August 2, 2011 – Jim Butcher's latest entry in the Dresden Files series, Ghost Story, feels like the gutsiest of his popular paranormal detective novels so far. Like its immediate predecessor, Changes, Ghost Story showcases Butcher's willingness to enact huge, sweeping changes to the status quo that he's... More »

April 3, 2011 – You're not a geek just because you like science fiction, I know that much, and you're not a geek just because you saw The Lord of the Rings (each movie three times, in the theaters, including the midnight rerelease?)...maybe that makes you a geek. You're definitely a geek if you go to a lot of... More »

December 6, 2010 – Adapting Dick's seminal novel is guaranteed to be a difficult process, and would have been even if Ridley Scott's Blade Runner weren't already a 30-year-old SF classic. More »

October 30, 2010 – King Kong's monstrous motivations aren't the same as Dracula's — one wants a castle made of bananas, the other a swimming pool full of hemoglobin — More »

July 21, 2010 – Internecine politics, clan rivalries, and werewolf-posturing serve as the backdrop for World Fantasy Award winner Martin Millar's novel Lonely Werewolf Girl, a story about anxiety and the slow agony of making friends. Lonely Werewolf Girl is the story of Kalix MacRInnalch, a laudanum-addicted,... More »

June 17, 2010 – In Zendegi, Greg Egan has created a beautiful, brilliant, near-future world that expertly explores the consequences of mind-mapping technology in the politically volatile world of Iran. Zendegi is two stories told in parallel. More »

May 20, 2010 – Geroge Mann's Ghosts of Manhattan bills itself as introducing the world's first steampunk superhero. Atmospheric and pleasingly enigmatic, the novel pulls us into world of pure pulp. Ghosts of Manhattan introduces the Ghost, a millionaire-playboy ex-army pilot and engineer turned vigilante. More »

May 10, 2010 – At long last available stateside, Ian McDonald's Ares Express is a phantasmagoria of nuclear locomotives and wild Martian awesomeness. It's a definite must-read. In an unimaginably distant future Mars has been terraformed by machines so powerful that they're understood as (and might as well be)... More »

April 23, 2010 – After what seemed like an interminable lull, Jim Butcher uses his new novel, Changes, to blow the lid off of Harry Dresden's hard-won but stable world. The Dresden Files are Jim Butcher's long-running series about Harry Dresden, a wizard private detective in Chicago. More »

April 17, 2010 – Maurice Dantec's Grand Junction is a metaphysical cyberspace epic; a Dickian post-apocalyptic future that questions our reliance on machines as a metaphor for human preoccupation with the material. More »

February 19, 2010 – When Jeff VanderMeer posed the surrealistic question "Who, or what, is Last Drink Bird Head?", the 500-word responses included luminaries like Michael Moorcock and Stephen Donaldson as well as newer authors you'll be thrilled to discover. More »

February 9, 2010 – Philadelphia's Trocadero Theater is the oldest operating 19th century theater in the US. Last night, it was invaded by zombies. (from left to right: Jason Faris, George Faris, David Evans, and Karen Housman, in zombie regalia) Monday night marked a confluence of modern geekage and Victorian... More »

February 8, 2010 – Benjamin Parzybok's Couch is an epic for the apathetic, a journey to save the world undertaken by the post-college American slacker - for the essential reason that there doesn't seem to be anything better to do. Couch effortlessly evokes those depressing after-school but just-before-life years of... More »

February 1, 2010 – Andrew Fox's The Good Humor Man is a gonzo novel about state-deputized vigilantes tasked with keeping deadly fatty calories out of the hands of an irresponsible America by going after delicious cheese and sugary snack cakes with napalm and flamethrowers. It's a little tricky to get going with a... More »