Yes, 2016. Strictly speaking, Bujold's new Vorkosigan novel, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, won't be published until February next year. However, Baen has made an e-book advanced reading copy available for $15 and other than the odd punctuation error I spotted it seems to be the final text.

( Spoilers for previous books in the sequence and a plot point set out early on. )

I didn't manage to get to any of the Speculative Biology items at Loncon 3 (usual excuse: too few hours in day plus other commitments) so I had to settle for reading this very good write-up in Scientific American. That led me to the work of Memo Kosemen, who has put a huge amount of effort into imagining the fauna of Snaiad, a world where animals ( Read more... )

attimes_bracing commented a little while back that she'd seen very few classic sf movies, and wondered about catching up. So, last night, we started with Forbidden Planet.

Now, I hadn't watched FP for literally decades. I have a dim memory of us showing it at a video night at the SF club at university, and I'd definitely seen it before I first went to see Return ( Read more... )

From this discussion thread on io9 regarding True Detective - a US crime drama that makes references to [spoiler redacted, but it's widely seen as a Lovecraftian piece of literature] - comes a very handy phrase: 'Genre-curious ( Read more... )

I was initially a bit sceptical when I heard about Nine Worlds (very ambitious plans from a group seemingly without major con-running experience) but saw that the organisers were getting a lot of writers and fans I knew on board and was impressed by some of the ideas they seem to have. So I've joined, as has S, and we look forward to seeing how a ( Read more... )

If I'd attended every single Picocon since arriving at Imperial College as a fresher then yesterday would have been my 24th. I haven't - I know I've had to miss some - but I'd guess I've been to about 20 since my first, Picocon 5, back in 19861987 (oops). Some things have changed a lot in that time, such as the main student bar in Beit Quad (now on ( Read more... )

... the typeset proof for this:


( Read more... )

Robert McCall, noted space artist and illustrator, has died at the age of 90. Still working until very recently, he may be most familiar to sf fans for the dramatic poster artwork for 2001.


( Read more... )

If you read nwhyte's journal (and is there anyone left who doesn't?) you'll be aware from this post that Irish fan slovobooks has been banned at short notice from attending Octocon this weekend, seemingly on the basis of unspecified conduct or comments relating to his criticism of the current committee.

Can they do this? More importantly, should they?

( The legal position... )

I saw District 9 last week but for various reasons haven't got around to commenting on it yet. Since then tamaranth has posted her thoughts, which I pretty much agree with but which also include a link to a very negative review that I've seen some other references to. That reviewer's main complaints seem to be:

( Everything from here on is VERY SPOILER-LADEN )