I've also always tried to review at least one major book in the field each fall and spring, usually those that publishers think of as 'breakout books.' More often than not though, I seem — regretfully — to have given many of them mixed reviews. I admired but had cavils or, in some instances, serious reservations about Neil Gaiman's American Gods, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, Neal Stephenson's Anathem. Anathem, for instance, won the Locus Award, and a lot of people obviously love the book, but it didn't work for me. I found it too long, too slow-moving, too heavy.

Of course, I could be dead wrong about Stephenson's novel. The books we can't make sense of, that knock us off-kilter, that we don't accept readily, will often be the books that matter most to the next generation. In fact, that's generally the sign of a really important book: it doesn't fit into our received expectations, it bothers us, it 'doesn't work.' Sometimes an ambitious failure is more worth having than a successful little novel that is perfectly well done.

The whole interview is well worth reading, both the selections online and the entire thing in the print magazine. [Locus Magazine]

Top image: Gluekit's illustration for the New York Times (not Washington Post) review of Anathem.

Reality TV producers are planning a new series based on Forks, Washington, the town that Meyer set her Twilight saga in. Right now, the crew is seeking out a cast based on everyday people that live in Forks. So nothing to do with Twilight at all, unless you overlook the fact that the half the town has converted to Twilight tourism, hawking Bella Berry Shakes, inviting tourists into their Twilight themed hotel rooms, and throwing a vampire birthday for Bella in which 1,000 young girls were in attendance.

This is a Twi-themed bedroom from the hotel The Pacific, in the Forks area.

And no this isn't the documentary called Twilight In Forks, this is an entirely different reality-based show about Forks. But still, the crew insists that the project will focus on the riveting lives of the ordinary people in Forks, not those who think they are vampires, or werewolves — because who wants to see that, besides the 100 people a day who clamor into Forks looking to get a piece of Edward?

[WENN via Cinimatical picture via Pyzam]

If you've read Vertigo titles like Hellblazer or Lucifer in the past decade or so, you're already a fan of Carey's writing. In particular, his epic run on Lucifer kept the intrigues of Heaven and Hell constantly surprising, with a shifting set of loyalties and fascinating characters. Not to mention, Carey wrote one of my all-time favorite miniseries: My Faith In Frankie, the story of a girl and her personal god.

But for the past few years, he's been putting out a number of novels featuring Felix Castor, a London exorcist who sometimes helps the police untangle particularly baffling murders. He's put out five of them so far, and he seems to be doing a great job of ratcheting up the tension and weirdness. I've read a couple of them, Vicious Circle and Dead Men's Boots, and have found them addictive enough to drag me away from the other books I'm supposed to be reading.

Like Supernatural, they're dark and witty, and feature otherworldly monsters that want to run rampant on Earth. Their mixture of cleverness and heart reminded me of Eric Kripke and Sera Gamble at their cracklingest.

In the books, Felix Castor is an exorcist, someone who can see the ghosts that lurk around London and banish them by playing on his tin whistle. (And yes, the whistle thing does get a bit cheesy at times. But run with it.) There have always been ghosts, and people who could deal with them, but for some reason the 1990s saw a huge surge in the number of dead people refusing to go quietly. (The reasons for this change are a bit mysterious, but apparently relate to something called the Great Project in Hell.)

So now exorcism has become a valid career path, for those who have the talent — but besides ghosts, there are also zombies, loups-garous and demons roaming around causing trouble. Castor, the perpetually down at his luck ghost-hunter, also has to contend with a fringe group that argues that ghosts have human rights and shouldn't simply be exorcised, even if they're going all polter. There's even an ominously pending law that would ratify the legal status of the deceased.

Castor's pretty much your classic sad-sack P.I., as well — he's constantly getting out of his depth and tangling with opponents way beyond his weight class. His cases involve rogue exorcists whose powers are beyond his, or gangsters who've found a way to live forever by transplanting their souls into new bodies after death. There are occasional moments of genuine horror as well as traditional detective work, piecing together odd clues until something comes together.

He survives a lot of scrapes by his wits alone, or through pure luck, and his main superpower seems to be knowing when to tell a clever lie. His allies are rarely terribly reliable, including Gary Coldwood, the cop who often seems to hate his guts, Nicky, a zombie information broker, and Juliet, a former succubus who's just barely reformed thanks to the love of a good woman. His best friend Rafi is possessed by the demon Asmodeus (thanks to Felix's blundering), and his ex-girlfriend Pen won't forgive him for it.

I think the main thing that keeps me obsessively reading these books is Carey's dark, smoky narrative voice. It's very much in line with the Jim Butcher novels, Kadrey's Sandman Slim, and some other vaguely pulpy urban fantasy that's come out lately — I am trying not to overuse the phrase "noir fantasy" but there's definitely a smidgen of noir in the way that Castor's first-person narrator always seems world-weary and a bit of a bastard. But he's less of a bastard than most of the other people he meets, and he has a kind of struggling nobility to him. And there's definitely something a bit noirish about narration like this:

I was starting to get the picture now: it was a bleak and sad one, executed mainly in grays, but then I don't get to see many that are in bright primaries.

Or this, from later in the same book, after a spirit contact goes disastrously wrong:

I fished out my flask of I-can't-believe-it's-not-cognac and unscrewed the lid with shaking hands. The first sip was medicinal: I swilled it around my bitten tongue, trying not to wince, rolled down the window, and spat out the blood. The second sip was for my jangled nerves. So were the third and fourth.

