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Scariest Dinosaur-On-Dinosaur Violence Ever Filmed? [Found Footage]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:30:00 -0800

Just how crazy were film-makers willing to get to convey the awfulness of dinosaur combat, back in the day? Check out this horrendous sequence from 1960's Irwin Allen spectacular The Lost World, in which lizards covered with makeup battle.

When I watched this film on TV a while back, I was on the fence about whether those were real-life lizards fighting — their motions were so jerky, their skins so fake-looking, I just thought they were really well-done Harryhausen-style stop-motion creations. But no — as various commenters have pointed out, those are real life lizards, being harmed in the making of this film. As English professor Michael Delahoyde puts it on his Dino-Films page:

The dinosaurs are photographically enlarged lizards, and are enjoyable to see eating and slurping the air, but distressing to see encumbered with all the glued-on crap to make them into things that look like dinosaurs only insofar as they don't look like lizards anymore. Pitting the two lizards against each other for the fight scene is inexcusable. More humans need to be killed instead.

It is really depressing to think of the film-makers making the lizards fight, just for a dumb spectacle. We definitely do not condone cruelty to lizards or other critters in the making of terrible monster movies.

In any case, to make it up to you, here's a giant green spider that hopefully was allowed to scuttle away unharmed after this take:

How To Make Macy's Thanksgiving Parade More Scifi-Friendly [Steal This Organizational Pitch]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:30:00 -0800

If Thanksgiving is about one thing, it's not turkey, family or even giving thanks. It's about watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and complaining about the floats, balloons and special guests. Here's what we'd rather see instead.

Don't get me wrong, we're almost as happy as the next man that Spider-Man is getting his long overdue day in the sun this year, but it's not enough. The Thanksgiving Day parade we'd want to be watching would have to include some of the following:

A Yoda Balloon
To be honest, we have no idea how this hasn't happened already. If ever there was a fictional character more suitable for translating into giant inflatable form that isn't named Pikachu or Snoopy, we'd like to meet them. It's not like Star Wars isn't popular enough, or that George Lucas doesn't have the Clone Wars TV show to promote. Why hasn't this happened yet?

A Partially-Deflated Superman Balloon
Because who doesn't want to see more of this?

A Brock Samson Balloon
Yeah, you heard us. And he can be pulled by lots of people dressed as the Monarch's henchmen. Admittedly, this may just be part of our Venture Bros-filled dream lives that would also include a Venture musical, complete with singing Hank and Dean and Nathan Lane as Phantom Limb. But until then, we can comfort ourselves with the dream of a giant, mulleted balloon of black t-shirt-wearing pain smoking and floating throughout the streets of a cold New York November morning, terrifying evildoers and NBC announcers alike.

Scenes From The Spider-Man Musical Being Performed In Front Of Macy's For An Unenthusiastic Audience
Just as every year's parade features special guests from the latest Broadway hit miming a song from their show while jumping about trying to desperately keep warm, why not give everyone a chance to see what U2 and Julie Taymor have cooked up for the perpetually-troubled Spider-Man musical Turn Off The Dark, thereby convincing everyone once and for all that Arena Rock and outsider superheroes really isn't a good fit after all. After all, given all the troubles the production has gone through already, this kind of performance may be the only time anyone will see anything from the show.

Stargate Universe Float
This is another no-brainer. What better way for the newest Stargate to win over new audiences than with a float filled with cast members to sum up what the series is all about? This is what I picture: The float itself looks like a scale version of the Destiny, with Scott and Chloe having sex on one side, Rush and Eli looking at computer screens and frowning, before Young walks up and shouts at them, leaving TJ to one side, looking on concerned. At the back of the float, Greer can look crazy and shoot his gun in the air, and somewhere, Camille can have multiple showers because that's what she seems to do if last Friday's two shower scenes are anything to go by. How could that not make everyone want to tune in on a regular basis?

Make those changes, and all it'd take would be the addition of Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell as replacement Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieiras (with Mark Sheppard taking the Al Roker wandering reporter role, of course; he has to be in everything, after all), and the show would be perfect. Well, for us, anyway. What changes would you need to make you have to tune in?

Bioshock Paintings Take Glourious Neon and Art Deco Underwater [Concept Art]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0800

Tim Warnock has provided concept artwork and designs for Watchmen and Harry Potter. Just for fun, he's created a series of stunning matte paintings that capture Bioshock's underwater city of Rapture in its glory days, all shimmering art deco.

[The Next Side via Super Punch]

Twilight Heroin And Biting Fans: More WTF Twilight Stories [New Moon]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:30:00 -0800

Last week we brought you the 30 Most Disturbing Twilight products, and since New Moon's release, the crazy just hasn't stopped pouring in. One man bit a Twi-hard, someone created a vibrating Edward doll — and there is Twilight-themed heroin.

Heroin For Teens!

TMZ has a picture of Twilight Heroin baggies taken from West Hempstead, Long Island. Apparently they've been getting more popular these last few months.

Random Bitings

An ABC affiliate is reporting that a 17-year-old girl was bitten by a man after getting harassed in a New Moon screening.

The victim was watching the teen vampire romance movie with another friend when she says a man behind them started making sexual comments to them. After the movie was over, the man allegedly bit the girl on the neck. The bite did not break the girl's skin.

Ugh.

Vibrating Edward

And finally this super fan from Pillow Biters made a plastic pocket size vibrating Edward doll, and then had the actor who plays Jasper autograph it. Come on — you could of at least taped Jasper's face to it!

And thanks to New Moon.org for pointing out that you can make Edward and Jacob kiss in the new EW magazine spread.

Traci Lords Is "A Princess Of Mars." God Help Us All. [Princess Of Mars]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:22:22 -0800

Can't wait another couple years for the Andrew Stanton-Michael Chabon John Carter Of Mars movie? You don't have to. Asylum, maker of so many bargain-basement epics, is putting out Princess Of Mars now. The trailer reveals Traci Lords' Deja Thoris.

Since Edgar Rice Burroughs' books are public domain, Asylum is fre to create their own take on the story of Deja Thoris, even to the point of inflicting Traci Lords on us again. And of course, they get to tie in with the John Carter-inspired Avatar as well as the eventual John Carter movie.

Here's that trailer:

And here are some utterly dismal sills, showing Traci Lords in her be-bikinied glory:

[via Slashfilm and Undead Backbrain]

Top 10 Most Ridiculous Soap Operas Of All Time [Top 10]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:40:00 -0800

People are complaining that Stargate Universe is becoming a soap opera, but don't worry — it's got a ways to go before it reaches the levels of science fiction/fantasy's most demented, silliest soap operas.

So here are the most insane SF soaps we could think of — but I bet we missed some good ones. What are your favorites? Pipe up in comments with the lurid details!

Top image by Dennys Ilic. Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Heroes

You can pick any character from this show and get a headache trying to figure out all the story twists he or she has gone through. Take Matt Parkman: He's trying to keep his marriage together — No, wait! Now he's living with Mohinder and co-parenting Molly the mutant-detecting girl! — No, wait! Molly is out of the picture! And now Matt is becoming an African-esque shaman! — No, wait! Now Matt is in love with Daphne the speedster, who's the Love Of His Life! — No, wait! Now Matt is back with his wife, and will never think about Daphne again! — No, wait! Etc. etc. etc. My favorite, though, is probably Peter's girlfriend trapped in an alternate dystopian future — whom we will never mention again! Ha ha ha ha urk. (Matt Loves Daphne wallpaper from Fanpop.)

Alias

This show started off pretty coherent — but around the third brainwashing or the tenth revelation that Sidney's mother's cousin was really the spy behind brainwashing Sidney to think her half-sister was a chicken. I defy anybody to explain to me the tangled backstory of the Bristow family.

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein:

I made a dreadful mistake: This was the first Heinlein book I ever read — and it may have ruined me for Heinlein forever. In the late Heinlein novels, every character ever shows up, and they mostly have sex together, interspersed with a lot of drama and philosophizing. It's a sequel to The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress as well as Number Of The Beast, and features characters from several other books — including Jubal Harshaw, Lazarus Long and Hazel Stone, and it turns out that all of Heinlein's characters have previously unsuspected connections to each other. As reviewer James W. Harris puts it:

Having all of his "good" guys sound like a convention of smarmy talking wife-swappers is just gross. I hate to sound like a teenage girl, but damn, Heinlein's kissy-kissy talk and innuendo just made me want to puke. And making his classic characters act out in this limp-dick porn flick is just tragic. Having them go on and on about how they were going to kill people for bad manners is just a little psycho to me. Evidently a lot of people and situations annoyed the hell out of Heinlein and he used this book to vent. Some people want to call this satire but I think that's whitewash.

Maybe Heinlein lost his mojo and these multiverse stories were the best he could do. Personally, I thought The Rolling Stones was a perfect novel, and bringing back Hazel Stone was a fictionally fuck-up of an idea, ditto for the cast of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Maybe I am a prude because I just don't want the Hazel Stone, grandmother of Castor and Pollux, joking about being stretched out of shape by giant 25 centimeter cock.

