Books & Comics

Don’t Drive 1,000 MPH: Raindrops Will Destroy Your Windshield

Rain hitting your windshield can mean dicey road conditions and traffic snags. According to XKCD’s What If, the force of those drops hitting your windshield can also destroy your car’s windshield. Lesson learned: don’t drive at speeds of Mach 1.5 in a downpour if you want your glass to survive. As XKCD’s Randall Munroe explains,…

Smut Peddler‘s Editor Tells Us How To Make Great Pornographic Comics

Smut Peddler is an anthology of pornographic comics made by women for everyone. We spoke with Smut Peddler editor C. Spike Trotman about why she features so many science fiction and fantasy comics, what she looks for in porn, and why she drew a sexy comic about the Virgin Mary. The first volume of Smut…

Major Landmarks In The History Of Dark Fantasy

Dark fantasy is more popular than ever. Game of Thrones is rocking our TV sets. Tons of authors have moved to the genre. We’re obsessed with bloody tales of morally gray people and supernatural forces. But where does dark fantasy come from? And how did it become so huge? Here’s a brief history of dark…

First Look At The Star Wars Books Of The Post-Expanded Universe

Now that Disney is well and truly ditching the Star Wars Expanded Universe to start with a clean slate, it’s time for the Lucasfilm Story Group to start building again. And its first order of business (well, after working on Episode VII, presumably) will be four books, and we have an exclusive look! First up…

What is The Greatest Marvel Comics Story Of All Time?

Marvel’s movies are generally pretty great, and Agents of SHIELD is becoming downright entertaining. But they’ve still barely scratched the surface of the wealth of material that Marvel has run in the comics. What’s the absolute best Marvel Comics storyline of all time? Please include a picture or cover for your chosen storyline. And please…

What Are You Reading?

What are you reading right now, and what are you holding on to for next? Are you re-reading an old favorite or searching out a new one, diving deep into some non-fiction, or perhaps living vicariously with a biography? Give us a peek at what’s on your reading list — along with any recently finished…

If you’re in the Berkeley area tonight, 4/23, come see io9 editor Annalee Newitz talk about mass extinction and survival at Moe’s Books. That’s at 7:30 in the venerable bookstore’s basement, and admission is free. See you there … if you survive!

Brace Yourself: Madeline Ashby Is Writing About The Singularity!

We’re shaken up from the weirdness in vN, Madeline Ashby’s novel about artificial consciousness and self-replicating machines. And now, she’s written a novel about The Singularity, when artificial intelligence surpasses our own and everything changes. We’ve got a cover reveal, and some details, below. First up, here’s the cover of Ashby’s new novel Company Town,…

​The Worst Nerds In The Entire World Return In This Week’s Comics

Oh, you might think that the characters of The Big Bang Theory are bad, but they have nothing on Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville Club, a group of the most awful, evil and terrifyingly accurate depictions of nerd-dom’s dark side. Plus Justice League Canada, the end of The Walking Dead’s war, and more! New Issues Dark Horse:…

What Book Shocked You and Your Friends With a Secret Sex Scene?

When you were reading a book, as a kid, did you ever stumble across a little more than you were expecting? Did your friends let you in on the secret? Genre books often come with a secret sex scene. Which books surprised you? When I was in school, the Clan of the Cave Bear series…

Everything You Need to Know to Rebuild Civilization from Scratch

Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist in England who wants to help you save the world after civilization collapses. To that end, he’s written a book called The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch. It’s the one post-apocalyptic guide you’ll ever need. We’ve got an excerpt. In this chapter, Dartnell describes how we can…

Read a Gorgeous and Twisted Webcomic Retelling Of The Wizard Of Oz

Toto, I don’t think we’re in L. Frank Baum’s Oz anymore. In The Black Brick Road of Oz, an amnesiac girl who thinks she’s Dorothy Gale finds herself in an Oz populated by flesh-hungry witches, zombie scarecrows, and a tin woodman mourning more than the loss of his body. Xamag’s webcomic uses Baum’s Oz as…

io9 Book Club Reminder: Meeting 5/6 to Discuss Life After Life

This month, the io9 Book Club is reading Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. We’ll be meeting May 6 to talk about it. Join us! We’re hoping Atkinson will join us later that week to talk about the book. What is this io9 Book Club all about? We meet once a month to discuss a book…

In The Redemption Engine, We Visit an Anarcho-Capitalist Fantasy City

In his latest novel, The Redemption Engine, James Sutter’s “misotheist” hero Salim Ghadafar visits a catacomb-riddled city to solve a mystery involving missing souls. He talked with us about the novel, and atheist characters in worlds full of gods. James L. Sutter is the managing editor for Paizo Publishing and a co-creator of the Pathfinder…

Discover The Origin Of The X-Files In 1940s-Set Year Zero Comic

Mulder and Scully weren’t the first. A brand-new 5-issue comic miniseries will look at the creation of the FBI’s “X-Files” office back in the ’40s, and the beginnings of a mystery that stretches through the decades. Here’s the official description from IDW: In the 1940s, a shadowy informant known as “Mr. Xero” directed the FBI…

How to Write a Great Science Fiction Novel in 7 Easy Steps

Max Barry’s book Lexicon was voted fourth best science fiction novel of the year by Goodreads, and now he’s put together a (mostly serious) list of steps you’ll want to take to become a writer of great science fiction. STEP 1: HAVE AN IDEA Great sci-fi begins with an idea. Unfortunately, as people will tell…

Raw Uncut Science Fiction, Live On Stage! If you’re in Portland, OR, you have no excuse not to go to the Jack London Bar and check out Pulp Gulp, a live reading of great science fiction stories adapted to short plays. Including David D. Levine’s award-winning “Tk’Tk’Tk.”

President Obama Totally Commits To Where The Wild Things Are Reading

President Obama goes full monster face while reading Where The Wild Things Are to a group of children during the annual White House Egg Roll. Wonderful. Spotted via the Washington Post twitter feed: Photographs from Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency.

A Taxonomy Of Creepy Dead Kids In Horror Fiction

M.R. Carey’s new novel The Girl With All The Gifts comes to the United States in June — but it’s already gotten massive acclaim in the U.K., and it’s one of our favorite books this year. In a special essay, Carey explains why there are so many creepy dead children in horror, and what they…

Lewis Carroll Hated Fame So Much, He Sometimes Regretted Writing Alice

Charles Dodgson, the author and mathematician better known as Lewis Carroll, wrote about a young girl lost in surreal dreamscapes. But Dodgson had trouble navigating treacherous landscape of his own: literary fame. The author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass wrote in 1891 letter to one Mrs. Symonds, explaining his particular discomfort…