This is just my own personal list of what I'm thankful for — feel free to add your own things you're thankful for in the comments.

1. That maybe, just maybe, movie audiences are developing some good taste.

I know, I know. Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen made about $833 million. And New Moon just had the third biggest opening weekend ever. Not exactly strong arguments for the intellect of the filmgoing public. But even so, both of them still came up short when compared to The Dark Knight, which set all manner of non-Titanic box office records. And for all the financial success of Transformers 2 and New Moon, I think there's a solid argument to be made that neither really compares to the cultural impact of The Dark Knight.

The Twilight franchise has its extremely devoted fanbase, but almost no crossover appeal. To be sure, tons of people saw Revenge of the Fallen, but how many people now remember doing so? The Dark Knight, on the other hand, launched a ton of memes, established the definitive version of the Joker for years to come, and won a ton of awards, assuming you care about that stuff. (I don't particularly, but evidence is evidence.)

And let's look at all the movies that aren't sequels. District 9 made $200 million on a $30 million budget thanks to a clever viral marketing campaign, strong word of mouth, and the fact that it was actually a good movie. All the standard industry reasons to assume a movie like District 9 wouldn't make money — it's too political, it's too violent, it's too South African — turned out to be completely wrong, and I'm just going to be a ridiculous optimist and assume that the quality of the movie was the reason for its success.

Finally, there's Star Trek. If anything, the fact that it was the eleventh movie in the franchise just meant it had more baggage to overcome, and yet it was the first bona fide hit of the summer, making $384 million. The fact that it did all that while gleefully reveling in the very same continuity that had sunk so many previous revival attempts, all because the movie was just so damn fun... well, yeah, I'm pretty thankful for that.

2. That Dollhouse somehow, against all odds, got a second season.

Sure, it's a shame that Dollhouse is coming to a close, but that show had no business making it past season one. Hell, it probably should have, by rights, been canceled about six episodes in. The show wasted its first five episodes on variations on the personality-of-the-week theme before launching into the master plot — admittedly because of network interference, but still — and then proceeded to unfold its convoluted, off-putting mythology that left the show without a clear central hero and a whole lot of really uneasy questions the audience had to answer. And it did all this while comfortably settling into #132 in the ratings, bringing in a paltry 3.73 million viewers per episode.

And then, thanks to favorable internet numbers, some decent critical buzz, and maybe some lingering Fox guilt about the fate of Firefly (nah), it got a second season, and Joss Whedon went full tilt at making it the craziest, most nerderiffic show ever. I mean, look at all the guest stars. Jamie Bamber! Michael Hogan! Alexis Denisof! Keith Carradine! Summer Glau! Ray Wise! More Alan Tudyk and Felicia Day! Not to mention the fact that the show is, if anything, even better, crazier, and more gleefully off-putting than last season. Dollhouse might be going out, but under the circumstances, you can't really say it isn't going out on its own terms.

3. That Doctor Who and Futurama are coming back, and everything will be (never) the same again.

It's a been a long year, with so little new Doctor Who to get excited/thrilled/confused/conflicted about. But now The End of Time is coming to close out David Tennant and Russell T. Davies's tenures with the show, and it clearly promises to be the most bonkers thing ever made. And then the Steven Moffat and Matt Smith era officially begins, and I really can't wait.

I got into Doctor Who in 2003, back when the show was still very much in the wilderness and the closest thing to new Who were a bunch of audios starring Paul McGann. (Sure, they were pretty good, but they were also pretty far from the real thing.) As such, I'm probably one of the very last people who can even somewhat legitimately call themselves "old school" fans of Doctor Who, and though I can't exactly claim a long memory of the time before the series returned, I remember just enough to be eternally thankful that the show is simply back at all.

Meanwhile, Futurama is finally completing its long road back. It's survived one cancellation, come back for four direct-to-DVD movies, at least two of which were pretty good, gotten picked up by Comedy Central, and muddled through one hell of a tense negotiation with the voice actors. A decade after it began, this show has even less business than Dollhouse still being on the air. Yet...here it is. With lots more crazy stories coming! And the original cast back! And maybe a decent budget to work with! Honestly, at this point, it's all gravy anyway.