The actual plots of the novels, judging from the two I've read, are insanely complicated and usually involve tons of different strands weaving together. I often found myself having to flip back 100 pages to try and remind myself exactly who a particular character was, when we hadn't seen him or her in a while. There are a lot of random characters, or entities, who show up and do something, then vanish for hundreds of pages only to resurface when the plot(s) needs them. The overall effect is one of whirling corruption and soul-deep chaos, and it's not at all a bad thing that Carey's spiritualist London feels fully populated.

The major supporting characters, though, are quite memorable and a big draw of these books is following Juliet, Pen, Rafi and the others through their evolution. Carey seems fairly determined to keep his status quo from becoming too quo, and all of the major characters seem to have actual arcs planned out, making the books worthwhile just to see how they turn out.

And there are plenty of hints, tossed here and there, about infernal politics. Something bigger seems to be coming down the pike, and every case Castor takes on, especially the ones which seem to be too hot to handle, increases the lingering sense that we're just seeing the tip of the supernatural iceberg. In any case, Castor's the type of fantasy hero we need more of — he's a good man in a bad world that's getting worse, and he defeats evil through a mixture of raw cunning and having friends in low places. Until Sam and Dean come back, it's definitely worth spending some time getting to know Felix Castor.

While there will always be coffee table books and classics people insist on owning in the pulp, many home libraries are sure to dwindle as we continue our move from a paper-based culture to a digital one.

So what happens to all those nooks within a house that are perfect for a bookcase or a stack of shelves? Will architecture and interior design change as we begin to no longer require holding space for our Margaret Atwood collection? Will social networking sites play the role of library, with synched Kindle and iTunes lists, so your friends can peruse your digital shelves?

Come to think of it, we don't remember seeing many movies set in the future that have books lying around on their sets. There's always the kook who insists on living like it's the 1800s when it's really 2200 (we're looking at you Ian Holm) but that freak's apartment is the only place you'll find a dusty library in the distant future.

Check out the gallery below to see how a few scifi movies solved the book problem.

In Minority Report, all that extra space gave way for many a holographic projector. How many beams of imagery do you see?

In the 1976 cult classic, Logan's Run, the lack of paper goods allowed for the opportunity to build the ultimate bachelor pad — rather than a reading nook, you now have room for a circuit transporter!

And well, Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element (set in 2263) proved that if you get rid of books you have much more room to hide your automatic weapons.

Both Total Recall (set in 2084) and Gattaca feature small, and we mean small, collections of books in their characters' homes. A hint to what's to come?

Book-free room in Gattaca.

If we truly do get rid of all bounded copies, we can all do as British stylist and interior designer, Abigail Ahern has done and keep the library aesthetic with a touch of wallpaper. Image via DesignSponge

It seemed that mouse house was interested in turning Dick's story into a Lord of the Rings type tale and even added it to their upcoming projects slate on the Disney web page later this year, complete with fancy old timey font...

Slashfilm recently pointed out that Disney webpage which slated the film for Christmas 2012 as a CG 3D production, is gone. The page is still there, but you can no longer navigate to it from the Disney home page. Plus, there's an ongoing discussion at the animation site Tag Blog claiming that the project has been canned.

It's not looking good for this Dick project. Which is sad, because we would have loved to see Disney work more with this kind of material. We miss the stories like The Sword In the Stone and its copy-cat films like The Black Cauldron in the fantasy-rich 80s. No doubt Peter Jackson's The Hobbit will help spark another fantasy movie uprising, but we'd love to see the younger generations exposed to this type of rich storytelling. Culminating with a Supernatural film.

Here's the official synopsis from PKD's story:

An ordinary man living in the Mississippi Delta, whose reluctant actions to help a desperate band of elves leads them to name him their new king. Joining the innocent and endangered elves as they attempt to escape from an evil and menacing troll, their unlikely new leader finds himself caught on a journey filled with unimaginable dangers, and a chance to bring real meaning back to his life.

[picture via maskworld]

In case you missed it, we've got the whole novel for you, in order, just as MCM wrote it. Plus, you can see all the input that readers gave in the process of pushing the plot forward. MCM is the creator of the awesome animated series Rollbots, as well as the author of other novels like Vector and The Pig and the Box. In just two days of frantic writing, he produced The New Real, a novel of interstellar drug enforcement. And it's a kickass good time, sort of a combination of Farscape, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and The Shield.

Part I
Learn about how livewriting works, and meet Darvey, a failed drunk of a cop who gets called on one last mission . . . a suicide mission among interstellar drug traders. Great moment:

He got to his feet and stumbled through the door, found himself staring straight into an iron bulkhead. Pipes ran everywhere, like the guts of a submarine. Darvey made his way down to the lesser-lit side of the hall, peeked through a door into what appeared to be a cafeteria.
At one of the tables was a very large insect playing chess.
Darvey just stood and stared for a moment, then rubbed his eyes.
"Less booze before bed," he muttered to himself. "Or more."
The insect looked up, scratched the top of its head with a long, thin arm.
"Greetings, biped," it said to him with a woman's voice, but he wasn't sure how he had heard the words. "You look like shit."

Part II
Darvey seems to be taking well to his new life as a member of the alien drug enforcement agency. Great moment:

"I'm not going to hurt you," smiled Darvey. "But I have to warn you… if you don't start telling me the truth soon, I'm going to have to take off my left sock."
The alien looked left and right urgently, as if someone might come to save him.
"What do you mean?" he hissed.
"What? You don't know?"
He pulled up his pant leg, showed his red sock. He dropped it again, grinned.
"Might be a cultural thing. Where I come from, red socks and tickling… they just don't go well together. Lethal combination."
"Tickling?" the alien cried.
"Must be the translator," Darvey shrugged. "Let me put it this way: we're going to need a big bucket and a mop to clean up the blood."

