Books

Read Ken Liu’s amazing story that swept the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards

Ken Liu’s incredible story “Paper Menagerie” just became the first work of fiction to win all three of SF’s major awards: the Hugo, the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award. And we’re proud to be able to reprint the whole story, right here at io9. Here’s your chance to find out what all the excitement…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

11 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About James Bond

You don’t know all the secrets of James Bond. The swashbuckling, cocktail-sipping superspy has spent over 50 years as a cultural phenomenon, defeating plans for world destruction and riding on insane vehicles — and along the way, he’s had more than his fair share of weird stories and strange interludes. Now that he’s back in…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders and Amanda Yesilbas

And now, a life-size Hobbit hole made from 2,600 different balloons

Do you love balloons and J.R.R. Tolkien? Then have we got a treat for you! Jeremy Telford, known on the internet as The Balloon Guy, has constructed his very own Hobbit hole entirely out of balloons. It took him 40 hours and 2,600 balloons. Check out the time lapse video showing this buildings construction. Pop…

Movies Meredith Woerner

Will your ballot still be secret in 2020?

Now that the dust has settled on the 2012 election, it’s time to look forward — to the election of 2020. Fox News talked to a bunch of futurists about what elections are likely to look like eight years from now, including the idea of receiving your ballot via the Internet. The most interesting comments…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Jeff Bridges finds a director for the role he was born to play: The Giver

We’ve been waiting years for good news on the adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver. The movie, which Jeff Bridges has been attached to for a very long time — because Jesus, just look at him — has been stuck in development hell forever. But now, Variety is reporting that Philip Noyce (Salt) is hot…

io9 Meredith Woerner

Why does Hal sing “Daisy” in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

You might already know this, but it’s news to me. Arthur C. Clarke went to a Bell Labs demonstration in 1962 or 1963 featuring an IBM 704 singing the song “Daisy” (or, more properly, “Daisy Bell”) and it made a huge impression. This was also the first real-life example of a singing computer. Strange Horizons…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Could The Hunger Games get published today?

The Hunger Games helped to transform the landscape of publishing, convincing a ton of people that young adult novels could be important, serious books. It touched off a huge boom in books for teenagers about dystopian futures, and spawned a hit movie, with more on the way. In many ways, booklovers are living in the…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Listen to Radagast the Brown’s beautiful tune from The Hobbit soundtrack

Ah the weepy melodies from Howard Shore’s Hobbit score are leaking out onto the internet, giving us all the old watery eye. Is there anything more beautiful than the soundtrack Shore puts together for Middle-Earth? Now the first song off The Hobbit soundtrack is out and titled “Radagast The Brown.” So pull out your Hobbit…

io9 Meredith Woerner

Robopocalpyse writers’s next cyborg novel, Amped gets a movie deal

Is author Daniel H. Wilson on his way to becoming Hollywood’s next Philip K Dick? First his unpublished robot uprising novel Robopocalpyse gets picked up by Steven Spielberg. And now Wilson’s latest work, Amped has been scooped up by the Dark City director Alex Proyas. THR is reporting that Proyas is attached to direct Amped…

io9 Meredith Woerner

A gallery of sublime photographs from across our solar system

These are the postcards people will send home from their interplanetary vacations in 500 years. For now we can only gather them with robots, space stations and satellites. Still, it’s pretty awesome to be living in a time when we can do even that. All these incredible visions are taken from Michael Benson’s new art…

io9 Annalee Newitz

The first Neuromancer poster is just pure cyberpunk awesome

Here it is, the fist “official” glimpse into Vincenzo Natali’s vision of William Gibson’s Neuromancer world. And it’s just great. Sure it’s not much to go on, but it’s a gritty-looking finger, with an invitation to jack in. Sold. We’re still pretty thrilled the director of Splice is on board for this movie, and this…

io9 Meredith Woerner

Strategies to Make Sure You Actually Finish That Novel

It’s National Novel-Writing Month, which means you’re starting a novel from scratch. And there’s always one question that hangs over your head as you rush into the void — will you actually be able to finish this one? As hard as starting a novel is, finding your way to a proper ending is often harder…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Ron Moore’s Outlander adaptation will air on Starz