All of Heinlein's personally favorite characters get put into a fictional juicer and blended into weird rabble of sex obsessed mob that chirp a weird innuendo patter and are almost impossible to tell apart. When I read these multiverse stories I can't help but believe that horniness was driving Heinlein crazy. These later stories are preoccupied with sex, killing people, responding to annoying people, the reliability of witnesses, rude people deserving capital punishment, and so on.

Venture Bros.:

At least this show is ridiculous on purpose — the ultra-demented story of the Venture clan has gotten more and more involved, with Sergeant Hatred's struggle against his pedophilic past taking center stage, and deformed clones and weird villain love affairs aplenty. Most of all, there are the labyrinthine family elements crossing over into everything, like the revelation that Dean was also the head of the Guild. The same characters and their families end up being connected in ever more improbable and weird ways, making our heads spin.

Battlestar Galactica:

I have four (or possibly five) words for you: "Hotdog is the father." Whaaa? There's also the great way Baltar went from being a slimy scientist to being a slimy politician to being a slimy cult leader — and what happened to the baby that Baltar and Six were going to have together? Oh and while we're on the subject, what about Saul Tigh being crazy-chicken in love with Caprica Six — until she has a miscarriage, and then he never thinks about her again? It all makes you want to grip your television and scream (in a Krazy Starbuck voice) "You're going the wrong way!"

Sonic The Hedgehog (comics):

According to the always great TVTropes website, this comic-book tie-in to the popular video game went whirling off on crazier tangents than a flying hedgehog on crack. To quote TVTropes:

The Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog series twisted Sonic's love life into a Gordian Knot: Originally hooked up with Sally Acorn, she got stuck ruling the country and shoved the relationship to the side to focus on her new duties, prompting Sonic to fall in with Mina Mongoose, starting a rivalry between the two women for Sonic's affection. He then started seeing Fiona Fox on the side, which not only pissed off Mina and Sally, but Tails, as well, who had a crush on her due to falling in love with a robotic duplicate created by Robotnik several years earlier (don't ask). Eventually, Mina got her own boyfriend, Sally got Sonic once again, and Tails got tossed into a brick wall by Fiona, who gave them all the finger to have a relationship with Sonic's evil clone from another universe. And that's not even counting the mini-tangle between Antoine, Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, and Antoine's evil clone from the same universe Fiona's new beau comes from.

Got it? Great.

Gundam Wing:

Okay, let's get this straight... Relena Darlian discovers she's really adopted, and her real name is Relena Peacecraft, one of the last survivors of the pacifistic (duh) Peacecraft tribe. And then it turns out that Zechs Marquise is her long lost older brother. Meanwhile, she gets obsessed with Heero, a young whackjob who keeps announcing he's going to kill her, not unlike the "I'm going to rape you" guy in Welcome To The Dollhouse. And that's just scratching the surface of the most confusing, tangly saga of all time, involving endless backstory and weird family crap.

Angel:

I was going to do Charmed, Angel's fellow WB series which had the whole "my ex-husband is a half-demon" thing, but Angel is so much more ridiculous — mostly because of Cordy, who is in love with Groosalugg, until she's in love with Angel instead, but meanwhile she's turned into a half-demon and then she becomes a Higher Power, until she comes back and has sex with Angel's son — who, as someone points out, is practically her stepson since she helped care for him as a baby — and then becomes pregnant and evil — until she gives birth to an evil god. Nothing on parent show Buffy was as incestuous and ridiculous as Cordy's arc on Angel. Oh, actually, wait — Cordelia was pregnant twice on Angel.

Robotech:

Sure, it was supposedly about the giant mechas, but it was really all about the tragic loves and the tormented Rick-Minmei-Lisa love triangle. To quote Wikipedia,

In early 2013, while sitting at an outdoor cafe, [Lisa] contemplates the love triangle between the three of them when she overhears two men talking about how women were "dealt all the aces" when it comes to relationships, to which Lisa says to herself "that's all you know...here's one woman who would trade every ace in the deck for one Rick Hunter.

Sigh. Twoo Love. Here's a great fanvid featuring the music of White Town. Yay!

X-Men (comics):

This, of course, is the most insane soap opera imaginable. At this point, the X-men have had illegitmate babies from the future, secret love affairs, doomed passions and multiple bad transcriptions of all sorts of accents, from Cajun to Scottish. My favorite ridiculous soap-opera twist might be Madrox's night of passion with two female members of X-Factor: Siryn and Monet, resulting in a pregnancy that isn't quite a normal pregnancy. But then there's also the whole insane Rogue/Gambit thing, the Scott/Jean/Wolverine/Emma love doodaddle, and of course Professor X turning out to be secretly in love with Jean Grey. That's just scratching the surface, really. If you want more info, check out the X-Men relationship map — which is probably already out of date!

Tron Legacy Video Game Peeks Into The New Tron World [Tron]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:27:21 -0800

Here's a quickie clip from the new Tron Legacy video game. The characters actually look super sleek compared to the old Tron computer guard, and so do the revamped light cycles. Check out the new world for programs.

TRON Video Game to Premiere at Video Game Awards 2009! | SpikeTV | SPIKE.com

A much longer clip will be shown at the Spike Video Game Awards on December 12th.

The Science Of Science Fiction Gets Its Own Mythbusting Show [Physics Of The Impossible]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:45:00 -0800

Will we ever get real-life teleportation devices? How invisible will an invisibility cloak make you? What are the rules for plausible time travel? A new television series will look at technologies found in science fiction and what could become fact.

The Science Channel has just announced a new series Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, inspired by the book by string theory co-founder Michio Kaku. Kaku will host each episode of the series, which will explore a single topic from science fiction and whether it might be plausible. Kaku's book has examined a range of popular science fiction ideas, including phasers, force fields, telepathy, psychokinesis, faster than light travel, and perpetual motion devices.

The first two episodes will air on the Science Channel on December 1, at 10pm. The first episode is titled "How to Explore the Universe," and the second "How to Travel to a Parallel Universe."

"Sci-Fi Science" TV Series Begins in December [Slice of SciFi]

Family Guy's Empire Spoof Brings Us Mesh Shirted Stormtroopers [Star Wars]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:34:03 -0800

Family Guy's The Empire Strikes Back trailer is out and loaded up with the usual gags and jokes, watching Stewie play Darth Vader never gets old.

The official title is Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side and it's out on DVD December 22. I'm already thinking this may be better than Blue Harvest.

David Tennant's Final Whos Add Some More Fanservice [Doctor Who]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Just how much can outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies tie up in his final two Doctor Who specials? How about answering a question no-one even knew they had about a throwaway line from Torchwood? Spoilers!

Remember being told that Martha Jones was on her honeymoon during Torchwood: Children Of Earth? Well, according to Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnson, "The End of Time" two-parter will reveal that Martha didn't marry Tom Milligan, her boyfriend from "The Last of The Time Lords." No, she'll apparently be married to Mickey Smith, AKA Rose's Ex-Boyfriend AKA Formerly One Of The Most Annoying Characters Of The New Series. We can only hope that they name their first child "Dalek."

Doctor Who: Just Who Did Martha Marry? (SPOILERS) [Bleeding Cool]

Will Global Warming Lead To War? [Global War-ming]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:30:00 -0800

We've all heard the arguments about what effect global warming will have on the planet, but what effect will it have on humanity? A new study suggests that one effect could be more warfare.

A research team led by Stanford University's David Lobell and Marshall Burke at the University of California, Berkeley, has uncovered a possible link between temperature and violence. Mapping connections between African civil wars and local temperature between 1981 and 2002, the team discovered a "strong relationship" between temperature spikes and civil war, leading them to predict a 54 per cent rise in the incidence of civil war by 2030 unless current estimates of global warming are somehow curbed. We await Al Gore's statement on the matter.

African conflicts spurred by warming [New Scientist]

Tasty Foods That Would Rather Eat You for Dinner [Triviagasm]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US, a time when families gather around the table and chow down on tasty treats. But, when it comes to being eaten, some foods are less agreeable than others; some would rather eat you.

Granted, not all of these foods will actually devour you; some will simply kill you or turn you into their zombie slave. But all are best approached with caution, and should only be handled by chefs with combat training.

Killer Tomatoes (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes): After years of being made into ketchup and mistaken for vegetables, the tomatoes get their revenge, and a killer theme song.

The Stuff (The Stuff): It's not clear what would possess a man to taste a slimy substance he found out in the woods, but it turns out the Stuff is delicious, addictive, and contains no calories. It also turns out that the Stuff is alive, and it chews on your brain until you've transformed into a nice, pliable zombie.

Bubble Shock! (The Sarah Jane Adventures "Invasion of the Bane"): Another zombifying substance is Bubble Shock!, a fizzy organic beverage. But it's actually an alien life form, one that turns drinkers into slaves of Mother Bane. While it doesn't have quite the brain-mushing powers of the Stuff, Bubble Shock! has a viral quality, with Bane zombies offering the beverage to anyone who hasn't tried it.

Popplers (Futurama "The Problem with Popplers"): Another mysterious foodstuff found lying on the ground, popplers are incredibly delicious nuggets of meaty goodness. There are just two problems: first, popplers are intelligent; second, they're the juvenile form of the ornery Omicronians, and Lrrr, the Omicronian ruler, thinks it's only fair that he should get to eat a human to set things right.

