The Great Geek Manual

Art

• Over at Deviant Art, Themico offers up Steam Punk Avengers.

Comics

• Over at Mania.com, Alan Moore Reflects on Marvelman.

Film

• Avatar Concept Designer Reveals the Secrets of the Na’Vi at io9.
• SciFi Scanner counts down The Top Ten Movie Video Games That Want to Kill You.

Internet

• Den of Geek has posted a gallery of the Top 75 Spaceships in movies and TV.
• William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appeared today at the annual Dragon-Con to mark the anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek.

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The whole idea that Apple could now break into the corporate market — ridiculous! Businesses hate Apple. And the technology was a waste; I’m not sure it’ll ever be used. But it could turn out to have been a good thing, because it got Steve reengaged.

- Joe Graziano, former Apple CFO, in The New Yorker, September 8, 1997.

1855
Dr. J. M. Taupenot announces his development of a dry collodion photographic plate.

1871
Dr. Richard Leach Maddox announces his invention of a silver bromide gelatine photographic emulsion, which significantly reduces photograph exposure times.

1930
3M of St. Paul, Minnesota begins marketing Scotch brand cellulose tape, the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape.

1945
The first bus in the US with a two-way radio is put into service in Washington, D.C.

1960
In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center, which NASA had activated on July 1. Visit the Marshall Space Flight Center’s official website.
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Art

• io9 has posted a gallery of Star Wars Religious Art.

Comics

• CBR has posted a gallery of the Top 70 Most Iconic Marvel Panels of All-Time.

Film

• Cinematical wonder Will Chicks Dig Jennifer’s Body or is this going to be strictly a guy flick?
• Following the release of Gamer, Entertainment Weekly looks back at 15 Videogame-Based Movies and asks how’d they score.
• Fantasy Magazine names Ten Fantasy Movies that Deserve Remakes.
• io9 demands that Hollywood Stop Shaking Our Movies Like A Polaroid Picture.

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1776
The first US submarine built for wartime use, the American Turtle, is used in New York harbor to attach a time bomb to the hull of the flagship of British Admiral Richard Howe, the HMS Eagle. Known as a “torpedo” the weapon is a cask with 150lbs of black powder and a clockwork time fuse. Because it separated from the ship before it exploded, little damage was accomplished, but nonetheless, the event marks the world’s first submarine attack.

1927
The first fully electronic television system is first successfully tested by Philo Taylor Farnsworth, age 21. The first electronic image he produces is of a straight line painted onto a pane of glass. Farnsworth, who was born in a log cabin without electricity in Utah, will later explain that the idea of television first came to him while he was plowing a field when he was fourteen. The plowed rows made him realize that an image could be broken into rows like the field. Read more about at The Farnsworth Chronicles.

1948
Louis Parker for a television receiver he describes as an “intercarrier sound system.” (US No. 2,448,908)

1967
Biosatellite II, the second US biological research satellite, is launched. When it is safely recovered after re-entry, it will become the first successful biological research satellite. It carries thirteen experiments designed to test the effects of cosmic radiation and a stay in space on simple life forms, including: millions of orange head mold spores, thousands of vinegar gnats, hundreds of wasp and amoeba, one hundred twenty frog eggs, dozens of wheat seedlings, dozens of blue wild flowers, flour beetles, and bacteria cells. The satellite’s predecessor, Biosatellite I, failed fire its retrorockets, causing it to burn up in the atmosphere.
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Ideas shape the course of history.

- John Maynard Keynes

Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “Hall of Mirrors” by Bruce Holland Rogers at Podcastle.
• Listen to “A Saucer of Loneliness and Suicide” by Theodore Sturgeon at Spider on the Web.
• Listen to “This Is How It Feels” by Ian Creasey at Escape Pod.

Comics and Graphic Novels

• “A Martian Saga” (1979) has been posted at Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

Flash and Micro Fiction

• Read “The Devil in the Desert” by Trinity Martin at MicroHorror.

Novels and Preview Chapters

• Dave Freer is serializing his newest novel, Save the Daragons.
• Douglas Clegg has post his horror novel, Goat Dance, for free at Scribd.com.
• Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies) is serializing a new planetary romance called Queen of the Iron Sands. There is no cost, but the author asks for donations. Chapters one and two are now available: “My Father Brought the Sky Home” and “The Red Cloud Over Texas.”

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Book: A Princess of Landover
ISBN-13: 978-0345458520

Author: Terry Brooks
Series: Magic Kingdom of Landover
Publisher: Del Rey
Genre: Fantasy
Release: August 18, 2009
Length: 352 pages (Hardcover)

Rating: F (49 / 100)

Verdict

Terry Brooks has always written his Landover series like a Saturday morning cartoon, but with A Princess of Landover he actually manages lower the tone of the entire series. This book is bad – even for young adult fantasy. Seriously bad.

Any who has ever enjoyed a fantasy novel should avoid this one like the plague.

Pros: It’s short and there’s none of Brooks’ signature overblown romance in sight.

Cons: Ridiculously simple plotline. Flat characters. Spurious motivations. Plot holes galore. All the franchise’s best characters all get sidelined.

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