Don't get me wrong, we're almost as happy as the next man that Spider-Man is getting his long overdue day in the sun this year, but it's not enough. The Thanksgiving Day parade we'd want to be watching would have to include some of the following:

A Yoda Balloon
To be honest, we have no idea how this hasn't happened already. If ever there was a fictional character more suitable for translating into giant inflatable form that isn't named Pikachu or Snoopy, we'd like to meet them. It's not like Star Wars isn't popular enough, or that George Lucas doesn't have the Clone Wars TV show to promote. Why hasn't this happened yet?

A Partially-Deflated Superman Balloon
Because who doesn't want to see more of this?

A Brock Samson Balloon
Yeah, you heard us. And he can be pulled by lots of people dressed as the Monarch's henchmen. Admittedly, this may just be part of our Venture Bros-filled dream lives that would also include a Venture musical, complete with singing Hank and Dean and Nathan Lane as Phantom Limb. But until then, we can comfort ourselves with the dream of a giant, mulleted balloon of black t-shirt-wearing pain smoking and floating throughout the streets of a cold New York November morning, terrifying evildoers and NBC announcers alike.

Scenes From The Spider-Man Musical Being Performed In Front Of Macy's For An Unenthusiastic Audience
Just as every year's parade features special guests from the latest Broadway hit miming a song from their show while jumping about trying to desperately keep warm, why not give everyone a chance to see what U2 and Julie Taymor have cooked up for the perpetually-troubled Spider-Man musical Turn Off The Dark, thereby convincing everyone once and for all that Arena Rock and outsider superheroes really isn't a good fit after all. After all, given all the troubles the production has gone through already, this kind of performance may be the only time anyone will see anything from the show.

Stargate Universe Float
This is another no-brainer. What better way for the newest Stargate to win over new audiences than with a float filled with cast members to sum up what the series is all about? This is what I picture: The float itself looks like a scale version of the Destiny, with Scott and Chloe having sex on one side, Rush and Eli looking at computer screens and frowning, before Young walks up and shouts at them, leaving TJ to one side, looking on concerned. At the back of the float, Greer can look crazy and shoot his gun in the air, and somewhere, Camille can have multiple showers because that's what she seems to do if last Friday's two shower scenes are anything to go by. How could that not make everyone want to tune in on a regular basis?

Make those changes, and all it'd take would be the addition of Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell as replacement Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieiras (with Mark Sheppard taking the Al Roker wandering reporter role, of course; he has to be in everything, after all), and the show would be perfect. Well, for us, anyway. What changes would you need to make you have to tune in?

Heroin For Teens!

TMZ has a picture of Twilight Heroin baggies taken from West Hempstead, Long Island. Apparently they've been getting more popular these last few months.

Random Bitings

An ABC affiliate is reporting that a 17-year-old girl was bitten by a man after getting harassed in a New Moon screening.

The victim was watching the teen vampire romance movie with another friend when she says a man behind them started making sexual comments to them. After the movie was over, the man allegedly bit the girl on the neck. The bite did not break the girl's skin.

Ugh.

Vibrating Edward

And finally this super fan from Pillow Biters made a plastic pocket size vibrating Edward doll, and then had the actor who plays Jasper autograph it. Come on — you could of at least taped Jasper's face to it!

And thanks to New Moon.org for pointing out that you can make Edward and Jacob kiss in the new EW magazine spread.

So here are the most insane SF soaps we could think of — but I bet we missed some good ones. What are your favorites? Pipe up in comments with the lurid details!

Top image by Dennys Ilic. Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Heroes

You can pick any character from this show and get a headache trying to figure out all the story twists he or she has gone through. Take Matt Parkman: He's trying to keep his marriage together — No, wait! Now he's living with Mohinder and co-parenting Molly the mutant-detecting girl! — No, wait! Molly is out of the picture! And now Matt is becoming an African-esque shaman! — No, wait! Now Matt is in love with Daphne the speedster, who's the Love Of His Life! — No, wait! Now Matt is back with his wife, and will never think about Daphne again! — No, wait! Etc. etc. etc. My favorite, though, is probably Peter's girlfriend trapped in an alternate dystopian future — whom we will never mention again! Ha ha ha ha urk. (Matt Loves Daphne wallpaper from Fanpop.)

Alias

This show started off pretty coherent — but around the third brainwashing or the tenth revelation that Sidney's mother's cousin was really the spy behind brainwashing Sidney to think her half-sister was a chicken. I defy anybody to explain to me the tangled backstory of the Bristow family.

The Cat Who Walked Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein:

I made a dreadful mistake: This was the first Heinlein book I ever read — and it may have ruined me for Heinlein forever. In the late Heinlein novels, every character ever shows up, and they mostly have sex together, interspersed with a lot of drama and philosophizing. It's a sequel to The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress as well as Number Of The Beast, and features characters from several other books — including Jubal Harshaw, Lazarus Long and Hazel Stone, and it turns out that all of Heinlein's characters have previously unsuspected connections to each other. As reviewer James W. Harris puts it:

Having all of his "good" guys sound like a convention of smarmy talking wife-swappers is just gross. I hate to sound like a teenage girl, but damn, Heinlein's kissy-kissy talk and innuendo just made me want to puke. And making his classic characters act out in this limp-dick porn flick is just tragic. Having them go on and on about how they were going to kill people for bad manners is just a little psycho to me. Evidently a lot of people and situations annoyed the hell out of Heinlein and he used this book to vent. Some people want to call this satire but I think that's whitewash.

Maybe Heinlein lost his mojo and these multiverse stories were the best he could do. Personally, I thought The Rolling Stones was a perfect novel, and bringing back Hazel Stone was a fictionally fuck-up of an idea, ditto for the cast of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Maybe I am a prude because I just don't want the Hazel Stone, grandmother of Castor and Pollux, joking about being stretched out of shape by giant 25 centimeter cock.

All of Heinlein's personally favorite characters get put into a fictional juicer and blended into weird rabble of sex obsessed mob that chirp a weird innuendo patter and are almost impossible to tell apart. When I read these multiverse stories I can't help but believe that horniness was driving Heinlein crazy. These later stories are preoccupied with sex, killing people, responding to annoying people, the reliability of witnesses, rude people deserving capital punishment, and so on.

Venture Bros.:

At least this show is ridiculous on purpose — the ultra-demented story of the Venture clan has gotten more and more involved, with Sergeant Hatred's struggle against his pedophilic past taking center stage, and deformed clones and weird villain love affairs aplenty. Most of all, there are the labyrinthine family elements crossing over into everything, like the revelation that Dean was also the head of the Guild. The same characters and their families end up being connected in ever more improbable and weird ways, making our heads spin.

Battlestar Galactica:

I have four (or possibly five) words for you: "Hotdog is the father." Whaaa? There's also the great way Baltar went from being a slimy scientist to being a slimy politician to being a slimy cult leader — and what happened to the baby that Baltar and Six were going to have together? Oh and while we're on the subject, what about Saul Tigh being crazy-chicken in love with Caprica Six — until she has a miscarriage, and then he never thinks about her again? It all makes you want to grip your television and scream (in a Krazy Starbuck voice) "You're going the wrong way!"

Sonic The Hedgehog (comics):

According to the always great TVTropes website, this comic-book tie-in to the popular video game went whirling off on crazier tangents than a flying hedgehog on crack. To quote TVTropes:

The Archie Comics Sonic The Hedgehog series twisted Sonic's love life into a Gordian Knot: Originally hooked up with Sally Acorn, she got stuck ruling the country and shoved the relationship to the side to focus on her new duties, prompting Sonic to fall in with Mina Mongoose, starting a rivalry between the two women for Sonic's affection. He then started seeing Fiona Fox on the side, which not only pissed off Mina and Sally, but Tails, as well, who had a crush on her due to falling in love with a robotic duplicate created by Robotnik several years earlier (don't ask). Eventually, Mina got her own boyfriend, Sally got Sonic once again, and Tails got tossed into a brick wall by Fiona, who gave them all the finger to have a relationship with Sonic's evil clone from another universe. And that's not even counting the mini-tangle between Antoine, Sally, Bunnie Rabbot, and Antoine's evil clone from the same universe Fiona's new beau comes from.

Got it? Great.

Gundam Wing:

Okay, let's get this straight... Relena Darlian discovers she's really adopted, and her real name is Relena Peacecraft, one of the last survivors of the pacifistic (duh) Peacecraft tribe. And then it turns out that Zechs Marquise is her long lost older brother. Meanwhile, she gets obsessed with Heero, a young whackjob who keeps announcing he's going to kill her, not unlike the "I'm going to rape you" guy in Welcome To The Dollhouse. And that's just scratching the surface of the most confusing, tangly saga of all time, involving endless backstory and weird family crap.

Angel:

I was going to do Charmed, Angel's fellow WB series which had the whole "my ex-husband is a half-demon" thing, but Angel is so much more ridiculous — mostly because of Cordy, who is in love with Groosalugg, until she's in love with Angel instead, but meanwhile she's turned into a half-demon and then she becomes a Higher Power, until she comes back and has sex with Angel's son — who, as someone points out, is practically her stepson since she helped care for him as a baby — and then becomes pregnant and evil — until she gives birth to an evil god. Nothing on parent show Buffy was as incestuous and ridiculous as Cordy's arc on Angel. Oh, actually, wait — Cordelia was pregnant twice on Angel.

Robotech:

Sure, it was supposedly about the giant mechas, but it was really all about the tragic loves and the tormented Rick-Minmei-Lisa love triangle. To quote Wikipedia,

In early 2013, while sitting at an outdoor cafe, [Lisa] contemplates the love triangle between the three of them when she overhears two men talking about how women were "dealt all the aces" when it comes to relationships, to which Lisa says to herself "that's all you know...here's one woman who would trade every ace in the deck for one Rick Hunter.

Sigh. Twoo Love. Here's a great fanvid featuring the music of White Town. Yay!

X-Men (comics):

This, of course, is the most insane soap opera imaginable. At this point, the X-men have had illegitmate babies from the future, secret love affairs, doomed passions and multiple bad transcriptions of all sorts of accents, from Cajun to Scottish. My favorite ridiculous soap-opera twist might be Madrox's night of passion with two female members of X-Factor: Siryn and Monet, resulting in a pregnancy that isn't quite a normal pregnancy. But then there's also the whole insane Rogue/Gambit thing, the Scott/Jean/Wolverine/Emma love doodaddle, and of course Professor X turning out to be secretly in love with Jean Grey. That's just scratching the surface, really. If you want more info, check out the X-Men relationship map — which is probably already out of date!

