Is there no sanctity in the hallowed halls of blogging? Will they let just anyone in? If we have anything to say about it...yes! To that end, we've added a new "SF Signal Irregular" to our ranks. His name is Carl Vincent and he'll be focusing on art- & music-related posts for SF Signal. In fact he's already started: check out Carl's awesome interview with the even awesomer genre-loving musician John Anealio.

As per our usual initiation, we asked Carl to write about himself in the third person -- an endless entertainment for the rest of us. This is him talking about himself:

Carl Vincent of Stainless Steel Droppings traces his love of science fiction to a small Nebraska farmhouse, where his uncle's small bedroom bookshelf contained paperback portals whose covers and stories transported him to worlds that fired his young imagination. Memories of experiencing certain stories for the first time are like frozen moments in time. He can recall with perfect clarity the scene in which he first discovered The Adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat, the Harry Harrison creation for which his blog is named. While science fiction and fantasy are the major underpinnings of Stainless Steel Droppings, one is just as likely to find a treatise on the joys of period films like Pride and Prejudice as one is to find the ravings of a speculative fiction fanatic. His passions for art, particularly sf/f illustration, music, film, and literature (read: books!) are what fuel his pontifications. If he can inspire others to these same passions by exposing artists, authors, and musicians to a larger audience through Stainless Steel Droppings, then he is truly over the moon.

As a longtime reader of SF Signal, Carl knows the "New Guy Brings Bagels" rule. Yay us!

Welcome aboard, Carl! Now gimme my bagel!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 31, 2009 at 11:29 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

During a stretch of science fiction reading in the early part of 2008, I decided to pick up Philip K. Dick's classic novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Not long after my review, I received an email from a man named John Anealio, informing me that he had recorded a song inspired by said novel. I was immediately intrigued, little knowing just what I would hear when I followed the link to Sci Fi Songs and gave a first listen to Rachel Rosen. What I discovered was a catchy tune that has stuck in my head for over a year and a man who links together his passions in a way that is admirable and inspirational. Any mention of Do Androids Dream or of Bladerunner kicks off the chorus in my head.

"Is Rachel Rosen really an android
Can Rachel Rosen really be alive
Is Rachel Rosen really an android
Can Rachel Rosen really be alive"

And that is a good thing! I am a big fan of this acoustical tune. Give it a listen and hear for yourself:

And please feel free to listen to this, and the other songs included after the break, as I put some questions to singer/songwriter/sci-fi enthusiast, John Anealio.

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Posted by Carl Vincent at Tuesday March 31, 2009 at 12:29 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: Who'd have thought you get valuable life lessons from Wesley Crusher?

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Actor Wil Wheaton's musings about the transition from actor to actor/writer/parent.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Well written; deals with life issues that matter; fun glimpses behind the acting curtain.
CONS: Some of the earlier blog excerpts are a bit amateurish when compared to the rest of the book.
BOTTOM LINE: Definitely worth the read.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 31, 2009 at 12:26 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Free Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]

• From Pyr: "Fire and Sleet" by James Enge.
• Audion Fiction:
  • @Escape Pod: "Sumo21" by Daniel Braum, read by Stephen Eley.
  • @StarShipSofa: "Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons" by Gord Sellar.
  • @Beam Me Up: "Last Wizard" by Shaun A. Saunders and part one of "Skull Valley" by Michael Cassutt, both read by Paul Cole.
  • @Pseudopod: "The Duel" by Michael James McFarland, read by Kris Johnson.
  • @Dunesteef: "Halloween In July" by Kevin Anderson.
  • @The Cthulhu Podcast: "Pickman's Model" by H. P. Lovecraft
  • @The Classic Tales Podcast: "The Piece of String" by Guy de Maupassant, "A Vine on a House" by Ambrose Bierce and "Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson, all read by B. J. Harrison.
  • @PodCastle:
    • "The Annals of Eelin-Ok" by Jeffrey Ford, read by Rajan Khanna.
    • "Elf Aware" by K. Tempest Bradford, read by Marguerite Croft.
  • @LibriVox:
    • Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Ralph Snelson.
    • Short Ghost and Horror Collection 002 by many authors and readers.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 31, 2009 at 12:09 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Interviews & Profiles:
  • National Review Online podcast-interviews Gene Wolfe (The Best of Gene Wolfe) and asks the impossible question "Which story is your favorite?" Awwwk-ward! Better discussion around the short story market.[via Fred K.]
  • @SciFi Scanner: R.W. Goodwin, Director of Alien Trespass.
  • At Tor.com: Irene Gallo profiles artists Shaun Tan
  • At Tor.com: John Joseph Adams profiles Amber Benson, author of Death's Daughter.
  • @Blogging the Muse: Janny Wurts.
  • @Adventures in SciFi Publishing: John Klima, editor of Electric Velocipede.
  • @Joseph Mallozzi's blog: Amanda Tapping.


• Brandon Sanderson explains how the last book of the Wheel of Time series became a booksplit trilogy. [via John Scalzi ]


• Mike Brotherton tells us that the New Champion of real science in Movies is ...[wait for it]...Dustin Hoffman.


• Does blogging work as publicity for writers? Louise Marley asks: "Is there anyone out there--any reader of this little blog--who has read one of my novels or stories because of the blog?"


• Authors, including J. K. Rowling and Ken Follett, are not happy with the free books at Scribd.


• Google & the Future of Books: "...those of us who are responsible for research libraries have a clear view of a common goal: we want to open up our collections and make them available to readers everywhere. How to get there?" [via Locus Online]


• Here is Ursula K. Le Guin's 1994 afterword for The left Hand of Darkness, called The Gender of Pronouns: "What a very dry, dull matter, of no conceivable importance to anyone but grammarians and pedants! How I wish it were so! But The Left Hand of Darkness is haunted and bedeviled by the gender of its pronouns, a wild, fierce, and intractable tribe."


• PS Publishing withdraws from the BFS Best Small Press award eligibility and acts as sponsor. Bravo for a bold and generous decision!


• Changing of the Guard: SF/F author Eugie Foster has stepped down as editor of The Fix. That job will be taken over by Marshall Payne. [via Jason Sanford]


• Seed magazine looks at The Multiverse Problem: "Faced with a dearth of empirical evidence, both scientific and spiritual imaginations are freer than usual to run wild. For these reasons, it's perhaps only natural that there is tension as scientists and religious believers try to bring the edges of our universe into focus."


• Project Rooftop periodically holds contests to "redesign" superheroes. Past events include Vampirella, Superman, Iron Man, The Rocketeer, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin.


• Self-explanatory links from SuperPunch:
  • Chewbacca's Head cake.
  • Mighty Morphin Power Watchmen.
  • Superhero papercraft.


• Lists:
  • @io9: 20 of the Best Physicians in Science Fiction.
  • @Best Fantasy Books: The Top 10 Children's Fantasy Books.
  • @Topless Robot: The 10 Awesomest Obscure '80s Fantasy Movie Heroes.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 31, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

The Guardian points us to the interesting and educational film Why is Science Important?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 30, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Free Speculative Fiction Online, these recently free stories came to my attention, an now yours:

1. James P. Blaylock: "The Dry Spell" (Subterranean, Winter 2009)
2. Amy Sterling Casil: "Chromosome Circus" (F & SF, January 2000)
3. Amy Sterling Casil: "Mad for the Mints" (F & SF, July 2000)
4. Amy Sterling Casil: "Shakespeare in Hell" (Elysian Fiction, May 2002)
5. Amy Sterling Casil: "The Universe in the Bottom of a Cereal Box" (switch.blade Anthology, 2002)
6. Amy Sterling Casil: "To Kiss the Star" (F & SF, February 2001)
7. Brenda W. Clough: "A Mighty Fortress" (Helix, July 2007)
8. Brenda W. Clough: "Grow Your Own" (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July 2000)
9. Brenda W. Clough: "Revise the World"
10. Anne Harris: Accidental Creatures (Tor, 1998)
11. Mary Robinette Kowal: "Evil Robot Monkey" (The Solaris Book of New SF Anthology #2, 2008)
12. D. D. Levine: "Sun Magic, Earth Magic" (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #1, October 2008)
13. Paul J. McAuley: "Little Lost Robot" (Interzone, August 2008, PDF)
14. Tim Pratt: "Her Voice in a Bottle" (Subterranean, Winter 2009)
15. Mike Resnick: "A Better Mousetrap" (Nature, November 2007, PDF )
16. Bruce Sterling: "Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct" (Nature, November 1999, PDF)
17. Harry Turtledove: "We Haven't Got There Yet" (Tor.com, March 2009)
18. K. D. Wentworth: "The Orangery" (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #12, March 2009)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 30, 2009 at 12:18 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 30, 2009 at 12:12 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Kay Kenyon starts her stories with world building.


• SFF Audio adds Ted Chiang to its ever-growing list of author pages which feature podcast/story links for each writer.


• Theodora Goss has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.


• Free fiction: "The Mirror Men" by Stuart Clark.


• Ian Sales reviews the Hugo short story nominees. Short version: "...a poor selection of short stories, and I find it hard to believe they were the best last year had to offer." Ouch!


• The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, has a new new mission statement. [via Locus Roundtable]


• Tor.com offers up this Star Trek Primer...in case anyone out there doesn't know what Trek is yet.


• Also at Tor: David Gibbons draws Rorschach.


• Think you can name all of the novels by Dan Simmons? Take this quiz to find out.


