7 Reasons Why Scifi Book Series Outstay Their Welcomes
posted on May 15, 2008 - View this thread

Dan Dare, pilot of the future, scourge of the Venusian Mekon menace, and modernist architectural inspiration?
posted on Apr 28, 2008 - View this thread

There's been alot written about Battlestar Galactica. Here's your chance to catch up.
posted on Apr 4, 2008 - View this thread

Edinburgh author Iain M. Banks, creator of the post capitalist space faring society The Culture and it's oddly named ships, has long been the UKs top science fiction writer, but has never had more than a toehold in the US (in part through lack of availability, in part due to lack of promotion and in part due to some pretty awful covers. That could change: Matter, his latest, has been heavily promoted in the US and sports a cover nearly identical to the UK edition. This week Orbit are releasing US editions of the two earliest Culture novels, with the third following in July, which could mean a complete release of all the novels in the US in order.
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

Sci-Fi Shakespearean standoff: Magneto vs Pickard vs that guy from Serentity.
posted on Mar 9, 2008 - View this thread

Starship Sofa is a science fiction podcast with biweekly short fiction from known authors (David Brin, Bruce Sterling) and a more regular discussion on SciFi concepts and authors. Warning. podcast contains Geordie accents and the stories contain terrible fake American accents.
posted on Feb 5, 2008 - View this thread

"In the Late December" (MP3 link), by Greg van Eekhout, is a Nebula award-nominated story about Santa Claus and the end of the universe, and is Escape Pod #138. (By the way, this is a very dark story -- there's no sex or violence but this probably isn't suitable for kids, where "kids" is defined as a stereotypical aggregate of child-like characteristics. Yours may be different.)
posted on Dec 25, 2007 - View this thread

It's easy with the excessive shopping, TV specials, nonstop music, etc. but tomorrow we honor one of mankind's most important people. A man who told parables to the masses of how the meek shall inherit the earth, how to serve man, and how to face our own personal demons. People have built monuments to him, even died in his name. I am, of course, referring to Rod Serling (born 12/25/1924). Merry Serlingmas!
posted on Dec 24, 2007 - View this thread

The winners of StarshipModeler.com's "Wrecks" challenge are a mixed bag, with some absolutely incredible destroyed sci-fi models, both kit-built & free modeled, and dioramas. And then others that are less impressive.
posted on Dec 13, 2007 - View this thread

The geekiest thing you will see this month is this fan-made comic called The Ten Doctors. Unexpectedly awesome, though!
posted on Dec 6, 2007 - View this thread

Imagine a world without lightsabers—where, instead, every big Star Wars finale consists of a 10-minute slap fight. Thank the maker we’ll never have to witness such a spectacle, because magical and impossibly high-tech weapons are staples of nearly all of our favorite entertainments! ToyFare Magazine presents the 50 Greatest Fictional Weapons of All Time.
posted on Nov 21, 2007 - View this thread

Would you like to read classic science fiction short story A Pail of Air? Or would you prefer to listen?
posted on Nov 15, 2007 - View this thread

The Two Doctors: "David Tennant's Tenth Doctor is set to meet Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor in a special scene commissioned for BBC One's Children in Need."
posted on Oct 22, 2007 - View this thread

An interview with Lebbeus Woods -- designer and illustrator of speculative futuristic landscapes and buildings. Woods just set up his own website, which has an amazing quantity of drawings, photographs, and text focusing on his lesser known projects [for those willing to deal with a frustrating flash interface and sound. It's better in IE than Firefox.]
posted on Oct 6, 2007 - View this thread

For many kids, the space age made its TV debut years before Sputnik with 1950's TV space serials.
1950 - Space Patrol - The Hidden Treasure of Mars. (Part two)
1954 - Rocky Jones' Space, Space Ranger - Rocky's Odyssey. (Chapters two, three)
1954 - Flash Gordon - Deadline at Noon and Akim the Terrible.
posted on Sep 24, 2007 - View this thread

Astrona - Space & Astronomical Art Journal : "specialising in space and astronomical art, science fiction art, visions of future worlds, design and visualization of technologies for living in space, space exploration, spaceships, starships, space colonies, etc."
posted on Aug 29, 2007 - View this thread

Vernor Vinge: Mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction visionary worthy of Arthur C Clarke's mantle, Vinge is most famous for popularising the idea of the singularity, where technology advances so quickly that humans cannot participate, but he's also credited with writing one of the first stories about cyberspace, True Names, back in 1981. More recently, he's been exploring how augmented reality and belief circles will change the way we live in his latest novel Rainbows End - which he put online, completely for free.
posted on Aug 24, 2007 - View this thread

I watch virtually no television but this NPR review for the debut episode of Masters of Science Fiction (ABC) had me intrigued. (A similar review in the NY Times). ABC is being accused of burying this show with the timing of its introduction (and time slot). As for me, I'm still thinking about the debut episode, three hours later.
posted on Aug 4, 2007 - View this thread

Claybourne was a unique and well produced radio drama set in New Zealand. It was science fiction, a thriller, a soap opera. It aired in 96 five minute episodes, but died mid-storyline when it's creative team- like so many creative teams- couldn't get it together.
posted on Jul 18, 2007 - View this thread

Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen: The Comic Book is coming to newsstands in two weeks, but you can see an entire 7-page Tek story at Entertainment Weakly Weekly's EWW EW.com. A little promotionally fluffy info. Of course, there has already been Tek Jansen fan fiction, but this is, like, authorized and pre-read by Stephen Himself.
posted on Jun 28, 2007 - View this thread

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is the best public domain movie I've seen all week. Abe Baker's spooky original jazz score is a staple in sci-fi B movies. The monster is played by Eddie Carmel, subject of Diane Arbus' A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y. 1970, in his first screen appearance. And I can't overlook the feminist take on this postwar gorefest. See for yourself.
posted on Jun 28, 2007 - View this thread

The fourth part of a trilogy of interviews with Douglas Adams before he got all famous. "I find the difference, for me, between having no money and having quite a bit is that the bills get bigger. And that's it. The lifestyle doesn't change." Well, he certainly didn't. And for that, much thanks.
posted on Jun 1, 2007 - View this thread

Jess Nevins, obsessive cataloguer of Victorian science fantasy, early-twentieth-century pulp, and forties-era superheroes (all links Geocities) and annotator of certain reference-dense comics, weighs in with an opinionated overview of Han Empire science fiction. (Note: Enjrolasworld hosts several more comic series annotations, including the Sandman annotations previously discussed here.)
posted on May 30, 2007 - View this thread

"Lovely crinkly edges." Third and final part of an excellent series of unpublished interviews with Douglas Adams, with the first Hitchhiker's book still to be complete and script editing on Dr Who taking up much of his time.
posted on May 1, 2007 - View this thread

"Prepare to embrace your creators in the stygian haunts of hell, barbarian", gasped the first soldier.
"Only after you have kissed the fleeting stead of death, wretch!" returned Grignr.
I cannot believe that I once considered my life complete having never been exposed to SciFi convention mainstay and possibly Worst Science Fiction Story Ever Written, The Eye of Argon. Previously mentioned on Metafilter in comments, it is time for Jim Theis' magnum opus have its day in the Blue. If you can make it through the story without laughing (most can't), there's always the MST3K'd version to attempt as well! (via)
posted on Apr 13, 2007 - View this thread

"Graham Chapman and I were commissioned by Ringo Starr, of all people, to write a one-hour US TV special for him. That was SF comedy." Fantastic unpublished interview with Douglas Adams from 1979 just after the radio series of Hitchhiker's and before the books, the tv show, and everything else wonderful for which we remember him. Part 2 here.
posted on Apr 3, 2007 - View this thread

The Eldritch Dark. No, not about Mr. Lovecraft, but a sprawling site dedicated to Clark Ashton Smith, a friend and frequent correspondent. Along with Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, Smith is an early contributor to Weird Tales whose stories stand the test of time (his work directly inspired Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison). He thought of himself primarily as a poet.
posted on Apr 2, 2007 - View this thread

Doctor Who fun and games. While you wait for Series 3 to start - and toss and turn wondering who the next Doctor will be - blow a little bit of time with K-9, the Daleks and the Slitheen.
posted on Mar 27, 2007 - View this thread

Steampunk Star Wars. An ongoing series of drawings by Eric Poulton of Star Wars characters redone in the style of Jules Verne era sci-fi. Sadly only three have been done, so far, but hopefully more to come. Via
posted on Mar 1, 2007 - View this thread

30 years of thrillpower! British weekly comic 2000ad celebrates it's 30th aniversary. Previously discussed here, current Tharg Matt Smith interviewed, special birthday Prog. Splundig vur thrigg!
posted on Feb 26, 2007 - View this thread

Flurb! Issue 2 of the Webzine of Astonishing Tales -- edited by Rudy Rucker, featuring 'demented and counter-cultural' stories from luminaries of the cyberypunkery like Charles Stross, John Shirley, Mark Laidlaw (who also wrote the story for Half Life 2), Richard Kadrey, one of MeFi's favorite snark-targets, Cory Doctorow and others besides -- is out. [found via the RU SIRIUS podcast] [Previously: Issue #1]
posted on Feb 12, 2007 - View this thread

Steam Wars is the many decades long dream project of writer/illustrator Larry Blamire. Essentially the story of three soldiers set in a Victorian era war that features giant Jules Verneseque steam-powered mechrobots, the story has kicked around in Blamire's imagination since the 1970s. In an attempt to get the story made into a movie, he's put up a site with concept sketches, full color art & even faux memorabilia from the ficticious wars.
posted on Jan 3, 2007 - View this thread

Think you get a lot done? Isaac Asimov (pronounced like "has, him, of" without the h's) , who would have turned 87 today, wrote or edited over 500 books, including science-fiction novels, introductions to organic chemistry (a field in which he held a professorship at B.U.) , indispensable anthologies of early science fiction, jokebooks, guides to Shakespeare, and collections of lively essays on science that have introduced thousands of people to the pleasures of thinking hard about the universe. He also found the time to write a few essays and write postcards to his fans. His story "Runaround" , from his 1950 collection I, Robot, is the only piece of fiction I know centered on the properties of a differential equation. His Foundation Trilogy was given a special Hugo award in 1966 as the best science fiction series of all time; a movie version, to be written by Jeff Vintar and directed by Shekhar Kapur, is currently in development. Previous AsimovFilter: here, here, here. Feel like a slacker yet? Stop reading MetaFilter and get to work!
posted on Jan 2, 2007 - View this thread

