Jim Butcher's latest entry in the Dresden Files series, Ghost Story, feels like the gutsiest of his popular paranormal detective novels so far. Like its immediate predecessor, Changes, Ghost Story showcases Butcher's willingness to enact huge, sweeping changes to the status quo that he's established.

You're not a geek just because you like science fiction, I know that much, and you're not a geek just because you saw The Lord of the Rings (each movie three times, in the theaters, including the midnight rerelease?)...maybe that makes you a geek.

Adapting Dick's seminal novel is guaranteed to be a difficult process, and would have been even if Ridley Scott's Blade Runner weren't already a 30-year-old SF classic. Untitled Theater Company #61 took on the ambitious challenge. And mostly, it worked.

King Kong's monstrous motivations aren't the same as Dracula's — one wants a castle made of bananas, the other a swimming pool full of hemoglobin — but, on a psychological level, their motivations differ too. Here's Chris Braak's monster taxonomy.

Internecine politics, clan rivalries, and werewolf-posturing serve as the backdrop for World Fantasy Award winner Martin Millar's novel Lonely Werewolf Girl, a story about anxiety and the slow agony of making friends.

In Zendegi, Greg Egan has created a beautiful, brilliant, near-future world that expertly explores the consequences of mind-mapping technology in the politically volatile world of Iran.

Geroge Mann's Ghosts of Manhattan bills itself as introducing the world's first steampunk superhero. Atmospheric and pleasingly enigmatic, the novel pulls us into world of pure pulp.

At long last available stateside, Ian McDonald's Ares Express is a phantasmagoria of nuclear locomotives and wild Martian awesomeness. It's a definite must-read.

After what seemed like an interminable lull, Jim Butcher uses his new novel, Changes, to blow the lid off of Harry Dresden's hard-won but stable world.

Maurice Dantec's Grand Junction is a metaphysical cyberspace epic; a Dickian post-apocalyptic future that questions our reliance on machines as a metaphor for human preoccupation with the material. Or, at least, it's supposed to be.

When Jeff VanderMeer posed the surrealistic question "Who, or what, is Last Drink Bird Head?", the 500-word responses included luminaries like Michael Moorcock and Stephen Donaldson as well as newer authors you'll be thrilled to discover. The result is thirst-quenching.

Philadelphia's Trocadero Theater is the oldest operating 19th century theater in the US. Last night, it was invaded by zombies.

Benjamin Parzybok's Couch is an epic for the apathetic, a journey to save the world undertaken by the post-college American slacker - for the essential reason that there doesn't seem to be anything better to do.

Andrew Fox's The Good Humor Man is a gonzo novel about state-deputized vigilantes tasked with keeping deadly fatty calories out of the hands of an irresponsible America by going after delicious cheese and sugary snack cakes with napalm and flamethrowers.