Part III
Will Darvey extricate himself from the alien drug politics, the insect who wants to have sex with him, and still fulfill his suicide wish? Great moment:

The pusher led them through the crowds of aliens to a back room, down a flight of concave stairs, to a palatial room littered with ornate tables, all orbiting around a central chair, upon which sat a pile of slime.
"This is them?" boomed the slime, its voice far too big for such a small bit of goo.
"That's ‘em," nodded the pusher. "Ask ‘em. Really, ask ‘em."
The slime's "front" turned towards Darvey and Kaps, bubbled slightly.
"You are after some Tobor, I understand."
"That's right," said Darvey. "Mr…"
"Ogro," said the slime. "You will call me Ogro."
"Ogro, then. We're after some Tobor who stole my merch. We heard you might be able to facilitate a meeting."
The slime bubbled again.
"I can do many things. I know many people. Do you know many people?"
"I know a few," said Darvey. "Are you looking?"
"I am looking for freedom," said Ogro.
"Freedom from what, exactly?" asked Darvey with a smile no one could see. "I deal in all kinds."
"Freedom from sycophants," said Ogro. "Always sucking at my ass, offering oils and jellybelts. Never bringing me value. I do not need more assistants, I need partners!"

Part IV
No spoilers for the action-packed conclusion. But here's a great moment:

Darvey's eyes opened wide when he tasted it. He looked to Lucas.
"Rum?" he asked. "How did you…"
"Pure ethanol is not good for you," Lucas said. "For long-term alcoholism, I would recommend this instead."

If you need to transport yourself to a world of spice, heat, and massive mining equipment, you'll want to visit Project Sand, and check out all the designers there. I've chosen a sampling of worm-oriented images because obviously worms are the coolest things ever.

By Jordan Lamarre

By AJ Trahan

By Jordan Lamarre

By AJ Trahan

By Wo"Dzgn

Walton says, among other things, she always snaps up extra copies of Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi and all of John M. Ford's books, because she's always giving them away. Other commenters mention Catherynne M. Valente, Pamela Dean... and Walton herself. (As for me, it's not science fiction, but I was just complaining the other day that I can't keep a copy of Small World by David Lodge on my shelf because peopel always borrow it and don't give it back, and the person I was talking to had the exact same problem with Small World. I've also loaned out/given away multiple Kushiel's Darts and keep a box of d.g.k. goldberg's Queen Of The Country Where They Sleep Till Noon to give away.)

How about you? What books do you hang onto, in order to get rid of? [Tor.com]

Sold Out: Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince Toys or DVD
Instead: Homemade Butter Beer

Can't find the right Harry Potter DVD or wand? Quick - brew up some of your own Butter Beer. There are over 10 Recipes right here. Plus it's cheap and people will think you care more because you made it with your hands.

Not Out Yet: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs DVD
Instead: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs The Book

Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett's childrens' book is a classic tale. If you wanted to give the DVD, only to find it won't be out until January, give the book instead. It's inexpensive and a wonderful hardback children's book any light-hearted person would enjoy, kids or no kids.

Sold Out: Star Wars Clone Wars Toys
Instead: Knit Your Own Leia Wig

I'm not sure how fast you can knit, but just try to start the project and you're in the clear. Heck maybe it can be "a project the both of you work on." The pattern is available at Etsy.
But if knitting is too complicated, try these Star Wars papercraft models. Nothing sweeter than waking up Christmas morning to a house filled with Star Wars decorations.

Not Out Yet: Jennifer's Body DVD
Instead: Jennifer's Body Earrings

Any monster movie fan will love you for these jewelry nods to the horror flick. It's like secret cosplay - only the "cool kids" will get the reference. And they are a cute and inventive alternative to the DVD, which fans will most likely purchase themselves. Worst case scenario, you can pick up the Jennifer's Body soundtrack which has tracks by Screeching Weasel, and of course, the film's warbling emo ballad: Low Shoulder's "Through The Trees."

Earrings available at ETSY soundtrack available at Amazon.

Not Available: David Tennant
Instead: The Original Doctor Who Scarf

What better way to remind or console a David Tennant Doctor Who fan than with a homemade reminder that there have been plenty of other Doctors who have regenerated over the years, and that this fan pain too will pass? This Doctor Who Scarf Website has just about every pattern around, and breaks down exactly how long/thick each scarf stripe should be.

Canceled: SGU Christmas Day Marathon
Instead: BSG Series DVD Set or Netflix Subscription With Instant Watch

Planning on spending Christmas Day snuggled up with some SGU only to find out it's canceled? Purchase the entire Battlestar Galactica series instead. It's been out long enough that you can get a pretty sweet deal on the internet or at a local store, or simply buy a Netflix instant watch membership. Not only is instant watch full of films, but is has all of the Lost seasons ready for instant viewing. It's something you can buy online and watch immediately on a computer or video game console.

Sold Out: Latest New Scifi Novel
Instead: Go Classic

You cannot go wrong with buying classic literature if the trendy new novels are sold out, or if you aren't sure which new books are good. Check out used book stores to see if they are carrying any of the classics. And here's a tip: If the dust jacket looks too beaten up, just take it off and gift the original cover with a bow. You can always give them the cover later.