Goreans are inspired by the sci-fi works of Gor, by John Norman, whose turgid prose lays out a way of life for male masters and female slaves...but also Free Women. So why not meet one? Or at least say hello. And don't forget their humor! It sure is something. It just isn't BDSM.
posted on Dec 20, 2006 - View this thread

La Planète sauvage - based on the novel Oms en Série by Stefan Wul, and known to the English speaking world as Fantastic Planet, is a wonderfully psychadelic animated Sci-Fi film from 1973. An international production between France and Czechoslovakia, the movie has a cult following, mostly from viewers who saw it on USA's Night Flight in the 1980's. Although it has languished in obscurity for some time, Hollywood has decided it's time for a live action remake. For those who haven't seen it, or for people who haven't seen it in twenty years, some kind soul has uploaded the entire film to Youtube. You'll never look at your pets the same way again.
posted on Dec 11, 2006 - View this thread

The Hero of Burbank, The Man They Call Jayne. Just a day before it starts, the Firefly-focused "Flanvention" convention was canceled by Booster Entertainment (who took down their entire site in the process), leaving about 500 "flans" who had paid $225 for a weekend pass (some math) (and some who paid $5000 for lifetime passes to all Booster cons — although that may not have been as foolish as it might appear) and who had made nonrefundable flights and nonrefundable hotel reservations with nothing for the money they had spent on con(vention) passes or their accommodations. Now, that, in and of itself, is quite unpleasant but perhaps not MeFi-worthy — but what pushes this over the edge to being a cool story is when the Firefly actors decided to come out anyway — evidently unpaid — for their "flans." [more inside]
posted on Dec 8, 2006 - View this thread

A year-by-year archive, from 1930 to the present, of every poignant, creepy, tacky, tragic, goofy, beautiful and, yes, kinda slutty cover of the magazine that started out as Astounding Stories of Super Science and became Analog, with lots of changes in between. [via the horse's neck]
posted on Nov 11, 2006 - View this thread

On the Edge of Blade Runner [documentary, google video, 52mins]
posted on Oct 29, 2006 - View this thread

Which side are we on? We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We're evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm surprised you didn't know that.
posted on Oct 15, 2006 - View this thread

SWFRoads is one of the coolest flash games I've seen in a while.
posted on Sep 17, 2006 - View this thread

Planning a jump to Barnard's Star? Making the Kessel Run in 11 parsecs? You'll need maps. Also available in a solid state format from Bathsheba Sculpture. (Previously)
posted on Sep 16, 2006 - View this thread

A Dozen Eccentric Westerns, Ten Neglected Science Fiction Movies, and Ten Overlooked Noirs selected by Jonathan Rosenbaum. A follow-up to an earlier post on offbeat musicals.
posted on Sep 8, 2006 - View this thread

Young Folks in the city playing kids' games with expensive toys. Or you can get budget version, for those who just prefer to whack each other. Who exactly does this sort of thing? It's getting more popular.
posted on Aug 28, 2006 - View this thread

Flurb - issue #1, from Rudy Rucker.
posted on Aug 23, 2006 - View this thread

Romance 2.0 : Jan-M. Studt's writing/directing debut. "Businesswoman Sarah Townsend looked back on a successful day when a promising, unknown man called on her 3D-holophone. Too bad the holophone technique isn't very advanced yet. And men are not what they used to be..." (German with English subtitles.)
posted on Aug 15, 2006 - View this thread

They're Made out of Meat. A short story by Terry Bisson (discussed earlier) has been adapted to the very small screen as a short film.
posted on Jun 24, 2006 - View this thread

In 2003, Paramount proposed redoing the special effects for the original "Star Trek" series and rereleasing the episodes as "Star Trek Enhanced". Two CGI firms redid the effects for the teaser, the opening credits and title, and the first two acts of The Doomsday Machine as a proof-of-concept with no changes to the acting or the story. Paramount ultimately decided not to pursue the project, but it's interesting to see how two different CGI firms handled the transporter, phasers, and starship effects.
posted on Jun 23, 2006 - View this thread

Tim Hildebrandt, half of the Brothers Hildebrandt artwork team, died yesterday due to complications from diabetes.
posted on Jun 12, 2006 - View this thread

FRANK R. PAUL: At a time when most Americans didn't even have a telephone, he was painting space stations, robots and aliens from other planets... he was the guest of honor at the first world science fiction convention, and he was the first person to ever make a living drawing spaceships. What could be cooler than that? via the one and only BLDBLOG, with an interesting take on the subject.
posted on May 17, 2006 - View this thread

A talk given by Matt Webb on fictional futures, and a whole lot besides. Just some text and some pictures, but he takes you on a most excellent brain adventure, from Italo Calvino to a map of all the biochemical reactions on Earth to Vannevar Bush’s machine, the Memex with dozens of stops in between. One of my favorite parts -- and the coolest use of RSS I've ever seen -- is a tool to subscribe to your personal lightcone. [via]
posted on May 7, 2006 - View this thread

Hoth Hell Freezes Over. The madness of King George subsides.
posted on May 4, 2006 - View this thread

