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It's Time To Harvest Me Some Irish Zombie [Found Footage]

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:30:49 -0800

In the charmingly-titled Irish flick Boy Eats Girl, a whole high school gets infected after a young zombie's dalliance with a girl goes south. Luckily, the girl has a giant harvester and she's not afraid to use it!

Released in 2005, this movie doesn't have much going for it other than spiritedness and gore, both of which are shown off admirably in this scene.

The plot is a by-now routine mishmash of Buffy and fast zombie lore, which one amusing twist. Our protagonist is accidentally killed by his mother in a zany drunken noose chair kerfuffle. Totally unfazed, his mother grabs some books about the undead from her local church basement and raises him from the dead in time for school the next day. Most of the humor comes from our zombie trying to get the girl he likes to go out with him, while struggling with the urge to eat people. I love that the zombie transformation scene happens in about 1 minute, just so we can get to the good stuff: adolescent zombie romance.

Though uneven, the movie is still pretty amusing - especially in the blood-soaked climax.

Boy Eats Girl via IMDB

Somalia's Pirates Have Created Their Own Stock Market - And It's Booming [Pirates]

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:23:37 -0800

Excited about the booming pirate economy? Now you can get a tiny cut of Somalian pirate booty by investing in their stock market - that's right, these pirates are now offering stock in their plundering operations.

According to Foreign Policy's Passport blog:

The pirates have set up an exchange in Haradheere, the main port used by the bucaneers, where shares are traded in a whopping 72 pirate outfits. The profits have so far bought countless SUVs, other luxury goodies, and even a slice of revenue for the local government programs. Says the pirate interviewed [by Reuters]: "The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials ... we've made piracy a community activity."

Well no wonder piracy won't go away. Given the options (poverty, militancy, theft), who wouldn't become a pirate? Besides, one wouldn't want to disappoint the shareholders.

At what point does a pirate economy just become a regular old economy?

via FP Passport

Paralyzed By Light [Mad Science]

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:40:09 -0800

Just one beam of ultra-violet light left this nematode worm completely paralyzed. A second beam of visible-spectrum light allowed it to move again. That's right - scientists have created behavioral "light switches," a way to control animals with light.

We've written about this kind of work before, specifically the research into optogenetics, which allows scientists to genetically-engineer light-sensitive reactions in animals or plants. What's different about this nematode experiment, however, is that no genetic engineering was involved - the little worm just ate a small amount of a chemical (basically the equivalent of popping a pill).

According to National Geographic:

After feeding a light-sensitive chemical to transparent, microscopic worms called nematodes, scientists at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia were able to paralyze the tiny creatures by exposing them to UV light. The paralysis works because UV light changes the structure of the ingested chemical, called dithienylethene.

Upon UV exposure, the normally clear chemical turns blue, and it shuts down the worms' metabolism, said study co-author Neil R. Branda. A shot of visible light restored the worms to normal, and the animals slowly began to wiggle around "as if they had never been paralyzed," the study authors say.

Will we be seeing the equivalent kinds of experiments taking place with humans? Yes indeed, though not for paralyzing people. Researchers are interested in light-activated medicines, which only get activated when exposed to light. This would allow doctors to activate drugs in very precise places in your body.

via NatGeo (thanks to Marilyn Terrell)

Get A Better Look At Peter Jackson's Purgatory [Lovely Bones]

Meredith Woerner — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:11:17 -0800

Here are 26 images that will take you deep into the gorgeous afterworld of Peter Jackson's Lovely Bones. The main character, a murdered young woman, lives in a Purgatory that blends New Zealand and American Suburbia, flavored with 1970s kitsch.

The story focuses on the tragic murder of a 14-year-old high schooler, and her journey through purgatory. As she drifts through pop culture-enhanced dreams, her family struggles with the mysterious circumstances surrounding their daughter's murder. The murderer, played by a deeply disturbing Stanley Tucci, goes about his everyday life next door to the grieving family. These images really give you a feel for how special effects master Jackson played with the colors of the 70s, on Earth and in the afterlife.

Gift Ideas for the Ten Major Species of Science Fiction Fan [Scifi Gift Guide]

Lauren Davis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:45:00 -0800

Stumped on what to get the Doctor Who fan in your life? Still need gifts for lovers of Star Wars, zombies, and Transformers? Our gift guide has plenty of ideas for ten species of science fiction fan.

We've selected ten types of science fiction fans, offering you great gift ideas for fans of the big franchises, this summer's biggest movies, and even something for the steampunks and zombie lovers. You can also check out our fan gift guide from last year, which also includes gift ideas for fans of Battlestar Galactica, Harry Potter, and Batman.

Gifts for the Star Wars Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Star Trek Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Transformers Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the GI Joe Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Doctor Who Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Joss Whedon Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Terminator Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Vampire Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Steampunk Fan (Gallery-free view)

Gifts for the Zombie Fan (Gallery-free view)

Additional gift ideas by Meredith Woerner.

Exclusive Peek At Liara T'soni In "Mass Effect: Redemption" Comic [Exclusive]

Graeme McMillan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:29:46 -0800

Excited for the release of Mass Effect 2 next year? Here's something to whet your appetite even more: An exclusive peek at the variant cover for tie-in comic Mass Effect: Redemption. Click through for a preview of the comic itself.

Co-written by lead Mass Effect game writer Mac Walters and Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic's John Jackson Miller, with art from Star Wars: Legacy's Omar Francia, the comic "reveals an essential moment in the life of Commander Shepard," according to publisher Dark Horse Comics:

The eagerly anticipated sequel to the blockbuster science-fiction epic that IGN.com named the #1 Xbox 360 game of all time, Mass Effect 2 begins with the disappearance of Commander Shepard. The story of what happens next — exclusive to these comics — will have the commander's companion Dr. Liara T'Soni undertake a deadly mission of extraordinary importance in the Milky Way's lawless Terminus Systems.

Mass Effect: Redemption is released January 6th, ahead of the January 26th release of the videogame.

Jeff Bridges Admits Iron Man Movie Had No Script [Iron Man]

Meredith Woerner — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Iron Man may have seemed as polished as fresh power-armor, but the movie actually had no screenplay at all, says Jeff Bridges. The chaos freaked him out, until he decided to think of it as a $200 million student film.

In an interview with InContention, Bridges explained that the Marvel superhero movie rushed into production to make its release date, with the director and star making up scenes as they went along:

"They had no script, man. They had an outline. We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn't know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, 'You got any ideas?' Meanwhile the crew is tapping their foot on the stage waiting for us to come on."

Bridges, director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. would literally act out sequences during primitive rehearsals, Downey taking on Bridges's role and vice versa, to find and essentially improvise their way to full scenes, the actor recounts. Bridges says that the entire production was probably saved by the improv prowess of the film's director and star.

"You've got the suits from Marvel in the trailer with us saying, 'No, you wouldn't say that,'" Bridges continued. "You would think with a $200 million movie you'd have the shit together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script, ‘Oh, we'll have the script before that time,' and they don't have their shit together.

"Jon dealt with it so well," Bridges continues. "It freaked me out. I was very anxious. I like to be prepared. I like to know my lines, man, that's my school. Very prepared. That was very irritating, and then I just made this adjustment. It happens in movies a lot where something's rubbing against your fur and it's not feeling right, but it's just the way it is. You can spend a lot of energy bitching about that or you can figure out how you're going to do it, how you're going to play this hand you've been dealt. What you can control is how you perceive things and your thinking about it. So I said, ‘Oh, what we're doing here, we're making a $200 million student film. We're all just fuckin' around! We're playin'. Oh, great!' That took all the pressure off. ‘Oh, just jam, man, just play.' And it turned out great!"

First off, that's amazing that he called them "suits." He really is The Dude. And second, this is just hilarious. I can't believe they let Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau just run with this stuff. But, thank goodness they did, because what came out was a pretty great action flick blended with biting humor. Still I can't imagine what it must have been for everyone else on set. [InContention via Worst Previews]

The Only Team Edward Shirt You'll Ever Need [Scifashion]

Lauren Davis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:30:00 -0800

Twilight fans can keep their shirts emblazoned with Robert Pattinson's face. The rest of us know that the only Team Edward worth belonging to is Team Edward James Olmos. And know you can wear your affiliation proudly.

Joel Watson drew this strip for HijiNKS Ensue, his thrice weekly webcomic about technology and geek culture:

Naturally, this spurred an immediate demand for an actual Team Edward James Olmos shirt, and Watson has not disappointed. The Team EJO shirt is available for $20 at the HijiNKS Ensue store.

[HijiNKS Ensue]

Millennium Predictions That Got Things Right - and Those That Didn't [Predictions]

Tim Barribeau — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:23:35 -0800

A decade ago, the world was braced for the Y2K bug and everyone was prognosticating about the 21st century. Ten years into the new millennium, we look back at those predictions and decide which still seem likely - or not.

Science and Technology

Right
GPS will soon follow us everywhere, and inform people of everything we do. GPS cellphones, google latitude, and Twitter see to that.

Wireless networking between objects across a household. Wrong on the specifics, but completely right on concept.

Time says we'll still be addicted to videogames, but not in a format we'd recognise as a video game. The launch of Modern Warfare 2 disagrees with Time, and thinks standard video games are going strong, thank you.

Wrong
We will stop evolving. This prediction fails to take into account that evolution is something that can happen at the fringes of society, among the poor, dispossessed and dying. If a resistance to HIV/AIDS arises, guess where it would happen.

We'll be living on Mars. Time says we have the tech, and 2007 would be the best time to go! 2009 runs itself slowly down, and still no plans of a manned mission to Mars.

Airlines will modernise, and increase their efficiency. Nope. Instead, we're stuck with aging fleets, hidden costs, and increasingly insane behavior from the TSA.

Automakers will streamline their operations. Instead, they just went bankrupt, and got bailed out.

Computer processors will hit 10GHz by 2010. We haven't even seen 4GHz yet. Whose law?

Wait and see
We can find a universal theory of everything. They didn't know then, and we're still not sure.