The Blue Plate Special (Spaceballs): Poor John Hurt. When he tried to enjoy a meal in Alien, he had a chestburster pop right out of him. Then he sits down for the blue plate special at a diner in Spaceballs and meets with the same fate.

Curry Monster (Red Dwarf "DNA"): In a typically boneheaded move, the crew of the Red Dwarf test a DNA modifier on a container of vindaloo, creating a monster that's half man, half Indian takeaway.

Killer Pizzas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Case of the Killer Pizzas"): The pizza-loving foursome find that sometimes their favorite food can get a case of the munchies. An alien species from Dimension X lays eggs that happen to look like meatballs, and they manage to land on a handful of pizzas. Pop your pizza in the microwave, and those little critters hatch mean and hungry.

TMNT - Case of the killer pizzas

Wolfbullet | MySpace Video

Pizza the Hut (Spaceballs): He's delicious enough that he ate himself to death, but woe unto those who cross this cheesy gangster. They'll learn what it's like to have Pizza send out for you.

Bezoar Eggs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Bad Eggs"): When Buffy and the crew are given eggs to babysit as a class assignment, it seems like a minor nuisance. But it turns out those aren't chicken eggs they're faux parenting; they actually hatch bezoars, little parasites that attach to your brain stem (and, like all good parasites, render you their zombie slave). And Xander gets a nasty surprise when he hardboils his egg son and decides to enjoy a mid-afternoon snack.

Evil Gingerbread Men (The Tick, The Gingerdead Man): Be they the product of an eager baker or possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, these confections can be downright deadly. You'd imagine, though, that milk would be a major weakness.

Werewolf (Angel "Unleashed"): Werewolf is considered a delicacy among certain sadistic members of the Los Angeles elite. Unfortunately, werewolves tend to revert to their human form once they're killed, so they have to be served alive while the meat is carved off. But if the werewolf isn't properly restrained, you could end up on the menu.

Wub ("Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick): Again, it's rarely a smart idea to eat a species you happen to find just hanging out on another planet, especially if it's capable of literary discussions. The pig-like wub will let you eat it, but there's a hefty price; the wub will completely take over your body, essentially booting out your soul through your stomach.

Martian Water (Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars"): Actually, you don't even need to drink water containing the Flood to contract its zombifying contagion — just touching it will do the trick. Still, drinking the water is ill-advised.

Kandy Man (Doctor Who "The Happiness Patrol"): The good news is that this licorice-based robot won't actually devour you. The bad news is that, if you aren't visibly happy at all times, it will kill you — likely by drowning you in super sugary fondant.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters): Sure, Stay Puft nearly demolished the entire island of Manhattan in the service of Gozer. But that toasted marshmallow glop that dropped on the Ghostbusters at the end of the move looked mighty tasty.

Ebola Cola (Transmetropolitan): As the slogan goes, "You Drink It, It Eats You."

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Aqua Teen Hunger Force): A mutated meatball, milkshake, and carton of french fries, the Aqua Teens get into all sorts of mayhem, which often gets various creatures (and occasionally Maser Shake) killed. I probably wouldn't put eating the remains past them either, given the right situation.

Triffids (Day of the Triffids): Triffids have a lot going for them. They're a great source of vegetable oil (making them valuable crops), and they can fight off any potential predators with their venomous whips. Plus, they love to feed on rotting meat, which is easy to obtain once most of humanity has been struck blind.

Tom Turkey (The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XIX"): Since it's Thanksgiving week, this musket-wielding bird will cap off our list. After rescuing the children of Springfield from the murderous Grand Pumpkin, Tom Turkey gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner. But once he learns what people eat on Thanksgiving, he starts gobble-gobbling up the children himself.

Kim Stanley Robinson Takes Us Back Out Into The Solar System, 300 Years From Now [Kim Stanley Robinson]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:36:18 -0800

Orbit Books signed Kim Stanley Robinson to a three-book deal in both the U.S. and U.K., and the first book of that deal takes place in the year 2312, when the human race has abandoned the Earth.

Robinson, the author of the Mars trilogy, The Years Of Rice And Salt, the Three Californias trilogy and the Science In The Capitol series, has a new novel coming out in the U.S. next month: Gallileo's Dream, in which the pioneering astronomer receives a telescope that allows him to see Jupiter three thousand years from now, when our descendants live there. By all accounts, it's a fascinating look at the man who may have been the first real scientist.

And Robinson's following book, provisionally titled 2312, also sounds great. According to Tim Holman, Orbit VP and Publisher:

Kim Stanley Robinson is a writer who can make the future credible, no matter how incredible it might seem. 2312 will be set in our solar system three hundred years from now; a solar system in which mankind has left Earth and found new habitats. This will be a novel for anyone curious to see what our future looks like – a grand science-fictional adventure in every sense – and I'm thrilled that Orbit will be publishing it in both the US and the UK.

Top image of the Gallilean satellites from NASA. [Orbit Books]

Man Thought to Be in a 23-Year Coma Was Conscious the Whole Time [Mad Medicine]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:30:00 -0800

It's a nightmarish medical scenario: a man spent 23 years paralyzed but conscious while his doctors believed he was in a vegetative state. And his situation might be more common than we'd like to think.

When he was 20 years old, Rom Houben was involved in a car accident that left him completely paralyzed. The accident didn't place him in a coma, however, and he tried desperately to communicate with those around him, but to no avail. Dr. House may have recognized "locked-in" syndrome in a few minutes, but Houben's doctors spent 23 years believing their patient was a vegetable, leaving Houben to experience nothing outside the hospital soap operas playing out in his room (apparently, his nurses were frequent gossips).

How did this happen? Houben's doctors determined that he was in a coma using the Glasgow Coma Scale, a widely used system that evaluates eye movement and motor responses. The trouble is that while Houben's body was functioning like a coma patient, his cerebral cortex was still chugging along. It took a brain scan to reveal that Houben was still fully conscious, and he is currently able to communicate thanks to a keyboard that responds to the barest tremors he can coax from his right hand.

While one would hope Houben was the unlucky winner of a terrifying medical lottery, situations like his may not be rare. Neurologist Steven Laureys, who performed the revealing brain scan on Houben, says that in 40 percent of supposedly vegetative patients he examined, brain scans revealed some level of consciousness. Both Houben and Laureys are advocating that doctors lean less on the Glasgow Scale and look more toward brain scans.

Brain scan finds man was not in a coma—23 years later [CNET]

FlashForward Halts Production: Is The Show In Danger? [Flashforward]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Has FlashForward become the next show to fall afoul of network micromanagement? ABC have halted production on the series until after Thanksgiving in order to — according to an official statement — "boost the writing."

This news follows both the show's steady fall in the ratings — last week saw the series beaten by Fox's Bones for the first time; overall, FlashForward has lost a third of its audience since its premiere — and co-showrunner Marc Guggenheim leaving staff last month. An ABC spokesman said that the reason for the production halt was because the network wanted "to maintain the high quality of the show, and this gives the writers the opportunity to do so."

This shutdown follows ABC's similar decision for V in August, a halt that grew in length and led to two different replacements of showrunner before the series even premiered. Is FlashForward co-creator and current showrunner David Goyer about to find himself ousted in favor of someone that ABC feels more comfortable taking the show to April 29th 2010?

ABC halts 'FlashForward' [Variety]

Photographer Documents Melting Icecaps, Celebrates Our Cyborg Evolution [Eco-dystopia]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:30:00 -0800

Photographer James Balog is best known for his death-defying trips to Iceland, Greenland and Alaska, where he's documented the melting icecaps using photos and time-lapse images. But he's also made stunning images of cyborgs and "techno sapiens."

Balog was just written up in the Wall Street Journal for his Extreme Ice Survey, which involves a mix of mountaineering and nature photography to capture the effects of global warming. Balog explains:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for "Extreme Ice Survey"?

A: The New Yorker asked me to shoot a story on climate change in 2005, and I wound up going to Iceland to shoot a glacier. The real story wasn't the beautiful white top. It ended up being at the terminus of the glacier where it's dying. That idea gestated in my mind for a year and eventually turned into the "Extreme Ice Survey" in 2006.

Q: How do images of glaciers collapsing bring the idea of climate change home?

A: There were a lot of repeat photos that showed glaciers retreating over a hundred years. That's pretty abstract. I wanted to show a shorter term time lapse that would make people think, "My god, little Emily was in first grade in April and she's in second grade in October. I remember this. It's happening in my life."

The EIS photos are arresting and heartbreaking — they show the icebergs breaking off from the glaciers and going out to sea, and in one case you can actually see an iceberg on a beach where surf and sand meet the deaths of the icecaps. There are some utterly lovely pictures of "meltwater" floating on top of the ice, as well as some disgusting images showing the silt-befouled water encroaching on the ice, over the past few years.

But meanwhile, Balog's site also has a section called "Techno Sapiens" which celebrates the cyborgs in our midst, including gorgeous looking artificial limbs and wearable computers. Back in 1996, Balog talked to Fortune Magazine about it:

On the following pages, photographer James Balog documents what he calls Techno sapiens: fusions of humans and machines that can be found today in American research labs and hospitals, and even on the streets. Add up the images, says Balog, and it's not hard to envision a race of flesh-and-technology beings with electric hands, legs of steel that run a two-minute mile, and perceptual powers unknown in nature. "Imagine you are a traveler from another galaxy," Balog says. "You land in North America today and look around carefully, with fresh eyes. This is what you might see."