4. That this happened.

Nothing like a little Nathan Fillion fan service to put a smile on my face. And hey, Castle isn't exactly bad! (It's not exactly good either, but that's besides the point.) I'd still gladly trade every show I've loved for the past seven years just for another season of Firefly, though. Yes, that includes you, Battlestar Galactica!

5. Starcraft II is coming.

So what if it's "just" a computer game? I'd happily argue Starcraft is at least one of the five best works of science fiction in the last twenty years. At least. And now it's got a sequel coming? I can barely contain my excitement, and it's still months away. I mean, just look at this:

You know, I'm going to really miss my productivity. But I'm thankful it'll be put to such an important use - helping the Terrans defeat the Zerg! (And then, once that is completed, helping the Zerg defeat the Terrans!)

6. That, no matter what Roland Emmerich does to them, I'll still have all my Foundation books.

You know, in a world of seemingly endless unnecessary adaptation and pointless remakes, this is probably a very useful thing to keep in mind.

Showing in a few select theaters in the US, House of the Devil has been a word-of-mouth hit since it became available as a view-on-demand download on Amazon last month. It's the simple story of Samantha, a college girl who needs some extra money and answers an ad for a babysitting job. When her friend drops her off at the remote house where she'll be babysitting, a neurotic older man tells her that actually he needs her to take care of his "anti-social" mother-in-law, and offers her $400 to do it. The whole scenario is creepy, and also, did I mention there's an eclipse going on? Yeah.

Directed by Ti West, a veteran of indie productions, the movie is both a sly takeoff on the classic late 70s/early 80s babysitter-in-peril flick (complete with feathered hair, lurid yellow credits and Walkmens), and a stellar entry in the genre. It's also packed with brilliant cult actors Tom Noonan (Synecdoche, New York), Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul, Devil's Rejects) and AJ Bowen (The Signal). Noonan is pitch-perfect as the man who hires Samantha, and Woronov is simply delicious as his regal, fur-clad wife, who makes every sentence she utters seem replete with ironic double-meaning.

What's so wonderful about House of the Devil is the way director West sets the stage for what we know will eventually become a devil-worshiping bloodbath. Everywhere Samantha goes - school, town, a restaurant - seems strangely empty. Filling this absence of people is the music from her Walkman, TV broadcasts about the impending eclipse, and the realistic chatter she shares with her pizza-guzzling friend Megan. West transforms the necessities of low-budget filmmaking into a moody emptiness that sets the perfect surreal tone.

Adding to the surrealism is the fact that none of our characters behave according to the generic scripts handed down to them by decades of trashy Satan movies. Instead of being menacing, Noonan's devil-worshiper is apologetic and uncomfortable. When Samantha is left alone in the house, she accidentally opens the door to the basement, peers inside, and then withdraws immediately. Same goes for the moment when she almost opens the attic room which we already know contains the remains of a family slaughtered in a previous Satanic rite. Instead of doing the expected "going into the dark, scary place" thing, Samantha orders pizza, does her homework, and dances with her Walkman.

Though this movie is scary, I think its main charm isn't an ability to deliver shocks or suspense. Instead, House of the Devil is thrilling because it's such a thoughtful re-imagining of a genre not exactly known for thoughtfulness. West has taken a cheesy story and made it a prickly, intriguing tale of youthful loneliness and paranoia. Even his Satanists are interesting and unexpected.

If there's any flaw in this fantastic film, it's in the final act when the horror we've been waiting for is at last revealed. All the dark, quirky satire is ripped away and we're confronted with something that looks deflatingly like what we expected. But of course this is only disappointing in context, because the rest of the movie surprises us at every turn. And ultimately you can't ask for more than that in a horror movie - cudos to West for doing something genuinely original with a subgenre so cliched it's become a parody of itself.