Self-controlled cars by 2025. We're seeing better and more GPS systems. In 15 years, it's completely possible that we'll see cars patching into a network

Matter will be software, and you can download hardware. 3D printers are certainly here, but we're a long, long way from replicators.

E-ink will save us all! Paper content and video content will combine on a single device. The Apple tablet (or something similar) might just do this, but there are still issues with battery life, weight, and cost.

Biotech will make major inroads in manufacturing and information technology.

Energy

Wrong
We will never run out of oil! And never hit $100 per barrel! Sigh.

Climate Change and the Planet

Right
Global warming skeptics will continue to argue with scientists over climate change. Yup, that one's true, and the sides have become increasingly polarized. The article mentions a wide variety of scientists who approach climate change with varying degrees of acceptance. Since then, the vast majority of scientists accept human-influenced global climate change as fact, and dissenters are increasingly laypeople.

Wrong
Will we still eat meat? Not if we realize how badly it effects the planet. Hasn't stopped us yet!

Culture and Society

Right
Time says there will be no female Pope, but that women will have an increasing role in the churches. Given the conservative swing in electing Ratzinger as Pope, female clergy are highly unlikely in the Catholic church, even with declining numbers of priests.

Indie music will flourish on the internet. JoCo, if you're reading this, I <3 U.

Advertising will evolve from the cold call into the cross call, where your details come from another company. At least we got the "do not call" registry.

Time predicted short attention spans will call for short form comedy, which we see in 30 second bits on YouTube. Ironic humor and memes are not predicted.

Product placements and advertising inserts will increase in order to get more attention for ads. Sounds about right.

Wrong
Time thinks religion will replace politicians. Instead, we've seen politicians become increasingly tied to religion as a method of gaining power.

We'll be wired into sporting events to approximate the feel of being there. They're right about the impressive increase in technology for sports broadcasting, but stadiums are still filled for major games.

Electronic Media magazine predicted that local news would come to dominate the news cycle, due to the ease of producing digital content. Instead, local newspapers and channels are now mostly just grabbing content off the wires.

People won't stay home instead of going to movie theaters. Wrong, due to torrents, NetFlix, HD and large screen TVs

The elite of the future will be entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, they didn't account for the rise in prominence of the reality star, famous for merely existing.

The Chicago Tribune predicted that the first decade of the 21st century would be good for home builders. And it was, for most of the decade - and then everything imploded.

We won't have privacy, but common decency will stop people from prying. Nope, paranoia, wiretapping, Facebook and everything else have severely limited what we can keep as private. Common decency isn't stopping people from losing their benefits due to Facebook posts.

"Young employees will be in high demand, and hard to come by." Quotes supplied by your semi-employed blogger.

Wait and See
Teenagers will cease to exist in 20 years (2020). 10 years in, and they're still going strong, abusing prescription drugs, and borrowing the minivan

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution posited that by 2035, the population boom would have tailed off, but people would have an increasing desire for pets. That's still 25 years away, but we're not seeing it yet.

Nationalism will cause an increase in splinter nations. Apart from the usual suspects, there hasn't been a massive increase in Balkanisation over the last decade. However, the situation in Iraq was leaning that way for a period.

Cybersex might replace real sex. It hasn't happened yet, but you can link sex toys to video feeds or other people, which has certainly made cybersex more real.

China may surpass the United States. Unless India scoops them, this is still a strong possibility.

The rise of digital film. More directors are using it, but there's still plenty who aren't.

Health

Right
Drug resistant bacteria are on the rise. Completely right on this front.

Tissue manipulation will provide amazing therapeutic advances, especially through the use of stem cells. While there have been certain moral objections raised to the use of fetal stem cells, they, and other tissue based bioengineering techniques, are a bright spot in health research.

Wrong
Alternative medicine will fade beneath the hard light of the future. Homeopathy on the NHS says otherwise

Christopher Reeve will walk again. =(

Bespoke drugs from the pharmacy will be available in 2020.. Halfway there, and we're not seeing it.

Wait and See
We'll copy our brains to PCs by 2030. We're still a long, long way off.

Internet

Right
We won't ever log off the internet. Push notification and an iPhone seem to agree.

The rise of internet based software, circumventing the need to have desktop versions of everything. Hello, Google.

Targeted marketing through the internet. This continues to worsen, thanks to the likes of Facebook, which market to you based on personal details.

Wrong
AOL will own everything. We say "hello Google!" again.

Wireless providers will move beyond the phone. While 3G modems are around, it's more that the phone has evolved beyond what people thought the phone would be.

The Dangers of Lists

Some news-sources decided just to run mammoth lists, parts of which are right, part wrong. Here's a few of them, with our scores (in parens).

New York Times' 21 Brands To Watch in the 21st Century
Amazon.com
America Online (dead in the water)
Banana Republic (really?)
Dell
Dryel (who?)
ESPN (includes ESPN2, ESPN Magazine, ESPN Zone)
eBay (not doing so well these days)
Excite@Home (again, really?)
Fidelity Investments
Tommy Hilfiger
Krispy Kreme (points for delicious)
Lucent Technologies (now owned by Alcatal, had to cut back on paying retirement funds, and has a massively reduced workforce)
Mountain Dew (or mtn dew, as it's now known)
Nickelodeon (includes Nick at Nite)
Nintendo (they had some rough years there, but are doing damned well right now)
Nokia (really, really struggling at present)
Priceline.com (well, they've got the Shat working for them, so there's that)
SBC Communications (now part of AT&T)
Starbucks (definitely got that one right)
Vanguard
Yahoo (almost, but not quite, dead)

No Google or Apple? Twitter, Facebook and YouTube hadn't yet hit the scene.

Discover magazine's list of things you'll need to know by 2020.
You will need to know stuff you can hardly guess today (Fair enough)
You will need to know how to talk to your house (Not yet an issue for most people)
You will have to learn to drive a more automated car (Slowly filtering down to many new cars, like the BMW park assist)
You'll identify yourself, gain access to homes and businesses, and board aircraft after a laser has measured the shape of your irises (Not happening yet, we still rely heavily on ID cards of one sort or another.)
You'll need to know how to clean up that electronic trail day in and day out (Yes, yes, yes!)
You'll need to know enough to make more complicated medical choices (To a certain extent this is becoming true, but not drastically more than previous years.)
You'll need to access your betrothed's genetic map (Genetic testing is already available, and encouraged among some populations. )
We will have to face the fact that technology favors some and eclipses others (We're starting to see this already, despite efforts of groups like OLPC.)
You're going to have to somehow live while you watch a billion people starve (Not yet, but we might be close.)
You will always need to know if the facts you've dredged up are accurate and truthful
(While Wikipedia has probably increased the general accuracy of information trawled from the internet, many don't care about accuracy, and never will. The entire Birther movement is testimony to that.)
You will be forced to take on moral questions no human has ever faced
(Should I upload this video to YouTube, or not?)

Ray Kurzweil made some very interesting (and accurate) predictions for 2009, in his book The Age of Intelligent Machines. He seems to be on the right track, but just goes a little too far. While we don't have space to discuss every point here, he did predict the shrinking size of most computers (laptops, netbooks and smartphones); the increasing reliance on flash memory; wireless communications between devices; facial identification from images; video chat, and the rise of autotune.

On the other hand, he also thought a sub-$1000 petaflop computer would be available; computers would come in more shapes and sizes than we see; displays would meet print quality; tablet devices would be used in schools; most data would be entered via speech to text; walking exoskeletons would help the disabled; and that privacy would be a major political issue, rather than a personal one.

Recent Poll Reveals Massive Untapped Market for Sexbots [Chart Porn]

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:30:00 -0800

If you could have a personal robot that did just one thing, what would it be? That's what futurist Mike Treder asked the readers of his blog, and the top answers revealed what we secretly (or not so secretly) suspected.

Remember, this is a personal bot, so you couldn't have it do things like run the US economy or reorganize the military. What I thought was interesting was that the top two uses that people voted for - housework and sex work - are traditionally "feminine" forms of labor. We want our robots to replace housewives and hookers.

Of course, we don't know for sure if these results were skewed by the options on offer. For example, we don't see any poll options for stereotypically "masculine" jobs like "fix my computer," "do household repairs," or "work a job you hate all day to earn money." I mean, given the choice, would you rather have a personal robot who does your housework, or a personal robot who does your crappy day job so you can stay home and work on that artistic masterpiece or go surfing?

via IEET

Mice With Two Mothers and No Father Live Longer [Mad Science]

Lauren Davis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:01:32 -0800

What happens when mammals have two mothers? In the case of mice, it seems that they live longer than mice with one male and one female parent. It could help explain why women typically live longer than men.

Researchers in Japan manipulated mouse eggs to grow mice that were bi-maternal, having genetic material from two female parents, but no male parent. They then studied these mice alongside mice with one male and one female parent. The bi-maternal mice and the control mice were kept in the same conditions and fed the same diet, but the bi-maternal mice were significantly smaller and lighter, seemed to have better immune systems, and had an average lifespan 186 days longer than the control mice.

Tomohiro Kono from the Tokyo University of Agriculture, one of the researchers, believes that the bi-maternal mice might have lived longer because of the absence of a gene mice inherit from their fathers, though further study is needed:

"We believe that the most likely reason for the differences in longevity relates to the repression of a gene called Rasgrf1 in the BM mice. This gene normally expresses from the paternally inherited chromosome and is an imprinted gene on chromosome 9 associated with post-natal growth. Thus far, it's not clear whether Rasgrf1 is definitively associated with mouse longevity, but it is one of the strong candidates for a responsible gene. Furthermore, we cannot eliminate the possibility that other, unknown genes that rely on their paternal inheritance to function normally may be responsible for the extended longevity of the BM mice."

If Rasgrf1 is responsible for mouse longevity, it could be responsible for human longevity as well, and could go a long way toward explaining why women tend to live longer than men.

