SF Signal

Lately, it seems the ability to add comments is the latest effort by the p0rn industry to garner yet more of the repressed American dollar. So to find another use, I have found (okay it was found by other folks, but its still interesting) a game downloading service called TotalGaming.net. Its from the folks that brought you Stardock and Galactic Civilizations (which I hear is a fine game.) I have not investigated much but maybe this is the first step into alternate mechanisms to deliver games to the PC…

Filed under: Games

Sixty two year old MC…er, I mean Stephen…Hawking has a new theory on what happens to matter consumed by black holes. His longstanding hypothesis – that the matter was transported to a parallel universe – has been revised. He recently stated:

“I’m sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes. If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe, but in a mangled form, which contains the information about what you were like, but in an unrecognizable state.”

Oh great. Like it’s not bad enough learning that there is no Evil Spock, at the same time we are told that black holes cannot be used as a safe method of transport. I can’t catch a break today.

[Eight wonderfully wet thank-yous to Magnificent Octopus for the link]

Filed under: Science and Technology

Every year, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest hands out awards to the worst opening sentences of imagined novels. The 2004 results are in, and they are quite funny. Some of them are groan inducing too, especially in the Pun category.

A dodge of the falling safe to Jeff at Gravity Lens for the link.

Filed under: Awards

From the recently discovered 1000 Monkies, 1000 Typewriters website (you know, there aren’t enough sites with the word ‘Monkey’ in them) comes Chris’ Off My Shelf column detailing his favorite SciFi RPG settings. He’s got some interesting ones there, most of which I’ve never hear of, with the exception of GURPS: Transhuman Space, and Traveller. Some of the others sound interesting too.

Its funny, the period in my life when I had the most free time to play RPG (college) and I don’t, while now, when I have a job and kids, I do. Ok, funny strange not funny ha-ha but you get the idea….

Filed under: Games

It seems that LEGO and Lucas are teaming up once again, only this time, they are creating a LEGO Star Wars video game. Now you too can play out your favorite scenes from the prequel trilogy, only in LEGO!

Could be cool, could be weird. Sounds different anyway.

Filed under: Star Wars

Now, for a limited time only!, you can download 5 free Hugo nominees from Fictionwise. Sweet!

Free is good, even if you have to read it on a PocketPC…

Filed under: Books

Mr. Reynolds has just delivered his next novel to his publisher! It’s called Century Rain and, sadly, is not in the Revelation Space univerese. Happily, it sounds cool. Also, he’s thinking about his next novel and he has plans to continue on in the RS setting. Sweet.

Thanks to The Alien Online for the link.

Filed under: Books

A new musical production, Sci Fi Hotel, is described as follows.

Boy-genius, Joe Wittowski, is on the run from mad scientist, Alice Vonderland. He finds romance and refuge at a science fiction convention replete with an insect goddess, a cyberpunk princess, a delicious mutant, a curvaceous alien, a neurotic robot, a space cowboy and a courtly Grim Reaper in this tune-filled celebration of the imagination.

Indeed. Oh well. I guess it’s no less ridiculous than Spiderman: The Musical.

Filed under: Music

What a year it’s been here at SF Signal.

We’ve come a long way from our first post in which JP revels in the ability to mark his own corner of the web with the mocking exclamation “Hahahaha”. To be fair, JP did go through lots of hard work to get the blog up and running (I think he ran the MoveableType installation program and sent a grammatically incorrect email to the web host.) Still, it wasn’t long before we all jumped on the blogwagon. The Internet is, after all, the wave of the future. At least, that’s what I heard.

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Filed under: Meta

With the Tabula Rasa interview at RPG Vault. Actually, there is little new informatin about Tabula Rasa, but on the mindset behind the decisions. The combat certainly sounds interesting, as does the rest of the game itself….

Filed under: Games

This has nothing to do with SciFi – so sue me.

As an American, a Texan and a former resident of Austin, I’ve always taken special pride in Lance Armstrong. After all – he’s pretty much got ‘Hero’ tatooed right on him. He’s a cancer survivor, he’s a dedicated athelete, he’s won 5 straight world championship events, and he dated Sheryl Crow (yow!)

I’ve followed the Tour de France because of him – and I’ll likely never watch it again after he gives it up.

And in the past when allogations of drug use surfaced around Lance, I always looked on it as sour grapes. The French are mad that an American is winning their race so he must be on steroids or some other illegal drug.

But now, things have gotten a little worse. A new report by ESPN shows that there really might be something there. I sure hope it isn’t true – however its going to be hard to prove that. Aired yesterday, ESPN’s Outside the Lines segment pretty much made the case that while there isn’t definitive proof yet, there sure is a lot of smoke around Lance. It is possible that all these people have axes to grind against him – I’m sure he’s pissed off his share. I just wish thing didn’t look so bad. The worst for me was the video footage of one of his teammates driving 100 miles to throw away some garbage from the team apartments – garbage that contained syringes and animal blood (apparently used to give extra energy.)

First Barry and now Lance – yikes! All the more reason to look up to people who succeed due to hard work, dedication, and brains, like say Ken Lay, rather than atheletes!

Filed under: Events

Executive producer Brannon Braga thinks so. Am I tired of Star Trek? No, I’m tired of the Braga version of Star Trek that can’t come up with anything new or interesting. Recycled plots from TOS and TNG don’t count. Rehashing time travel doesn’t count. Making hash of Trek continuity doesn’t count. I think Berman and Braga need to relinquish the creative reins and let some real SF writers get their hands on Trek. Then we’ll see something truely new and exciting. Until then, I won’t watch anythig they produce.

Filed under: TV

CNN writer Todd Leopold asks: Do summer sci-fi films have to be so dumb?

Filed under: Movies

REVIEW SUMMARY: Excellent, richly detailed story that raises the bar for space opera.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Security operative Tanner Mirabel seeks revenge on Argent Reivich; Generation ship captain Sky Haussmann rises to a seat of psychotic power on the journey to settle a planet in the Cygnus star system.

MY REVIEW:

PROS: First-rate world building; fantastic sense of wonder; excellent and captivating storytelling filled with intrigue, deception and twists.

CONS: This book took a lot of calendar time for me to read because a vacation got in the way.

BOTTOM LINE: Highly recommended and, as a stand-alone novel, this is an excellent introduction into Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe.

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Filed under: Book Review

The fallout between the SciFi Channel and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan that we reported earlier, is, apparently, a hoax perpetrated to generate buzz about the “documentary”. Hmmm…I don’t see the truth about this lie plastered all over SciFi Wire like the hoax was.

Shame on you, SciFi Channel. Maybe your energy is better spent producing new quality sf instead of re-running the old cheap crap.

Filed under: TV

Looks like I, Robot is getting some favorable reviews. I suspect if Asimov fans go in thinking of this as a robot rebellion movie, as opposed to a direct adaptation of Asimov’s short stories, they will like what they see. Maybe then the Asimov references (the 3 Laws, Susan Calvin) will seem more like an homage or an in-joke rather than a poor ripoff.

Filed under: Movies

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