Robots, rockets, and rayguns, oh my!
posted on Apr 7, 2006 - View this thread

Stanislaw Lem: 1921-2006. Polish science-fiction giant Stanislaw Lem died this morning. He was 84. Though Lem was not as well known as Asimov or Heinlein or the other "Masters", he was just as important to the genre. Lem was not a fan of traditonal science-fiction, and in his work tried to approach futuristic themes from a more humanistic, almost psychological, perspective. (And his books are funny!) His best-known work, Solaris, was twice made into a film, most recently in 2002. [Woefully out-of-date official site.]
posted on Mar 27, 2006 - View this thread

Bruce Sterling : The State of the World (mp3) from the South By South West Media Conference. (SXSW)
posted on Mar 17, 2006 - View this thread

Added to the rolls of those that passed away this weekend. Octavia E. Butler Sci Fi writer, MacArthur Genius grant winner... And as she wrote. "I'm a 53-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Seattle -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive."
posted on Feb 26, 2006 - View this thread

The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed
posted on Feb 13, 2006 - View this thread

The Doctor is in! After passing on the series last year, the Sci-Fi Channel has decided to bring the BBC's new version of Doctor Who to American viewers. Neither the Beeb's news release or Sci-Fi's explain the turnaround. In any case, good news for stateside Whovians, as well as those who have not yet made the good Doctor's acquaintance.
posted on Jan 12, 2006 - View this thread

Futurama is probably coming back.
posted on Jan 5, 2006 - View this thread

Newest Doctor Who David Tennant received his first showcase tonight on the BBC's Children in Need Appeal in an excellent special episode written by Russell T Davies and also starring Billie Piper. In case anyone missed it, it's available online at their website, in streaming Real format. Fantastic!
posted on Nov 18, 2005 - View this thread

Michael Piller has died. The man who was the father of modern Star Trek and television sci-fi in general.
posted on Nov 2, 2005 - View this thread

a few thousand science fiction covers is a flash presentation of thousands of SF magazine covers from the fifties through today, arranged chronologically from left to right, and grouped by color from top to bottom.
posted on Oct 18, 2005 - View this thread

National Geek Day. Neil "Sandman" Gaiman & Joss "Buffy" Whedon both have movies coming out this weekend; in honor of the nerd confluence of events, Time magazine conducted a joint interview with the two.
posted on Sep 28, 2005 - View this thread

Serenity the Movie is coming out September 30th. The full-length movie version of Firefly, Fox's sci-fi disaster that was canceled 12 episodes into the 14 episode series.
posted on Aug 10, 2005 - View this thread

As others see us: A Chinese review of 'Revenge of the Sith'.

For those of you who don't know, George Lucas' latest oeuvre has bombed in mainland China's box-offices - $38.5M there, vs. the $312 it has earned domestically. A cultural difference, an error in Jos. Campbell's theory, or just something else, altogether? In any case, the film and it's apparent failure over there have made for some interesting reviews (last one via).
posted on Jun 9, 2005 - View this thread

Star Wars Easter Eggs (via Forever Geek)
posted on May 27, 2005 - View this thread

Make a story using public-domain images on this quirky little site. If you like that, you may like Inventing Situations which is a haven for people who used to frequent The Sci Fi Channel's now defunct Caption This! site. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry... it was all just a very lucid dream.
posted on Apr 11, 2005 - View this thread

A Guide to Science Fiction Chronophysics , a serious look at some of the hard questions ignored in soft-science fiction and fantasy. While we wish some time lines had never come to pass, or would go back in time and shake hands with themselves, there are circumstances that can lend themselves to great deal of fun.
posted on Feb 27, 2005 - View this thread

Straight outta Belgium, it's "The Matrix: The Beginning". This is a see-it-to-believe-it occasion. [20m WMV; Trailer for those with a lower tolerance for this sort of nonsense; Main site]
posted on Feb 20, 2005 - View this thread

Juvenile NSFW Star Trek video [Windows Media via B3ta]
posted on Jan 28, 2005 - View this thread

PublishAmerica is having a rough month. After being sued by 150 authors who felt they were deceived by the company, and taking a beating a couple of days ago at the hands of the Washington Post, PublishAmerica has become the object of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by a group of science fiction writers, a novel called Atlanta Nights, by one Travis Tea. [more inside]
posted on Jan 27, 2005 - View this thread

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy is a one-hour, high energy, nonstop blast through the first three Star Wars films. The catch is, there's only one cast member. Charles Ross, the writer and solo performer, spent too much of his childhood in a galaxy far, far away- adulthood has been similar. Ross plays all the characters, recreates the effects, sings the music, flies the ships, and fights both sides of the battles.
I'm not so sure I want to see him playing Carrie Fisher, especially in E6
posted on Jan 20, 2005 - View this thread

Babes in Space.
posted on Dec 29, 2004 - View this thread

Singularity, The. A black hole in the Extropian worldview whose gravity is so intense that no light can be shed on what lies beyond it. "Popular Science" talks about The Singularity, and asks "Is Science Fiction about to go blind?" Also, see previously, here and here.
posted on Sep 29, 2004 - View this thread

If All Stories Were Written Like Science Fiction Stories. "Roger and Ann needed to meet Sergey in San Francisco. 'Should we take a train, or a steamship, or a plane?' asked Ann. 'Trains are too slow, and the trip by steamship around South America would take months,' replied Roger. 'We’ll take a plane.'"
posted on Sep 26, 2004 - View this thread

Genie Corp: The Splice Of Life. Creature Comforts [via BoingBoing]
posted on Jul 24, 2004 - View this thread

Space 1999 models. War of the Worlds, Flash Gordon, Alien and more. Welcome to the art of Martin Bower.
posted on Jul 15, 2004 - View this thread

It's Official - the future sucks. Why has the future been such a let down? It's more 1984 than Barbarella. If we can have ID cards and video surveillance, then why can't we have intergalactic flying cars and hot chicks in skimpy plastic outfits? Clearly I'm not the only one wondering where all the cool stuff went - check out RetroFuture
posted on Jun 18, 2004 - View this thread

PDU-1 A Novella of the Remote Future.
posted on May 26, 2004 - View this thread

The Guardian has a nice interview with Ursula K. Le Guin about utopian science fiction, anthropology, ethnicity in Earthsea and the differences between her two Earthsea trilogies. She also comments on the upcoming miniseries.