• I like Star Wars as much as the next geek, but I'd have to be pretty drunk to get a Star Wars tattoo. OK, an AT-AT tattoo is cool, but no way am I getting a Jar Jar tattoo.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 30, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Many people didn't like the way Galactica ended, but Ron Moore kicked around a somewhat different ending that involved the Galactica herself, on Earth (2). That's right, the idea was that ancient mounds in Central America would turn out to be the remains of the Galactica, buried after 150000 years. So I ask you: Would that have been a better ending? I'm not sure.
• Maybe you're one of the few who really miss Galactica. If so, Fidget (Sci Fi's gaming blog) lists 10 games to help you get over Galactica. Phoenix Wright? Seriously? That one is a stretch, but there are a couple of good ones there.
• It's not just SyFy that is apparently turning its back on the core audience. Cartoon Network seems to be as well, debuting six new live action reality TV series, plus a partnership with the NBA, for its upcoming season. Once upon a time, CN showed quite a bit of anime during a late night block. Sadly, that has been going away over the years, with the reality (heh heh) being that something more is needed to make a profit. The more I see this happen, the more I'm convinced that the Internet will be the future for niche audiences.
• Hulu is an awesome repository of almost all things TV, both new and old. However, there is a distinct lack of LOST and other ABC/Disney shows. That may be changing as ABC/Disney appear to be in talks to add their TV shows to Hulu. If so, Hulu becomes that much more awesomer.
• Speaking of a, the orginal Knight Rider is now available for your viewing pleasure on NBC and Hulu. Since we all know how cranky John get's without his morning Hoff, here's the pilot:
  
  

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday March 30, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

We've seen The Last Man on Earth, seems that turnabout is fair play. So here's Roger Corman's 1960 film Last Woman On Earth, which follows 3 survivors of a mysterious apocalypse which appears to have wiped out all human life on earth. Bummer.

[via The Classic Science Fiction Channel]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday March 29, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Harlan Ellison's name popped up twice today: In Andrew Wheeler's Harlan Ellison's Introductions post, and in Scott Edelman's dreams. Talk about Dangerous Visions!


• Free Fiction: The latest issue of The Future Fire features social, political, & speculative cyberfiction from Eric Del Carlo, Nader Elhefnawy, Melanie Rees and Rob Sharp.


• @Bookspot Central: Sarah Zettel's Love/Hate Relationship with Star Wars: "I went to The Phantom Menace on its opening weekend, ready to fall in love all over again...Then the movie started, and the movie played, and the movie ended, and I walked out and I was angry. Not just a little angry either. I was Harlan-Ellison-with-a-toothache-angry. I was in fact f***ing furious."


• Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow are giving a benefit talk entitled "Resisting the All-Seeing Eye" for the Open Rights Group on May 1, 2009, in London. [via Locus Online]


• Writer Lavie Tidhar has started the World SF News Blog, focusing on the international science fiction, fantasy, horror and comics scenes. [via Ellen Datlow]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday March 29, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

The New York Times, using next Friday"s release of the 1950s SciFi film parody/homage Alien Tresspass, looks at the science fiction films of the 1950s. Salient quotage:

But the genius of the "Body Snatchers" metaphor (the movie is based on a story by Jack Finney) is that it combines the '50s anxiety about the end of humankind with the era's equally persistent fears about the toxic effects of mass movements: the Nazism and Fascism that had so recently come close to blowing up the world, the Soviet-style Communism that looked, from these shores, intent on finishing the job. There's a warning here too about the creeping pressure to conform in our own prosperous middle-class society.

These are useful cautions because, as all these movies show, belief in authority of one kind or another -- including the authority of science -- was considerably stronger in that age than in the present day, when few leaders are trusted, and the word "expert" is almost invariably preceded by "so-called." It's this greater credulity that makes people in '50s science-fiction films seem so far from us now -- familiar but distant, unreachable, like the selves we were as children.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 28, 2009 at 12:45 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: One of Pratchett's strongest and most passionate works.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Disparate and unlikely survivors of a devastating tsunami wave band together on an island called Nation.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Accessible to Pratchett newcomers; emotionally powerful, and still funny as ever.
CONS: A couple of problematic Pratchett-isms creep in.
BOTTOM LINE: This is Pratchett at his sharpest, most passionate, and best storytelling. A fine place to discover this author. And I do really think it's a must read.

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Posted by Peter Damien at Saturday March 28, 2009 at 12:28 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

From the series-defining episode called "Weeds".

[via Poe TV]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 28, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Cover Pr0n Post Award of the Day goes to...Neal Asher, for sharing the stunning Jon Sullivan covers of some reissues of his books. (Bonus points to Karen Burnham for noting that the person riding the giant insect on the Cowl cover looks like Neil Gaiman.)


• Jo Walton reviews Bellwether by Connie Willis: "This is a comedy about the process of scientific discovery, and a comedy in the [Shakespearean] sense as well."


• Free Fiction Sample: Chapter 1 of Bar None by Tim Lebbon. [via Night Shade Books]


• The fine folks over at Book View Cafe are now offering electronic versions of their work.


• The Dragon Page Cover to Cover features a podcast-interview with Tim Holman, VP and Publishing Director of Orbit Books.


• SF Author Matt Jarpe is hanging up his blogging hat.


• Locus Online has posted the Table of Contents to the March issue of Locus Magazine.


• Lists:
  • Several genre films make SciFi Watch's list of The Top Ten Product Placements in Recent Film History. They also list 5 Reasons Why the Star Trek Trailer Doesn't Live Up to the Franchise.
  • SFX lists The 25 Best and 25 Worst TV Episode Titles. My favorite: "Motorcycle Boogie" from The Bionic Woman.
  • @Best Week Ever: 6 Slightly Less Catchy Movie Posters. The Dark Knight: "Why are you being so serious, Batman?"

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 28, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

SF Signal has 5 Monsters vs. Aliens prize packs to give away to five lucky readers.

Each prize pack contains:

• Monsters Vs. Aliens: The Official Movie Adaptation - Susan Murphy is having a bad wedding day. After being struck by a rock from space, she mysteriously grows to become the 49-feet-11-inches tall Ginormica. However, Susan's not the only monster -- as a secret government compound full of them can attest! And when a malicious alien robot named Gallaxhar lands on Earth, General W.R. Monger must send a motley crew into action to save the world! This is the official graphic novel adaptation of the movie that features the voice talents of Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Laurie and Seth Rogen!


• Monsters Vs. Aliens: The "M" Files - From the studio that brought you the smash-hit movies Shrek and Madagascar comes Monsters Vs. Aliens, a story about the world's most extraordinary saviours! Not all monsters are evil! The "M" Files features two original tales of Susan "Ginormica" Murphy, Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D., The Missing Link, B.O.B. and Insectosaurus! In The "M" Files, take a trip to Area 51 to discover the true origins of our wily gang of monsters! And in 'Brain Pain', Dr Cockroach attempts a brain transfer... with hilarious results!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 27, 2009 at 2:06 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

Prisoner fans rejoice!

PortmeiriCon kicks off this weekend in Portmeirion, the location where they shot The Prisoner.

Read all about it in my post at AMC's SciFi Scanner.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 27, 2009 at 10:55 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Where the Wild Things Are is the latest a much loved children's book to get the big screen treatment. As we've seen from the various Dr. Suess books, just because you can doesn't mean you should. Does Wild Things have a story that can be blown up into a feature film? I don't think so. It's perfect as a book, not so much for the movies.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday March 27, 2009 at 12:22 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Infinivox SF has just posted the table of contents for The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction audio anthology, scheduled for release in June:

1. "Turing's Apples" by Stephen Baxter
2. "Shoggoths in Blooms" by Elizabeth Bear
3. "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang
4. "The Dream of Reason" by Jeffrey Ford
5. "The Ray-Gun: A Love Story" by James Alan Gardner
6. "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson
7. "The Art of Alchemy" by Ted Kosmatka
8. "The City of the Dead" by Paul J McAuley
9. "Five Thrillers" by Robert Reed
10. "Fixing Hanover" by Jeff VanderMeer

What a great lineup -- quite a few Hugo and Nebula nominees. I've read several of these stories and enjoyed them. And if the production value of this is half as good as it was with Mini-Masterpieces of Science Fiction, this should be something to hear.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 27, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 27, 2009 at 12:16 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• There's something wonderfully retro about the cover of Philip Palmer's latest, Red Claw.


• The Agony Column has a podcast featuring an "SF in SF" Panel Discussion with Terry Bisson, James Rollins and Frank M. Robinson.


• @Locus Online: Interview excerpt with Michael Swanwick.


• Free Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]:
  • Issue Ten of Shimmer (PDF), featuring fiction by Caitlin Paxson, Richard S. Crawford, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Claude Lalumière, and more. Also: an interview with Cory Doctorow.
  • Audio fiction: Part 4 of "Bernardo's House", read by James Patrick Kelly.


• Free sample at Subterranean Press: The first two chapters of Kage Baker's The Women of Nell Gwynne's.


• @Tor.com:
  • Jo Walton talks about series that go downhill.
  • Matt Berger offers An Introduction to Book Collecting.


• A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss, the principal operators of the Writer Beware website, filed by a purported literary agent.


