Charlie Jane Anders

How two shapeshifting girls from Venus became the Beatles’ most trusted advisors

Author Pat Cadigan tells NPR how she and her friend concocted a fantasy life in the 1960s, in which they were twins from Venus, in charge of the entire solar system. But they still found time to advise the Beatles. You never know how people are going to react after watching The Day The Earth…

Cops handcuff Batman, drag him away to jail

Looks like Batman still hasn’t cleared his name after he decided to take the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes. The L.A. cops arrested him for standing on Hollywood Blvd. and posing with tourists, and he’s still in jail. Ordinarily, Hollywood Blvd is full of people in superhero and other costumes, posing with tourists, but the…

The best space battle smack talk of all time!

A couple years ago, we shared with you our favorite moments of commanders trash-talking each other prior to, or during, an all-out battle in space. Now we’re bringing it back again, as today’s io9 flashback. The greatest tacticians in space don’t just use high-energy beams and force shields, they use psychology. And the best interstellar…

Get reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally stoned and watch a documentary about the Singularity

No, sorry, you’re not stoned enough to watch the trailer for Turning Into Gods, the new Singularity documentary. You won’t be able to appreciate lines like, “In order to use your head, you have to go out of your mind.” I can’t even begin to conceive of how baked you’d need to be to watch…

Restless stars keep moving, in a perplexing stellar dance

The Hubble space telescope examined a turbulent star-forming region, NGC 3603, ten years after Hubble first surveyed it. And the repeat observation showed that stars were moving in ways that startled and amazed scientists. According to Hubble’s site: With a mass of more than 10 000 suns packed into a volume with a diameter of a…

Awesome Tron Legacy billboard! How sexy will Transformers 3 get? Plus when you’ll see Tony Stark next…

Tron Legacy unveiled a dynamic billboard, and Joel Silver talks Logan’s Run and Lobo. Jon Favreau talks Iron Man’s future. There’s a Scott Pilgrim TV spot and Doctor Who clues. Plus Splice, Last Airbender, Fringe, V, True Blood and Nikita. Tron Legacy: A new billboard shows us some awesome new light-disc-throwing action. [IGN] Transformers 3:…

Utopian urban planners want your city to be like a new iPad

A great essay over at Crosscut.com explains why two different schools of utopian city planning in Seattle both try to ignore the city’s present-day realities and historical features: All sides in civic debates draw on uptopianism. There is a sense that we can have it all here: prosperity, nature, industry, wealth, social justice, growth, solitude,…

Watch Mal Reynolds’ ex-wife dismantle her own body, piece by piece

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the Broken Bells music video starring Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks (aka Firefly’s Mrs. Reynolds!) and now it’s here. Watch the android Christina dismantle her own body aboard a spaceship bound for stardom. I think this might actually be my favorite science fiction music video of all time. [Guardian via EW and…

Vincenzo Natali explains why Splice is not an anti-science film

Splice, opening Friday, deals with the abuse of science and the ways in which genetic engineering could go horribly wrong. But it’s not an anti-science film, insists director Vincenzo Natali, who talked to us at Wondercon. Natali points out that he worked with scientists in the making of this film, and the more he worked…

A 2-CD set of James Horner’s complete Star Trek III score? Yes please.

For those of us who played the LP version of the Star Trek III: The Search For Spock soundtrack until it was just a mass of scratches, there’s a bold new hope. James Horner’s full score, never before released in its entirety, just came out on CD. (Good thing too — according to Amazon, the…

Iron Man 2 is a hit — but not as big as people had predicted

Before Iron Man 2 came out, people speculated on whether it could beat The Dark Knight. But after a month, Tony Stark’s latest adventure seems like it’ll barely match Iron Man’s domestic gross. Box Office Mojo offers a few explanations.

R.I.P. Louise Bourgeois, the woman who unleashed an army of giant spiders

Sculptor Louise Bourgeois created an array of surreal images in her career, including mutant body-parts. But Bourgeois, nicknamed “Spiderwoman,” will be best remembered for the giant spiders she placed all over the world. She died Monday, aged 98. [Daily Telegraph]

Awesome Predators posters, Harry Potter set pics, X-Men casting rumor, The Crow update, and Doctor Who clips!

Get a better look at Predators’ main characters. Will Kick-Ass join the X-Men? Find out where the Crow update takes place. Plus Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Smurfs, Splice, Heroes(!), Cowboys And Aliens, Real Steel, Last Airbender and Mission Impossible! Predators: Here are a couple new posters. [ShockTillYouDrop] Harry Potter: Some more set photos showing how…

Which novel is science fiction’s Harry Potter?

Pyr’s Lou Anders breaks it down for you in an awesome new interview over at Redstone Science Fiction. Will “sword and planet” novels make a comeback? Why is steampunk eating hard SF’s lunch? What’s science fiction’s answer to Harry Potter?

How will the world end? Cory Doctorow, Ben Greenman and other authors debate!

Sometimes high-school cliques and supervamps both need a roundhouse kick

A boarding school full of vampires sounds like a bit silly, like Harry Potter meets Twilight. But Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy is actually something much cooler: Mean Girls with mysticism, plus complicated vampire politics. Spoilers ahead. The Vampire Academy novels have already reached their fifth or sixth volume by now, and I’ve seen them for…

Are there phenomena in the universe that will always be beyond human comprehension?

Just after we linked to the Physics and Cake blog’s post about whether there might be a “ceiling” in the level of theoretical physics that humans can understand, Reith Lecturer Martin Rees wrote an essay for the London Times, explaining the first of his Reith Lectures. And Rees does believe that there may be intrinsic…

How You Can Live Like A Vulcan Without Bleeding Green

You can’t be a Jedi, because the Force isn’t real. You can’t be a Na’vi, because your hair isn’t magic. But you can do a pretty good job of living like a Vulcan from Star Trek, and here’s how. And let’s face it – Vulcans are way cooler than Jedi or Na’vi anyway. (At least…

What will physics research look like after the Singularity?

Over at the Physics And Cake blog, there’s a great discussion of exactly how machines will replace theoretical physicists, with their only goal being to create a perfect model of the universe, and no ego at stake. I feel that the best way to do Physics is to build machines to do Physics for us……

Green Lantern synopsis includes a surprising villain. Plus Smurf set pics and Super 8 casting hints!

Is Green Lantern’s main villain someone unexpected? Is a new casting call really from Super 8? Behold Gargamel and Azrael on the Smurfs set! Plus Predators, Transformers, Last Airbender, Doctor Who, Splice, Warehouse 13, Caprica, Stargate and True Blood spoilers! Green Lantern: Comic Book Movie apparently got its hands on a leaked press release including…