New Michael Marshall book title

Award winning author Michael Marshall has a new book out later this year. Michael was one of the guests at the Altfiction event in Derby this weekend and those who attended his final session of the day were treated to a reading of the prologue; Mike has just finished the first draft of the book which he has revealed will be called Bad Things.

Tokyo Gore Police trailer

The 4 minute 49 second trailer for the blood drenched movie madness that is Tokyo Gore Police, courtesy of Twitch Film. Have fun.

Stop Uwe Boll

Sign here if you want Uwe Boll to stop making movies. Just remember though, if he does give in to the wishes of the 204,000+ who have signed in so far (at time of this posting) then you have to find somebody else to ridicule. Not that that should be a problem, Hollywood’s full of potential candidates.

Neal Asher’s Polity Timeline

Neal Asher’s Polity sequence of SF novels traverse several timelines, spanning centuries, with the books and stories not always written in sequence. There’s also a host of alien creatures, technologies, events, etc to keep track of. This could all get confusing but fortunately Neal has posted on his blog, The Skinner, a link to a chronology and encyclopedia to keep us right.

R Is For Rocket – book review

R is for Rocket – Ray Bradbury – PS Publishing – 2005

Ray Bradbury is a founding father of modern science fiction and a master of the short story and this collection, originally published in 1962, is a fine example of his work. Contained within are tales of journeys beyond our world, childhood dreams of travelling to the stars, time-travel, adventuring on and adapting to alien worlds. Granted, the science in many of the stories doesn’t bear up to modern day scrutiny but Ray’s stories are not so much about the science as about its impact on people, as they adapt to the changing world around them, all told in his characteristic clear and precise prose.

This limited edition PS Publishing hardback (still available direct from the publisher) reproduces many of the drawings illustrating the original release, along with Ray’s original introduction, and includes an additional introduction from Michael Marshall Smith and foreward from Ray Harryhausen, both written specially for this publication. The full story list can be found here.

Dan Simmons’ Hyperion – the movie

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros have secured the rights for a movie adaptation of Dan Simmons’ first two Hyperion Cantos novels. Considering the depth of the narrative and complex structure of these two modern classics of SF literature it’s going to be a major challenge to do them justice in the running time of one movie. Trevor Sands reckons he can do it, good luck to him. I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve seen it, but it’ll need to be at least 4 hours long.

(Link via SF Signal)

Gary Gibson’s vampire story

Scottish SF writer Gary Gibson mentioned a while ago that he had written a vampire story, called The Range, and now he has decided to post it on his blog. He explains his reasoning here.

Banks and MacLeod – Aye Write

Bit late posting this one but there’s some video footage of Iain M Banks and Ken MacLeod from their appearance at the Aye Write Book Festival, held in Glasgow back in the middle of March. Of much more interest however is the hour long mp3 audio file of the gig (“download audio file” button to the right of the video and below Iain’s cheery face), with both authors reading excerpts from their most recent books, Matter and The Execution Channel, answering questions from the host and then a few at the end from the audience. An entertaining and informative double act, well worth a listen.