• SCI FI Wire lists 20 fun facts to help celebrate Leonard Nimoy's birthday. Hmmm..."The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" is suspiciously absent. Maybe they need a reminder? Happy to oblige!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 27, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• With Galactica having ended its run, everyone has their own thoughts on the finale. Some good, some bad. And some you wouldn't see coming, but might be better than what you go. Not A Planet Anymore gives us 15 Totally Unexpected Alternate Endings to BG. I particularly liked the Bob Newhart idea...
• The Athens Exchange (and ouch, be careful how you read their URL!) reviews NBC's new series, Kings. They see it as having potential (as do I) if it can get past the poor ratings. It looks like it will be a political drama at heart, although the pilot was a bit heavy handed in some of its intentions. I'll give it a chance.
• Heroes appears to be NBS's cheerleader: the series that just won't die. With the demise of Pushing Daisies, Bryan Fuller is back on the show as a 'consulting producing' and Screen Rant says, after Monday's showing, he should be writing the episodes from now on. Can anyone here back up that claim? Was the last episode better than the previous?
• The SyFy 'love fest' continues as Mitch Rubenstein, one of the original founders of the channel, says the new name is 'dumb'.Okay, so he thinks Isaac Asimov would think so (read the story for background), but quite clearly he thinks so too, as do all right thinking people. Sadly, Dave Howe (big cheese at SyFy) says they tested SFC and Beyond but couldn't use them due to trademark or URL issues (then why even test them?), and in any case, fans would be completely against a total name change. As opposed to be completely upset with a stupid name change.
• Many times adaptations of books for the movies or TV fall flat. So it's with caution that I read that Robert J. Sawyer is praising the adaptation of his novel, Flash Forward. At the very least, he is writing an episode of the series which is very promising. I'll definitely tune in this fall to see how good it is, though I will say Brannon Braga does not exactly fill me with confidence.
• If you're like me, you remember watching the great PBS series Cosmos, hosted by the late Carl Sagan, when it first aired. If you've wanted to re-watch it, but didn't want to shell out the bucks to purchase it, your cheapness has paid off! Hulu now has all 13 episodes online for your viewing pleasure. The first episode is below:
  
  
  
  
  The scientific community lost a great champion with his passing. I don't think anyone has stepped up to fill his shoes. [via Scalzi]

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday March 27, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with the really weird, but oddly entertaining, ideas. Way back when, in 1998, the manga Cat S**t One (Apocalypse Meow in the US) told the story of three US soldiers, part of a recon group, performing their missions during Vietnam. Studio Anima is now working on a CGI adaptation of Apocalypse Meow, but moving the story forward to the Iranian hostage crisis. So far, so okay.

What's weird about this you may ask? Did I mention the soldiers are actually anthropomorphized bunnies? Yes, bunnies with sniper rifles. You can't get better than that. Check out the trailer for the film below. Of course, this is totally ridiculous since we all know anthropomorphizes bunnies don't speak Japanese! (Sorry, no English, or other, subtitles. But really, do you need them?) Also, WARNING, may be too violent for people with weak constitutions, poor hearts or a love of bunnies.

Little bunny foo foo, sneaking through the desert.
Picking out the field mice and sniping them in the head.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Thursday March 26, 2009 at 1:37 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

From 1986, Star Trek creator is interviewed on Good Morning America.

[via From a SciFi Standpoint]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 26, 2009 at 12:12 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Interviews & Profiles:
  • @Tor: John Joseph Adams profiles C.S. Friedman's Wings of Wrath.
  • Glen Hiemstra video-interviews Brenda Cooper (Reading the Wind).
  • @Omnivoracious: Ellen Datlow and Laird Barron on Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.
  • @Subterranean Press: John Joseph Adams interviews Terry Pratchett.


• Free Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]:
  • Issue No. 4 of Science Fiction Trails - "where science fiction meets the Wild West head on" - features original fiction by John M. Whalen, Lou Antonelli, Norman Riger, Trent Roman, S.A. Bolich, Sam Kepfield, David M. Fitzpatrick, Laura Givens and others. I love the tag line: "These ain't your pappy's western stories..." [via Lou Antonelli]
  • "The Sound of His Horn" by Sarban (a.k.a. John William Wall). [Thanks, Fred K.]
  • Charles Coleman Finlay's free online fiction, listed by the author.
  • Audio fiction @Podcastle: "The Annals of Eelin-Ok" by Jeffrey Ford, read by Rajan Khanna.


• Free sample via Eos: Read the first 20% of Katherine Allred's Close Encounters online.


• Farah Mendlesohn has posted the introduction from Rhetorics of Fantasy: "In this book I argue that there are essentially four categories within the fantastic: the portal-quest, the immersive, the intrusive, and the liminal..."


• John Scalzi knows What the Recession Means for SciFi Movies.


• Cracked lists 7 Awesome Super Powers Ruined by Science.


• The Age Blogs has The Definitive List of Sci-Fi Cliches, not to be confused with Speculative fiction TV Tropes.


• And finally...Jay Garmon of Geekend has listed me as one of 50 ubergeeks worth following on Twitter, which puts me on the same list as Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, John Cleese, Kevin Smith, and Penn Jillette. How cool is that? Meanwhile, SciFi Wire lists an abbreviated (sans me) version: 18 Sci-Fi Twitter Feeds You Should Be Following

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 26, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

For this week's Mind Meld, we wanted to go towards the light side. Fortunately, Mike Resnick had offered up this question:

It's not all Adams and Pratchett! Read on to see some the wittiest writers.

Others would include George Alec Effinger, Henry Kuttner, Fredric Brown, Ron Goulart, Terry Pratchett, Doug Adams, Phil Klass (William Tenn), Esther Friesner, John Sladek, and in all
immodesty, me.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 25, 2009 at 12:29 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

The finalists for the 2009 Prometheus Awards, honoring Libertarian SF, have been announced:

• Matter by Iain Banks [See SF Signal review]
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow [See SF Signal review]
• The January Dancer by Michael Flynn [See SF Signal review]
• Saturn's Children by Charles Stross
• Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove
• Half a Crown by Jo Walton

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 25, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

George R.R. Martin has posted the table of contents for Warriors, a military-themed cross-genre anthology he co-edited with Gardner Dozois:

1. "The King of Norway" by Cecilia Holland
2. "Forever Bound" by Joe Haldeman
3. "The Triumph" by Robin Hobb
4. "Clean Slate" by Lawrence Block
5. "And Ministers of Grace" by Tad Williams
6. "Soldierin'" by Joe Lansdale
7. "Dirae" by Peter S. Beagle
8. "The Eagle and the Rabbit" by Steven Saylor
9. "Seven Years from Home" by Naomi Novik
10. "The Custom of the Army" by Diana Gabaldon
11. "The Pit" by James Rollins
12. "Out of the Dark" by David Weber
13. "The Girls from Avenger" by Carrie Vaughn
14. "Ancient Ways" by S.M. Stirling
15. "Ninieslando" by Howard Waldrop
16. "Recidivist" by Gardner Dozois
17. "My Name is Legion" by David Morrell
18. "Defenders of the Frontier" by Robert Silverberg
19. "The Scroll" by David Ball
20. "The Mystery Knight" by George R.R. Martin

[via Grasping for the Wind]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 25, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away, Max Rebo is calling his lawyer...

[via Cynical-C]

See also: 10 Strange Musical Odes to Star Wars Songs.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 25, 2009 at 12:12 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Mark Charan Newton (Nights of Villjamur) talks about the Dying Earth subgenre of science fiction.


• Interviews & Profiles:
  • @The Nebula Awards website: John Kessel.
  • @tor.com: John Scalzi.
  • @Agony Column: Frank M. Robinson.
  • @The Hathor Legacy: Pat Cadigan [via Ellen Datlow]


• To paraphrase Johnny from Airplane!: "There's a sale at Nightshade!" Buy Laird Barron's Shirley Jackson Award-winning collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories in trade paperback, and pick out any in-print Night Shade Trade Paperback for free! Offer ends Sunday, March 29, 2009.


• Free Fiction, courtesy of QuasarDragon:
  • Mary Robinette Kowal has posted and illustrated (!) PDF version and an audio version of her Hugo-nominated story, "Evil Robot Monkey". The list of 2009 Hugo Awards finalists has been updated with the link.
  • @Pyr: "A Book of Silences" by James Enge, a short story featuring Morlock Ambrosius, wandering swordsman and master of all magical makers, who appears soon in the novel Blood of Ambrose.
  • "Petrified" by Scott Edelman. [PDF, via Bibliophile Stalker]
  • @Kat and Mouse: "Easy Money" - Part Twelve by Abner Senires.
  • @Hub: "Hush a Bye" by Beverley Allen.
  • @Fantasy Magazine: "Jane" by Nicole Kornher-Stace.
  • @Strange Horizons: "The Spider in You" by Sean E. Markey.


• David Brin is guestblogging at Sentient Developments this week. [via Futurismic]


• Would you like to be a character in the next Jennifer Fallon novel?


• At B&N, Paul Di Filippo reviews Liberation by Brain Francis Slattery, Fools' Experiments by Edward M. Lerner, One Second After by William Forstchen, and Enclave by Kit Reed.


• Elizabeth Moon has a poll about book covers.


• Gwenda Bond pointed me to turned me onto The Magic Distrcit, which offers up these choice posts:
  • Diana Rowland on the SF ghetto phenomenon: "Is SF a ghetto where we're the ones building the walls? Why do we get so damn pissed when someone dares to publish an SF book outside the ghetto, and doesn't want to be labeled an SF author?"
  • Greg van Eekhout's shameful lie about short fiction. The truth? Short fiction totally helped him sell his first novel.


• Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart Trilogy, a young-adult fantasy book series, is headed for the big screen.


• Ellen Datlow and Kathryn Cramer have posted photo galleries from ICFA.


• Women are more avid readers of books than men, says the Telegraph. [via Juno Books]


• Futurismic looks at The modern writer's dilemma. Is it established wisdom that self-publication is de facto a bad thing?


• Cover art, step-by-step: See


• Greg Manchess painting the cover for Canticle by Ken Scholes.


• Something Awful has an ever-growing gallery of Star Wars as Classic Art. [via Look At This]


• Three Good Lists:
  • @Film.com: 7 Sci-Fi Films We'd Like to Resurrect.
  • @Film School Rejects: The 7 Must-See Monster and Alien Movies of the 1950s.
  • @Flashlight Worthy, Cheryl Morgan lists The Classics of Steampunk.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 25, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

File under impressive...

On the quiz show Mastermind, a contestant picks the category of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction.

How well did you do? I got the first one. Woot!

[via Poe TV]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 11:29 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: A great start to what promises to be a very entertaining space opera series.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The Roman Catholic Church and the Eiridani Caliphate race to claim a long-lost human colony world located near the star Xi Virginis.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: A perfectly balanced combination of political intrigue, fast action and meticulous world building; a steady buildup of tension from start to finish.
CONS: Characters are more archetypal than they are real.
BOTTOM LINE: A splendidly constructed space opera.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 12:29 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

First there was 2007's Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of The 1960s, whcih featured

• The Man in the High Castle
• The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Ubik

• Martian Time-Slip
• Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb
• Now Wait for Last Year
• Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
• A Scanner Darkly

• A Maze of Death
• VALIS
• The Divine Invasion
• The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

[via Total Dick-Head]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

The Horror Writers Association announced the finalists for the 2008 Bram Stoker Awards. The Stokers, which have been presented annually since 1988, are given by the organization for superior achievement in horror writing.

SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN A NOVEL

• Coffin Country by Gary Braunbeck (Leisure Books)
• The Reach by Nate Kenyon (Leisure Books)
• Duma Key by Stephen King (Scribner)
• Johnny Gruesome by Gregory Lamberson (Bad Moon Books/Medallion Press)

• Midnight on Mourn Street by Christopher Conlon (Earthling Publications)
• The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti (Dark Hart Press)
• Monster Behind the Wheel by Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin (Delirium Books)
• The Suicide Collectors by David Oppegaard (St. Martin's Press)
• Frozen Blood by Joel A. Sutherland (Lachesis Publishing)

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 12:11 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

More Free Fiction, courtesy of QuasarDragon:

• Jonathan Strahan tells us that the full text of Ted Chiang's Hugo story "Exhalation", which appeared in Strahan's anthology Eclipse Two, now online. (ALSO: The list of 2009 Hugo Award Finalists has been updated. So there.)
• Audio Fiction:
  • @Chatterbox Audio: Surfacing Episode 2: "Down the Rabbit Hole" by Kyle Hatley.
  • @Dunesteef: "With Mars In His Hand" by Bosley Gravel
  • @Well Told Tales: "The Official" by Eric Sandler, read by Bryan A. Robinson.
  • @Librivox: "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, read by many readers.
  • Scott Sigler has Episode #16 of Contagious online.
  • @Beam Me Up: "The Ray Gun:A Love Story" p2 by James Alan Gardner, read by Paul Cole.
  • @Pseudopod: "Bait" by Joel Arnold, read by Cheyenne Wright.
  • @PodCastle:
    • "Faery Cats: The Cutest Killers" by Lucy A. Snyder read by Rachel Swirsky.
    • "Immersed in Matter" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, read by Chris Reynaga.
  • @Escape Pod:
    • "This Is How It Feels" by Ian Creasey, read by FNH.
    • "Beachcomber" by Mike Resnick Read by Elie Hirschman.
• Just a reminder of the way-cool free fiction resource at Free SF Reader. Just randomly perusing through it, I stumbled across this wonderful: "Andy Warhol's Dracula" by Kim Newman. [See the SF Signal review.]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 12:09 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Vince Horiuchi at The Salt Lake Tribune takes a look at the current state of SF on TV and says it's as vacuous as space. He correctly points out that now that Galactica is over, the only other SF series that a lot of fans care about is LOST. He wonders when the next great SF TV show air. He then goes off the rails by claiming Babylon 5 is a 'sub-par' series. Sorry Vince. Seasons 2 - 4 are some of the best SF you'll ever see on TV and it is still the best SF series ever on TV.
• Ron Moore talks about Galactica's finale (he's pleased with it, but why wouldn't he be?), Starbuck's fate (it was intentionally created to be vague), and the eventual DVD version (more flashbacks thus proving my contention they should have happened in the first few season, and some deleted scenes.) You can be he'll milk this for all it's worth.
• Eureka's Salli Richardson (Allison Blake) talks with Sci Fi Wire about the upcoming season 3.5. Eureka is one of the few SF shows I look forward to seeing, but as the commentors point out, a ten month break is stupid. It's like Sci Fi doesn't care about it's SF viewers....
• Good news for all you Quantum Leap fans: NBC has put the first 11 QL episodes online as part of their Vintage Shows Online series. You can find them here. Now you can see Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell in their pre-Enterprise and pre-Galactica days.
• And speaking of old shows appearing online, Hulu is now streaming Season 1 of Stargate: SG-1. I never really got into that show, but maybe it's time I took a second look, and with a 'PG' rating, it's even sort of family friendly! Here's the pilot:
  
  

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Interviews and Profiles:
  • @Bibliophile Stalker: Gary Turner of Golden Gryphon Press (who produces wonderful hardbacks, I might add.)
  • Mary Robinette Kowal Interviews the Campbell Nominees. First up: David Anthony Durham.
  • Robert J. Sawyer is featured in two SciFi Wire articles on the adaptation Flash Forward.
  • @NextRead: Kate Griffin (A Madness of Angels).
  • @Agony Column Podcast: Christopher Moore (Fool: A Novel).
  • @Ghost in the Machine, Gail Martin podcast interviews Jonathan Maberry and Christina Barber.
  • Over at Rockblog, Cat Rambo, Tobias S. Buckell, Jim C. Hines, and Merrie Haskell about world-building in short stories.


• AbeBooks has a great survey of Post-Apocalyptic Fiction.


• SF Scope reports that, in addition to the previously announced The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes anthology, Editor John Joseph Adams is also working on the sequel zombie anthology, The Living Dead 2. [See SF Signal review for The Living Dead.]


• Over at Tor.com, Art Director Irene Gallo has posted Justin Gerard's stunning artwork titled "Battle of Five Armies".


• Two for the writers:
  • David Coe tells you why you should divide your book into chapters.
  • Mur Lafferty looks at book trailers.


• @Strange Horizons, Matt Cheney looks at the often-overlooked connections between Philip K. Dick and Jack Spicer.


• Science Fiction: A Genre with No Limits: "Science fiction always finds a way to justify the storyline or interactions between characters in a scientific way that makes the story plausible. On the other hand, fantasy media portrays impossible situations with no set explanation."


• AMC uncovers Jack Kirby's "Lost" Comic Book Version of The Prisoner. Cool.


• AMC also unveils a new blog: B-Movie Classics, which works exactly as advertised, even including a sub-section on SciFi B-Movies. [via BBT Magazine]


• The Timeline of Cool:
  • Yesterday's cool: Steampunk gas mask.
  • Today's cool: Martin Ansin's Metropolis Poster
  • Tomorrow's cool: Cyborg Pirate Lego Minifig. (Is there any way to put those words togther and not be cool?


• Lists:
  • This was quick...here's a list of Battlestar Galactica Finale Goofs. [Thanks, Pawel D.!]
  • SFX lists Top five science errors in sci-fi.
  • A Strange Eye lists The 5 Worst Science Fiction Movies of All Time, using IMDB ratings...which is so unfair to the genius that is Battlefield Earth.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 24, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

We here at SF Signal headquarters were thrilled to be asked by Blogs.com to contribute a list of 10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Blogs. It was much more difficult than we anticipated since there are so many author blogs that are worth reading. But we mercilessly knuckled down and came up with the list.

Since blogs.com only asks for the list but allows no room for explanation or justification, we thought we'd explain them here:

[UPDATE: Apparently they do allow for explanations -- their post will be updated to reflect these explanations.]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 23, 2009 at 2:02 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

Sci Fi announced today that they are ordering three new four-hour miniseries from RHI Entertainment, the people behind the successful Tin Man mini-series.

First up is a re-telling of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland, which is due this upcoming winter. Nick Willing will write and direct, which is a good thing as he did the writing and directing on Tin Man, which I felt did an admirable job of re-telling the Wizard of Oz in an interesting manner. They are looking to add a 'modern twist' to the classic story, and executive VP Mark Stern points out that the original story is more about scenery than character, allowing the writers more leeway for their version. I've always liked the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, now I'll have to go back and re-watch it. And if it helps sell more of the books, that's a good thing.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday March 23, 2009 at 2:00 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

The incomparable free fiction reference Free Speculative Fiction Online has added yet another batch of new additions to it's incredible lineup of free fiction, many coming as free samples from Baen's Webscriptions. Sure, some of them may have already been posted here, but there's plenty of new stuff to consume. So, have at them!

1. John Barnes: "An Ocean is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away"
2. Elizabeth Bear: "War Stories"
3. Greg Bear: "Richie by the Sea"
4. Greg Bear: "Sisters"
5. Greg Bear: "The White Horse Child"
6. Greg Bear: "Webster"
7. Gregory Benford & David Brin: "I Could've Done Better"
8. Beth Bernobich: "Shopping Spree"
9. Ben Bova: "Moon Race"
10. Richard Bowes: "If Angels Fight"
11. David Brin: "Shoresteading"
12. David Brin: "The Smartest Mob"

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 23, 2009 at 12:25 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 23, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• If You're Just Joining Us interviews editor Lou Anders (Fast Forward 2)


• But wait! There's more Lou! Nick Gevers continues interviewing the creators and editors of Short Fiction. This time, it's Lou Anders.


• Free Fiction:
  • Strangities by Collin Landis. [via MobileRead]
  • @Everyday Weirdness: "The Creepy Little Mailbox Man" by Matthew Sanborn Smith.


• EVENT: As part of the Fantastic Fiction reading series, Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present Cassandra Clare (The Infernal Devices) & Marie Rutkoski (The Celestial Globe) Wednesday January 21st, 7pm at KGB Bar in NYC.


• Snowbooks points us to some Steampunk Motorcycles.


• io9 lists 22 Cases of Sherlock Holmes in Science Fiction.