The Lathe of Heaven is a taoist novel, not a utopian or dystopian one.... There is an old American saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The novel extends that a bit - "Even if it's broke, if you don't know how to fix it, don't."

posted on Mar 11, 2004 - View this thread

Things We Will Never See On Star Trek
posted on Feb 5, 2004 - View this thread

Delicate. Abstract. Phallic. Gorgeously designed. Four pages of "rare and valuable" Isaac Asimov book covers. Some are truly beautiful. From West Virginia University's brand-new home for an Asimov geek's recently donated collection. [via the ever-useful ResearchBuzz]
posted on Jan 22, 2004 - View this thread

We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life--they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all.

Gene Wolfe      -     Now step within Father Inire's mirrors....
posted on Jan 15, 2004 - View this thread

Every year we seem to get a few horror or sci-fi movies featuring aliens. What happened this year? I may be missing some, but the only 2003 major release movies that had some aliens in them were Dreamcatcher, Good Boy! and Scary Movie 3. One horror movie and two comedies. Just a coincidence or are aliens no longer cool?
posted on Dec 30, 2003 - View this thread

Classic Galactica fans, don't watch it. It'll hurt you. So says the star of the new Battlestar Galactica remake, and from what I've read, I think I agree. Just another case of the suits slapping old names onto new products for quick brand cred, and continuity be damned. Just like Enterprise. Just like Netscape.
posted on Dec 4, 2003 - View this thread

The Philip K. Dick Offical Site has opened: relevant not just because the movie Paycheck is coming out this month (based on a short story of his), but because we live in a Dickian world. As he put it, "We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives. I distrust their power. It is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."
posted on Dec 2, 2003 - View this thread

Looking for that rare science fiction first edition? The Barry R. Levin Science Fiction & Fantasy Literature store just might have the volume you seek.
posted on Nov 24, 2003 - View this thread

U.S.S. Enterprise analyzed. "For StarTrek [sic] fans we tested the USS Enterprise in our super-orbital expansion tube... We perform similar tests on other models investigating dissociation and ionisation processes which occur during atmospheric re-entry."
posted on Oct 28, 2003 - View this thread

Doctor Who is back
posted on Sep 26, 2003 - View this thread

"At the center of the universe is a horribly wounded angel. It is nothing anyone would call conscious, and is only in the barest, barest sense of the word still alive. If anything resembling awareness remains, that awareness consists of nothing but an infinite field of gridded black and white squares, a test pattern scattered with dancing dots that shift and jump and blur into one another. This test pattern is useful. " This piece of fiction, which appears on kuro5hin, evokes echoes of Douglas Hoftsadter (Godel, Escher, Bach) and Nancy Willard (Things Invisible To See, Sister Water , and lots of children's books) simultaneously. [more inside]
posted on Sep 13, 2003 - View this thread

"Murder all journalists, I beg you!" That's just one of the strange phrases that have appeared on tiles embedded in roads in locations as diverse as Cleveland and South America. The tiles also contain cryptic phrases regarding Stanley Kubrick and English historian Arnold Toynbee. Strange stuff.
posted on Sep 9, 2003 - View this thread

Steam Trek - an enterprising individual has masterfully melded two classic SF genres, Star Trek and Steampunk. The result is a wonderful universe with a rich history where Her Majesty's Aether Ships explore the solar system and protect the United Kingdom of Planets. Long live Queen Victoria, and may her glorious reign continue as it has for the past 165 years! (preserved by Lunar Selenite technology captured from the evil Moon-dwellers).
posted on Sep 6, 2003 - View this thread

I Can't Believe I Missed BlobFest 2003!
The annual celebration of the cheesy sci-fi movie that made Steve McQueen a movie star and the town of Phoenixville, PA proud was last weekend... But even if you weren't there you can still...
» Meet The Man Who Owns The Blob and giggle when you learn just what it's made of.
» Read the liner notes from the Criterion laserdisc (yes, there was one).
» Listen to that awful theme song (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David).
» Be shocked that the basement window that our heroes used to escape in the movie is now blocked by a wheelchair ramp!
» Or buy a ticket to the newly-restored historic Colonial Theatre, just so you can run out of it, screaming. They won't mind.
posted on Jul 15, 2003 - View this thread

They came to attack us - a cool little must-see independent sci-fi flick.
(Warning - bandwidth hog & quicktime plug in required.)
posted on Jul 6, 2003 - View this thread

Things to scale. Mostly terrifying. IE users can drag around.
posted on Apr 28, 2003 - View this thread

