FlashNews

Dan Brown's Next Inspiration?

2010-02-08T12:20:00.003-05:00

Perhaps the next Angels and Demons-type movie, based on a Dan Brown novel, or the next National Treasure-type Disney movie, written by too many to mention, will be inspired by this interesting little article in National Geographic: Lost Roman Codex Fragments Found in Book Binding.

According to the article, it was the practice in the sixteenth century to strengthen the binding of new books from scraps of old paper. One collector bought some interesting two-inch square scraps and loaned them to scholars at University College London.

"But a few of the phrases matched passages in the Justinian Code, compiled in the sixth century, leading the team to conclude that the unfamiliar sections were from a source text: the Codex Gregorianus."

Codex Gregorianus (Gregorian Code) is a set of compilations of antique Roman law, including those of Hadrian and earlier law.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this motif show up in a Dan Brown type of book. Perhaps one of Flash Fiction Online's past or future writers (or an inspired reader) will beat the big boys to the punch with a much more economical flash fiction story.

For more interesting details about this find, go to the full National Geographic article on lost Roman law codices.

2010-02-06T13:06:00.001-05:00

Tikatok is a print-on-demand web site for kids, now owned by Barnes & Noble. The site has easy templates for creating a book with text and pictures. For those looking for help finding an idea, Tikatok has some "worlds" (StorySparks), to help generate ideas, such as animals and bugs, holidays and vacations, princesses and fairy tales, and school and family. They're also associated with Build-a-Bear, so children can write stories for that setting (although Build-A-Bear owns the copyright to those stories).

Children will need parents to set up the accounts for parent and child, and decide if the site is safe. From other sources, I believe (but am not certain), that parents will be notified by email of their children's actions. Once a book is created, it can be published in hardbound (starts at $18), softbound (starts at $15) and PDF formats ($3).

The web site could be more open with information. "Starts at $18" for hardcover books refers to additional costs, depending on the page count. The additional cost is not explained, except, presumably, once you start the publishing phase. There's little information about the control that the parent has on the process. One would hope that Barnes & Noble has or will vet this service closely.

#FridayFlash: To Catch A Terrorist

2010-02-05T09:33:00.003-05:00

Welcome Friday Flashers! I hope you like this little 368-word ditty.

Damn. Blake had landed in the right building, but not far enough back in time. It was only minutes before Ahmed the Ghost’s suitcase bomb had blown, spreading radioactive contaminants and neurotoxins throughout the Ondrusek Weapons Facility.

And someone had just slammed the door at the end of the hallway.

Blake sprinted pell-mell into the door. Pain exploded through his right shoulder and head, but the door jamb gave way. Blake stumbled – and saw himself standing at a console.

“Hold this switch,” the other Blake said.

Blake’s vision blurred and refocused. “I have to catch the Ghost,” he said.

“You’re hurt, and you’re not thinking,” the other Blake said. “Which is why our first attempt to catch him failed. He was disguised as Brennan, and we missed it. Now come here.”

Blake tried to absorb the information. “Brennan, now?” That brought the Ghost’s known disguises to six. Blake started to shake his head, but stopped when pain pierced his neck. “How could we come back? The temporal spread was getting wide when I first jumped. A second jump–”

“Come here,” the other Blake said. “I jumped less than ten minutes after they pulled me out. Worth the risk.” He jerked his head. “Hold this switch. It’s the detonator. Don’t let it flip. I’ll get him.”

Blake’s mouth tasted of blood and tin as he moved to the console. Maybe they could have done it in ten minutes. The spread would be wider, but with a little more power he might have had a fifty-fifty shot at surviving the jump. He pressed his left hand into the switch. “Okay. I have it.”

The other Blake released it and raced to a ladder that was anchored to a wall in the corner, leading to a circular opening in the ceiling. “Don’t move until I get back.”

The pain in Blake’s arm was blinding. He tried not to shudder and asked, “Do we make it?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” the other Blake called. He pulled himself through the opening. Blake heard a slam, followed by a click-spin and the sound of footsteps.

Damn, Blake thought. His shoulder throbbed. In ten minutes, my arm won’t be well enough to climb a ladder.

