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

When we asked our friends to name their favorite swashbuckling heroes from SF books, first we had to figure out what exactly we meant by "swashbuckling." Here's what we came up with: A swashbuckling hero doesn't necessarily need to pack a sword — although it certainly doesn't hurt. A certain dapperness comes with the territory, or at the very least a unique sense of style. Words starting with "D" came up a lot, including dashing, debonair, defiant, dapper and daring.

What we found was that fantasy is full of swashbucklers — it's one of the hallmarks of the genre — but there are some amazing swashbucklers in science fiction too. (And we threw it open to include "urban fantasy," or anything which takes place in something akin to the modern world or the future.)

Here are our favorite swashbuckling heroes from science fiction books:

John Carter Of Mars (A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

He's got the sword and the steely gaze, not to mention the old-school charm, and he's also got the mad adventures — the seemingly immortal Virginian gets zapped to Mars upon his "death" and wins the hand of the princess, Deja Thoris. He leads a company of Tharks to defeat the city-state of Zodanga, and then sacrifices his own life to save the atmosphere on Mars. (But then just winds up on Earth again.)

Here are some great Princess Of Mars covers and images, including some great art by Frank Frazetta:

Jack Half-A-Prayer (Perdido Street Station and Iron Council by China Mieville):

Even amongst all the other memorable and weird characters from Mieville's Bas-Lag universe, Jack Half-A-Prayer stands out, with his weird sense of style. One of the Remade, he's got a giant praying mantis arm, but instead of becoming downtrodden and full of self-loathing, he becomes a freedom fighter and a legend, until it finally catches up with him. Here's a great illustration of him that artist Nicholas William Kole created. (More of Kole's great art here.)

"Slippery" Jim DiGriz (The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison):

The first person that came to mind when we thought of this category — a grifter and adventurer who's always twenty jumps ahead of everybody else. Even though the love of a good woman softens him slightly, he never stops being a scoundrel. Still, if he ever runs for president on your planet, you'd be crazy not to vote for him.

Frank Rozvar (The Skies Discrowned/Forsake The Sky by Tim Powers):

As Earth's empire crumbles in the distant future, Frank Rozvar sees his father murdered, and is forced to flee to Munson Underground, the city under the planet's surface. He plots revenge — and it's a good thing he's an expert fencer as well as a stylish bastard. Although, as my friend Bill notes, Powers' early heroes tend to be more "grim and gritty" than "dashing and dapper."

The Librarians (The Greatwinter Trilogy by Sean McMullen):

Many buckles are swashed by these dragon librarians in a post-apocalyptic 40th century setting. They're forever fighting ritual duels, including battles (with very strict rules) in airships. These books are packed with derring-do and Errrol Flynn-esque feats of bravery and cunning.

Duncan Idaho (Dune by Frank Herbert):

This swordmaster in the service of House Atreides is a ladies man and an expert student of the Swordmasters Of Ginaz. The Harkonnens kill his parents and raise him to be hunted for sport — but he gets away. One of Duke Leto's right-hand men, he trains Paul in the arts of war. And when he gives his life to defend Paul and Jessica, he takes down no less than 17 Sardaukar soldiers.

Cugel The Clever (The Dying Earth books by Jack Vance):

A thief and scoundrel, Cugel displays tons of rambunctiousness and skullduggery. But he's also a dab hand with a sword, and he's very dapper with his triple-tiered hat, adorned with a "foppish bedazzlement." His roguish ways and indefatigible charm have won him his own Facebook group.

Speaker-To-Animals (Ringworld by Larry Niven):

One of the coolest of Niven's Kzinti, Speaker-To-Animals is slightly less likely to kill you on sight than other members of his race, but he's still a superb fighter and a total badass. He's too honorable to kill Louis Gridley Wu for meat, even when he's starving. Typical line: "I have a variable sword. I urge calm." Bad. Ass. (Art by A.C. Farley.)

Anthony Villiers (Star Well by Alexei Panshin):

A former viscount, Villiers gets fobbed off by his family and travels around the universe in the company of a giant toad named Torve, having crazy adventures. He's always getting himself caught up in duels and assassination plots, as he moves through the highest levels of galactic society without ever quite having enough money on hand. He's foppish, following the motto "Live as you dress" and doing both of those things well.

Drake Maijstral (Crown Jewels, House of Shards, &Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams):

Maijstral is an Allowed Burglar in a distant future when the human race has been conquered by aliens called the Khosali, who have subjected us to their regime of High Custom. Under this complicated set of rules, you can steal — as long as you hang on to the merchandise for 24 hours without getting caught. (One of the Khosali emperors was a kleptomaniac who wanted to legalize theft, hence the odd compromise.) Since all of Maijstral's exploits are recorded and broadcast, he becomes a huge celebrity with a great sense of verve and style.

Hiro Protagonist (Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson):

Protagonist's business card says it all: "Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world." He learns of the existence of a new drug called Snow Crash, that's both a computer virus and a reality-altering substance. He's the undisputed champion of in-Metaverse sword-fighting, because he helped write the code which makes swordfighting possible.

E.C. Gordon, aka Scar, aka Oscar (Glory Road by Robert Heinlein):

This war veteran answers an ad that asks, "Are You A Coward," placed by a beautiful woman. Then he goes on a quest and crosses swords with the Never-Born aka the Eater Of Souls, the guardian of the Egg of the Phoenix in Mile High Tower. (For some reason, the Eater Of Souls appears as a 17th century swordsman.)

Beka Rosslin-Metadi (The Price Of The Stars by Debra Doyle and James D. McDonald):

Okay, just look at the jacket, and the red eyepatch. And she's an amazing space pilot, freebooter and spacer by trade — who's turned her back on her famous military family. Until her mom is assassinated, and her father gives her the best spaceship around, the Warhammer, to look for the assassins. She leaves "a trail of kidnappings and corpses across four star systems," and blows the roof off the strongest private fortress in the galaxy. Rock on.

Pham Nuwen (A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge):

Pham grows up in a post-apocalyptic Canberra that's similar to the Middle Ages, complete with swords, daggers and poison. Then the Qeng Ho arrive and he leaves with them. He becomes a legendary commander and Programmer-At-Arms. At one point, Pham Nuwen is held prisoner by some idiots, and he realizes that the computers on the ship had used smart dust long ago — which means he can hack into the computers by blinking, without anyone noticing.

Ed Chianese (Light by M. John Harrison)

Thrill-seeker, adventurer and virtual-reality addict, Ed Chianese "owes money to everyone in the universe." Writes Harrison, "From an early age, Ed Chianese had been some kind of drifter and sensationist. He couldn't remember what planet he came from. 'Maybe it was even this one!' He laughed." With his peroxide hair and cheap tattoos, he's dapper after a fashion.

Giraut Leones (A Million Open Doors by John Barnes):

Giraut lives in Nou Occitan, which is sort of like medieval Europe, with the dueling, the chivraly and the artistic dabbling. But then he goes to live in another one of the thousand human cultures in the far future — the sterile Caledony, which is like a McCarthy-ite, Christian repressive world. So he becomes the rebellious, sword-fighting hero of this crazy world.

Jay Kalam and his cohorts (Legion Of Space Series by Jack Williamson):

Kalam is commander of the Legion, and just in case you miss the Three Musketeers-i-ness of his group of stalwart fighters against the renegade Purple and the evil Medusae, one of his friends is named Samdu (an anagram of "Dumas.")

Owen Deathstalker (Deathstalker by Simon Green):

Heir to a warrior name, Owen Deathstalker lives a quiet life as a historian, until the Empress names him an outlaw, and he's forced to flee, and help organize the rebellion against the Empress Lionstone.

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff. Thanks to Bill Brickman, Jed Hartman, Chris Hsiang, Andrew Liptak, Dennis Woo, Wayne Nix, Angela Cooper, Zack Stentz, Tim Jones, Jonathan Korman, Tom Marcinko, Espana Sheriff, Richard Kadrey, Chris Hall, Allan Ebalo, David J. Schwartz, @RainOnRoof, Jenn Reese, John Klima, another Tim Jones, Cheryl Morgan and anyone else I missed for the suggestions!