Multi Genre Star Ship Comparison? "This site is intended to allow science fiction fans to get an impression of the true scale of their favorite science fiction spacecraft by being able to campare ships accross genres, as well as being able to compare them with contemporary objects with which they are probably familiar." Someone has spare time...
posted on Apr 10, 2003 - View this thread

Forget all this new reality claptrap. How about the good old eighties-style claptrap? Why do I remember Manimal so fondly?
[more inside]
posted on Mar 31, 2003 - View this thread

Greg Egan's website, including 17 full stories (my favorite) and explanations (by the author) of some of the science (including quantum soccer) in his books. Not the prettiest site I've seen, but a treat for fans of Egan's brand of "hard" SF.
posted on Mar 17, 2003 - View this thread

Determined viewers try to save another TV show (Salon). In this case, its Farscape, which shows its last episode on Friday in the States, and has already aired here in the UK. (no spoliers). Farscape fans are trying just about everything - from picking up 6 families in the Nielsens to fundraising to produce a last episode. Interested? Read on...
posted on Mar 13, 2003 - View this thread

50 Most Significant Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books. Not sure what their criteria was, but this is a nice list. Lots of obvious, gotta-be-on-such-a-list choices, but also some surprises that should have people buying some books they might not have thought of before. (The URL is rather cumbersome, but that's the only one I could find).
posted on Mar 5, 2003 - View this thread

Jeff VanderMeer is not only a great author of weird sf, and a creator of the mysterious city of Ambergris, but has an alternative official site where he makes merciless fun of himself and the whole idea of author web pages. The site includes bad poetry, a secret subsite of the "webdesigner" Garry and a strange alien baby project, just for starters.....
posted on Jan 30, 2003 - View this thread

Orion's Arm is "an interactive hard science space opera, a joint effort in science fiction worldbuilding and a forum for cutting edge science fiction ideas".
posted on Jan 3, 2003 - View this thread

Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe is a funny and inventive science-fiction series that originally aired in three-minute segments on NPR back in the 1980s. I remember listening to my dad's tapes of it when I was a kid. It's a great combination of absurdist humor and classic cyberpunk, and eminently enjoyable for anyone who likes radio drama.

I was delighted recently discover that not only is it available to buy on CD, but the entire thing is online in streaming quicktime to listen to!
posted on Dec 10, 2002 - View this thread

Turkish Star Trek [via Boing Boing]
posted on Dec 10, 2002 - View this thread

Gary Westfahl's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Film is an attempt to do for SF film what David Thomson's brilliant "A Biographical Dictionary of Film" does for film in general - to provide a well informed and wholly subjective survey of the most important people who contributed to the field. The BESFF is very much a work in progress, and half the fun is seeing who author Gary Westfahl has chosen to include this month. His entries so far range from the obvious to the surprising to the deeply obscure. Always though, his witty and often compassionate pocket reviews of these carreers show how seriously he feels SF cinema should be taken, and by extension how betrayed he feels by those within the field who don't.
posted on Dec 2, 2002 - View this thread

Richard Powers - His sleek surreal and otherworldly abstractions changed science fiction illustration and, in the process, the stature of science fiction itself. Here is the Richard Powers Catalog from Vandewater Books. From the e-zine Strange Words Archive, comes The Powers Years part of Collecting The Ballantine Originals, and check out the thumbnails amid and after the Richard Powers essay at Hedonia--who are the very wave of the future in so many ways at once! David G. Hartwell remembers Powers the man. Here is another from his son in download form from Paper Snarl, where Powers is well regarded. And check out the links at the Richard Powers Cyber Art Gallery - everything from a Goth art gallery to Terence McKenna's Dream Museum. But don't click on Miss Stephanie Locke if you're at work! Oh, and the Strange Worlds archive is worth a gander, too...
posted on Oct 21, 2002 - View this thread

International Olympic Committee Racist? A whole group of people have been banned from ever participating in the Olympics just because of their genes!

That's right, the entire Nietzschean race has been banned for so called "cell doping". Yes, banned just because they are different. Just because they're "not human" and "unnatural". They are even trying to figure out how to eliminate the Nietzschean race by doing labratory tests on human subjects!

A spokesman even said, "New medical technologies may pose new challenges in the fight against doping but we, together with the scientific and medical communities, are ready to meet those challenges." Remember, doping is just their word for a cutural practice they think is wrong! How can one culture judge another in such a biased manner?

Are you going to let this genocide happen to an entire race? Write a letter to your congressman, member of parliament or other representative demanding that your country withdraw from the Olympics!
posted on Oct 2, 2002 - View this thread

Some sort of insanity must have possessed this guy, making him think he could write a prequel trilogy to Roger Zelazny's classic Amber series (ahem, not this one). Most reviewers agree--and you can read for yourself--that it's not very good. All this, and the fact that the Sci-Fi Channel also has sinister plans for the property means that there are only one or two nails left to be driven into the coffin of my childhood. Hooray!
posted on Sep 11, 2002 - View this thread

Reality catches up a bit with scifi through a new Chicago startup called Arryx, who is developing the first commercial tractor beam. Tractor beams are nothing new at mefi, but this is a major step up from last year's story. One, it's graduated the technology from the nanoscopic application to cellular-level microscopic levels. Two, this is destined to be an actual commercial product. The technology is licensed to the company from the university where it was developed, my very own alma-mater, The University of Chicago :) [link via ArsTechnica]
posted on Sep 1, 2002 - View this thread

