic that he was carrying the driver's license of Flash's (Ah-Aaaaah!) supposedly-dead father when he was doing it?

Here's what I do know:

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday August 12, 2007 at 2:55 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

A new space hotel is slated to be launched in 2012. Here's what you need to know....

1. If you get caught stealing the towels, they toss you out the airlock.
2. Thanks to a cross-promotional brainstorm, coffee for the the Continental breakfast is provided by Starbucks.
3. The shuttle bus ride back to Earth costs $6 billion dollars.
4. In space, no one can hear you watch in-room pr0n.
5. The hotel restaurant serves Soylent Green.
6. The robotic concierge provides room service, if you know what I mean.

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