Why Females Live Longer Than Males: Is It Due to the Father's Sperm? [Science Daily — Thanks to Robert Atlas]

Dollhouse's Series Finale: "Epitaph Two: The Return," Featuring Felicia Day [Dollhouse]

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:36:58 -0800

If you've been wondering when we'd see more of the post-apocalyptic world that Joss Whedon granted us a glimpse of in the unaired Dollhouse season one finale, "Epitaph One," wonder no longer. Apparently the series finale — which, God willing, will air in January — is called "Epitaph Two: The Return," and features Felicia Day's character. The episode is from the pen of "Epitaph One" writers Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon, plus Andrew Chambliss. Don't forget to watch two hours of Dollhouse — featuring Summer Glau — this Friday at 8. [Mo Ryan on Twitter]

Watch The Mutation Of A Blood Starved Daybreakers Vamp [Daybreakers]

Meredith Woerner — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:32:47 -0800

In the future, we are all vampires, but we're running out of viable blood, since our future selves decided to turn the remaining humans into a Matrix-style blood farm. Watch what happens when Daybreakers' vampires run out of blood.

Picasso-Inspired Paintings Melt Familiar Superhero Faces [Concept Art]

Lauren Davis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Superheroes are often depicted with exaggerated features, but the artists known as WonderBros take it a step further. Their paintings grossly distort the facial features of familiar superheroes and villains, inspired by the facial distortions found in Pablo Picasso's art.

Artwork So Awesome It will Melt Your Face Off [WonderBros via Walyou — Thanks, jorel845]

Have We Entered The Biopolitical Age? [Event]

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:30:00 -0800

We're obsessed with enhancing our bodies and tuning up our brains; already, our pop culture is full of heroic, cyborg megamutants. But what does it all mean? A seminar in Irvine, CA aims to find out, by exploring "biopolitics."

Caveat: I am a speaker at this seminar, so naturally I'm pretty excited about it. If you're in the Orange County, CA area on Friday, consider coming out to see luminaries like David Brin, Natasha Vita-More, Jess Nevins, and Jamais Cascio (and me!) discuss transhumanism and "The Biopolitics of Popular Culture." Organized by transhumanist braniac James Hughes, the conference will address our biotech future as a meme in pop culture as well as scientific development. Here's a description from the program:

Popular culture is full of tropes and cliches that shape our debates about emerging technologies. Our most transcendent expectations for technology come from pop culture, and the most common objections to emerging technologies come from science fiction and horror, from Frankenstein and Brave New World to Gattaca and the Terminator.

Why is it that almost every person in fiction who wants to live a longer than normal life is evil or pays some terrible price? What does it say about attitudes towards posthuman possibilities when mutants in Heroes or the X-Men, or cyborgs in Battlestar Galactica or Iron Man, or vampires in True Blood or Twilight are depicted as capable of responsible citizenship?

Is Hollywood reflecting a transhuman turn in popular culture, helping us imagine a day when magical and muggle can live together in a peaceful Star Trek federation? Will the merging of pop culture, social networking and virtual reality into a heightened augmented reality encourage us all to make our lives a form of participative fiction?

During this day long seminar we will engage with culture critics, artists, writers, and filmmakers to explore the biopolitics that are implicit in depictions of emerging technology in literature, film and television.

Here's a full list of speakers and a program.

Cost for the day is $150, or $100 for students, and includes lunch. For those who can't make it, the event will also be streaming live here, and a complete video record of the seminar will be posted online later.

Also, the venue for the conference is EON Reality, where engineers are researching 3D projections and other nifty virtual reality/augmented reality tech. There will be a demo!

Steampunk Comes Of Age With Westerfeld's "Leviathan" [Book Review]

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Plenty of young-adult novels feature teens reaching adulthood in a world that adults have royally buggered. And there's no shortage of books about a British Empire with improbably high technology. But Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan makes both of those themes epic.

Leviathan, out in a pretty gorgeous hardcover recently, doesn't feel like merely the latest iteration of the slew of "coming of age in dystopia" young-adult novels, even though that description pretty much fits: The book takes place at the start of an alternate-history World War I that looks to be every bit as bloody and horrifying as the real version. Nor does Leviathan feel like the umpteenth vaguely steampunk (or in this case, diesel-punk) book to come down the pike.

There are a few reasons for this. Most notably, Westerfeld leavens his dark wartime tale with a more-than-generous amount of humor and lightness — one character's catchphrase, "Barking spiders!", has already become a daily utterance among people of my acquaintance. But also, Westerfeld throws in enough odd twists to make his own peculiar alt-history seem quite unmistakable.

This seems like a good place to warn that there'll be spoilers in this review.

So as you might already have heard, Leviathan takes place in a very different version of Europe — the Germans and Austrians have fantastical machines, including Walkers (massive diesel-powered stomping machines that wouldn't be out of place among Star Wars' AT-ATs) and weird running machines. Meanwhile, though, Britain and some of its allies have developed a very different technology — in this timeline, Darwin discovered DNA, and now the British are able to recombine DNA strands to engineer new life-forms, including weaponized bats that eat and shit flechettes, and the Leviathan itself, a kind of floating whale kept aloft by the hydrogen created by the creatures in its belly.

So instead of merely being a conflict between two power blocs in Europe, World War I becomes the conflict between Britain's genetically-engineering Darwinists and Austria/Germany's mechanistic Clankers.

Into this odd (and somewhat implausible) alternate timeline, Westerfeld throws in two different young protagonists who are coming of age on opposite sides. Alek is the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination sets off the war in the first place, and because Alek could be next in line for the Archduke's throne (if his mother's commoner blood can be overcome) the Germans and Austrians will stop at nothing to destroy him. So his teachers take to the road in a walking machine, trying to stay one step ahead of the assassins who are trying to finish the job with the last family member.

Meanwhile, our other protagonist, Deryn Sharp, is a girl who pretends to be a boy so she can join the armed forces and fly through the skies on one of those dashing genetically engineered creatures. The plucky Deryn, now renamed Dylan, gets swept off to sea on a "Huxley," (a sort of floating jellyfish, I think), and winds up getting rescued by the Leviathan, becoming the newest member of her crew. Despite the constant risk of exposure, Deryn/Dylan never hesitates to throw herself into the midst of danger, scaling the heights of the Leviathan's rigging in the midst of peril at sea, and braving storms and enemy aircraft to do her duty and prove herself the best midshipman aboard. (She's the one who exclaims "Barking spiders!" at opportune moments.)

So both protagonists are guarding secrets with their lives, and they're both on the cusp of discovering first-hand just how ruinous the war the older generation has engineered will become. It's a good recipe for both protagonists to figure out who they really are, aside from the expectations that people have placed on them. Alek and Deryn figure out how to work the machines and organic creatures that they ride inside of, but at the same time we see them learning (by trial and error) to navigate the weird world of adult society, which is bumpier and more fault-prone than a thousand diesel-powered walking machines.

And the machines-vs-monsters war seems to hint at becoming a framework for a larger debate about which is preferable: to surround ourselves with raw technology, or to adapt nature to serve our purposes. The book (which is just the first volume in a new series) hints that the only real answer is a fusion between the two elements.

Leviathan is worth reading just for the larger-than-life adventures against a fascinatingly rendered backdrop of weird machines and weirder creatures — and Keith Thompson's illustrations, some of which we've featured before, add an extra layer of awesomeness to the mix as well. But as a new spin on the theme of young people discovering their place in an insane world, it's a genuinely memorable story.

Harry Potter's Infamous Nude Scene Will Please An Unexpected Group Of Shippers [Harry Potter]

Lauren Davis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:30:00 -0800

Remember that rumor about Daniel Radcliffe baring all for one of the final Harry Potter films? Despite earlier denials from Radcliffe's reps, it sounds like director David Yates has confirmed that we will see naked Potter:

In one scene, "a horcrux [carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul] defends itself by producing nightmarish visions, and one shows Hermione and Harry embracing and kissing," explained Yates. "It's something intriguing and sensual for Rupert to react to, and Dan will be bare for that."

[Video Business]

There Could Be an Ice Age Two Months from Now [Ice Age]

Ed Grabianowski — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Everyone knows disaster movies are totally unrealistic — massive climate change doesn't just happen in a few months, right? Wrong. Some Canadian scientists have figured out that it did once, and very easily could again.

Earth's climate has shifted drastically many times in its history, but barring massive asteroid impacts, climate change tends to play out over thousands or tens of thousands of years. Plenty of time to pack away the summer clothes and buy a nice warm coat when you spot an ice age coming. But researchers at the University of Saskatchewan recently discovered that some ice ages come on quite rapidly.

By taking some very thin slices of a mud core sampled from a really old lake (Ireland's Lough Monreach), the Saskatchewan team got a high-resolution look at varying oxygen and carbon isotope levels in the lake's history. The analysis revealed events happening month by month in the lake's ancient past. They found that things got very cold very quickly during the "Big Freeze" (more scientifically referred to as the Younger Dryas), a small ice age that occurred about 13,000 years ago. How quickly? The lake basically froze solid within a few years, and it might even have happened within a few months.

The Younger Dryas is thought to have been caused by the sudden emptying of Lake Aggasiz, a massive freshwater sea that covered a much of what is now mid-Canada and the northern U.S. At some point, the contents of the lake poured down through the Great Lakes and down the St. Lawrence River, flooding the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic with a deluge of fresh water. Not only did this raise global sea levels, it severely disrupted ocean currents in the area, scrambling the climate and causing an instant ice age. It took about 200 years for things to get back to normal.

Since there's no Lake Aggasiz around to empty itself and cause an ice age, we're off the hook, right? Wrong. The Greenland Ice Sheet (which is an enormous slab of ice that covers most of Greenland) has been melting at a rate of about 50 cubic miles of ice per year. Because the ice sheet basically keeps itself cold, scientists worry that the growing melt zones each summer will lead to a runaway meltdown. If the sheet were to melt away suddenly, it could very well lead to a disruption of ocean currents similar to the one preceeding the Younger Dryas.

Of course, that would probably be the least of our problems, since sea level would rise more than 20 feet. And you still can't outrun cold.

Big Freeze Plunged Europe Into Ice Age in Months. [Science Daily]

Learn The Craft Of Novel-Writing From Walter Jon Williams And Nancy Kress [Writing Workshops]

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:30:00 -0800

The Taos ToolBox Writers Workshop is taking applications for its "graduate level" writing classes, taught by Walter Jon Williams, Nancy Kress and guest-instructor Carrie Vaughn. But beware: It sounds like the instruction gets pretty intensive.

