Books & Comics

io9 Book Club Reminder: Meeting 12/3 to discuss Neptune’s Brood

In November, the io9 Book Club is reading Neptune’s Brood, by Charles Stross. We’ll meet December 2 to discuss it, and we hope Stross will join us later that week for a chat! Neptune’s Brood is a sequel to Saturn’s Children, but you don’t need to read the first book to appreciate the second. (Here’s…

Holiday Gift Books for Lovers of Science and Science Fiction

There’s nothing better than a gorgeous coffee table book or special edition to leaf through during the holidays. We’ve got recommendations of gift books for people who are fans of scientific discovery — and science fictional exploration. Science and History Southern Light: Images from Antarctica Luminous photography from the world’s least-explored continent. Out of the…

Which words turn up most in Hunger Games, Twilight, and Harry Potter?

Certainly The Hunger Games and Twilight are very different media experiences, but how do the YA series differ in their actual vocabulary and sentence structure? Slate put together a textual analysis of Suzanne Collins and Stephenie Meyer’s series, alongside J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. https://gizmodo.com/i-was-a-hunger-games-hater-1469890191 Ben Blatt tallied up the adjective, adverbs, common phrases, and…

How to Build Los Angeles in 2094 A.D.

One can never have too many post-apocalyptic visions of Los Angeles, right? This future L.A. is better known as Mega-City Two, a late 21st-century megalopolis that comes to us thanks to a new Judge Dredd comic, Mega-City Two: City of Courts, which hits shelves in January 2014. Like Chris Burden’s Metropolis II sculpture crossed with…

James Marsters reveals the secrets of his dark new Spike comic

After Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel ended, there were persistent rumors that Director Joss Whedon was going to make a Spike movie with actor James Marsters reprising his role as the fan-favorite vampire. It never happened, but now the movie is taking new life as a comic book called Into the Light, written by…

How much was Isaac Asimov involved in Asimov’s Magazine?

Sheila Williams has been editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine since 2004 — but she’s been involved with the magazine for 31 years, since she came on board as an editorial assistant. Talking to Locus Magazine, she reminisces about working with Isaac Asimov himself at the magazine that bore his name. Says Williams: I ended…

The Biggest Digital Comics Platform Finally Offers eGift Cards

The digital comics world has taken its sweet time catching up to music and movies as far as distribution goes, but we’re finally—if not slowly—starting to get there. ComiXology, the same service powering the official apps of Marvel, DC, Image, and other publishers, is finally offering eGift Cards in the range of $10 to $500…

​RIP Doris Lessing, one of science fiction’s most indispensible authors

Doris Lessing, who died today aged 94, wasn’t just a Nobel Prize-winning literary author — she was also a major hero of science fiction. She was one of the first authors with mainstream acclaim to embrace, and her fiction is worth more than a hundred writing workshops, for aspiring SF authors. Image via OzSo Seriously,…

This Infographic Shows How a Story Can Hit Big Without the Internet

Remember books? You know, the most distributed content-delivery technology ever? Folios may be on their way out, and internet content may reach more people than ever, but it’s pretty amazing to look at how widely our favorite narratives have been distributed. Who knew that Pride and Prejudice has had more editions than the King James…

Crowdfund comics about Brookyln-dwelling gods and African folktales

There are a ton of wonderful comics projects looking for crowdfunding at the moment, across a range of styles and genres. There’s an anthology of African folktales, a comic book game of telephone, an urban fantasy about a man trying to pay off his karmic debt, and a post-apocalyptic tale about a scavenger and a…

Sandman‘s Endless reimagined as superheroes

Artist Ilias Kyriazis gave the Endless from Neil Gaiman’s comic Sandman a makeover fitting their home in the DC Universe, outfitting the powerful beings as mere superheroes. Despair, Desire, Death, Dream, Destruction, Destiny, and Delirium trade in their usual duds for spandex (and, in Destruction’s case, a bit of skin). You can see individual versions…

Sweet and silly (and uncomfortably sexy) moments from Loki’s childhood

Sibling rivalry typically starts in childhood, and artist Laine shows the roots of Thor and Loki’s fraught relationship in a series of comics and illustrations from their youth. Poor Loki, he can never catch a break with Odin, whether in academics, athletics, or drawing mythologically accurate animals. But some of Laine’s images of Loki’s childhood…

It Will All Hurt is like a stream-of-consciousness Adventure Time

Farel Dalrymple’s It Will All Hurt is not a webcomic for those looking for an easily distilled plotline or characters whose motivations are instantly clear. Instead, it’s a beautifully watercolored, dream-like post-apocalyptic adventure, one that invites you to sit back and drift through its fantasy world—and manages to be funny, strange, and sad in the…

This library’s copy of Fifty Shades of Grey has herpes

In related news: Did you know books can get herpes? They can, as two Belgian professors found out when they decided to examine the Antwerp library’s top 10 most checked-out books. From Time: Each book underwent bacteriology and toxicology tests, and the findings reveal that library books are even more germ-covered than you expected. While…

Punk Odyssey: A former Gaelic punk singer and biologist won a prestigious literary “first book” prizefor his novel about two musicians who hitch a ride on a rocket to a space station full of anarchists, then steal a “disco-equipped spaceship.”

Which classic novel did you quit reading halfway through?

The greatest science fiction or fantasy novel is the one that speaks to you at the time you read it. So there’s nothing wrong with giving up on a book halfway through, even if it’s considered one of the genre’s all-time classics. Which acclaimed science fiction or fantasy book could you not manage to finish?…

It’s time to start reading hard science fiction again

I write science fiction and fantasy, but mostly my work is classified as “hard” science fiction. I’ve found that there are many readers who know and love hard science fiction, but I think just as many are determined to avoid it, convinced that the hard stuff is not for them. Why? They just don’t know…

65 of the greatest fantasy adventure books

Joshua Glenn has been rescuing classic science fiction and fantasy books from dusty vaults for years. Now he’s getting excited about the “adventure” subgenre — he shared a list of great science fiction adventure yesterday, and today he’s got a list of fantasy adventures. https://gizmodo.com/the-top-101-science-fiction-adventures-listed-in-chron-1463897780 Over at Hilobrow, Glenn lists 65 of his personal favorite…

Science Fiction Book Cover Redesigns We Wish We Could Put on the Shelf

Over at Artsy Musings, there’s a great roundup of science fiction book cover reimaginings that ought to be actual book covers. Including this beautiful design by Luke James. Check out a few more of our favorites below. Left: Hannes Beer. Right: Wayne Dorrington. Left: Kevin Tong. Right: Paul Murray. Both images by Kevin Tong. Check…

The Top 101 Science Fiction Adventures

Book editor and critic Joshua Glenn has worked to bring classic early science fiction back into print with his Radium Age Science Fiction Series. Now here’s his definitive list of the best adventure stories of all time! (Remember — these are not just scifi, but action/adventure scifi.) Top image: Sparth Below, please find a list…