Here (re)begins a weekly sampling of some cool things on the internet!
- Futurama might return to Comedy Central with 13 more episodes! (via io9)
- On that note, musings on whether Firefly might ever be resurrected. I know, I know, it will never happen, but I need a fix and OH GOD, I can’t stop looking for signs. (via Sci Fi Scanner)
- It might be more productive to start drawing floor plans for Jay Garmon’s ideal Serenity restaurant, or the geek project of my own lotto-winning dreams. (Library + armory = librarmory?)
- Laser etchings can make liquid flow uphill. (via Futurismic)
- New art for a UK version of Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire. I think it’s lovely and creepy and would like to hang it by my bed, but it is more surreal/slipstream than straight-up invented-world fantasy, so I’m not sure how I feel about it on a Sanderson book.
- Nerd word of the week: unobtainium!
- Subterranean Press announces a limited edition of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles with previously-unpublished works, all-new color illustrations by Edward Miller, and introductions by John Scalzi and Joe Hill. (via Books On Mars)
- Name of the Wind author Pat Rothfuss relates his writing process to little girls and drunken frat boys. But not, like, together. Ew.
- Graeme McMillan explores some of the difficulties behind a Wonder Woman reboot; maybe her complexities are too much to handle with that distracting bustier in the way?
- Who says candles have to burn straight down? I love how these multiple wicks look like little honeycombs or carbon rings.
- Some highlights from Locus‘s special urban fantasy issue, including quotes from “Kim Harrison,” Patricia Briggs, Marjorie M. Liu, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong and more.
- Mihir Wanchoo tells you who’s who in Indian speculative fiction, as well as where Indian mythology comes into play in familiar science fiction and fantasy.
- Did Aboriginal societies build a mega-calendar on the order of Stonehenge? (via Cheryl Morgan)
- The newly-established Ham-Sized Fist Award, for heroic fantasy or sword-and-sorcery published in 2009, gets my Best-Named Award Award.
- Talking mice! If by talking mice I mean an interesting experiment with one of the “cascade” of genes that affects speech…and I do.
tor.com writers should know that, for those reading in RSS, there is no cut. Not that it matters here, but it has mattered on other occasions.
I know some blogging platforms have cuts that RSS feeders honor (or rather, have RSS feeders that honor the cuts). I don’t know if tor.com’s software can.
You have a bad link to the mega-calendar story; from the source of this page:
http:// http://blogs.discovery.com/twisted_physics/2009/06/dream-a-little-dreaming.html
There’s an extra http:// and then a space. FYI!
I addition to Garmon’s definition of unobtainium (as a synonym for handwavium and wishalloy), I’ve also heard it used as a way to express that something is far out of reach, financially or otherwise.
As so:
“OMG!!! I am so dying for that 43″ curved screen monster monitor. Unfortunately, at $8000, it’s apparently made of pure unobtainium.”
Thanks, kendallpb! Fixed now.
Holy Frak, two namechecks in one post? I must be living right. Thanks!
If only I had a spare grand lying around for the new edition of the Martian Chronicles!
And that cover for Sanderson was absolutely amazing! I love weird covers like that, even if it is for epic fantasy.