Whether you love 80s retro or simply crave a cool new cult movie, I can't recommend House of the Devil enough. It just goes to show that in the hands of the right creative team, Satanism never gets old.

via House of the Devil - official site
watch House of the Devil via Amazon

Learn To Make Fire.

In a post-apocalyptic scenario, you have to account for both short and long-term survival. Fire will be absolutely necessary in the short term. Have you ever watched one of those seasons of Survivor where one of the tribes can't figure out how to build a fire, and they don't win the flint for days and days? They can't cook their food or boil their water, and they fade fast, growing weak and ineffective until the producers take pity and slip them a Zippo when no one's looking. If you can't build a fire, you'll die. Learn to build fires in a variety of conditions, with a wide range of materials. Can you build one without dried grass? Can you build one when you're freezing cold and your hands won't stop shaking? Learn how, and practice it regularly. Of course, it never hurts to hedge your bets, and keep a supply of waterproof matches handy.

Build a Team.

I know you like to envision yourself as this awesome lone wolf bad-ass making your way through the wastelands with no one to depend on but your trusty shotgun, but the fact is you'll need friends after the apocalypse. It could be as simple as someone to stand guard so you aren't mugged or eaten by starving feral dogs while you sleep. You're going to need help, and you're going to want people you trust. You need to assemble your team long before the apocalypse happens. Make a list of friends and family who live nearby, then decide who you want with you. People with useful skills go to the top of the list (nunchuk skills don't count, but bow-hunting does). People with lots of children go to the bottom. Then make a plan and get your team in on it – if things go down suddenly, you won't all be in the same place, and there will likely be no way to communicate. Your plan should be simple, like: Step 1, get somewhere safe and wait out the worst of it; Step 2. Meet at the statue of Thomas Jefferson in Jefferson Square downtown, or better yet, your Uncle Jim's ranch 40 miles outside of town. Don't underestimate the benefits of having a plan – aside from its actual effectiveness, it gives you a goal to focus on, and that's been shown to be a factor is disaster survival.

Get a Gun. Learn to Use It.

I'm not a big fan of guns myself, but the reality is, any apocalypse is either going to caused by, or inevitably lead to resource shortages. Whether it's water, gasoline, food, or plague vaccines, there will be haves and have-nots. Some percentage of the have-nots are going to try to get what they need by force, and if you can't defend yourself, you're going to lose what you have (you're doing all this planning so you'll be a have, remember). There's another vital use for guns in a post-apocalyptic world, of course – hunting. We're all going to revert to hunter/gatherers for a little while at least. For this reason, a hunting rifle is a good idea. That's not a good weapon for close-quarters urban protection, however. For that, a shotgun is often the weapon of choice. Good thing you have a team.

Stockpile.

FEMA recommends one gallon of water per person per day, plus food. How many days can you possibly plan for? It really depends on your space and your plans. Do you have a shelter at your team's meeting place with a larger stockpile? Then a few weeks of water should be enough to get you through. You can never store enough drinking water, but obviously if you live in a 12th floor apartment, there's a limit. Don't forget a set of sturdy clothes and boots, a can opener, hand crank radios and flashlights, batteries, gasoline, and a fire extinguisher. Disaster survival experts offer a few other suggestions you might not expect: beer and cigarettes (they'll be the primary currency post-apocalypse), 3 mil. plastic bags (also known as contractor bags), duct tape (combine with contractor bags for water-resistant shelter or rain-water conduits), plus a few books and card games (you and your fellow survivors will eventually drive each other crazy without distractions).

Learn a Marketable Skill.

Once you've made it through the first few weeks, you'll eventually want to connect with other survivors, whether you're with your team or not. Any group trying to survive with limited resources is not going to accept new members unless they offer a net gain of some kind. No one's going to be impressed by your level 70 character in World of Warcraft, your discerning taste in wine or your extensive knowledge of 60s British Invasion bands (or your magnificent blogging skills, for that matter). Here are some suggested avocations to learn so you have something to offer the nascent post-apocalyptic society: small engine repair; emergency medical training; agriculture (emphasis on durable, high-yield crops); hunting/fishing; construction/carpentry; rigging/sailing (not so good in Kansas, but could be clutch in San Diego or Chicago). If all else fails, work out – no one's likely to turn down a strong back or a durable pair of legs.

