Books

What Cliffhanger Did You Predict The Best (But Wrong) Resolution For?

The best cliffhangers leave you guessing how they’re going to be resolved — waiting a week, or sometimes months, to find out what’s going to happen next. And sometimes… you guess wrong. Which cliffhanger did you come up with a really neat way of resolving, that didn’t actually turn out to be correct? Please include…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders

io9 Newsstand: The Best Stories from the Week of May 3 – 9

This week’s stories are about the consequences of corruption, of home ownership, and of accepting birthday presents from dubious sources. Also: Gene Roddenberry. Sacred Cows: Death and Squalor on the Rio Grande by A.S. Diev | Giganotosaurus As Carlos parked the truck in front of his trailer and climbed out, he heard the familiar sound…

Books & Comics K. Tempest Bradford

How To Make Black Widow Truly Awesome, According To Richard K. Morgan

Black Widow’s rise to badassery arguably began in 2004, when Richard K. Morgan wrote a miniseries that revamped her backstory and gave her a much stronger inner life. And now that we’re all talking about Black Widowin the wake of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Morgan has some thoughts about how to achieve her full potential.…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders

The Only Reason Why Your Scotch Doesn’t Taste Like Meat And Bad Eggs

Your drink is the result of a battle between chemistry and biology. Lucky for you, chemistry won. That’s why your glass of scotch doesn’t taste like rotten eggs and stinky meat. Yeasts are hardy creatures. You can set them adrift on the air or plunge them in water. You can dry them up and cool…

Books & Comics Esther Inglis-Arkell

10 Utterly Brilliant Novels That Have One Fatal Flaw

There’s no such thing as a perfect book — but some books feel as though they could be just about perfect, if they didn’t have one nagging problem. And sometimes, the most wonderful books have the most glaring shortfalls. Here are 10 amazing novels that are each marred by a fatal flaw. Top image: Hobbit…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

Novel About an Exorcism Reality Show Will Be a Movie

We’re once again entering the world of movie studios buying rights to a book before it even comes out. In this case, it’s Focus Features getting ahold of Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts, due out June 2nd. The premise is not only interesting, but seems well-suited for adaptation to a visual medium: a…

Movies Katharine Trendacosta

Station Eleven Wins This Year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award!

Emily St. John Mandel’s post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven was already a finalist for the National Book Awards, but now it’s won one of genre’s most coveted awards, the Arthur C. Clarke Award. (And we’re reading it as June’s io9 Book Clubbook!) According to the Guardian, Clarke jury chair Andrew M. Butler explained the choice: “While…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

The May Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About

This month is full of blockbuster science fiction and fantasy novels. Including new books by Neal Stephenson, Nnedi Okorafor, Paolo Bacigalupi, Mark Z. Danielewski, Naomi Novik and Clive Barker! Plus a solo adventure for Lois Lane! Here are the books that you absolutely need to know about this month. Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction by Hannu…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

The New Strain Trailer Shows A Lot Of Questionable Character Judgment

Guillermo del Toro’s gross vampire virus series The Strain will return to FX this summer, and we’ve got the new season two footage to prove it. The new trailer shows vampires 1, humans 0, and it doesn’t look like things are getting better anytime soon for our heroes. Looks like Eph (Corey Stoll) and his…

Trailers Meredith Woerner

Syfy & Amblin Will Turn Brave New World Into A TV Series

Aldous Huxley’s landmark scifi novel Brave New World is headed to the small screen but with an interesting set of partners, Syfy and Amblin Television. Alright… we’re listening. Syfy dropped a huge press released that announced their partnership with Amblin Television to develop a scripted series based on the book everyone should have read in…

Television Meredith Woerner

Here’s One Brilliant Recipe For A Story That Will Kick Anyone’s Ass

There’s no one secret formula for a great story, even if Pixar has its rules and other people have their own ideas. There are as many great shapes for a story to take as there are stories. But Chuck Wendig, author of the Blackbirds series, has a pretty great example of how to structure a…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

io9 Book Club Is In Session: Let’s Talk About The Mechanical!

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. This month, we’ve read The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. 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 we have an online…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Which Classic Literary Story Deserves A Comeback In SF And Fantasy?

Science fiction and fantasy stories borrow from great works of literature all the time. But sometimes, a classic tale will fall from favor, and we’ll stop seeing it as much. For example, the Phantom of the Opera used to be everywhere, and now he’s just vanished. Which literary trope deserves more exposure in science fiction…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders

An Exclusive Look At The First Chapter Of Ramez Naam’s Apex!

