totes agreed. wifey and I said to each other, "It's got Lawrence Fishburne and Sam Neill—how bad can it be?" Pretty freaking bad, as it turns out....

I'll go with a Pierson's Puppeteer, from Niven's 'Ringworld.'

I think 'Kraken' is the least weird of Miéville's work I've read (The Scar, Perdido Street Station, Iron Council).

for my money, 'The Mote in God's Eye' has the most plausible description of a truly alien race I can think of .

thanks for this...

never saw a TV adaptation—and I don't think I want to. Ellison created such believable worlds in my mind's eye, I'll selfishly stay with those.

"mrmee, mrmee, mrmee...."

Best damn theme song in cartoon history.

Yes! *Love* Ellison and this is my all-time favorite of his. Though I do have to give a shout-out to his non-fiction side, especially part 3, "Labor Relations," of his essay, 'The Three Most Important Things in Life.'

"A Pail of Air" was made into a radio drama, too. I'd say it was very cool, but....: http://tinyurl.com/mgq3cb6

"The Forgotten Door" was the book that did it for me.

ummm... .45 Long Colt. Used to be a .41 Long Colt back in the day, but hasn't been popular since the '30s.

All of them. Science fiction is supposed to be about expanding boundaries, not rehashing the same ones over and over. Just because there's a new effect flavor of the week doesn't mean that you should use it in some watered down remake of something that quite possibly wan't that great an idea to begin with.

Crwth is an awesome Scrabble word....

Элвис покинул здание. Спасибо, большое спасибо

Элвис покинул здание. Спасибо, большое спасибо!

Saw a balalaika trio in Yakutsk in '94—first and only time I've ever seen a contrabass in person. Like most acoustic bass string instruments, good sound, but not a lot of volume or projection.

Sometimes it's ice that does the smashing—Eagle, Alaska, 5/17/13

Tossup between Niven's Ringworld and Clarke's Rama. For sheer coolness, have to go with Ringworld.

In 1994, I was an exchange student in the republic of Sakha. They had little trailers carrying tanks, that looked like they held about 100 gallons, of beer at certain street corners. Residents would line up with their empty bottles and fill them at the truck. One Sunday morning, a very large, angry, intoxicated man…