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Conspiracy Theories
Cracked has a nice breakdown of the mindset behind “the controversy.”
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Make Yourself a Little Something
Cory Doctorow’s new novel Makers will be published in October, and as a runup to the release Tor.com is serializing the book on its site. They’ve also created an online tile game which is being serialized along with the book. A total of 80 weird little illustrations were created, one for each chunk of the…
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Steampunk Willie
Gaming house Junction Point Studios appears to be working on a game which offers a rather apocalyptic take on Mickey Mouse and the Magic Kingdom. Over at Oh No They Didn’t they’ve unearthed quite a bit of concept art and collected rumors of an upcoming game for the Wii codenamed “Epic Mickey.” If they actually…
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New SF Podcast
StarShipSofa, the “audio science fiction magazine” has just launched an SF news podcast called The Sofanauts. The Sofanauts is a weekly SF news related show. Joining me each week are a variety of guests from the world of science fiction literature, SF blogs and publishing to bring you the latest news and gossip from the…
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More Things to Worry About
I remain vaguely mystified by the media’s repeated assurances that robots are about to go all SkyNet on us any day now. This NY Times article worries that “machines may outsmart man.” Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that…
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Review: In the Courts of the Sun
IN THE COURTS OF THE SUN Author: Brian D’Amato Hardcover: 704 pages Publisher: Dutton Adult; March 26, 2009 This is a fairly long review, so if you’re reading this for a simple thumbs up or down, let’s get that out of the way right now. Yes, this is a genre book. Despite an understandable, potential…
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Author August Starts Tomorrow
The 2009 edition of The Science Fiction Message Board’s “Author August” kicks off tomorrow, with a different author highlighted every day. Everyone is encouraged to post “photographs, reminiscences, cover scans, links to appropriate sites, reviews, and other reactions” about the author on their designated day. Here’s the list: 8/1 Alfred Bester 8/2 William Tenn (Phillip…
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Enormous Prop Auction
Prop house 20th Century Props is closing its doors and selling off its gigantic collection in a Web auction that runs through August 1. When 20th Century Props decided they had enough, Great American Group was chosen to sell everything down to the bare walls. With over 40 years of collecting and buying, renting and…
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Where I Write
Photographer Kyle Cassidy was invited to a party at Michael Swanwick’s house in 2008. While there I asked if I could see his Hugos, since I knew he had five of them. “Of course!” he said, jovially, and lead me up to his office. This I thought in stunned wonder as my eyes crept across…
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Stem Cell Sutures
This is kind of brilliant. A team of biomedical undergrads at Johns Hopkins have built a machine which will weave a patient’s stem cells into surgical thread. When used as sutures, the thread delivers stem cells right to the injury, where they can help repair damage and reduce inflammation. They’re looking at it particularly for…