• Gunaxin looks at The Women of Battlestar Galactica, and now I am too. ....Excuse me...I just got distracted for a bit...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 23, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• As you might imagine, we've got Battlestar Galactica links for you. Several. First up, Sarah Actually goes into detail about what BG now means to her. And she has a positive reaction to the finale. This is one of the very few positive reactions to the ending that I've seen.
• Contrast the above with Cinema Blend's contention that the finale was a huge cop out. It's looking like the detractors are focusing on the 'God did it' angle has a huge disappointment. I don't necessarily have an issue with that, but the groundwork before hand was not set down well enough to hang the finale on that. I did find the anti-technology bent to be a bit odd for a science fiction show. Who knew Michale Crichton wrote for the show?
• Way back when, Ron Moore and company started Galactica saying the Cylons 'had a plan'. Those words disappeared from the opening when it became clear that neither the Cylons nor the writers actually knew what 'the plan' was. Maybe the Joker stole it. In any case, SyFy (ugh) will be televising a movie later in the year that shows things from the Cylon point of view as they launch their rebellion. It's called The Plan and was written by Jane Espenson. Here is the teaser in case you missed it:
  
  
• Finally, Galactica's spin-off, Caprica will air in 2010, with the DVD of the pilot going on sale on April 21st. Interesting. SyFy also aired a teaser for Caprica during the finale (I was less than impressed), see it below:
  
  
• Doc Arzt wonders what LOST fans can learn from BG's series finale. He's looking at it from the fan community perspective and wonders whether the LOST finale will splinter the fans or cement the together. I'd say they'd have to royally screw up to splinter the fans. The current season has been great, way better than Galactica.
• Sci Fi president Dave Howe answers viewer question about the name change and future direction of SyFy. As you'd expect, the negative reactions continue to pour forth. It's hard to imagine they channel could hack off the core SF audience more if it tried. That said, it should be apparent the a SF only oriented show does not have a large enough audience to create a profitable network, hence the slow change in the channel culminating in the recent name switch. I think there's an opportunity here from some enterprising folks to put together a SF only Internet channel...
• We also got to see the trailer for SyFy's new series, Wharehouse 13. It looks like they are trying to emulate Eureka's lighter tone, but it will all hinge on the two lead characters. I didn't get a warm fuzzy. You decide:
  
  

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Posted by JP Frantz at Monday March 23, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Superman, who is the Man of Steel, who is the Last Son of Krypton, who is faster than speeding bullets, is a fascinating subject to spend your time reading about. He's got such a long history, such a varied history, that you could very nearly make an academic career out of him. And really, he's been spread so consistently across so many mediums for so very long, you could make the argument that the Superman comics are almost besides the point.

The history of Superman is terrific. My favorite fact about him is that originally, he couldn't fly. He could literally leap tall buildings in a single bound. And if you go back to old Superman comics and puzzle about the odd postures he seems to be flying in (he looks like the Captain Morgan commercials) then you know why: he was jumping great distances.

If I really start talking about Superman all across the board, this article will go on forever. Neither you nor I have the life expectancy needed for me to truly geek out about Superman.

So I want to focus on the movies. And I want to talk about fixing Superman. Because frankly, ladies and germs, Superman does not work. Not on screen. Not in comics.

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Posted by Peter Damien at Sunday March 22, 2009 at 12:25 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: An oddly unassuming tale of miracles and wonders in the Nevada desert that deals with the Knights Templar, the Veil of Veronica and various other Christian mysteries in a way that makes them seem almost plausible.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Calvin travels to New Cyprus, Nevada, where he is challenged to change his life and become one of the Knights Templar.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: The story is comfortable and pleasing, but just quirky enough to keep the reader slightly and happily off balance.
CONS: Despite murder and miracles, this book is strangely lacking in tension or urgency.
BOTTOM LINE: Not one of Blaylock's best books, but head and shoulders above the likes of The Da Vinci Code on some of the same themes.

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Posted by Terry Weyna at Sunday March 22, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Really, how can you miss with a description like this?

Against the decimated ruins of the New York City of the future, mankind has lost its dominance on Earth following the robot holocaust.

Oh, that's how.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday March 22, 2009 at 12:12 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Free Fiction:
  • A free fiction link for the Hugo-nominated "Article of Faith" by Mike Resnick has been added to the list of 2009 Hugo Award Finalists. (Thanks, Baen's Universe!)
  • Free excerpt @ io9: a Chapter from Dan Abnett's Primeval: Extinction Event, based on the BBC series Primeval.
  • The Cordwainer Smith Blog rounds up free Cordwainer Smith stories (See also: Frederick Pohl's introduction to the Cordwainer Smith collection When the People Fell.):
    • "No, No, Not Rogov!"
    • "War No. 81-Q" (Rewritten Version)
    • "Mark Elf"
    • "The Queen of the Afternoon"
    • "Scanners Live in Vain"
    • "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul"
    • "When the People Fell"


• Rocket Ride Books, which is publishing a reprint (and audio version) of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (the basis for John Carpenter's The Thing), has a new podcast called Masters of SciFi and Horror. The first two episodes feature a profile of the man himself, John W. Campbell, Jr. (Listen to part one and part two.)


• Battlestar Galactica tidbits:
  • Serious: "Battlestar Galactica is part of a venerable tradition of science fiction that examines politics and society," says Lou Anders, editorial director for the sci-fi publisher Pyr books.
  • Not-so-serious: Gabriel McKee of SF Gospel celebrated the series finale of Battlestar Galactica in style: with a few friends and The 12 Pies of Kobol


• Cracked lists 6 Supervillains Who Were Actually OK Guys.


• Mike Brotherton begins listing Women Writing Hard Science Fiction and asks for other suggestions.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday March 22, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Here's a 2005 video of Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku talking about multiverses and parallel universes. Mind-boggling. (See also: SF Signal's interview with Dr. Michio Kaku.)

Now that your brain is running hot, cool it down with this Bugs Bunny space cartoon, "Haredevil Hare".

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 21, 2009 at 12:22 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• The Sydney Writers' Centre has an audio-interview with Sean Williams (The Dust Devils). [via SFFaudio]


• Guy Gavriel Kay looks at how "a writer's engagement with readers via blogs and websites creates a real relationship and unleashes the demands - sometimes angry demands - that go with it." [via Jeff Carlson]


• The Best American Fantasy anthology series is moving to Underland Press, starting with Best American Fantasy 3, guest-edited by Kevin Brockmeier.


• At Apex, Jay Lake talks about Writing the Series.


• "The SLF Older Writers Grant is awarded annually to a writer who is fifty years of age or older at the time of grant application, and is intended to assist such writers who are just starting to work at a professional level. We are currently offering one $750 grant annually, to be used as the writer determines will best assist his or her work." [via Boing Boing]


• DVICE has posted their Steampunk Cylon Gallery.


• Tor.com points us to The fine art of Wolverine.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 21, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Just a reminder...

Battlestar Galactica's series finale airs tonight at 9PM (8PM Central) and runs 2 hours and 11 minutes.

If you watch it, come back here and tell us what you thought of it...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 20, 2009 at 4:20 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

Via Enter the Octopus, Kevin Myers at The Independent asks: Are free libraries still justified?

Now, only a baboon would deny the usefulness of free libraries to children. But why should any well-paid person like myself have their literary tastes paid for, including author royalties, by the taxpayer? Meanwhile, the bookshop down the road has to match the range of taxpayer-funded facilities being provided free of charge at the library, and make a profit, a concept about as foreign to a state-run lending library as toilet paper is to a fish.

Discuss.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 20, 2009 at 12:27 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

This is one of those movies I have to watch when it comes on.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 20, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

The 2009 Hugo Awards, honoring works first published in 2008 or works first published in 2008 in the US that were published in a previous year outside the US, have been announced:
(Story titles link to free, online versions.)

BEST NOVEL

• Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK) [See SF Signal review]
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury)
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor) [See SF Signal review]
• Saturn's Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit)
• Zoe's Taleby John Scalzi (Tor) [See SF Signal review]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 20, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

It's been awhile, but I found some rather interesting SF-ish game related stuff for you today.

• The 'supposedly upcoming but probably having cash flow problems' MMO Stargate Worlds seems to be still on the development train. The MMO site Massively managed to grab a couple of screenshots of the high end armor that will be available in-game for the teeming hordes who can devote untold days to playing the game. Still, even though I'm not a fan of the TV shows, this is an MMO I would definitely try out.
• Even more exciting, many gamers' drink of choice, Mountain Dew, is teaming up with the MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft and will release two new WoW flavored beverages. They will be "Wild Fruit" Alliance Blue and "Citrus Cherry" flavored Horde Red. Because nothing says "For the Horde!" more than citrus cherry. That and an axe to the head.
• It must be MMO week around here. If you've played the Falloutseries, you probably loves you some post-apocalyptic game play. You'll be glad to know that Fallen Earth is a post-apocalyptic MMO currently in development. Even better, the devs for the game took some time out to answer questions from players. Sounds rather interesting to me, but will there be a large enough audience for this one to succeed? Especially if the rumors of a Fallout MMO are true...
• The one MMO I'm frothing at the mouth to play, Star Wars: The Old Repbulic, has created a web comic detailing some of the back story for the game. Issues 1 and 2 are live with several more to come. I'll be all over this one when it comes it, before if possible.
• Now here's something you don't see everyday: Blacklight, a new, distant future FPS (that isn't released yet) has already inked a deal with Fox Atomic Studios to release a movie and comic based on the game. Wow, they'd better hope this game doesn't tank on release.
• And now the coolest video you'll see today involving LEGO and 'augmented reality'. Designer Frantz Lasorne has put his tech know how to good use, developing this really cool system using head-mounted video projection glasses and LEGOs to create a proto-type augmented reality game. The possibilities are just mind blowing, and that's just for miniature games.
  
  
  
  Augmented Reality Toys (Work in progress) from Frantz Lasorne on Vimeo.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday March 20, 2009 at 12:13 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Cover Pr0n:
  • John Picacio shows off his stunning cover for Mark Chadbourn's upcoming book Age of Misrule: The Darkest Hour. [via Pyr-o-mania]
  • Amazon has finally posted the cover for The Year's Best Science Fiction #26 edited by Gardner Dozois. (The Table of Contents post has been updated.)


• Interviews and profiles:
  • @SCI FI Wire: Walter Jon Williams (This Is Not a Game). The book also has a website.
  • @The Dragon Page: David J. Williams (The Mirrored Heavens and The Burning Skies).


• Free Fiction:
  • The Nebula-nominated "Trophy Wives" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. [The free fiction links on our 2008 Nebula Awards post has been updated.]
  • Audio fiction: @EscapePod: "This Is How It Feels" by Ian Creasey.
  • @Tor.com: "We Haven't Got There Yet" by Harry Turtledove.