In fact, it's almost better to go used and get a ton of paperbacks for the person who has always wanted to read Ursula K. Le Guin, so they can read her serial work one after the other. Still, if you want a crisp new gift try an older story compilation like, The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard. Here's a list of our nerdy book recommendations.

This is not a list of io9's "favorites," or a compendium of people we think should have power. With this list, we've tried to reflect as accurately as possible who the movers and shakers are in the worlds of science fiction - the people who can command a big budget, or get a creative project produced just by signing their name to it. These are people whose tastes are setting pop culture fashion, and inspiring imitators across the globe. They're wheeling and dealing, controlling the kinds of stories you'll be reading, watching, and playing for years to come.

In addition, the list is not in order of power. All of these people are powerful in different ways, often in different industries.

JJ Abrams
Lost. Star Trek. Fringe. At this point, media polymath JJ Abrams can do no wrong on television or at the movies. He's rebooted Star Trek with a flourish, and even though FOX show Fringe may be flagging in the ratings this year, it's still garnering critical praise. Next up for Abrams: Two linked sequels to Star Trek and an untitled scifi/spy comedy series.

James Cameron
Whether you love or hate Avatar, there's no denying Cameron knows how to make science fiction into a rich, technically sophisticated storytelling genre. And he can command a budget of nearly $400 million, which is what many estimate Avatar cost. Next up for Cameron: More Avatar, and more technical innovations.

Lady Gaga
Like Cameron, Lady Gaga is another polarizer: You hate her or you love her, but either way she's unavoidable. With videos supporting her two latest releases, The Fame and The Fame Monster, she crafted an image of herself as a pop creation whose alienness rivals that of 1970s-era David Bowie. Dressed in outfits that belong on another planet, playing piano from inside whirling silver rings, Lady Gaga made sci fashion into just plain fashion. Next up for Gaga: Touring, mostly without pants on.

David Howe
Though he got a lot of razzing for the Syfy rebranding campaign, Howe has brought the once-marginal SciFi Channel into the mainstream with Syfy's blend of paranormal reality shows like Ghost Hunters, top-rated miniseries (Tin Man), and attention-grabbing series like Stargate Universe and Warehouse 13. Under Howe's watch, Syfy's ratings have gone through the roof, and the channel is now among the top ten most-watched channels among men ages 18–54, and women ages 25–54. Next for Howe: Several new series, including the much-anticipated Battlestar Galactica prequel Caprica in spring.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Senior Editor and the Manager of Science Fiction at Tor Books, Nielsen Hayden is a kingmaker among American science fiction novelists. Under his watch, Tor has helped turn writers like Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi, and Jo Walton into award-winning superstars of the genre world. Plus it doesn't hurt that Tor is re-releasing the mega-selling Wheel Of Time series. Next for Nielsen Hayden: More award-winning books.

Diane Nelson
A longtime executive at Warner Bros, Nelson was recently named DC Entertainment President, where she's going to take on the task of shuttling promising comic book properties into Time Warner's other media divisions - mostly movies. With properties like Batman, Justice League, and Wonder Woman under her watchful eye, Nelson is poised to set the tone for next decade's most anticipated (and, for some, dreaded) comic book movies. Our favorite Nelson quote: "I prefer to be known as an executive rather than a girl." Next for Nelson: Superman and Wonder Woman movies.

Warren Ellis
Ellis has long been a favorite among discerning comic book fans who have made his books Transmetropolitan and Planetary into cult hits. And his work on countless Marvel titles, as well as his novel Crooked Little Vein, have made him a critical darling as well. But Ellis' power extends far beyond the comic book world, and into the realms of subterranean fashion, philosophy, and trendsetting. He runs a very popular blog that routinely breaks news on the pop trends and weird news that feed the creative imaginations of writers, artists, filmmakers and fans. Ellis is one of the science fiction world's most influential tastemakers and opinion shapers. Next for Ellis: The movie version of his comic book Red starts filming in January, starring Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman.

Charlaine Harris
With her Sookie Stackhouse novels constantly on bestseller lists, and HBO's Sookie series True Blood a critical and audience hit, Harris is the queen of vampire fiction for adults. She's also a pioneer of the supernatural romance genre, which has propelled science fiction and urban fantasy stories into the hands of women - and helped turn fantastical genre fiction into a mainstream obsession. Next for Harris: Dead in the Family, a new Sookie Stackhouse novel, in May 2010.


Felicia Day
Day, creator of the cult hit web show The Guild, was the star of scifi's biggest web sensation to date: Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. Now she's crossing over into the mainstream, with roles on House, Dollhouse, and Lie To Me. Day proves that web celebrities can be just as powerful as TV celebrities. Next for Day: Appearing in some of the final episodes of Dollhouse next year; The Guild season 4.

Audrey Niffenegger
With her mega-selling novel The Time Traveler's Wife now a Hollywood movie, it's no wonder that Audrey Niffenegger got almost $5 million for her latest novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, which came out earlier this year. Next for Niffenegger: An art exhibit at Printworks Gallery in September, 2010, and a third novel, The Chinchilla Girl in Exile.

Alastair Reynolds
Joining the millionaire science fiction author club along with Niffenegger is Reynolds, a British author whose space operas have netted him prestigious awards and fans the world over. Last year, he signed an unprecedented 10-book deal with leading UK SF publisher Gollancz, for £1 million. Next for Reynolds: A three-book cycle that the UK Guardian described as "an African-inflected trilogy charting how humanity might go on to conquer the solar system and the galaxy."


Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh
Jackson and Walsh have been writing and production partners on some of the biggest science fiction and fantasy epics of the last decade, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Now Jackson is putting some of his muscle behind young directors like District 9's Niell Blomkamp, and it's paying off nicely; Jackson and Walsh have also been working with Guillermo Del Toro on developing two forthcoming movies based on The Hobbit. Next for Jackson and Walsh: Producing The Hobbit movies; a possible miniseries based on Naomi Novik's dragon warfare series called Temeraire.

Michael Bay
Bay exploded his way into some of the biggest box office cash in history with the incomprehensible yet lucrative Transformers 2. Call him a mindless detonation-whore if you want, but Bay's a money-making golden boy in Hollywood right now. Next for Bay: Transformers 3, set for 2011 release.

Ridley Scott
After blowing everybody's minds with his original visions in 1970s and 80s science fiction classics Alien and Bladerunner, Scott turned his attention to other genres, making incredible flicks like Thelma and Louise and American Gangster. But last year, to our delight, he set his sights on science fiction again. Next for Scott: He's got a prequel to Alien in the works, as well as plans to adapt Joe Haldeman's The Forever War and early SF classic Brave New World to the big screen.

Kevin Feige
As President of Production at Marvel Studios, Feige will control the vertical, horizontal, and asskickital on your movie screens for quite some time. Having worked as a producer on hits like Iron Man and Fantastic Four, Feige will continue his reign at Marvel with more films based on Marvel's characters. Now that Disney is putting its considerable weight behind Marvel Studios, we can only hope that the asskicking will get awesomer, not cutesier. Next for Feige: Producing movie versions of Thor, The Avengers, Captain America, Ant-Man, Deathlok, and more.

Image Metrics
When it comes to making science fiction look awesome, it's important to credit the power of a great tool and the people who make it. Image Metrics is an FX software package used for creating facial animation (often with motion-capture technology) and effects mavens love it. It was used to create effects for Benjamin Button last year, and this year was used for Avatar and the videogame Assassin's Creed II. Next for Image Metrix: You'll be seeing effects created with the software in the film Splice.

Neville Page
The creature designer whose monsters are sometimes more memorable than the actors who fight them, Page created the Cloverfield creature, as well as working on character and creature design in Star Trek (yes, that was his weird red monster on the ice planet), Watchmen and Avatar. Not only are his monsters cool; they actually help advance the stories we see them in. Next for Page: He designed the suits in the forthcoming sequel to Tron.

Patrice Desilets and Jade Raymond
As Ubisoft videogame Assassin's Creed veers into science fictional territory, game designer Desilets finds himself heading up the creative team behind one of the most interesting, complex, and fun SF/F games of the past few years. As producer on Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2, Raymond helped popularize the games and made them accessible to a broader audience. Next for Desilets and Raymond: Desilets is at work on the next installment of Assassin's Creed; Raymond is heading up a brand-new Toronto Ubisoft office, where she says she'll work on AAA games.

Sam Worthington
Aussie actor Worthington came out of nowhere to helm two of the year's most anticipated science fiction epics: Terminator 4 (where many argued he was the only interesting character), and Avatar (where he proved he can act even when he's turned into a motion-captured animation). He's poised to be Hollywood's next big SF action star. Next for Worthington: Clash of the Titans; producing and starring in comic book flick Last Days of American Crime; possible Avatar sequel.

Zoe Saldana
After stealing the show in JJ Abrams' Star Trek and kicking major ass in Avatar, Saldana is on track to be the next Sigorney Weaver: Able to play smart believably, and able to throw down in highly physical, action-adventure roles. She leaves everyone wanting to see more of her brains and brawn. Next for Saldana: comic book flick The Losers; Star Trek sequels.

Thanks to: Michael Goldfarb, Stephen Totilo, Charlie Jane Anders, Meredith Woerner, Graeme McMillan, and Lauren Davis, who all helped compile this list.

Here are some of the weirdest Cameron facts, from The Futurist by Rebecca Keegan, as well as Keegan's interviews about the book. We've also linked to some excerpts from the book that you can read online.

When Cameron was a young kid, his mom Shirley joined the Canadian Women's Army Corps and spent her weekends in fatigues and combat boots, learning to assemble a rifle while blindfolded. She's perplexed by the idea that she might be the inspiration for Cameron's female heroines. Cameron was a precocious kid who was speaking complete sentences at 18 months and reading science books when the other kids were reading See Spot Run. He won every academic award in ninth grade and became president of the Science Club, and not surprisingly got himself beat up by all the other kids in the process. He learned to do just well enough in school to get good grades, without getting any awards.

And he's an atheist, who decided agnosticism was "cowardly atheism." When the other kids read the Lord's Prayer in school, Cameron decided it was a "tribal chant" and decided not to do it.

If graphic novels had existed as an art form when Cameron started out, he might have done that instead of trying to direct movies.

As a teenager, Cameron worked six-hour shifts as a precision tool and die machinist while taking 14 units at Fullerton College. In his early 20s, he worked as a truck driver, janitor and gas-station attendant. And his girlfriend at the time worked at Bob's Big Boy Diner, just like Sarah Connor.

"You can't help but come away from spending time with Jim feeling that you're a little bit stupid," Peter Jackson warned Keegan. "He's got such a sharp mind."

His early writings included a post-nuclear science-fiction story called "Necropolis." His first real film project, made with friends, was a never-completed epic called Xenogenesis, for which they shot a complex sequence involving a guy being chased by a tank firing laser beams, causing explosions at his feet. This got him in the front door at Roger Corman studios.

