Books

9 Gorgeous Pieces of Hand-Lettered Art You’ll Find On Shelves Near You

Stroll your supermarket’s aisles and you’ll surely notice the onslaught of locally sourced, small-batch, artisanal goods. The packaging of those products is seeing its own old-time resurgence, with carefully-considered branding that includes a revival of hand-lettered graphics. Outside the Box: Hand-Drawn Packaging from Around the World, a new book by graphic designer Gail Anderson, shows…

io9 Book Club Is In Session: Let’s Talk About The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard!

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. This month, we’ve read The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard. Jump into comments to get started talking about it! What is this io9 Book Club all about? We meet once a month to discuss a book we’ve all read together, and then…

George R.R. Martin Shows Us a Whole New Side of The Seven Kingdoms

George R.R. Martin’s epic-fantasy setting of Westeros is highly addictive, and for good reason. It’s such a richly imagined world, with such a rich backstory, there’s enough material to obsess about for years. And his new book, collecting his “Dunk and Egg” stories, showcases just what a great setting it is. Martin’s new book, A…

Some Questions About the New Gender-Swapped Twilight From Someone Who Will Never Read It

Brace yourselves. For the tenth anniversary of the Twilight books (everything is so old), Stephenie Meyer has decided to rewrite her own story by genderswapping her protagonists. So go ahead and pick up Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined. Or don’t. Full disclosure: I am not going to read the reimagined Twilight. There are only so…

The Entropy of Bones Is One of the Year’s Best Action Movies, Except It’s a Book

Sometimes the best books are the ones which just kick your ass on the first page and keep thwacking you up one side of the page and down the other, for pages and pages. That’s pretty much what The Entropy of Bones by Ayize Jama-Everett is like. We loved Jama-Everett’s first novel The Liminal People,…

Open Channel: What’s Your Favorite Book About Mars? 

Yesterday, I asked you what your favorite movie set on Mars was. Now, I’d be interested in knowing what your favorite book (or short story, novella or other written word) is featuring the red planet. Mine? Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars. It’s a fantastic look at colonization, politics and of course, Mars. So, what’s your…

Barnes & Noble has been one of the world’s most successful booksellers since it was founded in 1873, and in that time, they’ve changed the bookstore market more than once. MentalFloss has a great list of 14 facts about the company that you might not have known about.

The Kingkiller Chronicle Is Getting The Massive Multimedia Adaptation It Deserves

Fans of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle are about to have the best day ever. After several months of negotiations and competition between studios, the popular fantasy series is about to get a mega multimedia rollout. The Hollywood Reporter reveals Lionsgate has won the rights to the series and has plans to make it into…

Why Don’t Libraries Have Dungeons & Dragons Gamebooks?

Dungeons & Dragons and libraries should be a natural fit. Both attract people who love books, storytelling, and lore. Early D&D gamebooks even point readers towards their local libraries for research, and many libraries host comic book-themed events or have D&D clubs. This is why I was so surprised to learn how rare it is…

10 White People Who Inexplicably Became Ninjas

Ninjutsu, the art of the ninja, is an ancient, closely guarded tradition of stealth, martial arts and assassination that is only taught to the most skilled of Japanese warriors… and pretty much any white dude who happens to be in the neighborhood. Seriously, it’s like ninjas have their own version of Affirmative Action just for…

The Martian Is Hands Down The Best Thriller Of The Year

When it comes to edge-of-your-seat suspense, The Martian is in a class of its own. Ridley Scott’s new movie, in theaters today, is a top-notch survival thriller, full of twists and turns that’ll make you catch your breath. It’s the most exciting movie in ages. Plus it’ll make you want to be an astronaut when…

I’m a Librarian Who Banned a Book. Here’s Why.

In the library world, access to information is a human right, not to be tampered with or controlled in any way. The books that line the shelves have been carefully selected by a trained librarian to offer the reader a balanced approach to all topics – that is, we try to provide all points of…

This New Adventure Time Book Will Transport You To The Land of Ooo. For Real.

Having withdrawal symptoms from Adventure Time? You’re not alone. It’s been approximately 500 years since the last new episode. Good thing there’s a brand new book—which is actually two books in one—chock full of art and secrets of Ooo. And we’ve got an exclusive excerpt! Adventure Time: The Enchiridion and Marcy’s super Secret Scrapbook!!!is actually…

All The Most Essential Science Fiction and Fantasy Books in October

You’d better clear your schedule—because October is just packed with amazing science fiction and fantasy books. Including George R.R. Martin’s tales of Westeros long before Game of Thrones. Plus Ann Leckie, Gene Wolfe, Doctor Who and Brandon Sanderson. And the most delightfully weird fantasy spinoff ever! Here are all the science fiction and fantasy books…

Michael Moorcock’s Pop-Art Superhero Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before

Michael Moorcock was known for warping the outer edges of genre—but no more so than in his four Jerry Cornelius novels, known as The Cornelius Quartet. These books are jam-packed with increasingly weird, anarchic storylines, in a surreal pop-art world. And now they have some insane new covers! As Matthew Wolf-Meyer writes in Pop Matters:…

Read an Excerpt from the Biography of D&D Creator Gary Gygax, Empire of Imagination

He wasn’t a fighter, a thief, or even a wizard, but Gary Gygax was still a hero of nerd culture. As the creator of Dungeons & Dragons and the father of virtually all role-playing games, he had a defining influence on fantasy and entertainment, and his life has been chronicled in a new biography titled…

Drive Director Nicolas Winding Refn Explains How The Best Movie Posters Tell a Story All on Their Own

Nicolas Winding Refn doesn’t collect movie posters. And yet, he’s about to release a book of movie posters. It’s a typical curiosity from the director of Drive and Bronson, who was at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas to talk about the book, which is called The Act of Seeing. Before we got to that though,…

10 Ultra-Weird Science Fiction Novels that Became Required Reading

You want a really weird ride? A science fiction or fantasy epic that stretches your brain like taffy and ties it into strange irregular shapes? Forget television or movies: books are where the really off-kilter stories are told in speculative fiction. A while ago, we listed 10 ultra-weird science fiction books that you’ve never read.…

Get To Know The Incredible Starships of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Trilogy

The third book in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, Ancillary Mercy, comes out next week. Need a refresher course in the ships and personnel of her thrilling space-opera universe? We’ve got an exclusive infographic from Orbit Books. Here’s the complete infographic, which explains the relative sizes and strengths of the three different classes of ships…

These Charts Show Just How Bad The Problem of Gender Bias in Science Fiction Awards Really Is

Are men better than women at writing science fiction and fantasy books? The major awards in the field certainly seem to think so. And in case you weren’t aware of how widespread the problem is, a groundbreaking new research project has generated some utterly staggering charts. The folks over at Ladybusiness spent over 100 hours…