The new year is barely three weeks old, so if you love mutant powers and nakedness, then this calendar should be right up your alley. (Sadly there is no beefcake version.) Like the first Nerdcore calendar, this one is also full of geeky dates, like the opening days for Iron Man and The Dark Knight. You'll also get nerdy trivia dates like Sarah Connor's assassination, the morning Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 departed, and the day Marty was sent back to the future.

So, if you're looking to decorate your dorm room, office cubicle, or basement rumpus room, you might want to pick one of these up. You may have a hard time convincing your co-workers or significant other that it's actually research for Heroes, but if you're able to pull it off, then we salute you. It'll certainly get a lot more attention than your old Far Side calendar.

Movies we're looking forward to:

The Signal (Feb. 22). A weird signal takes over TVs, radios and cell phones, and makes everybody lose their shit. The tagline is "Do you have the crazy?" and it's become our new standard greeting. The buzz about this horror/SF hybrid from Sundance was pretty exciting. Divided into three segments, with three different directors, the stories of people driven berzerk by mass communications include killing sprees and demented sex. In the neopolis of Terminus City.

Outlander (early 2008). Okay. Alien versus Vikings. If that doesn't thrill you, your heart is made of dung. In a nutshell, Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) is an alien whose spaceship crashes in ancient Norway. He soon realizes the crash had another survivor, a rampaging monster called the Moorwen. So Caviezel has to convince the feuding Viking clans to work together to destroy the best. It's like Beowulf, with space guns.

The Incredible Hulk (June 13). Ang Lee has lowered our expectations to the point where any Hulk movie that doesn't feature mutant poodles will thrill us. But it also sounds as though this version will stick to monster-movie basics. The Hulk's daddy issues will be in the background where they belong. And Edward Norton gives good man-with-monster-inside, judging from American History X.

The Dark Knight (July 18). Batman Begins wasn't perfect (Ra's Al Ghul was a boring villain) but it did have the right pulpy feel. And Knight could be the rare sequel that improves on the original, thanks to Heath Ledger's angry-nerd Joker. The viral Gotham Times site, with details on the crime war, overcrowded mental institutions and families fleeing Gotham, makes us feel director Christopher Nolan's Gotham is a real place, not just a fantasy backdrop.

CJ7 (Jan. 31). Stephen Chow is veering into science fiction after a string of kung-fu hits. This story of a semi-homeless guy who scavenges a toy for his son (played by a girl) will probably drip with sentimentality, but it also looks inventive and crazy as hell. The junkyard toy turns out to be an alien dog, which could kick Wall-E's ass in a cuteness contest. And then the boy/girl gets transported into space, and (judging from the trailer) things get kind of trippy.

Movies we're cautiously optimistic about:

Iron Man (May 2). The suit looks cool. We're glad they're keeping the storyline of Tony Stark being a weapon-mongering asshole who learns a lesson. But it also looks seriously cartoony, and it's from the director of Elf and Zathura.

Franklyn (unknown). The sequences of Ryan Philippe in his spooky mask in the city of crazy religions sound awesome. The other stuff, about people in the here and now having emotional crises, sounds less awesome and more IFC-ish. But we trust director Gerald Morrow when he says all three storylines finally come together somehow.

Death Race (Sept. 26). A super-champion racer (Jason Statham) is convicted of a crime he didn't commit. His only hope is to race cross-country in a tricked out car with rocket launchers and shit, for the amusement of the multitudes. Another remake, plus another movie by Paul W.S. Anderson (Mortal Kombat). It'll probably be a guilty pleasure.

Cloverfield (Jan. 18) Better to think of this as a cheesy monster movie with an artsy twist (the handheld video cameras) than to build it up as a masterpiece in the making. The script from Drew (Buffy, Alias) Goddard will probably have some clever bits. And if Cloverfield rolls in enough clover, it could usher in a whole crazy new era of low-fi monster movies.

Speed Racer (May 9). It'll be a fun ride, judging from the trailer. But the Wachowskis are sticking too close to the source material's kiddie cartoon roots. And we're scared we'll have weird dreams about John Goodman's mustache after seeing this film.

Movies we're dreading in depths of our marrow:

Star Trek (Dec. 25) We've already explained our reasons why Star Trek should stay dead in general. But this movie, in particular, sounds horrendous. We lost all hope when they announced Leonard Nimoy is coming back as Spock. That means instead of a pure reboot, it has to be some sort of continuity-heavy restart. They'll have to use either time travel or flashbacks to justify Nimoy. But also, didn't we already go back to the beginning with the TV show Enterprise? We're predicting a very expensive flop that will make back its money overseas.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (Dec. 12) The words "Keanu Reeves as Klaatu" froze our blood. Keanu's biggest problem is his flat, stoner delivery, so having him play a super-bland alien might not be the best idea. But also, the original Earth Stood Still was such a product of Cold War anxieties that a remake will just feel like a nostalgia trip.

Babylon A.D. (Aug. 29). We love Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh, but this is just sounding more and more like a trainwreck. It had a troubled shooting, with delays, budget overruns and epic battles between Diesel and director Matthieu Kassovitz. Add in the fact that Kassovitz's previous film, Gothika, was universally panned. And the U.S. cut of Babylon will be 30 minutes shorter than the European release, so there's speculation our version may not even make sense.

