I dunno if I’d consider Joy Williams an SF/fantasy writer, but damn, it’s good to see she has a new one coming out. 

There was a really good profile of Mieville in WIRED last month. It sounds like he’s been through a lot recently, but I’m glad he’s doing better. And he has another, really big novel coming in the next couple of years.

It’s too bad Leonard Nimoy isn’t around anymore. 

Alternatively: A Bunch of Crap We Loosely Sourced From The Appendices That Feels Like A Generic Fantasy Flick Apart From McKellen And Serkis Being Around To Remind You Of How Much You Loved The Good Tolkien Movies, Hey, This Is All Going Into Public Domain By 2050 So Now’s The Time To Strike, I Hate My Whole Damn Life 

I think it’s more common than most people realize. Having been a teenager for about half the ‘80s, there are certain brands or styles that register to me as total anathema — not in the sense of being embarrassing, but “yeah, this is just straight-up concentrated evil.” The Memphis Milano aesthetic, in particular,…

I remember him specifically mentioning AIDS as a big one, and that ended up being a fairly big deal in the backstory of Virtual Light with the martyrdom of Shapely by religious fundamentalists.

I didn’t mean to imply that he disliked the books. From what I’ve read in interviews he moved on because the setting was already dated by 1989, and he didn’t want to be 85 and still writing Neuromancer sequels.

Oh no, I miss long rambly io9 threads.

No false happy ending as in the book. Paul is not a wise leader but a fanatic whose army will bring death and destruction to anyone opposed to his reign.

That’s fine. I love Neuromancer but I wasn’t too crazy about Count Zero or Mona Lisa Overdrive.

Never seen that show but based on anecdotal evidence he’s attractive.

Saw this in an afternoon matinee on a weekday in San Mateo, just north of Silicon Valley. This scene went over like fucking gangbusters:

Probably because “Blame Canada” is really funny, while “Up There,” while heartfelt, is a variation on the standard Menken/Ashman “Somewhere That’s Green”-type aspirational ballad.

they may be thinking of doing a thematic tie-in sort of thing with Oppenheimer.

The kids have to learn about TekWar sooner or later.

I dunno. My feeling after recently rereading Messiah and Children is that Herbert, like Philip K. Dick, had a singularly brilliant mind but was also kind of a lousy writer, and that the first Dune was lightning in a bottle. I’m generally happy with Villeneuve’s creative decisions, especially his version of Chani,…

I’d probably watch a Perry Mason-type legal drama set in Leyndell.

Something like Shadow of the Erdtree is a bit more linear, because you’re following Miquella’s journey and figuring out what he wants to accomplish, and the world, while still expansive, is smaller than the main game’s, designed to limit your range and mobility.

Big problem with adapting any Soulsborne game is that civilization has collapsed, the world is emptied out, basically everyone in the world is dead except the players and a handful of random weirdos, and the stories usually revolve around trying to restart the universe or burning it all down, which is kinda grim. The…

LotR inspired these awesome light-up goblets, which sadly I never got around to collecting because I’ve never liked Burger King.