The Great Geek Manual

Art

• Over at The Hotel Fred, artist Roger Langridge announces that he’ll be a guest at the Bristol Comic Expo and show off some art he did for the Heroes Con.

Comics

• Hollywood.com asked fans to rank Wolverine’s Top 5 Villains.

Film

• Cinematical has a list of the Seven Coolest Star Trek Moments, but miffs the project by forgetting Star Trek IV’s “Double Dumbass on you.”
• Hugh Jackman is already discussing the possibility of a Sequel to Wolverine set in Japan.
• Surprisingly, Star Trek starts out the week 100% Fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes, but it can’t hold out forever. Star Trek hits screens Thursday night.

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Comics

• Someone put a lot of time into posting this gallery of the Superhero Drawings from Deviant Art. It features work from a lot of the top artists in the industry, as well as a few newcommers.
• Topless Robot points out The 9 Least Necessary Female Versions of Male Superheroes. You know who doesn’t make the list? Supergirl, because she is one awesome piece of eye candy.

Film

• I Heart Chaos names The 20 Best Bad Movies of the Past 20 Years, finally giving Robot Jox its due once and for all!
• Trailer Addict has posted 4 New Movie Posters for Harry Potter 6, and they’re the darkest batch yet.

Internet

• Finally! Pack your riffles and jump a plane Zombies have been sighted in London!!! (And Woody Harrelson isn’t even involved.)
• In honor of this week’s release of the new Star Trek film, The Sci Guy rounds up the 10 Weirdest Star Trek Videos.
• Who would win in a fight: Gandalf or Darth Vader? What about Neo vs. Harry Potter? “Heroes” star Milo Ventimiglia is set to co-produce “Ultradome,” a new scripted Web series where passionate fanboys settle hypothetical disputes in a special effects showdown.

Literature

• One considered Analysis of the Cost of Printing a Physical Book suggests that titles for the Amazon Kindle should be selling for considerable less than their current prices.

Television

• 30 Things You Didn’t Know About “Battlestar Galactica”
• Alan Tudyk says the pilot for ABC’s V has a Firefly link… or is all just a clever ruse to lure us in and break our hearts with yet another cancellation?
• Want To Save Your Favorite TV Show? Stop watching it on television. Slate explains the theory.

New Releases

After the relatively slow month that was April 2009, May kicks off with a bang. This week, the much-anticipated ninth book in Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series hits shelves along with a new J.R.R. Tolkien novel.

The first eight books in the Sookie Stackhouse series, which begins with Dead Until Dark, have consistently surprised me with their ability to keep me, a twenty-something male geek, actively engrossed in a story clearly pitched more towards the Harlequin crowd. The key I think, is that every time the reader expects Sookie, the telepathic, vampire-loving, backwater barmaid to swoon or begin contemplating the vicissitudes of her love life, the story takes an even more bizarre turn.

I’d recommend sampling this series if you’re an urban fantasy or vampire fan, even if you are dude. The series has a lot of potential, and Harris hasn’t disappointed yet. (P.S. Don’t worry. It’s nothing like the t.v. series.)

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
Ace Hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0441017157) Hardcover. Length: 320pp
The ninth book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. Except for Sookie Stackhouse, folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana, know little about vamps—and nothing about weres. Until now. The weres and shifters have finally decided to reveal their existence to the ordinary world. At first all goes well. Then the mutilated body of a were-panther is found near the bar where Sookie works—and she feels compelled to discover who, human or otherwise, did it. But there’s a far greater danger threatening Bon Temps. A race of unhuman beings—older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves—is preparing for war. And Sookie finds herself an all-too human pawn in their battle. (Release: May 5)
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Film

• Director Ron Howard claimed Sunday that the Vatican interfered with efforts to get permits to shoot certain scenes of his “Angels & Demons” religious thriller in Rome.
• It turns out that the Bestselling Movies are not the Most Pirated Ones.

Internet

• I’ve mentioned it before, but it deserves to be mentioned again. The forty-minute fan film The Hunt of Gollum is online, and it kicks ass.
• NPR reveals The Secret Of Google’s Book Scanning Machine.
• SFX shares The Top Ten Things I Learnt From Going To Sci-Fi Conventions, none of which is “Don’t make eye contact.”
• Where are you in the movie? If you started watching a movie on the day you were born, and stretched it over your lifespan, this is where you’d be in that movie.

Literature

• The Galaxy Express explains why The Only Thing Worse Than A Trashy Romance Novel Is A Bad Science Fiction Novel.
• There are several venues for micro fiction and prose on Twitter, called Twitter Literary Zines

Television

• If you watch Friday night’s episode of Dollhouse carefully, you can see that all that was required to “hack” into dollhouse security was to alter an HTML tag. Lame.
• Space-racism is bad: And 17 other not-so-subtle lessons learned from Star Trek.