SFWA Weighs In On Amazon-Macmillan Battle

2010-02-04T14:08:00.003-05:00

FFO covered the Amazon-Macmillan distribution battle. At issue is the price that Amazon wants to charge for eBook versions of new publications. Amazon wanted to charge $9.99. Macmillan thought that was too low. This precipitated a battle in which a new sales model was invoked by Macmillan and "Buy" buttons for Macmillan volumes on Amazon were yanked.

Here are the issues:

Macmillan thought the eBook price was predatory and would hurt their print book business.
Amazon sees eBooks as a loss leader to drive traffic.
Authors want to sell their books and make a living.
Buyers want cheap books.

That's not a simple set of issues to solve to everyone's satisfaction. Now, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA.org) has considered the issues (with their members' best interests in mind, presumably) and weighed in on the Amazon-Macmillan battle, supporting Macmillan's case through appeal and through the replacement of Amazon.com links on SFWA's website for their members' books with links to other vendors.

The issues listed above are represented in the many public comments attending SWFA's article.

Review of Flash Fiction Online

2010-02-03T13:49:00.003-05:00

Sam Tamiano at SFRevu has reviewed Flash Fiction Online's January 2010 edition. He liked "Caltrops" by Tim Pratt and "Hungry" by Tree Reisner. He seemed to especially like Ken Pisani's "Last Bites":

"Last Bites" by Ken Pisani takes place at a funeral parlor and begins with a boy biting off his dead uncle's nose and saying it tastes like chocolate. Soon, it becomes apparent that all the deceased are edible and tasty. This was an absolutely delicious story with a very amusing ending.

The staff at Flash Fiction Online had quite a lively discussion about that story. All three stories plus Bruce Holland Rogers' writing column can be seen here.

Sam has more reviews of speculative fiction magazines, including:

Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Apex Magazine
Asimov's Science Fiction
Black Static
Electric Velocipede
Encounters Magazine (first issue)
Interzone
Jupiter
Realms (first issue)

Oscar Nominations--Speculative Fiction

2010-02-02T14:28:00.003-05:00

Go to the Oscars site for the full list of Oscar nominations for 2010 (82nd Academy Awards). Perusing the list, you'll find these speculative fiction films (including mysteries) considered for an Academy Award (some categories omitted):

Animated feature film

“Coraline” Henry Selick
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson
“The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements
“The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore
“Up” Pete Docter

Art direction

“Avatar” Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
“Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

Cinematography

“Avatar” Mauro Fiore
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel

Directing

"Avatar" James Cameron

Film editing

“Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
“District 9” Julian Clarke

Music (Original Score)

“Avatar” James Horner
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat
“Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer
“Up” Michael Giacchino

Best Film

“Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
“District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers
“Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer

Writing (adapted screenplay)

“District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

Writing (original screenplay)

“Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy

Muscular Macmillan Wrestles Amazon on eBook Pricing

2010-02-02T13:30:00.005-05:00

I've let this story percolate for a while until it took a direction: the publishers' fight with Amazon over eBook pricing. Amazon has been selling eBooks of newly released books for $9.99, which some publishers consider predatory and which undermines their print book sales.

This story has been covered extensively, which is not surprising. SFWA now has a nice article summarizing this issue following Macmillan's muscular move to control its products' pricing on Amazon. Macmillan changed its terms of sale from the wholesale model, in which resellers buy at a discount and sale at any price they wish, to an agency model, in which the reseller takes a commission from the sales. Under the latter arrangement, Amazon would have to sell new Macmillan titles in eBook form at prices starting at just under $13 USD. Amazon responded by yanking the "Buy" button from Macmillan books, but later recanted. It did not go unnoticed that this decision was made in the shadow of Apple's acceptance of the agency model for its new Apple iPad.

Here is SFWA's article on Macmillan vs. Amazon by Victoria Strauss.

Literary Magazines on Life Support

2010-02-01T12:57:00.003-05:00

Mother Jones has an impassioned article by the editor of Virginia Quarterly Review, Mr. Ted Genoways, about the herding of America's stable of (usually) university-hosted literary magazines into postmodernism's most distant pasture...or off to the glue factory.