Granted, not all of these foods will actually devour you; some will simply kill you or turn you into their zombie slave. But all are best approached with caution, and should only be handled by chefs with combat training.

Killer Tomatoes (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes): After years of being made into ketchup and mistaken for vegetables, the tomatoes get their revenge, and a killer theme song.

The Stuff (The Stuff): It's not clear what would possess a man to taste a slimy substance he found out in the woods, but it turns out the Stuff is delicious, addictive, and contains no calories. It also turns out that the Stuff is alive, and it chews on your brain until you've transformed into a nice, pliable zombie.

Bubble Shock! (The Sarah Jane Adventures "Invasion of the Bane"): Another zombifying substance is Bubble Shock!, a fizzy organic beverage. But it's actually an alien life form, one that turns drinkers into slaves of Mother Bane. While it doesn't have quite the brain-mushing powers of the Stuff, Bubble Shock! has a viral quality, with Bane zombies offering the beverage to anyone who hasn't tried it.

Popplers (Futurama "The Problem with Popplers"): Another mysterious foodstuff found lying on the ground, popplers are incredibly delicious nuggets of meaty goodness. There are just two problems: first, popplers are intelligent; second, they're the juvenile form of the ornery Omicronians, and Lrrr, the Omicronian ruler, thinks it's only fair that he should get to eat a human to set things right.

The Blue Plate Special (Spaceballs): Poor John Hurt. When he tried to enjoy a meal in Alien, he had a chestburster pop right out of him. Then he sits down for the blue plate special at a diner in Spaceballs and meets with the same fate.

Curry Monster (Red Dwarf "DNA"): In a typically boneheaded move, the crew of the Red Dwarf test a DNA modifier on a container of vindaloo, creating a monster that's half man, half Indian takeaway.

Killer Pizzas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Case of the Killer Pizzas"): The pizza-loving foursome find that sometimes their favorite food can get a case of the munchies. An alien species from Dimension X lays eggs that happen to look like meatballs, and they manage to land on a handful of pizzas. Pop your pizza in the microwave, and those little critters hatch mean and hungry.

TMNT - Case of the killer pizzas

Wolfbullet | MySpace Video

Pizza the Hut (Spaceballs): He's delicious enough that he ate himself to death, but woe unto those who cross this cheesy gangster. They'll learn what it's like to have Pizza send out for you.

Bezoar Eggs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Bad Eggs"): When Buffy and the crew are given eggs to babysit as a class assignment, it seems like a minor nuisance. But it turns out those aren't chicken eggs they're faux parenting; they actually hatch bezoars, little parasites that attach to your brain stem (and, like all good parasites, render you their zombie slave). And Xander gets a nasty surprise when he hardboils his egg son and decides to enjoy a mid-afternoon snack.

Evil Gingerbread Men (The Tick, The Gingerdead Man): Be they the product of an eager baker or possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, these confections can be downright deadly. You'd imagine, though, that milk would be a major weakness.

Werewolf (Angel "Unleashed"): Werewolf is considered a delicacy among certain sadistic members of the Los Angeles elite. Unfortunately, werewolves tend to revert to their human form once they're killed, so they have to be served alive while the meat is carved off. But if the werewolf isn't properly restrained, you could end up on the menu.

Wub ("Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick): Again, it's rarely a smart idea to eat a species you happen to find just hanging out on another planet, especially if it's capable of literary discussions. The pig-like wub will let you eat it, but there's a hefty price; the wub will completely take over your body, essentially booting out your soul through your stomach.

Martian Water (Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars"): Actually, you don't even need to drink water containing the Flood to contract its zombifying contagion — just touching it will do the trick. Still, drinking the water is ill-advised.

Kandy Man (Doctor Who "The Happiness Patrol"): The good news is that this licorice-based robot won't actually devour you. The bad news is that, if you aren't visibly happy at all times, it will kill you — likely by drowning you in super sugary fondant.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters): Sure, Stay Puft nearly demolished the entire island of Manhattan in the service of Gozer. But that toasted marshmallow glop that dropped on the Ghostbusters at the end of the move looked mighty tasty.

Ebola Cola (Transmetropolitan): As the slogan goes, "You Drink It, It Eats You."

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Aqua Teen Hunger Force): A mutated meatball, milkshake, and carton of french fries, the Aqua Teens get into all sorts of mayhem, which often gets various creatures (and occasionally Maser Shake) killed. I probably wouldn't put eating the remains past them either, given the right situation.

Triffids (Day of the Triffids): Triffids have a lot going for them. They're a great source of vegetable oil (making them valuable crops), and they can fight off any potential predators with their venomous whips. Plus, they love to feed on rotting meat, which is easy to obtain once most of humanity has been struck blind.

Tom Turkey (The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XIX"): Since it's Thanksgiving week, this musket-wielding bird will cap off our list. After rescuing the children of Springfield from the murderous Grand Pumpkin, Tom Turkey gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner. But once he learns what people eat on Thanksgiving, he starts gobble-gobbling up the children himself.

The big single-issue release of the week is possibly Image Comics' Image United, which brings all but one of the original Image founders (Jim Lee is missing, due to DC Comics commitments, where he's a VP as well as an artist) back together for a mini-series that brings their biggest creations face to face with the newest bad guy around, Spawn. Yes, that Spawn.

But if that's not your style, maybe you'll be more interested in the relaunch of Powers, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's police-procedural-superhero-turned-epic, over at Marvel, the first issue of Jericho Season Three from Devil's Due, or my personal favorite, the first issue of an all-new series of The Tick. Spooon, indeed.

This week, however, is all about the collections. Let's start with Incognito, Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips' tale of a supervillain who can't quite bring himself to act normal even though he's in witness protection, which is highly recommended for those who like their superstories to be a little off-kilter.

If you enjoy that, then The Winter Men collects the eponymous series about Russia's supersoldier program, and what happened afterwards with a surprising amount of humor and humanity. But if you're more of a traditionalist, then Flash Vs. The Rogues collects some of the best stories of DC Comics' fastest man alive going up against his most popular villains from the Silver Age to today.

Getting away from superheroes, we come to the three books you owe it to yourself to pick up tomorrow: Chew: Taster's Choice collects the first storyline from John Layman's wonderful future detective series about a man whose taste buds can solve crimes (with art by Rob Guillory), which seems like perfect fodder for Thanksgiving reading... As does Shade The Changing Man, Peter Milligan's classic 1990s series about the insanity of America and true love and hair, which gets a re-released first volume and all-new second volume released this week. Truly a forgotten classic, it's probably the best thing you could pick up this week... even if the start of the first collection is a little rocky.

If you'd like more from your week at your local comic store, check out the official shipping list from Diamond Distributors and see what else is available for yourself. But don't leave the store without Shade and Chew. You can thank me later.

Note: This is not a history of novelizations of existing movies or TV shows — just original novels and story collections set in those worlds. And for the sake of sanity, we're not going to touch on non-SF tie-ins like the amazing Shaft and Starsky And Hutch novels of the 1970s. (Even though Starsky And Hutch: Kill Huggie Bear and Shaft Among The Jews have pride of place on my shelves.)

Also, I'm not even going to pretend this covers every tie-in novel ever published. Feel free to chime in in comments with stuff I've missed!

The early years:

Doctor Who didn't get its own tie-in novels until the early 1990s (although there were annuals that included short fiction published almost ever year from 1964 through to the show's cancellation in the late 1980s.)

But Who's 1960s rival The Avengers had a slew of books. Berkeley-Medallion put out nine books, including The Moon Express and The Magnetic Man, both by Norman Daniels. And star Patrick Macnee himself co-authored two novels for Hodder and Stoughton: Deadline and Dead Duck. The 1960s also saw a ton of novels based on Get Smart, Man From Uncle and Mission Impossible, over in the U.S.

There were also a handful of novels tying in with The Prisoner — most notably, Thomas M. Disch wrote a Prisoner book called The Prisoner, in which Number Six finally tracks down Number One — and she's a female robot whose hand falls off. Hank Stine also wrote a demented novel called The Prisoner: A Day In The Life, in which Number Six falls through a succession of loopy, acid-trip realities designed to undermine his sense of self.

Fawcett also put out one novel tying in with the 1970s TV show The Invisible Man, called simply The Invisible Man by Michael Jahn.

Jahn also wrote one of a half dozen Six Million Dollar Man novels that Warner Bros. put out in the mid-1970s. The Six Million Dollar Man, of course, was based on an original novel series, Cyborg by Michael Caidin, but the television show was drastically different and the later novels had more in common with Lee Majors' portrayal than anything from the original books. (Update: Jahn wrote to us and explained: "I wrote five "Six Million Dollar Man" books (one under the name Evan Richards), not just one, and about 15 other tie-ins including "The Invisible Man" book that you know about. The pseudonym was required because Caidin was afraid he was losing Steve Austin to me, which is a bizarre concept.")

But probably the most significant stand-alone media tie-in of the 1970s, in retrospect, was the Star Wars novel Splinter Of The Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster. Splinter quickly became non-canonical thanks to its climactic battle scene in which Luke manages to lop off Darth Vader's arm — not to mention its incestuous embrace between Luke and his sister Leia. According to some reports, Foster wrote Splinter to be a low-budget sequel to the original movie in case it bombed — hence the fact that it reuses many props and sets from the first film, and avoids ambitious locations. It also doesn't feature Han Solo, because they didn't think his character was going to catch on. Han Solo did get to star in his own trilogy of novels as consolation, though, starting with Han Solo At Stars End There were also a handful of Lando Calrissian novels.

The rise of Star Trek novels:

According to the excellent book Voyages Of The Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion by Jeff Ayers, the first original Star Trek novel was 1968's Mission To Horatius, a young adult novel by Mack Reynolds. But the best known early Trek novel was the second, 1970's Spock Must Die! by James Blish, who also wrote adaptations of the original series. Spock Must Die!, which I totally read as a kid, involves an accident which produces two Spocks — and only one of them can be allowed to go on living.

In the 1970s, Bantam put out a series of original Star Trek story anthologies called The New Voyages,, plus a dozen original novels, edited by famed science fiction author Frederik Pohl.

