Charlie Jane Anders

RIP Gilbert Taylor. He was one of the great cinematographers who transformed science fiction with his work on Star Wars and other films. Sadly, Taylor has died at age 99.

If you had it to do all over again… could you even manage to?

It’s become a cliché to say, “If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.” Or, “I’d do the same thing again.” But could you actually do that in real life? If you rewound your life to your 16th birthday, would it even be possible to duplicate your past actions? Assuming…

The 7 Most Common Misconceptions About Science Fiction Publishing

Science fiction book publishers sail the multiverse like a fleet of unstoppable hyper-cruisers. And many of us dream of being beamed up to one of these motherships. But at the same time, a lot of people don’t understand how the system works. Here are the seven most common mistaken ideas about science fiction book publishers.…

The World’s End: A Science Fiction Movie That’s Also Pretty Funny

The World’s End isn’t the funniest movie of the summer. But it’s pretty darn funny in places, and it crackles with storytelling energy. And it’s a good example of how to do a science fiction comedy that’s actually proper science fiction, not just a comedy with science-fictional trappings. Spoilers ahead… Your usual science fiction comedy…

Ben Affleck will play an older Batman fighting the young Superman

The odds of Batman Vs. Superman being an interesting film just went up somewhat. Because Batman, who apparently will be kicking Superman’s ass judging from the speech we heard at Comic-Con, will be played by Argo director Ben Affleck. Top image: Affleck in the Daredevil mask, which sort of looks like a Bat-cowl if you…

Iron Man becomes a guided missile, in stunning new concept art

We’ve seen a ton of Iron Man 3 concept art before — but we didn’t see the concepts from suit designer extraordinaire Phil Saunders… until now. Saunders finally released some designs for Tony Stark’s cutting-edge armors, and they are glorious. One interesting piece of information that Saunders released, along with his early designs for Extremis…

Could Peter Capaldi really be the final face of Doctor Who?

Of course not. But Steven Moffat reportedly told people last night that it’s official that the Doctor, that alien time traveler, can only change his shape a dozen times. With John Hurt added as a previously unknown incarnation, that makes Peter Capaldi the Last Doctor. Top image: DrkSde on Deviant Art. At the Ad-Lib event…

Which book series went on WAY past its expiration date?

The best science fiction and fantasy books are so addictive, you finish one book and immediately want to reach for the next. Until… they start to go downhill. Because the Law of Diminishing Returns applies to every universe. What’s the book series that most outstayed its welcome? Please include a book cover or other image…

Quite Possibly the Only Victorian Adventuress You’ll Ever Need

Tony Cliff’s Eisner-nominated comic Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant tells the story of Selim, a member of Constantinople’s Janissary Corps who joins up with adventurer Delilah Dirk after she saves his life. There are airships, pirates, death-defying escapes. We’ve got a ton of sample pages, right here. Originally published as a webcomic, Delilah Dirk…

This brilliant robot horror short is becoming a full-length film

Add another example to the ongoing trend of short films being expanded to full length features — back in April we featured this terrifying short movie Abe, about a robot who becomes a serial killer. Now MGM is turning it into a full-length creepfest.

A dentist wants to clone John Lennon from his rotten tooth

All you need is DNA. A Canadian dentist says he’s working with “American scientists” to clone John Lennon from a rotten molar the Beatles singer had extracted in the 1960s. According to the press release (warning: it autoplays a weird parody song, “Love Me Tooth”) dentist Michael Zuk bought the tooth at auction for $31,000…

Could a new Star Trek TV show about Worf actually happen?

There have been tons of ideas batted around for a new Star Trek show, including Bryan Fuller and Bryan Singer collaborating on a show tying in with the J.J. Abrams films. But apparently one idea has gotten as far as actual discussions: a show about Worf, the Klingon who appeared in TNG and DS9. https://gizmodo.com/j-j-abrams-is-the-guardian-of-star-trek-including-o-5904078…

What’s your favorite (or least favorite) disaster porn?

This is the era of disaster porn. From Transformers: Dark of the Moon to 2012 to Man of Steel to Star Trek Into Darkness, every movie shows cities being trashed. Sometimes the whole planet gets borked. So what’s the most satisfying disaster porn of all time? Or the most gratuitous? Please include a picture or…

How The World’s End rejects ‘drunken, misogynistic’ manchild films

In The World’s End, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost gather their former best friends to drink their old hometown dry. But when we talked to Pegg, Frost and director Edgar Wright, they told us how this apocalyptic comedy isn’t like your usual “drunken midlife crisis” film. Plus the secret of using genre to tell a…

Word of the Day: Now there’s a word for that thing where a planet has a single climate, ecosystem or culture: a Monocosm.

The Mortal Instruments is like The Avengers of teen fantasy

Remember when The Avengers came out, and it was just so gleefully jam-packed with crazy shit? Like, they shook the bag until every last thing fell out? The Mortal Instruments is like that, except for teen urban fantasy. This movie has everything in it, and it will make you laugh until you pass out. Spoilers…

The io9 Preview: Everything That Will Rock Your Cosmos This Fall!

Summer is almost over, but the fun isn’t stopping. The fun isn’t even slowing down. Science fiction and fantasy are on fire over the next few months. Here’s our jam-packed guide to this fall’s movies, television, comics and books. https://gizmodo.com/fall-movie-guide-our-forecast-on-20-science-fiction-an-1138983993 https://gizmodo.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-this-falls-science-fiction-and-f-1149999892 https://gizmodo.com/this-fall-s-greatest-comics-will-blow-your-mind-and-you-1173211879 https://gizmodo.com/all-the-books-that-will-explode-your-mind-this-fall-1167469236

Sheer Brilliance: Star Wars’ Emperor voiced by Mark Hamill’s Joker

Mark Hamill is best known for being the voice of the Joker in various Batman animated TV shows. But long before that, he played another role, that of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. What if the two Mark Hamills met? Youtuber Parry Hotter has created this brilliant fan-edit of the Emperor-Luke scenes in Return of…

What if Pixar made the Pacific Rim sequel?

It’s a valid question. And if Pixar did somehow get the rights to make a sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s wonderful monsters-vs-robots movie, it could look something like this great art by artist James Chung. Chung posted this Pixar/Pacific Rim mashup, called “Pixar Rim,” over on his Deviant Art page. Where he also has some…

The Only Kind of Sentence You Should Use in Your Fiction

People will advise you to write all sorts of sentences. Snappy sentences, lyrical sentences, Hemingway-esque short sentences, long Faulknerian sentences. But there’s really only one kind of sentence that actually works: a sentence that carries the reader forward from the previous sentence. This is harder than it sounds. I don’t care what kind of fiction…