The author gives a 1930s heyday example of then Connecticut governor-elect and editor of Yale Review, Wilbur Cross, who continued editing the magazine while in office, publishing Aldous Huxley, Sherwood Anderson, Maxim Gorky, John Maynard Keynes, and Thomas Mann. All he had to do was "get up early" to handle the 500 submission the magazine received each year.

That bit of trivia is the springboard to the problem. Mr. Genoways' magazine now receives 15,000 submissions per year. The fault belongs to the economy, the evaporation of short fiction from mainstream periodicals, and most interestingly, writers. Most of those time-soaking 15,000 stories were submitted by authors insufficiently skilled to write at the level needed to sustain interest in literary magazines. Says Mr. Genoways:

You may be a precious snowflake, but if you can't express your individuality in sterling prose, I don't want to read about it.

(Snork.) In other words, it's better (and more economical) to receive 100 gems in the mail than 10,000 stones. Authors have become gutless, afraid to write about big issues. Says Mr. Genoways:

Stop being so damned dainty and polite. Treat writing like your lifeblood instead of your livelihood. And for Christ's sake, write something we might want to read.

Go here to read, "The Death of Fiction?" Take note also of the many comments following the story, including some responses by Mr. Galoways.

British Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards Short List

2010-01-31T13:14:00.004-05:00

The British Science Fiction and Fantasy Association has announced their short list for the BSFA Award.

Novel

China Mieville - The City and the City, Macmillan 
Stephen Baxter - Ark, Gollancz
 Adam Roberts - Yellow Blue Tibia, Gollancz 
Ursula Le Guin - Lavinia, Gollancz

Short Fiction

Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia - "The Beloved Time of Their Lives" - The Beloved of My Beloved, Newcon Press 
Eugie Foster - "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" - Interzone
 Ian Whates - "The Assistant" - The Solaris Book of Science Fiction Volume 3 
Ian McDonald - "Vishnu at the Cat Circus" 
Kim Lakin-Smith - "Johnnie and Emmie-Lou Get Married" - Interzone 
Dave Hutchinson - "The Push," Newcon Press

Go to the BSFA Award site for more, including the art and non-fiction awards and links to the authors' sites.

Radium Age Fiction

2010-01-29T13:18:00.005-05:00

I stumbled upon this flash fiction contest for stories of 250 words or less, with the theme, troubled or troubling supermen, conducted by Hilobrow.com. Their contest is interesting, but I found their explanation of the theme, pre-golden-age supermen, or "Radium Age" fiction, as author Joshua Glenn called it, quite entertaining. Here is the contest theme:

Long before Alan Moore asked “Who will watch the Watchmen?” Radium-Age (1904-33) science fiction writers worried whether supermen would rescue us ordinary mortals — or try to dominate us.

The link in the quote above is to an earlier io9 article, which was the source of some of the Hilobrow article on pre-golden-age science fiction. The author provides ten SF novels published in the 1904-1933 period as examples, including some nicely retro book covers, including Poul Anderson's Brain Wave.

The Radium Age superman was superior in body and intellect, along several evolution-inspired lines of reasoning, including "greater capacity for action and freedom."

Aye, there’s the rub: for, as Nietzsche has Zarathustra predict, “Just as the ape to man is a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment, man shall be just that to [superman].”

Included in the article is a summary of the ten most influential novels of the Radium Age, with a synopsis of each, and the cover art. There is also a bibliography of related fiction from the period 1804 to 1937, under several sub-genre categories.

Apple iPad

2010-01-28T15:19:00.005-05:00

iPad: finally, it's over. Apple has its new gadget. It's not a $120o Mac OSX tablet as many thought until recently (though one may still be in the works). It's basically a $500 tablet-sized iPod Touch, great for viewing books, photos and movies and web browsing. Some are touting it as a Kindle killer. Maybe. The Kindle will work well in bright light because it is an e-Ink device. On the other hand, e-Ink doesn't do well in the dark. Dan Costa at PC Magazine thinks Amazon won't mind being killed in the device market by Apple. Amazon has the Kindle so they can sell their eBooks. If people buy them for an iPad, that's just fine with Amazon.

One of the more amusing stumbles associated with the iPad was made when Harold McGraw of McGraw-Hill "prattled like teenage girl" when he upstaged Steve Jobs with an early announcement about the iPad. Before that faux pas, there were six publishers that were to be part of the later announcement and presentations. Now one missing.