The golden age of Trek novels, though, was probably the 1980s, with David Hartwell editing the Trek line for Pocket Books. Vonda McIntyre, who also did incredible novelizations for Star Treks II, III and IV, wrote two great books: The Entropy Effect in 1981 (ignore the horrible cover) and Enterprise: The First Adventure in 1990 (which would be a good counterpoint to the recent J.J. Abrams film in terms of showing how the crew got their start.) In this interview, McIntyre explains why she identifies with Sulu, and how she gave him his first name: Hikaru. (The publisher freaked out, until someone actually asked Gene Roddenberry and George Takei, who were both fine with it. But you have to wonder what Takei thought of Sulu's porn stache. Probably he didn't mind it.)

Another great author who wrote a couple of memorable Trek books was John M. Ford, who vastly expanded our understanding of Klingon culture in How Much For Just The Planet? and The FInal Reflection. (Ford also wrote Klingon manuals for the Trek role playing game, and was always treated as an honored guest at Klingon gatherings. At the 2009 Worldcon, a panel about the late Ford included a moving tribute from a Klingon audience member.)

Meanwhile, Diane Duane did more than any other author to flesh out both Vulcan and Romulan society, with 1984's My Enemy, My Ally and 1988's Spock's World, among others. The Romulans — who call themselves the Rihannsu in Duane's version — have never seemed as fully realized or believable as a culture on screen as they have in Duane's books.

According to Ayers' book, however, all was not well with the Trek novels — Gene Roddenberry wanted to micro-manage the book line and had his personal assistant, Richard Arnold, read every single book. And Arnold tended to balk at anything that went beyond what had been established on screen. If you want to read a hair-raising account of what it was like to write a Trek book that ran into trouble with Roddenberry or Paramount, here's writer Margaret Bonnano's incredibly lengthy account of her troubles writing the tie-in book that became PROBE. Shorter version: tons of micromanaging, characters being cut out, and calls for Bonnano to rewrite the whole thing in six days.

Other franchises to get tie-in novels in the 1980s included Battlestar Galactica — most of those books were novelizations of episodes, but eventually it looks like they ran out of episodes to adapt and started writing original volumes; and Blake's 7, which got a sequel novel called Afterlife. (There was also a horrendously poorly received B7 novel in the 1990s called Avon: A Terrible Aspect, written by actor Paul Darrow.) And of course, as we detailed in a recent post there were 16 great V novels, which continued the story after the original show went off the air.

Early 1990s: Star Wars and Doctor Who

Two other media juggernauts that had never had a credible presence in the tie-in novel market suddenly started producing in the early 1990s.

Star Wars launched an ambitious series of books set after the events of Return Of The Jedi, with Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, which followed the exploits of Admiral Thrawn and also the fate of Luke, Leia and Leia's kids. These were the beginning of the Expanded Universe books, which tied in explicitly with the video games and comics, and often seemed to be canonical unless explicitly contradicted by the movies. Eventually, the Expanded Universe gave us a new alien menace to fight the descendants of the Jedi: the monstrous Yuuzhan Vong.

And once the Star Wars prequels were out, we saw more books and other tie-ins set in the era long before the original series — the Old Republic novels take place an an era long before the prequels, when the Jedi were plentiful and kept peace throughout the galaxy. Meanwhile, other series of novels take place during the Clone Wars, like Karen Traviss' amazing Republic Commando/Imperial Commando novels, and still others expand the stories of Han Solo's kids Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo.

The really breathtaking thing about the Expanded Universe novels, starting with the Zahn books, is the fact that they're the only continuation after Return Of The Jedi we've got. Most people, in George Lucas' shoes, would have insisted that only they should be allowed to tell the authoritative story of what happens to Luke, Leia and Han Solo after the third movie of the trilogy — but Lucas seems to be totally content with letting the novels be the final word on those characters' fates, reserving for himself the right to go back and annotate the stuff that happened before Luke came of age in increasing detail. At times, it feels like Lucas' Star Wars movies and Clone Wars cartoons are occupying the space that's normally reserved for tie-in novels — filling in backstory — while the tie-ins forge ahead answering the question, "What happens next?"

These days, it seems like a month doesn't go by without at least one or two new Star Wars novels coming out, from the Fate Of The Jedi series to the more esoteric volumes, like the zombie tale Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber.

Meanwhile, after Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, Virgin Publishing got the rights to do a series of novels that were "too broad and deep for the small screen." The New Adventures line was launched, with an odd mix of books ranging from John Peel's bland fanfic to Paul Cornell's bizarre, Vertigo Comics-influenced metafictional odysseys. At their best, the New Adventures were daring, loopy and sacrilegious — and several authors contributed to the line who later wrote for the TV series, including Cornell, Gareth Roberts and Russell T. Davies himself. There was also a lot more explicit sexuality and racy content in these books than the original show had allowed.

Unlike the Star Wars novels, the New Adventures novels don't tell the official story of what happens to the Doctor after the series ends — I'm pretty sure the new TV show has already contradicted them in many particulars. But what the New Adventures books do instead is something just as awesome — they vastly expand our understanding of the Doctor, and give him a new pathos as well as a terrible, Prospero-ish puppetmaster sensibility. Building on little hints from the TV show, the novels give us a Doctor who's much more complex and much more tormented than we ever realized — and also more fallible, on occasion. You could not look at the eternally childish traveler in time and space the same way after reading a slew of these books — and the new reinvention of the show in recent years has built on that reimagining.

The Doctor Who novels are still being published — but after the 1996 TV movie, the BBC took them in house and toned them down considerably. And after the new series came on the air in 2005, they've become much more kid-oriented.

All in all, the twin early 1990s phenomena of the post-ROTJ Star Wars novels and the Doctor Who: New Adventures novels pointed to a greater potential for tie-in novels to be something more ambitious than the simple "adventure too minor to televise" format that book publishers had mostly stuck to. (With a few notable exceptions, like the Duane Star Trek books in the 1980s.) At the same time, Trek books were stretching their horizons a bit, with Peter David's sweeping Troi-Riker romance Imzadi gaining critical acclaim beyond what a usual tie-in novel would expect. If tie-in novels became big business in the 1980s, they came of age in the 1990s.

The mid-1990s: every big series gets tie-in books

By the mid-1990s, tie-in novels seemed to be pretty standard for most TV shows and some movie series as well. There were mostly forgettable novels tying in with Predator, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Alias, Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, The X-Files, Xena, the BSG reboot, and various other media properties. There were a host of authors who would churn out novels connected to Charmed, Buffy or whatever, like Keith R.A. DeCandido, Christopher Golden, K.W. Jeter, Peter David and Kevin J. Anderson. Two or three women wrote a slew of Star Trek books under the pseudonym L.A. Graf, which reportedly stands for "Let's All Get Rich And Famous."

And of course, William Shatner started writing his own Kirk fanfic with 1995's The Ashes Of Eden, with generous contributions from Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.

The other interesting thing that happened in the late 1990s was the rise of novels based on comics — Byron Preiss put out a series of novels based on Marvel Comics' characters, and there was a well-received anthology of Batman short stories. Here's a fairly lengthy list of Marvel tie-in novels — the best of the bunch is probably the Incredible Hulk novel What Savage Beast by Peter David, which tells the story of what David would have done if Marvel hadn't 86ed his plans for the Hulk in his comics run. It brings back the Hulk's evil alternate self from the future, the Maestro, as well as an army of Hulks from alternate universes.

Babylon 5 also put out a bunch of tie-in novels, and from 1996 onwards creator J. Michael Straczynski was closely involved in the novel line, working to ensure a great deal of consistency with the television show. Gregory Keyes, Peter David and Jeanne Cavelos, in particular, put out a handful of B5 books each that were considered not just canonical, but essential. Cavelos' The Shadow Within has been reprinted a few times, and Dreamwatch Magazine called it "one of the best tie-in novels ever written."

Spin-offs, video-game novels and name authors:

The biggest development of the past decade has been the rise of spin-offs and tangents from established series — David has given us a series of Star Trek novels, The New Frontier, that follow a mostly new set of characters in a sector of space that no Trek ever visited before. The TNF books simultaneously play with tons of obscure Trek references — including characters from the animated series — but at the same time they color far, far outside the lines. With their weird hermaphrodite pregnancies, married captains, and above all their obsession with the dynastic politics of an obscure alien empire, the TNF books often feel like David's own space-opera/soap-opera series, only loosely connected to Trek.

Trek has also given us another spin-off, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers books by DeCandido. Meanwhile, Star Wars has given us the Jedi Academy books and the aforementioned Republic/Imperial Commando books.

And then there are the video-game books, which started as a trickle 15 years ago and are now accounting for a large and larger share of bookstore shelf space. The first Doom novel, Knee Deep In The Dead, came out in 1995, and was followed by several others. The Halo book series started with 2001's The Fall Of Reach by Eric Nylund. Nowadays, many TV shows don't feel the need to put out novels — where's our Fringe book series? — but every successful video game gets a ton of novels, without fail.

And that leads to the other big development of the past decade or so — bigger authors turning to tie-in novels to try and make some extra cash or win new fans, or just have fun with a beloved icon. Greg Bear surprised some fans by announcing he was working on a Halo novel, a sequel to Fall Of Reach. Tobias Buckell also wrote a Halo novel, 2008's The Cole Protocol. Jeff VanderMeer wrote a Predator novel, South China Sea, also published in 2008. And of course, Michael Moorcock surprised everybody by announcing he was doing a Doctor Who novel.

Some professional writers are alarmed at the growth of sharecropping novels, where authors dabble in characters they didn't create for media conglomerates that keep most of the profits. But they're a growing slice of the publishing world — and at this point, you can't claim it's impossible to create meaningful, groundbreaking work in the tie-in novel world. As a whole, tie-in books may look like a shower of drek — but they've helped expand our understanding of some of science fiction's most iconic characters, and — perhaps — helped those big media properties become more interesting and thoughtful along the way.

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

Makers is written by Cory Doctorow, that cape and goggles-wearing editor of Boing Boing, and author of such novels as Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Little Brother. This latest volume touches on many of the topics Doctorow has become famous for obsessing over: intellectual property rights and open source, the tension between individual and institution, his emotionally complicated relationship with Disney, how technology is gradually changing our culture, transhumanism, and ordinary people who make really cool shit.