According to the workshop's home page, This Is Not A Game author Williams and Dogs author Kress assume you already know the basics of writing, and how to tie your shoes and stuff:

Taos Toolbox will be a "graduate" workshop designed to bring your science fiction and fantasy writing to the next level. If you've sold a few stories and then stalled out, or if you've been to Clarion or Odyssey and want to re-connect with the workshop community, this is the workshop for you!

This is not a workshop for beginners. We won't teach you correct manuscript format or what an adverb is and why you shouldn't use one, because we'll assume that you already know. We want to concentrate on giving talented, burgeoning writers the information necessary to become professionals within the science fiction and fantasy field.

Though short fiction will be enthusiastically received, there will be an emphasis at Taos Toolbox on the craft of the novel, with attention given to such vital topics as plotting, pacing, and selling full-length works.

Assuming they've solved the whole "Taos Hum" problem (probably caused by aliens rubbing their legs together), it sounds like a pretty great program for aspiring novelists. More details, and application materials, at the link. [Taos ToolBox]

The Airships Floated Into the Ravine Silently, Sails Bulging With Wind [Concept Art]

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:00:00 -0800

A ravine is a good place to drop anchor. The ship stays aloft, but her crew can scramble to the ground on rope ladders to forage. Best of all, it's protection from prying eyes.

This image is just one of many that made me fall in love with concept designer William Smith's art. I first stumbled across his work while searching for "restaurant at the end of the universe" illustrations, and found his gorgeous depiction of Milliways (the aforementioned restaurant). His rich colors recall a more innocent era in space illustration, and his seascapes and landscapes are positively breathtaking.

Smith told me in email:

I'm currently in Houston Texas working at TimeGate Studios as a concept artist. The website [where you can find these images] has my most recent personal work, some are personal projects but most were done for the Environment of the Week on ConceptArt.org. Unfortunately I can't release anything that I've done professionally to date. On the technical side of things, all the work on the page was done digitally using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet.

See more of Smith's work on his website.

Why The Road's Baby Scene Was Cut, And Why Its First Trailer Sucked [Exclusive]

Meredith Woerner — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:30:00 -0800

One important cannibal scene in the post apocalyptic film The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy's book, was cut. Here's why, along with how director John Hillcoat feels about his movie being compared to, and marketed as, "disaster porn."

Earlier in our exclusive interview with director John Hillcoat, we discussed exactly what author Cormac McCarthy wanted put back into the film that was originally cut from John Hillcoat's translation. But strangely the writer had no issues with the missing scene from his novel where The Man and The Boy discover a baby being roasted over a fire. We found out just why, from the director...

People are asking why some of the cannibal scenes were cut from the film.

There were some definitely, that I wanted cut. I had to fight to cut them. And I was supported though. Because first of all, I fought like hell to make sure we had shot that stuff, and I got my way. Then I realized it didn't work, it was total overkill. It just made it redundant and didn't have any impact. Because once you go through the road game and the house, the cannibal house, you know about cannibalism. And the trees is the new element. Whereas if you go back to that, it's like going back to the start of the film again.

What was the reasoning for cutting the baby over the fire scene?

It also it all works in the book because it's in your head, when you visualize some of this stuff it just becomes too much. And it was overkill. Luckily, Cormac himself, he really understands how film works as a medium, how different it is. He didn't miss anything from the book other than four lines of dialogue... Just those four lines. Nothing else. He didn't miss any of it, he didn't even bring up the baby. He said, 'Oh, that's irrelevant.'

What did you think when you saw the first trailer for the film?

Well I was a little disappointed. I thought it was a little misleading. I would never put stock footage that isn't part of the film in something, like the trailer. But I also understand, from their point of view, what they were trying to do, which is give people context. Because their point was that most people haven't read the book that will come and see the movie. And in the film it's a very subtle, gradual thing that befalls [humanity], but it's never fully explained. So what they said is, that in when you have 30 seconds or a minute, this was their way of putting it into context for people. But it didn't work, they have a much better trailer now.

How do you walk the line of bleakness and hope that was in the book. It was a pretty bleak in some points, the book.

I never really saw it like that, for one. The heart and soul, the reason this book is now the most translated of modern time, apparently, is because of this love story between father and son. If it was just about that other stuff it wouldn't have struck that kind of chord. That's if you focus on the background scenery. I'm a little defensive about that. But sure, it's a projection of everyone's worst fear. The apocalypse has been around as an idea since ancient times.

It's very simple, it's humanity's worst fear. What is it? It's us dying, the world dying. And we saw what happened with the dinosaurs, so we don't want to join them, and that's understandable. But then I think, also, every individual has their own personal apocalypse, where your time comes. We're mortal beings, we have to check out. So I think in many ways it's just a projection of our fears. And it goes through different periods. In the 50s they were really freaked out about nuclear threats, so you had the mutant monsters that came out of radiation. A brilliant masterpiece of all apocalypse films is Dr. Strangelove. But again that came out of the whole nuclear situation, the Cold War. And you can see in ancient times, and the biblical apocalypse.

But that's also why it's not really about bleakness, it's about fear. And actually there's a morality tale about this. We see a man that we project on to, and we can see that his choices, under pressure, we see how he can, understandably, lose his humanity. And it's actually the boy that gives him back that humanity. So I'm with Cormac when he said that his was a book about human goodness and kindness.

Where do you think we are now with post-apocalyptic movies? What do you think the trend is now?

Well I mean the focus tends to be on the big event, so much so that there's no human dimension. I think that's all valid, I like to see spectacle, we all enjoy that. I like roller coaster rides, although I'm actually having trouble with them as I get older. But, there is thrills and adventure in The Road, but the focus as I say is more about this human experience. And really more, I love films where, what I love speaking in scifi, like I saw 2001 when I was 9 years old and I'll never forget I actually felt like I went into outer space - like I really felt like I was transported into this other world. And the more I watch films, the films that I love are those where you feel like you've gone to another place and that's what I love about scifi. When it's just a CGI fantasy or like a video game, that's when I kind of tune out of it. I don't feel like kind of, being transported.

So that's you comparing The Road to those other post-apocalyptic films coming out. Because we know the difference. But even when I was at the Book of Eli panel at Comic Con, people were asking, 'So how's this different from The Road?'

[Eyes widen] Well, ok, the big difference is also what we've tried to do is, well what I always try to do with genre, is find and make it fresh again, like something we've never seen. And ironically what we've never seen before is the real thing. And so that's why we shot at Mount St. Helens, the mountain blew up.

The Heart Nebula Bleeds Out Into Space [Space Porn]

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:00:00 -0800

The so-called Heart Nebula lives up to its name, in this lush new image that an amateur astrophotographer posted on a new Flickr account. We've never seen nebula pictures this rich-looking. And just wait until you see the Rosette Nebula.

Check out more of these incredible space pictures over at the photographer's Flickr stream. [s58y on Flickr]

Heart nebula - RGB.

Rosette nebula

Barndoor nebula

Elephant trunk nebula

Epic Alien Battleship Movie Leaks The Details On The New E.T. [Battleship]

Meredith Woerner — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:30:00 -0800

The Battleship movie just went from ho-hum board game to a Roland Emmerich/Michael Bay-esque epic battle between humans and aliens. And the details about our other-worldly foe are pouring out.

Thanks to Latino Review we now have a full report on what director Peter Berg is planning for his Battleship movie. It sounds wondrously epic and Independence Day terrible/awesome.

This is what we learned from Berg...

The aliens, called The Regents, came here looking for something, but they are not wholly evil bent on world domination. We did nothing to provoke them, but they still have an ecological interest in our world. Also they fire ballistics, not ray guns and will be half-CG half-"man in a suit" technology. But sadly, their ship is damaged somehow and that becomes another part of the plot:

"the enemy does come from another planet... We tried to keep it a secret, but it's our goal to make that as intelligent and logical, certainly as 'District 9' was able to do. But to provide a real intelligence to our opponent, a logic, a rationale for being there and not purely hostile, violent creatures bent on global destruction. They've got a much more logical agenda planned that happens to come into conflict with us. Then there's a chance for two relatively equal opponents to go at each other and you get a sense of some of the equipment you saw, the level and intelligence of that character of what modern sailors are today."

"There's a group of life forms from some other planet have come to our planet for something. They've got a very specific agenda. That agenda is not global domination. It's an agenda and that agenda puts them into conflict with members of our military. Their technology is relatable. It's not incredibly far out and unbeatable. It's comprehensible. Hopefully it'll make for good fun and an intense ride."

There will be a battleship-esque screen in the game similar to the movie:

"This is a key set in the film. You put this screen on, it's very easy to imagine this as a much more sophisticated Battleship screen from the board game. What they're doing with this screen is identifying threats or identifying objects whether it be in the air, on the sea or underwater. Much the same way you would try to identify or locate your enemy in the game."

And finally the film will be heavily research based when dealing with modern day Naval technology, and what happens when all of their high tech gadgets stop functioning:

"One of the things the film inspires is it takes us into this incredibly complicated world of communications, of radar, of GPS locators, of weapons systems, to show all of this state of art as cool as we possibly can. Somebody asked about backups? (If the computer systems go down) That's another thing we're going to sort of explore. Taking away some of the technology we have.... for example, you'll see there's a light out here [on the battleship the reporters were on]. This is an old fashioned Morse Code signal light. All of this state of the art technology in the world, if everything else goes, if you can't get a cell phone or walkie talkie signal, this can signal Morse code. And obviously in the game Battleship, being able to identity in the game where your enemy is, and locate and identify, is something, that is the core component of the game. Well, one of things we hope to do in this film successfully, is to take away some of this really incredible state of the art technology and have people communicating, and this is just one example, there's others, of using some sort of old-school communication."

To find out more — and there's lots more — check out Latino Review's entire report.

