Fans of Frank Herbert’s Dune series are in for a long, lost treat. A fully illustrated and searchable online version of the long out of print Dune Encyclopedia has surfaced.
The book itself has a controversial history. Published in 1984, the Encyclopedia consists of 200 essays regarding the Dune universe, from Al-Harba to Jehanne Butler to the evolution of Arrakis and much, much more. The book was considered authorized at first, but was quietly given non-canon status as Herbert’s son continued to expand the Dune mythos through his own books. With the Dune universe continuing onwards, the Encyclopedia is now considered completely apocryphal.
You can find a magnificent breakdown of the book, its history, and its contents here. Or you can plunge right in to the book itself.
Each week, Frequency Rotation probes a different song with a science fiction or fantasy theme. Genre, musical quality, and overall seriousness may vary.
Earlier this year I wrote a feature for Clarkesworld called “Moonage Daydream: The Rock Album as Science Fiction.” In it, I point out that rock ’n’ roll’s love affair with science fiction began when rock ’n’ roll as a mass movement did, in the early ’50s. Back then, of course, space travel fell strictly within the realm of science fiction. But in January of 1957—and with Moscow’s sudden, unexpected launch of Sputnik still nine months away—a gaggle of hillbillies assembled in Memphis to record a song that gleefully anticipated the coming Space Age. (Or at the very least, it gleefully anticipated that weekend’s trip to see a science-fiction double-bill down at the local drive-in.)
That two-minute blast of hootin’, hollerin’, hillbilly racket was titled, bluntly enough, “Flyin’ Saucers Rock ’n’ Roll.” The band was Billy Lee Riley and His Little Green Men. And among those Little Green Men was a young, maniacal, hotheaded piano player, a freckle-faced kid who was mere months away from being launched into an orbit of his own: Jerry Lee Lewis.
In episode 2.06, “The Blind Bandit,” Aang and the gang continue their search to find the Avatar an Earthbending master, discovering an unlikely tutor in an Earthbending tournament.
[Click the link to meet the most badass Earthbender of all time]
The Heat Vision column over at The Hollywood Reporter reported late yesterday that Warner Bros. is in discussions with its subsidiary company, DC Entertainment to obtain television rights to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic series.
Over at Whitechapel, comic creator Warren Ellis has thrown down the gauntlet to his community: Design the 13th (and final) incarnation of The Doctor. No Photoshop hacks, no pen-portraits, but actual drawings.
The challenge was issued on August 29th but the results are starting to trickle in now, including efforts from Pia Guerra (Y: The Last Man, Doctor Who: The Forgotten), Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night, Fell), Annie Wu, and more. Check out Guerra’s rendition of the 13th Doctor with Sally Sparrow.
Exciting, no? Any Whitechapel forum member is free to post their own illustration. I salivate (in private, of course) to think what some of Tor.com’s featured artists could do in this challenge...
Chris Greenland always seems to get stuck writing the posts where The Doctor is someone else.
Sapolsky’s A Primate’s Memoir is non-fiction, but it’s one of the most engaging things ever written. It’s another one of those books like Backroom Boys that you have no idea you want to read, but that you will love to pieces. Robert Sapolsky is a neuroscientist and primate researcher. In this book, he writes about his life and the lives of a tribe of baboons in Africa. He doesn’t lose the distinction between people and animals at all, but he writes about them in the same way, and not at all in the way people usually write about animals, or about people for that matter.
Either it is so boring at the Large Hadron Collider that its employees and related workers spend their time forming choirs, or it is so exciting that everyone just has to sing about it. (Probably both.)
The CERN Choir has just released “The Particle Physics Song.” A revue number by Flanders and Swann lyrically reworked by Danuta Orlowska to describe the Large Hadron Collider.
That’s not the only time this country-spanning particle collider has inspired people to song, though.
Welcome to Wednesday Comics Pull-List, here on Tor.com! Every week we post reviews of a select handful of this week’s comic releases. This was a really good week for comics and there were too many we wanted to review. Ultimately we decided to focus on titles featuring the supernatural. (Well, and Deadpool.)