It's an interesting contrast, but maybe not a contradiction: He worries what we're doing to the planet, but he's also celebrated the way we're transforming ourselves.

There are tons more photos at the links. [Extreme Ice Survey and James Balog Photography]

Icebergs 200 feet tall, formerly part of the Greenland Ice Sheet, float into the North Atlantic Ocean, raising sea levels as they melt.

Jökulsárlón, Iceland. Decaying ice and icebergs on the surface of the Jökulsárlón in southeast Iceland. The ice drains off the great icecap called the Vatnajökull.

Columbia Glacier, Alaska. Columbia Glacier calves icebergs into Columbia Bay west of Valdez, Alaska. The ice shown in the bergs was deposited in snowstorms 300 to 500 years ago.

Columbia Glacier, Alaska. Contrasts between clean glacial melt water and water laden with eroded silt color these lakes on the surface of the East Fork of Columbia Glacier. Black stripes are erosional debris called "moraines."

Svínafellsjökull Glacier, Iceland. An EIS team member provides scale in a massive landscape of crevasses on the Svínafellsjökull Glacier in Iceland.

Greenland Ice Sheet, Greenland. On the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet east of Kangerlussuaq, a meltwater stream known by the French word "moulin" (in English it means "mill," as in windmill).

Icebergs calved from Whiteout Glacier, Alaska.

River water and seawater polish the surface of a berg in Iceland.

Meltwater on surface of Columbia Glacier, Columbia Bay, Alaska.

Decaying ice and icebergs on the surface of the Jökulsárlón in southeast Iceland. The ice drains off the great icecap called the Vatnajokull.

Meltwater on surface of Columbia Glacier, Columbia Bay, Alaska.

Kenny's Arm

Breathing Observation Bubble

Wearable computer

Thanksgiving Is Saved By American Madness And Eating [Comics We Crave]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0800

Worried that you won't be able to make it through Thanksgiving without help? Comics come to your rescue this week, with timely collections celebrating America and eating, as well as something for fans of Skeet Ulrich and spoon-loving superheroes. Comics!

The big single-issue release of the week is possibly Image Comics' Image United, which brings all but one of the original Image founders (Jim Lee is missing, due to DC Comics commitments, where he's a VP as well as an artist) back together for a mini-series that brings their biggest creations face to face with the newest bad guy around, Spawn. Yes, that Spawn.

But if that's not your style, maybe you'll be more interested in the relaunch of Powers, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's police-procedural-superhero-turned-epic, over at Marvel, the first issue of Jericho Season Three from Devil's Due, or my personal favorite, the first issue of an all-new series of The Tick. Spooon, indeed.

This week, however, is all about the collections. Let's start with Incognito, Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' tale of a supervillain who can't quite bring himself to act normal even though he's in witness protection, which is highly recommended for those who like their superstories to be a little off-kilter.

If you enjoy that, then The Winter Men collects the eponymous series about Russia's supersoldier program, and what happened afterwards with a surprising amount of humor and humanity. But if you're more of a traditionalist, then Flash Vs. The Rogues collects some of the best stories of DC Comics' fastest man alive going up against his most popular villains from the Silver Age to today.

Getting away from superheroes, we come to the three books you owe it to yourself to pick up tomorrow: Chew: Taster's Choice collects the first storyline from John Layman's wonderful future detective series about a man whose taste buds can solve crimes (with art by Rob Guillory), which seems like perfect fodder for Thanksgiving reading... As does Shade The Changing Man, Peter Milligan's classic 1990s series about the insanity of America and true love and hair, which gets a re-released first volume and all-new second volume released this week. Truly a forgotten classic, it's probably the best thing you could pick up this week... even if the start of the first collection is a little rocky.

If you'd like more from your week at your local comic store, check out the official shipping list from Diamond Distributors and see what else is available for yourself. But don't leave the store without Shade and Chew. You can thank me later.

Lava Caves Filled with the Most Beautiful Excrement in the World [Mad Science]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0800

For years, scientists believed that the colorful deposits found in lava caves around the world were mineral deposits, but more recently they've discovered that the collections — ranging from blue-green drips to shimmering pink hexagons — are actually microbe poop.

At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, researchers announced that the colorful deposits, found in lava caves all over the world, are in fact biological in origin. Previously undetected microbes excrete waste inside the caves and the buildup of what one geomicrobiologist terms "bug poop" creates these impressive displays.

This discovery — that something long thought to be mineral turned out to be biological — has implications for researchers looking for life on Mars. Based on photos of the surface, it appears that Mars holds, or at one time held, lava caves similar to those where the microbe waste was found, and similar microbes might have thrived inside those caves. Mars researchers may want to consider taking samples of apparent mineral deposits to determine if those deposits are, in fact, "bug poop."

Lava Cave Minerals Actually Microbe Poop [National Geographic via Neatorama]

How Viggo Survived Cannibals, Starvation And Life On The Road [The Road]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0800

How do you keep your humanity in the face of death, cannibals and destruction? This 11 minute feature from The Road goes deep with Viggo Mortensen, using clips, interviews and analysis. Plus listen to three tracks from Nick Cave's soundtrack.

Careful — there are massive spoilers in the video. The Road is out November 25th.

Will This Clip Change The Way You Feel About Avatar? [Avatar]

Meredith Woerner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:30:00 -0800

Check out this inspirational new clip from Avatar. This is the first time we're seeing the realism seep in through the CG world, especially when Jake's Avatar is plunged into the wild rivers in Pandora. But what do you think?

IGN's new clip shows a vicious chase scene from Avatar as Jake flees from a Thanator, the alien world's alien predator. It could recharge your enthusiasm for James Cameron's alien epic, a little bit — with its murky waters and muffled sound, it feels spectacularly real. What do you think? Vote below.

Avatar Movie Clip - Thanador Chase

And here are a few new Avatar international posters.

Read Kirk's Unseen Appearance in Star Trek For Yourself [Star Trek]

Graeme McMillan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Back in May, we told you about William Shatner's missing scene in JJ Abrams' Star Trek, but now actual script pages from the scene itself have appeared online to let us see exactly what we missed.

As writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci told us earlier this year, Shatner's appearance wasn't on the same scale as Leonard Nimoy's, but instead a recorded message that Nimoy's Spock would've presented to Zachary Quinto's younger version of the character at the end of the movie. TrekMovie has the complete text of Shatner's scenes, but here's a taste... including another Original Series cameo:

INT. CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS

As Spock Prime walks off down the corridor, he passes
right by a man conferring with a nurse - the man pauses,
turns… it's SAREK. Suddenly overcome by a feeling that
the stranger who's just passed him is… oddly familiar.

KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I suppose I'd always imagined us…
outgrowing Starfleet together. Watching
life swing us into our Emeritus years…

INT. STARBASE ONE – HANGAR – ETERNAL NIGHT

MUSIC BUILDING - glass walls reveal THE ENTERPRISE at
dock, UTILITY CRAFTS floating around it, repairing.
Standing at attention in rows, THE ENTERPRISE CREW -
over four hundred of them wearing DRESS UNIFORMS - TRACK
DOWN the faces, all proud:

KIRK/SHATNER (V.O.)
I look around at the new cadets now and
can't help thinking… has it really been
so long? Wasn't it only yesterday we
stepped onto the Enterprise as boys?
That I had to prove to the crew I
deserved command… and their respect?

And we STOP ON YOUNG KIRK. Composed, focused, proud. A
man. And to every fan's delight, finally wearing his
YELLOW SHIRT.

Go and read the whole thing, and see if you don't get slightly choked up at the end.

Exclusive: Read The Star Trek 2009 Scene Written For William Shatner [TrekMovie]

Beware Nature's Fiercest Predator: The Mighty Sky Shark [Concept Art]

Lauren Davis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:30:00 -0800

Just when you thought it was safe to go skydiving, the fearsome sky shark appears, ready to gobble down any tender airborne morsels. Caleb Brown's action-packed paintings combine explosions with monstrous predators, who appear where you least expect them.

Caleb Brown [My Love for You Is a Stampede of Horses via FFFFOUND!]

Thor Gets A New Vixen, Lost Gets Another Radical Costume Change, Doctor Who Gets Terminal [Morning Spoilers]

Charlie Jane Anders — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0800

Spoilers: They break your heart with their false promises, but they also build you up. Today, actors offer hints about Thor, Spider-Man 4 and Star Trek 12. There are Doctor Who, Lost and Heroes filming pics. Plus Supernatural and Chuck.

