Archive | February, 2006

Speakeasy closes

28. February 2006

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The comics wires have all been carrying not-unexpected but still sad news: troubled indy publisher Speakeasy has closed the doors. With scheduled projects moving to other publishers recently there has been a lot of speculation and concern about Speakeasy and alas it seems to have been well-founded with the dangerous waters of independent publishing claiming [...]

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Fizzers

28. February 2006

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I received information on a very interesting cartoon book today from Edinburgh’s Mercat Press (who brought us one of last year’s hits, the SF anthology Nova Scotia). The book is called Fizzers, derived from the Glaswegian colloquialism for face, and is a collection of cartoon caricatures of famous Scots by the Glasgow-based Scottish Cartoon Art [...]

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The Interactive VanderMeer Experience

28. February 2006

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To mark the US launch from Bantam of Jeff’s excellent City of Saints and Madmen The Interactive VanderMeer Experience (TIVE as it is known, not to be confused with TIVO) has jumped up a notch to publicise it. Gone are the days when authors would strap on a bass drums, cymbals and mouth organ before [...]

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Jessica Abel has new site

27. February 2006

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Artist and writer Jessica Abel, who brought us Artbabe among others, has a shiny new web site up and live with notes on her work, samples of her art and even some pages giving advice on how to create your own comics. Jessica has a new book, La Perdida, due out this spring.

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New Emerald City

27. February 2006

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The irrepressible Cheryl once more dons her top hat to act as ringmaster to the grand circus of SF&F – in other words the new issue (#126) of Emerald City’s ‘zine is now available.

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Octavia

27. February 2006

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A few SF and writing sites (the news still seems to be filtering out) carried that sad story that Octavia Butler passed away at the weekend. Octavia, only in her 50s, apparently had some sort of tumble and injured her head – medical treatment was unsuccessful and she passed away at a far too young [...]

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Aurealis

27. February 2006

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The Aurealis awards were announed over the weekend in the Land Down Under, with full details over on the site (Garth Nix doing very well, thank you). And if you are wondering why Australian SF awards matter to the SF community here just consider that UK and US publishers are taking on more excellent SF&F [...]

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Pierce goes to Marvel

27. February 2006

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Marvel continues the current trend of picking up SF&F novelists as new comics writers (and indeed not just SF&F as Scottish crime writer, the excellent Denis Mina is currently doing Hellblazer for DC) with the announcement that Tamora Pierce is to write a new run of White Tiger. Tamora is well known for highly enjoyable [...]

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Cosmos

24. February 2006

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Cosmos, the respected Australian SF journal, is making some of the SF they also publish available online, including contributions from Charlie Stross, Joe Haldeman and Gregory Benford among others – well worth checking out. Thanks to Cheryl at Emerald City for the tip.

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Torchwood

24. February 2006

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The BBC has announced the lead female actor for the new Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. Welsh actress Eve Myles will play a character called Gwen alongside the new fan favourite John Barrowman who returns to the popular character of Captain Jack. The new show, aimed at a more late-night, mature audience is again being driven [...]

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System of the World virtual tour

23. February 2006

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Boing Boing today had a link to a flickr site of pictures which will interest the many fans (myself among them) of Neal Stephenson’s excellent System of the World, the final part of his incredible Baroque Trilogy. The creator has put together photographs of some of the London locations featured in the book along with [...]

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Masters of SF

23. February 2006

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SciFi Wire reports that ABC in the States has given the green light to an anthology TV series called Masters of SF, from the same team who created Masters of Horror for Showtime. The hope is to use established SF tales by great writers such as Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asmiov for a [...]

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Estronomicon

23. February 2006

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The second issue of Estronomicon is now available to download as a PDF, with contributions from Sean Woodward, Sarah Crabtree, Mark Allen and others.

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New Arrivals

23. February 2006

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There are a couple of very unusual graphic novels among today’s new arrivals, one very modern, one with much older roots. Put the Book Back on the Shelf is an anthology collecting various writers and artists together from Image Comics – the common theme is that each tale is based around a song by Glasgow [...]

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Radio Pratchett

23. February 2006

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BBC Radio 4 begins a broadcast of Small Gods by the esteemed wordsmith and hat wearer, Mister Terry Pratchett, esquire, next week. The first of four episodes will be transmitted on Tuesday 28th of February at 11pm; if that is past your bed-time you will be able to hear it again on the Radio 4 [...]

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