SF Signal

Here’s a 3 minute movie trailer for InfraMan.

“The man beyond bionics, six million light years beyond believability. Is he man or machine? Electronic circuits integrated with living cells in the living body of a man! Powered by nuclear energy! InfraMan! You won’t believe your eyes! You won’t believe your ears! You won’t believe your mind!”

I guess he truly is “the Ultimate Spectacle”: he’s got rocket feet. Seriously, this is like Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers…on Ritalin.

UPDATE: It gets better. Apparently he has Thunderbolt Fists.

[Link via Backwards City]

Filed under: Movies

This one should be right up Pete’s alley. As it were.

There’s a public-access TV show called Fantasy Bedtime Hour (Do I need to say NSFW?) in which two women read and try to understand science fiction and fantasy novels…in bed. The show’s tagline: “Two girls in bed, ill-equipped to handle fantasy novel concepts.”

Filed under: TV

Windows Game Advisor is a browser plugin from Futuremark that will scan your computer and determine whether you can play a specified game title with your current hardware.

[Via TechBlog]

Filed under: Games

Sci-Fi Ranter Girl adds to my “things to check out” list with link to The SciFi Podcast Network. It’s a collection of science fiction related podcasts.

I’ve listened to some podcasts before. And by “listened” I mean “played them in the background while occasionally fast-forwarding because they were too long”. JP suggested once that SF Signal should podcast. An intriguing idea, to be sure, but is the world really ready to hear my whiny voice? I imagine there are other challenges as well, like how do we convert Dan’s big ASCII head to audio?

Filed under: Web Sites

With the success of the latest Batman film, Forbes decided to take a look at just how much it would cost to outfit yourself like Batman. The result?

Just a few sheckles over a cool 3 mil. Which makes me wonder. Why the hell doesn’t Bill Gates have any of this stuff?! Or does he?

Filed under: Movies

Star Wars themed, 256 MB disk keys. Sadly, there is no ‘Han frozen in carbonite’ model which, I would think, would have been the first one made. On the plus side, you can now say: “Hey baby, wanna see my little R2?”.

HT to Gizmodo for the link.

Filed under: Star Wars

Hey look! The Onion A.V. Club has a interview with voice actor Billy West (Futurama, Ren & Stimpy).

Filed under: Web Sites

Time travel, if it were possible, seems to be more like Bill & Ted and less like Marty McFly … or so it is conjectured…

Filed under: Science and Technology

The privately sponsored Cosmos-1 solar sail is scheduled for liftoff today, courtesy of a boost from a Russian Volna rocket, deployed from a Russian nuclear submarine positioned in the Barents Sea.

Solar sails are cool. And what better excuse to list some solar sails in science fiction!

• [1960] “The Lady Who Sailed The Soul“, the earliest use of a solar sail in sf.
• [1962] “Sail 25″ (a.k.a. “Gateway to Strangeness”) by Jack Vance.
• [1963] “Think Blue, Count Two” by Cordwainer Smith, a sequel to “The Lady Who Sailed The Soul“.
• [1963] La planete des singes (Planet of the Apes) by Pierre Boulle, describes a ship that uses basic principles of solar sails.
• [1964] “The Wind from the Sun” (a.k.a. “Sunjammer”) by Arthur C. Clarke, a short story (in an anthology of the same name) describing a solar sail craft. Clarke is often credited with the first use of a solar sail in sf.
• [1964] “Sunjammer” by Poul Anderson, a short story that shares tha name of the Clarke story, but was released one month later.
• [1974] The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle depicts an alien spacecraft driven by laser-powered light sails.
• [1981] Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle.
• [1990] Rocheworld (a.k.a. The Flight of the Dragonfly in a 1984 abbreviated version) by Robert L. Forward, a novel about an interstellar mission driven by laser-powered light sails.
• [1995] The Star Trek: DS9 episode “Explorers”, as primary propulsion system of the “Bajoran solar-sail vessel”.
• [2002] Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, in which Count Dooku has a starsail spacecraft dubbed ‘Sunsailor’.

Filed under: Science and Technology

Dark Horse Comics is publishing a web comic of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Its an abridged adaptation of the classic story, with a new chapter released every Friday. Chapter 1 is available now.