After Cameron got promoted to director of Piranha II when the original director quit, he broke into the editing bay to create his own edit of the film against the producer's wishes. When Cameron first met Arnold Schwarzenegger, he didn't want to cast him in The Terminator — he figured Arnie would have the usual body-builder movie arc: make some movies wearing a toga, and then fall off the face of the Earth. (The two are now friends, and race motorcycles together on weekends.)

He only did Aliens because he called an agent's bluff. And during the making of that film, he had to deal with a British film crew who saw the 31-year-old director as a young upstart who hadn't earned his stripes by working his way up. The assistant director, Derek Cracknell, felt better able to direct the film than Cameron and would try to set up shots differently than Cameron wanted. The crew was used to two tea breaks, lunch at the pub, and work ending by 5 PM, and Cameron drove them to work longer hours, sparking a full-on walk-out. Finally, Cameron talked to the crew in a marathon gripe session, which ended with promises of more cooperation. Somehow, Cameron finished making the film, and then addressed the crew one last time:

This has been a long and difficult shoot, fraught by many problems. But the one thing that kept me going, through it all, was the certain knowledge that one day I would drive out the gate of Pinewood and never come back, and that you sorry bastards would still be here.

(You can read an excerpt from the book, detailing this incident, over at Slashfilm.)

After Terminator II came out, Guillermo Del Toro was staying at Cameron's guest house for long stretches of time. And after Del Toro's father got kidnapped in Mexico, Cameron helped Del Toro find the right hostage negotiators to get him out, and helped put up the money for his ransom.

Cameron stood up to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who did not want Jamie Lee Curtis to be his costar in True Lies, and won. And when Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold took off on a tour of DC monuments, leaving the set, they returned to find Cameron standing in the middle of the road, arms crossed, like a Terminator ready to total their vehicle. Cameron lunged in the passenger door and got in Arnie's face, shouting "Do you want Paul Verhoeven to direct the rest of this [expletive]? You do that [expletive] again and that's what's gonna happen."

During the making of Titanic, the whole crew ate chowder laced with LSD, and freaked out so badly, an assistant director stabbed Cameron in the face with a pencil. He almost died during the making of that film, when his sub got trapped on the ocean floor by currents that thwarted every attempt to rise — and a similar predicament happened during the making of The Abyss, when he ran out of oxygen. (His underwater cinematographer was nearly deaf due to a diving-bell accident, and didn't hear Cameron saying he was out of oxygen, and then he had to punch out his own safety diver to reach the surface — the safety diver was trying to hold Cameron 15 feet below the surface, as he was trained to do, but Cameron had a faulty regulator that was just spewing water. Read an excerpt about the making of The Abyss at TechLand.)

Cameron addressed a 2000 Earth Day celebration by intoning, "I just want to say that we're all doomed," mocking his own penchant for apocalyptic scenarios. "But on the positive side, we created this impending doom ourselves, with our brains, with our technology, and we can damn well uncreate it."

When Cameron brought his 153-page screenplay for Avatar to Fox, the executives "acted like it was a complete shambles," Cameron tells Keegan. That's because Cameron was in the habit of changing all his dialogue around after watching the actors rehearse, and it had been so long between projects that the suits had forgotten that's how Cameron works. So Cameron had to revise the movie and take it back to Fox — and then the studio still decided to pass on it officially. But after Cameron took the film to Disney, Fox changed its mind in a hurry.

Silverberg's new essay in Asimov's Science Fiction comes down pretty harshly on the novels that people tend to remember Clarke for, including 2001 and Rendezvous With Rama, but Silverberg admits some of Clarke's short stories are better. But Silverberg cherishes some nostalgia for Clarke's earliest writings, which he read with a less critical eye as a teenager. He re-read Against The Fall Of Night, and found that it still excited him, despite some glaring flaws. He's still enthralled by the far-future setting and the homage to Olaf Stapledon contained within.

This novel is evidence, says Silverberg, that Clarke is an "amateur" in both senses of the word:

Amateur may be a startling word to apply to so famous and widely read a novelist as Arthur C. Clarke. But it has two meanings, one of which has largely been eclipsed in modern-day English. When applied to writers we generally take it to describe a not-quite-competent practitioner: someone who has not mastered the tricks of the storytelling trade, the array of technical devices that professional writers use to draw readers into a story and hold them there. I think that's true of Clarke: from beginning to end of his career, he told his stories quietly, simply, relying entirely on the strength of his ideas and the steady, gentle tone of his voice to keep readers interested. For the most part, it worked.

But the earlier sense of amateur derives from the Latin word amator, a lover-specifically, a lover of literature, of fine wine, of rare postage stamps, of anything that can excite strong commitment, be it intellectual or emotional or both. We no longer use the word that way in English because, since it has come to take on negative connotations in its other sense, it has been replaced by its Spanish synonym, aficionado. But those of us who love science fiction are amateurs of science fiction, and I think there was no greater amateur of SF than Arthur C. Clarke, who when he was eighteen or so set out to show his love for the work of Olaf Stapledon and other SF visionaries by writing his own tale of the far future. And it is that love that shines through in Against the Fall of Night and most of Clarke's later work and makes it compelling to us despite all its literary shortcomings.

The whole essay is well worth reading, and debating. [Asimov's]

So I bought some science fiction magazines—fantasy and science fiction magazines and stuff— and read all of the short stories in them and went, 'OK, I just need to write something better than any these things.' I sat down and started banging away and eventually what I got was "Pocketful of Dharma.""

