io9Books & Comics

Is Bill and Ted the most realistic time travel movie of all time?

What are the dumbest tropes in time travel fiction? This week on the io9 show, we recount the temporal storylines that drive us nuts. And then we catch up with Caltech physicist Sean Carroll, who explains how time travel could happen in real life — and why Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure might be the … Continued

io9Movies

Full frontal shot of The Hobbit’s Goblin King shows off the giant jowls of a monster!

A few weeks ago we thought THIS was the face of the Goblin King. We were half right — an official Goblin King toy has been released from Peter Jackson’s Hobbit movie, and all we can see is a glorious pair of Goblin moobs. What a delightful turkey necked monster. Looks like they kept the … Continued

io9Books & Comics

The Black Fantastic: Highlights of Pre-World War II African and African-American Speculative Fiction

Africans, and those of African descent, have not been treated well by speculative fiction, both inside its texts and in real life. Anti-African racism is a fact of life in Western culture, and was even more pronounced before 1945. Not surprisingly, the number of works of speculative fiction written by black writers is low. But … Continued

io9Television

Listen to an action-packed scene from the new Walking Dead audiobook

On October 16, you’ll be able to delve into one of the more interesting subplots from The Walking Dead in a new novel, The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury, written by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga. To whet your appetite, we’ve got a seriously intense clip from the audiobook, narrated by Fred Berman. You … Continued

io9Books & Comics

William Gibson: the Complete io9 Interview

What is the novel for? How do we deal with living in such a futuristic time, without getting future shock? Do novelists have a duty to provide optimism about science and the future? We sat down with William Gibson, for a half-hour discussion about writing and the role of science fiction in society. And here’s … Continued

io9Books & Comics

In Dean Koontz’s latest Odd Thomas book, the apocalypse is all our fault

In the fifth book of Dean Koontz’s bestselling Odd Thomas series, Odd Apocalypse, the end of the world is coming — and it’s overtly political. The novel’s hero, 21 year old fry cook Odd Thomas, mourns the state of society. And the signs of an impending punishment on mankind don’t take him by surprise. “An … Continued

Tech NewsGoogle

Cheap Goodies on Google Play for the Next Five Days

Google just crossed the rather staggering 25 billion apps downloaded mark, and to celebrate it’s offering some heavy discounts. For the next five days you can download apps from top developers (Game Loft, EA, Rovio, and others) for just 25 cents a pop. And that’s just the app side. There’s also going to be steep … Continued

Tech NewsDesign

Book-Shelf or Reading Chair? The Choice Is Yours.

Everyone loves the aesthetic of an unorganized pile of books. The Once Upon a Time bookshelf, by Fabio Vinella, is just that, but certainly much better looking. Once Upon a Time, a beautifully built walnut bookshelf, features a useful platform that can be home to a reading lamp, or made into a seat if you … Continued

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Andy Serkis goes full-on Gollum while reading The Hobbit out loud

In celebration The Hobbit’s75 anniversary, Peter Jackson’s Gollum (and The Hobbit’s Second Unit Director) Andy Serkis popped by to terrify a bunch of children while reading from J.R.R.Tolkien’s works. It’s adorable and horrifying — but mostly super sweet to see such a massive actor commit 100% to such a crazy character for a bunch of … Continued

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io9 Book Club Reminder: Meeting 10/2 to discuss John Scalzi’s Redshirts

The io9 Book Club meets every month to discuss a book, and then the author usually joins us for a chat. This month, we’re reading John Scalzi’s bestselling new novel Redshirts (we reviewed the book here). We’ll meet October 2nd to discuss the book. Watch for a post that day announcing the book club, and … Continued

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Could science fiction bring back the epistolary novel?

The epistolary novel was one of the greatest forms in literature. Popular during the 18th century, this form basically consisted of people writing long, long letters to each other, narrating their lives. One of the most famous epistolary novels of all time is Clarissa by Samuel Richardson — which many people consider one of the … Continued

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New Life of Pi trailer shows the fantastic floating islands of madness

Finally! A trailer for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi that takes us outside of the relationship between the boy and his tiger. The latest look at this creative film shows how a the main character ends up stranded on a wild island a host of wild fantasy creatures (and meerkats)! Bringing Yann Martel‘s novel to … Continued

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Read the lost adventures of Six-Gun Gorilla, the greatest cowboy gorilla in fiction

Who’s that hairy, firearm-wielding figure above? Why, that’s none other than Six-Gun Gorilla, a now-public domain hero who was almost (and cruelly) lost to the vicissitudes of time and taste. Six-Gun Gorilla first appeared in late 1930s adventure magazines that are nowadays extremely rare finds. But thanks to author, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotator, and … Continued

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How insane does the sequel to John Dies at the End get? See for yourself!

The gonzo horror novel John Dies at the End, by Cracked.com’s David Wong, was a huge internet sensation a few years ago, and has spawned a feature film starring Paul Giamatti. Now at last, the sequel is coming out early next month — and we’ve got an exclusive excerpt from This Book Is Full of … Continued

io9

When did you notice a sexy change in genre books?

This is where I admit some delinquency in my reading list. Although I work for a science fiction and fantasy site, I don’t do too much fantasy reading. So it was only recently when I looked up from my Lord of the Rings copies and noticed that things had gotten hotter. Today we have sexy … Continued

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Design Lessons from Star Trek to Consider Before Creating Your Next User Interface

We all know that Star Trek gave us the iPad and countless other amazing devices — but the classic space adventure show also gave us some amazing breakthroughs in user interface design. Here’s a rundown of the lessons that Star Trek teaches about interaction design, from the new book Make it So: Interaction Design Lessons … Continued

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The Science Fiction Romances that Make Felicia Day Go Ewww.

Love: the final frontier. Science fiction is full of great love stories… but it’s also full of terrible love and sex disasters that gross us out and just annoy us. This week on the io9 show, we talk about our least favorite science fiction romances — plus all the weirdest and most inappropriate romantic tropes. … Continued

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A young adult novel’s hero is allowed to remain gay, after all

Almost exactly a year ago, all right-thinking people were upset by the fact that a prominent literary agent told two beloved authors that they needed to remove a gay character from their young-adult novel — or just turn him straight. The good news? Now Stranger by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith has gotten picked … Continued

io9Television

Are the best TV shows made from books these days? And what’s next?

Almost every day, it seems like we hear about another new TV show based on a book or graphic novel series. Just today, it was announced that NBC is moving forward with a show based on the fantastic Vertigo comic Midnight, Mass. (This is the third attempt at a Midnight, Mass show — read our … Continued

io9Movies

Top 7 Most Metal Science Fiction Premises

Science fiction and heavy metal rub up against each other in many ways. They’re both implicitly concerned with technology — metal has machine rhythms and electric instruments. They both grapple with difficult questions about human nature. And both canons include huge swathes of art that focuses on the grossest, saddest, most desolate subjects available. This … Continued