Among the other interesting items on the site:

• Desktop backgrounds of the artwork.
• Links to DH comics that continue the story after the Martians’ invasion fails as the British invade the Red Planet.
• A link to a musical version of the story.

All very cool, and just in time to refamiliarize yourself with the original story before the Spielberg/Cruise duo production arrives in theaters, which I admit, I’m kinda looking forward to seeing.

Filed under: Web Sites

Thats right ladies and gentlemen. Thanks to this handy webguide you can build your own lightsaber. Got pictures and instructions for a variety of types, and the part lists don’t look too expensive. Link courtesy of Hack-A-Day.

Filed under: Star Wars

Cory Doctorow’s next book, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is now freely available under a Creative Commons license that allows the unlimited, noncommercial redistribution of the text.

Filed under: Free Fiction

Here are the results of the latest SF Signal poll.

QUESTION
About how many books do you read in a year?

RESULTS

Filed under: Polls

On Monday June 19th, USA networks will air the 2005 AFI Life Achievement Award to George Lucas. (Maybe you’ve heard of him?)

If gushing over the world’s most questionably talented director is not your thang, then at least watch it for William Shatner singing a custom-tailored rendition of “My Way”. Or, you can just wait until that train wreck hits iFilm.

Filed under: Star Wars

White Wolf and Guardians of Order will be publishing A Game of Thrones role-playing game based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, in stores in the Fall of 2005.

From the press release:

This series gets the high-quality treatment it deserves in two gorgeous editions of the A Game of Thrones RPG: a mammoth 576-page deluxe limited edition in September and a 496-page standard edition in October. Both of these authoritative reference guides and roleplaying games include full-color printing on premium-quality paper, hardcover binding, a poster-sized color pull-out map of the continent of Westeros, and a host of stunning artwork and graphic design by a team of exceptionally talented artists. The standard edition includes full rules for playing A Game of Thrones under the Open Gaming License (using the “d20″ game mechanics developed for Dungeons & Dragons).

[Link via The Alien Online]

Filed under: Games

Tom Godwin’s short story “The Cold Equations” is arguably one of the most popular pieces of short sf or, at least, one of the most reprinted. If you’ve read the story and you are interested in a critical discussion of it, head on over to Richard Harter’s critical study of it (story spoilers and all).

Meanwhile, blogger Waggish uses “The Cold Equations” to distinguish between two different kinds of sf: “Exemplary” vs. “Exceptional”. Exemplary sf follows the normal tropes while exceptional pushes its boundaries outward.

And finally, Matthew Cheney expands a bit more on the idea.

[Links via Mumpsimus]

Filed under: Books

[Free Association Mode: ON]

I’m currently reading Robert Silverberg’s Star of Gypsies, a reprint from Pyr, a Prometheus Books imprint led by sf author/editor Lou Anders. The book, like the other Pyr books I’ve read, features excellent cover art from artist/designer John Picacio. I really like Picacio’s style. The home page for Picacio’s website features the way-cool artwork he did for Anders’ Live Without A Net anthology. BTW, you should check out Lou’s blog for insightful articles in the world of science fiction and publishing.

[Free Association Mode: OFF]

Filed under: Web Sites

It’s nice to know, in some sad and desperate way, that science fiction fans are at the top of the geek food chain.

Filed under: Humor

According to Neal Stephenson, in this New York Times piece. (Free registration required. Or BugMeNot.) An excerpt from Stephenson on Revenge of the Sith:

In sum, very little of the new film makes sense, taken as a freestanding narrative. What’s interesting about this is how little it matters. Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don’t understand. What gives?

Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: “geeking out” and “vegging out.” To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal – and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a passive state and allow sounds and images to wash over you without troubling yourself too much about what it all means.

[Link via AfterSlash]

Filed under: Star Wars

Over at the Guardian, Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale) talks about the works of george orwell (Animal Farm, 1984).

I read Animal Farm in high school. And by “read” I mean it was forced upon me like so many other reading assignments and, thus, I immediately discounted it. Alas, I was too young and stupid (as oppsoed to now where I’m old and stupid) to realize how good it could be. Also, the political symbolism within it was completely lost on me.

Filed under: Books