In Burroughs' second Barsoom series, the right girl winds up in the right body #bookreview #readingbarsoom

A syllabus and book list for novice students of science fiction literature #scifi101 #books

The io9 Book Club is in session! Let's discuss "The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms" #io9bookclub #thehundredthousand

September Books Offer Time Travel, Vampires, and Viral Marketing #books #bookreview

Physicists build a "quantum cat" out of light #quantumphysics #physics

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San Francisco, 7:48 AM
Thu Sep 2
24 posts in the last 24 hours

IO9 TEAM

All the Cool New Stuff From Apple Today on Gizmodo

SF 101: Science Fiction For Beginners on io9

Examining video games' fixation with firearms — at a safe distance — all week long.

#bookcovers

Check out your mind, with awesomely trippy 1960s and 1970s SF book covers!

Science fiction book covers of the 1960s and 1970s blast their way onto your retinas like an acid trip from beyond the universe. They're more vivid, trippier, and often more nightmarish than today's covers. Here are some of the craziest. More »

07:30 AM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#conceptart

A vast tree manufacturing plant dominated the geoengineering facilities

Before we had industrial tree factories, terraforming was a slow and miserable process. But these days, all you need for your planetary startup are a couple of redwood mass production plants and you're good to go. More »

07:00 AM

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By Annalee Newitz

#neilgaiman

Neil Gaiman's Sandman coming to TV at last?

Rumor has it someone might actually get to make a Sandman TV series: Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. Odd? Yes. Brilliant? Maybe. There are just two things we need to know. More »

06:30 AM

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By Meredith Woerner

#morningspoilers

Secrets of Barry Levinson's monster movie. Plus did Angelina Jolie scuttle Alfonso Cuaron's space epic?

Will Alfonso Cuarón be able to make Gravity without an actress of Angelina Jolie's star power? We now know what makes Barry Levinson's Isopod a scifi environmental thriller. Thomas Jane wants in on The Walking Dead. Time to be spoiled! More »

06:00 AM

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By Alasdair Wilkins

Yesterday - September 1, 2010

#bookreview

In Burroughs' second Barsoom series, the right girl winds up in the right body

Edgar Rice Burroughs' first Martian trilogy, featuring John Carter on Barsoom, was a huge hit in the 1910s. How could he top it? With a series about Carter's kids, apocalyptic cities, floating heads with tentacles, and an ordinary Barsoomian soldier. More »

07:42 PM

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By John Marr

#madurbanism

This Tokyo "Mineral House" is like living in your own private Inception

Want to live in a home that would put Ariadne's dreamscapes to shame? This Tokyo microhouse by Atelier Tekuto, "Reflections of Mineral," is filled with enough twisting walls, reflective surfaces, and off-kilter windows to outwit any murderous subconscious projections. More »

04:55 PM

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By Cyriaque Lamar

#conceptart

How she turned them all into ravens - every last one

I can't stop staring at this image, possibly because the raven transformations are so elaborate and strange. I'm not sure if it's the stages in one man's transformation, or several men in the throes of metamorphosis. More »

04:24 PM

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By Annalee Newitz

#tvrecap

When Warehouse 13 clicks, it's amazing. When it doesn't...

Last night's Warehouse 13 pursued the same "throw together a bunch of ideas at high speed" approach that has worked so well for the show lately... and it didn't quite gel this time around, for me at least. Spoilers ahead... More »

04:14 PM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#interview

Slavoj Žižek: Wake up and smell the apocalypse

03:26 PM

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#guns

This Post Is Actually a Handgun

What's cooler: Guns disguised as ordinary objects or everyday items that look like guns? In honor of The American, George Clooney's new film in which he plays an assassin/undercover gunsmith (in theaters today!), here are some scary yet benign guns and their seemingly harmless but deadly counterparts. More »

02:59 PM

7,862

#television

Ron Moore's new television project: a Harry Potter-inspired fantasy series

Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica juggled heavy duty space opera and fantastical, magic elements. But his next project will leave space behind, in favor of a world of pure magic, in the vein of Harry Potter for adults. More »

02:39 PM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#neuroscience

What happened when Oliver Sacks started to hallucinate

02:00 PM

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#scifi101

A syllabus and book list for novice students of science fiction literature

Want to start reading some science fiction, but aren't sure where to begin? We've put together an introductory scifi lit syllabus just for you. More »

01:31 PM

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By Annalee Newitz

#trailers

Click here to read "The Twilight Zone": Now In Porn Form!

"The Twilight Zone": Now In Porn Form! [NSFW]

"The Twilight Zone" explored a world of dark, sci-fi fantasies, often turning our understanding of the world around us on its head. Porn? Well, that just explores a whole lot of dark, sexy fantasies. Clearly, there's some overlap here. [Fleshbot] [NSFW]

01:30 PM

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By Lux Alptraum

#books

September Books Offer Time Travel, Vampires, and Viral Marketing

September is upon us, bringing new novels from William Gibson, Guillermo del Toro and Cherie Priest. Plus: postmodern time travel, zombie relationship tips, and the ultimate smackdown between vampires and alien invaders! More »

12:48 PM

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By Kelly Faircloth

#videoreview

Mr. Plinkett (a.k.a. "The Phantom Reviewer") takes on J.J. Abrams' Star Trek

Red Letter Media's cantankerous old gadfly Mr. Plinkett has now focused his critical lens on 2009's Star Trek, and surprise, surprise! He doesn't hate it. He's still as grumpy and weirdly monotone as ever, though. More »

12:25 PM

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By Cyriaque Lamar

#notcool

Gunman in Discovery TV building demands better programming from the science network

Earlier today, a gunman entered Discovery Channel's headquarters with a gun or some explosives (reports are still coming in), took some employees hostage, and demanded better science programming. More »

11:42 AM

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By Annalee Newitz

#movies

Runaways movie to begin filming in March 2011

The big-screen adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona's Marvel comic Runaways will begin filming next spring in Los Angeles. Its production moniker, "Small Faces," is a reference to the British band who had a hit single entitled "Runaway." More »

10:51 AM

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By Cyriaque Lamar

#quantumphysics

Physicists build a "quantum cat" out of light

The purple-and-blue blur you see here is a representation of light in a perfectly quantum state, or "cat state," where particles exhibit opposite properties simultaneously. Now scientists have created this seemingly impossible state - using lasers, of course. More »

10:40 AM

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By Annalee Newitz

#exclusive

Peter Wingfield answers 11 of your deepest Highlander questions!