Starship Dave (May 30). Pluto Nash wasn't enough. Eddie Murphy has to star in another kiddie SF comedy. And this one has a premise designed to lead to more slapstick than three Norbits put together. A group of tiny aliens led by Murphy travel to Earth in a spaceship disguised as a human (Murphy again), and they control him remotely. It sounds like an acid-induced remake of Steve Martin's All Of Me.

Hancock (July 2). The trailer confirmed our worst fears. After a string of serious roles, Will Smith is going to dust off his comedy chops to play a lame drunken superhero who falls for his image consultant's wife. There are two main problems right off the bat: Will Smith has done well in comedies where he's the straight man (Men In Black), but he's not so great at playing the fool. And superhero comedies like My Super Ex-Girlfriend usually don't have enough respect for the material to be funny.

2008 Books That Make Us Hyper With Anticipation

February

Matter, by Iain M. Banks (Orbit). Banks is one of our favorite authors, and he's returned to his "Culture" universe to bring us this tale of ancient, planet-sized alien technology, court intrigue, secret agents, and a plot to put a shield around the entire galaxy. If you enjoyed Banks' Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward, you'll love what he does in Matter — once again, a developing civilization full of kings and tyrants is pitted against the ruthlessly anarcho-liberal Culture and its meddlesome ways.

March

Rolling Thunder, by John Varley (Ace). Varley is author of the Gaia Trilogy, about a crazy cyborg who rules a world of multi-genitaled centaurs; and creator of Steel Beach, about a manic-depressive AI who runs the moon. Lately he's gotten interested in stories about interplanetary drama geeks, and Rolling Thunder promises to be one of those. A Martian military brat decides to become a singer, leaves home to perform on one of Jupiter's moons, and discovers things aren't quite what they seem. We've been waiting for this book for years (literally), so it will be a relief and pleasure to finally get it into our sweaty hands.

April

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen). Taking a page from his fellow Canadian scifi writer/filmmaker Jim Munroe, who chronicles the lives of future anarchists, Doctorow offers a tale of youthful rebellion against a culture obsessed with commercialism and electronic surveillance. His young hacker heroes fight, just like Tron, to make the system free again. Sounds like a rousing good tale from a guy whose activism and scifi writing have always been joined at the hip.

Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison (Orb). This is a stately reissue of the 1966 classic about a New York destroyed by food and water shortages that inspired the movie Soylent Green. Now's a good time to revisit this still-relevant tale.

Moon Flower, by James P. Hogan (Baen). A space detective story set against the background of interplanetary corporate intrigue, Hogan's latest sounds fast-paced and fun. The massive Interworld Restructuring Corporation is trying to "develop" the planet Cyrene, but people keep disappearing. A young quantum physicist wants to find out why.

Wit's End, by Karen Joy Fowler (Penguin). Author of the superlative and bizarre Sarah Canary, the tale of a misunderstood and thoroughly confused alien thrown in with nineteenth century railway workers and Suffragettes, Fowler always gives us books worth thinking about for months after finishing them. No word yet on what this one is about, but we have high hopes for anything from Fowler.

May

Incandescence, by Greg Egan (Night Shade Books). Egan's latest is about an adventure at the center of the galaxy. Our hero travels straight into the burning mass to meet the uncommunicative aliens who inhabit the dangerous "bulge" at the galaxy's heart. Alien cultures and strange technologies await.

Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories, by Nancy Kress (Golden Griffin Press). This collection of short stories promises to show off Kress' greatest strength: mingling smart depictions of advanced technologies with very human tales of family drama. Plus, nanotech!

June

Kushiel's Mercy, by Jacqueline Carey (Warner). OK, so it's not science fiction; it's alternate history. But even a hard scifi geek will find it difficult to put down the latest novel in Carey's Kushiel series. Set in an alternate Europe where Christianity never became the dominant religion, it's the epic tale of a family whose matriarch is a powerful spy and prostitute. Her adopted son must struggle to unite the Pagan British with the sex-worshiping French, while also pleasing his lover, the French princess who will be queen. There are no aliens, but Earth becomes an alien world in this sprawling politico-sexual drama. Also, since this book is fantasy, it doesn't count in our "top ten" list — consider it a bonus eleventh book!

August

Night Sessions, by Ken MacLeod (Orbit). He's taken us into the far-distant nanopunk future, and into the near-present world of high tech terrorism and subversive blogging. Everywhere this smart Scottish writer wants to take us, we are there for the ride. MacLeod never disappoints, and his latest sounds fascinating. He describes it as "a crime novel set in future Scotland (and New Zealand) (and space), about fifteen years after the Faith Wars." What are the Faith Wars? Sounds crunchy and political. We're there.

September

Saturn's Children, by Charles Stross (Ace). Apparently this new space opera is a tribute to Robert Heinlein, but we can forgive Stross for that because he's the author of Glasshouse and Halting State, two of the coolest SF novels to come out in the past two years. Plus, we trust Stross to tip his hat to the sexy weirdo Heinlein, rather than the droning libertarian Heinlein. Rumor has it this book may come out as early as July, but Stross has it listed as coming out in September on his Web site.