— Paolo Bacigalupi, interviewed by PBS' Wired Science Blog. via Free SF Reader, via William Gibson on Twitter.

Says Willis:

At my very first writer's conference, George R.R. Martin said to me, "It's a pity you're getting into science fiction right now, because it's on its last legs." Not only was that not true, but now you can't turn on a TV without seeing our influence everywhere, and some of the best science fiction I've ever read is being written right now. Science fiction is an amazing literature: plot elements that you would think would be completely worn out by now keep changing into surprising new forms. I have great faith in the future of books-no matter what form they may take-and of science fiction.

[Publishers Weekly]

Stuff NZ reports:

The hush-hush project is understood to be in early development, with work on the first of the four books under way, industry sources say. Weta Workshops is also believed to be working on designs for the science fiction series, which features giant mobile cities. A spokesman for Jackson did not deny the project was on the books yesterday, but said "any comment should come from Peter". Jackson, who is understood to have had the rights to the books for some time, was unavailable for comment.

Not only that, but the article mentions that Jackson's also optioned the rights to Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, set in an alternate history where the Napoelonic Wars are fought with dragons. All of a sudden, the idea of Jackson doing more book adaptations sounds pretty great.

Not Now but Now by MFK Fisher
Food writer MFK Fisher's only novel follows a spoiled, beautiful, wealthy young woman named Jennie who is somehow able to jump from one decade to another, as each time period proves to end badly for the willful girl. A morality tale with a time trick (and trains! lots of awesome trains!), Not Now but Now is a little known scifi-ish gem from an unexpected source.

Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
Ballard's autobiographical tale of surviving the Japanese occupation of China as a young boy during WWII was seen as a major departure from the new wave of science fiction he pioneered in Crash and Memories of the Space Age. Upon closer inspection, however, Empire exhibits all the tell tale signs of a "Ballardian" novel. According to the Collins English Dictionary "Ballardian" is defined as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." A 10 year old British aristo separated from his parents in a hostile, war ravaged environment? Yeah, I'd say that definition is pretty spot on.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Inhospitable atmosphere? Check. Expensive as hell expedition? Check. Terrifying yet incomprehensibly beautiful landscape? Check. Imminent death from the elements a very, very real possibility? OMG CHECK. Into Thin Air may ostensibly be about mountain climbing, but any sci fi fan worth their salt recognizes a book about space exploration when they see one.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Possibly the funniest book ever written about the Thames, Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel served as the inspiration for Connie Willis' witty time travel/alternate history novel To Say Nothing of the Dog. Fans of Douglas Adams, Caroline Stevermere, and Agatha Christie will giggle themselves anglo reading this book.

Diamond As Big As the Ritz by F Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald's only foray into the fantastic, Diamond As Big As the Ritz is a morality tale of perpetual slavery, a James Bond-ian villain cloistered inside a mountain stronghold, said Bond-ian villain's God complex, and laser shooting planes. This ain't no Bernice Bobs her Hair, son. This is some serious Outer Limits business.

It's a dicey proposition, calling something overrated, not least of all because it can seem like more of an insult than it's intended to be. For example, Battlestar Galactica was, at best, an amazing piece of television that managed to be thought-provoking, entertaining and addictive on a regular basis... but, by the time it closed out its run earlier this year with appearances at the UN and declarations of it being the greatest show on television ever, things were getting pretty close to overrating it. Personal taste comes into play a lot, as well; we're guilty of that as much as anyone (The strength of my Pushing Daisies love may have been somewhat out of proportion with the show itself, for example).

What we're looking for, then, isn't just the name of something (Movie, TV show, comic, book, creator, whatever) you consider overrated, but why. And, feel free to defend slighted favorites if you feel the need. We're just curious what you all think isn't as good as everyone thinks it is... Just make sure that The Venture Bros. isn't on the list, or there'll be trouble.

According to About.com, which compiles a weekly bestseller list based on combining data from major publications and online bookstores, the decade's ten biggest sellers included:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling
Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris

These books topped the list, outselling Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and the book Freakonomics. Who needs nonfiction analysis when you can have wizards and sexy vampires?

via About.com

Greg Cox is one of the most prolific, and successful, authors of media tie-in novels, and he's won a loyal following for his many Star Trek books, including a trilogy filling in the backstory of much-loved villain Khan Noonien Singh. He's also written tie-in novels based on Alias, The 4400, Roswell, Underworld, Fantastic Four and Iron Man. He's also novelized the movies Ghost Rider, Daredevil and several others, plus DC Comics' big crossovers.

We talked to him about his new Terminator Salvation tie-in novel Cold War, out now from Titan Books, plus some of his other recent projects.

Cold War uses the same timeline as McG's recent movie, but only includes a couple of characters from the film: The main character is Losenko, the Russian general who appears briefly in the film, mentioning that Skynet is looking for Kyle Reese, and we learn all about Lysenko's backstory. Says Cox, "When I watched the movie, I was probably the only person who was mentally hanging on every scene with general Losenko," watching for every detail about the character to include in the book. Also in the book is General Ashdown (Michael Ironsides), the resistance leader who lives on a submarine. John Connor only pops in the book as a sort of mythological figure, giving inspirational speeches over the radio.