Additional writing and reporting by Caitlin Petrakovitz.

Edward Reminds You To "Be Safe" In Bed


Get a shadowy Edward Silhouette wall decal to stand guard over your bed and remind you all that you shouldn't have sex until you're married and it kills you — or ride dirt bikes. It's $60, but think of it this way: it's an investment in your sex life. Contraceptives are expensive, but this wall decal will keep everyone out of your bedroom for years.

Share The Dream Together Sheets

Surround yourself with vampire love, hearts, and shame. Available at ebay.

Go Green With Twilight

Now you can be sparkly and Green. Team Jacob And Team Edward water bottles, sold at a fast food joint. Hypocrisy, thy name is Edward!

Smell Like Your Favorite New Moon Character

Vampire and Werewolf body lotions, soaps and oils. Poor Alice: her trademark scent is described as "spirited" while Edward is "intoxicating" and Bella is "irresistible." Anyone else wishing Jacob's smelled like wet dog?

Twilight Bed Crown

Live in your own moody death shroud, for a mere $14.00.

Twilight Checkbook Cover

This might be a really clever joke, since Twilight is one of the biggest cash cows in history — but we have a feeling there's no sardonic wit involved in this Twilight checkbook cover.

Bella's Womb

Well, it was bound to happen, someone was bound to make a felt version of Bella Swan's womb... wait WHAT. HER WOMB? SOMEONE FELTED HER WOMB? WITH THE MUTATED BLOOD-CRAVING ADULT BABY RENESMEE INSIDE? TELL US WHY. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THIS??

Twilight Mosaic Table

Maybe Joseph Fiennes would want to decorate his back patio with this. Ha ha ha ha ha it's a FlashForward joke. But seriously, he probably would want this exquisitely crafted piece of furniture.

My Mommy's a "Bella" Onesie

If your mommy really is a "Bella", that means you are a demon spawn whose father had to rip through your mommy's stomach with his vampire teeth to release you from her womb. You also will grow abnormally fast, be a child forever, and have a totally consensual love affair with a werewolf 17 years your senior. So that's good.

Twilight Converse

Better not scuff these up, y'all. There is no greater art form than puffy paint-decorated Chucks.

Bella's St. Jude Bracelet

Bella's St. Jude bracelet from Hot Topic keeps the apocryphal apostle close to your heart, but we have no idea why - THIS IS NOT IN THE BOOK; THIS IS NOT CANON, PEOPLE.

Cross Stitch Abs

Who doesn't want to spend hours cross stitching abs on your sweat shit? Well now you can.

Bella's Wedding Ring

Yes you guys. You too can rush into a teen marriage prematurely, so that you can have sex without remorse. And have a demon grow in your uterus. And name her Renesmee. All because of this heavenly bauble.

Twilight Pillow
Apparently MS Paint is still the preferred mode of digital creativity in the wonderful world of Stephenie Meyer, so here is an artfully designed pillow featuring a lamb jumping off a cliff. IT'S A METAPHOR. For... Twilight girls with suicidal urges after their boyfriends break up with them. It's beautiful.

Golden Contacts

Fangs are so passé, everyone knows that eye color are the real indicator of a propensity for blood sucking and sex-abstaining.

Twi Shower

Nothing says "early morning heart attack" quite like a greeting from a giant, pissed off, floating vampire head in your bathroom. It's the Twilight shower curtain, and it's only $60.

Wolf Pack Packaging Tape

Now you can give your gifts a Wolf Pack tattoo when you wrap and send them! Not to mention the hours of entertainment you'll get out of "giving" some poor unsuspecting boy a tape tattoo ("I promise it won't hurt to take off!") . Available at the Twilight center for entertainment joy, Hot Topic.

Salt & Vampire Pringles

Now you don't need to continue stalking R-Patz to find out that vampires apparently taste exactly like vinegar and are in fact used as a substitute for it. Just try these limited edition Pringles!

Hey, if vamps can eat us, why not the other way around?

Cullen Crest bra

The jury's still out on whether or not this one is real, but if so, you had better be a well endowed girl who doesn't mind showing off that space where cleavage usually goes. If you're good with that, then show off this crest of a family you'll never belong to! Because they're fake! And not real! HEAR ME? IT'S A MOVIE, PEOPLE.

TwiCrotch: Edward Panties

I'm sure the vamp facing panties we introduced you to a few weeks ago are already high on your wish list, but we definitely wanted to remind you of the awesomeness of them. I mean, who doesn't need panties where the crotch faces INSIDE. Yeah, mull that one over, fans.

Some of the most sensational, embarrassing and frankly gross Twilight saying tees, buttons and bags.

Love at First Bite Cookbook

In Twilight, Esme and company invite Bella over for some Italiano, so now you too can extend a lil vampire hospitality to your favorite friends who will gaze at you in silence, shaking their heads with sadness that you trust Stephenie Meyer with your discerning palate, as you try to whip up some favorites from Love at First Bite including Bella's Lasagna, Harry's Famous Fish Fry, and of course mushroom ravioli as the main course. See Twilight lunchbox for further instructions.

Twilight board game
The Twiboard game (So I have a thing for prefacing random words with Twi. Sue me.) was first glimpsed with the release of the New Moon logo, and for that reson, I fear it my have been swept under the table. Not to worry, I'm here to remind you of all its cute family-crest play pieces, and the wonderfully poorly done Monopoly rip-off. Rush your order now, for hours of love and blood-sucking enjoyment. I mean, I'm just guessing.

Bella's Birthday Dress
For maximum effect, make sure your hair isn't done and you wear black cons - this is like the American Girl Doll dress up gone horribly wrong. Especially since this is the dress Bella gets smacked around in, for her protection. Available at Hot Topic not that we tried it on or anything, shut up!

Twilight Barbie replicas
Added to the category of slightly creepy yet totally keeping in tune with the rest of the great merch, Mattel commissioned replicas of Bella and Edward whose plastic skins are whiter than white (though Eddie doesn't seem to sparkle as much as we would have thought). They're not available yet, but come November 25, snatch one up for the Twilhards in your life, so they can creepily act out the books on their own!

The Vamp: The Sparkly Dildo
If nothing else on this slightly disturbing list can help you get as close to Edward as you'd like, please consider Tantus's sparkly The Vamp dildo in its cool pink color. Back when we showed you it was available, don't forget to throw it in the fridge before using it though, so you're sure to get that cold, lifeless feeling a real vamp's sparkly cock would be sure to have.

Eddie's Volvo

Are you a relatively affluent middle aged man or woman who loves both Twilight and midrange luxury vehicles? Then you should enter this contest. We don't think you will have that much competition.

Twi-Socks

So your ankles can be "beautiful."

Bumper Stickers

Two things about these bumper stickers and window decals. First, the Cullens are terrible drivers. And second, remember when moms used to be proud of their kids with those horrible "I have an honor students at such and such High School"? We miss those stickers.

Dell Twilight Skins

Yup, in additon to swathing your monetary woes (presumably from spending so much on Twilight junk) in your Twilove, you may now keep your poor Dell warm with Twilight skins!

Don't forget to rip that giant sticker off carefully when you grow up though.

Oh, and here's a spoiler warning, although I'll try not to spoil anything too much.

Eclipse Three should be required reading among anyone who wants to write short stories — or, for that matter, among anybody who still clings to the hope that short fiction can be enriching. The storytelling in this volume is, for the most part, both polished and bumpy — that is, it gives you the assurance from the first sentence that you're in the hands of a storyteller who knows what s/he is doing, but it also contains lots of irregularities and odd surprises. These are almost all stories by people who know how to set up, and subvert, expectations without seeming manipulative or crass.