Are You Ready? An In-Depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness. [FEMA]

"Not Your Ordinary Survival Checklist." Popular Mechanics, Oct. 2009.

Sometimes, you just need an escape from the relentlessness of the Thanksgiving celebrations, and Hollywood has been there for you — at least, some years. Certainly, in recent years, there have always been a couple of oddball films coming out for T-Day — but in previous years, it was hit and miss. Here's the complete list of Thanksgiving counterprogramming of the past 25 years, including some stuff that's not science fiction but is in some sense genre film.

All movie titles link to IMDB or Box Office Mojo pages containing release dates:

1984

Supergirl A movie guaranteed to make you give thanks that you're never going to see it again — and a strong contender for the worst superhero film of all time. What I want to know is, what sort of guy sees his buddy blown thirty feet across the parking lot, and then decides to try and attack Supergirl using a switchblade?

1985

Rocky IV The good news is, it would inspire you to go get in shape after eating all that turkey and stuffing, thanks to one of the most classic training montages ever:

1986

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home The most fun of the original cast movies, this probably would have been a good one to escape to with your family. Although the famous "Shatner underwater" scene might have proved distressing.

Solarbabies I'm convinced there's something very broken about this post-apocalyptic rollerblading film, but at least on the surface it looks very wholesome. Except for the part where the woman with the huge shoulderpads says, "Lock it down and disembowel it."

1988

Cocoon: The Return I'm not sure anybody should have to deal with Steve Gutenberg on a full stomach.

1989

Back to the Future 2 Given that Marty McFly's mom gets bizarre breast implants and becomes Biff Tannen's bitch, this is definitely a good film for a family outing.

1990

Predator 2 The underrated cop drama/Predator attack movie starring Danny Glover... it's really not as bad as you remember.

Robot Jox This, on the other hand... giant mecha gladiators, fighting it out with chainsaw crotches and other armaments... this is what family is all about.

1992

The Crying Game Terrorists, thugs, and the great transgender panic of 1992. I bet you took your mom to see this one.

1994

Junior Pregnant Arnold Schwarzenegger, watching sentimental movies and crying a lot, will help you understand your own family. Really.

1995

Casino It's an underrated Scorsese classic, full of brutality and weirdness. Perfect Thanksgiving fare.

Nick of Time I may be the only person who saw this movie in the theater. Johnny Depp has 90 minutes to kill someone or other, or else Christopher Walken will kill someone or other. Mostly worth it to watch Depp and Walken overacting in a shopping mall. And for Walken saying, "I'll make you a sauce for that black Irish cocksucker's meat." I'm happy this and the Scorsese film were the main choices for Thanksgiving 1995.

1997

Alien Resurrection The whole time you're with your family, you can imagine you're actually hanging out with lesbian android Winona. Or you can just daydream about what this movie could have been if they'd filmed Joss Whedon's screenplay.

1998

Very Bad Things A sex worker gets killed at a bachelor party — and then things turn ugly. Probably just like your family gatherings. It does star Jon "Iron Man" Favreau, and it's directed by Peter "Hancock" Berg.

1999

End of Days Satan and Thanksgiving — and Arnie! They fit together perfectly! Satan is looking for his Bride... so it's about family and relationships and stuff.

2000

Unbreakable A horrific act of mass murder brings to light a guy who can find the rapists and creeps in our midst. It's light family entertainment — but it does deal with some real questions about the power of story. So yeah, probably a good one to get out of the house for.

Quills This, on the other hand — the Marquis De Sade! In full effect! I'm betting many of you dragged your entire family to see this.

