Photographer Kyle Cassidy has been taking photographs of where Science Fiction and Fantasy authors write for Where I Write. The project started in 1988, when he saw where author Michael Swanwick wrote, and immediately wanted to photograph the "nest, made out of books" where multiple Hugo award winning author Swanwick wrote. According to Kyle Cassidy, Swanwick's response was positive:

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The SyFy [sic] television network is demoing a new toaster at this years San Diego Comic-Con. You want be able to purchase it there, but you can purchase them at their online store—at $90.00 apiece, which, unless you're keeping in box as a collectors' item, strikes me as rather expensive. The Battlestar toaster is limited to 2,000 units. The toaster lights up while toasting, and produces toast with a Cylon on one side, and "Frak Off" on the other. The front of the toaster has a Cylon helmet-mask screen printed design, and the red LED "eye" lights up on the front of the toaster and moves across the helmet while engaged in, err, toasting.

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BrightonomiconIf you like funny science fiction stories or stories with fantastical elements generously mixed in with comedic moments, characters and wordplay, then I suggest settling in to read this review. It is The Brightonomicon by Robert Rankin.

The Brightonomicon traces the footsteps of a mystery-solver and his assistant whilst sort out puzzling cases and save the world (and their neighboring suburbs in England) from various evils. All these cases are connected and are meant to help the main protagonists rid the world of the greatest villain it has ever seen.


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Locus Magazine is the Publisher's Weekly of Science Fiction and Fantasy. For years, since 1971, Locus Magazine has awarded "Locus Awards" based on votes from their subscribers. This year's awards were presented on June 27th, at an awards banquet held in Seattle. The Locus Awards Finalists are listed here.

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Do you believe in UFOs? Though I’ve never seen one myself, I’ve always thought it to be a rather arrogant view to think that we’re the only beings in an entire universe that we have barely even begun to explore. My father and sister swear they’ve seen one, and given the hundreds of thousands of other people who have said the same, I think it’s a highly plausible claim.

A UFO about a mile wide was recently spotted by two separate aircrafts flying over the Channel Islands. Both crews and passengers report seeing the object. It’s one of the largest UFOs ever seen.

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Most parents tell their children that they’re one in a million—and they are, at least, to their parents. But 14-year-old Gerrit Blank of Essen, Germany is the real deal. Gerrit was hit by a falling meteorite and did not die—a chance of one in a million.

The pea-sized rock was burning hot and hurdled straight from space right onto Gerrit’s hand, where it proceeded to bounce off onto the ground—creating a foot-wide crater. Luckily, Gerrit did not suffer the same fate as the ground, but was left with a scar three inches long.

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Gizmodo has a funny article discussing Asimov's three laws of robotics, which is partly tongue-in-cheek, but raises some interesting questions.

We can tell that Asimov's laws were silly and ineffective, because his books hinged on one or more of the Three Laws being misused or loopholed into uselessness.   In a way, his robot novels relied on playing a trick upon the reader: the reader has to believe that the Three Laws are correct and complete, otherwise there is no "Aha!" when the plot unfolds as it must.  He did this so successfully that even now many people believe the Three Laws are right.  Even though the entire point of the Three Laws was that they never worked! 

Golf clap to Asimov.

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I'm so deeply ashamed. OK; not really, but as excited as I am about the new Star Spock Burger King GlassTrek movie—which my friends who have seen it are saying is definitely worth the wait—my Trek geek soul is absolutely determined to get all four of Burger King's tie-in glasses. In case you haven't seen them, they are genuine glasses, a set of four, for $1.99 each. They're beer-sized, which of course, makes them even better. The four glasses have etched color art all around, and feature Kirk/Enterprise, Uhura/Enterprise, Nero/Narada, and Spock/Original Spock with Jellfish Ship. They're sold in decorative card board boxes, which means, yes, buying at least one set to store. You don't want to know what I made last year by selling my set of Star Wars Burger King glasses from 1977. And, by the way, if you look around you can probably find left over Romulan Ale from the Las Vegas Star Trek Experience for sale.

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From Judge a Book by its Cover:

Neal Barrett cover

And yes, the book is every bit as awful as the cover.

IO9 is reporting that plans for a sequel to Constantine are still in the works. I have mixed feelings about this: I felt that they did well enough with the first movie that going for a sequel is just going to ruin it.

I've always felt that Constantine is an underappreciated movie. I was a big fan of the original comic Hellblazer for many years (I still have the first 125-ish issues, which is as many as I was able to buy before the cover prices forced me to scale back my comics budget). To say I was leery of Constantine is to understate the matter greatly.

Is Keanu Reeves an accurate representation of John Constantine? Well… not entirely. Alan Moore famously had Quadrophenia-era Sting in mind when he first sketched Constantine, and Keanu Reeves is no Quadrophenia-era Sting. But honestly, I thought he did pretty well. Given that the location was moved from England to Los Angeles, I felt that Keanu was probably one of the better casting choices they could have made.

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