I had high hopes for Eclipse Three already — the first two volumes from editor Jonathan Strahan were superb (you can read my review of volume two here.) And the list of contributors for the third volume is pretty awe-inspiring, including Karen Joy Fowler, Peter S. Beagle, Maureen McHugh, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Jeffrey Ford, Nicola Griffith and Paul Di Filippo. (Not to mention a lovely, previously unpublished cover by the late Richard Powers.)

But it's actually better than I'd hoped. Pretty much all I need to say about the quality of the stories in this volume is that the Peter S. Beagle entry does not stand out. By which I mean, it's as rich and clever and epic-feeling as any Peter Beagle short story — but you don't feel as though you've stumbled on the one standout story in the book. A number of the other stories in the book are just as instantly engrossing, and have that "personal but also huge and world-encompassing" feeling that Beagle does so well.

A lot of the best stories in this volume follow a main character who encounters a stranger who opens up a bizarre world. In Beagle's story, it's a magician who meets a woman whose husband and little girl have died, and shows her how to play a trick on death. In Molly Gloss' "The Visited Man," it's a weird (and not very good) painter who befriends a man whose wife and son have also died, forcing the widower to adopt more and more animals and go in search of night ghosts. In Nnedi Okorafor's "On The Road," it's a little boy who shows up at a woman's door in Nigeria, carrying with him some kind of terrible hunger that hollows you out from the inside.

There are also a lot of stories about people's relationships with odd communities, including Fowler's opening piece, where a rebellious teenage girl gets sent to a nightmarish kind of "boot camp" where her spirit is broken (and the camp turns out to have a weird secret). Or Di Filippo's "Yes, We Have No Bananas," in which a guy gets evicted and goes to live on a houseboat in a world that we (and he) gradually realize is an alternate universe. In Pat Cadigan's "Don't Mention Madagascar," a woman gets caught up in a world of travelers who are being forever being shuttled around impossible destinations — is it the spirit world? Alternate universes? — and they form an odd sort of community.

A lot of the stories have to do with creativity and the life of the artist, including Maureen McHugh's "Useless Things," the story of a sculptor who gets robbed and finds herself hardening against the world, and Elizabeth Bear's mermaid-meets-guitarist tale. Most of all, many of these stories deal with loneliness and loss, and the strange discoveries that come to people who've given up on finding themselves in this world.

The best story in the book, though, is Nicola Griffith's "It Takes Two," the jaw-dropping story of freakish biochemistry experiments, venture capital, and a lesbian lapdance that goes much further than anyone expects. It's reminiscent of the thrilling leap-in-the-dark feeling of her novel Slow River, but feels even more intense and weird, maybe because nothing could be weirder than a strip club in Marietta, Georgia.

Though a few stories in the book didn't thrill me quite as much as the rest, and purists may protest that a few of these stories are more literary than speculative, Eclipse Three is almost entirely a great prize. I didn't realize how much my faith in the short stories had dwindled, after reading dozens of unsustaining tales, until I read these stories. It made me want to go back to writing short fiction myself, something I've been neglecting, in the vain hope that I can write something half as engrossing as the tales in this collection. [Borders]

Many of these books are available at Podiobooks, where creators have uploaded hundreds of self-published and public domain audiobooks. Some of have also been published in print after a successful podcasting run — although sometimes the printed version is substantially different from the audio version. All of the books below are available for download, free of charge (although donations are generally appreciated):

If you're looking for a thriller:

7th Son by JC Hutchins: Hutchins' 7th Son series, which begins with 7th Son: Descent (although there is also a prequel anthology), focuses on seven men who are suddenly ripped from their lives and discover that they are cloned from a single man. As if adjusting to that world-shattering revelation weren't enough, they're also told that their genetic donor has just assassinated the president of the United States, and they might be the only men who can stop him before he unleashes a destructive technology on the world. There are actually two versions of 7th Son: Descent: the original "beta" version, and an audio version of the print novel.

If you're looking for some alien-induced horror:

Infected by Scott Sigler: Alien parasites travel to Earth and make a nice, cozy home inside a handful of human bodies. The unlucky hosts develop uncomfortable, triangular growths on their skin and their unbalanced hormones drive them to homicidal madness (and that's even before the little critters turn out to be sentient). A CIA agent and an epidemiologist are trying to get to the root of the people gone mad, while an already temperamental ex-linebacker tries to hold it together before the parasites drive him to murder.

If you're looking for supernatural worldbuilding:

FETIDUS by James Durham: Set in a supernatural Washington, DC, in 2034, FETIDUS stands for Foundation for the Ethical Treatment of the Innocently Damned, Undead, and Supernatural. FETIDUS is an advocacy group that provides services for and lobbies on behalf of the meta-human community — and after the Undead Outbreaks of the 2020s, the organization as its work cut out for it. Art Blanchard is an attorney for FETIDUS with a dark past and the inner monologue of the Mickey Spillane character. The podcast drips with humorously self-aware noir, but its real strength is its exploration of the social and political issues facing supernatural beings.

If you're looking for an unconventional superhero story:

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty: Mur Lafferty is an incredibly prolific podcaster (be sure to check out her Lessons from a Geek Fu Master), and Playing for Keeps became her first print novel — after she podcasted it. Set in the same universe as Lafferty's short story, "Barry Koleman, Hero," Playing for Keeps follows a group of meta-humans whose abilities, while interesting and occasionally useful, aren't powerful enough to qualify them as superheroes. Keepsie Branson is one such non-hero; anything that belongs to her can never be taken from her. Instead of being a hero, though, Keepsie owns a local watering hole where others with minimal powers gather to bitch and moan about the city's superheroes. But when the villain Doodad thrusts a mysterious orb into Keepsie's hands, she and her friends are caught in a battle between the heroes and the villains — and they're not sure whose side they should take.

If you're looking for an unconventional supervillain story:

How to Succeed in Evil by Patrick E. McLean: Edwin Windsor is an efficiency consultant for supervillains, ensuring that their nefarious deeds are as fruitful as possible. One day, Edwin gets sick of his clients' inefficient ways, and decides he could make more money — and piss off the local supervillain contingent — if he strikes out on his own to become the ultimate supervillain. After the podcast's initial run, McLean turned How to Succeed in Evil into a full-length audiobook.

If you prefer short stories:

Voices: New Media Fiction edited by Mur Lafferty: There are tons of excellent places to find podcasted short speculative fiction. Clarkesworld Magazine has an excellent podcast, and the Escape Pod and Pseudopod podast magazines provide a steady stream of science fiction and horror stories, respectively. But a great place to start on short podcasted fiction is with Voices. The anthology includes stories from familiar names like James Patrick Kelly and Cory Doctorow, as well as several other writers deeply involved in the podcasting community. It's a fun set of stories, as well as a handy introduction to some of the more prolific writers asking you to listen to their novels.

Many publishers haven't firmed up their winter releases for next year, so most of these books are coming in spring and summer 2010. Keep on the lookout for them!

The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald (Pyr)
The author of several smart, politically-savvy tales of the near future, McDonald is back with this story of nanotech set in Istanbul:

In the sleepy Istanbul district of Eskiköy stands the former whirling dervish house of Adem Dede. Over the space of five days of an Istanbul heatwave, six lives weave a story of corporate wheeling and dealing, Islamic mysticism, political and economic intrigue, ancient Ottoman mysteries, a terrifying new terrorist threat, and a nanotechnology with the potential to transform every human on the planet.

A tale of terrorism and outlaw science from the guy who penned Brasyl and River of Gods? Hell yeah.

Kraken, by China Miéville (Ballantine)
Miéville plunged us into magical noir realism with this year's The City & The City, but promises to return to a more scifi/fantasy world with Kraken. The author is so spoiler-averse that very little is known about this book, other than the auspicious title. Given how brilliantly he depicted sea monsters in The Scar, I think we're in for a treat with this one. And even if the title turns out to be entirely misleading, I'm still along for the ride.