Hawkeye's Avengers Costume Goes Modern, First Harry Potter Image Isn't Magic, and a Dollhouse Contract Runs Out [Morning Spoilers]

Lauren Davis — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:00:00 -0800

We shouldn't expect a traditional costume for The Avenger's Hawkeye, and the first image from Harry Potter is more muggle than magic. Plus Avatar videos, a pregnant Lost reunion, Leonard Nimoy returns to Fringe, and an active leaves the Dollhouse.

The Avengers

Jeremy Renner, who might be playing Hawkeye, says we won't be seeing a traditional version of the archer's costume:

"It's going to be modernized, it's not going to be the guy with the big purple [mask], it's not going to be a guy in tights. It's going to be a guy in sunglasses and a vest. He's going to be more modernized and I'm gonna say 'a cooler-looking version' and not the big weird costume he had on. I don't think they're going that route."

[IGN]

Avatar

The latest round of TV spots focus largely on the action scenes:

But one spot looks a bit more at Sully's journey:

And a bizarre NFL promotion where commentator Terry Bradshaw is inserted into a scene with the Thanator:

[via Trailer Addict]

And new images give us more Sully and Neytiri, plus Grace (in both her human and Avatar forms) and the Thanator. [SpoilerTV-Movies]

Harry Potter

The first image from Harry Potter is far from fantastical, but Ron's looking a little worse for wear. [Cinema Blend]

Frankenweenie

Casting is underway for the remake of Tim Burton's short film, and it sounds like we'll see a slew of children turning animals into undead critters:

[EDGAR] A Caucasian Male 8-11 years old. Edgar is a needy little kid who wants desperately to be accepted by the cool kids in his class. Naturally a little nerdy, he gravitates to Victor and basically annoys him until he agrees to let him be his lab partner. He is more than a little gullible and is easily tricked into giving away Victor's precious secret and unwittingly starting the whole mess with the other monsters.

[TOSHIAKI] A Japanese Male 8-11 years old. Toshiaki is the natural leader of the cool kids in Victor's class. He is a good athlete, and an avid little league baseball player but Toshiaki has a mischievous side. He is the one that ultimately manipulates E into giving up the secret of Sparky and it is his idea to turn the other animals into monsters. He is Japanese and his monster creation is a little Godzilla lizard.

[BOB] A Caucasian Male 8-11 years old. Bob is the dumb, jockey kid. He has more brawn than brains. He follows Toshiaki and Nassor around even when it means that he has to be the one to test the home made jet pack that Toshiaki has created.

[NASSOR] A Middle-Eastern Male 8-11 years old. Nassor is the star of the little league team and just goes along with Toshiak's plan. He is a bit more serious than the others but still doesn't see the impending chaos when he chooses to bring his hamster mummy back to life.

[WEIRD GIRL] A Caucasian Female 8-11 years old. She has a very dark and ominous take on even the most mundane occurrences and jumps at the chance to bring some dead animals back to life.

[ELSA] A Caucasian Female 8-11 years old. Elsa is a sweet girl who likes to follow the rules and not cause too much trouble. A bit of a "goody two shoes," she is not afraid to speak up and even corrects the teacher when he makes a mistake. She is excited about the festivities planned for the town's Dutch Day parade and even has a solo dance number in the show.

[Bloody Disgusting]

Lost

We've been hearing that Claire would be in the final season, and actress Emilie de Ravin was spotted in Burbank reshooting a scene from the season premiere with Evangeline Lilly, and one of the actresses had a telltale baby bump. Is it a scene from the days when Claire was pregnant with Aaron, or is Kate working on her own baby? (Remember that we already reported on some season premiere filming a while back, in which Claire was pregnant because Flight 815 had just landed.) [E!]

There's also a fresh casting call for the tenth episode:

[DESK CLERK] Male.. 30s, any ethnicity. Loves his job and is usually on top of things. When he's made a mistake, he's quick to accept it and resolve it satisfactorily. CO-STAR.

[KENDALL] Female..30s, any ethnicity. Attractive and professional. Good at her job and does not cut any corners. CO-STAR.

[CUSTOMS OFFICIAL] Male.. 50s, any ethnicity. Pot-bellied, efficient bureaucrat inured to travelers' pains and frustrations. Suspects people are always trying to get something past him. CO-STAR.

[DarkUFO]

Dollhouse

As Dollhouse burns off its remaining episodes, we see the return of Alpha and the end of Victor's contract. Here is the official synopsis for December 11th's double episode "Meet Jane Doe" and "A Love Supreme:"

In the aftermath of her entanglements at the D.C. Dollhouse, Echo finds herself out in the world struggling to keep her multiple personalities under control. Adelle finds her grip on the house challenged by Harding, and Boyd receives a mysterious phone call. Meanwhile, when Echo's past romantic engagements are murdered, suspicion falls on Alpha, whose return leaves one member of the house permanently mind-wiped.

And here's the synopsis for the following week's episodes "Stop-Loss" and the ominously titled "The Attic:"

As his contract with the Dollhouse expires, Victor is released back into the world, where his military past threatens his future with Sierra. Meanwhile, Echo is deemed too dangerous and is sent into her worst nightmare.

[Spoiler TV, Spoiler TV]

Doctor Who:

You may already have heard that Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) is the companion in "The End Of Time," and David Tennant elaborates:

Although Catherine Tate is back and Donna is a big part of that story, really, the companion is Bernard Cribbins, the first time the doctor has had an 80-year-old man as his sidekick, really. So it's been great to get to play these different facets of the character, I suppose. And the doctor himself is also slightly on the run from himself and on the run from the inevitable. So he's trying not to get too close to anyone. So it's important that there's a kind of revolving door of confidence for him. But getting to see Bernard Cribbins as well in that final story is so brilliant and moving, and he's just such a great actor that that was a great finish to the story for me. What you get is these wonderful scenes of these two old men. The doctor is a lot older than Wilf, and yet the two of them get to sit down and discuss life in a way that we've never seen the doctor be able to do before.

[Crave Online]

Fringe

Here's another, longer synopsis for December 10th's "Grey Matters:"

A Fringe investigation is triggered when a patient at a mental institution undergoes an impromptu brain surgery that unexpectedly leaves his brain exposed. Despite the unthinkable circumstances, the patient's condition and sanity miraculously improves before the Fringe team arrives. While Agent Dunham and Peter scan surveillance tapes (and Walter enjoys his pudding), Olivia recognizes a familiar face as Thomas Jerome Newton (guest star Sebastian Roche), the leader of the "shape-shifters." As similar cases stack up, the Fringe team heads back to the lab to determine exactly how patients are being cured. Walter's brains are put to the test and William Bell (guest star Leonard Nimoy) resurfaces.

[Fringe Spoilers]

And in images from the episode, Peter inspects a woman in a mental institution. What is he looking for in there? [Fringe Spoilers]

FlashForward

The cast reveals a whole mess of spoilers to untangle. This week, we'll find out what Simon knows about the flashforward (he also knows something about the crow die-offs in Somalia). We'll also get a crucial bit of information about Demetri's future murder, something that will radically alter our perspective of his future.

Looking farther into the future, Mark will get the chance to revisit his flashforward, and we'll get a clearer picture of his two minutes and 17 seconds. There may also be a reason Mark drinks aside from (and potentially more interesting than) his love triangle with Olivia and Lloyd. Plus, we will start to see an explanation of the "Red Panda Resources" mentioned on Mark's bulletin board, and we'll revisit the stadium where someone was seen walking around during the global blackout more than once in the season's remaining episodes.

The writers have a few ideas as to who impregnated Janis Hawk, but they're currently debating it among themselves. [TV Guide]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Winners Of The "Describe Your Favorite Bookstore" Contest [Contest]

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:21:24 -0800

Over a week ago, we asked you to describe your favorite bookstore or comic book shop to win a giant box of free books from DelRey/Spectra. Now we've got our winner - and several runners-up.

This was one of my favorite contests we've done at io9, because I love bookstores - and the next-best thing to visiting a bookstore, for a bookstore nerd, is reading descriptions of bookstores.

I picked the winner based on how the writer, Allen_Richards, captured the way bookstores become communities. He's explored how a bookstore is about more than atmosphere and a good collection - it's also about the friends you make there, and the stories you share. (Oh, and Allen, email me with your address so we can send you the prize! My email is in the masthead.)

He writes:

The Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn, Oh, serviced both Wright State University, where I went to college, and the servicemen and women of Wright Patterson Airforce base (even going so far as to mail comics to servicemen overseas, or simply holding them on file until they returned stateside). Pretty much everything I know about fandom I learned from that place.

When I first discovered The Bookery, back in 1991, I was a freshman at WSU, 420 miles from home, and knew no one in the area. The Bookery was located in an old house and divided into distinct sections, the comicshop and the Golden Age comic shop. Had I not glanced across the parking lot while driving past and caught the "comics" sign set back from the road, I would have mistaken the place for a rundown shack. There was also a room for used books, where I picked up many old horror, sci-fi (completed my run of Robotech first editions, not that they were ever worth anything), and suspense novels. This room also shared the gaming materials, and while I don't game it allowed me to get to know the employee who was in charge of the gaming equipment, Kevin Hamilton. We bonded through a mutual love of Joe Lansdale, The X-Files, and anime. I was there practically every other day picking up Lansdale books I'd missed over the years, and this gave us the opportunity to compare notes. Kevin would always hold and suggest the latest crime comics for me. A few years later Kevin and I tried to shoot an adaptation of Lansdale's THE JOB, after Lansdale informed us somebody else had just purchased the rights and we had to abandon that dream.

Through Kevin, I got to know some of the other employees, like the manager Steve Bates. Steve was a family man who left Wright State to manage the shop. He busted my balls for years after catching me riding in a friends motorcycle sidecar, but I didn't mind as Steve let me have first crack at Fort Knox. And my "Fort Knox," I mean the storage room where they kept a recently purchased motherload of Asian cinema vhs pre-records and bootlegs. Tons of action including my first exposure to some John Woo masterpieces, like BULLET IN THE HEAD, and the memory of trying to decipher the blurry, almost non-existent Engrish subtitles brings back the headaches suffered while squinting to read them in the first place. There were others, like the sleazy sci-fi goodness of ROBOTRIX, and when I finished picking my brains off the wall behind me after having my mind so thoroughly blown, I had to invite Steve to play my Elvis-impersonating hitman on THE JOB. How could such a cool guy NOT be part of my movie???