J.D. Salinger RIP

2010-01-28T14:49:00.003-05:00

There is probably nothing written about J.D. Salinger the does not mention The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger has died at 91 of natural causes. His one book even gets top billing in this Washington Post obituary, entitled, 'Catcher' author J.D. Salinger dies.

Salinger has been in the news lately with his lawsuits to prevent the publication of a sequel to Catcher, and a biography. He also shunned some big-gun producers for movie rights to Catcher.

Science Fiction: Needed For Survival

2010-01-27T11:22:00.004-05:00

Here is a thought-provoking article about thought-provoking science fiction: Science Fiction as a Tool for Human Survival. The generically named author, admin, of blog.netflowdevelopments.com postulates that the world is changing so rapidly now that science fiction is needed to help the populace understand the issues of change.

Interestingly, while the author lauds the classical science fiction of the 60s, 70s and 80s for its profundity, he does not see the present blockbuster "eye candy" movies like Avatar (FFO review) and Star Trek the enemy. They are our friends because they legitimize and popularize speculative fiction. In fact, the author claims that because of those blockbusters, we now have more frequent profound movies, like District 9, than in the classical age.

Go here for more on this well-visited topic, including the author's take on a new engineered human, homo evolutis.

Orson Scott Card Interview by David Steffen

2010-01-26T11:36:00.006-05:00

David Steffen is a Flash Fiction Online staffer. He managed to snag Orson Scott Card's attention for an interview. You can read the interview of Orson Scott Card on David Steffen's blog, Diabolical Plots.

Perhaps one of the more interesting topics of the interview was Mr. Card's description of a work in progress. Pathfinder is a world in which the first Earth time/space-jumping spacecraft divides into 19 copies, including the people. The civilizations are isolated and develop independently.

Says Mr. Card:

Technology is deliberately hidden so it has to be developed anew, and starting with the identical gene pool, every colony has eleven thousand years in which to develop their own civilizations – and their own genetic differences – before they catch up to the “present” of the ship’s original jump through spacetime.

Nice interview, David. Good luck with the blog.

Aurealis Awards and SAG Awards for 2009

2010-01-25T16:02:00.007-05:00

SFWA reports the finalists of Australia's Aurealis Awards for 2009 for science fiction, fantasy and horror, including three SFWA members: Ian McHugh, best fantasy short story (tie), "Once a Month, On a Sunday," Andremeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine; Jonathan Strahan (editor), best anthology, Eclipse 3, Nightshade books; and Cat Sparks, best YA short story, "Seventeen," Masques.

Other winners include:

best science fiction novel, Andrew McGahan, Wonders of a Godless World
best fantasy novel, Trudi Canavan, Magician's Apprentice
best horror novel, Honey Brown, Red Queen
best science fiction short story, Peter M. Ball, "Clockwork, Patchwork and Ravens," Apex Magazine
best fantasy short story (tie), Christopher Green, "Father’s Kill," Beneath Ceaseless Skies
best horror short story (tie) Paul Haines, "Wives," X6; and Paul Haines, "Slice of Life - A Spot of Liver," Slice of Life

For the complete list of the finalists, go to the SFWA article or to the Aurealis Awards site article.

The Screen Actors Guild announced their awards for 2009. As SF Scope noted, the only speculative fiction notables were for stunt ensembles, in motion picture Star Trek and television series 24. Here is the SAG article on the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominees and recipients.

Harper's inkpop Writing Site for Teens

2010-01-25T14:40:00.002-05:00

The HarperTeen imprint of HarperCollins has launched a writing site for teens, inkpop. This site allows teen members to post their short fiction, novels, poetry and non-fiction for evaluation by the inkpop community. In theory, the creme that rises to the top is considered by HarperCollins spotters for publishing contracts. I saw a few older users participating, including a twenty-seven year old.

Users must log in to see submissions, so the authors' first publication rights are preserved, as one would expect from a major publisher. The inkpop site's right of passage is in its well-hidden explanation of the service. Look at their About Us link at the bottom of the web page.