Running With the Pack, edited by Ekaterina Sedia (Prime)
We were crazy about Sedia's recent novel The Alchemy of Stone, about a clockwork cyborg caught up in a workers' revolution, and we weren't the only ones. Josh Friedman, creator of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, said the book dealt with a lot of themes he was trying to get at in his cyborg-centric series. Sedia is back next year with this anthology about (yes!) contemporary werewolves. Includes stories from Carrie Vaughn, Laura Anne Gilman, and C.E. Murphy.

For the Win, by Cory Doctorow (Tor)
The prolific Doctorow can't let a year go by without blowing our minds with a new tale about high tech rebels who commit acts of subversion in the most unexpected - and profound - of ways. Doctorow spent time in China last year researching For the Win, a young adult story about gamers in the East.

The Restoration Game, by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
One of my personal favorite authors, MacLeod is famous for combining detailed political futurism with intriguing science. In his recent The Night Sessions, for example, evangelical Christian robot terrorists fight a battle on a technically-accurate space elevator. Wow. According to the publisher, here's a quick description of The Restoration Game:

There is no such place as Krassnia. Lucy Stone should know - she was born there. In that tiny, troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing. Its organisers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-up games company in Edinburgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: a game inspired by The Krassniad: an epic folk tale concocted by Lucy's mother Amanda, who studied there in the 1980s. Lucy knows Amanda is a spook. She knows her great-grandmother Eugenie also visited the country in the '30s, and met the man who originally collected Krassnian folklore, and who perished in Stalin's terror. As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace to slot into the game, she finds the open secrets of her family's past, the darker secrets of Krassnia's past - and hints about the crucial role she is destined to play in The Restoration Game ...

Virtual histories, virtual worlds, and virtual nation-states? Count me in.

Digital Domains, edited by Ellen Datlow (Prime)
This anthology brings together two legends of science fiction: the late, great OMNI magazine, and its science fiction editor Ellen Datlow. OMNI, a science and futurism magazine whose format inspired io9, published some of the greatest, most experimental science fiction of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Thanks to Datlow's keen eye for talent, the magazine always challenged its readers with stories that went beyond the ordinary. In Digital Domains she's collected her favorite stories from her years at OMNI, along with two other magazines she worked on, Event Horizon and SCIFICTION, and we can't wait to tear through them.

Geosynchron, by David Louis Edelman (Pyr)
This is the third novel in Edelman's crazy-brilliant series about nano-enhancement and corporate culture, which began with Infoquake and Multireal. In a world where the "multireal" tech allows people to see multiple versions of their futures and pick between them, what happens next? Anyone who read the first two books in this "Jump 225 Trilogy" is basically waiting on tenderhooks to find out.

Blackout, by Connie Willis (Spectra)
Award-winning author Willis returns to the world she created in her time-travel masterpiece Doomsday Book with this tale of World War II in London. Here's the book jacket description:

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill's next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London's Blitz. And seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can "catch up" to her in age. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyone's schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history-to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.

I have a chance to plunge back into Willis' world of brilliant historians who divide their time between academia and traveling through time to their chosen historical periods? Yes, please.

Chill, Elizabeth Bear (Ballatine Spectra)
Bear returns with the second installment in her space opera that began with Dust, about an ancient generation ship whose citizens face danger from both outer space - and from squabbles on board. Expect more genetic engineering and cyborgs mixed with angels and courtly antics. Nobody does escapism better than Bear does, so this early-2010 treat will keep us warm when snow is flying outside.

Edge of Ruin, by Melinda Snodgrass (Tor)
This is another entry in Snodgrass' anti-religion tale of the supernatural, where the forces of rationality fight it out with the forces of close-minded dogma. Here's a description of Edge of Reason, her preceding novel in the series:

Since the dawn of consciousness, a secret war has been fought between the forces of magic and religious fanaticism, and the cause of reason, understanding, and technology. On one side are the Old Ones, malign entities that feed on the suffering of mankind. On the other are the Lumina, an ancient order dedicated the liberation of the human spirit.Officer Richard Oort of the Albuquerque Police Department is caught in the middle of this primal battle when he rescues a mysterious teenage girl from a trio of inhuman hunters. Recruited by the Lumina to serve as their latest paladin, Richard ends up fighting beside a handful of unlikely allies, including an adolescent sorceress, an enigmatic philanthropist, a sexy coroner, and a homeless god with multiple personalities.

Honstly how can you not want to take a peek at this one?

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord (Small Beer Press)
This US edition of Lord's contemporary fairy tale novel has been eagerly anticipated in the scifi/fantasy world. It's the story of a woman who finally leaves her abusive husband, only to find that this step toward empowerment is nothing compared to what comes next. Here's how Small Beer Press describes it:

Redemption in Indigo is a clever and entrancing debut which incorporates folktales to tell the story of a woman who frees herself from a troublesome and capricious husband only to become the unwitting heroine in a fantastic struggle to reconcile the supernatural forces of fate with humanity's free will.

Lord writes that the book is set "in a vaguely African-Caribbean imaginary country (such as one might expect from a Barbadian writer inspired by a Senegalese folk tale)."

Among Others, by Jo Walton (Tor)
Walton is the beloved author of the alternate history series that begins with Farthing, set in London after Hitler wins World War II; and she penned the world's only drawing room melodrama featuring dragons as main characters, Tooth and Claw. She's the master of rich detail, dark wit, and plotting that sucks you in before you realize it. Among Others is a change of pace for her, a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up nerdy. Of course the book contains fantastical subplots, and characters who are heartbreakingly real - especially for people who grew up with their noses buried in fantasy novels. There is no way you should miss out on this one.

The Loving Dead, by Amelia Beamer (Night Shade)
This is the first zombie romance novel. No, it's not a cheesy mashup of a Jane Austen joint. It's just love and sex with zombies. Seriously, do we need to say more? Want. Now.

Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals, by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Tachyon)
When Ann VanderMeer told me about this book, I was instantly in love with the idea. A handsomely-illustrated collection of imaginary creatures, this is actually a Kosher cooking guide for those with fantastic palates. The VanderMeers consulted with chefs familiar with Kosher cooking to find out which creatures of yore belong on the Passover table, and which should be avoided if you want to stay Kosher. A demented homage to cooking, Judaism, and monsters, this is pretty much the perfect book for your coffee table.

Zendegi, by Greg Egan (Night Shade)
Anything new from Egan is always cause for celebration, because this guy knows his science and has an imagination that's ridiculously pyrotechnic. Though he's penned some incredible space operas set a zillion years into the posthuman future, Zendegi finds Egan focusing on Earth in the near-term. Here's the scoop, from the publisher:

Nasim is a young computer scientist, hoping to work on the Human Connectome Project: a plan to map every neural connection in the human brain. But funding for the project is cancelled, and Nasim ends up devoting her career to Zendegi, a computerised virtual world used by millions of people. Fifteen years later, a revived Connectome Project has published a map of the brain. Zendegi is facing fierce competition from its rivals, and Nasim decides to exploit the map to fill the virtual world with better Proxies: the bit-players that bring its crowd scenes to life. As controversy rages over the nature and rights of the Proxies, a friend with terminal cancer begs Nasim to make a Proxy of him, so some part of him will survive to help raise his orphaned son. But Zendegi is about to become a battlefield.

Interestingly, if you consider this novel beside Ken MacLeod's The Restoration Game and Cory Doctorow's For the Win, it would seem that one of the themes emerging in SF for 2010 is the virtual developing world.

Trade of Queens, by Charles Stross (Tor)
The sixth (and probably final) novel in Stross' celebrated Merchant Princes series, which has been praised by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman for its economic imaginativeness, Trade of Queens promises a "series level climax," according to early readers. This series, set in two parallel Earths connected by a very strange trade route, is a swashbuckling tale of early capitalist accumulation. You won't want to miss its thrilling conclusion!

Monsters of Men, by Patrick Ness (Walker)
Ness' beautiful young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go introduced us to a world where women are scarce and dogs communicate telepathically with their human companions. With Monsters of Men, he completes the trilogy that Knife began. Here's a taste of the book description to tantalize you:

"War," says the Mayor."At last." Three armies have marched on New Prentisstown, each one intent on destroying the others. And Todd and Viola are caught in the middle of it all. As the battles commence, can they hope to stop all-out war? Can there ever be peace when they're so hopelessly outnumbered? And if, as they have been told, "War makes monsters of men", what terrible choices await them? And what of the third voice that watches them, one bent on revenge...

