io9
On io9 last week, we explained the five marks of Clinton-Era science fiction, identified five potential alternate histories of New York City that nobody has written a scifi novel about yet, gave you a NSFW peek at the greatest scifi porn of all time, debated which are the best zombies of science fiction, and told you to go out and read a new English translation of Osamu Tezuka's manga Apollo right now.
We talked to science fiction writer Charles Stross about sex and prisons, and to Ken MacLeod, author of The Execution Channel, about why science fiction writers are obsessed with the near future.
Cloverfield designer Martin Whist told us about the movie's "stark realism". Canadian SF writer and filmmaker Jim Munroe stopped by to tell us about one science fiction novel that changed political rhetoric forever.
We asked you to ogle a picture of a house made of 110 tons of steel, 3D pictures of your brain powered by a console game chipset, 90 images of Stan Lee comic book characters remixed by artists, a gallery of monsters by artist Eliza Gauger, who also designed io9's beautiful logo, and a bunch of photos of the scary-shiny Iron Man suit shown at CES (plus closeups of the cool actuators in his arms and legs).
And to entertain you with short, yummy bits of video, we brought you the mad sexology experiments of The Curious Dr. Humpp, and the amazing laser fight between David "the Hoff" Hasselhoff and a robot in the brilliant 1980s stinker Star Crash, a mashup trailer showing that all adventure movies look the same, and James Bond's greatest space battle (with lasers that go "pew pew pew!") from Moonraker.
We also gave you a peek at forgotten 1970s classic novel The Feminists, all about a scary dystopian future in 1992 when hot, dominant women rule the world and heterosex is a crime!
In science, we explored how carbon nanotubes will make synthetic skin feel pain, and what it would mean to tinker with genes that regulate sleep (hint: insanity may result), a new kind of translucent concrete, and three space-saving tips from the astronauts living in close quarters on the Zvezda, the International Space Station's living quarters.
You gave us a ton of feedback on some polls about what science should be punked (as in cyberpunk) next, and which TV shows should be brought back in re-runs while the writers continue to strike.
The first installment of a regular feature, Beloved Local Bookstore, began with a look inside San Francisco's Borderlands Books. Send us your ideas for more beloved local scifi and comic book stores in your town!
Comments
Uhhh....good for you?
good for you, except that his name is Hasselhoff, not Hasslehoff.
you know, oops and stuff.
@raychie: Fixed! Yeah the spellchecker doesn't have The Hoff in it for some reason.
Always a hassle with the hoff.
Thank you to io9, for a great week and a great launch.
And thank you to all the already-regular commenters and the excellent editors who have re-assured me that my love for and memories of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, retro-futurism, doingthedirty with four-armed hermaphroditic lizard people, Planetfall, and yes, even the Cat from Outer Space do not make me too suspect, even in a community of Sci-Fi geeks. (Not Moonraker though. You'd have to be crazy to like Moonraker.)
But damn you io9 for providing one more must-read bookmark, decreasing my already questionable productivity.
@92BuickLeSabre: Agreed, great site--great site, Annalee, great site! You've opened up my mind~
What's the status on Transformers 2?
@EncephelanetRepairHelperGuy: Status on Transformers 2: supposedly delayed, but Michael Bay has been making some very frothy comments about how it'll have the bestest awesomest robots evar! Personally I can't wait.
@charliejane: You can't wait? You've gotta be kidding. Transformers was possibly the worst science fiction movie last year. Except for the peeing robot, which was genius.
Uh, I think I'm getting gassed tonite--can you have Bay call me? (quickly please)
I enjoyed the film immensely. I think it is Bay's best. A breakthrough for the young and ripe Shia LeBeouf. Megan Fox is bound for great things.
Optimus and the boys hanging outside the suburban exterior was like
--I'm done..
@annalee: I hate that Transformers was/is even classified as a scifi movie. Apart from the awesome CGI, the rest of it was as you said, disappointing.
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