I promised myself I wasn't going to respond to literary provocateurs any more - you know, the sort of blowhard who decides to get some undeserved attention by firing a potshot across the bow of genre fiction. Usually these potshots are made up of ill-formed generalizations and largely unexamined assumptions.

The New Yorker's first ever science fiction issue comes out May 29, and it includes a new story by Jennifer Egan, author of the award-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad. But if you can't wait until Tuesday, you'll be able to read Egan's story on Twitter, starting tonight, via @NYerFiction. A new 140-character extract…

And the hits for the Spidey musical just keep coming. After a few weeks without any reported injuries, Julie Taymor's Spider-Man musical takes another swipe, this time from the New Yorker. Plus, more skits poking fun at the troubled production.

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, an alien civilization announces its intentions to visit our planet. But they're not a benevolent race out to share their technology; they're actually quite passive aggressive and have designs on our gravel.

Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, is being sued by two Papua, New Guinea, men who claim the award-winning science writer lied about their lives to prove that tribal culture is violent.

What's in a superhero costume? Well, beyond muscle and 100% justice, of course (50% justice, 50% alcohol in Iron Man's case). If you're novelist and occasional fanboy Michael Chabon, the answer apparently has a lot more to do with semiotics and cultural identity than even Peter Parker was aware of, according to his…