Expect nothing short of amazing from this conclusion to the Chaos Walking series.

Lightborn, by Tricia Sullivan (Orbit)
Here's a description:

Lightborn, better known as 'shine', is a mind-altering technology that has revolutionised the modern world. It is the ultimate in education, self-improvement and entertainment - beamed directly into the brain of anyone who can meet the asking price. But in the city of Los Sombres, renegade shine has attacked the adult population, resulting in social chaos and widespread insanity in everyone past the age of puberty. The only solution has been to turn off the Field and isolate the city. Trapped within the quarantine perimeter, fourteen-year-old Xavier just wants to find the drug that can keep his own physical maturity at bay until the army shuts down the shine. That's how he meets Roksana, mysteriously impervious to shine and devoted to helping the stricken. As the military invades street by street, Xavier and Roksana discover that there could be hope for Los Sombres - but only if Xavier will allow a lightborn cure to enter his mind. What he doesn't know is that the shine in question has a mind of its own.

A post-apocalyptic pharmaceutical dystopia? Yes, we are there. Also, bonus points for X-Men reference.

New Model Army, by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Roberts is a darling of the literary scifi scene, and his new novel sounds like it will be intriguing and thought-provoking, as well as a good satire. Set in a near-future England, the novel is about a civil war that rips the UK apart. But it's also about social media technologies, because the group that unseats the British army is the world's first "truly democratic army," assembled via new grassroots communications technologies. I'm always interested to see critical explorations of where the so-called liberating power of social networking might take us. And I want to see where Roberts goes with this one.

Death of the Author, by Scarlett Thomas (Houghton Mifflin)
I fell in love with Thomas after reading The End of Mr. Y, her novel about enchanted books, body-hopping, the nature of belief, and hundreds of mice. Like Roberts, Thomas is known for her philosophically-minded writing, which she leavens with extremely weird plot developments that will keep you reading. Not much is known about her new novel, other than that the title is borrowed from an essay by Roland Barthes about how a truly good critic shouldn't care what the author's intent was in writing a story. Often, the best interpretations ignore what the author intended entirely, which is why Barthes argues that the author is for all intents and purposes dead. Given Thomas' love of post-structuralist types like Barthes, I predict a bizarro slant on this idea, which will hopefully involve some angry dead authors begging to differ.

Thanks to Niall Harrison for some great suggestions!

So like Sam Tyler's 1973 head trip, it turned out The Village was all in Number 6's head. Except that The Village was a shared head trip, and everyone inside it was also awake in the real world. Because The Village took place on another level of consciousness — not the subconscious, but one of the many other levels that Number 2's wife discovered. So in fact, the Village was a dream, and the dreams people were having were of the real world. Whoa! (This was pretty telegraphed in the episode where 2's wife wakes up, and holes start appearing in the Village.)

And all of the people in The Village were damaged in the real world, and going to this idyllic, old-fashioned place in their heads was making them more conformist and well-behaved in reality. Oh, and Number 2's son was sort of a figment of WTFery.

So I guess all those scenes of Number 6 in New York, which we thought were flashbacks, were actually all happening at the same time as the main action — Michael really was running around trying to find out the truth about SummaKor at the same time as he was in the Village, and his behavior in the "real" world changed as his other self got changed by the Village. And the whole thing took place over the course of less than a day. And even while he was fighting the Village, he was being co-opted by it. Or something.

And then we get the shocking twist that, in order to redeem Sarah, the mentally ill girl in the church who's also Number 313 in the Village, Number 6 is willing to take Number 2's place and keep the Village going. Number 2 wins in the end.

As endings go, it's actually not bad — I like it slightly better than Harvey Keitel striding down onto the surface of Mars in his white shoes. It has a similar feeling to the Life On Mars ending, a sense that the producers were sitting around going, "Well, we can't serve up the same ending as the original, so let's shake things up." But it's gutsy, and it does put a different spin on what's come before. This wasn't just an evil surveillance system, spying on people — it was more akin to a pharmaceutical company, putting everyone on anti-depressants. Or something.

It's a neat concept, on paper. And a good ending, in theory. I don't think the show earned it — if I'd ever, even for a moment, felt invested in the struggle between Number 2 and Number 6, I would have been shocked to see Number 2 win. Instead, I felt a vague sense of, "Oh, that's interesting." If the show had wanted me to buy into the idea of The Village as a kind of institutionalized environment where people's individuality is suppressed in order to make them more well-adjusted, then Number 6's arrival should have been in a cloyingly comforting institutional setting, not the "running through the desert" thing that made no sense but looked vaguely cool.

In the end, like the American Life On Mars, this is going to wind up being a curious footnote to discussions of the original, not something people talk about in its own right.

Every year, the Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Contest invites imaging experts and amateurs to submit their best examples of microscopy - in still and video form. The results, as you can see, are incredible.

The top prize is $5,000 worth of Olympus imaging equipment. In addition, twenty-two of the 2009 winning and Honorable Mention images will also be displayed in a winners' tour that will travel to San Diego, California, New York City; suburban Washington DC; Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities. Additional exhibits of BioScapes images will simultaneously be touring cities across the U.S. and Canada throughout 2009-10.

You can see more winners and honorable mentions on the BioScapes page.

Sexual Attraction in Spyrogyra. This classic microscopic subject illustrates sex in lower organisms and shows the power of sexual attraction even in simple algae. One cell becomes quite amoeboid as it squeezes through the narrow fertilization tube that the partner cells have just built between them. The movie was shot in time-lapse over 2 hours. By Jeremy Pickett-Heaps, University of Melbourne, Australia. Third Prize.
Water flea Daphnia atkinsoni. This specimen has a "crown of thorns," a defensive trait induced in offspring only when the parents sense chemical cues released by one of their main predators, the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis. The water flea's exoskeleton (exterior structure, green) and subcellular details within the organism (nuclei - tiny blue dots) are both visible. By Dr. Jan Michels, Department of Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Institute of Zoology, Christian Albrecht
University of Kiel, Germany. First Prize.
Nucleus of a plant cell showing synaptonemal complex, a ladder-like protein structure that forms between pairing chromosomes during meiosis (the cell division required for reproduction). This may be the first-ever high-resolution 3D image of this complex ever captured with light microscopy. The two parallel axes of this complex, which run the length of each chromosome, are seen as two threads spaced 100-200 nm apart and twisting around each other in a helix. By Chung-Ju Rachel Wang, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, USA. 2nd Prize.
Fresh water algae Haematococcus pluvialis, 100x. Phase contrast microscopy. By Charles Krebs, Issaquah, WA, USA. Fourth Prize.
Unicellular alga Penium, treated with the microtubule poison oryzalin. By David Domozych, Department of Biology, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA. Fifth Prize.
Single-cell smackdown! Amoeba trying to engulf a yeast cell by Margaret Clarke, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK, USA. Honorable Mention.
CAR fish fibroblast. By Maria Nemethova, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria. Honorable Mention.
Adipose tissue in living animals. Cellular dynamics and structures including erythorycytes, platelets, leukocytes, and endothelial cells are visualized through in vivo imaging. Satoshi Nishimura, Tokyo, Japan. Honorable Mention.
Desmid (green alga) dividing. Desmids are symmetrical cells composed of two identical halves or "semi-cells" that have a complex, highly ornamented and species-specific shape. Every time the cell divides, it is bisected between the two semi-cells. The two daughter cells now have to generate a new, complementary semi-cell to restore the cell's normal symmetry. This morphogenesis takes about 2 hrs. By Jeremy Pickett-Heaps, University of Melbourne, Australia. Honorable Mention.
Mouse cortical neurons (nerve cells in the brain). Each second in the movie replays one hour in real time; total time is 5 days. Scientists are looking at the trajectories of the elongating axons. Despite the disorganized culture environment, note the straight trajectory of axon growth cones. This type of experiment is extremely difficult; researchers spent two years optimizing the biology and imaging conditions to make this long-term imaging possible. By Neville Sanjana, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. Honorable Mention.
Epidermal layer cells of Lotus japonicus dry seed. By Mayumi Wakazaki and Kiminori Toyooka, RIKEN Plant Science Center, Yokohama, Japan. Honorable Mention.
Drosophila (fruitfly) ovarioles. Fluorescence imaging. By Maria Paula Zappia, IIB-INTECH UNSAM-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Honorable Mention.
Apicoplast. Confocal imaging. By Bernd Zobiak, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany. Honorable Mention.
Genetically-identified retinal ganglion cells. This study shows that it is possible to target genetically-identified neurons, a non- random approach to studying cell types. By Tim Viney, Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland. Honorable Mention.
Fungia feeding. Fungia are large individual corals that don't form colonies or reefs. Their large and very expandable mouths allow them to eat large pieces of food compared to most corals. The movie was captured with epifluorescence, using the Fungia's own natural auto-fluorescence stimulated by UV, blue and green excitation light. James Nicholson, Coral Culture & Collaborative Research Facility, NOAA NOS NCCOS Center for Coastal Environmental Health & Biomolecular Research, Fort Johnson Marine Lab, Charleston, SC, USA. Honorable Mention.