Thor:

Natalie Portman let slip that her friend Kat Dennings (Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist) will be in this film with her — and speculation is, she'll play Enchantress. [MTV via Cinematical]

Spider-Man 4:

No real news about this movie, which starts shooting early next year, but Tobey Maguire says he likes the idea of the Lizard as the main villain, because the Lizard has a history with Peter Parker, and "we often will go towards that kind of stuff." And he echoes Sam Raimi's comments about not knowing much about Carnage, who came to the wall-crawler's supporting cast much later on. He also likes Mysterio. [MTV]

Star Trek:

Continuing with the always-awesome vein of "actors making random predictions," Leonard Nimoy says he doubts J.J. Abrams and friends will call him to ask him to be in the sequel. He'll be happy to talk to them if they do call, but he figures he's already served his purpose. (And I bet J.J. is a lot more desperate for Nimoy to come back and do more Fringe appearances, something he's seemed a bit leery of doing lately.) [TrekMovie]

Doctor Who:

The Beeb released official summaries of David Tennant's final two parter, coming soon but not soon enough:

Part One: It's the Tenth Doctor's final journey – but his psychotic nemesis the Master has been reborn, on Christmas Eve. With both determined to cheat death, the battle ranges from the wastelands of London to the mysterious Immortality Gate, while the alien Ood warn of an even greater danger approaching, as a terrible shadow falls across the entire Universe.

Part Two: The Doctor faces the end of his life as the Master's plans hurtle out of control. With the sound of drums growing louder, and an ancient trap closing around the Earth, the Doctor and Wilf must fight alone. But sacrifices must be made, and the deadly prophecy warns: "He will knock four times."

[BlogtorWho]

Meanwhile, remember the filming a while back, from Matt Smith's first story, which takes place in the idyllic fictional village of Leadworth? Apparently they needed a few extra shots for that story, because Leadworth was resurrected the other day for a bunch of minor pick-up shots. (And they had to make it look like summer, which can't have been fun.) Scenes included Smith running in his Chaplin-esque way, and poking his head out of a window. Karen Gillan was there in her oddly sexy police uniform, with her little red car. More pics at the link. [Alun_Vega on Flickr]

Lost:

Are the alternate timelines making you dizzy yet? The show was filming a scene by a lovely scenic waterfall, featuring Sayid, Locke, Jin, Cindy and a bunch of others — all decked out as "Others." Have our gang joined the Others? (One eyewitness thought Kate was among them, but apparently not.) Also on set, but not filming yet, Sheila Kelly, the L.A. Law vet who will play Kendall, who's caught committing corporate esipionage and has to lie her way out. And meanwhile there are more set pics showing Miles and Sawyer as cops in L.A. [The ODI]

Supernatural:

As we mentioned, the 100th episode will focus largely on Dean. But it'll also fill in a lot of pieces of the puzzle, says Eric Kripke:

We're aiming for it to be a big mythology episode. The Archangel Michael plays a very large part as we explore his relationship with Dean

[EW]

Heroes:

Some new set pics actually look pretty intriguing — Claire is running, and Sylar is minus an eye. If they make Sylar a cyclops permanently, I might have to start watching again. Just so I can call him Cylar. (Or SyClops?) [SpoilerTV]

And of course, because this is Heroes, Masi Oka hints that "you never know" if Nathan will come back from the dead. [Zap2It]

Chuck:

And there are some new promos:

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

How To Reattach A Severed Robot Head [Found Footage]

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:00:00 -0800

Rutger Hauer finds a severed robot head on the ground, and helps it get a new body, in this hilariously unconvincing sequence from Omega Doom. Too bad Robot Blade was using that head as a soccer ball... and he's pissed.

Untold Adventures: The Complete History Of Tie-In Novels [Media Tie-ins]

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:11:58 -0800

Some of science-fiction's greatest writers have stepped into ready-made universes and created media tie-in novels. From small beginnings some forty years ago, media tie-in books have become a huge part of our publishing universe. Here are some of the highlights.

Note: This is not a history of novelizations of existing movies or TV shows — just original novels and story collections set in those worlds. And for the sake of sanity, we're not going to touch on non-SF tie-ins like the amazing Shaft and Starsky And Hutch novels of the 1970s. (Even though Starsky And Hutch: Kill Huggie Bear and Shaft Among The Jews have pride of place on my shelves.)

Also, I'm not even going to pretend this covers every tie-in novel ever published. Feel free to chime in in comments with stuff I've missed!

The early years:

Doctor Who didn't get its own tie-in novels until the early 1990s (although there were annuals that included short fiction published almost ever year from 1964 through to the show's cancellation in the late 1980s.)

But Who's 1960s rival The Avengers had a slew of books. Berkeley-Medallion put out nine books, including The Moon Express and The Magnetic Man, both by Norman Daniels. And star Patrick Macnee himself co-authored two novels for Hodder and Stoughton: Deadline and Dead Duck. The 1960s also saw a ton of novels based on Get Smart, Man From Uncle and Mission Impossible, over in the U.S.

There were also a handful of novels tying in with The Prisoner — most notably, Thomas M. Disch wrote a Prisoner book called The Prisoner, in which Number Six finally tracks down Number One — and she's a female robot whose hand falls off. Hank Stine also wrote a demented novel called The Prisoner: A Day In The Life, in which Number Six falls through a succession of loopy, acid-trip realities designed to undermine his sense of self.

Fawcett also put out one novel tying in with the 1970s TV show The Invisible Man, called simply The Invisible Man by Michael Jahn.

Jahn also wrote one of a half dozen Six Million Dollar Man novels that Warner Bros. put out in the mid-1970s. The Six Million Dollar Man, of course, was based on an original novel series, Cyborg by Michael Caidin, but the television show was drastically different and the later novels had more in common with Lee Majors' portrayal than anything from the original books. (Update: Jahn wrote to us and explained: "I wrote five "Six Million Dollar Man" books (one under the name Evan Richards), not just one, and about 15 other tie-ins including "The Invisible Man" book that you know about. The pseudonym was required because Caidin was afraid he was losing Steve Austin to me, which is a bizarre concept.")

But probably the most significant stand-alone media tie-in of the 1970s, in retrospect, was the Star Wars novel Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster. Splinter quickly became non-canonical thanks to its climactic battle scene in which Luke manages to lop off Darth Vader's arm — not to mention its incestuous embrace between Luke and his sister Leia. According to some reports, Foster wrote Splinter to be a low-budget sequel to the original movie in case it bombed — hence the fact that it reuses many props and sets from the first film, and avoids ambitious locations. It also doesn't feature Han Solo, because they didn't think his character was going to catch on. Han Solo did get to star in his own trilogy of novels as consolation, though, starting with Han Solo At Stars End There were also a handful of Lando Calrissian novels.

The rise of Star Trek novels:

According to the excellent book Voyages Of The Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion by Jeff Ayers, the first original Star Trek novel was 1968's Mission To Horatius, a young adult novel by Mack Reynolds. But the best known early Trek novel was the second, 1970's Spock Must Die! by James Blish, who also wrote adaptations of the original series. Spock Must Die!, which I totally read as a kid, involves an accident which produces two Spocks — and only one of them can be allowed to go on living.

In the 1970s, Bantam put out a series of original Star Trek story anthologies called The New Voyages,, plus a dozen original novels, edited by famed science fiction author Frederik Pohl.

The golden age of Trek novels, though, was probably the 1980s, with David Hartwell editing the Trek line for Pocket Books. Vonda McIntyre, who also did incredible novelizations for Star Treks II, III and IV, wrote two great books: The Entropy Effect in 1981 (ignore the horrible cover) and Enterprise: The First Adventure in 1990 (which would be a good counterpoint to the recent J.J. Abrams film in terms of showing how the crew got their start.) In this interview, McIntyre explains why she identifies with Sulu, and how she gave him his first name: Hikaru. (The publisher freaked out, until someone actually asked Gene Roddenberry and George Takei, who were both fine with it. But you have to wonder what Takei thought of Sulu's porn stache. Probably he didn't mind it.)

Another great author who wrote a couple of memorable Trek books was John M. Ford, who vastly expanded our understanding of Klingon culture in How Much For Just The Planet? and The FInal Reflection. (Ford also wrote Klingon manuals for the Trek role playing game, and was always treated as an honored guest at Klingon gatherings. At the 2009 Worldcon, a panel about the late Ford included a moving tribute from a Klingon audience member.)

Meanwhile, Diane Duane did more than any other author to flesh out both Vulcan and Romulan society, with 1984's My Enemy, My Ally and 1988's Spock's World, among others. The Romulans — who call themselves the Rihannsu in Duane's version — have never seemed as fully realized or believable as a culture on screen as they have in Duane's books.

According to Ayers' book, however, all was not well with the Trek novels — Gene Roddenberry wanted to micro-manage the book line and had his personal assistant, Richard Arnold, read every single book. And Arnold tended to balk at anything that went beyond what had been established on screen. If you want to read a hair-raising account of what it was like to write a Trek book that ran into trouble with Roddenberry or Paramount, here's writer Margaret Bonnano's incredibly lengthy account of her troubles writing the tie-in book that became PROBE. Shorter version: tons of micromanaging, characters being cut out, and calls for Bonnano to rewrite the whole thing in six days.

Other franchises to get tie-in novels in the 1980s included Battlestar Galactica — most of those books were novelizations of episodes, but eventually it looks like they ran out of episodes to adapt and started writing original volumes; and Blake's 7, which got a sequel novel called Afterlife. (There was also a horrendously poorly received B7 novel in the 1990s called Avon: A Terrible Aspect, written by actor Paul Darrow.) And of course, as we detailed in a recent post there were 16 great V novels, which continued the story after the original show went off the air.