The novel is set in that fifteen minutes into the future that is Doctorow's forte, at a time when Silicon Valley has begun to disintegrate more subtly than Detroit, but perhaps as thoroughly. At a press conference, Landon Kettlewell, the CEO of a newly merged Kodak/Duracell (termed "Kodacell" by a snarky tech journo), announces a bold new direction for the company: he plans to scout talented people from all over the country who make cool stuff, fund them, and find a way to quickly monetize their ideas time and time again. Many are skeptical, but business writer Suzanne Church — who once covered the Detroit scene and finds herself increasingly, if unconsciously, disillusioned with the Bay Area — is intrigued by Kodacell's new endeavor. After a few flirtatious interactions with Kettlewell (a maverick of an executive who insists that the people close to him call him by absurd nicknames like "Kettlebelly" and "Kettledrum"), Church finds herself embedded with Kodacell and flies to a depressed Florida suburb to meet Kodacell's first idea tank. There she finds Perry Gibbons and his obese sidekick Lester Banks, a pair of scavenger-artists who design elaborate mechanical art pieces for wealthy collectors: simple difference engines that spew M&Ms, crews of robotic Elmo dolls reprogrammed to drive cars. Perry and Lester are pros at repurposing technology, though they've never had an eye for the practical. They are soon joined by Tjan, a Kodacell moneyman who helps them develop products with mass appeal, rapidly get them to market, and then start the process all over again when imitators flood the market.

The first portion of Makers reads very much like a manifesto. The characters make enough pretty speeches about moral capitalism that I sometimes suspected it was being ghostwritten by an undead, philosophically reformed Ayn Rand. But the gleeful moneymaking of those early chapters isn't about the glory of the high-powered executive or developing a greed-is-good social code; it's about giving people power over their own destinies, giving people the ability to build things, to take pride in their communities (all communities — not just those located in major cities), and the notion that in order to sell things to people, you need to make sure they have the money to buy them. Thanks to Suzanne's vivid chronicles of Perry and Lester's innovations and Kodacell's early success, they all find themselves at the center of a New Work movement. Former cubicle jockeys flee their metropolises for smaller cities and suburbs and get their hands dirty — serving their neighbors and themselves instead of just serving their corporate masters — in an ephemeral golden age of American innovation.

But it quickly becomes clear that good ideas and wide-eyed idealism alone won't save America, and Makers shifts from manifesto to novel, albeit a novel still very concerned with the social problems plaguing America. The country's obesity problem takes an abrupt term with the development of the so-called "fatkins" treatments, where Russian biotechnology clinics reshape corpulent bodies as generically fit Adonises and tweak their metabolic systems to require metric tons of empty calories. As the treatments catch on, the fatkins become one of the nations' dominant cultures, with their own restaurants, dating styles, and demographic box. There is a great deal of frustration with government intrusion, especially concerning a shantytown of squatters who view their brand of community building as a new frontier. And there's similar frustration with the legal system, the need for intellectual property and formalized institutional structures, though it's coupled with the recognition that foregoing these legal protections carries dangerous consequences.

It's a dense, and always interesting reading experience, even if it has its warts. Subtlety has never been a virtue of Doctorow's novels, and Makers is no exception. The story has its villains, and even when they possess the capacity for redemption, a good deal of mustache-twirling goes on. Suzanne Church has a Dagny Taggert knack for making brilliant men fall in love with her, and though our other heroes are flawed, they seem in many ways the perfect models of idea men and executives.

The most frustrating aspect of Makers, however, may be the most honest. We see the rise and fall of various projects and innovations over the years, and Doctorow fills his world with wondrous technologies and forward-thinking people. But when things fall apart, as they periodically do, it's often because of interpersonal issues, because disagreements get in the way of big, brilliant ventures. It's not a crack at Doctorow as a writer; it's just that he's so adept at raising our spirits and making us believe in these superhuman people that when they fall prey to the ugly foibles of the real world, it's a bit of a letdown. Affection and optimism, even when a bit overblown, is a better look on him, and the most engaging portions of Makers are the ones that harness that.

Still, Makers is a book for the lovers of technology, for the gleeful optimists more than the cynics. It's for the people who love the kooky engineering projects you see on Boing Boing, for the people who believe that, as the poster says, "The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty." It's for the people who can't wait to own a 3D printer, and who believe that while technology has its missteps, it's going to change our lives in wonderful and unexpected ways. It's for the people who hate Disney's corporate tactics, but still get a thrill at the idea of visiting the Magic Kingdom; for the people who believe that, even if they can't change the world, they can at least improve their little corner of it. It's for the people who think that, while the future may not be all jetpacks and hover cars and all the world's people people singing Kumbaya, we as individuals have the power to make it awesome in its own right.

Makers is currently out in hardcover, but you can read the serialized novel for free on Tor.com.

There are minor spoilers for tomorrow night's episode, "It's Only The Beginning." But don't worry — I won't give away any huge plot twists or revelations from the episode.

Baccarin, as alien leader Anna, gets most of the best scenes in tomorrow night's episode, and the camera follows her around lovingly, lingering on her ankles in one early scene and dwelling on her perfect cheekbones. We get to see how Anna deals with traitors in her midst, and how she handles those who harbor doubts about her leadership. And we get to experience Anna's "Bliss" — the happy communion that keeps all of the other Visitors in her thrall. (The Bliss involves Morena Baccarin stripping naked, which is also lovingly filmed and probably quite similar to something she would have done as the Companion Inara on Firefly.)

But also, the episode highlights the contrast between two mothers: Anna and Erica. Last week, we learned that Anna is the mom of Lisa, the blond Visitor who is seducing Erica's annoying son Tyler. Tomorrow night, we get to see Anna and Erica's contrasting parenting styles — apparently Visitor women are seem to be better at juggling family and career than their human counterparts — and Anna works on winning Tyler over, for some nefarious purpose of her own. To Tyler's selfish, weaselly brain, Anna is a better mom than Erica — but the episode also lets us wonder if there might not be a grain of truth to that.

Erica, meanwhile, gets to do even more ass-kicking tomorrow night, stepping up to a leadership role in the resistance and helping to deal a blow to the Visitors. I really like how fast this show is moving, and I like how unapologetically heroic and bad-ass they're letting Erica be. (Let's hope they don't feel the need to counterbalance this by having her cry in every episode.) Elizabeth Mitchell is having a field day with playing a tough FBI agent who can't reveal to anyone what she knows about the most important event in human history.

It's pretty rare and awesome that we get a TV show built around two such strong female characters, even if their main field of battle is over who's the better mom.

Meanwhile, Father Jack is showing a definite pattern of being the "state the obvious" guy. A few times in tomorrow night's episode, he literally makes observations like, "I'm wearing clothes" or "I'm walking on a floor." Maybe he's there for the really slow viewers who can't spot these things on his own. Tyler and Georgie have a contest to see who can be more annoying, and Tyler mops the floor with Georgie. Lisa simpers a lot, and Chad shows signs of having a mind of his own — and then the Vs suck him in even more.

And of course, there are huge revelations and twists and explosions, and things I'm not allowed to talk about yet. It's a pretty fun hour of television, but more importantly, it left me curious about the clash between these two powerful women — and here's hoping we get more of that when the show returns in the distant era known as March 2010.

While he was doing press for drama Brothers we caught up with producer Ryan Kavanaugh and got an exclusive update on his next project, the massive relaunch of The Crow, penned and directed by Stephen Norrington.

I heard The Crow script received great reviews, where is it at now?

The script is great. We're very excited about it. The Crow is definitely going to happen, we're just getting all the pieces together right now. It's not officially greenlit, but it's going to happen... I think in a couple months we could have the package together for sure.

Any casting ideas?

Can't talk about that yet, but we've got good ideas.

Are you casting right now and looking?

We're looking. We're in discussions....I think it's something cool, we're approaching it differently. It's really a whole relaunch of the franchise, much more of a dark superhero type.

Will it be a well known actor, or someone we've never heard of before?

It will be an actor you've heard of, yes. We're not ruling anything out. We're looking at both, with the very well known and the "very talented but they may not be quite there yet."

A lot of people were worried that it would be the original, but we know the Crow character can inhabit different people...

It's not a remake it's literally a relaunch of the franchise.

But will he have the same makeup?

No, totally different... He'll have makeup, but it will be different. The best way to compare it is the first Batman and Batman Begins. In terms of their look and feel and character.

I'm excited to see the world and how you build it. Will it still be dark and gritty?

Oh yeah, we're sticking to the flavor of it. We're just relaunching it and making it with a much more present day character, someone more relatable to everybody.

And the script is totally finished?

Yeah we're still tweaking it, but it's finished.

Monday

If you'd rather not think about Turkey Day, you may want to skip both House (Fox, 8pm) and Heroes (NBC, 8pm) this week; both shows are having holiday-themed episodes.

House and his team treat "an exceptionally brilliant physicist" more successfully than they handle their own relationships, and the Petrellis have a "surprise guest" for their special turkey dinner. Maybe we'll see Sylar eat some turkey brains or something.

Tuesday

V wraps up its four-episode mini-run on ABC at 8pm with the lying title of "It's Only The Beginning" Here's the official network blurb:

Erica works with newly-formed allies to uncover a biological threat they suspect the Visitors have been plotting. Aboard the Mothership, Anna meets with a special guest while managing the investigation into the murder of a V. Chad does a segment on the V Healing Centers, demonstrating their amazing medical abilities, but then finds himself conflicted by some of his findings.

Findings like them eating mice, Chad? We can but hope.

Meanwhile, BBC America provides a non-fiction alternative with Apollo Wives (8pm), a documentary where the wives of the Apollo mission astronauts talk about what it was like for them to watch their husbands risk their lives flying to the moon and then return as some of the most famous people on the planet.

Wednesday

If you're not interested in Mythbusters taking on dumpster myths on the Discovery Channel at 9pm (Kari fans, it's her last episode before maternity leave), and the idea of another episode of ABC's Eastwick at 10pm leaves you cold (Roxie gets seduced by Darryl's art world connections, Joanna learns about the magical version of Einstein's theories and Kat stays away from the dating world, if you care), then all is not lost.

Cartoon Network's latest live action Ben 10 movie, Ben 10: Alien Swarm debuts at 7pm and, to be honest, you could watch worse this week.

Thursday

It's Thanksgiving, which means all of the usual Thursday night confusion takes a break to go eat with its family, and we're left with the choice of two marathons. The Discovery Channel lets rip with a Mythbusters marathon from 9am through to 3am, while Syfy, surreally, goes with a James Bond movie marathon, starting at 8am. Because... someone had to?

Even stranger is the order of the movies they're showing: Dr. No at 8am, License To Kill at 10:30am, Live And Let Die at 1:30pm, The Spy Who Loved Me at 4pm, Tomorrow Never Dies at 6:30pm, Casino Royale at 9pm, For Your Eyes Only at midnight, and The Man With The Golden Gun at 2:30am. Um... Okay?