Could Ronald D. Moore be masterminding another twisty, mind-bending TV show at last? We’ve been waiting for info about his adaptation of Outlander for months. And now, at last, there’s some good news. It looks like the show, based on Diana Gabaldon’s novels, has finally found a home at Starz. Deadline is reporting that Starz…

io9 Meredith Woerner

The io9 Book Club is in Session! Let’s Talk About Carolyn Ives Gilman’s Isles of the Forsaken

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. In October, we read Carolyn Ives Gilman’s Isles of the Forsaken. 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 club post on io9…

io9 Annalee Newitz

15 Worst Fashion Disasters from James Bond Movies

James Bond and his harem of “Bond Girls” usually look like sex wrapped around a hot stick. But every now and again, Bond misses his mark. Big time. Sometimes, Bond goes way overboard. Here are the 15 worst James Bond fashion moments on film. Behold, your first stirrup-pant-jumpsuit villain. Francisco Scaramanga from The Man with…

io9 Meredith Woerner

First ever footage from World War Z shows Brad Pitt’s zombie wave

After a tornado of disastrous rumors, the movie adaptation of Max Brooks World War Z trudges on. Here is the very first footage from the film starring Brad Pitt as a brand new character, United Nations employee Gerry Lane. Gerry travels the zombie-destroyed world looking for a hope (none of this is in the book,…

Movies Meredith Woerner

What will the world be like when China is a global superpower?

In North America, it’s become almost a cliché in science fiction to turn Japan and Korea into superpowers of the future. From William Gibson’s first cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, to David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (now a movie), we are bombarded with images of a hyper-futuristic world dominated culturally and economically by these Asian countries. And yet,…

io9 Annalee Newitz

StoryBundle brings you amazing new indie fiction every month — for a good cause

As e-books become a more viable publishing model, it’s getting easier for indie books to reach a wide audience. And now a small project called StoryBundle is aimed at helping you discover a collection of new authors every month — without a big publishing house acting as middleman, taking a huge cut of the author’s…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz

Lavie Tidhar’s Osama wins World Fantasy Award

The winners of the 2012 World Fantasy Awards were just announced here in Toronto, Canada – and the Best Novel Award didn’t go to George R.R. Martin or to Jo Walton, who’d already swept the Nebula and Hugo Awards. Instead, it went to Lavie Tidhar’s Osama, a strange pulp-oriented alt history about Osama Bin Laden.…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

The books Mark Twain “dictated” from beyond the grave

There are always folks trying to exploit the success of authors long after those authors have died. Whether it’s capitalizing on a famous ancestor (see Dacre Stoker) or continuing to publish under a deceased writer’s pen name, some writers and publishers refuse to let celebrity novelists rest in peace. But few tales of posthumous publishing…

io9 Lauren Davis

Read Ken Liu’s amazing story that swept the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards

11 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About James Bond

And now, a life-size Hobbit hole made from 2,600 different balloons

Will your ballot still be secret in 2020?

Jeff Bridges finds a director for the role he was born to play: The Giver

Why does Hal sing “Daisy” in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Could The Hunger Games get published today?

Listen to Radagast the Brown’s beautiful tune from The Hobbit soundtrack

Robopocalpyse writers’s next cyborg novel, Amped gets a movie deal

A gallery of sublime photographs from across our solar system

The first Neuromancer poster is just pure cyberpunk awesome

Strategies to Make Sure You Actually Finish That Novel

Ron Moore’s Outlander adaptation will air on Starz

The io9 Book Club is in Session! Let’s Talk About Carolyn Ives Gilman’s Isles of the Forsaken

15 Worst Fashion Disasters from James Bond Movies

First ever footage from World War Z shows Brad Pitt’s zombie wave

What will the world be like when China is a global superpower?

StoryBundle brings you amazing new indie fiction every month — for a good cause

Lavie Tidhar’s Osama wins World Fantasy Award

The books Mark Twain “dictated” from beyond the grave

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