If you liked Star Trek... And who didn't like J.J. Abrams' breezy reinvention of the 1960s space adventure show, focusing more on the coming-of-age of Kirk and Spock, and their journey from rivals to friends? Anarcho-syndicalists, that's who.

...You'll Love Ringworld by Larry Niven. The defining "big object in space" novel, Niven sees your scary Romulan drilling platform and raises you a huge ring-shaped world orbiting a star, with "shadow squares" to provide a day/night cycle, and many weird ecosystems and cultures thriving on it. And if you enjoy that, delve into more classic space opera by Heinlein, Clarke, E.E. "Doc" Smith, David Weber and Lois McMaster Bujold.

If you liked Wolverine... Maybe you enjoyed the way the latest X-Men spinoff used the experiences of a lonely mutant to talk about the ravages of war. Maybe you just liked the purer distillations of mutant angst and feeling like an outsider in non-mutant society. Or perhaps you just liked the sexy mayhem.

...You'll love Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey. The tale of a lonely mutant in a town on the U.S.-Mexico border, this novel's young female version of Wolverine named Loup blew us away. She's been genetically engineered not to feel fear, and she becomes her town's secret superhero.

If you liked The Dark Knight... Who didn't love The Dark Knight's reinvention of superhero comics' "grim and gritty" cliches in an even more noir, even more mind-blowing vein? Whether you were into the portrayal of a Gotham City that destroys the best among its citizens, or you just liked the brooding, this film was instantly iconic.

...You'll love Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey, or just about anything by Richard K. Morgan. If you love noir anti-heroes squaring off with madmen for the future of a city that doesn't deserve saving, then you'll want to spend some serious time with Sandman Slim — sure, the city in question is L.A., and that's automatically less cool than the fictional Gotham. But still, the hero who's crawled out of Hell and now fights his power-mad former friend is the best fix for your Nolan Batman addiction right now. And for more noir, check out Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels as well as his noir fantasy The Steel Remains.

If you think you'll like James Cameron's Avatar... Okay, you can't really know if you're going to like Avatar yet, since it's just a couple of trailers and one preview day so far. But a lot of us are pretty pumped up about the cool concept, of a human put into a hybrid alien body to interact with cool blue aliens... not to mention all the war-machine technology and battle scenes.

...You'll love The Color Of Distance by Amy Thomson. Why not try another take on the idea of a human who's transformed into an alien-human hybrid to live among aliens? Juna is a human who lands in the rainforests of the planet Tendu, whose pollen gives humans deadly allergies. Juna's atmosphere suit gets ruptured and she nearly dies, but the planet's elders save her by transforming her into something like one of them. She learns their skin-color-based language and grows to understand their weird culture, and accept her own half-alien self.

If you liked Hancock... Maybe you liked the look at a more flawed superhero. Maybe you liked the alienation, or the feeling of futility in spite of great power. Maybe you enjoyed the cynicism.

...You'll love Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. In any case, you should definitely check out this smarter, cooler look at what superheroes would be like in the real world. Where Hancock fobs you off with repeated gags and muddled mythology, Grossman (an io9 contributor) gives you real psychological complexity and sharp characterization.

If you liked The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button... It sure did look impressive: a love story involving a man who ages backwards, and somehow keeps finding the same woman over and over again as she ages forwards in time. Set against the backdrop of history as it was, maybe you liked the epic feeling.

...You'll love Confessions Of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer. This is definitely a case where a book did it first, and way better. (Yes, Button was nominally based on a HAITE story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.) Greer both pioneered and perfected the "backwards-aging love story" concept, without ignoring the potential creepiness of a boy who looks like an old man having a crush on a girl his own age. Heartbreaking and epic, this is the story Button should have been.

If you liked Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen... Umm... Well, you might have enjoyed the battle scenes and huge robots fighting alongside military hardware. You might have been into the love story between Shia and Megan, or Shia learning to grow up and accept responsibility. Oh, whatever. Let's assume you liked this movie for the big robots and military hardware.

...You'll love Hammer's Slammers by David Drake. This 1979 story collection, as much as Heinlein's Starship Troopers, is a landmark in the history of military science fiction. And it has the big hardware in spades — most notably the giant super-tank that the Slammers roll around in, which comes equipped with a massive 20 centimeter power gun that fires high-energy copper plasma. You might also really dig the Jon and Lobo novels by Mark Van Name, which are about a guy who makes friends with a giant artificially intelligent battlesuit, and they go off having adventures together.

If you liked Knowing... Maybe you liked the weird clues and all the numbers that secretly predicted all the disasters in the world. But most likely, you liked it for the same reason people seem to be liking 2012: for the apocalypse.

...You'll love Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. For a somewhat more light-hearted look at the end of days, you really can't beat this book. Or if you want a post-apocalyptic novel which shows how America continues after everything has collapsed and we've reverted to slavery and other nineteenth century institutions, try Liberation by Brian Francis Slattery.

If you liked Monsters vs. Aliens... With its A-list cast and zany monsters banding together to save the world, who didn't like this movie? Plus, it had a super-basic, but still welcome, message about being yourself and how it's OK to be different and all that stuff.

...You'll love Monster by A. Lee Martinez It's got the same spirit of fun, and a similar misfit cast of characters who save the day despite being weirdos. But it's maybe a little less kid-friendly, and the eponymous Monster is more of a slob who gets rid of the paranormal creatures threatening all the normal people, even though he'd rather just crash on the couch and drink beer. His paper gnome companion will definitely remind you of a cartoon character, and could easily be voiced by Hugh Laurie or Will Arnett in the movie version.

If you liked District 9... With its look at otherness, and the predicament of a human who accidentally gets infected with alien DNA and starts losing his privileged status, District 9's alien-ghetto tale was full of metaphors for the way humans treat each other.

...You'll love Mind Of My Mind by Octavia Butler. Nobody wrote about hierarchy, oppression and otherness better than Butler. And Mind Of My Mind deals with the idea of losing your humanity and becoming something unfamiliar and terrifying with incisive brilliance.

If you liked Moon... You probably got into the chilling depiction of loneliness on our only satellite and the slow madness that overtook our hero, played by Sam Rockwell. But you probably also loved the depiction of two Sam Rockwells, and the questions of identity this doppelganger story raised.

...You'll love Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley. If you want a really thought-provoking tale about cloning, you'll definitely want to check out Ophiuchi Hotline. Varley deals with a far-future society where only the dead can be cloned legally, then plunges us into a world of outlaws whose cloning goes far beyond the permissible.