This week’s batch includes:
Reason #42,017 for why I love the Internet: A few days ago I was swooning over amazing alternate reality movie posters, so yesterday someone sent me a link to designer Fernando Reza’s equally brilliant business cards for fictional companies. “Day Jobs,” a limited edition poster “full of bits of pop culture and nerdy easter eggs” contains clever nods to everything from Batman comics to Watchmen to Office Space. It's basically a beautifully designed treasure trove of inside jokes that you can hang on your wall (or fill a Rolodex with, as Reza points out)—check out the mega-sized version for all the entertaining details.
Of course, once you’re through figuring out all the geeky references, you can immediately start playing the “What’s Missing?” game... how about Blue Sun, Firefly fans? Whither the Tyrell Corporation? What about some Yoyodyne for the Thomas Pynchon/Buckaroo Bonzai fans in the house? The concept is so much fun that I can’t help but hope for a Part II...
Bridget McGovern is happy to report that she has a pretty excellent business card of her own, even though she’s only semi-fictional.
Welcome to the Malazan Re-read of the Fallen! Every post will start off with a summary of events, followed by reaction and commentary by your hosts Bill and Amanda (with Amanda, new to the series, going first), and finally comments from Tor.com readers. In this article, we’ll cover Chapters 16 and 17 of Gardens of the Moon (GotM). Other chapters are here.
A fair warning before we get started: We’ll be discussing both novel and whole-series themes, narrative arcs that run across the entire series, and foreshadowing, so while the summary of events may be free of spoilers, the commentary and reader comments most definitely will not be. To put it another way: Major Spoilers Next Eight Months.
Another fair warning! Grab a cup of tea before you start reading—these posts are not the shortest!
It’s a trap! No, wait...it's a map!!! (Sorry, Admiral Ackbar). Welcome to Rebecca Crane’s United States, in which each state has been reimagined as one of the planets from Star Wars, in order to form a more awesome union. According to Crane, “Planets were assigned based on partial terrain, landmarks that correlate with the planet and state, types of people in the state and planet, famous landmarks, or slightly randomly selected (but loosely based on facts) from my brother and myself.”
You can check out the complete list of states and planets on her blog, as well as a larger version of the map. Also, while we’re curious about why South Carolina has the distinction of being the Death Star of the S.W.U.S.A., as inveterate geeks we’re more concerned with wondering whether the Death Star actually counts as a planet...(and there’s at least one Jedi Master who would argue that it’s not even a moon). Then again, who are we to quibble with greatness? Best. Star Wars Map. Ever.
So—shock of shockers here, I know—I really like Ted Chiang, and not just because he’s got really awesome hair and is proof that it’s still possible to amass a very good reputation as an SF writer while sticking to a focus on short work. My favorite story of his to date is “Stories of Your Life,” which may have made me have to find a Kleenex quickly.
In short, I jumped at the opportunity to review his new novella from Subterranean, The Lifecycle of Software Objects.
This? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very peculiar little book, and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. Chiang gives us a rapid overview of the evolution and abandonment of a species of digital pet that may—or may not—be evolving artificial intelligence, and a very cogent overview of how people might respond... the ones that even notice.
On August 30th the New York Post broke their most serious story in months: starting in November there will be two Batmans (Batmen?), Dick Grayson AND Bruce Wayne. I read the New York Post story yesterday, followed by the interpretations from several other websites and at first I was a little confused. How could anyone logically back up this idea? I’m really hoping my brain wasn’t the only to explode.
Orestes and Electra are two inhabited moons of Agamemnon, and The Kindly Ones (1987) begins with a description of the planets, their economies, climate and oddities, from the Standard Planetary Register. Destiny and Madelgar are starports and riverports. Glittermark, on colder Electra, is a starport and an iceport. On these moons, settled in hard times, you can be socially dead while still alive, and mediums are needed to speak to the “ghosts,” marked with white on their foreheads. Trey Maturin, who comes from sophisticated Athena, is a medium and a mediator, trying to help Orestes modernize despite honour, feuds, vengeance, and the help and hindrance of the ghosts.
