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Whatever (John Scalzi)
“When the Yogurt Took Over: a short story” — “When the yogurt took over, we all made the same jokes – “Finally, our rulers will have culture,” “Our society has curdled,” “Our government is now the cream of the crop,” and so on. But when we weren’t laughing about the absurdity of it all, we…
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NSFW, But Highly Entertaining
Rachel Bloom from Upright Citizens Brigade really likes her some Ray Bradbury. (Yesterday she reported that Mr. Bradbury had seen the video and enjoyed it.) As someone commented over at BoingBoing: If I were Bradbury, I would open every lecture, panel, and signing with this video for the foreseeable future: “Before we begin, have you…
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Heinlein Symposium at Tor.com
Tomorrow Tor Books will release the first volume of the authorized Heinlein Biography Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, and to tie in with the event they’re having an “online panel discussion” to discuss his work. Jo Walton, John Scalzi, Charlie Stross, and several others have posts exploring Heinlein’s life, themes, and legacy.…
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The SFF Masterworks Meme
The SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project is a group blog “dedicated to reading and reviewing Gollancz’s series of genre classics in its entirety.” The site has inspired a few people to list the SF books in the series that they’ve read (in bold) and/or own (in italics). Play along! It’s fun! The original list…
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They May as Well Close Down the Internet
Because the Pinnacle of Awesome has been achieved. Click to enlarge. If you think you can take it. Information about this vision, and the contest attached to it, is here.
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A Century of Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback’s novel Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 was first serialized in Modern Electrics magazine almost a century ago in April, 1911. Which, by most accounts, really sucked. But it also helped to kick off SF as a genre. Ars Technica has an article about Gernsback and his contributions.
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Is a Deus ex Machina Science Fiction?
BoingBoing posted about this essay by Terry Pratchett, wherein he claims that Dr. Who is not science fiction because he’s gone well beyond “sufficiently advanced technology” and seems to be careening into the realm of straight up magic. People say Doctor Who is science fiction. At least people who don’t know what science fiction is,…
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“Wrinkle in Time” Graphic Novel Announced
Despite L’Engle saying that she never wanted her books to be illustrated, artist Hope Larson has been tapped to adapt the YA classic A Wrinkle in Time as a comic book graphic novel. The work will apparently eventually tie in to the planned movie. Geeks of Doom has more. They also ask readers if they’re…
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Walking Away from Omelas
A few days ago the Pharyngula blog had a thoughtful post on the child-molestation meltdown currently wracking the Catholic church. In discussing the faithful’s attempts to protect guilty priests at the expense of their victims, it drew a parallel with Ursula K. Le Guin’s beautifully depressing short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas…
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Geek a Week
Artist Len Peralta (of Monsters by Mail fame) has begun a project called Geek a Week: For 52 weeks he’s going to interview a notable geek and then create a trading card with their likeness and “fun facts” about them. John Scalzi was the most recent geek, providing the secret to his success (“Exploit Your…