Making an eBook--Part 2

2010-01-22T11:00:00.003-05:00

We started a series on making an eBook, based on a writer's observance of his publisher's process. In Part 1 of the series, author and eBOOKNEWSER (GalleyCat) blogger Craig Morgan Teicher noted that traditional book publishers like his spend about the same effort on book design for eBooks as print books. They don't want their eBooks to have a lower aesthetic bar than print books. Part 2 and Part 2.5--he split the topic--will be combined here.

In Part 2 of Making an eBook, Mr. Teicher relates his correspondence with Smashwords, who had contacted him after his first post. Smashwords is an eBook publisher--used by many authors and publishers--that has a relatively simple process for producing an eBook in many formats from an MS Word doc file. Smashword's "meatgrinder" application gobbles the meat of your .doc file and grinds out the eBook. You can then publish the eBook on their web site (if you choose), for no cost. They take a royalty on sales. You'll want to read Mr. Teicher's comments about Smashwords. He was favorably impressed but noted that it would not work for him as he needed linked files in his eBook, which are not supported yet by Smashwords. That's a problem with monolithic applications like that; you get what you get. You can diddle your source file, but you can't affect how the application converts your file.

I had the same issue with an otherwise very nice application, Calibre, that's free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The website is terse but has a decent style book. It has many input formats and output (eBook) formats. Smashwords is quite attractive considering its publishing option and support.

In Part 2.5 of Making an eBook, Mr. Teicher iterated his thoughts about his publishing company's eBook philosophy. They want a consistent look to all their eBooks and worry that they won't achieve that with applications like Smashwords' Meatgrinder. Unless they find an alternative, they'll hand code their Kindle eBooks. In that case, Mr. Teicher will report on that process as it happens.

Forget about Jet Packs

2010-01-21T12:01:00.003-05:00

How many decades have you been waiting for jet packs? Where are the jet packs? Are they reserved for James Bond?

Forget jet packs. NASA has leapfrogged the jet pack with a personal aircraft, the Electric Icarus, they call it, unofficially, and the Puffin, officially. It has electric motors, stands on its tail with four legs. It does a vertical take-off, hovers, and flies horizontally (of course, or what would be the point?). It's powered by rechargeable lithium phosphate batteries. The pilot lies prone during flight. It has no height ceiling since the engines aren't gasoline and so aren't affected by low oxygen. (The pilot might find a lack of oxygen inconvenient.)

It's a right handsome craft. To see a picture of it and learn more about it, see this Scientific American article on NASA's personal aircraft, the Puffin.

No mention of the estimated cost was given. If you have to ask...forget it. But you can write about it, no charge. You'd make quite a splash arriving in a Puffin to receive your Hugo award.

Robert B. Parker, RIP

2010-01-20T15:05:00.005-05:00

Robert B. Parker, prolific American crime writer, has died at the age of 77. He has published about 60 books and has two in the pipeline with publishers. He is perhaps most notable for this Spenser-series of books which inspired a television crime/detective series. Here is Robert B. Parker's personal web site.

Making an eBook

2010-01-19T11:11:00.004-05:00

We can all save a file as a PDF and declare it an eBook, but for book publishers, it's a different matter. They still have book design issues, such as fonts, page design, illustrations, cover art...like a printed book. For an eBook that's being poised for sale at a cost in the neighborhood of a print book, the main differences from print publishing are the cost of production and distribution. The other headaches remain.

Here is the first post of a series on the making of an eBook. The subject matter of the book happens to be poetry because the author of the blog post on eBOOKNEWSER (GalleyCat), Craig Morgan Teicher, is also the author of the poetry volume. He'll watch each stage of his publisher's process and report them on his blog. I'll try to keep up with it and post notices when there's a new article in the series.

Bruce Holland Rogers Kudos

2010-01-18T11:43:00.004-05:00

Flash Fiction Online likes its monthly columnist, Bruce Holland Rogers. See the Short-Short Sighted column in each issue of FFO.

Realms of Fantasy likes Bruce, too. According to SF Scope, the editor of RoF went off their story-purchasing cycle to purchase Bruce's "Fallen" story to accommodate his upcoming travel plans. Nice.

Bruce, could you ask them to reject my stories by saying "it's not horrible," rather than, "it's not right for us at this time?"