• Tim Waggoner on The Making of Nekropolis. [via Angry Robot Books]


• Mike Brotherton tells us why the human batteries from The Matrix wouldn't work.


• Nancy Jane Moore reveals things she didn't say in this week's Mind Meld about taboos in genre fiction.


• The topic of spoilers is jointly discussed as Tor and Suvudu.


• Lou Antonelli remembers paperback spin-racks.


• Dark Roasted Blend looks at Body Snatchers and other Alien Pods.


• Dan Abnett signs with Angry Robot to deliver three original novels: a "ribald historical fantasy" titled Triumph and two books set in the same future-war setting. (Embedded sends a journalist into the frontline of a distant planetary war chipped inside the head of a combat veteran.)


• John Scalzi looks at musicians in SciFi Films.


• io9 lists The 10 Greatest Science Fiction TV Show Endings.


• @The Great Geek Manual: Top 10 Signs you've Watched too much BattleStar Galactica.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 20, 2009 at 12:07 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Robert Carlyle is starring in the upcoming Sci Fi, sorry, SyFy series Stargate Universe. Sci Fi Wire (shouldn't that be SyFyWyre now?) interviews Carlyle who says the new show will be more character centric and feature less aliens. Since the premise of the show is a group of humans stuck on an Ancient ship traveling the galaxy and visiting new worlds, they'll have to explain why most of the 'aliens' are human looking. Which could be an interesting overarching story line. Somebody get Scalzi on the phone!
• Galactica's last hurrah is tonight, but with Caprica on the horizon, fans of BG still have something to look forward to. Amazon's Armchair Commentary has an exclusive clip if you'd like to get a peek at the show.
• Joss Whedon had a con call with journalists this past Wednesday about his new show Dollhouse. Reading between the lines it seems that the Dollhouse we have is not the Dollhouse he wanted. Due to Fox meddling I'm sure. Sadly, I don't find Dollhouse to be in the same league as Firefly and I haven't watched more than the first two. Another Whedon creation doomed to an early failure...
• Just in case any of you LOSTies want to dress up as a Dharma Initiative employee for Halloween (or anytime), Doc Arzt has some ideas on how to create your own. Screw that, I'm going to build a 'frozen donkey wheel' in my garage the trick or treaters will have to turn before they got any candy.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Friday March 20, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

SF Signal is featured as The Fantasy Tavern's Fortnight Feature beginning today.

For those who don't know, The Fantasy Tavern features fantasy book reviews, free fantasy art wallpapers, free fantasy fiction, and more. It's run by fantasy author Tracy Falbe, author of the Braveluck books and proprietor of Falbe Publishing.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 19, 2009 at 1:00 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

Just weeks after the announcement of Amazon's Kindle 2, Fujitsu today announced the release of the world's first color e-Paper "mobile terminal", now for sale in Japan.

It's called FLEPia (Nice name. Not.) and its features include:

• 8-inch display screen capable of showing up to 260,000 colors in high-definition (768 x 1024 resolution).
• Equipped with Bluetooth and high-speed wireless LAN.
• 40 hours of continuous battery operation when fully charged..
• Supports up to 4GB SD card (the equivalent of 5,000 conventional paper-based books).
• Books downloaded directly to device.
• Embedded stereo speakers for audio playback of e-books.
• Input: touch screen, digital stylus, scroll key, function buttons.
• Two e-book viewers included as standard feature (BunkoViewer [XMDF], T-Time [.book]).
• Loaded with Windows CE5.0, enabling use of an Internet browser, e-mail, and various software.

So is this a Kindle killer? Here's a clue: the FLEPia costs 99,750 Japanese Yen, or roughly $1,015 U.S. dollars.

Sweet Jeebus! I'm guessing, no, this is not a Kindle killer.

[via ZDNet]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 19, 2009 at 12:22 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

New to ManyBooks.net is Harry Harrison's classic adventure, Deathworld.

From the Amazon description:

"Deathworld" centers on Jason dinAlt, a professional gambler who uses his somewhat erratic psionic abilities to tip the odds in his favor. He is challenged by a man named Kerk Pyrrus (who turns out to be the ambassador from the planet Pyrrus) to turn a large amount of money into an immense sum by gambling at a government-run casino. He succeeds and survives the planetary government's desperate efforts to steal back the money. In a fit of ennui, he decides to accompany Kerk to his home, despite being warned that it is the deadliest world ever colonized by humans...DEATHWORLD!

DEATHWORLD is one of the classics of the Golden Age of science fiction, born in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction under the editorship of John W. Campbell, Jr.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 19, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Kathryn Cramer has posted the Table of Contents for Year's Best SF 14, which she co-edits with David G. Hartwell.

• "Arkfall" by Carolyn Ives Gilman
• "Orange" by Neil Gaiman
• "Memory Dog" by Kathleen Ann Goonan
• "Pump Six" by Paolo Bacigalupi
• "Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
• "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang
• "Traitor" by M. Rickert
• "The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away" by Cory Doctorow
• "Oblivion: A Journey" by Vandana Singh
• "The House Left Empty" by Robert Reed
• "The Scarecrow's Boy" by Michael Swanwick
• "N-Words" by Ted Kosmatka
• "Fury" by Alastair Reynolds
• "Cheats" by Gwyneth Jones writing as Ann Halam
• "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain" by Jason Sanford
• "The Egg Man" by Mary Rosenblum
• "Glass" by Daryl Gregory
• "Fixing Hanover" by Jeff VanderMeer
• "Message Found in a Gravity Wave" by Rudy Rucker
• "Mitigation" by Tobias Buckell & Karl Schroeder
• "Spiders" by Sue Burke

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 19, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Frederik Pohl recalls how The Space Merchants was optioned.


• Jay Lake has a fantastic post about The evil of the Google copyright settlement.


• @TrekMovie, Star Trek writer and sf author David Gerrold comments on Harlan Ellison's recent lawsuit. (See comments #222, #225 and #287.): "Harlan Ellison isn't the only writer who is affected by this. Other Star Trek writers like DC Fontana (who wrote more episodes of the original series than anyone else and who created the characters of Sarek and Amanda) will also benefit. It is also likely that writers who worked on other series will benefit from the precedent."


• Interviews and Profiles:
  • BBC goes all Mind Meld and asks: Can science fiction keep up with modern science? Responses from Ken Macleod, Paul Cornell, Iain Banks, and Ian Watson.
  • The Bat Segundo Show interviews Catherynne M. Valente.
  • ActuSF interviews Robin Hobb.
  • Gail Z. Martin welcomes JF Lewis (Staked, Revamped) and Juliet McKenna (Irons in the Fire) to he Ghost in the Machine podcast.
  • @Fantasy Book Critic: Sarah Ash (Flight Into Darkness).
  • @SFX: Alex Proyas, director of Knowing.
  • Stephen Euin Cobb's latest The Future And You podcast David Drake.


• Brenda Cooper Tidbits:
  • Brenda Cooper has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.
  • Brenda is guest-blogging at Adventures in SciFi Publishing and offers writing advice.


• Andy Remic has an audio promo for his latest book, Biohell. (About midway down the page)


• Free Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]
  • @Strange Horizons: "Nira and I" by Shweta Narayan.
  • @Fantasy Magazine: "Birds" by Jean-Claude Dunlach, translated by Sheryl Curtis.
  • @Subterranean Press: "The Dry Spell" by James P. Blaylock.
  • The latest Starship Sofa includes audio fiction from Kim Newman.
  • James Patrick Kelly podcasts part 3 of "Bernardo's House".
  • Paul Jessup lists his favorite free eBooks. [via A Dribble of Ink]


• The way Alien vs Predator should have been filmed: playing chess.


• Suvudu lists 5 Genre Authors I Didn't Know Were Irish.


• SciFi Wire lists sci-fi actors who turned politician.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday March 19, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Times change, and taboos change with them. What sort of taboos exist nowadays in the world of publishing?

What mainstream sf outlets would have the balls to publish those stories today? Down in the US, a half-second flicker of Janet Jackson faux-nipple on national television sends the whole fucking country into an uproar. Over in the UK, it has recently become illegal to own pictures of legal sexual acts; the ownership of sufficiently "extreme" pornographic images is enough to get you registered as a sex offender. And in my country, Canada's so-called "premiere science fiction magazine", On Spec-- a publication that once had the guts to publish a story of mine that dared to portray a racist as a sympathetic individual-- refused to run a picture of Mohammed in a spacesuit, renegeing on a written commitment explicitly designed to ensure that such censorship wouldn't occur. (It only adds to the irony that the image was intended to illustrate an editorial celebrating science fiction's potential to explore "dangerous ideas".)

So, you guys think we're "thankfully past those days" of censorship?

Tell me, what colour is the sky on your world?

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Posted by Karen Burnham at Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 11:22 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Designer, Technologist and Researcher Julian Bleecker of The Near Future Laboratory has just published an essay titled Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction. [PDF] in which he argues that that "Fiction is evolutionarily valuable because it allows low-cost experimentation compared to trying things for real."

This was published as a response to the similarly-themed paper by Paul Douris and Genevieve Bell, "Resistance is Futile": Reading Science Fiction Alongside Ubiquitous Computing. Explaining the rationale for his response, Julian says:

Extending this idea that science fiction is implicated in the production of things like science fact, I wanted to think about how this happens, so that I could figure out the principles and pragmatics of doing design, making things that create different sorts of near future worlds. So, this is a bit of a think-piece, with examples and some insights that provide a few conclusions about why this is important as well as how it gets done. How do you entangle design, science, fact and fiction in order to create this practice called "design fiction" that, hopefully, provides different, undisciplined ways of envisioning new kinds of environments, artifacts and practices.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 12:32 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

We don't usually mix politics with SF on our blog, but I recently saw a 'poster' that I thought was rather clever. It mixes science fiction (which we all love), (de)motivational posters and an appropriate level of snark towards the U.S. government into one humorous package.

Enjoy.

