SF Tidbits for 8/1/08

• The Orcs are coming! To promote the release of Orcs by Stan Nicholls, Orbit has created a website that allows you to have real, live orc read your message and send it to your friends (or enemies) by email. Still lovin’ that book cover…
• Interviews and Profiles:
  • @Sidebar Nation: artist Stephan Martiniere [via The Art Department]
  • @Agony Column: Charles Stross.
  • @Michael May’s Adventureblog: She-Hulk. Yes, She-Hulk.
  • @Locus Online: Interview excerpts with Christopher Barzak and Garth Nix.
• Free Fiction: @StarShipSofa: “In The Olden Days” by Spider Robinson, “Frozen Sky” by Jeff Carlson, and “Robot Dog” by Bruce Boston. [via QuasarDragon]
• The Ultimate Birthday Present for “Harry Potter” Fans: The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book of five fairy tales written to supplement the Harry Potter series.
• Steven Brust puts his money where his back is and gets a Loiosh tattoo.
• S.L. Viehl on worldbuilding.
• Dan Ronco talks about SF Characters.
• Book Piracy Won’t Destroy Writers.
• The bank forecloses on the Shire! “The rise and fall of Bend’s real estate economy has resulted in foreclosure proceedings against The Shire, a village-themed concept in southeast Bend patterned after J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series.”
• Andrew Wheeler weighs in (with some eye-opening and much-needed common sense) on the recent stream of sf bloggers looking to be paid for reviewing books: “Sitting around complaining about how hard it is that people send you books for free and there are too many of them to read and life is just too much for you is just pure whininess. The people who work with books professionally — many of whom are being laid off from newspapers right now, you self-indulgent babies — will only worsen their opinion of all of us the more bloggers are seen as being obsessed about finding a way to get paid for doing something they supposedly love to do.”
• In a not-totally-unrelated post: Will Blogs Save Books? [via Bowing to the Future]
• Drawn! points us to these cool Retro Sci-Fi Travel Posters.
• The Sci-Fi Rejection Letter That Time Forgot.
• What are the actual possibilities of space travel? [via QuasarDragon]
• Real Science: Hi-res images of Phobos.
• Solar Flare looks into The Stargate Universe.
• The comedy short Padmé won the George Lucas Selects Award at the 2008 Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge
• John Scalzi looks at The Dark Knight‘s chances at an Oscar.
• Lists:
  • @The List Universe: Top 10 Fantasy Worlds In Literature.
  • @Topless Robot: The 9 Most Illogical Pieces of Star Trek Merchandise
• Video: Cylons explain DRM.

Filed under: Tidbits

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