NASA: Life on Mars? Maybe.

2010-01-15T15:00:00.002-05:00

Spaceflight Now has an interesting article about NASA making a gutsy prediction. Based on Martian meteorites found in Antarctica, NASA scientists in Houston are close to declaring--as early as 2010--that there was (and perhaps is) life on Mars. They're basing these claims on the merits of newer equipment, high resolution electron microscopy tools and an ion microprobe analysis system, not available when research first began in 1994.

What is being scrutinized is fossil evidence of microorganism found in the Martian meteorites, which have trapped Noble gas compositions similar to those measured on Mars by Viking landers in the 1970s. A long-term challenge to this idea--that the fossil-like features in the meteorites (see image) were created by the impact explosions that sent the meteorites to Earth--has been proven false, according to NASA.

An interesting science gamesmanship sidebar: according to the article, the British could have beat the Americans to the claim if they had examined meteorites that have been in the British Museum of Natural History for over a century.

Go here for the rest of the NASA close to declaring life on Mars article.

75 Books for Writers (and Readers)

2010-01-14T14:20:00.004-05:00

My theory is that if a book is useful to a writer, then it is useful to an avid reader. Most of them anyway. Here is a blog post at OnlineUniversities.com with a compiled list of 75 books of particular interest to writers. The blogger arranged the books into 9 categories which, of course, overlap somewhat: writing basics, advice from authors, improving your writing, grammar, references, writing as a career, genre or format specific, classics, and creativity and motivation.

It seems to be a good list. All of my spot-check selections were in the list: Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Strunk & White (woe be it if that weren't there) and a couple others.

Speculative Films, January-March, 2010

2010-01-13T12:07:00.004-05:00

Here is a speculative film synopsis of the Wikipedia general round-up of movies to be released January-March 2010. See the Wikipedia article on films for 2010 for more details about the films noted here as well as the non-speculative films opening in the same time frame. Note that if a release week is not mentioned below, there were no speculative releases for that week.

Jan. 8:

Daybreakers is a vampire thriller film written and directed by Peter and Michael Spierig, and starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill.

Jan 15:

The Book of Eli is a 2010 American post-apocalyptic film directed by the Hughes brothers and starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis.

Jan 22:

Legion is an apocalyptic fantasy film directed by Scott Stewart and starring an ensemble cast headed by Paul Bettany.
Tooth Fairy is a comedy-fantasy film directed by Michael Lembeck and starring Dwayne Johnson and Julie Andrews.
Edge of Darkness is a crime/drama film adaptation of the 1985 BBC television series of he same name, directed by Martin Campbell and starring Mel Gibson and Ray Winstone.

Feb. 12:

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a fantasy-adventure film directed by Chris Columbus and starring Logan Lerman alongside an ensemble cast. The film is an adaptation of the novel, The Lightning Thief.
The Wolfman is a 2010 remake of the 1941 classic horror film The Wolf Man, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving and Art Malik.

Feb. 19:

Shutter Island is a horror thriller directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The film is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane.

Feb. 26:

The Crazies is a horror film that is a remake of George A. Romero's 1973 film of the same name, directed by Breck and starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson and Danielle Panabake.

Mar. 5:

Alice in Wonderland is a fantasy-adventure film directed by Tim Burton and starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice, alongside Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as The Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as The White Queen, and Crispin Glover as The Knave of Hearts. The film is an extension to the Lewis Carroll novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

Edge: The Question of 2010

2010-01-12T12:03:00.005-05:00

Background, Edge Foundation: "the mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society."

This organization felt that in the early 20th century, literary intellectuals effectively started calling themselves the intellectuals, thereby booting others out of the club, including the likes of John von Neumann, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heinsenberg. Edge wishes to reverse that trend and is taken quite seriously by luminaries. Among other activities, Edge proposes the "question of the year" and invites intellectuals to respond.

The Edge annual question for 2010 is: how is the Internet changing the way you think? Already they have 167 responses (scroll down) from notables, including palenotologists, physicists, evolutionary biologists (yeah, Dawkins), Facebook "platform managers", the president of the Royal Society, various artists, the co-founder of wikipedia...and Alan Alda.