I had to laugh the first time I saw this, which is all you really can do given that no one in Congress seems to care how their spending spree is going to affect the taxpayers. If there was an option in the 2010 elections to vote out every incumbent, I'd join the Rebel Alliance to do so.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 12:10 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Kristine Kathryn Rusch shares the cool Dave Seeley cover art for her upcoming book, Diving into the Wreck, due out later this year from Pyr.


• Awards News:
  • Locus Roundtable has the Clarke Award shortlist.
  • AnticipationSF lists the Prix Aurora Award Nominees.


• Tor.com profiles Peter Crowther and his latest anthology, We Think, Therefore We Are. (See SF Signal review.)


• The Agony Column podcast-interviews James Morrow (Shambling Towards Hiroshima).


• Joseph Mallozzi's book club selections for May include I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein and The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll.


• John Scalzi answers reader questions in a new podcast.


• Free Fiction Sample @ Book View Cafe: Chapter 1 of The Betrayal by Pati Nagle.


• Robert J. Sawyer has posted his 25th issue of SF Writer (PDF).


• Alexander Jablokov has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog. [via James Nicoll]


• Futurismic says Bruce Sterling doesn't have much faith in the power of science fiction novels to change the world.


• SlashFilm has a preview of the Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash 2 comic.


• Vote for The Baddest Babe at SciFi Scanner's latest poll.


• Jay Garmon at Geekend asks: What sci-fi character would make best use of government bailout funds?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

It's a light one today, but with a bonus video!

• For the past several years, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindeloff have taken to giving the season finale of LOST a nickname. This past year had to do with the 'frozen donkey wheel'. But this year, Cuse and Lindeloff want the fans to give the season finale a nickname. Now's your chance!
• Staying with LOST, in the official podcast a couple of weeks ago, Darlton suggested that fans might want to stay tuned for new about one of the musical 'groups' used in the show. Turns out, the Geronimo Jackson single, Dharma Girl, is now available, for free, on iTunes. You can catch it below (I think they did a good job mimicking that late 60's, early 70's sound.):
• And now for the bonus: A kitten! Yay! Stuck on the freeway?! Boo! (And yes, this actually happened here in Houston the other day)

  First, just how the hell did that cat get up there? Was he trying to 'spray' his own version of 'graffiti' on the overpass support? And a bit of advice to Mr. Kitteh: The east side of town isn't the best place to be marking your territory, if you know what I mean.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 12:00 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

With the news yesterday that the Sci-Fi Channel is becoming SyFy (with a de-emphasis on actual SF) you can hear SF fans everywhere crying out in anguish. Add in the ending of Battlestar Galactica this Friday and I have to wonder:

Is it time to say goodbye to Sci-Fi (SyFy) for good?

Science fiction on Sci-Fi has been an endangered animal for long time now. Sci-Fi has been going after ratings, and therefore money, at the expense of what most of us here want: actual, good science fiction. SyFy will further expand its offerings at the expense of anything science fiction, and with the only new SF programming on the horizon is Caprica and Warehouse 13, the future of science fiction on SyFy doesn't look bright (aside from Eureka).

I haven't been a regular viewer of Sci-Fi for along time now, only tuning in to watch the aforementioned Galactica and Eureka. Now, there's little reason for me to keep tuning in, except for Eureka. Sadly, it looks like we'll have to rely on network TV to bring us SF shows, and we all know how well that usually works out.

It seems to me, it's time to bid a lukewarm farewell to the Sci-Fi channel. Who's with me?

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 1:35 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

Neil Gaiman appeared on The Colbert Report last night. As promised, he did shave.

[via Pyr-o-mania]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 1:00 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

Jeffrey A. Carver, who was previously giving away PDF copies of his novel Sunborn, is now giving away (for a limited time) Sunborn in multiple, DRM-free formats.

What's it about? Glad you asked...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 11:28 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: 3 exceptional stories + 7 good stories + 5 stories mediocre or worse = a good set of stories.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Fifteen original stories centered on the theme of artificial intelligence.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: 10 stories good or better; despite the common theme, many diverse stories are presented.
CONS: 5 stories mediocre or worse.
BOTTOM LINE: A good set of stories around the idea of artificial intelligence.

We Think Therefore We Are is a science fiction anthology edited by Peter Crowther that is centered on the theme of artificial intelligence. Despite that one theme, the stories presented offer a nice variety of plots and tone. Flavors range from classic sf tropes (Stephen Baxter's thorough "Tempest 43" and Eric Brown's wonderful "Salvage Rites") to lighter and more meta-fictional entries ("Adam Robots" by Adam Roberts and "The New Cyberiad" by Paul Di Filippo). Perhaps not surprisingly, Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics come into play in two of the stories (Brian Stableford's "The Highway Code" and Chris Roberson's "Dragon King of the Eastern Sea"). The wide range of ideas presented make for a good collection, even if some of the stories were less entertaining than others. But the ones that worked - particularly Keith Brooke's awesome take on uploaded consciousness, "Sweats" - worked really well. Rounding out the anthology, Paul McAuley gives an interesting introduction that talks about artificial intelligence in science and media.

Standout stories in this volume include:

• "Salvage Rites" by Eric Brown
• "Adam Robots" by Adam Roberts
• "Sweats" by Keith Brooke

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 12:25 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Along the lines of the recent History of the Bat logo video, there's this:

[via Obsessed With Film]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Naldz Graphics has an excellent gallery of 40 Beautiful Robot Characters.


• Interviews and Profiles:
  • At SciFi Wire, Nick Gevers profiles Bruce Sterling, author of The Caryatids.
  • @Subterranean Press, John Joseph Adams interviews Jim Butcher.
  • K. Tempest Bradford has her say about race and science fiction and fantasy at Scalzi's Whatever.


• Author Harlan Ellison is suing Paramount Studios for an unspecified amount over their merchandising and creation of works similar to his classic Star Trek episode, "City on the Edge of Forever." More comments here. [via Galley Cat]


• So Many Books asks: Are We Headed Toward a Post-Literate World? (That is, a world in which reading and writing are no longer necessary and no longer done.)


• Jason Perlow educates us on Sci-Fi Kindlenomics - a golden opportunity up for grabs by offering a Kindle pre-loaded with a ton of sf favorites. [via James Wallace Harris]


• Jonathan Strahan is blogging about short fiction at Locus.


• Jack Womack is currently guest-blogging at William Gibson's blog. [via Paul McAuley]


• At Tor.com, Lou Anders reviews Watchmen.


• Voting is now open for BookSpotCentral's the annual tournament of books. [via J.M. McDermott]


• Suvudu shares part 2 of the list of Top Sci Fi Thriller Movies.


• LA Weekly offers a Steampunk Starter Guide: Top 5 Film and TV Series.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Good news for LOST-ies. Everyone's favorite time travel show will have a two-hour season finale. This almost makes up for the skipped week last week. Almost. And damn, it's better than ever. Of course, if you haven't been following the show, good luck with that.
• Damon Lindeloff of LOST fame takes some time out (which he should be using to write more kick @$$ episodes for the last season) of his busy schedule to critique Watchmen. He also has some much needed common sense things to say about the squid.
• One of the cool things Fox has been doing for Fringe and Dollhouse was to introduce shorter commercial breaks. This gives us, the viewers, more show for our time. Sadly, Fox is doing away with the short breaks, citing financial reasons. In other words, they weren't making enough money. Of course, if the shows had been monster hits, the finances would have taken care of themselves.
• Even though NBC is in the tank ratings-wise, they are still trying. With Kings debuting this past weekend they have another SF-ish show on the schedule which will soon be joined by The Listener. The Listener is about a paramedic with telepathic abilities. Hmmm, I don't know. Doesn't grab me.
• Ah yes, one of Stephen King's many novels, It has already been on the small screen, starring Tim Curry as the world's most unfunniest clown. Now, It has been optioned for the big screen, probably sans Curry. I kinda liked the mini-series, and the book is pretty good too.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday March 17, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

In what is sure to be a classic example of superfluous Marketing, the SciFi Channel has decided to rebrand itself...as the SyFy Channel. Here's their explanation:

By changing the name to Syfy, which remains phonetically identical, the new brand broadens perceptions and embraces a wider range of current and future imagination-based entertainment beyond just the traditional sci-fi genre, including fantasy, supernatural, paranormal, reality, mystery, action and adventure. It also positions the brand for future growth by creating an ownable trademark that can travel easily with consumers across new media and nonlinear digital platforms, new international channels and extend into new business ventures.
...
Syfy more clearly captures the mainstream appeal of the world's biggest entertainment category, and reflects the network's ongoing strategy to create programming that's more accessible and relatable to new audiences. Syfy will continue to celebrate the traditional roots of the genre, while opening the brand to accommodate a broader range of imagination-based entertainment.

What's your take? is this a good idea, a bad idea, or a non-issue...and why?

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 16, 2009 at 11:29 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

REVIEW SUMMARY: A collection of classic genre tales that influenced three genre authors and editors.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Twenty-nine stories (plus notes and a preface), only one of which was not a winner.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: A collection of some of the best-recognized names in the industry.
CONS: Strongly biased towards the 1960's and earlier, few fantasy entries.
BOTTOM LINE: This book belongs on the shelves of every fan.

This dense book is a collection of short works that influenced the three editors (the late Jim Baen who edited at Galaxy, Ace, Tor Books and then Baen Books; David Drake, who has written, collaborated and edited a small library; and Eric Flint, one of Baen Books more popular authors and editors). My first glance at the contents showed a lot of familiar favorites and as I read I would occasionally have a "I remember this one!" moment. This is a very solid collection that ought to sit any fan's bookshelf (or, if you read eBooks, be a permanent resident on your PDA or eBook reader).

For a complete list, see below. I'll just highlight a few of the stories. I will note that given the authors involved (Murray Leinster, as one good example), the editors often picked a solid, lesser-known story ("The Aliens") instead of a more widely known tale ("First Contact").

