Books

Is This The Year Urban Fantasy Conquers Science Fiction?

Urban fantasy is swallowing up speculative fiction book sales, according to a new sales chart from Tim Holman, our new favorite chart pornographer. The Orbit Books publisher says that urban fantasy now claims nearly half the SF/F bestselller list. After having just tracked the most popular fantasy book cover art elements, Holman has turned his…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

L.A. Is A Magical Cesspit, And Sandman Slim Is Its New Champion

Richard Kadrey was at the vanguard of the noir-tinged cyberpunk back in the day, so it’s only fitting he’s helping to shape noir’s next frontier, urban fantasy. His novel Sandman Slim brings Hellspawn and trash magic to L.A. Spoilers below… Sandman Slim follows the adventures of Jimmy, aka Stark, aka Sandman Slim, who was dragged…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Ian Rankin Doesn’t Like SF’s Affinity For The End Of The Alphabet

He may just have released his first horror graphic novel with last week’s Dark Entries from DC/Vertigo, but don’t expect crime writer Ian Rankin to suddenly jump genres again and start writing science fiction… He’s worried about the consonants, apparently. The Scotsman newspaper reported on Rankin’s appearances at the Edinburgh Festival, and we noted with…

io9 Graeme McMillan

Sony Virtual Library eBook Check Out Is Awesome, But Just a Little Too Literal

My favorite part of Sony’s Reader announcement was probably Library Finder, powered by OverDrive, which lets you check out eBooks from your local library—and “thousands” have signed up—for free, direct to your reader. But there’s a catch. https://gizmodo.com/sony-daily-edition-reader-3g-7-inch-touchscreen-in-de-5345112 There aren’t an unlimited number of ebooks—each library has an actual “stock” of ebooks (because the library…

Books & Comics Matt Buchanan

FlashForward Stars Act Out The “Dancing On The Ceiling” Video

FlashForward’s premise, about a mysterious blackout that grants everyone a glimpse of the future, is kind of hard to convey in advertising. So what do you do? Stick some furniture to the walls, and play “We’re falling sideways!” Based loosely on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer, FlashForward debuts on Sept. 24. [Lyly Ford and…

Television Charlie Jane Anders

I Never Want To Hear The Word “Franchise” Again

Recently, I read speculation about whether Sam Raimi would stick with the Spider-Man “franchise,” and couldn’t help picturing Raimi in a polyester fast-food uniform. Somewhere along the way, epic tales of the human spirit stopped being stories and became “franchises.” The entertainment industry’s pervasive use of the word “franchise” goes deeper than the plague of…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

“It Causes Me Pain To Classify My Post-Apocalyptic YA Romance As Science Fiction”

How easy is it to nail down the genre of a novel you’re working on? Agent Nathan Bransford polled the readers of his blog about the genres they’re writing, and it turned into a free-for-all about the terror of genres. Bransford, an agent with Curtis Brown, posted a poll allowing people to identify their works…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness

This may be the best era for original anthologies since the days of Dangerous Visions. Jonathan Strahan announced the final list of contributors for Eclipse 3, and it’s made of want. Other anthologies promise down-and-dirty werewolves, and stellar flash fiction. We were blown away by the second volume of Strahan’s Eclipse series, not least because…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Proof That Every Fantasy Book Cover Must Contain a Sword

The nerds over at Orbit Books have examined every single fantasy book cover from the past year they could get their hands on, and tallied up the most popular visual elements. Shockingly, unicorns are extremely unpopular in fantasy cover art. And not surprisingly, swords are pretty much required if you want to let people know…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Time Traveler’s Wife Leaps onto Television

On the heels of a successful opening weekend, ABC has announced its plans for television adaptation of The Time Traveler’s Wife, with Friends creator Marta Kauffman. The time travel romance may span a lifetime, but can it span multiple seasons? ABC claims it has been working with Kauffman for years on a possible small-screen adaptation…

io9 Lauren Davis

Margaret Atwood’s All-Singing, All-Drama Post-Apocalyptic Roadshow

With Margaret Atwood‘s long-awaited novel The Year Of The Flood coming out in a month or so, she’s ramping up a promotional blitz, including a spiffy website and T-shirts. She also plans a roadshow with actors and choirs… and plushies? The Year Of The Flood is not quite a sequel to Atwood’s acclaimed novel Oryx…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Here’s Another Kindle Holder For Book Aficionados Who Just Can’t Let Go

The hollowed out book, long a staple of Shawshank Redemption prison escapes and whatnot, now hosts the Kindle, thanks to a company that apparently just can’t let that old “book” style of reading go the way of the dinosaur. “Love your Kindle but miss the feel of holding a real book?” asks Busted Typewriter, the…

Commerce Jack Loftus

G.I. Joe Concept Art Hints At A Glorious Power-Armored Opera

An undersea base glitters with menace and top-secret technology, amidst crags and ice floes, in this concept art from G.I. Joe. We scored an exclusive gallery of Joe art from the tie-in book, including Viper masks and a sinister lab. This incredible art comes from G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra: Mission Dossier, newly out…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Can This Time-Traveling Marriage Be Saved From Its Own Banality?

