Books & Comics

The New X-Men Are Entirely X-Women (or Maybe Vice Versa)

USA Today announced the line-up of Marvel NOW’s all-new X-Men comic (not to be confused with Marvel’s all-new Uncanny X-Men title or the all-new… er… All-New X-Men comic), and it turns out they’re not men at all! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa (/record scratch noise): However, with this new X-Men [writer Brian Wood] gets all the A-list X-women: The…

Books & Comics Rob Bricken

San Antonio’s Launching the First Completely Bookless Public Library

Books, who needs ’em? Libraries? Not anymore they don’t. The first public, bookless library is coming to San Antonio soon and, possibly, to a (dystopic?) future near you. The new book-free library, called “BiblioTech,” is intended to open in the fall and is part of a an entire bookless public library system planned for the…

Books & Comics Eric Limer

The Webcomic Guide to the Apocalypse: Plague

We’re going to be seeing a glut of apocalyptic movies this year, even though audiences are starting to get weary of watching the world end. While Hollywood looks for new ways to blow up the Earth, I’ll be taking a look back at how the apocalypse looked when science fiction was new. In a series…

Books & Comics Lauren Davis

Saturday Webcomic: Trekker is an ass-kicking bounty hunter from our pulp retro future

New Gelaph is a city that has been abandoned by the future. Once the prospective home of a major spaceport, the city has lost its space industry and gotten instead streets filled with cultists, criminals, and corrupt cops. With no faith left in the system, Mercy St. Clair has become a Trekker, a licensed bounty…

Books & Comics Lauren Davis

Impale Your Books With a Katana Sword So They Never Topple

Samurais are a resourceful bunch, roaming the country looking for freelance work. So it’s no surprise they’ve come up with a really simple way to keep books on a shelf from falling over: just stab them all through the heart with a sword. Or at least we’re assuming that’s how this Katana Bookend from Mustard…

Books & Comics Andrew Liszewski

The Shocking Truth About Rejection Letters

When you send in your beloved short story to a fiction magazine and get a rejection letter back, try not to take it personally. Because, as Beth Wodzinski at Shimmer Magazine reveals, it was probably written by a badger. As Wodzinski explains, she’s trying to drag the badger-based rejection letter industry into the 21st century…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

Meet the new writer of Swamp Thing: 27/Strange Attractors creator Charles Soule!

The rumors have been swirling for some time now — but we can exclusively confirm that Charles Soule is taking over as writer of DC’s Swamp Thing with issue 19, replacing Scott Snyder after the end of the “Rotworld” storyline. Soule has won massive praise for his work on creator-owned projects like 27 and Strange…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

Ask Gail Carriger anything you want about Soulless and the Parasol Protectorate series

In December, the io9 book club read Soulless, the first novel in Gail Carriger’s bestselling Parasol Protectorate series. On Monday, January 14, Carriger will be joining us to answer any of your questions — about the book, about the series, or just about writing in general. She’ll be here from 4-5 PM Pacific Time on…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

Read a very punny excerpt from Piers Anthony’s new Xanth novel, Luck of the Draw

If you’re like a lot of fantasy and SF lovers, you grew up reading Piers Anthony’s goofy, punny Xanth series, about a bunch of hapless citizens of a magical world called Xanth. (People from our world are known as Mundanes.) Every person from Xanth is born with a special magical power, which might be super-powerful,…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

The io9 Book Club Is in Session! Let’s Talk About Gail Carriger’s Soulless.

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. In December, we read Soulless, the first novel in Gail Carriger’s bestselling Parasol Protectorate series. Jump into comments to get started talking about it! For those unfamiliar with the io9 book club, here’s how it works: You read the book. We create a special book…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes — And Have a Better Life

He’s not just a snacky master of deduction. Sherlock Holmes also has some profound psychological lessons to teach. Learn from the brilliant detective’s strategy of mindfulness in this excerpt from psychology researcher Maria Konnikova’s new book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. The Two M’s: Mindfulness and Motivation As Holmes reminds us, “Like all…

Books & Comics Maria Konnikova

How to Read a Book Every Single Day of the Year

Of all the terrible New Year resolutions that will have been made this week, reading more is one that sounds easy but is incredibly tough. But with a slew of reading tech available, perhaps now is the best time ever to churn through the pages like never before. Jeff Ryan explains on Slate how he…

Books & Comics Jamie Condliffe

How Much Do Americans Read? (And How Much of That is with eBooks?)