Friday

Thanksgiving takes out all of today's regular programming as well, leaving us with the second day of Syfy's Bond In No Obvious Order Whatsoever Marathon, again starting at 8am. Today's movies are Thunderball at 8am, From Russia With Love at 10:30am, You Only Live Twice at 1pm, Diamonds Are Forever at 3:30pm, Casino Royale again at 6pm, GoldenEye at 9pm, Goldfinger at midnight and, finally, Never Say Never Again at 2:30am.

Seriously, are these being shown in order of someone's particular preference or something?

Saturday

Things begin to get back to normal with the appearance of a crazy gimmicked Syfy Original Movie: Beyond Sherwood Forest takes Robin Hood and his Merry Men and then puts them head to head with magic and monsters. It's kind of genius in its simplicity, really. Plus, look! Lois Lane!

Sunday

Of course, as usual, the week ends with a new episode of The Venture Bros on Cartoon Network at midnight. You're all watching this by now, right? It's probably the best season to date, even if we haven't approached anything as compelling as The Nozzle yet...

My heart is broken with this series. And after being accused of merely wanting SGU to be "old-school Stargate," I hope the following analysis shows you that I'm demanding more from a series of which I was promised more. And that's why I'm tough on this series — because I really do believe there is potential for SGU to be more than the old Gate. But let's get on with it.

So this week, SGU started a workout plan for the Destiny and then ran circles around character development for about an hour. And a new hero stepped up to take the place of "the voice of the audience." There are spoilers from here on out...

"Life" opens up with with jolly tune from Flogging Molly called, "The Worst Day Since Yesterday," from an album that came out in 2000. Now, I, much to the despair of my college roommates, was a fan of Flogging Molly. And I even enjoyed opening up SGU with a bit of upbeat music, thus enabling a montage of "life aboard Destiny." But this choice was so on the nose, it's almost a parody of itself. I understand happy tunes with sad lyrics, but I'm not a moron. I don't need someone singing to me about how life is even harder today than it was yesterday while panning through the sad lives of the crew members aboard Destiny. This was good in theory, and might have even worked had they not slammed the music back into our heads at the end of the episode. Thereby bludgeoning the audience once again with the not-so-subtle lyrics. Still I applaud the use of upbeat and "different" music — that was fun. Not Firefly Mudders or "we're a wily band of space cowboys" music, but still fun, I guess.

So as we're panning through the daily activities aboard Destiny, what do we see? The crew wearing matching sweat suits, t-shirts and shorts working out. What. The. Hell. Would there be workout clothes in some of the bags thrown through the Gate? Sure. But I'm willing to bet my last dollar that there sure as shit wasn't tennis shoes for everyone on the ship, in the right size. So long gritty reality, hello Jane Fonda workout moment! I'm surprised they didn't take out their ipods and Sharper Image docking station, and start running around to "Let's Get Physical." How's that for singing about what's actually happening while it's happening?

The crew is running laps, and this other character Franklyn is looking at his food that he can't grow in this green goo, science lady is having casual bra-on sex, and Eli is sleepy, yeah this really is the worst day SINCE YESTERDAY AMITRITE.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Lou Diamond Phillips has decided to become friends with Young's Earth wife. Because of logical reasons: Lou wants to screw with Young not only on Destiny but off it as well. This is a totally logical thing for a high-ranking official to do, this in no way shape or form will get back to him, and he won't get in big trouble for potentially jeopardizing the lives of 80 people on a secret space mission. But you know, sex=drama on SGU. And we need more drama, so let's make it look like they might be having sex or something, I don't know. It's silly.

I was much more invested when this was just a T.J., Young, and Young's Earth Wife thing. When Lou first showed up at Earth Wife's house I thought, oh yay, backstory. But no, it's just unnecessary drama. Meanwhile, I don't even know enough about Young and T.J. to care about Earth Wife's issues. Too many ancient stones in the space fire.

But there's no time to develop this — we have to go back to Destiny, because Rush has found an ancient knowledge chair that beams information into a subject's brain. This could help people learn how to pilot and run the ship, but it's too old, and a later form of it almost turned Jack O'Neill bananas. So we won't be using it, not in this episode anyway. But that doesn't mean we're not going to fruitlessly argue about it for 15 minutes just to remind everyone that it's there and that Rush is kind of a dick, still. I would argue that Rush would totally sit in the chair anyways, since he pretty much has no problem putting his own life and others' in danger for knowledge. And after all, this is a knowledge chair. Instead we got slow burn foreshadowing, which ended at me screaming at the TV, "just sit in the freaking chair already." PLEASE someone, do something please. We know someone is going to — that's why it exists. It's Chekhov's gun on the mantelpiece.

Also instead of any knowledge chair sitting, Rush decides to make up a lie that there is a planet a year away that Destiny can get to, and in effect get back to Earth from, in hopes of raising the crew's morale. What was achieved by this? We already learned two episodes ago that Rush was a liar, possibly for Destiny's own good or for his own ends, when he made the ship appear to break down. This point was already achieved. But now the crew has morale, and we got 15 minutes of pointless arguing about a chair that has nothing to do whatsoever with this episode, and a fake planet that really, really proves that we can't trust Rush. Hell, didn't we know we couldn't trust him when he Gated everyone to Destiny in the first place?

In the words of the only character I truly relate to, vested scientist guy, "To hell with this."

But wait, there's more of nothing for you. It's Camille and Scott's chance for an Earth stone visit. First up, let's talk about Camille....

Camille is getting her private-time leave and is stopped in the parking lot by her civilian boss, in which he basically tells her to start a revolution. What, what? Very interesting stuff here. Too bad it's swept under the table for a montage of "respectable lesbian" actions which includes making stir fry, cuddling and taking a shower. Yes, it was nice to see the softer side of Camille but I can't help but feel this whole moment was wasted. Instead of building on her character they just showed two women with chopsticks. Do you know what would have been interesting? If Camille had mentioned what just happened in the parking lot minutes earlier. Let's start a dialogue that reveals something about Camille's personality besides all this "I love you" "I love you too and I'll wait" filler. We know they love each other, we saw it in the lovely moment she walked up to the door. Done, point taken, please move forward with the story. Camille is trapped on a space ship and stuck in the body of another woman, I'm pretty sure the conversation would come up. What a wasted opportunity to build on a character we know absolutely nothing about. What was gained from this little visit? We now know that Camille loves snuggling and stir fry but hates the chair in the living room. What a disaster.

Scott, on the other hand, finds out that the kid he thought was dead, and probably made his priest friend DRINK himself to death, is still alive. Because no one dies on Stargate. So he goes to visit his baby momma in the form of Lou. But uh oh, she's a "dancer" because that's another stereotype that SGU hasn't tapped into yet. Check drinking stripper with a baby off the list and let's move on. Can't wait to meet angry black guy and mouth breathing nerd... Oh, wait.

This is the problem with this show. By telling us that we're getting more and putting the Gate in a serious "we have sex so we're adults" TV drama, you have to build up the characters you put out. Instead, it's just a mess of cliches mixed in with a bunch of under-developed characters. The kid is too convenient, it's being used as some sort of emotional prop that I just can't work up the strength to care about. It's not necessary for Scott's character, especially since none of us really know anything about Scott. It meant nothing to me when I found out his kid was still around. Scott didn't even TALK about what this was doing to him, instead he just looked out the window. What are we supposed to do with that? This was an opportune time to build up this character and show his emotions, personality, regret — anything. I challenge SGU to go really dark and give the Senator's Daughter a complex, thus getting pregnant with Scott's Destiny baby to one up the Earth baby in a fit of "I can't be alone". It seems like something she would do, but she won't. Instead she'll just show up in make up and be kinda supportive. Please let this be a hot button for Senator's Daughter or something, is that what the "not til now" reference meant?

Perhaps there are just too many characters, and not enough time. But let's take the time that we have and do something with it besides making people have sex and giving them babies. Eli's last trip home was pretty good at doing this, watching him interact with his mother was lovely, if the only thing that it proved was that he deeply loved his mother and would do anything for her. That's something. Reality is more than babies, sex and people throwing up into the camera after doing space ship calisthenics.

And speaking of sex, let's take a look at what all this nakedness is doing for the women of SGU. As of right now, every single female character in this show is involved in some sort of sexcapade.

Let's list it off: T.J. had sex with Young, pre-Destiny. Young's Earth Wife has sex with Young and by stone relation Lou Diamond Phillips. The Senator's daughter is sleeping with Scott. Lt. James had sex with Scott in a broom closet. And now the other scientist lady is sleeping with two men on the ship, some guy and crazy Greer. Camille may have had sex in this episode but we're not sure — still, we know she's involved in a sex episode when her body is taken over in the future.

All of the relevant female characters are having sex. Even some of the irrelevant ones. Sure there are more men then women, but why must all the women be wrapped up in these horrible sex plots? What is this even doing for the show? It kind of breaks my heart to watch this happen because I in no way shape or form believe this is intentional. But if I see one more character in a bra, for no real reason other than because they can, I may cry. And I don't think that's the desired response SGU is going for. These women have got to be more than this, please let them be more than this. Give Camille a revolution, T.J. some dialogue, Senator's Daughter something to do besides yoga and sex, and so forth. Let them talk! Let them speak. I'll even take a little reveal in the forced therapy sessions, but of course all these characters avoided the opportunity, remaining hopelessly guarded, and leaving the audience in the dark. Let all the character's speak as opposed to yelling about chair that no one is going to sit in tonight or staring off into space.

And it really rubs salt in the wounds when a BSG character pops up for a split second, and reminds me of airlocking, and secret police, hot sex with actual consequences, fights, deaths and drama.

What did I like? Vested shirt guy. I know Eli is supposed to be the "voice of the audience," but I think we can all agree that vest-guy is filling in that role nicely. I also liked the idea of seeing the crew in different rooms doing different activities, even if it means all having perfectly fitting gym shoes. It makes you feel like you're inside the Destiny, and creates the illusion of time passing. But man, it just doesn't work when you bridge Lou getting his faced smashed in with a fun song...

That being said, I did enjoy watching Lou's face get all beaten and bloody, because he deserved it. Young is the man, as I've crowed about before and I'm glad he decided to take matters into his own hands. So what am I taking away from this episode, Scott has a baby and Rush has a chair. Let's hope the therapy session are done forever and we can focus in on fleshing out the women on board. If not, let's just give Young more time to beat up Lou, because if they're not going to get busted for all this tomfoolery wife-swapping body-swapping hoo-hah, let's at least put these two men in a room Thunderdome style.

