Decades ago, when I was in high school, just before the Challenger space shuttle exploded, I had two dreams about a shuttle 1) blowing up on the pad, and, more impressively, 2) suddenly developing a rupture in the side of one of the solid rocket boosters and veering off course right after launch. Since my father was…

This reminds me of a book on cognitive science I read some time back. It recounted a creepy remark made by a patient who'd been partially lobotomized in order to treat some sort of severe chronic pain (yes, this procedure had been done a while ago). After the operation, when asked about the pain the patient said…

Seconded.

Disagree. I know plenty of professional authors, and sorry, but it's all about intention — at the level of story and the level of theme. (An author who claims otherwise is either being disingenuous or is basically admitting that they're writing using "received" themes, the default themes of their culture, without…

I like the low-key, quiet atmosphere of these photos. In a way, they approximate the mood of the original novel more closely than "Blade Runner."

Good landscapes. However, for the same experience I can just log on for free over at Concept Ships and noodle around there for two hours.

Glad to hear someone else speak of Mieville's problems re: characterization. Several years ago I read "Perdido Street Station" and was like, "...um... how is this even *interesting*, to say nothing of groundbreaking?" Critics are not doing him a favor by going bananas over such work.

Just to respond to myself for a second: not only is Braudel the explicit inspiration for Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle," he's also a major force behind Delany's "Neveryon" quartet. It's cool to witness the "slow rise of Braudel" in genre fiction. (For those wanting a quick-'n-easy intro to Braudel, he published one…

What a great list! So cool to see Thurber, Braudel and Hofstadter in there. Two thoughts:

That's great! Thanks for passing that on.

It's very beautiful, but it immediately makes me crave a more inclusive North-America-and-environs map. I want to see the wind that's coming down from Canada and how it changes as it passes over the Great Lakes, or in from the Pacific and how it changes once it hits land. Having the map "stop" at artificial national…

FIguring out not just the genetic mechanisms, but the overall mechanical-processual-genetic principles, behind the process of ontogeny in the embryo. We know some of the nuts-and-bolts mechanisms of specific stages of development (this triggers that) but I don't get a sense that we have the "big picture" of how these…

Really well-written and enjoyable article.

The problem with what you're saying about the lack of built-in audience is that exactly the same thing could have been said (and was) about the original "Star Wars."

I think you're right. Something tells me this was an available in-house image and they just threw it on there.

Don't quite get #6, since the MEAT people are actually correct about what the Planet Express crew is doing and therefore behaving appropriately. The comebacks say more about the crew than the MEAT organization.

Neutral "at best"? This formulation confuses me, coming from a writer for a prominent pop culture blog.

That is basically true. John Carter was very poorly marketed.

Don't quite see what you're getting at, since "John Carter of Mars" was never a '50s B-movie to begin with. It was a 1917 novel.

This is the first trailer for a comedy I've seen in a very, very long time that actually amused me.