Books

The Real Story About That Wheel Of Time Pilot That Aired Last Night

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan is one of the most popular book series of all time. So you’d think the first episode of a TV version would air with massive fanfare… so why did the pilot air in the middle of the night instead? We reached out to the producers and found out…

A Coffee Table Book That Turns Into a Coffee Table Isn’t the Worst Idea

We all laughed at Kramer’s transforming coffee table coffee table book on Seinfeld (or maybe it was just the laugh track), but it turns out it’s not actually a terrible idea. Or at least the version created by Mike Mak isn’t. Using a combination of traditional book-binding techniques and a paper honeycomb structure, the Bookniture…

Lionsgate Wants MORE Hunger Games Movies

The last Hunger Games movie is set to premiere this November, but Lionsgate isn’t ready to quit milking its cash cow just yet. So what’s the plan? Prequels, of course! Hunger Games will never die, never! According to Deadline, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer revealed that he is “actively looking at some development and thinking about…

A Glimpse Inside the Hidden Vault Where Harvard Keeps Millions of Books

Harvard’s flagship library, Widener, is an imposing granite cube built quite literally as shrine to the book. A central alcove cuts through the stacks to show off a prized relic: an original Gutenberg bible. But this is not the heart of Harvard’s libraries. No, that would be its cold storage site, an anonymous concrete building…

First Image Of Tom Hiddleston In J.G. Ballard’s High Rise Movie

Behold the very first look at Tom Hiddleston in the movie adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise. But is this before or after everyone inside this fabulous luxury building has gone completely insane? Thanks to Empire, we now have the first look at director Ben Wheatley’s High Rise adaptation. According to Empire, Hiddleston is playing…

The Man Who Invented The Science Fiction Paperback

Many of science fiction’s greatest classics were published as paperback originals — and the genre might never have gotten so much widespread appeal without the cheap paperback format. As a new article in Investor’s Business Daily explains, this was the brainchild of publisher Ian Ballantine. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, when America had only…

The Subversive Lesson About Genius Hidden In James Bond

Truth time: Without the highly skilled tech and strategic teams he has behind him, James Bond would be just an overdressed field agent with an unnecessarily picky drink order. But, does that fictional string of geniuses reveal an important truth about how talent works? In response to this post on villains who wanted to get…

No Starch Press teams with Humble Bundle for a fantastic book offer

No Starch Press is one of our favorite outlets for Lego books. Until February 18th, they are teaming up with Humble Bundle and running an impressive eBook deal that you just can’t pass up. There are several Lego titles in the offer and the price point is wonderful, because you pay what you want to…

R.I.P. Suzette Haden Elgin: Author, Poet, Verbal Self-Defense Coach

Suzette Haden Elgin, who died last week, was a pioneer of using linguistics in science fiction, creating a whole constructed language in her novel Native Tongue. She was a giant of feminist SF. And she helped bring SF poetry to prominence, while also teaching us to defend ourselves with wit rather than bile. Elgin had…

GRRM’s Original Game Of Thrones Outline Was Very, Very Different

British bookseller Waterstone has somehow gotten its hands on the original story outline that George R.R. Martin submitted to Harper Collins along with the first 170 pages of what would become A Game of Thrones. It proves GRRM had a very different story in mind when he first set out to write A Song of…

Which Book Did You Initially Hate, But Then Love?

Not every book lands immediately; some of them take some time (and perhaps even a re-read or two) for their appeal be apparent. Today we want to know about the books you hated at first — but then completely changed your mind about. Maybe the turnaround happened mid-book. Or maybe you had to wait some…

The February Science Fiction And Fantasy Books You Can’t Afford To Miss

2015 is already off to a crazy start, as far as science fiction and fantasy books are concerned. And your to-read pile is about to get much bigger. February brings new Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Claire North and Joe Abercrombie. Plus tons more. Here are 23 books you can’t afford to miss in February! Top…

The Rise Of Slipstream: “The Audience Is Weirder Than It Used To Be”

Remember Slipstream? It was a huge catchphrase among science fiction authors and readers back in the 1990s, denoting strange works of fiction that blend realism and fantastical elements. And now, thanks to authors like Kelly Link and David Mitchell, it may finally be going mainstream,a new Wall Street Journal article claims. Top image: The Particular…

Self-published authors can join SFWA The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has opened its doors to independent and self-published authors. If your novel made at least $3,000, you can apply for active membership. More details here.

io9 Book Club Is In Session. Let’s Talk About Rooms By Lauren Oliver!

Welcome to the monthly meeting of the io9 Book Club. In January, we read Lauren Oliver’s Rooms. 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 when the meeting is…

Jeff Bridges Wanted Iron Monger To Survive The End Of Iron Man

Jeff Bridges plays yet another untrustworthy mentor in the new fantasy film Seventh Son. But not all gruff, bearded Jeff Bridges characters are bad. We sat down with Bridges, one on one, and talked fantasy, fake teeth and why the chaos on the set of Iron Man actually worked. What does working in the fantasy…

Women Destroy the Hugo Awards! How much visibility have women authors received in recent years, versus the past? Livejournal user Kalimac did a statistical analysis of Hugo nominations by gender going back to 1959, and found two spikes — one in the mid-1990s, and one from 2010 onwards.

David Duchovny Reveals His Favorite Type Of X-Files Fan Fiction

In an interview with theNY Times Magazine to promote his new novel, Holy Cow, David Duchovny also entertained some literary-themed X-Files questions. And by “literary,” we mean fan fiction. What the erstwhile Fox Mulder had to say about it was quite surprising. There is a lot of Mulder-Scully fan fiction, and some of it is…

San Francisco’s Science Fiction Bookstore, Borderlands, Plans To Close

We could be losing another great science fiction bookstore soon. Citing an increase in the local minimum wage and pressures from Amazon.com, Borderlands Books announced a plan to close by the end of March. This would be a huge blow not just to San Francisco, but to science fiction authors who made this store a…

Archy And Mehitabel Deserve To Be Listed Among Fantasy’s Best Characters

When people list the most important fantasy characters of all time, they often leave out a few classics that just happen to be off the beaten track. Like Asterix. But also, Archy and Mehitabel, the cockroach and alley cat who captured the imaginations of a whole generation. Newspaper columnist Don Marquis came up with Archy…