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One of my favorite podcasts (all right, an Audio Magazine now) just came out with its new edition: Starship Sofa No. 90. This one features a primary story by Elizabeth Bear, poetry by Neil Gaiman actually read by Neil, and a lot more. Another favorite, Fancy Fembot, also has a new edition: The Transformers Episode, although they also talked about Moon, District 9, Avatar, GI Joe, and 2012. Finally, Robert Llewellen of Red Dwarf fame has another new outlet for his CarPool Vlog you should check out. That’s more a watch while you listen, of course.

We are 3 weeks away from Comic-Con 2009, the big one in San Diego, and it is already sold out. Which means I will be watching it on TV and watching and listening to the many podcasts and vlogs. As always, they will be doing the Eisner Awards as well as a number of other awards presentations. Hollywood will be out in force promoting all the new genre related movies, and they will be running multiple film festivals. It runs the 22nd through 26th of July, with a preview night on the 22nd. Also on the 22nd will be the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, and you can watch it live online. Another presentation of the IYA2009 ongoing event, this contribution is being hosted by the Chinese scientific community.

The Chicago Tribune did an excellent interview with David Tennant about his winding up his tenure as the Doctor. Many insights, no spoilers, and a permissible number of hints and teases, including his response to the 11 Doctors Special rumor. BBC America just sent everyone who signed up for their notifications a reminder that they will be rolling out HD on July 20th, with a full week of quality programming. I love the way they have realized who their core audience is! They feature 8 shows to go HD on the page, and the first 4 are SF/F; Being Human, Doctor Who, Primeval, and Torchwood! It should be a killer week!

Speaking of killers, what if the Vampires were at risk of extinction because their food supply (that’s you and me for the Humans in the audience) had been hunted out? That is the premise for Daybreakers, and it may just have the first recognition that even Vamps have a geek side to their culture; the undead scientists who try to figure out a way to save the species, theirs and ours both. The Kate Bush soundtrack cover by Placaebo is just a bonus; enjoy the trailer…

J Michael Straczynski did the best SF TV series ever *, Babylon5. He has now taken on another epic story; he is bringing Lensman to the Big Screen. The brainchild of E.E. “Doc” Smith, Lensman is a huge and complex story, and it couldn’t be in better hands. Besides the many books, part of it has been done as an anime, and of course there are audio book versions available. If you didn’t already know, Lensman is the original Space Opera, inventing the sub-genre. Some claim it was also the very first science fiction series ever written, but with a first story publish date of January 1934, I think Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter of Mars** series beat it to print with the February 1912 story Under the Moons of Mars. Which everyone remembers is also being made into a movie now, right?

*: Possibly now eclipsed by the new Battlestar Galactica, but maybe not: I’m going to re-watch both before I decide. You should do the same.

**: Notice how I avoided the whole science-fiction-vs-fantasy category argument for both book series by pretending it didn’t exist. Which it doesn’t when comparing these two works, since both of them would end up on the same side of the argument as voiced by any given debater; which side they ended up on would depend on who was doing the debating.

Sky Saxon, lead singer of The Seeds (one of the best garage bands of all time), died in Austin today. All the national attention is on a pop singer who also died today, so I had to speak up about the band that Muddy Waters called “America’s own Rolling Stones”. This punk/blues/psychedelic group were blazing trails; RIP, Sky, you will be missed. I couldn’t find a live video version of Up In Her Room, so their hit will have to stand in for it…