2001

Black Knight Martin Lawrence gets zapped back to the Middle Ages, and presumably, goes medieval on their asses. Enough to make your entire family commit mass suicide, Heavens Gate-style.

The Devil's Backbone An early Guillermo Del Toro classic, and more proof that horror owns Thanksgiving. Your family doesn't deserve this movie.

2002

Solaris You could watch Steven Soderbergh's trippy-ass remake of Tarkovsky's classic while you're already wigged out on tryptophan. Why not?

Wes Craven Presents: They Or you could have seen this gem — they're coming for you!

2003

Timeline "Your father is in the 14th. century." Hey, maybe he can hang out with Martin Lawrence there!

2006

The Fountain And speaking of trippy movies when you're already stoned on tryptophan... at least your entire family will each have different opinions about what happened in this film.

Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny Jack Black! Rocking out! It's bound to make more sense than The Fountain.

2007

Hitman A video game adaptation about a guy who kills people and thwarts some vague conspiracy thing. Probably the purest example of counterprogramming ever.

The Mist Given the shocking, ultra-secret ending, this is an... interesting choice for a family occasion. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't watch this clip:

2008

Transporter 3 It's a threequel starring Jason Statham. How can it be bad?

Twilight You probably have at least one family member who's as creepy as Edward. So it's good to get some perspective.

2009

The Road And then we're up to this year's crop... this whole movie is as depressing as The Mist's ending. But at least it does have a genuinely pro-family message.

Ninja Assassin This is the film we'll probably actually be watching on T-day. Ninjas! Wachowskis! James McTeigue! Out-and-out mayhem!

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Please add your favorite food-related gross-out in the comments too!

The photic zone is an area of the ocean that extends beyond the reach of sunlight, as deep as 5,000 meters. For the first time, a serious effort has begun to try and catalogue the vast array of deep sea life, under the auspices of the Census Of Marine Life (COML). Currently, they've identified more than 17,000 species inhabiting the dark depths, which will join with information from hundreds of other projects next October to reveal the complete results of the census.

Most of these creatures survive on marine snow—particles of decaying plants and animals that descend to the ocean floor. This transparent sea cucumber was found at 2,750m, creeping forward at a rate of 2 cm per minute, sweeping detritus into its mouth.

[via COML]

Photos courtesy of Larry Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The tiny copepod, from the Atlantic.
Image © Büntzow/Corgosinho

One of the dumbo octopods, which can grow up to five feet in length.
Photo by David Shale



The jewel squid has tiny light organs all along its body, which emit and perceive light.

This is only the fifth ever found Neocyma, discovered between 2,000 and 2,500m. Image from David Shale.

The northern comb jelly has oscillating lights up and down its length.



The snake pipefish

The "wildcat" tubeworm, which drills for oil, then dines on the chemicals inside when it hits a small well.

It wouldn't be the deep sea without nightmare fuel. Like the loosejaw, with its extendible lower jaw and red-light sensitive eyes.

Or the swallower.

For some reason, everything related to Claire is great this season. Her lesbotic leanings brought in a cool new character, Gretchen, along with the chance that we might actually see some homo action on this rather straightlaced series. Her father, HRG, has left the mutant oppression business and is trying to find himself, along with his long-lost special agent partner/proto-lover Lauren (another great character). Meanwhile, Claire's mom has found a boyfriend who loves dogs as much as she does. And lucky for us, all these plot developments make for a beautifully awkward Thanksgiving dinner at HRG's apartment.

What I thought was genuinely fun about this scene, excerpted for you above, is the way it seamlessly combined an ordinary moment of family meltdown with HRG's evil agent past and Claire's mutant powers. This is Heroes at its best, speculating about how extraordinary people continue to lead rather ordinary lives. Even better is when Gretchen finally shows up, flirting ensues, and the two girls secretly decide to roadtrip out to Samuel's carnival with a compass that Claire stole from HRG. Lesbotic road trip with carnie action, here we come!