Also, I'm slightly anxious to see what happen with Baldy, and it better be good because his slow burn, I'm running out of pills and mad attitude better have a big pay off, or at least tell us what the pills are for.

We'll admit it; we're as unconvinced that the world needs any more literally mash-ups after Sense And Sensibility and Seamonsters, but that doesn't mean that we're not willing to jump onboard even a quickly deccelerating bandwagon if it could bring us some spending money before the holiday gift-buying season. Therefore, dear publishers, we'd like to suggest the following additions to your catalog:

Great Expectations Of The Third Kind
Orphan Pip still encounters Magwitch and Miss Haversham and all the familiar characters from Charles Dickens' classic novel, but he also finds himself compelled to build mountains out of mashed potatoes and travel to America so that he can meet some aliens who like to play music - A subplot that underscores the original theme of Pip's world changing as he moves up the social classes.

The Mayor Of Casterbridge From Another World
Thomas Hardy's depressing late-nineteenth century novel about the hardship of man especially when he is an emotionally-closeted alcoholic who has sold his family would gain all manner of poignancy if you included the brand new element of him also being an alien, don't you think? It may also make the enforced reading of this for high school students slightly less like elongated torture, but that may just be a personal thing.

War And Peace Of The Worlds
It's often been said that the only problem with Tolstoy's lengthy opus is that Napoleon's assault on Russia doesn't end suddenly when his entire army dies because of a common cold, and I'd like to think that this suggested addition would remedy just that very problem, as well as adding the kind of literary flare that only a death ray or two can bring. Plus: We're sure we can bring it in under 1000 pages. Like, well under.

The Remains Of The Day The World Stood Still
Admittedly, this one is recent and so copyright may be a problem, but think about it: Stevens devotes his life to Lord Darlington, but it's all a cover for his real identity as Klaatu, potential harbinger of doom to the entire planet. Can reconnecting with a former love give him the emotional intelligence he needs to make everything alright in the end? And by "everything alright," I mean "the world still exists."

Mansfield Park Of The Apes
The easiest rewrite of them all: Keep Jane Austen's novel pretty much exactly as it is, but make everyone an ape and add a prologue that explains that it all takes place after a great disaster that has made ape the dominant force on the planet. Just go through the body of the text and add "hairy" as an adjective a few times and you'll be done.

It makes sense that we'd end up talking about sci-fi magazines during Bookvortex week; after all, sci-fi pulps and magazines are responsible for publishing the first published works by writers like Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula Le Guin, as well as early work by Philip K. Dick and Kurt Vonnegut, so it'd pretty hard to imagine science fiction without them. But, as Warren Ellis, amongst others, has pointed out, the magazines' audiences are shrinking, and their impact blunted. Instead of just surrendering to the inevitability of the death of print, though, we thought we'd offer some possible ways for the magazines to survive for a little while longer, at least...

Sell Out (1)
If Marvel Comics can manage to become the subject of a $4 billion buyout, then I can't help but feel that sf magazines have done something wrong to be facing extinction. But what is that something? It might be the lack of repeatable franchise characters; one-off stories don't necessarily scream "multi-movie possibilities" to lazy producers looking for the next Spider-Man or Batman, after all. But maybe the fault is that sf magazines aren't doing the screaming themselves. Superhero comics have ensured their immediate future by, whether intentionally or accidentally, turning themselves into idea farms for other media. Why can't SF magazines do the same thing? They may not own the IP of everything they publish, but they own the venue: Couldn't magazines survive by becoming, essentially, agents and talent scouts for television and movies as much as publishing venues in their own right?

Go Highbrow Fetish Object
Where is the science fiction McSweeneys? A magazine that changes format and size with each new issue so that every edition is constantly an event for more than just its content? Maybe that would be too much for some longtime collectors, but by making each issue more of a standalone book instead of "just another" edition, there's potential for luring in new readers, even if it's just on novelty value alone. And, let's face it: Shouldn't a science fiction magazine of all things try and look new and unexpected as often as possible?

Sell Out (2)
Saying something like "Finding alternate revenue streams" sounds a little too much like I know what I'm talking about, but let's ignore that for a second and ask: Why can't magazines like Asimov's and Analog leverage their brand into merchandise based on, for example, the amazing cover art from years gone by, and use that to fund the magazine? Why don't we see Interzone licensing its name to Syfy for some Twilight Zone-esque anthology (Or, getting back to comics for a second, a comic book version of the magazine and/or adaptations of some of the most famous stories in the magazine's history)? Are the magazines' histories really worth so little?

Embrace The Mainstream
Maybe this is just my experience and bias talking, but it seems to me that sci-fi literature - and especially sci-fi magazines - are content to stay within their existing niche market, head down and hope for the best. There's no advertising (Considering the likely cost, understandable), and seemingly no outreach to anyone who's not already aware of the existence of the magazines. Considering the mainstream success of SF movies or TV shows like FlashForward and Fringe (Both of which offer more esoteric science fiction ideas than, say, Heroes or V), this seems more than a little frustrating. Am I missing various online efforts to entice people to read The Magazine of Fantasy and Science-Fiction, or is there really no attempt being made to get the word out?

Celebrity Endorsement
Four words: Megan Fox's Astounding Stories.
Like that wouldn't raise readership. Sadly.

By accident more than design, Rhodes has ended up possessing multiple characteristics that sum up the black superhero experience. Sure, he may not have the word "Black" in his superhero name (See: Black Panther, Black Lightning, Black Goliath, the Black Racer or even the Black Musketeers. Yes, that's right; I said The Black Musketeers), and he may not ride a skateboard - Or not that we've seen, at least, who knows what he does in his spare time? - but look how many other checkboxes he's managed to tick:

He's A Sidekick At Heart
If there's one rule for black superheroes, it's that they're never the stars of the show (Or, at least, not for very long; attempts like Black Lightning or the Milestone books are always, sadly, done in by falling sales). Yes, you could make an argument that Black Panther contradicts that, but I'd just invoke the "He's the exception that proves the" clause and move on quickly*. Despite headlining his own books twice in his career - something that doesn't really mean anything, no matter how good those books were; remember, Marvel once published Street Poet Ray and Power Pachyderms, so anything goes there - Jim Rhodes is, and always will be, a sidekick to Tony Stark's Iron Man. His armor was created by Tony. His training and experience all came from Tony. Hell, even his reason for becoming a superhero in the first place is Tony and that whole alcoholic breakdown thing. Sure, he never had to deal with the embarrassment of having his name second in the title to a non-existent superhero (Poor Sam Wilson, having to shoulder Captain America And The Falcon during the post-Watergate period when Cap had quit. They couldn't have renamed it The Falcon for those months just to be polite?), but let's not kid ourselves: James Rhodes is defined by Tony Stark.

He's A Replacement
And how did Rhodey get his start as a superhero again? Oh, that's right; he replaced Tony as Iron Man. Just like John Stewart got his start replacing Hal Jordan as Green Lantern. And John Henry Irons, replacing Superman back when he died. Oh, and don't forget Monica Rambeau, Marvel's second Captain Marvel. Or, hell, the Justice Society of America's Mr. Terrific or Johnny/JJ Thunder, the Legion of Superheroes' Computo and Invisible Kid, DC's Mister Miracle (and, for that matter, Manhattan Guardian) or even The Spectre (And, again, who can forget Black Goliath, who replaced Hank Pym's original White Goliath - except, of course, the "White" was silent in his name). Even the characters that aren't actively replacing existing characters somehow manage to be replacing people we haven't seen - DC's Vixen and Marvel's Black Panther are both continuing long lines of heroes. When do we get to see white superheroes picking up the mantle of black characters? Only once - and even that was the result of a retcon to offer political commentary (Captain America, who it turned out was following in the footsteps of an earlier black Cap - who not only never called himself Captain America, but also was unknown to Cap when he took up the shield. So maybe that doesn't count after all).

He's "Edgy"
Let's ignore, for a second, the James Rhodes of the Iron Man movies, and instead look at the comic book version... A hero so edgy that he doesn't uphold the status quo, he takes on corporate interests that are raping and pillaging our planet (as per the current War Machine series). Because, that's what black superheroes do, apparently: they don't join in with everyone else to get the job done like we expect, they see the bigger picture and deal with social injustice (The Falcon, Black Lightning), play the outsider card (Bishop, Black Panther) and/or are willing to step outside the law for the greater good (Hardware, Luke Cage). It's incredibly rare to see a black superhero without some form of characteristic that puts them at odds with the status quo, and even when that does happen - John Stewart, Captain Marvel - they'll find themselves rewritten with completely new personalities at some point to make them stand out and get edgy again (Not that I'm still bitter than the jazz-listening, pacifist architect became an former army sharpshooter with a "get the mission done no matter what" mentality or anything. Oh, okay, I am; I loved Green Lantern: Mosaic).

He's A Cyborg
Yes, James Rhodes is a cyborg these days. Just like DC's Cyborg, from Teen Titans. Or Marvel's Deathlok. Or DC's John Henry Irons**. Or Marvel's Bishop, from the X-Men. Or even Iron Fist's girlfriend, Misty Knight (one of the Heroes For Hire/Daughters of The Dragon). What is it about high-profile black characters finding themselves turned into part-robot? Some kind of clever commentary on black culture being assimiliated into the white corporate machine, or white creators having a fear of a black robotic planet? I have no idea, but it's kind of odd, isn't it?

We're sure that, when James Rhodes was first created, his real-life parents had no idea he'd one day step into this proud and illustrious role. But he's here now, and there's only one way to celebrate the fact - Marvel has to cancel his series, just to underline that whole "sidekick" thing once again. Luckily, they've already taken care of that.

* - Yes, Todd McFarlane's Spawn would, in theory, refute this idea, being just about to make it to its 200th issue. But two things are worth remembering: #1: Yes, its titular hero may be black, but he wears a full-face mask to hide that fact from unsuspecting readers, and #2: Given the writing in Spawn, that whole mask thing and that fact that, even unmasked, his scarred face hides his ethnicity, anyone could make the argument that Spawn is an entirely race-neutral character.

** - At least, in John Henry Irons' case, he actually created the technology used to make himself into a cyborg. In fact, Irons is one of the few completely proactive black heroes in comics who doesn't rely on other characters for his powers/technology/operations. He's like Black Panther, but without the mysticism and ruling a country.