Writing

• Becoming a good writer takes time and practice, but that doesn’t mean you can’t speed up the process. Here are 10 ways that you can become a better writer today.
• Jeremiah Tolbert shares 5 Books on Writing and Science Fiction That Made Me a Better Writer.

Art

• Check out the latest Star Wars marketing posters for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Film

• Movie Buzz names 50 Movies That All Guys Should See Before They Die, including such testosterone-laden classics as Die Hard and Fight Club.
• Sci-Fi Wire explains 10 things you need to know about Wolverine before seeing X-Men Origins.
• Yikes. Talk about long-term marketing. Joseph McGinty is already dishing out plot points of the fifth Terminator film.

Internet

• Cracked.com demonstrates Why Having Wolverine’s Claws Would Suck.
• Fox’s Terminator Wiki asks Who would win if they battled it out in real life – the Terminator or Wolverine?
• The Hunt For Gollum, a forty minute fan-made prequel to The Lord of the Rings, is now available for online! (And it kind of kicks ass.)

Literature

• In what world does Saphira from Eragon beat out Falkor from The Neverending Story in a countdown of the coolest dragons of fantasy?

Television

• IGN counts down Star Trek’s Best Villains, but surprisingly, the Borg do not take the number one slot.

Video Games

• AI Game Dev points out 18 Embarrassing Game AI Bugs Caught On Tape and explains how they ought to be fixed.
• New Video Game Technology Finally Allows Rendering Of Smaller Breasts.

Writing

• Author Jeremiah Tolbert offers some advice on Getting Started Writing Science Fiction.

Art

• Paul Lickt is a photographer who specializes in Macro photography of Water droplets. Check out the gallery or at the Microworld Flickr.

Film

• Finally, Kevin Smith dishes on his role in the Superman film. It’s a funny narrative, even if the final result was tragic.
• Reuters has already called it: Wolverine is a massive disappointment.

Internet

• Cracked.com takes a look at what it might be like If Everything Was Made by Microsoft.
• College Humor give us a look at what Real Life Twitter might sound like.

Literature

• Interview: Bitten by Books talks with Jim Butcher, author of Turn Coat.
• Fans can now step into Harry Potter’s world at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Costumes, props and set designs will be on display at the museum from Thursday, April 30 through September 27, 2009.

Television

• Entertainment Weekly questions the Great Sci-Fi Divide, asking Why don’t we want science fiction on TV? My answer: not enough explosions.
• io9 explains the rules to A Dozen Science-Fiction Drinking Games.

Video Games

• If you enjoyed The King of Kong, you should check out this follow-up documentary, Motherboard: Twin Galaxies and the Golden Domes. It’s a look behinds the scenes of the world of competitive gaming.
• Love the smell of Half Life in the morning? A research team at Birmingham University is working on technology that could be used to add smells to video games.

Writing

• Charlie Stross discusses where authors get their ideas.

Comics

• Interview: Alan Moore talks about the ’80s comics scene but refuses to take credit for the medium’s transformation.

Film

• Feeling worried about the impending swine flu epidemic? Just to make you feel more panicked, io9 has put together a list of Eleven Visions of Life After the Great Epidemic.
• Finally, some good news about the upcoming Transformers film. The original voice actor, Frank Welker will provide the voice for Soundwave.
• Yahoo! Movies lies some of the most Infamous Movie Urban Legends to rest once and for all.

Internet

• A great Flickr photo-mosaic technique.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Listen to “Semi-Autonamous or ‘For Whom The Warranty Tolls’” by Jim Kling at Escape Pod.
• Interview: The Nebula Awards interviews Nina Kiriki Hoffman.

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It’s a bit of a slow week for genre fans. The highlight of the week is actually one short story packaged up into a short anthology, Ray Bradbury’s Marionettes, Inc.

Along with the new short, this anthology includes four other Bradbury stories about substitute people, including the famous novella I Sing the Body Electric, in addition to a rare, previously unpublished screen treatment.

Don’t worry. Next week, things pick up next week with the release of the next Sookie Stackhouse book and yet another post-mordem Tolkein book.

New Releases

The Grand Conjunction: Astropolis by Sean Williams
Ace. (ISBN-13: 978-0441017133) Paperback. Length: 336pp
Six hundred thousand years after Imre Bergamasc’s abdication, the Host rules the supposedly peaceful galaxy. But revolution is fomenting—and Imre’s unexpected return may be all it takes to light the final fuse. Release: April 28

Lover Avenged by J.R. Ward
NAL Hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0451225856) Hardcover. Length: 544pp
The seventh book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Rehvenge has always kept his distance from the Brotherhood—even though his sister is married to a member, for he harbors a deadly secret that could make him a huge liability in their war against the lessers. As plots within and outside of the Brotherhood threaten to reveal the truth about Rehvenge, he turns to the only source of light in his darkening world, Ehlena, a vampire untouched by the corruption that has its hold on him—and the only thing standing between him and eternal destruction. Release: April 28 Read the rest of this entry » » »