We praised Ramez Naam’s Nexus for its “persuasively realistic portrait of human enhancement.” Now the third book in his Nexus trilogy, Apex, is out tomorrow — and we’ve got an exclusive look at the first chapter! Here’s the synopsis of Apex: Global unrest spreads through the US, China, and beyond. Secrets and lies set off…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Reminder: Meet Tomorrow To Discuss The Mechanical By Ian Tregillis!

This month, the io9 Book Club is readingThe Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. We’ll meet tomorrow midday to discuss it. Join us! What is this io9 Book Club all about? We meet once a month to discuss a book we’ve all read together, and then we have an online chat with the author — see our…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Last Night’s Game Of Thrones Was Actually Pretty Hard To Watch

Two different groups of scary fanatics went on a rampage in the latest Game of Thrones episode, and it was pretty upsetting to watch, even by Thrones standards. The Sons of the Harpy and the Sparrows both want to restore old traditions, and they both build on the weaknesses of two very different queens.Spoilers ahead……

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

First Exclusive Look At The Plague Paranoia In The Last Ship Season 2!

The Last Ship was one of the best surprises last summer — the plague apocalypse tale was basically a fun-as-hell summer movie with heroic scientists, whom we actually see doing science. Plus some neat post-apocalyptic political battles. So here’s a first look at season two, in which there’s a whole new storyline about scary immune…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

The Smithsonian Museum Has An Early Draft Of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center recently received a treasure trove: 85 cubic feet of Arthur C. Clarke’s papers, shipped from his home in Sri Lanka. Including a high-school notebook, where the young Clarke rated the science fiction stories he read. And an early draft of Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Edgar Award-Winning Crime Book Takes On An Unsolved Hollywood Mystery

Fans of true crime books know the Edgar Awards offer great inspiration for one’s reading list, and this year’s crop of “Best Fact Crime” nominees was particularly robust. The winner, announced yesterday, takes on the still-unsolved 1922 murder of director William Desmond Taylor. The book is William Mann’s Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the…

Books & Comics Cheryl Eddy

The io9 Guide to Discworld

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld might look intimidating — there are 40 books, and they’re humorous fantasy, which seems like it could be an acquired taste. But everybody should read at least one Discworld book, because they’re wonderful, and there’s something for everyone. Here’s our complete guide to Pratchett’s masterwork. What is Discworld? In our universe, Discworld…

Books & Comics Katharine Trendacosta

What Cliffhanger Did You Predict The Best (But Wrong) Resolution For?

io9 Newsstand: The Best Stories from the Week of May 3 – 9

How To Make Black Widow Truly Awesome, According To Richard K. Morgan

The Only Reason Why Your Scotch Doesn’t Taste Like Meat And Bad Eggs

10 Utterly Brilliant Novels That Have One Fatal Flaw

Novel About an Exorcism Reality Show Will Be a Movie

Station Eleven Wins This Year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award!

The May Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About

The New Strain Trailer Shows A Lot Of Questionable Character Judgment

Syfy & Amblin Will Turn Brave New World Into A TV Series

Here’s One Brilliant Recipe For A Story That Will Kick Anyone’s Ass

io9 Book Club Is In Session: Let’s Talk About The Mechanical!

Which Classic Literary Story Deserves A Comeback In SF And Fantasy?

An Exclusive Look At The First Chapter Of Ramez Naam’s Apex!

Reminder: Meet Tomorrow To Discuss The Mechanical By Ian Tregillis!

Last Night’s Game Of Thrones Was Actually Pretty Hard To Watch

First Exclusive Look At The Plague Paranoia In The Last Ship Season 2!

The Smithsonian Museum Has An Early Draft Of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001

Edgar Award-Winning Crime Book Takes On An Unsolved Hollywood Mystery

The io9 Guide to Discworld

Roku’s 2025 Streaming Stick HD Is 40% Off to Compete With Amazon Fire TV Stick During Spring Sale

Epstein Victims Sue Google, Claim AI Mode Exposed Personal Information

‘Wicked Spot’ Is a Fun, Sapphic Rom-Com That Yeets a Witch Into the Magical World of Influencer Culture

Anthropic and OpenAI Just Gave Us a Glimpse Into the Future of Model Pricing

Amazon Slashes 63% Off Acer Aspire Desktop for a Limited-Time Spring Sale, With Keyboard and Mouse Included

Smart Glasses Now Have One of the Vision Pro’s Best Features

Marvel Just Put ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 in a Very Weird Place in the MCU Timeline

Trump Drops $1B to Kill 2 Wind Farms, Then Watches a Bigger One Go Online

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

Let us help find what you are looking for...