And then there was the Petrelli family dinner, which began with scary Mama P having her servants bring a bunch of prepared food to Peter's apartment where Nylar (AKA Body Sylar, Head Sylar, and Head Nathan) are brooding broodingly about being all screwed up by Mama. All the emo ends quickly when Sylar returns in an insanely cheesy burst of lightning and eats an entire pumpkin pie (but leaves the crust! WTF?). So now Sylar is back, but Nathan is still somehow able to fight him. In fact, by the end of the episode Nathan has emerged again to take over Body Sylar. The whole thing was a perfect scenario for a family controlled by scary Mama, whose sons are just pawns in a game so complicated we've completely lost track of it.

The episode was capped off by a lovely moment with the carnie family, where scary Samuel toasts everybody menacingly and Sprint sponsored a subplot where Hot Tattoo's hot daughter is in danger of becoming Samuel's little plaything. While everybody prepares turkey with their mutant stove powers, Hiro and Hot Tattoo sneak off into the past and witness (bum bum bum!) Samuel murdering his brother! It turns out his brother had given HRG that compass so he could find Samuel and reel him in.

Before Samuel shoots a rock into his brother's neck, he also reveals that Samuel's power could move mountains and cities and "kill millions," which gets our boy pretty excited. "I knew I was missing out on something!" he cries. Yeah, putting on eyeliner and black nailpolish all day is nothing compared to making whole cities do the pogo. So now Hot Tattoo and Hiro know the truth about Samuel's brother, and Hot Tattoo told Edgar too. But Edgar isn't really that smart, especially when he's not wearing his Sith gear. So he jumps up at the T-day table and accuses Samuel of doing the dirty deed, and then Samuel counter-accuses him of doing it.

You've gotta love a carnie Thanksgiving where the guys argue over who killed their brother. Meanwhile everybody else is all "this is aaaaawkward" and tries to pretend the mutant stuffing is super tasty. When Samuel tries to hurl rocks into Edgar, Hiro stops time and rescues the speedy knife-thrower. Then he puts the smackdown on Samuel and is like, "You need me. I'm not going to do anything for you until you tell me where Charlie is." I like Hiro with a backbone. But then one of the carnies does a brain-mangle on Hiro that is supposed to make him easier to control but instead causes him to disappear. Samuel's plans are just not going well! That's just what happens when you get the carnies together for family dinner - fratricide, time-hopping, dirt-hurling, and mind-scrambling. It's a fine American tradition.

The Road, which opens today, is based on a bleak novel by Cormac McCarthy where a man and his son travel through a world destroyed by a vaguely-explained apocalypse that has covered the planet in a cloud that blocks the sunlight and kills all plant life. Brutal and horrific, it is a story difficult to adapt to film - especially a holiday film. And indeed, the movie has a troubled history for this very reason. Plagued by endless edits, its release was delayed an entire year: Rumor had it that nobody could figure out how to market the damned thing because it was just too grim.

Whatever that editorial tinkering did, it didn't tone down the grimness. The man known only as Papa, played with ragged intensity by Viggo Mortenson, has lost everything - his beautiful country home, his wife (Charlize Theron), and civilization itself. All he has left is his young son. Most of the movie is preoccupied with the awful, starvation-laced journey the two of them take, through dying forests and cannibal ranches, to the southern coast. They're looking for something better than certain death, trying to keep hope alive.

At the heart of every brilliant road movie are finely-drawn characters. The plot arc may be harnessed to their journey, but only as a way to express how the characters' relationships with the world change as they travel. Great road movies like Thelma and Louise or even Wizard of Oz use landscapes and pitstops to foreground human relationships. And that's where The Road falls flat.

Part of the problem with the father/son relationship in this movie is, to be fair, the actor who plays the boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Whiny and cutsey by turns, he looks like he belongs in a remake of Home Alone - not in a barren post-apocalypse eating bugs. More than that, though, the father's love for his boy is simply too exalted, too idealized, to be realistic or even interesting. At one point Papa and the boy share dinner with an old man by the side of the road, and Papa confesses to the man that the boy "is God" to him. The bloated symbolism in this comment masks a basic meaninglessness - the boy is holy, their family relationship is holy, and that drains all the essential human complexity from both of them.