Early 1990s: Star Wars and Doctor Who

Two other media juggernauts that had never had a credible presence in the tie-in novel market suddenly started producing in the early 1990s.

Star Wars launched an ambitious series of books set after the events of Return Of The Jedi, with Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, which followed the exploits of Admiral Thrawn and also the fate of Luke, Leia and Leia's kids. These were the beginning of the Expanded Universe books, which tied in explicitly with the video games and comics, and often seemed to be canonical unless explicitly contradicted by the movies. Eventually, the Expanded Universe gave us a new alien menace to fight the descendants of the Jedi: the monstrous Yuuzhan Vong.

And once the Star Wars prequels were out, we saw more books and other tie-ins set in the era long before the original series — the Old Republic novels take place an an era long before the prequels, when the Jedi were plentiful and kept peace throughout the galaxy. Meanwhile, other series of novels take place during the Clone Wars, like Karen Traviss' amazing Republic Commando/Imperial Commando novels, and still others expand the stories of Han Solo's kids Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo.

The really breathtaking thing about the Expanded Universe novels, starting with the Zahn books, is the fact that they're the only continuation after Return Of The Jedi we've got. Most people, in George Lucas' shoes, would have insisted that only they should be allowed to tell the authoritative story of what happens to Luke, Leia and Han Solo after the third movie of the trilogy — but Lucas seems to be totally content with letting the novels be the final word on those characters' fates, reserving for himself the right to go back and annotate the stuff that happened before Luke came of age in increasing detail. At times, it feels like Lucas' Star Wars movies and Clone Wars cartoons are occupying the space that's normally reserved for tie-in novels — filling in backstory — while the tie-ins forge ahead answering the question, "What happens next?"

These days, it seems like a month doesn't go by without at least one or two new Star Wars novels coming out, from the Fate Of The Jedi series to the more esoteric volumes, like the zombie tale Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber.

Meanwhile, after Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, Virgin Publishing got the rights to do a series of novels that were "too broad and deep for the small screen." The New Adventures line was launched, with an odd mix of books ranging from John Peel's bland fanfic to Paul Cornell's bizarre, Vertigo Comics-influenced metafictional odysseys. At their best, the New Adventures were daring, loopy and sacrilegious — and several authors contributed to the line who later wrote for the TV series, including Cornell, Gareth Roberts and Russell T. Davies himself. There was also a lot more explicit sexuality and racy content in these books than the original show had allowed.

Unlike the Star Wars novels, the New Adventures novels don't tell the official story of what happens to the Doctor after the series ends — I'm pretty sure the new TV show has already contradicted them in many particulars. But what the New Adventures books do instead is something just as awesome — they vastly expand our understanding of the Doctor, and give him a new pathos as well as a terrible, Prospero-ish puppetmaster sensibility. Building on little hints from the TV show, the novels give us a Doctor who's much more complex and much more tormented than we ever realized — and also more fallible, on occasion. You could not look at the eternally childish traveler in time and space the same way after reading a slew of these books — and the new reinvention of the show in recent years has built on that reimagining.

The Doctor Who novels are still being published — but after the 1996 TV movie, the BBC took them in house and toned them down considerably. And after the new series came on the air in 2005, they've become much more kid-oriented.

All in all, the twin early 1990s phenomena of the post-ROTJ Star Wars novels and the Doctor Who: New Adventures novels pointed to a greater potential for tie-in novels to be something more ambitious than the simple "adventure too minor to televise" format that book publishers had mostly stuck to. (With a few notable exceptions, like the Duane Star Trek books in the 1980s.) At the same time, Trek books were stretching their horizons a bit, with Peter David's sweeping Troi-Riker romance Imzadi gaining critical acclaim beyond what a usual tie-in novel would expect. If tie-in novels became big business in the 1980s, they came of age in the 1990s.

The mid-1990s: every big series gets tie-in books

By the mid-1990s, tie-in novels seemed to be pretty standard for most TV shows and some movie series as well. There were mostly forgettable novels tying in with Predator, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Alias, Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, The X-Files, Xena, the BSG reboot, and various other media properties. There were a host of authors who would churn out novels connected to Charmed, Buffy or whatever, like Keith R.A. DeCandido, Christopher Golden, K.W. Jeter, Peter David and Kevin J. Anderson. Two or three women wrote a slew of Star Trek books under the pseudonym L.A. Graf, which reportedly stands for "Let's All Get Rich And Famous."

And of course, William Shatner started writing his own Kirk fanfic with 1995's The Ashes Of Eden, with generous contributions from Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

The other interesting thing that happened in the late 1990s was the rise of novels based on comics — Byron Preiss put out a series of novels based on Marvel Comics' characters, and there was a well-received anthology of Batman short stories. Here's a fairly lengthy list of Marvel tie-in novels — the best of the bunch is probably the Incredible Hulk novel What Savage Beast by Peter David, which tells the story of what David would have done if Marvel hadn't 86ed his plans for the Hulk in his comics run. It brings back the Hulk's evil alternate self from the future, the Maestro, as well as an army of Hulks from alternate universes.

Babylon 5 also put out a bunch of tie-in novels, and from 1996 onwards creator J. Michael Straczynski was closely involved in the novel line, working to ensure a great deal of consistency with the television show. Gregory Keyes, Peter David and Jeanne Cavelos, in particular, put out a handful of B5 books each that were considered not just canonical, but essential. Cavelos' The Shadow Within has been reprinted a few times, and Dreamwatch Magazine called it "one of the best tie-in novels ever written."

Spin-offs, video-game novels and name authors:

The biggest development of the past decade has been the rise of spin-offs and tangents from established series — David has given us a series of Star Trek novels, The New Frontier, that follow a mostly new set of characters in a sector of space that no Trek ever visited before. The TNF books simultaneously play with tons of obscure Trek references — including characters from the animated series — but at the same time they color far, far outside the lines. With their weird hermaphrodite pregnancies, married captains, and above all their obsession with the dynastic politics of an obscure alien empire, the TNF books often feel like David's own space-opera/soap-opera series, only loosely connected to Trek.

Trek has also given us another spin-off, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers books by DeCandido. Meanwhile, Star Wars has given us the Jedi Academy books and the aforementioned Republic/Imperial Commando books.

And then there are the video-game books, which started as a trickle 15 years ago and are now accounting for a large and larger share of bookstore shelf space. The first Doom novel, Knee Deep In The Dead, came out in 1995, and was followed by several others. The Halo book series started with 2001's The Fall Of Reach by Eric Nylund. Nowadays, many TV shows don't feel the need to put out novels — where's our Fringe book series? — but every successful video game gets a ton of novels, without fail.

And that leads to the other big development of the past decade or so — bigger authors turning to tie-in novels to try and make some extra cash or win new fans, or just have fun with a beloved icon. Greg Bear surprised some fans by announcing he was working on a Halo novel, a sequel to Fall Of Reach. Tobias Buckell also wrote a Halo novel, 2008's The Cole Protocol. Jeff VanderMeer wrote a Predator novel, South China Sea, also published in 2008. And of course, Michael Moorcock surprised everybody by announcing he was doing a Doctor Who novel.

Some professional writers are alarmed at the growth of sharecropping novels, where authors dabble in characters they didn't create for media conglomerates that keep most of the profits. But they're a growing slice of the publishing world — and at this point, you can't claim it's impossible to create meaningful, groundbreaking work in the tie-in novel world. As a whole, tie-in books may look like a shower of drek — but they've helped expand our understanding of some of science fiction's most iconic characters, and — perhaps — helped those big media properties become more interesting and thoughtful along the way.

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Evil Wonder Woman Rocks The Bangs In New Justice League Trailer [Justice League]

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:08:14 -0800

Before Fringe introduced millions to the idea of Parallel Earths, DC's superheroes were hopping to Earth-2 and beyond on an annual basis. Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths returns us to those heady days. Click through for the new trailer.

Dolph Lundgren Is Back From Cryo Sleep And Kicking It With Van Damme [Universal Soldier Regeneration]

Meredith Woerner — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:36:25 -0800

Dolph and JCVD are back, and kicking super-soldier ass, in Sony's $15 million Universal Soldier: Regeneration. This time, the aging super-soldiers must save the president's abducted children before a radioactive cloud kills us all. No, really. Check out the trailer!

Synopsis:

The militant Islamist Chechen Basayev abducts the children of the President and takes control of Chernobyl, threatening to unleash a radioactive cloud unless his demands are met. Luc Deveraux (Van Damme), now a Universal Soldier again, joins a new team of UniSols secretly held in deep storage. Their mission is to retake Chernobyl and disable explosives that will unleash radioactive clouds. Luc discovers that one of the reactivated Universal Soldiers is a clone of his old, homicidal Sergeant, Andrew Scott (Lundgren). He also must face the NGU, the next generation in the UniSol biotechnology.

Good to know Dolph is still up and about, and hanging with JCVD.