The Bookery outgrew its shop, and eventually moved to downtown Fairborn taking up two large storefronts. The room for used books was now an entire storefront dedicated to used and rare books, and knowing my love for literature, those guys gave me first crack at some nice limited editions, always at a discount. Looking at my bookcase right now, the majority of my prized possessions came from there: Lansdale's NIGHTRUNNERS from Ziesing Press, Chizmar's COLD BLOOD, also from Ziesing, an ARC for Skipp & Spector's BOOK OF THE DEAD 2, an imported Mikimoto artbook, and a slipcased Robotech Art, among others... They also threw me lots of freebies, and from their discarded books is where my love for Nina Kiriki Hoffman stems. Some of her fantasy novels are the only books I've read that I've never wanted to end. I once shared her novel THE THREAD THAT BINDS THE BONES with a girl I was dating and she shared those exact thoughts with me when she reached the last page. I knew on the spot that I wanted to marry her.

Eventually, I became friendly with all the employees, particularly one named Sam Lee, who became like my little brother, just as I had been Kevin's. Sam taught me about anime, and I could see the annoyance in his eyes whenever I'd incorrectly pronounce ESCAFLOWNE (apparently, there's an accent on the end, which I should have known considering I'd studied Japanese). I lost touch with Same about 10 years ago, but bumped into him on my last trip to Fairborn about 5 or 6 years ago. He'd finished school and seemed so ecstatic at his life ahead. He's just gotten his own place a new job - the career he's always wanted. I recently found out that he died in his sleep a few years ago from heart failure. I don't think he'd hit 30.

Those guys also introduced me to other local folk with similar interests. Jeff Drouhard worked at Wright-Pat and possessed a love of anime second to known. Andrew Kaplan was an even bigger Lansdale fan that I was, and while he worked at another bookstore, the Borders-owned Books & Co., he made all his purchases at the Bookery.

I miss Sam and all those guys, and if I hadn't fallen in love with Lansdale's sci-fi classic THE DRIVE-IN, I wouldn't have been there so much in those early days and would have missed out on the chance to make some great friends, many of whom I haven't even mentioned. I'd heard Steve now works for Diamond comics distribution, but I can't find Kevin. His website BadAfterTaste.com closed down a few years ago, and at some point he followed me into film studies. I hope it made it somewhere in the industry. Jeff still works on base, and Andrew is head librarian at a branch in Las Vegas. Like me, they've all moved on and I wish them well. Those guys have no idea how they helped shape my geeky self. While they seriously put a hurtin' on my wallet, they helped me discover a wealth of pop-art, and I'm indebted to them all.

While I did shoot numerous projects at The Bookery, I don't have access to those photos or videos. You can find pictures on their website: www.BookeryFantasy.com I've come across other bookstores and comic shops over the years, but they all pale in comparison on every level.

I picked out a couple other notable and cool entries to share here, either because they represented what several people had said or they were just particularly rich descriptions of bookstores and their communities.

Waldenbooks bookstores have been closing all across North America over the past month, and a lot of people wrote in comments about happy memories about this store - yes, it was a chain, eventually owned by Borders, but it gave people a lot of joy. Here's a great memorial to the store, from brownjawa:

My favorite bookstore is the Waldenbooks/Borders Express that closed a couple of years ago in my hometown. As a kid, I used to save my allowance and go every week for a new Star Wars book. Back then, they were only $5 and my only hardship was finding the loose change to pay the taxes. Over an entire summer that bled into fall, I read every adult Star Wars post-ROTJ book in print until I finally caught up. The store always had the SF/F section right up front and after that, I would march right up to the bays, pluck the latest installment on the day of release and make my purchase. It was a huge store to me then, with two entrances and long aisle down the middle separating towering shelves of books. Some of the smaller aisles snaked around corners or opened into new clearings of sections I hadn't noticed before. When I got older, I was surprised when the manager actually hired me and I stayed there a few years until our store was forced to close, shortly after a remodel. Of course I was devastated—this store had been a huge part of my life for so long, it felt like I was losing a friend. I kept the SF/F section clean and organized, taking particular care with the Star Wars books until the day we had to pack everything up and move out. To this day I haven't found another store that could replace that one. Also, I never get over the weird feeling of having to buy the newest Star Wars book from another store. It will always hold a special place in my heart!

I just love this picture of a Swedish scifi store, from bonjourhappylion, who writes:

I'm studying in Stockholm right now and spent a decent amount of time trying to scope out a good bookstore, especially one that carried scifi in Swedish or English. Some googling helped me find Science Fiction Bokhandeln in Gamla Stan, the oldest part of the city. Nothing is more awesome than walking down really old streets and finding a dragon attacking a spaceship. I was really amazed how huge the store was, and was able to find all the books I was looking for(although with Swedish prices, I wasn't able to buy too many). Its a must visit for Scifi or Fantasy book fans visiting Stockholm, Sweden!

Here's another picture I love, as well as a good story of a local bookstore, from Kitradu:

Gardner's on Mingo between 51st and 41st here in Tulsa has been around for years. When I was a sophomore in High School a friend of mine's mother took us there and I fell in love immediately. I picked up a book, the title of which I recognized but had never thought much of. Frank Herbert's "Dune." It was from the 70's, tattered and dingy, and I loved it. The store is still there and over the next several years I would buy more books, comic books (including the first Ultimate Spider-Man and X-Men 205), playing classic arcade games like Smash TV, and more recently finding more old Frank Herbert books and even Vincent King, featured here before (I looked thanks to io9!). It started as a used book store including comics. Today they've grown exponentially, with a wi-fi coffee bar, selling video games, DVD's and Blu-Rays, and even connecting to a little family owned Mexican resturaunt. Any time I want to look for something hard to find, I always start at Gardner's. Despite so much growth, it's interior is just rows and rows of make-shift shelves and tons of books.

Another cool local bookstore is brought to life by Jessica Lewis:

My favorite book/comic store is a tiny hole-in-the-wall in Alabama called Legion. They are in an almost-abandoned length of stores on a back road that pretty much no one knows about except for the savviest of southern nerds. They inhabit three stores - one for manga, one for comics/sci-fi, and one for rpg gamers. Even though they have three stores none of them have air conditioning, combine that with swarms of nerds and you get a ripe aroma that says "home" (or soggy burritos, whichever you prefer). Going into the comic book store you see comics, books, and collectibles piled all the way to the ceiling — They also have shelves and comic boxes filled to the brim with dorkalicious goodies. It's an adventure every time we go (which is almost every payday), and I always find something new and interesting to tickle my nerdy fancy.

The manga store is a new add-on, and one of my favorite things about Legion. They have manga that is almost impossible to find, as well as DVDs to buy or rent (most of which are insanely quirky and weird finds from Japan). I always get my monthly dose of horror manga from legion, because where else am I going to find Kazuo Umezu (the father of horror manga) comics? The people who work at Legion are all friends, and seem to enjoy the time they spend at their little comic shop, which makes for great customer service. Going to Legion is almost like going to a little nerd convention every week — it's a place where every breed of nerd/dork/geek mingle together in perfect harmony (I have yet to meet one person there who wasn't just made of awesome). From the moment you step on their unfinished, cracked concrete floors, smell the savory, un-airconditioned aroma of nerds at play, and see the multitude of random collectibles and books you know this is one special place.

Also, I just thought this was a great bookstore story about nerd subversion, from DARSFOG:

There was a little bookstore in the town where i went to college. She had a lot of books even some hard to find ones that are no longer in print. She even had DnD books, but she kept them hidden (since this was a small christian town.) She was a kind hearted lady. She help me track down the original print of the Tripod Trilogy by John Christopher.

There were a ton of testimonials about other bookstores, like Powell's in Portland, OR and 9 Lives in San Antonio TX, as well as many others, so go read them all and find out if any of them are in your town!

Cyborg Assassins Are Really, Really Good In Bed [Found Footage]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:30:00 -0800

He's an unstoppable cyborg killer, whose brain is in his stomach... but he's also a sex machine. In 1986's Assassin, a cyborg death-monger needs a place to recharge his batteries, and finds a little romance, in a surprisingly cute scene.

The little interlude in the middle of that clip involves Robert Conrad and his partner investigating the cyborg killing spree... which, whatever. But the subplot, about the cyborg and the woman who loves him, is actually surprisingly great. (In a bit of forced irony, in a later scene she tells the cyborg he's a wonderful man and laments that all the men she usually meets are "so plastic.")

Celebrate The Great Beards Of Your Favorite Heroes [Heroic Beards]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:21:24 -0800

If you're like us, you lay awake at night wondering, "What if Batman had a beard?" Well wait no longer! We've got a gallery of the most heroic super beards ever.

Vanjamrgan via The Laughing Squid]

Kant's Philosophy on Aesthetics Explained Through Comic Book Art [Philosophy In Comics]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:30:00 -0800

Want to understand the works of German philosopher Immanuel Kant but don't have the time to slog through them? In this video, comic book critic Douglas Wolk explains the concepts in Kant's Critique of Aesthetic Judgment using comics art.

[via Neatorama]

Spooky Buttons, Balloons, and Santa Dominate Animation Nominations [Annie Awards]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Stop-motion animation edged out computer-generated effects in this year's Annie Award nominations, with Coraline topping the list at ten nods. But CGI is nipping at its heels with big nominations for Pixar's Up and Disney's Prep and Landing.

The International Animated Film Association announced the nominations for the Annie Awards. Laika's Coraline was the most-nominated feature, with ten nominations including Best Animated Feature, Best Character Design, and Best Directing in a Feature. Just behind Coraline is Pixar's Up with nine nominations and Disney's The Princess and the Frog with eight. In the television category, Disney's upcoming computer-animated Christmas special Prep and Landing led the way with nine nominations. Monsters vs. Aliens and 9 took just two nominations each, both earning one nod for animated effects; Hugh Laurie was nominated for his voice work in Monsters vs. Aliens, and 9 earned its second nomination for feature design.