It's fascinating to see the world become an empty vessel, but all The Road pours back into it are hollow truisms. Family is good. Sons are good. Fathers are protectors. There is even a dreadful product-placement scene where man and boy, on the verge of total starvation, find a giant cache of flagrantly branded food items in a bomb shelter. Here we learn that Vitamin Water is good. Cheetos are good. Jack Daniels is good. What's truly grim about this movie isn't imagining the fall of civilization, but instead imagining what would happen if everything in our society evaporated except for families and advertising.

We need desperately to have characters we can relate to in this world where most people have degenerated into cannibalism or worse. And yet there are very few moments in the film where we actually see any kind of realistic ambiguity or subtle characterization. There is one intriguing moment when Papa and boy are robbed while Papa is hunting for food and the boy is sleeping. When they find the robber, Papa forces him to strip and steals all his possessions - just as he did to them. Though Papa wants to teach his boy to be a "good person," we see that circumstances are forcing him to slide into desperate, unforgivable evil. This is also the only time when the boy acts like the preteen he is, violently disagreeing with what his father has done.

To succeed, The Road needed more scenes like this, where its characters break out of the dull molds of Papa Saint and Boy Angel. We needed to know more about why the man knows so much about anatomy and medicine (was he a doctor?), and what motivates him and his son beyond a nearly religious fervor to survive. And why, if they are journeying to the coast to find a better place to live, does the man never attempt to connect with non-dangerous people? The movie gives us a few possible answers to these questions (maybe Papa has gone crazy over the loss of his wife; maybe there are no non-dangerous people) but they are sloppily vague and leave our characters ill-defined throughout the film.

I don't want to make it seem like the problem with the movie is that the characters are minimalistic. There is an elegance to the idea that the need to survive pares everyone down to their most basic selves. But that's not what's going on in The Road. We're not getting minimalism so much as simplistic sentimentality. We learn that children are beautiful, perfect creatures; families are good; and evil is as easily-recognized as cannibalism. Papa and his son remain one-note throughout The Road; instead of developing, they wander from a blandly dismal scenario into a blandly mawkish one.

As I said earlier, the one consistently breathtaking aspect of this film is the landscape where it is set. Father and son walk through grey, empty spaces full of ashy buildings, abandoned trucks, and greenery reduced to sticks. We've seen post-apocalyptic cities done well before, but The Road's true visual genius lies in its majestic substantiation of total environmental collapse. One way the movie is different from the book is that we're fairly sure that the apocalypse was caused by a meteor crashing to Earth (Papa says there was a rumble) - and it's tossed up enough dust to shut out the sunlight. We witness what would happen to Earth's ecosystem without sunlight. Vegetation has become tinder, animals have wasted away, and the only food left is in cans or on the bodies of surviving humans.

What this also means (weirdly) is this stately art movie is echoing the disaster scenario from blow-em-up apocalypse flick 2012. Given the cliched smarminess at the heart of The Road, however, the comparison is all too apt.

Heroin For Teens!

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

Random Bitings

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

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

Ugh.

Vibrating Edward

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

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

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

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

Heroes

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

Alias

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

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

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

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

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

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

Venture Bros.:

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

Battlestar Galactica:

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

Sonic The Hedgehog (comics):

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

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

Got it? Great.

Gundam Wing:

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

Angel:

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

Robotech:

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

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

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

X-Men (comics):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TMNT - Case of the killer pizzas

Wolfbullet | MySpace Video

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The early years:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The rise of Star Trek novels:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Early 1990s: Star Wars and Doctor Who

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any casting ideas?

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

Are you casting right now and looking?

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

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

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

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

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

But will he have the same makeup?

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

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

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

And the script is totally finished?

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

Monday

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

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

Tuesday

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

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

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

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

Wednesday

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

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

Thursday

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

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

Friday

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

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

Saturday

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

Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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