Superheroes and Villains Try to Out-Emo Vampires [Concept Art]

Lauren Davis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:30:00 -0800

Vampires aren't the only ones with tortured souls. Superheroes and their villainous counterparts get mopey every now and again. JSalvador's Super Emo Friends show chibi versions of comic book characters alone with their most depressing thoughts. [Etsy via Super Punch]

Wolvie
Hawley
Spidey
Wougie
Gweenie
Wundy
Cappin
Thowee
Gobbie
Soopie

Forbidden Planet Reboot Could Become a Franchise [Forbidden Planet]

Lauren Davis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:40:00 -0800

J. Michael Straczynski is revealing more details about his remake of Forbidden Planet. Not only does the script call for more action than the original scifi classic, there may be plans in the works for more Forbidden Planet movies.

Babylon 5 creator Straczynski is still at work on the screenplay for Forbidden Planet. He elaborated a bit on his earlier comment that his remake is "not exactly a prequel." He explained that, while we will witness the fate of the Bellerophon, the ship whose crew vanished on Altair IV 20 years before the events of the original movie, it will be as a counterpoint to the story of the crew of the C-57D and their encounter with Dr. Morbius and Altaira. While this new concept calls for more action than we saw in the original, Straczynski says the script's basis on The Tempest is first and foremost in his mind.

But the big news that, if Straczynski's movie takes off, we may be seeing more Forbidden Planet. Says Straczynski:

"Warners is very excited about it, thinks it's a big franchise for them and a huge budget, so they're very much oriented toward getting it done."

Babylon 5 creator reboots a sci-fi classic ... and a sequel? [SCI FI Wire]

10 Things We Learned From James Cameron's 60 Minutes Appearance [Avatar]

Meredith Woerner — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:25:11 -0800

James Cameron sat down with 60 Minutes last night to drop some Avatar knowledge on us all, and now we know why the Na'vi have tails, whether they have nipples, what the score sounds like and what "popcorn chic" means.

[Via CBS]

Undeterred by Time-Traveling Saboteurs, the LHC Begins Colliding [Mad Science]

Lauren Davis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:39:33 -0800

Take that, bread-dropping bird. Despite numerous delays and the suggestion that the Large Hadron Collider is being sabotaged from the future, the LHC is up and running. And, for the very first time, it has collided two proton beams.

Three days after the restart, CERN announced that it has circulated two beams simultaneously, and has observed proton-proton collisions. It's an exciting first step, but still a very first step:

"It's a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there's still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme."

It will still be a while before the LHC can go fishing for the Higgs boson, but the CERN researchers are fired up about collecting data on the proton collisions. The next step will involve altering the intensity and acceleration of the beams while getting a feel for the LHC's performance.

Two circulating beams bring first collisions in the LHC [CERN]

Get Exposure (In Your Trunk) And Profit (For The Publisher) The Vanity Press Way! [Publishing Scams]

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0800

Everyone from A.C. Crispin to the Science Fiction Writers Of America has rushed to condemn Harlequin for starting a self-publishing scam. But Small Beer Press has the best response: A hilarious parody showing how you, too, can waste your money.

Small Beer's parody imprints, Easymark Books and Upchuck Press, do a better job of pointing out the shoddiness of Harlequin's vanity publishing scheme than most of the other critics. Here's part of the pitch for Easymark Books:

We're not interested in monetizing the slushpile, we're interested in getting you to pay to publish it for our profit!*

1. Let us help you get your book out to your real readership: your family and friends.

2. See you book on bookshelves (if not in bookstores-see #1).

3. For a mere $599 we will send you 5 copies of your book printed on our state of the art Print on Demand system. (Which sounds just like Lulu.com but isn't, ok?) It will even have a color picture on the cover-with, and sit down because this is about to get awesome, Your Name Right There On the Cover!

But that's not all — for an added fee, you can have access to such amazing services as spellchecking! And an intern who will tell you to remove most of the adverbs from your prose! It sounds almost too good to be true. If actually honing your writing to the point where a real agent and real editors might be interested in it sounds like too much work, and too much like buying into the system — be a cool rebel and send all your money to Easymark Press. You know it's where you belong. [Small Beer Press]

Scariest Giant Heads From Science Fiction Book Covers [Giant Heads]

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:40:00 -0800

Nothing is more terrifying, more mentally scarring, than the giant-head book cover. They loom off the cardstock, their huge eyes bugging out. Nothing inside the pages could be this horrifying. Here are our favorite massive-headed book covers of all time.

Once again, we got Cyriaque Lamar to track down the most awful covers with the biggest heads. Here are the 20 most horrific selections, with Cyriaque's commentary. And seroiusly, what is with those Italians?

Additional reporting and writing by Cyriaque Lamar.

Big Daddy And Little Sister Frolic Beneath The Waves [Bioshock]

Meredith Woerner — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:20:00 -0800

Volpin props, who basically won Dragon*Con cosplay contest with their amazing Bioshock Big Daddy and Little Sister recreation, took their act to the aquarium. Bringing the underwater video game world into beautiful, and chilling reality.

[via Geekologie]

As Silicon Valley Crumbles, the Makers Will Inherit the Earth [Book Review]

Lauren Davis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

In Little Brother, Cory Doctorow showed how a grassroots, technology based movement could ensure our civil liberties. With his latest novel, Makers, he asks whether a similar movement could save American capitalism from itself.

Makers is written by Cory Doctorow, that cape and goggles-wearing editor of Boing Boing, and author of such novels as Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Little Brother. This latest volume touches on many of the topics Doctorow has become famous for obsessing over: intellectual property rights and open source, the tension between individual and institution, his emotionally complicated relationship with Disney, how technology is gradually changing our culture, transhumanism, and ordinary people who make really cool shit.

The novel is set in that fifteen minutes into the future that is Doctorow's forte, at a time when Silicon Valley has begun to disintegrate more subtly than Detroit, but perhaps as thoroughly. At a press conference, Landon Kettlewell, the CEO of a newly merged Kodak/Duracell (termed "Kodacell" by a snarky tech journo), announces a bold new direction for the company: he plans to scout talented people from all over the country who make cool stuff, fund them, and find a way to quickly monetize their ideas time and time again. Many are skeptical, but business writer Suzanne Church — who once covered the Detroit scene and finds herself increasingly, if unconsciously, disillusioned with the Bay Area — is intrigued by Kodacell's new endeavor. After a few flirtatious interactions with Kettlewell (a maverick of an executive who insists that the people close to him call him by absurd nicknames like "Kettlebelly" and "Kettledrum"), Church finds herself embedded with Kodacell and flies to a depressed Florida suburb to meet Kodacell's first idea tank. There she finds Perry Gibbons and his obese sidekick Lester Banks, a pair of scavenger-artists who design elaborate mechanical art pieces for wealthy collectors: simple difference engines that spew M&Ms, crews of robotic Elmo dolls reprogrammed to drive cars. Perry and Lester are pros at repurposing technology, though they've never had an eye for the practical. They are soon joined by Tjan, a Kodacell moneyman who helps them develop products with mass appeal, rapidly get them to market, and then start the process all over again when imitators flood the market.

The first portion of Makers reads very much like a manifesto. The characters make enough pretty speeches about moral capitalism that I sometimes suspected it was being ghostwritten by an undead, philosophically reformed Ayn Rand. But the gleeful moneymaking of those early chapters isn't about the glory of the high-powered executive or developing a greed-is-good social code; it's about giving people power over their own destinies, giving people the ability to build things, to take pride in their communities (all communities — not just those located in major cities), and the notion that in order to sell things to people, you need to make sure they have the money to buy them. Thanks to Suzanne's vivid chronicles of Perry and Lester's innovations and Kodacell's early success, they all find themselves at the center of a New Work movement. Former cubicle jockeys flee their metropolises for smaller cities and suburbs and get their hands dirty — serving their neighbors and themselves instead of just serving their corporate masters — in an ephemeral golden age of American innovation.

But it quickly becomes clear that good ideas and wide-eyed idealism alone won't save America, and Makers shifts from manifesto to novel, albeit a novel still very concerned with the social problems plaguing America. The country's obesity problem takes an abrupt term with the development of the so-called "fatkins" treatments, where Russian biotechnology clinics reshape corpulent bodies as generically fit Adonises and tweak their metabolic systems to require metric tons of empty calories. As the treatments catch on, the fatkins become one of the nations' dominant cultures, with their own restaurants, dating styles, and demographic box. There is a great deal of frustration with government intrusion, especially concerning a shantytown of squatters who view their brand of community building as a new frontier. And there's similar frustration with the legal system, the need for intellectual property and formalized institutional structures, though it's coupled with the recognition that foregoing these legal protections carries dangerous consequences.

It's a dense, and always interesting reading experience, even if it has its warts. Subtlety has never been a virtue of Doctorow's novels, and Makers is no exception. The story has its villains, and even when they possess the capacity for redemption, a good deal of mustache-twirling goes on. Suzanne Church has a Dagny Taggert knack for making brilliant men fall in love with her, and though our other heroes are flawed, they seem in many ways the perfect models of idea men and executives.