New research from Pew Internet says that ebook readership is up (duh), and overall we own more tablets and ereaders. That’s not all that surprising, really. Still, here’s a look at how America reads. According to data gathered from more than 2,000 participants in the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, the number…

Books & Comics Kyle Wagner

Support new original horror fiction from Ellen Datlow!

There are remarkably few places that publish new short horror fiction nowadays — and there are also relatively few anthologies that don’t have a rigid theme, like zombies or witchcraft. Enter editor Ellen Datlow, who used to edit stories for Omni and SciFiction, and now puts out a lot of our favorite anthologies. Datlow has…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

Gizmodo’s Winter Reading List

Winter break is a time for video games and snoozing. But it’s also a good time to get some reading done, or at least pretend like you’re going to read all the books on those end-of-year lists. Here’s what the Gizmodo staff is reading: Leslie Horn: I need a book to read. What’s everyone reading?…

Books & Comics Kyle Wagner

The Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012

Each week, we’ve been looking at webcomics new and old, bringing you some of the best of what we’ve seen online. 2012 brought us a wide range of genre webcomics, from a fanciful tale of an artist and his editor that uses all three spatial dimensions to one of the sweetest fan comics DC has…

Books & Comics Lauren Davis

The Absolute Best Comics and Graphic Novels of 2012

Movie special effects have gotten better and better, but the big screen still can’t deliver the kind of mind-blowing visuals and intricate, stare-for-hours detail that comics bring us. This year’s greatest comics included some fantastic science fiction, some thrilling space opera — and a handful of superhero titles that made us celebrate the age of…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders and Rob Bricken

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2012

This year was a great one for science fiction and fantasy that transcended genre boundaries. Novels that appeared to be science fiction turned out to be fantasies, and stories that began as outer space battles turned into thought-provoking meditations on the political future of humanity. Not surprisingly, given that the past few years have been…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

Jennifer Egan joins the million-dollar author club

Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad included a science-fictional section set in the future — and won the Pulitzer Prize. And her Twitter story “Black Box” was the best thing in the New Yorker’s recent science fiction issue. So we’re cautiously hopeful that she’ll continue moving in that direction for her next two…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

io9 Book Club Reminder: Meeting 1/8 to Discuss Gail Carriger’s Soulless

The io9 Book Club meets every month to discuss a book, and then the author usually joins us for a chat. This month, we’re reading Gail Carriger’s Soulless, the first book in her popular Parasol Protectorate series. The fifth book, Timeless, came out this year — but we figured it would be best to start…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

The New X-Men Are Entirely X-Women (or Maybe Vice Versa)

San Antonio’s Launching the First Completely Bookless Public Library

The Webcomic Guide to the Apocalypse: Plague

Saturday Webcomic: Trekker is an ass-kicking bounty hunter from our pulp retro future

Impale Your Books With a Katana Sword So They Never Topple

The Shocking Truth About Rejection Letters

Meet the new writer of Swamp Thing: 27/Strange Attractors creator Charles Soule!

Ask Gail Carriger anything you want about Soulless and the Parasol Protectorate series

Read a very punny excerpt from Piers Anthony’s new Xanth novel, Luck of the Draw

The io9 Book Club Is in Session! Let’s Talk About Gail Carriger’s Soulless.

How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes — And Have a Better Life

How to Read a Book Every Single Day of the Year

How Much Do Americans Read? (And How Much of That is with eBooks?)

Support new original horror fiction from Ellen Datlow!

Gizmodo’s Winter Reading List

The Best New and Short Webcomics of 2012

The Absolute Best Comics and Graphic Novels of 2012

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2012

Jennifer Egan joins the million-dollar author club

io9 Book Club Reminder: Meeting 1/8 to Discuss Gail Carriger’s Soulless

NASA Rover Finds Glowing, Ruby-Like Crystals on Mars for the First Time

Anker Prime Docking Station Hits Its Lowest Price as Amazon’s Spring Sale Winds Down (14 Ports With 160W Output)

Google TV Streamer 4K Drops to an All-Time Low, Final Hours in Amazon Spring Sale to Turn Any TV Smart on a Budget

The New ‘Masters of the Universe’ Trailer Brings Eternia to Life

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

UGREEN Bluetooth Tracker 4-Pack Now Just $7 Each With iOS and Android Support, While AirTag Stays at Full Price

Trump Posts Concept Art of His Presidential Library, and It’s AI Slop

Forget Tower Desktop, GMKtec Mini PC Drops to a Record Low as Amazon Clears Out Final Spring Sale Stock

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

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