The new book takes place in Alaska and Russia, in two different time frames: 2003, right after Judgment Day, and then 2018. In 2003, the survivors are coping with the aftermath of the nuclear war, and Skynet is attacking them with really primitive Terminators, and the technology is close to what really existed in 2003. And then in 2018, Skynet has all the same tech it has in the movie — plus snowmobile Terminators, to navigate those frozen northern areas. It sounds like Cox had a lot of fun with the frosty settings:

My big gimmick was snowmobile Terminators. There's also a giant Terminator train. The trick is to try to find stuff in the [same] universe, that's slightly different. What haven't we seen yet? We haven't seen a Terminator train. The main reason for setting it in Alaska [was to include things like] dogsled chases, grizzly bears, avalanches, volcanos... We've seen so many chases on California highways, with fire trucks and emergency vehicles. I was looking for a whole different environment, not just recapitulating what people had done before.

Cox is somewhat surprised that the Terminator/grizzly bear fight has been the main thing people have talked about in his novel. "You can't have a Terminator in Alaska and not have him fight a grizzly bear. Okay, it's gratuitous, but how can I resist having a grizzly bear fight a Terminator?" And now that people have been so excited by it, "from now on, I put a grizzly bear in all my books." Spoiler alert: The bear doesn't stand a chance against a Terminator, says Cox.

There's also a Western-style train heist and loads of detail on a Russian submarine, plus lots of gritty war-movie-style action. Cox watched tons of World War II movies on TCM, read every Tom Clancy novel for the submarine details, and did loads of research on the world right after a nuclear war.

Cox says he watched Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles "religiously," but Titan Books and Halcyon were adamant that his book couldn't contain any references to T:SCC continuity. So don't expect Cameron to show up, but if anyone ever green-lights SCC novels, Cox will be first in line. The Terminator people were very keen to make sure Cox's book fit in with their vision of the universe, including making sure Skynet wasn't developing high technology too early after Judgment Day — and that meant loads of conference calls, notes and intensive feedback at every stage of the process.

Wrapping up The 4400

The amount of feedback you get from the licensors on a licensed property depends heavily on whether it's an ongoing concern, says Cox. With The 4400, for example, Cox wrote one tie-in novel while the series was on the air, and went through four different drafts in response to feedback. But when Cox wrote the first of two novels wrapping up the series after it ended, Welcome To Promise City, he got a more-or-less free hand. (The other novel, available now, is written by David Mack.) Cox, Mack and their editor cooked up an ending to the series together.

Except for tons of feedback from the fans. Cox says as soon as it was announced that he was writing a 4400 novel explaining what happened after the show's cancellation, he was bombarded with emails from fans all over the world demanding to know what he was going to do with their favorite subplots and characters. "I can't claim we wrapped up every loose end, but we tried to wrap up the important one," says Cox. He and Mack debated with their editor whether to tie up the end of the series with a neat bow, or leave a few things slightly open-ended in case they ended up doing more novels. They settled on the second approach, so if the books sell amazingly well, you might see further continuations of the story.

Novelizing Final Crisis

Cox novelized Infinite Crisis, 52 and Countdown for DC Comics, and now he's novelized Final Crisis, Grant Morrison's narrative-shredding uber-crossover starring the evil Darkseid. How on earth do you take Morrison's loopy storytelling and convert it into a single novel?

There was a lot of condensing involved, Cox admits:

There's not a lot of connective tissue in that series. [There are] a lot of scenes that jump from place to place. I've got to admit, the book is probably a bit more linear than the comic book, especially issue seven, which was jumping all over time. I actually just tried to tell it a bit more in chronological order, and maybe simplify it a bit.

The biggest problem with novelizing one of these sprawling DC crossovers is figuring out what subplots and tie-ins to leave out. The first week Cox was working on the Infinite Crisis novelization, he was trying to include all of the spin-off issues, including things like Rann-Thanagar War One-Shot, and every other miniseries and crossover issue, "and I realized this book is going to take me ten years, and it's going to be the size of The Wheel Of Time." So he began paring things down. Similarly, the Final Crisis book ignores a lot of tie-ins, sadly including the 3-D Superman tie-in series. "I apologize if your favorite scene is not in this book, but there's no way I can get in the 3-D tie in superman issue and the Batman issues and the special tie-in issue of Secret Six."

With novelizations of comics crossovers, "it's all about streamlining." It's the opposite of novelizing movie scripts, which is all about fleshing out the story and characters and adding new stuff to turn a 90-page script into a 300-to-400-page novel. "The script for Ghost Rider was not a terribly long script," notes Cox. He recalls coming across the novelization for Snakes On A Plane and marveling that Christa Faust had managed to get 400 pages out of that film. He felt like sending her fan mail.

Should Khan Come Back?

As the author of three Khan books, Cox is conflicted about whether Khan should appear in the next Star Trek movie. On the one hand, recasting Khan seems almost impossible, given how much Ricardo Montalban put his stamp on the character. On the other, Cox might have said the same thing about recasting Kirk, Spock and McCoy — and J.J. Abrams and crew pulled that off. The real question is, "do you do Botany Bay Khan, or crazy burned-out Wrath Of Khan Khan? There's the young virile but not quite crazy Khan, and then there's the obsessed spent-15-years-in-Hell Khan. And then there's the whole messy [subject of the] Eugenics Wars — when exactly did they take place? Did they take place during the Bill Clinton years?"

Cox is writing one of four new novels that take place in the movie's continuity, picking up where the movie left off. He's written a draft of his novel, but hasn't gotten feedback from Paramount yet, so everything is subject to change. But at least for now, his novel takes place six months after the end of the movie, and follows Captain Kirk and his crew on a stand-alone adventure. And he hints that, if Paramount approves, the fact that the Vulcans are refugees scattered across the universe will play a part in his novel's plot.