The most frustrating aspect of Makers, however, may be the most honest. We see the rise and fall of various projects and innovations over the years, and Doctorow fills his world with wondrous technologies and forward-thinking people. But when things fall apart, as they periodically do, it's often because of interpersonal issues, because disagreements get in the way of big, brilliant ventures. It's not a crack at Doctorow as a writer; it's just that he's so adept at raising our spirits and making us believe in these superhuman people that when they fall prey to the ugly foibles of the real world, it's a bit of a letdown. Affection and optimism, even when a bit overblown, is a better look on him, and the most engaging portions of Makers are the ones that harness that.

Still, Makers is a book for the lovers of technology, for the gleeful optimists more than the cynics. It's for the people who love the kooky engineering projects you see on Boing Boing, for the people who believe that, as the poster says, "The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty." It's for the people who can't wait to own a 3D printer, and who believe that while technology has its missteps, it's going to change our lives in wonderful and unexpected ways. It's for the people who hate Disney's corporate tactics, but still get a thrill at the idea of visiting the Magic Kingdom; for the people who believe that, even if they can't change the world, they can at least improve their little corner of it. It's for the people who think that, while the future may not be all jetpacks and hover cars and all the world's people people singing Kumbaya, we as individuals have the power to make it awesome in its own right.

Makers is currently out in hardcover, but you can read the serialized novel for free on Tor.com.

Producers of America: Congratulations, Joss! Now Leave Television Alone [Joss Whedon]

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:30:00 -0800

As if Dollhouse's fate wasn't enough, the Producers Guild of America is also giving Joss Whedon broad hints that his future may not be in broadcast television, by recognizing him for all the good work he's done... in new media.

The PGA has selected Whedon to be the recipient of the Vanguard Award at January's PGA Awards. The Vanguard recognizes achievements in new media and technology, and previous winners have included George Lucas, James Cameron, and the founders of YouTube and MySpace. PGA co-chairs David Friendly and Laurence Mark explained their choice by saying,

Joss Whedon has mastered the art of melding the newest technology with inspired storytelling, truly exemplifying the spirit of the Vanguard Award.

On the one hand, congratulations to Joss. On the other, am I the only person who thinks this is really odd timing? This is just about Dr. Horrible, right? Am I forgetting something else he's done with "the newest technology" that would fit here? And if I'm not, why is he being recognized now for something that's more than a year old, if not a subtle "Do more of this and less fighting with Fox over Eliza Dushku" message...?

PGA honors Joss Whedon [Variety]

Image via irgoodrnti.

Tomorrow's V Asks Who You'd Rather Have As Your Mom: Erica Or Anna? [V Preview]

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:22:13 -0800

It's the final V of 2009 tomorrow night, and we've already watched it. The resistance ramps up, the Vs move forward with their nefarious plans, and Chad is a man-whore. But mostly, it's all about the cult of Morena Baccarin.

There are minor spoilers for tomorrow night's episode, "It's Only The Beginning." But don't worry — I won't give away any huge plot twists or revelations from the episode.

Baccarin, as alien leader Anna, gets most of the best scenes in tomorrow night's episode, and the camera follows her around lovingly, lingering on her ankles in one early scene and dwelling on her perfect cheekbones. We get to see how Anna deals with traitors in her midst, and how she handles those who harbor doubts about her leadership. And we get to experience Anna's "Bliss" — the happy communion that keeps all of the other Visitors in her thrall. (The Bliss involves Morena Baccarin stripping naked, which is also lovingly filmed and probably quite similar to something she would have done as the Companion Inara on Firefly.)

But also, the episode highlights the contrast between two mothers: Anna and Erica. Last week, we learned that Anna is the mom of Lisa, the blond Visitor who is seducing Erica's annoying son Tyler. Tomorrow night, we get to see Anna and Erica's contrasting parenting styles — apparently Visitor women are seem to be better at juggling family and career than their human counterparts — and Anna works on winning Tyler over, for some nefarious purpose of her own. To Tyler's selfish, weaselly brain, Anna is a better mom than Erica — but the episode also lets us wonder if there might not be a grain of truth to that.

Erica, meanwhile, gets to do even more ass-kicking tomorrow night, stepping up to a leadership role in the resistance and helping to deal a blow to the Visitors. I really like how fast this show is moving, and I like how unapologetically heroic and bad-ass they're letting Erica be. (Let's hope they don't feel the need to counterbalance this by having her cry in every episode.) Elizabeth Mitchell is having a field day with playing a tough FBI agent who can't reveal to anyone what she knows about the most important event in human history.

It's pretty rare and awesome that we get a TV show built around two such strong female characters, even if their main field of battle is over who's the better mom.

Meanwhile, Father Jack is showing a definite pattern of being the "state the obvious" guy. A few times in tomorrow night's episode, he literally makes observations like, "I'm wearing clothes" or "I'm walking on a floor." Maybe he's there for the really slow viewers who can't spot these things on his own. Tyler and Georgie have a contest to see who can be more annoying, and Tyler mops the floor with Georgie. Lisa simpers a lot, and Chad shows signs of having a mind of his own — and then the Vs suck him in even more.

And of course, there are huge revelations and twists and explosions, and things I'm not allowed to talk about yet. It's a pretty fun hour of television, but more importantly, it left me curious about the clash between these two powerful women — and here's hoping we get more of that when the show returns in the distant era known as March 2010.

Joshua Jackson To Fight UFOs in the 1970s [Ufo]

Graeme McMillan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:00:00 -0800

Fringe star Joshua Jackson is taking his ongoing fight against extra-terrestrial freaky fringe science to the movie screen. He's signed on to headline the big screen version of 1970s British series UFO.

Jackson, who despite his Fringe smirks and long dramatic pauses will always be Pacey from Dawson's Creek to me, will play Paul Foster, a pilot who joins SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) to combat an alien plan to harvest human body parts in the new feature version of Gerry Anderson's awesome series. The movie will be the directing debut of Iron Man's visual effects supervisor, Matthew Gratzner, and hopefully launch a new craze for purple hair, which was always one of the best things about the show.

Joshua Jackson's captain of 'UFO' [Variety]

The Crow Relaunch Moves Forward With Casting [Exclusive]

Meredith Woerner — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

The Crow relaunch is taking off, and may be months away from a greenlight. We caught up with the movie's producer and found out exactly where the film is in the casting process, and asked the all-important makeup questions.

While he was doing press for drama Brothers we caught up with producer Ryan Kavanaugh and got an exclusive update on his next project, the massive relaunch of The Crow, penned and directed by Stephen Norrington.

I heard The Crow script received great reviews, where is it at now?

The script is great. We're very excited about it. The Crow is definitely going to happen, we're just getting all the pieces together right now. It's not officially greenlit, but it's going to happen... I think in a couple months we could have the package together for sure.

Any casting ideas?

Can't talk about that yet, but we've got good ideas.

Are you casting right now and looking?

We're looking. We're in discussions....I think it's something cool, we're approaching it differently. It's really a whole relaunch of the franchise, much more of a dark superhero type.

Will it be a well known actor, or someone we've never heard of before?

It will be an actor you've heard of, yes. We're not ruling anything out. We're looking at both, with the very well known and the "very talented but they may not be quite there yet."

A lot of people were worried that it would be the original, but we know the Crow character can inhabit different people...

It's not a remake it's literally a relaunch of the franchise.

But will he have the same makeup?

No, totally different... He'll have makeup, but it will be different. The best way to compare it is the first Batman and Batman Begins. In terms of their look and feel and character.

I'm excited to see the world and how you build it. Will it still be dark and gritty?

Oh yeah, we're sticking to the flavor of it. We're just relaunching it and making it with a much more present day character, someone more relatable to everybody.

And the script is totally finished?

Yeah we're still tweaking it, but it's finished.

If SF Publishing Implodes Once Again, Will You Follow Your Favorite Authors To Porn? [Publishing]

Charlie Jane Anders — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:30:00 -0800

Science fiction publishing imploded in the 1960s, driving writers like Robert Silverberg to write sleazy sex novels — Silverberg wrote 150 trashy novels in five years, explaining that "A dozen or so magazines for which I had been writing regularly ceased publication overnight; and as for the tiny market for s-f novels . . . it suddenly became so tight that unless you were one of the first-magnitude stars like Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov you were out of luck."

And writer Paul McAuley says it may be about to happen again:

Sf publishing has always been a chancy, hand-to-mouth affair for most. It imploded again in the early 1980s, and there are signs that it's about to implode again. And because they can't hope for sinecure positions in creative writing in universities (although that's changing, now), sf writers have always been ready to turn their hands and minds to the kind of writing that can be churned out quickly and profitably.... While Silverberg et al were working in the titillation trade in the US, over here in the UK Michael Moorcock was editing New Worlds with one hand and writing Sexton Blake adventures with the other, while many of his contemporaries were writing westerns, biker novels and, yes, sexploitation novels. A little later, Kim Newman and Neil Gaiman worked for the British soft porn magazine Knave. And sf writers today are also working in comics and graphic novels, novels based on role-playing games (Kim Newman and a slew of authors associated with Interzone in the 1990s wrote innovative and highly successful short stories novels for Games Workshop), film tie-ins . . .

The question is, if SF publishing does have another implosion, where will authors go this time? Porn publishing has been even harder hit by the Internet than other genres. Where will the suddenly starving SF authors turn this time around? [Paul McAuley]