- Zombcon 2011 — Zombie convention in Seattle this weekend!
- U.S. Used to Have Awesome Money — Back when it would go a lot farther!
- Reopening “The X-Files”: Presumably the Truth is Still Out There — Feel like do a rewatch of “The X-Files.” It’s all on Netflix Instant.
- Kobo Launches Vox Tablet — Kobo’s looking to kindle some of its own fire — see what I did there?
- Kurzweil Responds — Ray Kurzweil responds to Paul Allen on the singularity.
- Bohemian Shatsody — William Shatner does things to “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
- Cheating Death in SFF — A very interesting post.
- Top 10 One-Sit Reads — Mind you, this is a pretty long sitting for some of these.
- Top Ten Geek Girl Sites — Yes, this particular post was written by a girl, I checked too.
- Cartoon Characters All Grown Up — Interesting bordering on disturbing.
- Star Trek Light-Up Feeding System — Wow. Somehow I think this is to make feeding your kid more interesting.
Links Roundup
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/18/11
- An Open Letter to the BSA — Jim C. Hines on the Boy Scouts of America.
- Virgin Galactic’s Gateway to Space is Now Open for Business — The future is here!
- Dragon Age: Redemption – Cain (Episode 2) — Felicia Day has released the second episode!
- Publishing in the Brave New World — Agent Rachelle Gardner with a great blog post on the new publishing world.
- Food for Writing — N. K. Jemisin posts some of her favorite recipes.
- Fox is Developing a “Zombieland” Series — No surprise there after the success of Walking Dead.
- Is Time Travel the Next Big Trend in YA Literature? We Think So — Goodbye Stephenie Meyer!
- Seeing Through Walls — More of the future that is now here!
- Spain’s Stolen Babies and the Families Who Lived a Lie — This is both horrifying and unbelievable.
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/17/11
- Lauren Myracle’s Book is Withdrawn From the National Book Awards — Nice job, guys!
- Helping Main Street — and Bookstores — Succeed — A new book from journalist Amy Cortese on investing in small business and how to make it profit; a great one for independent bookstores!
- Taylor Swift Donates 6,000 Books to Pa. Library — This is just awesome!
- Amazon’s Publishing Gambit — This is kind of the opposite of awesome.
- Are We Giving Readers Author Fatigue — An interesting look at the growing number of authors and books out there.
- Life-size Optimus Prime Sculpture — Yowza! Let’s hope he doesn’t come to life . . . maybe he’ll kill Michael Bay for what he’s done to Transformers?
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/14/11
- Is Amazon the Sauron of Publishing — What do you think?
- Amazon Bites Apple — Interesting times.
- Dept. of iRumors — An “iPad Mini” Next Year — Now that’s interesting.
- Caveman Cosmetics? Scientists Say Ocher Tool Kit Dates Back 100,000 Years — Incredible!
- Paul Allen — The Singularity Isn’t Near — Though Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurtzweil disagree!
- Glorious Retrofuture From Japan — Awesome!
- Ryanair Removing Toilets to Make Way for Seats — Oh it’s that less than nice; at least there will be one lavatory left for the entire plane!
- CHARTS: Here’s What the Wall Street Protestors Are So Angry About — Man, this is just painful.
- 9 Tools For Character Development — All very useful.
- Bag of Bones Preview — This looks really good.
- Black Books — An some entertaining Bernard Black working at a bookstore to round out the week.
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/13/11
- Black Death Genetic Code “Built” — As Jay Lake says, “What could possibly go wrong?”
- Stephen King 11/22/63 Tour Dates Released — He of course isn’t making it over to the West Coast, but it’s still cool he’s leaving New England.
- Ten Weird Facts About “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” — An interesting insight into the books and Douglas Adams.
- 10 Most Memorably Horror Posters! — I did recognize a lot of these, and they sure have a way of getting stuck in your mind.
- BAM Draws DC Comics Battle Line Against Kindle Fire — Things are heating up, as Books A Million does what B&N did.
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/12/11
- 6 Reasons We’re in Another Book Burning Period in History — Well that’s depressing.
- Atwood Pilots New Reading Technology — And no, it’s not electronic.
- E-Books: Barnes & Noble, a Case Study For Booksellers — But did they do enough to keep up the fight against Amazon?
- Amazon: Connecticut Tax Challenge — Connecticut is the latest state to demand Amazon pay tax like the rest of us.
- An Ode to Cheap Books in a Former Borders — And they even used the old Borders letters to spell out “Ode”!
- Legalizing Domestic Violence — Yikes!
- William Shatner’s New Concept Album of Space Jams — SFSignal has something to say about it.
- Trailer: The Avengers — If you haven’t seen it yet.
- I Know a Litter Girl and Her Name is Mary Mac: The Misuse of Mary Sue — Seanan McGuire on the use of Mary Sues in fiction.