If cyberspace were organized into a giant neural computer... [NYT, reg req] ...one could in theory "upload" a person's mental software into it: thoughts, feelings, memories, the works. - an interesting sci-fi premise by author john darnton complete with a contemporary 'mad scientist!'
posted on Aug 7, 2002 - View this thread

An astonishingly thorough and well-researched biography of Robert Heinlein. A giant of the SF genre; revered and repudiated in nearly equal proportions, his long shadow falls over most SF writing since the 1950's. This site, where the bio is hosted, is a even-handed and thorough repository for all things Heinlein.
posted on Jul 25, 2002 - View this thread

HP Lovecraft is often seen as the first modern horror writer, and maybe the best. His stories tend to follow a certain formula: a protagonist investigates strange events and is drawn into ancient horrors and madness. Lovecraft himself seems to have been deeply freaked out by the ocean, and evil from the deeps is another common theme.

Anyone who has seen The Deep episode of the BBC's Blue Planet is well on their way to feeling as Lovecraft did. And recently, strange artifacts and strange sounds have arisen from the deeps.
Are you Afraid? Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagh'nagl fhtagn!
posted on Jun 14, 2002 - View this thread

In light of the highly anticipated Tron 2.0 - Tron Killer App next year, (has its own google directory :) here're some v.cool production illustrations from the original visionary Tron! Includes sketches of Yori's apartment from the infamous deleted love scene :) [also see moebius!]
posted on Jun 4, 2002 - View this thread

Yoda Wars. Tacky and fun content to fulfill all your Yoda needs.
posted on May 16, 2002 - View this thread

"All democracies turn into dictatorships -- but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea... It isn't that the Empire conquered the Republic, it's that the Empire is the Republic." George Lucas talks about the politics of his new Star Wars films.
posted on Apr 23, 2002 - View this thread

Lucas: Powerful reteller of myth - or galactic gasbag? Salon has a scathing review of Lucas' claim that the basis of the Star Wars saga is in "man's oldest stories" and that he was guided by Joseph Campbell.
"With 'Star Wars' I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs," Lucas says. "I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that exist today."
Hogwash, says author Steven Hart. Star Wars is based not on "The Odyssey" or the "Upanishads", but on Asimov, Heinlen, Herbert and other 20th century S.F.
posted on Apr 10, 2002 - View this thread

A Few Words About Jack Vance. Gersen entered a hall with a floor of immaculate white glass tiles. On one hand was the display wall, characteristic of middle-class European homes; here hung a panel intricately inlaid with wood, bone and shell: Lenka workmanship from Nowhere, one of the Concourse planets; a set of perfume points from Pamfile; a rectangle of polished and perforated obsidian; and one of the so-called "supplication slabs"* from Lupus 23II.

* The nonhuman natives of Peninsula 4A, Lupus 23II, devote the greater part of their lives to the working of these slabs, which apparently have a religious significance. Twice each year, at the solstices, two hundred and twenty-four microscopically exact slabs are placed aboard a ceremonial barge, which is then allowed to drift out upon the ocean. The Lupus Salvage Company maintains a ship just over the horizon from peninsula 4A. As soon as the raft has drifted out of sight of land, it is recovered, the slabs are removed, exported and sold as objets d'art.

(Not for season ticket holders to The Short Attention Span Theater -More within)
posted on Apr 10, 2002 - View this thread

Attack Of The 50ft. Website! How do you kill a monster that never sleeps?! The monster created by atoms gone wild! All New! Thrills! Shock! Suspense! For your own good, we urge you not to see it alone! See the ghastly ghouls in flaming color! The greatest collection of classic science fiction and horror poster art on the net! Now showing in a browser near you.
This website has not been rated.
posted on Apr 9, 2002 - View this thread

Ready for a one-hour science fiction television show about space exploration not set in the Star Trek universe? How about a half-hour show about the developing relationship between a blind girl and a sci-fi fan? Well, Richard Whettestone thinks you are, and he's got the scripts -- now he just needs PBS to pick up the shows!
posted on Feb 23, 2002 - View this thread

Dr. Paul Linebarger became a spy for the U.S. Intelligence community because he was an expert in propaganda, psychological warfare, and the culture of China. In his other secret life, however, he wrote some of the most wildly inventive and unusual science fiction ever, forming a history of mankind and its Instrumentality that spanned fifteen thousand years. To protect his identity, he published under the name Cordwainer Smith.
posted on Feb 21, 2002 - View this thread

David Duchovny why won't you love me? "The X-Files," the Emmy-winning sci-fi drama that thrust two federal agents into spooky paranormal situations, will end its nine-season run on the Fox television network in May. It is still uncertain whether Duchovny, who is no longer involved with the show, will make an appearance in the finale.
posted on Jan 17, 2002 - View this thread

Great 'The Prisoner' site - I just recently got into this BBC sci-fi/paranoia classic on my local PBS affiliate, so I was glad to find this lovingly done fan site. Anyone else have a pet obsessive fan site for a favorite TV show? SNPP.com comes to mind, of course, but I'm interested in the less famous and less frequented places.
posted on Dec 5, 2001 - View this thread

The Martians are coming! ... and I feel fine!
posted on Nov 28, 2001 - View this thread