A Twitter question and conversation involving Holly Black, among others, got me thinking about non-traditional relationships in speculative fiction. While I’m seeing more and more queer characters and couples in SFF, there’s still a dearth of other types of relationships. Threesomes, foursomes, moresomes if you prefer the term—where are they?
The multiple-partnered relationship is inherently queer even in occasional circumstances where the attraction and involvement is predominantly heterosexual: they’re outside the social norm and unwelcome in that norm. They're treated as Other, legally and socially. In circumstances of equal attraction among the parties involved, a non-traditional relationship is queer on that level also. Bisexuality (or pansexuality) isn’t altogether common as a whole in SFF, let alone in combination with an alternate love-structure.
[A set of musings, reading suggestions, and a plea for more books]
On this week’s episode of True Blood, Sookie and Bill have another go at a fresh start which goes about as well—and as long—as expected, Sam tries to pretend that he’s not nice, and Jason meanders around town and plots to avoid his girlfriend. I think Crystal’s nagging is more of a dealbreaker than her being a were-panther, personally. Also, drugs are still bad and Arlene’s a big ol’ redheaded hypocrite.
It’s been one week since you looked at me, Wheel of Time Re-read, but how can I help it if I think you’re funny when you’re mad?
Today’s entry covers Chapters 20 and 21 of Winter’s Heart, in which I would tell you that frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn, but unfortunately I can’t, because I do. At Length. Because I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve, in case you haven’t noticed.
Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, in which you can find links to news, reviews, and all manner of information regarding the newest release, The Gathering Storm, and for WOT-related stuff in general.
This re-read post contains spoilers for all currently published Wheel of Time novels, up to and including Book 12, The Gathering Storm. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
Can’t understand what I mean? Well, you soon will, once you click!
Brandon Sanderson has often said (and I have quoted ad nauseam) that any author who grew up on Robert Jordan has a great epic of their own to tell. Without a doubt, The Way of Kings is Brandon’s. We have grand battles, both arcane and new magics, compelling characters, and a strange new world called Roshar.
[A little more spoiler free discussion foiled by mega spoilers after a disclaimer]
The Native Star opens in the year 1876 with one Miss Emily Edwards, age 25, a backwoods witch from the Sierra Nevadas with financial difficulties and an aging father to support. With the prolonged nastiness of the Civil War receding into the past, the U.S. economy is booming. The magical-industrial complex is building the nation faster than you can say “What development permit?” The boom has brought with it a tide of big-city potions, from a manufacturer called Baugh’s Patent Magics. These nostrum are making it all the way to the small town of Lost Pine, where they’re chipping away at Emily’s livelihood dime by dime.
Though Emily is generally quite the honourable woman, she doesn’t fancy the prospect of watching her Pap’s health slide downhill as the two of them slowly starve. Limited options draw her to every nineteenth-century woman’s obvious career choice: marriage. She fixes her eye on the town’s most prosperous lumberman, a decent fellow who will make a terrific husband. All she needs to seal the deal is a wee little love spell... and the nerve to go through with it.
I started writing my first novel when I was fifteen years old. I didn’t have a computer; I had an old, electric typewriter. It would remember your file on a disc, but it was really just a printer with an attached bare-bones word processor. (It had a tiny LCD screen at the top that could display three lines at a time. You could scroll through and edit bit by bit, then you hit print and it would type out the document.)
The book was terrible. It was essentially a hybrid of Tad Williams and Dragonlance, though at the time I felt it was totally new and original. It did have a wizard who threw fireballs with smiley faces on the front, though, so that’s kind of cool. At its core were two stories. One vital one was the tale of a wise king who was murdered by assassins, forcing his younger brother to take up the mantle and lead the kingdom while trying to find/protect the king’s son and rightful heir. The other was about a young man named Rick, originally blamed for the murder.
Queering SFF: Where’s the Polyamory? by Brit Mandelo
I Can Has Ray Gunz! Cat-People in Science Fiction by Ryan Britt
Writing Hurricane Katrina by Suzanne Johnson