- 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Horror — Shiver.
- That Customer Service Thing — Amazon’s errors with Neal Stephenson’s Reamde, Kindle edition.
- Amazon Publishing Launches Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Imprint, 47North — Interesting.
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/11/11
- Dragon Age: Redemption — Tallis (Episode 1) — Felicia Day and DragonAge, what’s not to like?
- The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction — Yep, it’s a really big website.
- How to Finish What You Start — A five-step plan to help anyone who started writing something and really wants to finish it.
- You Spin Me Round: Making Cliches Work For You — You may hate them, but you can still use them.
- Beyond the First Two Pages: A Three-Step Guide to Getting Out of the Slush Pile — Some good advice about honing your craft.
- “Kraken” Sea Monster Emerges From Mythological Mists — And it was really big, no surprise.
- Ancient Lake in Antarctica May Reveal Clues About Earth’s Future — And you can get all your answers from this week’s new release, The Thing.
- A Strange Sunrise Over Argentina — APOD delivers another amazing photo, it looks like the end of the world!
- 9 Doctor Who Villains so Horrifying You’ll Hide Behind the Sofa — Or entice you to watch the show! Though at this point the Daleks and Cybermen really have little affect on me other than to whine, “Oh, not again!”
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/10/11
- Australian Pink Floyd Show US Tour — Is off! They’ve still got plenty of dates, so get your tickets now. Will be seeing them tomorrow night at the Warfield!
- Netflix Drops Unpopular Qwikster DVD Plan — Probably a smart move and one they shouldn’t have done to begin with, especially since they hadn’t even secured the Twitter name!
- Barnes and Noble Yanks Kindle Exclusive Comics From its Shelves — Well, makes sense, since they’re the other big stakeholder in the book world now that Borders is gone. It’s B&N vs. Amazon!
- DHS Launches “Minority Report” Pre-Crime Detection Program — Yikes!
- Getting Published: The Inside Scoop From 3 Top Editors — Basically, you need to have an agent. Interestingly, self-published material is accepted!
- With a Little Help — Cory Doctorow on the latest donation numbers on his short story collection that is offered free on his website.
- Star Wars Movie Poster Mash-ups — Just weird.
BookBanter Links Roundup 10/07/11
- Graphic Novel Wars: Fighting Kindle Fire with Fire — Wow.
- Amazon Cuts a Tax Deal with Tennessee — That was quick, Amazon must’ve learned their lesson.
- 12 Gorgeous Views of Earth From the International Space Station — Spectacular.
- Lev Grossman’s The Magicians to Become a Television Series — Ooh, glad to see more cool stuff getting on TV!
- Hope Anthology Online Launch This Weekend — An anthology of speculative fiction to help raise suicide awareness.
- Advice For Beginning Storytellers — This quote is awesome and all aspiring writers should read it!
- The Origins of Occupy Wall Street Explained — Illuminating.
BookBanter Links Roundup for 10/6 (and 10/5)
- Announcing Independent Bookseller Pics from Tor.com — Tor.com is showcasing book pics, giving readers ideas what to buy not just from Barnes & Noble, but a number of the country’s greatest independent bookstores.
- Hotel Angeline: A Novel in 36 Voices — 36 Authors write one book; this is their story.
- Tennessee AG Says Amazon Must Pay Taxes — After reaching a settlement in California, Amazon now faces the same front in Tennessee, and since their distribution centers are there, I can’t believe they haven’t been paying taxes already. Now Amazon can finally start paying taxes like the rest of us!
- Open Submissions: Navigating the Slush Pile — The dos and don’ts of submissions.
- On Canadian Science Fiction — Robert J. Sawyer talks about Canadian science fiction.
- How Do You Come Up with Character Names? An Exhaustive List — Bookmark this page now and you’ll never have a problem coming up with a character name again!
- 8 Eye-Poppingly Horrific Moments From the Original Twlight Zone — With plenty of videos!
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Characters Who Lost Their Mystery (but Stayed Cool) — Makes me realize how much I enjoy these characters!
- Top 10 Books — A a top 10 list ranked according to the awards they’ve won.
- Steve Jobs Death: The World Reacts — From ABC News with lots of links to other comments.
- Essay: Publishing Favors the West — A thorough article on this reality from author Charles Tan.
- Sam Harris on the Future of the Book — It’s pretty sobering.
- Privacy Protection for California Bookstores — You mean this wasn’t in place already?
- Agent Referrals and Recommendations — Some great advice on dealing with agents, as well as how to find them.
- Calls for Submissions — Some great calls for diverse work.
- Libriomancer Cover Art — the cover to Jim C. Hines’s forthcoming book.
- The Write Agenda vs. Writer Beware — Jim C. Hines’s thoughts on them.
- One Year of Self-Publishing — Jim C. Hines talks about the first year of selling his own eBooks.
- Steampunk Cats — need I say more?
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