R2-D2 Beneath the Dome is cute, funny, silly and the most despicable ploy to hype a movie ever in the history of cinema. Most importantly, it diminishes the stature of a great man, by failing to mention Kenny Baker's contribution to the successful phenomenon. It's like talking about Indiana Jones "behind the scenes" without mentioning Harrison Ford.
posted on Nov 26, 2001 - View this thread

Let the disappointment begin! Lucasfilm posted the teaser trailer to the highly anticipated Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones today.
posted on Nov 5, 2001 - View this thread

Halloween is almost here; time to start work on that Tron costume.
posted on Oct 29, 2001 - View this thread

A veritable potpourri of je ne sais quoi : so, I'm just dinkin' around, looking things up from my wish list, compiled before I got online at home, tonight's quest was 'Virgil Finlay,' and I back into this incredible virtual theme park devoted to the greatest living American science fiction author (that lifted straight from my show's, ahem, links page, that), imo--no humble here and now--and it's got starcharts of the Oikumene and maps and meals...gee, did I say it was a French site? And Rpgs and on and on and on...You 'could her nipples be any harder?' Klingon forehead hair splitting color TV babies have no idea: the technology does not exist to take his work to screen. The man is the premiere prose stylist of the genre and this concept has merit, I tells ya...
posted on Oct 2, 2001 - View this thread

An interesting structure (gimmick? excuse?) for short fiction and essays -- The current topic is Aluminum -- "The roll of Alcoa is in the kitchen, in the drawer by the sink. Go get it. Now. Cover your head entirely, using all of the roll just to be safe. Be sure it's loose enough so you can breathe. Leave a tiny slit to see through, about as wide as a line of type on your computer monitor. Lean your head forward, close to the CRT, so you can read these words, a line at a time. Are you ready? Good. Now let's talk about the dangers of exposure to computer monitors. "
posted on Sep 6, 2001 - View this thread

Tron returns with a vengeance. With a theatrical sequel, a 20th anniversary DVD and a first-person PC shooter, you have to wonder why Disney is rollling out the red carpet all of a sudden.
posted on Jul 27, 2001 - View this thread

Is this the MeFi for the sci-fi convention set? All the big questions of fandom seem to be discussed here: Questions about lizard-man genitalia, what happens when Vulcan women go into Pon Farr, and so much more. God help me... I used to be one of these people in High School...
posted on Jun 5, 2001 - View this thread

Network Predatech It's around 2025 A.D. and the IMC is all-powerful. Can a devoted band of courageous hackers make a difference?
posted on May 15, 2001 - View this thread

It might not be strong enough to keep a rebel freighter from escaping your space station, but scientists have built a working tractor beam.
posted on May 3, 2001 - View this thread

William Gibson talks about the Japanese as the Ultimate Early Adaptors, mobile phones and schoolgirls. As usual he is obsessed with wrist watches.
posted on Mar 31, 2001 - View this thread

Does this mean free lattes for the Cylons? Director Bryan Singer to work on a remake of BattleStar Galactica. Or is it going to be "BattleStar Galactica: The Next Generation"? What I'm wondering is: What's Starbucks going to do about it?
posted on Mar 3, 2001 - View this thread

Curiouser and curiouser... They are talking of making a movie based on the new game, of which some of us enjoyed the recently released demo. Since I thought the mood of the game was better than its playability (granted, I have yet to find a game whose playability satifies me), this could be pretty cool.
posted on Dec 7, 2000 - View this thread

Dark Angel is a rip-off of Heinlein's Friday, which I completely agree with. Cameron has been successfully sued by Harlon Ellison before for blatantly ripping off his ideas. Then again the sci-fi word is a static world of either super-humans/machines/aliens/time-trave/alternate dimensions.
posted on Oct 19, 2000 - View this thread

Okay, now he's not a replicant. Contrary to what Ridley Scott said, Harrison Ford claims Deckard was not a replicant. Where's Phillip K. Dick when you need him? Oh, right...
posted on Sep 28, 2000 - View this thread

These sliding menus may not be anything much to you design mavens out there, but to a simple engineer/management consultant like myself, they are addictively neat. Whenever I check out the site, I find myself pulling them out and playing with them while deciding where to go in the site. How'd they do that?
posted on Jul 28, 2000 - View this thread

Yes, but can it stop a phaser?
posted on Jul 25, 2000 - View this thread

For those that like scifi/fantasy art this page is for you. The gut has some original stuff and a few good links (places like Elfwood)
posted on Jul 7, 2000 - View this thread

Darn Canadians are going to get Reboot! first. Looks like we'll both be waiting for this one, premiumpolar. Darn Canadians and their darn YTV anyway! Grrr...
posted on Apr 10, 2000 - View this thread

Need to know about starfleet ship classes? and I mean all the starfleet ship classes. Geek away and beware the MIDI file embedded in the page if you surf at work and wish to remain a closeted trekkie.
posted on Apr 3, 2000 - View this thread

Thank God.
posted on Mar 21, 2000 - View this thread

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Looks like this weekend will be the time to go outside and get that killer tan you always wanted.
posted on Feb 18, 2000 - View this thread

Set your VCRs, tomorrow is a Mystery Science Theater 3000 mini-marathon on the Sci Fi channel. Also note, while you're on the Sci Fi channel website, that William Gibson is doing a Y2K chat there on Tuesday night.
posted on Dec 26, 1999 - View this thread