The Spirit - The Octopus
Samuel L. Jackson's Octopus was probably the most insane translation of a comics character to the screen I've ever seen. Frank Miller just let the actor run wild, drawing eyeliner lightning bolts on his face and saying just about whatever the hell he wanted. At least they got the gloves right.

Bicentennial Man - Andrew Martin

From Isaac Asimov's novella/ I just wanted to know who thought it would be a great idea to make a Robin Williams robot that will last forever. That will give children nightmares.

Elektra and Daredevil

What else really needs to be said that hasn't already? This Jennifer Garner-Ben Affleck disaster was so bad, it's being remade, completely — as if the first one never even happened. Who thought, "Greek assassin? Let's get Jennifer Garner!"

Fantastic Four - Victor von Doom

With one bad film, one of the better villains went from bad-ass to just some neurotic dude muffled behind a mask.

Wolverine - Emma Frost

For years, we waited for the real, live-action version of Emma Frost. And what we got was a dorky girl, in an ugly leather coat/prison outfit. The cosplayers at Comic Con are better, and that's saying something.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas - The Grinch

Who painted my cat green and shoved it in a Santa suit? This isn't a Grinch; this is a fever dream, and there's nothing enchanting or magical about a Jim Carey gesturing about, covered in green fur, while salivating over the Whoville hussy.

I Am Legend - Vampires

They went from complex creatures with a fully realized society to zombie people who were all CG-ed to look alike. The best part of the novel was when Neville found an old friend who was too far gone. That went out the window, along with most of Neville's character, in the movie. But we missed the actual vampire people the most.

Speed Racer - Racer X

Hey, your Dad dressed up like Racer X. Cool, we guess.

Watchmen - Ozymandias

This was not actor Matthew Goode's fault. He was terribly underwritten and thrown into the part very late in the game; we understand. Sadly godlike genius Adrian Veidt, he was not. We're not sure if it was the look or the writing — either way, it just didn't work.

Planet 51's tragedy is that it could have been a decent movie. It starts off with a neat premise: on a distant planet, there is an alien civilization that strongly resembles 1950s Americas — right down to everyone speaking English and grooving to The Chordettes. They even have a love for alien invasion movies, and, through a remarkable stroke of coincidence, the scifi franchise du jour is titled Humaniacs and features a monster that looks like an astronaut. Into this world plunges Captain Chuck Baxter, a middling US astronaut who has been sent to explore the planet (which NASA mistakenly believed was uninhabited) and suddenly finds that, on this world, he is the alien. Naturally chaos ensues. The movie also has some endearing and well-animated characters, especially in rock-craving robot Rover, and a Xenomorph-shaped dog that pees acid. The early clips promised a fun, if light, movie filled with cute science fiction references.

The problem is, Planet 51 has no idea what it's precisely about. Sure, it has a plot: a teenager named Lem has to help get Chuck back to his ship and off the planet before the military captures him and removes his brain (and, hopefully, without ruining Lem's life in the process). But it has the feel of a movie written by committee: too many ideas stuffed in and not enough fat trimmed off. Planet 51 tries to be about so many different things that it ends up being about nothing at all. Is it about the dangers of automatically attacking that which we don't understand? How the media makes us suggestible and paranoid? What it's like to learn that the universe is much larger than you ever imagined? Or is it about having the cojones to take risks and do the things you dream of doing? Okay, so the pants-less aliens have no visible cojones, but you get the point. And this lack of a center is symptomatic in the film's cast of predictable stock characters. Only the dog-like characters get any bite.

Even the jokes are just so much spaghetti thrown at the wall. Crude jokes about alien probes are mixed in with references to classic science fiction films, and great swaths of the film rely on forgettable sequences of slapstick. The odd joke hits, but when it does, it's just a solitary joke, and doesn't contribute anything to the movie as a whole. And, though it's a ostensibly kids movie, the rare jokes that elicited laughs went over the younger viewers' heads. During the viewing I attended, the audience laughed in unison just once — at a penis joke.

There are certain sins that children's films can sometimes get away with because they're geared toward younger viewers: being too busy or too cloying, or having a wearying or simplistic sense of humor. But Planet 51's problems are far deeper: it's a film that simply never engages, and for a science fiction film, leaves us with depressingly little to think about after it's over. Do yourself a favor and, instead of seeing Planet 51, watch these clips and pretend you've seen the entire movie. You'll be better off for it.

The Twilight series, whose second installment hits theaters tonight in the weird form of New Moon, has gone through a lot of changes in its journey from book to screen. This paranormal romance about a postgrunge girl from the Pacific Northwest and the monsters she loves isn't just a fictional world. It's a lifestyle. But what exactly is this lifestyle about? Is it about celibacy and traditional gender roles, the way its conservative Mormon creator Stephenie Meyer would have us believe? Or is it about rampant girl hormones, boys who strip at the slightest provocation, and otherworldly sparkle woodies?

Or is it, perhaps, about something else entirely?

I'll go with door number three. From the moment that Bella arrives for her first day of school and sees vamp Edward ambling toward her in slo-mo, his skin powdered white and lips cherry red, we're plunged into some kind of gender-bending satire of beer commercials. But instead of a busty blonde boob-bouncing her way towards the camera, we have the ridiculously made-up Edward, looking like something that got dunked in a Sephora store and then hurled through the stock room at Abercrombie and Goth. Once the two have kissed in extreme lurid closeup, wolfboy Jacob emerges literally from nowhere to show off his mega-muscles (which everybody comments on endlessly). As he gives Bella a hug, he explains that he likes the Reservation school way better than the white people's school. The scene is sheer comic genius, with the actors panting exaggeratedly as they kiss, and the lines wildly out-of-sync with the action (Jacob is constantly reminding the main characters how white they are in the middle of a "let's kiss" moment).

And it only gets better. Bella's human friends, represented incongruously as hipsters, are in on the joke. Their banter, possibly the best part of the whole movie, tips you off immediately to the fact that writer Melissa Rosenberg - whose main claim to fame is as a producer on ultra-dark serial killer satire Dexter - knows there is a significant audience who has come to watch New Moon just to laugh their asses off. And indeed, when I saw the film at a special sneak preview, loud laughter was as frequent as shots of Jacob's perky nipples.

It's almost as if the ostensible set-up of the movie - EDWARD: We can't be together; BELLA: Ohhhhhh [sigh] - is there just as a kind of blocky set in the background of the real story. A story about smart, snarky teens who think the entire premise of the film is stupid. There's a terrific scene when Bella starts to hang out with her old friends again after months of moping over the missing Edward, and she and her gal pal go to see a zombie movie. As they walk out of the theater, her friend launches into a long rant about how zombie movies claim to have some "deep meanings about consumerism" but that they're just dumb. Hello, moment that is way too meta for this movie.

And that's not the only meta moment. After the zombie rant, Bella and her pal run into a gang of motorcyclists who are catcalling and hooting at them, asking them if they want rides. As Bella stares at the men, Edward appears before her in a really bad Obi Wan-style apparition, urging her to "keep walking - danger." So of course, Bella walks up to the motorcycle guys and hops on the motorcycle, only to see the Obi Edward ghost go all after-school special on her, warning her again about the naughty man. This is the kind of pop culture reference that teens raised on "very special episodes" and old Star Wars movies will get, especially with the cheese larded on in such dramatic proportions.

Don't get me wrong: There are long, boring parts in this movie, mostly featuring the giant lack of chemistry that is Edward/Bella. But there are moments of subversion in between the emo globs that tantalize us into asking what Bella could become - if she would just exit the Twilight plot arc that will eventually propel her into marriage and babymaking.

In New Moon, that exit feels like a real possibility in a way that it won't after next year's wedding-oriented sequel Eclipse. The Bella of New Moon becomes "an adrenaline addict," seeking out motorcycle rides with shirtless Jacob and jumping off cliffs into the water, just so she can see Obi Edward again, telling her to be safe. She also starts cozying up with shirtless wolf boy Jacob and his pals - who cheerfully remind her that she's "not brown enough" to be clever. Again, Bella's friends (and writer Rosenberg) supply the ironic commentary that's running through everybody's heads anyway.

When a human boy with a crush on Bella asks her out to the movies and suggests a romantic comedy, she insists that they go see a movie hilariously called Face Punch, because she's "all about the adrenaline." First of all, Face Punch is now my new favorite movie title - New Moon cannot stop making jokes about teen pop culture. And second, I love the idea that Bella has this totally badass side that in no way matches the character's reputation as chaste romantic girly-girl.

The Bella of New Moon is a chick who fools around with vampires and werewolves, and then goes cliff jumping, "you know, recreationally," as she puts it later. And when this girl finds herself in the middle of over-the-top romantic scenarios, she's not exactly a swooner. In fact, she just wants to get her annoying boyfriend to turn her superpowered and vampy like him. When the boringly tormented Edward hints that he can't make her a vampire because she'll "lose her soul" and she looks kind of irritated and replies, "Well I don't believe in that."

So is this a movie about the glories of celibate romance? Not metaphorically, and not literally either.

Let's just take a quick gander at the much-vaunted symbolism of the series, where monsters stand in for humans and monstrous desires stand in for sexual ones. Edward's brother tries to eat Bella when she gets a paper cut; Jacob's brother also tries to eat Bella when she makes him mad. So: Sexiness is in the metaphorical air. But then things go literal. Jacob takes off his shirt and Bella tells him he's beautiful. Then when Jacob goes Total Wolf, he just stops wearing shirts altogether, spending most of the movie in tight denim cutoffs and running shoes. Edward also takes off his shirt in a scene where his pants ride so low that we see a little wisp of sparkling vampire pubes.

Nobody ever says anything about celibacy ever. Indeed, they spend more time arguing about race than they do about sex. As Jacob snarks to Bella, "Maybe I'm not the right kind of monster for you." All these teens ever do is jump into each other's bedrooms and kiss and pant heavily. This is not a movie about avoiding sex: The sex is just taking place offscreen. I guarantee that people the world over will be jacking off to memories of Jacob and Edward and Bella in their ruffled pink beds tomorrow night because this flick is packed so full of beefcakery. Basically, New Moon is training wheels for future Playgirl readers.

What's amazing about New Moon, and the whole Twilight series generally, is how easily it becomes self-parody. I think that's part of its appeal to teenagers, a group of people who cut through adult pretension and lies so incisively - and yet fall so hard for impossible fantasies. It caters to a youthful desire to watch a fairy tale, and then to see that fairy tale mocked mercilessly as the after-school-special bullshit it is.