Last year, the Annies courted controversy when Kung-Fu Panda swept the awards, shutting out the much-acclaimed (and eventual Oscar winner) WALL-E.

Below are a few of the big categories for features. You can see the full list here.

Best Animated Feature
"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - Sony Pictures Animation
"Coraline" - Laika
"Fantastic Mr. Fox" - 20th Century Fox
"The Princess and the Frog" - Walt Disney Animation Studios
"The Secret of Kells" - Cartoon Saloon
"Up" - Pixar Animation Studios

Directing in a Feature Production
Wes Anderson "Fantastic Mr. Fox" - 20th Century Fox
Pete Docter "Up" - Pixar Animation Studios
Christopher Miller, Phil Lord "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - Sony Pictures Animation
Hayao Miyazaki "Ponyo" - Studio Ghibli
Henry Selick "Coraline" - Laika

Writing in a Feature Production
Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach - "Fantastic Mr. Fox" - 20th Century Fox
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy - "Up" - Pixar Animation Studios
Timothy Hyde Harris and David Bowers - "Astro Boy" - Imagi Studios
Christopher Miller and Phil Lord - "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" - Sony Pictures Animation

[via Variety]

You're Rich! In Reputation, Anyway. The Whuffie Bank Is Here At Last. [Whuffie Bank]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:41:59 -0800

If you wished you could live off your sterling reputation, like the people in Cory Doctorow's Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, then rejoice — the Whuffie Bank has arrived.

Of course, right now it looks pretty basic: All it seems to do is tell you how many times someone on Twitter has mentioned you lately. Soon it'll tell you how many people on Facebook have done something or other. But it's just ramping up, and there are big plans. Eventually you'll "get a monthly salary based on your reputation. Whuffie is the world's first social currency."

Where will this money come from? Hard to say. Already, the Whuffie Bank is one of TechCrunch's Top 50 innovative startups of 2009. The biggest flaw in this plan, though, is that Doctorow's novel takes place in a largely post-scarcity world, and I don't quite think we're there yet. [The Whuffie Bank via ThreeFivesUp]

The Art of the Space Race [Defense]

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:35:28 -0800

Over at Berg London, Megan Prelinger has an amazing essay about the design of advertisements for defense industry companies during the mid-twentieth century space race. Interestingly, socialist-inspired designs were used to advertise anti-commie missile systems.

About this particular advertisement for Los Alamos Labs (which worked on weapons systems), Prelinger writes:

The blue spot disrupts the conventionally romantic stylization of planetary or solar bodies by contracting the sphere to its minimal form. [Artist Oli] Sihvonen here seems to reference the early 20th century Russian constructivists, with the prolonged vertical angular shape aimed at the planetary circle. It brings to mind El Lissitzsky's constructivist graphic composition Beat Back the Whites with the Red Wedge which pioneered the use of juxtaposed triangle and circle as a graphic strategy to represent political conflict. I find it ironic that the graphic legacy of Communist action should be re-articulated and put into service - whether with or without the artists' sanction - in the service of American Cold War-era weapons and civil space technological programming.

You can see more of these advertisements, along with design-geek analysis, at Berg London. Or you can pre-order a copy of Prelinger's forthcoming (gorgeous) book, Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-62.

Four New Iron Man Images Show The Softer Side Of Whiplash [Iron Man 2]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Check out the bespectacled Mickey Rourke, getting all pensive over his super power suit. We're used to seeing the new Iron Man 2 villain looking shirtless and electric-whip crazed. But these new set of pics show Whiplash's meditative moments.

Still can't wait to see the giant exploding, Robert Downey Jr. quipping madness that is another Iron Man movie. The film will be released May 7, 2010.

On Heroes, Carnies and Cockteasing Combine into Cheese [Heroes Recap]

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:40:00 -0800

Just when you thought Heroes might have a chance of getting good again, it comes back with an episode so bad that you'll yearn for the days when Hiro time-traveled to feudal Japan. Can't Sylar just die already?

In "The Five Stages," he can't. Which is just one of its many, many problems as an episode. Unfortunately it was also an episode where we finally get to take a good, long look at the carnival and it's so painfully pasteurized that you'll want to inject your eyes with heroin just to feel normal. So what's brewing among the carnies, anyway? Well, now that Hot Tattoo has told swordy Edgar that Samuel killed his brother, and Edgar escaped with help from Hiro, Samuel needs a new right-hand man. He picks a guy who has about a zillion right hands because he's a "multiplier," which means he can make a ton of copies of himself. In addition, this adds further evidence to the idea that every single power on Heroes was ripped off from X-Men. Honestly, they can't pay somebody to come up with a few cool, interesting powers that we haven't seen before?

Anyway Samuel is playing around with MultiBoy now, and asks him to deliver a message to HRG and the other Primatech emeriti. He also starts lecturing everybody within earshot about how awful the world is, and speculating about whether "we are the last generation on Earth." This lecture eventually merges spongily with a mishmash of Magneto-isms about how the mutants should live proudly out in the open (or at least in the scrubby fields of Southern Ohio) and have a homeland (in Southern Ohio). I think we all know what this mega-quake-causing dude is leading up to. MAKE US YOUR CARNIE RULERS OR WE'LL SHOVE THESE TECTONIC PLATES UP YOUR ASS.

Meanwhile, inexplicably, Hot Tattoo is still sucking up to Samuel even though she's said she knows what he did. I guess that's because her Sprint-sponsored daughter wants to stay in the carnival.

Then, in the only interesting subsubsubplot of the episode, Lauren comes over to HRG's place and he thinks he's on a date. When he confesses that he got married "before the sexual revolution," so he has no idea how to act, Lauren suddenly gets all weird and says, "Who said anything about sex?" Excuse me, missy, but I have a lot to say about you having sex with HRG because you guys are the only interesting couple on the show and you've been totally flirting with him. But OK, fine, I guess it's non-sexual flirting. I can accept that. But NO! I can't accept it because then when HRG gets a call and has to go to work, Lauren gets all up in his face and whiny about how he's canceling their date. WTF??? Are we on a date or not? And if we ARE on a date, then don't get all mean about how HRG used the word "sexual revolution." Is her mutant power killing anybody who has sex with her? Because if it's not, then she needs to be a little bit nicer when her DATE uses a phrase that contains the word sex. What is my point here? Don't fuck with my ship.

But in the meantime, on the date that might not be a date, Lauren isn't afraid to use all her CIA powers to help HRG use a phone to locate Claire and the carnival on Google maps. Did you know that SPRINT CAN USE TEH GOOG? Thankfully, Heroes has told you. Also, again with the bad product placement - why would you want to buy a phone that allows off-duty CIA agents to track you recreationally on Google? Isn't that bad somehow? My point ultimately is that Lauren and HRG are sublimating all that ambiguous sexual stuff into engaging in an extremely illegal game of stalk-the-Claire.

But that's just nothing compared to how Sylar and Peter are sublimating THEIR sexual tension. Oh my goodness. We join our buxom boys right after Mama Petrelli tells Peter that he hasn't entered the fifth stage of grief - you know, the one where you realize that your dead brother has been reconstituted as a mindfrak inside the head of a serial-killing mutant. So Peter, always the overachiever, decides to leapfrog right to the seventh stage of grief, where you take the powers of Rene the Haitian so that you can turn off Sylar's powers, beat the crap out of him, breathe heavily into his face while you lie on top of him dripping sweat and other bodily fluids, and tell him to give himself "body and soul" to your brother Nathan. Oh yeah, that stage of grief. We've all been there.

The fight scene between the newly-enhottened Peter and the always-smokin Sylar is probably the greatest moment in homoeroticism since I watched that Billy Herrington video. The fact is that Sylar has gone from being an extraneous character who should have died at the end of season 1, to being a cocktease for every person who wishes he would just have a giant gay mutant moment with Peter and then go around using his powers to turn every other hot guy on the show gay. Maybe they could bring back Invisible Man Christopher Eccleston for a Very Special Sylar Mutant Gay Episode. Seriously, how are we supposed to watch this "we are using wrestling as an excuse to give you some softcore homotastic moments" and not feel frustrated?

I'll tell you how: First of all, the lameness; Second of all, the drooly, dorky look on Peter's face when the homogasm is over (see video). Let's begin by investigating the aforementioned lameness. Why would Peter be so stupid as to believe that Nathan is really inside Sylar, or that even if he WERE, that Sylar isn't faking letting him out so that Peter will get all shmoopy with him? More to the point: WHY DOES PETER BELIEVE THAT SYLAR HAS BECOME NATHAN AGAIN? We don't know. The double lameness is that Peter doesn't kill Sylar when he has a chance, especially given that he should know Sylar is in there AND given that he never really liked Nathan anyway. Seriously, what is this, the millionth time that somebody had a chance to kill Sylar and didn't?

And as for the tragic edge-of-the-roof goodbye suicide moment, whoa. Peter does NOT look good from that angle. And of course as soon as Sylar falls out of range of Rene's powers, he reSylarizes and looks mega-hot while Peter is still in crumple-face mode. I am going to have to take back everything I said about Peter rehottening, because that scene just drained all the sex out of every relationship on this show, and I think we can probably blame it for making Lauren not want to jump HRG's bones right away.

As if all this wasn't awful enough, Claire decides to stay at the carnival for a while after watching some meathead non-mutant beat up on Samuel - which is all part of Samuel's plan to make himself appear sensitive even though he's a dirt-loving protofascist. Turns out the meathead even has a good reason for punching Sammy, since the carnival's business model is using mutant powers to rip people off. I love the idea that Claire thinks the carnival is where "we can all be ourselves" - which means cheating and lying to regular folk for cash. During the carnival scenes, which Gretchen correctly identifies as a "bad Fellini movie," I kept wishing the Jim Rose Sideshow would come in and beat the shit out of everybody. Especially when Hot Tattoo gives Claire a "reading," and a tattoo of Claire shows up on her back over the words "indestructible girl."

