One of my favorite channels over at YouTube is the Tardis Scanner, here are a few gems from it…
It’s that time of year again; this week New Scientist has their Science Fiction Special on the newsstands. In honor of that they have posted Sci-Fi: The Fiction of Now. They have Flash Fiction from Steven Baxter, Nicola Griffith, Ken MacLeod, Ian McDonald, Paul McAuley, Ian Watson, and more. The also have book reviews on some favorite authors, as well as their usual collection of cutting-edge science news. And in honor of Talk Like A Pirate Day, there is now a Pirate Talk App that looks like silly fun.
If you haven’t seen this, here is Steven Spielberg giving the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award to George Lucas. And my two favorite bits from the presentation: William Shatner sings (sort of) to George, and Carrie Fisher roasts him a little.
If you are at all a fan of Doctor Who, with a weakness for Shaun of the Dead, and find The IT Crowd worth a visit, have I got a movie for you! The film Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel looks to be a serious hoot, and would probably make a great double feature with Cyborg She. It was in theaters in the UK back in April, and now released on DVD in the UK; I am hoping for a US release soon.
It was declared the season finally for Defying Gravity, which convinced lots of folks the show had been canceled, although some people disagree. The military of the US is funding development of a cute little shoebox-sized robot called the Precision Urban Hopper that can jump over 25 foot tall walls, making your standard perimeter fence fairly useless. It should be no surprise that this makes some people nervous.
SF Signal does it again with a listing of 120 more awesome and free SF/F/H stories, culled from the collection linked at Free Speculative Fiction Online. The stories authors include Kevin J. Anderson, Kage Baker, Peter S. Beagle, Michael Bishop, Terry Bisson, Ben Bova, David Brin, Emma Bull… and that’s just some of the authors listed from the first 2 letters of the alphabet. The more is because they previously posted 76 Free SF/F Audio Stories, a direct link to Starship Sofa’s famous Complete Nebula Best Short Story Nominees 2008, and an absolute ton of individual links in their various Free Fiction posts. Be sure to check out Starship Sofa in detail while you are there, since they have a new quality story pretty much every week. Other sites for good stories include Podcastle and the related Psudopod and Escape Pod, and of course Librivox is a must-visit site for audio stories.