Peter Wingfield's Methos was probably the most enigmatic and fascinating character in the Highlander TV series. So it's awesome that Wingfield has taken the time to answer 11 of your most pressing Highlander questions. More »

10:30 AM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#disasters

Indonesian volcano erupts for the first time in over 400 years

Scientists were caught by surprise when Indonesia's Mount Sinabung suddenly erupted over the weekend, and an even stronger eruption on Monday sprayed soot and debris more than a mile into the air. Plumes of white smoke continue to pour out. More »

09:00 AM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#movies

The entire movie Blade Runner as a hallucinatory video collage

François Vautier took every frame of Blade Runner, laid them out as one giant image, and allowed a virtual camera to pan over it. The result? "Blade Runner revisited," a spectacle that will leave you dreaming of electric sheep. More »

08:30 AM

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By Cyriaque Lamar

#geophysicalporn

What we're learning after a decade of studying the magnetosphere

In 2000, the European Space Agency sent four spacecraft into the magnetosphere, to study how the magnetic field around the planet works. For a decade, the craft have analyzed the aurora, solar winds, and more. How do they do it? More »

08:00 AM

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By Tim Barribeau

#art

It's a big crazy kaiju party and everyone's invited (except Ultraman)

These massive pin-ups of Ultraman's enemies appeared in a 1979 edition of Ultra Kaiju. Artist Toshio Okazaki really knocked this out of the park, and he included the best Ultraman foe of all...the dreaded Dino-Tank! Can you find him? More »

07:30 AM

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By Cyriaque Lamar

#monstersamongus

In Mexico, chupacabras are blamed for 300 goat beheadings

For the past two months, shepherds in Mexico have been reporting hundreds of identical attacks on their goats. Multiple goats are beheaded "in a strange way." Many are blaming the legendary chupacabra. More »

07:00 AM

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By Annalee Newitz

#timetravel

Groundhog Day-inspired thriller offers young addicts a life without consequences

It seems like every low-budget science fiction movie is about time travel. There's Rian Johnson's Looper, Duncan Jones' Source Code and the Timecrimes remake. And now there's Repeaters, a Groundhog Day-esque thriller that just put out its first trailer. More »

06:30 AM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#morningspoilers

The Walking Dead gets a second season — but what about Caprica?

The Walking Dead season two will be a full 13 episodes. (Update: It's just a rumor.) There's an update on whether Caprica might make a second season. Plus a Tron Legacy poster, True Blood hints and a Fringe promo. More »

06:00 AM

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By Alasdair Wilkins

Tuesday - August 31, 2010

#mysteries

The io9 field trip to New Mexico's "mystery stone"

05:31 PM

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#thisisawesome

The final Doctor, as visualized by Ben Templesmith

This new Doctor Who art, featuring The Thirteenth Doctor and K-9, by Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse artist Ben Templesmith is pure awesome. It's just one of the amazing Final Doctors being posted over at Warren Ellis' FreakAngels site.

05:30 PM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#io9calendar

The ultimate guide to September's science fiction awesomeness!

September rocks your universe, with William Gibson's long-awaited novel Zero History, the return of your favorite TV shows including Fringe, Venture Bros. and Supernatural, and some of the year's coolest science fiction conventions. Here's the indispensible io9 calendar for September. More »

05:00 PM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#modernruins

The hurricane-damaged remains of Six Flags New Orleans

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, one of its victims was Six Flags New Orleans, which was flooded for a month after the storm. The park has been closed indefinitely since then, but urban explorers will still venture in. More »

04:58 PM

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By Cyriaque Lamar

#sharknight3d

We've officially run out of clever Shark-related movie titles: Shark Night 3-D cast

04:30 PM

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#fanzines

Meet the man who's been creating science fiction fanzines for 50 years

03:30 PM

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#cliffhangercrazy

Greatest Doctor Who cliffhangers of all time!

Steven Moffat has promised the first half of Doctor Who season six will end on a cliffhanger that will keep you on the edge of your seat all summer. But how will it stack up to these other spine-tingling cliffhangers? More »

03:17 PM

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By Charlie Jane Anders

#advertisement

Preview The Way of Kings

After completing the late Robert Jordan's acclaimed Wheel of Time saga, author Brandon Sanderson has finally revealed The Way of Kings, book one of his own epic cycle, The Stormlight Archive. More »

02:59 PM

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#bookreview

We're already living in the world of Isaac Asimov's The End Of Eternity

02:30 PM

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#pseudoscience

Learn that dreams about bacon are evil with this 1800s snake oil catalog

02:28 PM

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#art

People and animals are twisted by the imagination of Valerie Jeanne

Valerie Jeanne paints people and animals. Sounds simple enough, right? However, her people and animals have a bit of a twist - and a turn. And some weirdness...which I love. Check out this Big Eye Art. More »

02:21 PM

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By Ann VanderMeer

#afternoonreading