If you liked Wanted... It probably wasn't for any vestigial supervillain trappings. In its movie version, this film was mostly about a man realizing he's inherited his dad's gunman powers, and getting inducted into a society of super-assassins. But more than anything, it was about becoming an ubermensch and realizing that the "little people's" rules don't apply to you.

...You'll love Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. If you really want a story of a super-assassin who has gone beyond traditional morality, you should check out the tale of Horza, a shapeshifter who has rejected the super-advanced Culture and is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Or if you just want the tale of an ubermensch who comes into his power, read Frank Herbert's Dune for the tale of Leto Atreides II.

Those are our book recommendations for the movie addicts in your life. What are your suggestions?

Thanks to Graeme, Meredith and Annalee for suggestions!

What I like about Heroes is that the writers are never afraid to give us some gratuitous semi-nudity. And where Claire is concerned, this nudity has to have lesbotic overtones. In the case of "Brother's Keeper," overtones were helpfully supplied by Tracy. Our favorite political slut freezy girl starts having ice power panic attacks and she races over to HRG's place to get help. But she finds only Claire, doing her laundry. Of course Claire decides to best cure is to stick Tracy in a warm bath and make her some tea. Which sort of backfires, as you can see in the clip we've shared with you here.

Even though Tracy snaps off Claire's frozen foot, the two ladies wind up in a sodden pile of girl-bonding, drinking tea together and talking about how "it's hard out there for girls like us." Could it be . . . LESBOTIC DOUBLE-MEANING? I choose to believe that it is. I don't care what you Heroes-hating naysayers think. Heroes has a lot of deep meanings, and that's why it's such an important show for people who believe in social progress and girls taking baths together.

Anyway, after all the wetness and ice and stuff, Claire tells Tracy that maybe "her body is telling her" to go become a carnie. And we all know how smart it is to listen to your body. That's why the episode ends with Tracy meeting up with Samuel so she can join his carnies.

I never thought I'd be grateful to see Suresh back in the picture, but I was. Even though he seems to have inexplicably lost his Jeff Goldblum powers. Samuel the megacarnie with dirt powers apparently killed Suresh nine weeks ago, but now he's kidnapped waitress Charlie so he can force Hiro to go back in time and grab a movie from Suresh before the whole murder thing. Turns out Suresh found an old movie of his father's from when he was working in that mutant concentration camp run by the US government. And the movie reveals - ta dum! - that Samuel was actually born in the concentration camp, and that his powers go beyond dirt. Apparently there is a measurable amount of energy generated by "powers," and Samuel can harness that energy to give himself mega-dirt powers. Maybe that means he can do things like move the Earth out of orbit or something? I have no idea. But if this show suddenly turns into Space 1999 with Earth instead of the Moon, let's just say I told you so.

So anyway nine weeks ago stupid Suresh leaves his hot girlfriend back in Chennai to go hunting for Samuel - WHY? - and discovers that Samuel's older brother has been hiding these mega-dirt powers from little bro all his life. Probably because all Samuel does is wear glittery black denim vests and eyeliner. Obviously, he's just too glam for mega-dirt. Unfortunately, Samuel overhears his brother telling Suresh all this, and promptly goes after Suresh to get the old movie showing how he caused a giant earthquake when he was born among all the mutants whose powers he harnessed.

Suresh has burned the film, so Samuel does the old Magneto-with-rocks thing and kills Suresh - except luckily Hiro has traveled back in time and put a bullet-proof vest on Suresh! Which he technically shouldn't need because he has spider superpowers, right? Wait, did he lose his powers? I can't even remember anymore, but I'm sure you'll tell me smugly in the comments and then add something about how I always get details about the show wrong.

Here's one thing I don't have wrong: Samuel stopped wearing the sparkly vest after his brother "died accidentally" (probably from a dirt-related injury!). Why did they have to take that vest away from him?

Probably for the same reason that I have to tell you now about what happened to Head Sylar, Head Parkman, Body Parkman, and Body Sylar. And that reason is that I did something bad back when I used to eat people in the Middle Ages and I'm still atoning for it by becoming a detective in Toronto. And writing Heroes recaps.

So let me try to sum up the Sylar/Parkman, Head/Body thing in a sentence, just for fun. Peter and Body Sylar heal dying Body Parkman/Head Parkman/Head Sylar, then Head Sylar touches Body Sylar and lands back in his own head. I am glossing over a long scene which is supposed to be full of tension but is really not. The upshot is that everybody is back in their own damn body, though Body Sylar has a Head Sylar because he's still got Nathan occupying most of his body or something.

Throughout this whole ordeal I kept wishing that Head Parkman would wear a sexy red dress like Head Six did in Battlestar. It would make everything so much easier to deal with.

Also, THERE WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD LINE IN THIS EPISODE. At one point when Fake Nathan is whining about how weird it is to be in Body Sylar with a Head Sylar rattling around too, he says to Peter, "Nathan is just some random thoughts in a mass murderer's head." Yes, that is a great sentence.

Plus we really have no idea what is up with the whole Nathan thing, but since Adrian Pasdar got fired from Heroes I'm assuming that Nathan isn't long for this plotline.

My favorite moment after the whole Head/Body resolution for Parkman was when he called his ex-wife and baby mommy, and was like, "Hey remember how I had this guy in my head who was making me act insane? Well now he's gone so I can come home honey!"

Basically there are still a bunch of things that remain unresolved. When will Body Sylar give in to Head Sylar? Is Head Sylar actually inside Peter, because a Sparkly Thing passed between Body Sylar and Peter? What will Tracy be doing for Samuel? When will Hiro ever see Charlie again, and why did Hiro stick Suresh into a mental hospital for safekeeping? When will Sprint realize that advertising their phones in a series of webisodes about how Samuel abuses teenage girls might not be a good way to get people to buy their crappy product?

Tune in next week when Sprint phones bring all the mutants together to become a giant, homicidal megaentity with geotagging powers.

We've collected various book covers from a number of classic science fiction novels to see how different artists have interpreted the same book. The covers are sometimes surprisingly pulpy, others are elegantly minimalist, and still others are variations on the same theme. Some of these are actual covers from various editions of the books, and some are concept designs created by individuals — on spec, for a class project, or just for fun. Bear in mind that a few of the actual book covers may not be work-safe.

1984 by George Orwell:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham:

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick:

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick:

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood:

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov:

John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Neuromancer by William Gibson:

We by Yevgeny Zamyain:

The Space Merchants by by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess:

War of the Worlds by HG Wells:

Especially if you're writing a book for National Novel Writing Month, every day of forward progress is vital — and if you realize your book lurched in the wrong direction 10,000 words ago, you're going to have a hell of a time going back and restarting from where you went wrong. But it's difficult for anybody to find that wrong-turn place and start over from there.

So we asked some of our favorite authors to suggest ways to get back on course after your story has done a slingshot around the wrong star. Here's what they suggested:

Brad Meltzer (author of The Tenth Justice, The Book Of Lies and Identity Crisis):

That's just process. Mark Twain said that when you're done writing, you throw out the first half, and what you have left is what's gold. So it's fine to veer off course. As long as you have the thick skin to recognize that everything must be edited and corrected and improved. Of course, that doesn't mean it'll be easy. There is no terror like the terror of realizing that all your work is for crap. But again, if it were easy, everyone would do it.

Cherie Priest (author of Boneshaker, Fathom and Those Who Went Remain There Still):

The most egregious time I ever had a novel go off-track was with one of my more recent books, FATHOM. In fact, it happened twice with that project. I kept getting two-thirds of the way finished with a draft ... and then I'd realize that it wasn't working. The parts just weren't coming together, and my attempts to force them were creating even worse problems. Finally I did what I should've done in the first place — I turned to my editor (who is awesome). I asked for an extension on the project and kept her on the phone for a couple of hours, bouncing ideas off her; and eventually I was able to sit down and hammer out a draft that worked much better — and the finished product is vastly improved for the editorial input and subsequent reboot. If it's broken, it's broken — and for me, anyway, there's nothing else to be done but trash it and start fresh. I'd advise anyone who's stuck to find a patient, insightful friend to ask for help, and try coming at the story from another angle next time. I know a few people who can reshape something from the ground up, but I'm just not one of them ... and that's a lesson I had to learn the hard way.