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a story about deja vu. Everything that happens has already happened, and will happen again, thanks to the story’s endless time loops. So maybe that’s why everything in the movie feels so tiresomely familiar. Spoilers… Imagine if someone from the future came and told you what was going to happen…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Tobias Buckell On Eco-Thrillers and Writing Fight Scenes

Fresh off his top-selling novel Halo: The Cole Protocol, Tobias Buckell is turning back to original stories with an eco-thriller called Arctic Rising. He talked to us about that, and why the best fight scenes are short. I sat down with Buckell at WorldCon last week. First we talked about Arctic Rising, and where he…

io9 Annalee Newitz

An “Alternate History For Newbies” Primer Makes A Stab At Creating An Allohistory Canon

Interested in diving into alternate history fiction? The Onion AV Club has an unusual recommendation: steer clear of both Philip Roth and Harry Turtledove, and start with a Pulitzer-nominated but seldom-discussed 1972 novel instead. The AV Club’s “Gateways To Geekery” series recommends Robert Sobel‘s Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1972 novel For Want Of A Nail: If Burgoyne…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Max Barry Jams In Public, Creates A New Publishing Model, Slices Your Legs Off

Max Barry‘s Jennifer Government was one of the most original and entertaining dystopian novels of the past decade, and now Barry is helping to reinvent publishing. Or at least, his bold experiment, Machine Man, seems to have paid off. Barry has been posting chunks of his novel Machine Man online since March, although he hasn’t…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Why Jonathan Lethem Keeps Coming Back To Philip K. Dick

Motherless Brooklyn author Jonathan Lethem started his career channeling Philip K. Dick, and now Lethem is returning to Dick’s orbit. Lethem is editing a collection of four Dick novels, and says his new novel is his most Dickian in years. In an interview in The Jewish Daily Forward, Lethem explains that his collection of four…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

In Which Some Steampunk Novels are Discussed

Goggles, gaslights and gears, oh my! Steampunk is a steadily growing subgenre of speculative fiction. We review four current and forthcoming books that have been affixed with that label… in an elegant copperplate hand, naturally. Ever since I was four years old, in 1972— before the merger of punk to steam, I wanted to be…

io9 Grey_Area

Hugos 2009: The Fashion, The Fervor And The Suspense!

Last night, the 2009 Hugo Awards Ceremony brought together many of the genre’s leading lights, and we were there. A few victories surprised us, and a couple of speeches moved us. Here’s our gallery of the parties and the glamor. Probably the biggest surprise was Best Novel winner, Neil Gaiman‘s Graveyard Book, which defeated Neal…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Is This The Year Urban Fantasy Conquers Science Fiction?

L.A. Is A Magical Cesspit, And Sandman Slim Is Its New Champion

Ian Rankin Doesn’t Like SF’s Affinity For The End Of The Alphabet

Sony Virtual Library eBook Check Out Is Awesome, But Just a Little Too Literal

FlashForward Stars Act Out The “Dancing On The Ceiling” Video

I Never Want To Hear The Word “Franchise” Again

“It Causes Me Pain To Classify My Post-Apocalyptic YA Romance As Science Fiction”

3 New Anthologies Bring Werewolves, ADD-Afflicted Drinking Birds, And Awesomeness

Proof That Every Fantasy Book Cover Must Contain a Sword

Time Traveler’s Wife Leaps onto Television

Margaret Atwood’s All-Singing, All-Drama Post-Apocalyptic Roadshow

Here’s Another Kindle Holder For Book Aficionados Who Just Can’t Let Go

G.I. Joe Concept Art Hints At A Glorious Power-Armored Opera

Can This Time-Traveling Marriage Be Saved From Its Own Banality?

Tobias Buckell On Eco-Thrillers and Writing Fight Scenes

An “Alternate History For Newbies” Primer Makes A Stab At Creating An Allohistory Canon

Max Barry Jams In Public, Creates A New Publishing Model, Slices Your Legs Off

Why Jonathan Lethem Keeps Coming Back To Philip K. Dick

In Which Some Steampunk Novels are Discussed

Hugos 2009: The Fashion, The Fervor And The Suspense!

Trump Says He’ll Sign Order to Pay TSA

Deadpool Will Deface ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Classics for a New Secret Lair

Apple’s Siri Isn’t Just Going to Use One Chatbot. It’s Going to Use All of Them

Why ‘For All Mankind’ Season 5 Is the Key to the Rest of the Series

ASUS ZenScreen 15.6-Inch Portable Monitor Is Now Cheaper Than Black Friday in Amazon’s Big Spring Sale

Early Wildfires Are Surging Across the US—and Trump’s New Fire Agency Isn’t Ready

INIU Brings Another Power Bank to the Spring Sale as SnapGo Keychain Portable Charger Drops to Its Lowest Price

Attorney Hit With Historic Fine for Citing AI-Generated Cases

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?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

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