I suspect that audiences for New Moon will sometimes choose to see Edward as genuinely romantic, while others will laugh at his makeup. Still others will - like the movie itself - vacillate wildly between romantic yearning and scornful laughter.

Our research intern, Cyriaque Lamar, pored over the most wretched and bizarre book covers that ever defaced the bookshelves, and came up with the absolute worst and most inappropriate. Normally, I feel a little trepidation about saying we've collected the cheesiest or wrongest "of all time" — but in this case, it only feels right. So here are Cyriaque's picks, with his erudite commentary.

Cheesiest Book Covers:

Most Inappropriate Book Covers (Maybe NSFW):

Additional reporting by Cyriaque Lamar.

Tachyon Books

This publisher, specializing in short fiction, has been around for close to 15 years. But it's expanded tremendously in recent years, growing to put out ten books per year. Authors in the Tachyon stable now include the late Thomas Disch, Cory Doctorow, Peter S. Beagle, Terry Bisson and Charles de Lint among many others. Known for single-author short story collections, Tachyon has started making more of a mark recently with anthologies like Steampunk, The Secret History Of Science Fiction, Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology and The New Weird. A lot of the most challenging and thrilling short fiction today is appearing in Tachyon's titles, one way or another. You can read our interview with Tachyon's Jacob Weisman here.

Night Shade Books

Another San Francisco press, Night Shade has been around for a dozen years. The company originally published only about four books a year, but now puts out 30-35 titles every year. And now Night Shade is putting out books from the likes of Iain M. Banks, Jay Lake, Neal Asher, Kage Baker, Paolo Bacigalupi, Walter Jon Williams and Greg Egan. And just like Tachyon, Night Shade has made huge inroads into the anthology market, with anthologies like The Living Dead, By Blood We Live and Wastelands. They've also put out Jonathan Strahan's "best of the year" anthologies and the Eclipse series, which we've been following with much excitement. Not to mention Ellen Datlow's Best Horror Of The Year anthologies. They've recently joined forces with the award-winning small press magazine Electric Velocipede. You can read our interview with Night Shade's Jeremy Lassen here.

ChiZine publishing

ChiZine started out as a webzine called Chiaroscuro, publishing horror, dark fiction and weird-ass shit, a decade ago. They started putting out books in spring 2008, and already they're up to 12 titles a year. And judging from recent offerings, they seem to be upholding their proud tradition of freakgnosis and terror. Recent books include Katya From The Punk Band by Simon Logan, A Book Of Tongues by Gemma Files, Chimerascope by Douglas Smith and The World More Full Of Weeping by Robert J. Wiersema.

Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing (and Tesseract Books)

This indy has been around since 2000, and now includes Tesseract Books. They seem to put out a lot of horror, including the Tesseracts anthology series, but also a fair amount of regular science fiction and fantasy. One of their recent releases is the intriguingly titled Time Machines Repaired While U Wait by K.A. Benford. That seems to be a kid-friendly title, and some of their books, like A Petrified World, are labeled as aimed at children ages eight and up.

Subterranean Press

Specializing in the horror, suspense and dark mystery genres, this publisher puts out tons of books by Poppy Z. Brite, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ray Bradbury and Kage Baker. Fans of Alastair Reynolds will need to track down their recent flipbook of two novellas: Thousandth Night (set in the same world as House Of Suns) and Minla's Flowers. Coming soon: The Best Of Peter S. Beagle, which looks amazing. They have a close relationship with Joe Lansdale, allowing them to put out limited editions of many of his books. Their limited editions, generally, are fantastic and often have great illustrations, recently including Dan Simmons' The Terror and John Scalzi's The Last Colony.

Golden Gryphon

Founded in 1997, this small press survived the death of its founder, Jim Turner, in 1999, and is still putting out books — including The Empire Of Ice Cream and The Fantasy Writer's Assistant by the great Jeffrey Ford. They also put out Nancy Kress' Nano Comes To Clifford Falls And Other Stories and George Alec Effinger's Budayeen Nights, plus books by Mike Resnick and George Zebrowski. Their website looks a bit like it was last redesigned in 1997, but their books are fantastic.

Damnation Books

I had not heard of this publisher until I started working on this feature, and now I'm utterly fascinated. Maybe it's the weird, off-beat nature of their books — like The One-Percenters, in which a society of serial killers goes around murdering those with weak genes, who are only being kept alive because of money and medicine. Or The Zombie Cookbook, a book of "stories, poems
and recipes" about cooking with zombies, or cooking zombies. (Eww?) Mostly, though, it's the way all of their books are rated (on a scale of one to five) for sex and violence, as well as reader response in some cases. Only one book has scored a "5" for both sex and violence: The Body Cartel by Alan Spencer. Other Damnation authors? Time to raise your game.

P.S. Publishing

This British small press has put out tons of award-winning titles, especially in horror and fantasy but also in science fiction. New books are coming up by both Stephen King and his son Joe Hill. They've championed the underrated horror author Ramsey Campbell, and published great authors like Gwyneth Jones, Stephen Baxter, and Graham Joyce. They also put out Postscripts, a quarterly anthology/magazine series edited by founder Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers.

Eraserhead Press

This indy press, started by Carlton Mellick III, keeps chugging along under the steady leadership of Rose O'Keefe and her gang. And they're keeping it weird: We saw a table of Eraserhead titles at World Fantasy Con, and were blown away by the sheer Dada-ness of it all. There's Mellick's The Faggiest Vampire, which is what it sounds like. There's Shatnerquake, in which the real-life William Shatner attends a convention and has to fight all the fictional characters he's ever played. (The cover blurb goes: "William Shatner? William Shatner. William Shatner!") But perhaps the best title actually is, Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere. How do you get any better than that? Like so many of the small presses on this list, they also put out a magazine, The Magazine Of Bizarro Fiction.

Apex Publications:

Like most of the small presses on this list, Apex also puts out a magazine — but the magazine, Apex Magazine, seems to be the biggest part of their publishing empire. They do also put out a number of horror/dark fantasy books, though, including B.J. Burrow's The Changed, which tells of a zombie outbreak from the zombie point of view. (The intriguing blurb goes, "It's not the end of the world. It's just zombies.")

Prime Books

This small press has been around since at least 2001, when they put out Catherynne M. Valente's The Labyrinth. Since then, they've put out books by KJ Bishop, Theodora Goss, Sarah Monette, Holly Phillips, Ekaterina Sedia, Jeff VanderMeer, and many more. And their books have made top ten lists from Amazon, Booklist and Publishers Weekly. Publisher Sean Wallace purchased the Prime Books imprint from Wildside Press, and relaunched it as a Recently, they've put out some great anthologies, like Federations and a forthcoming wizard-themed book (both edited by John Joseph Adams.) And they're putting out a new edition of Rudy Rucker's Ware tetralogy, with an introduction by William Gibson. A lot of the most interesting new books we've seen lately have come out from Prime. They also do their own annual Best Science Fiction & Fantasy anthology, edited by Rich Horton (full disclosure: I have a story in the new volume of this.) And they publish Fantasy magazine, which is now a webzine.

Circlet Press

Cecilia Tan started out putting out chapbooks of erotic science fiction in the early 1990s, with Telepaths Don't Need Safewords, which I still think is the best title ever. This grew into an empire of science-fictional smut, including the gay erotic SF anthology series Wired Hard and many other futuristic collections like Fetish Fantastic and Best Fantastic Erotica. These days, a lot of their titles are available at low cost as PDFs and e-reader volumes. If you've ever wanted to know how aliens and demigods practice safe and consensual BDSM, then these are the books for you.

Small Beer Press

Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link have been putting out quirky, wonderful and bizarre books, alongside their zine Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, for a decade now. I remember when the only places I used to see them were in the used bookstore on Newberry Street in Boston. Now Small Beer titles are among the most highly respected, and anticipated, out there. And they are constantly doing great good works: Like when Laurie J. Marks' elemental logic trilogy got canceled by its original publisher before the final volume came out, fans clamored to be able to read the conclusion — and Small Beer stepped in to save the day. Small Beer has also put out the great Interfictions anthologies of genre-defying stories, and books by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Elizabeth Hand, Joan Aiken, Greer Gilman and Poppy Z. Brite. And not to be shallow or anything, but their books are usually among the most beautifully designed out there, with arrestingly lovely covers.

Note: Before anybody pipes up in comments, we thought about including Pyr Books on this list — but they were launched as an imprint of Prometheus Books, a publisher that's been around since 1969. So through a painstaking process involving snake entrails, we deemed they weren't quite as much of an indy as the others on this list. If you disagree, blame the snake — but also, feel free to pipe up in comments. I also wound up leaving out Cemetery Dance, just becuase they've been around for 20+ years. Let us know if we missed your favorite indy press!

Top image: cover of Monstrous Affections by David Nickle, from Chizine Publications.

For our last book club meeting, we read Paul McAuley's eco-political epic The Quiet War, so this time around we're veering more towards the escapist. Santa Olivia is a mutant coming-of-age story about Loup, an orphan who has grown up in a tiny, forgotten town between the two heavily-fortified walls that divide North from South America. The main attraction in this town is a bar where off-duty soldiers come to drink (and pester the local girls), and the boxing gym. Every year, there is a boxing match between the townies and the soldiers. The military leaders promise that if a townie ever wins, he'll be allowed to jump the wall and go free in North America.

Loup wants nothing more than to be the man who goes free. Except she's not a man, and no girls have ever competed in the contest. Luckily, she has strange mutant powers from a father she never knew, a friendly coach at the boxing gym, and a gang of orphan friends who want to help her mete out justice in a town where soldiers can get away almost with anything. This engaging, often thought-provoking story combines elements of Wolverine and Million Dollar Baby - and Carey's great talent for creating characters who are larger-than-life but always recognizably human.

For this book club meeting, we also picked a novel that has been out for several months, so it should be a little easier to get from your local library than The Quiet War was.

You can read our review of the novel here.

Here are the details on this book club meeting. You read Santa Olivia. Then we all have our book club meeting on Wednesday, January 6 (when you're fully recovered from the holidays). I'll post, and we can discuss the book in comments. We just got confirmation that Jacqueline Carey will join us for discussion in January too, so be thinking about what you might want to ask! Find out more about our previous book club meeting in the io9 Book Club forum.

Now get reading!

Santa Olivia via Borders