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Posted by Fred Kiesche at Monday March 16, 2009 at 12:25 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Chris Dolley is making his book, Resonance, available as a free download in multiple formats.

Here's the book description:

Graham Smith is a 33 year-old office messenger. To the outside world he's an obsessive-compulsive mute - weird but harmless. But to Graham Smith, it's the world that's weird. And far from harmless. He knows that roads can change course, people disappear, office blocks migrate across town. All at night when no one's looking. The world's an unstable place, still growing, sloughing off layers of reality like dead skin. One day you drive by, and it's changed.

Annalise Mercado hears voices, all from girls calling themselves Annalise. Sometimes she thinks they're spirit guides, sometimes she thinks she's crazy. But then they tell her about Graham Smith and the men who want him dead. So begins the story of two people whose lives appear fragmented across alternate realities and how, together, they hold the key to the future of a billion planets...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 16, 2009 at 12:15 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 16, 2009 at 12:12 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Subterranean Press reveals the cool covers for Jack Vance's new collection, Wild Thyme, Green Magic, and The Best of Robert E. Howard #1: Crimson Shadows.


• Free Audio Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]
  • @Escape Pod: "Origin Story" by Tim Pratt, read by Stephen Eley.
  • @PodCastle: "Sweet, Savage Sorcerer" by Esther Friesner, read by Rachel Swirsky.
  • @LibriVox: The Metal Monster by Abraham Merritt, read by many readers.
  • @Beam Me Up: Part one of "The Ray Gun" by James Alan Gardner, read by Paul Cole.
  • @Dunesteef, "A Cat Prince Distinguishes Himself" by Abigail Hilton.
  • Episode 15 of Scott Sigler's Contagious is available in PDF and MP3 downloads.
  • @Cthulhu Podcast: "In Zaccarath" by Lord Dunsany.
  • @PodCastle: "Up the Chimney" by Cat Rambo, read by Cian MacMahon.


• Sloshspot has some cool Kurt Vonnegut Motivational Posters.


• Articluate interviews Jack Dann.


• Marty Halpern writes in to tell us that he and co-Editor Nick Gevers have sold a Fermi Paradox-themed original anthology, Is Anybody Out There?, to Daw Books via Martin H. Greenberg's Tekno Books, set for publication in 2010. And now I'm anxiously awaiting that table of contents...


• Lists:
  • SciFi Wire lists The Top 7 tech goodies you'll see in Watchmen.
  • Collider scares up 13 Movie Clips from Monsters vs. Aliens. [via Sci Fi Scoop]
  • Genre films overwhelm Cracked's list of 6 Movie Remakes that Missed the Point.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Monday March 16, 2009 at 12:09 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Here's a short film from Bruce Branit that's made of cool. It's about a man who builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday March 15, 2009 at 12:25 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Free Fiction [courtesy of QuasarDragon]
  • @Pat's Fantasy Hotlist: "The Best Monkey" by Daniel Abraham (from The Solaris Book of Science Fiction, Volume 3.
  • This weekend only, Vera Nazarian is offering her novella "The Duke in His Castle" as a free PDF download.
  • Comic: Digger by Ursula Vernon. [via Tor.com]
  • Ray Gun Revival has its 51st issue out with fiction by Adrian Simmons, Paula R. Stiles, O. Charles Swallows, Jr., Steven Gerard, Chip Meador, M. Keaton, Keanan Brand, L. S. King, and Paul Christian Glenn.
  • @Strange Horizons: "Diana Comet" (part 2 of 2) by Sandra McDonald
  • @Fantasy Magazine: "White Stone" by Genevieve Valentine


• CosmicBookNews interveiws Keith DeCandido.


• Nancy Kress says: "Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press and Gardner Dozois are putting together a tribute anthology to Robert Silverberg. Various authors have been asked to write stories set in one of Bob's universes."


• io9 lists 24 Science Fiction Archaeologists.


• Suvudu offers a Part 1 of a list of Sci Fi Thrillers and a list of Top 10 Apocalyptic Tales.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Sunday March 15, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 14, 2009 at 12:25 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

AMC TV's blog for the 1960s television show The Prisoner has been updated with a quiz about Rover, Number Six's inflatable nemesis.

Do you think you're an expert? Then head on over and Take the Quiz! I compiled the questions -- see if you can get them all right!

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 14, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Life was simpler when Saturday Mornings meant planting yourself in front of the television with a big ol' box of Frosted Flakes. Right, Bugs?

[via Poe TV]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 14, 2009 at 12:10 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Jo Walton reviews the classic The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.


• Interviews & Profiles:
  • Genreville interviews Tom Lloyd (The Twilight Herald).
  • Bookgeeks asks P.C. Hodgell and Kate Elliot, among others, about how they create non-human protagonists. [Thanks, Fred!]
  • Articulate interviews Jennifer Fallon.


• Stargate producer Joseph Mallozzi guest-blogs at Apex.


• Since when did superheroes need a public relations manager? Since "comic book giant Marvel said it was forming an international advisory board to boost the profile of its superheroes overseas."


• Free Fiction: The latest issue of Concatenation has been posted and includes the story "The Invisible Hand" by Allan M. Rees. (PDF; Click 'What's New" for the link.)


• In Paul Levinson's latest Light On, Light Through podcast, he shares lifelong lessons learned from Frank Herbert's Dune and Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogies.


• Mike Brotherton talks about using movies to teach science.


• Chris Howard, author of Seaborn, has been added to the list of sf/f authors who blog.


• Cover Pr0n: Jim C. Hines shares the cool Scott Fischer artwork for Hines' upcoming book The Mermaid's Madness.


• Camblr looks at Star Wars names originated in the Star Wars marketing universe. [Thanks, Tim!]


• Over at SciFi Scanner, Mary Robinette Kowal looks at the evolution of creating creatures in film.


• Lists:
  • Discover Magazine lists 10 Things You Don't Know About Pluto
  • Topless Robot lists The 5 Best (and 5 Worst) Futurama Episodes

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Posted by John DeNardo at Saturday March 14, 2009 at 12:05 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

Author Chris Howard is making his novel Seaborn available for free in PDF and HTML formats.

What's it about? Here's the Amazon description:

Corina Lairsey has just clawed her way free from one controlling relationship when she finds herself in another-only this guy, Aleximor, has really gotten under her skin. Literally. A 400-year-old sorcerer who gathers the drowned dead off the ocean's floor for the King of the Seaborn, he's inside her head and is wearing her body like a wetsuit. Corina desperately schemes to regain control of her self, fighting against time as Aleximore trades pieces of her life away in exchange for power over the path between the worlds of the living and the dead . . . Kassandra is the King of the Seaborn's granddaughter. She comes from the sea, but has spent her whole life in exile on the surface, struggling to control frightening powers she barely understands. She declares war on her murderous grandfather and manipulates her family, friends, oceanic royalty, and the US Navy to aid her- but Aleximore intends to use Kass to carry out his revenge against the entire Seaborn royal line. And she's also fallen in love-one more struggle for an already troubled soul.

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 13, 2009 at 3:31 PM
© 2009 SF Signal

I was going to post a short video of Wonder Woman Lynda Carter running in slow motion, but then I thought better of it because, frankly, it's both gratuitous and disrespectful. Here...let me show you what I mean:

See? Now do you see why I can't post this? No? Maybe you'll have to watch it over and over again like I did...

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 13, 2009 at 12:20 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

• Interviews & Profiles
  • Joseph Mallozzi has questions for Nancy Kress (Steal Across the Sky).
  • Tor offers a profile of The Domino Men by Jonathan Barnes.
  • @The Bat Segundo Show: Charlie Huston (The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death), part 2.
  • @Adventures in SciFi Publishing: David Louis Edelman (MultiReal) (one of the last remaining podcasts before it goes on hiatus until 2010).
  • The Steampunk Workshop has a video interview with steampunk Artist Tom Sepe.


• Authors and Their Millions:
  • Easy Come...: Audrey Niffenegger gets $5M for second novel Her Fearful Symmetry, about two twins, a London apartment, and the ghost of their aunt. Robert J. Sawyer says she's worth it.
  • ...Easy Go: Meanwhile, a court has ordered novelist Clive Cussler to pay $13.9 million in legal fees in a court battle Cussler initiated after the adaptation of his novel, Sahara.


• Mike Brotherton knows Why Science Fiction Rules the World (but not enough): "...the truth of it is that we fans of science fiction have capabilities that the general public lacks, to enjoy novelty and think about difficult concepts."


• John Scalzi tells us Why Video Game Movies Suck.


• Free Fiction:
  • @Tor.com: "Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky.
  • For a limited time, you can read Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr online for free. [via Tor]
  • Audio fiction:
  • @Book View Cafe: "Something For Everyone" by Jennifer Stevenson.
  • @Free reads: James Patrick Kelly reads part 2 of his story "Bernardo's House".
  • Free Sample: Chapter 1 of This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams.


• Kung Fu Rodeo points us to this NSFW gallery of Bodypainted Superheroes.


• The resemblance between Vartox and Zardoz is amazing. [Inspired by Mightygodking]


• The well-done opening credit sequence of Watchmen hit the web...then was promptly removed. It spread all over to places which are having to take them down. As of this writing, they could still be found here.


• Lists:
  • @Not a Planet Anymore: The Top 5 Badass Superheroes. Of course you can have the #1 spot, Mr. Rorshach, sir! [please don't kill me...please don't kill me...]
  • @SciFi Watch: Top 5 Post Cyberpunk Writers Writing Today.
  • @IGN: I10 Games That Need More Zombies.
  • @VideoHound: 8 Complaints about Watchmen That Are Hard to Dismiss.
  • @Switched: 10 Films That Would Flunk Science Class. [via Enter the Octopus]

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Posted by John DeNardo at Friday March 13, 2009 at 12:08 AM
© 2009 SF Signal

We've looked ahead at books and movies and today we're going to look at some of the video games (consoles and PC, not MMOs) that will be releasing this year. As it's March already, let's get cracking!

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