Claire laughs and says, "So I'm going to have a circus act?" And Hot Tattoo is all, "no, that isn't your future - it's your desire." WTF kind of power is "I show you your desire represented as a circus freak act"? And also, that doesn't explain what she showed Samuel at the beginning of the season - people who were clearly in his future, not his "desire." Unless he "desires" Hiro and Sylar (which could be kind of awesome, once I wash that image of Peter's face out of my neocortex).

There is even a fuckwitty scene of Claire integrating into the carnie life by telling a bunch of carnie kids a story about a very special frog who wanted to be special. But then the thing that really clinches her wish to join up is running into the puppetmaster guy who mind-raped her and her mother and tried to murder them. But now he's better because he's a carnie who cheats people out of small amounts of cash? Why would she want to join a group where people use their powers to mess with unwitting tourists and her former mind-rapist is hanging out having a blast?

Could it be that she's persuaded by Samuel's dumb speech about how families are about love, which is why the carnies need to recruit as many mutants as possible to come live in their "a homeland." Are the mutants supposed to be Jews now? Wandering in Southern Ohio until they find their homeland? Seriously? Wow, I have just discovered that my mutant power is an ability to slap my palm into my face 40 thousand times per second.

Tune in next year when nobody has sex and Sylar remains completely irrelevant unless he has some gay and/or "questioning" mutant experiences. Seriously - Zach Quinto needs hot mutant boy action that doesn't end in scrunchyface tears.

Superheroic Attractions From Marvel's Dubai Theme Park [Concept Art]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:20:00 -0800

In 2007, Marvel Entertainment announced its plans to open a theme park in Dubai. Now concept designs from the project have emerged, revealing lots of Spider-Man-themed thrills, a rocket-powered Stark Labs, and a city filled with Superheroes.

There's no word on how Disney's recent acquisition of Marvel (or Dubai's recent economic woes) will affect the development of the Marvel park in Dubai, but reportedly the plan is to open its doors in 2012. Off-site testing has already begun on at least three attractions: Flying with Spidey, Fantasticar and X-Men: Danger Room.

These concept illustrations come from Chimera Design, and show several designs from the park's planned City of Super Heroes, as well as a map of the park.

Dubai World Marvel Super Heroes Theme Park Concept [Disney and More via Neatorama]

This Weekend On io9, A Mystery Will Unfold [Teaser]

Annalee Newitz — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0800

On Saturday, find out more. And play along!

Reclaiming Your Humanity Means Killing A Whole Lot Of People [Rant]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:55:39 -0800

Wolverine, out on DVD recently, is a great example of one of the silliest clichés in escapist entertainment: someone reclaims his/her true humanity and unique individuality — by killing everyone in sight. What the hell is this about?

Speculative fiction is full of stories about people who've lost their identity – AMC just gave us a dreamlike remake of The Prisoner in which Number Six forgets who he really is, and Dollhouse returns Friday with more mind-erasing fun. But it's weird to see the trope of "fighting for selfhood" merged with that action-movie staple, the entertaining killing spree.

Recently, I was re-watching chunks of X-Men: Origins: Wolverine and thinking about that movie's insane body-count — both before and after Logan starts trying to regain his elusive humanity. In Wolverine, the mutant known as Logan is caught between his bestial nature and his dignity as an individual. For a hundred-odd years, he is a slaughter machine for the military, and then he joins a super-secret mutant taskforce. But in mid-atrocity, he suddenly starts questioning orders, and then he goes… rogue. (No, he doesn't bleach part of his hair and start talking in a Southern-girl voice. He just wanders off the reservation.)

The point is, Wolverine is just as much of a killing machine after he starts asserting that he's not just part of the machine, or not just an animal. He never makes the connection between the sacredness of his own personhood, and the sacredness of human life in general. I get that you have to fight for your freedom sometimes, but the movie makes a big point of showing Wolverine killing when he could just as easily disable his opponents — one of the movie's few great fuck-yeah moments involves cold-blooded murder. (Sure, he's killing scumbags. But he was just as much of a scumbag twenty minutes earlier.)

Likewise, Terminator Salvation (newly on DVD) gives us Sam Worthington's tormented cyborg Marcus, who discovers that he's basically a reanimated corpse with metal parts — and he makes the choice to be human, slaughtering several of John Connor's men in the process. (During his heroic escape from the resistance compound.) But it's okay, because Marcus' emergent selfhood is more important than any sense of self all of those dead people might have possessed. (Actually, I might need to — shudder — rewatch this sequence. I know a bunch of the rebels die, but some of them die due to hydrobots that attack afterwards. Does Marcus actually kill anybody directly, or just cause their deaths by tearing apart their security?)

And then, of course, there's District 9, in which Wikus also fights to regain his humanity — by putting on a battlesuit and shredding people with alien weapons. This film at least subverts this trope a bit, by having Wikus use alien weaponry that he's only able to use because he's losing his humanity — and the film doesn't exactly reward Wikus for his mass murder.

This odd combination — the hero who devalues human life in the process of exalting his own — has been around for ages, but seems to be on the rise. RoboCop and the Universal Soldier movies give us cyborg heroes who struggle to re-humanize while killing lots of other humans. Michael Bay (surprise!) gave us The Island, in which a clone grown as an organ donor kills his "original" self, along with a number of other people, on the way to becoming a full-fledged person.

For almost as long as there have been action movies, there's been the high body count: watching a Rambo movie in the 1980s, you don't stop and think that everyone of these bodies flopping to the ground is another person who won't come home to his/her family. It's one of the conventions of action movies that we accept that this carnage isn't really happening – even as the movie expects us to suspend our disbelief about a guy falling out of a helicopter on fire and surviving, it asks us to maintain full disbelief that mass murder is taking place in front of us.

On some level, too, we stop thinking that those people dying in front of us are really people – especially in a movie with tons of bad CG (like Wolverine). We can watch the corpses piling up because we know they're not human.

But the action-movie body count and the "search for identity" plot are great separately — I love a good John Woo bloodbath — but they sit uneasily together. The more people we see your cyborg or mutant kill — and the more casually they're killed — the less we can identify with our hero's quest for selfhood. The whole thing starts to feel more like a first-person shooter, and the main character more like a video-game avatar, rather than an individual who Deserves Human Rights and all that stuff.

If life is so cheap, then who really cares about Logan's quest for self? Not to pick on Wolverine, but these questions keep coming back as you watch the movie, as if they have a mutant healing factor.

How do you square the contrast, between the hero's inalienable uniqueness and everyone else's disposability? Maybe it's because Our Hero is a Nietzschean ubermensh, whose will to power makes his individuality more precious than everyone else's? What do you think?

It's A Stargate Universe Alien Taste Test, In A New Clip [Stargate]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:41:46 -0800

Check out a clip from this week's new Stargate Universe — by the looks of it they've finally found something to eat. But is it any good? Simple solution: make the crazy guy eat it. Watch his reaction.

This is the type of humor I really miss from this Stargate series, so I'm happy this is back, even if he is talking into a Kino. But this week's SGU isn't about non-sweet potatoes, it's all about murder aboard the Destiny. And sadly, I don't think it involves a group of role playing Southerners at a fancy dinner party.

The new SGU titled, "Justice" (ugh), will be on Syfy at 8 PM, this Friday.

We've Already Got Our First Must-See From Next Year's SDCC [Grant Morrison]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Next year's San Diego Comic-Con may still be eight months away, but we've already found something there we can't wait to see: A biographical documentary about Final Crisis, We3 and Batman writer Grant Morrison. Click through for clips.

Wired's Underwire blog premiered these two clips from Patrick Meaney's upcoming documentary on the Scottish writer, teasing his particular take on George Bush (and world leaders in general) and why our Earth would seem like hell to fictional characters:

Featuring not just a lengthy interview with Morrison about his life and work - including the alien abduction that led to his 1990s series The Invisibles - but also contributions from friends and collaborators like Blackest Night and Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns, Seaguy and Invisibles artist Cameron Stewart, and DC Executive Editor Dan Didio, Meaney plans to have the movie (tentatively called Grant Morrison: The Documentary Film) complete in time for a world premiere at SDCC 2010. We'll see you in line.

Counterculture Comics Hero Grant Morrison Gets a Biopic [The Underwire/Wired]

A Forest-Filled Jenga Tower Grows in China [Architecture]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:40:00 -0800

This may look like an unfinished game of Jenga, but plans are in motion to build this oddly-shaped skyscraper to the city of Chongqing, China. If it doesn't leave residents fearing falling blocks, it could add greenery to the city.

MAD Architects has just unveiled the Urban Forest, the latest vertical garden to grace the world of concept design. Each floor features garden space and some of the floors are completely open, containing only plant life in lieu of the residential and office space on the enclosed floors. The abstract floors are meant to evoke an organic look, and the transparent outer walls give the impression that each floor hovers above the last.

MAD Architects are the authors of some truly bizarre and ambitious projects, not the least of which is their idea for a star-shaped mobile city, aptly called the Superstar. The Superstar is meant to travel from city to city and be more than self-sustaining energy-wise, feeding power back into its host city.

MAD architects: urban forest [Designboom via Inhabitat]

How Many Twilights Are Left For Movie Fans? [Twilight]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:29:42 -0800

While New Moon threatens to become the new Dark Knight, Summit Entertainment are pondering what to do with the last book in the series: Make it into a movie, or make it into two movies?

By splitting Breaking Dawn into two separate movies, Summit would be following in Warners' Harry Potter footsteps; that studio will release the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in two installments on November 2010 and July 2011 respectively. But while such a move would mean the chance for two box office smashes instead of one, it also means renegotiating the contracts for the franchise's stars, as well as entering into new negotiations for approval from Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer.

Complicating matters is the choice of director; Summit are said to be eager for New Moon's Chris Weitz to return, but he may not be available, having already lined up his next project... which is also a Summit project, and still requiring final approval. Would the studio bribe Weitz by promising to greenlight whatever he wants? Will Meyer stand in the way of another movie? Will we have to deal with Twihards for longer than we'd originally thought? Only time will tell.

Summit's 'Twilight' dilemma [Variety]