Rudy Rucker (author of Postsingular, Hylozoic, Mathematicians In Love, and the Ware tetralogy):

Making a major plot change in a novel isn't always as hard as one might imagine. After all, much of a story is descriptions, or dialog, or action scenes — and these tend to stay pretty much the same. The switchpoints where the plot emerges are really rather few and rather short. So changing the plot is maybe a little like acupuncture. You may might find there's only five or six spots that you need to zap, and that the changes may in fact be quite small. This always surprises me. What happens is that my conception of the story looms in the background and seems to imbue every scene, but in fact the stage-magic-fog of the conception is really only emerging from, as I say, five or six little nozzles, and its not so hard to tweak the nozzles. This said, there will be times that a whole scene needs to go, which can be a bit painful. In these cases, I save the excised chunk into my separate "Notes" document so that it's not totally lost. And when the novel comes out, I post my notes online anyway, so the scrap gets a kind of half-life as well.

Scott Westerfeld (author of Leviathan, Pretties, Uglies, Peeps, Midnighters and So Yesterday):

When you've made a huge wrong turn, it's important to broach the subject carefully with your subconscious. Don't sit down saying to yourself, "I'm going to rewrite the last 100 pages!" You'll freak out.

Instead, pretend you're merely taking a closer look at the fateful juncture. Maybe you'll just rewrite that ONE chapter where things went wrong, just to see what happens. Tell yourself that after making a few important changes, you'll be able to salvage most of the 100 pages since. And after those first changes are made, your brain will slowly become invested in the new state of affairs. After a while, you may actually WANT to make all the changes necessary, even if that means throwing out a month's work.

It's like any bad news: Don't come out with it all at once.

Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier are also giving invaluable writing tips for NaNoWriMo on their respective blogs, on alternate days. (Click on their names for the blog links.) Well worth checking out!

The Pitt
Few remember - and maybe with good reason - the end of Marvel's late-'80s experiment, the New Universe, in which a man driven mad with seemingly-unlimited power accidentally turns Pittsburgh into a radioactive crater by trying to get rid of his powers, and the world goes to hell from that point onwards: America becomes filled with irradiated monsters, nuclear war and godlike children who demand that we make war no more, or else. A weird and forgotten piece of post-Watchmen superheroics, but one that mixes old-school and new-school with an admittedly naive worldview that still may be too big for one movie.

Secret Wars
One of comics' first as-many-superheroes-at-once extravaganza, it's not just the idea of bringing the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four and random other characters (Spider-Man! The Hulk!) together to battle an army of supervillains that might make this colorful story too expensive to film, but the creation of a patchwork planet for them to fight on, along with the various alien races and/or technology that they meet along the way. Then again, the comic was created to support a 1980s toyline, and we all know how well Transformers and GI Joe have done for movie studios, so perhaps we should never say never...

Ultimatum
This year's strange superhero disaster movie killed off a number of Marvel's more popular characters, amongst them Wolverine, Thor and Doctor Doom - but only in their alternate timeline, "Ultimate" incarnations. Nonetheless, the story - in which Magneto causes all manner of "natural" disasters, destroys New York and decimates the superhero population of the planet before finally being stopped by a mix of X-Men and other superheroes - is pretty much 2012 with added superheroes, the idea of which may be the ultimate (No pun intended) high concept, but the cost of which would make most effects budgets weep.

Invasion!
DC's 1988 crossover is ID4 meets Star Wars, and then some: Different races of alien invade Earth to find out why the planet keeps producing so many superheroes, in the process destroying Australia (This is back when you could do that kind of thing without people getting upset that you've killed off an entire continent), performing genetic experiments on normal humans to see if there's some latent superhero gene (There is) and fighting a war on two fronts, as Earth's superheroes defend their planet with the help of some turncoat aliens. With a cast that's about 50% alien (And multiple types of alien, at that, with only a couple achievable with Star Trek-esque nose attachments), space battles and all manner of high-scale superheroic takes on your favorite war movies, this would be a sfx extravaganza... If anyone would ever be able to afford it.

Flex Mentallo
Flipping between "reality," imaginary worlds, time periods and everywhere in between, Flex may just be one of those unfilmable projects even before you start to think about how much it'd cost to have an army of superheroes destroy a city, combine to form a new reality that we live in, or even just have the orgy that proves Frederic Werthem right. But factor in the need to create surreal fictitious cities for the young Wally to get lost in, atomic explosions and mutations or even just costumes to match Frank Quitely's awesome fashion sense, and you're left with the kind of movie that would need Watchmen-esque precision and care, but for an even-less mainstream audience friendly story.

DC One Million
Again, just the scale of work needed to bring this story to life would make most people in charge of budgets get nervous: Taking place in two different eras (Today and the 853rd century), on multiple planets and with large-scale destruction brought about by a nano-technological virus that comes from a living robotic sun, the necessary design process alone would probably scare off movie producers before it even came to the idea of making it all look convincing. A cast of hundreds of superheroes from both eras (Including a Superman from the future who has to sparkle, just like Twilight's Edward) would just add to cost woes.

Crisis On Infinite Earths
Talking of casts of hundreds of superheroes, DC's 1985 big daddy of all superhero crossovers is the kind of thing that would have to be told in a series of movies, and even then would still be missing all manner of greatness: Requiring multiple Earths to be created just so they could be destroyed, taking place in multiple time periods - including a part of the story where the time periods merge together so we get to see World War II fighter planes fight dinosaurs - and with almost every character in the story (and there really are hundreds) a superhuman and requiring some level of ridiculous costume and special effects to be made real. While it might not be the greatest comic ever (Or even the greatest superhero comic), this might be the most perfect example of a story that is too full of ideal comic book imagination and spectacle to ever make it to the silver screen.

Let's start by getting all of the superhero stuff out of the way. Depending on how much you love the old stuff, chances are your book of the week will either be the hardcover collection of Batman: Battle For The Cowl (In which Dick Grayson decides to carry on that Dark Knight family business) or the Showcase Presents: DC Comics Presents black and white collection of 1970s Superman team-ups with other DC characters both A-list and long-forgotten. (Me, I'm going for the Showcase, if only for the sweet, sweet Jose-Luis Garcia-Lopez art.)

But there are also collections of DC's Black Lightning Year One, the Blackest Night-trailing Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse, Marvel's space-epic War of Kings and the tragically-cut-down-in-its-prime Runaways: Homeschooling. If you're looking for something more in the single issue price range, there's always DC's Justice Society Of America 80-Page Giant and Marvel's Dark Reign: The List - Spider-Man. Or the debut of Reign of Kings: Inhumans.

If War of Kings isn't enough space warfare for you, then Dark Horse has the first volume of Alien Legion Omnibus, in the wake of the movie deal announced yesterday. And Boom! has the first issue of its now-monthly Farscape series. And does it get any more space war than Transformers? Well, yes (Their war kind of takes place on Earth, after all), but the first issue of IDW's new monthly series is also released tomorrow.

Staying with the media tie-ins, IDW also has the first issues of the weekly Legion: Prophets and the mini-series Star Trek: The Next Generation - Ghosts coming out. Meanwhile, Dark Horse has the much-anticipated all-new Dr. Horrible special issue to satisfy your Whedon Jones for another week. Dark Horse is also re-releasing Pictures That Tick, a collection of experimental comics by Sandman cover artist Dave McKean that's well worth your time and money.

Last but not least, you can prepare for the horror of Thanksgiving next week with a couple new supernatural books: Boom! have a collection of their great The Unknown detective series, while DC's Victorian Undead puts Sherlock Holmes against zombies to the... whatever comes after death, I guess.

As ever, all of these books and more can be found on the shipping list from Diamond Distributors, while your local comic store itself can be found by using the Comic Shop Locator Service. Do it for reading, you guys.