Temporarily at a loss for more adventures that could feature a talking pig on an upstate New York farm, for his next novel, author Walter Brooks turned to a different sort of story — the tale of traveling circus animals, where Freddy the Pig only makes an appearance in the final chapters. Originally titled The Story of Freginald, it has been reissued under the somewhat misleading title of Freddy and Freginald.

The main character is Freginald, a small bear initially inflicted (in his view) with the name Louise (thanks to a bit of mistaken gender identification). Other bears make fun of him. The bear comforts himself by writing bad poetry (perhaps echoing a certain poetic British bear, although more likely serving as an excuse for Brooks to write silly poems). This seeming timewaster later allows him to get a job with the circus, as the owner, Mr. Boomschimdt, soon realizes that a bear that can hop like a rabbit while reciting his own poems is a sure fire moneymaker.

[Off to the circus!]

The event held on Wednesday by PBS in preparation for their airing the second series of BBC’s Sherlock was a bit of a mess. This wasn’t due to any negligence on the part of PBS or the event organizers. Simply, it looks as though they had just not counted on what many of us Sherlock enthusiasts would have expected all along: droves of shrieking, hair-tearing fans. Like those videos of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.

This was only part of the madness that was last night’s PBS Sherlock event.

[On truly rabid fangirls, long Q&As, and autograph lines]

Last week, the new Prometheus trailer hit, and it’s fantastic. It’s gripping, original, and most of all it makes you want to see the movie if only to find out what the hell is going on. At one point someone in the trailer says “they’re changing!” and then some one else says “changing into what?” Exactly. Who are they? And just what are they changing into?

More importantly, on an aesthetic level, the trailer’s second half is almost a direct homage to the theatrical Alien trailer. What does this mean?

[Read more. Speculation and possible spoilers ahead.]

Kickstarter has become ubiquitous around the SF community, funding things like “An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer,” the digital archiving of Charles Brown/Locus Magazine’s extraordinary collection of SF-related documents, and a thousand other things. But, there’s a new Kickstarter in town, and it’s one that I very much want to draw attention to.

[More on this neat new project]

Welcome to my insanely detailed reread of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles. This week’s post covers chapters 147 to the end of The Wise Man’s Fear but also contains extensive spoilers for the whole book and the whole of The Name of the Wind — these discussions assume you’ve read all of both books. These posts are full of spoilers, please don’t venture beyond the cut unless you want them.

[Read more: spoilers and speculations, the rest is silence]

Independent game developer Jon Blow recently ignited a mini-firestorm across the Internet due to his comments in a feature piece in The Atlantic, in which he proclaimed the mainstream game industry to be “a fucked-up den of mediocrity. There are some smart people wallowing in there, but the environment discourages creativity and strength and rigor, so what you get is mostly atrophy.” (Coincidentally, this exact quote serves as an accurate assessment of several aspects of modern post-secondary education... but there’s a different argument for a different day.)

[Click indignantly for more.]

The Avengers, opening May 4th, represents something rather historic for movies, a crossover team-up. While fairly common in television and comics, crossovers, characters from two or more series meeting, rarely happen in films. I can think of only a few examples, and they all involve horror movie villains meeting and fighting (and two of them have “Vs.” in the title).

[Why doesn’t it happen more often?]

We are four episodes into The Legend of Korra and as you might expect, I’m completely won over. Heck, I was won over before it started, but I count this as a milestone since four episodes is what I think it takes for Avatar: The Last Airbender to find its voice; the two-part beginning of “The Boy in the Iceberg” and “The Avatar Returns” to lay down the rules of the universe and the dramatis personae, the trip to “The Southern Air Temple” to establish the mythological roots, and then finally the glowingly perfect episode “The Warriors of Kyoshi.” Riding the unagi, kick-butt female warriors, Sokka’s character growth and a treatise on unintended consequences… capped off with the Avatar figuring out a way to help despite everyone telling him he can’t. You can draw a straight line from “The Warriors of Kyoshi” all the way to “Sozin’s Comet.”

[Read more]

The Guardian is reporting that the winner of this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award is author Jane Rogers. Though the short list included SF stars like China Miéville and Greg Bear, the prestigious award went to a relatively unknown author who’s novel was published by a small press; Sandstone Press.

Jane Rogers’s novel The Testament of Jessie Lamb depicts a future world where the planet has been ravaged by an epidemic called Maternal Death Syndrome, a fatal virus that affects pregnant women. The reader follows the main character, Jessie, as she struggles to become independent of her parents in this bleak future. The book has been compared to the works of Margaret Atwood. 

This announcement has not posted yet on the Clarke Awards website, but you can check out the shortlist here.

[News via The Guardian]

We are very excited to reveal the cover to A Memory of Light, the final volume of Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time. The artwork for this final edition is by, arguably, one of today’s most beloved illustrators, Michael Whelan.

[The process behind the cover, sketches, and the full cover below]

This shark is wielding an actual laser, and we are sending it to track down all the Benedict Cumberbatch rumors. Today, Cumberbatch told MTV he doesn’t even know what the S.S. Botany Bay is! Maybe he’s not playing Khan after all. Laser shark!

Here’s our Cumberbatch rumor: Sherlock series 3 will feature Justin Bieber as one of the Baker Street Irregulars. Oh man, here comes the laser shark! It’s turned on us! (We saw the laser shark here.)

Your offsite links have lasers attached to them.

Highlights include:

1. Val Kilmer takes off his glasses. So much.
2. Why the 1980s Twilight Zone was actually good.
3. Cumber-watch.

[Read more]

The new AT&T iPhone ads show celebs using Siri to plan their days. Here’s my version. All Zooey Deschanel’s dialogue is lifted straight from the commercial until after the director calls cut.

Zooey: Is that rain?

Siri: Look out a window.

Zooey (looking out window): Oh! Let’s get tomato soup delivered.

Siri: I found… wait, really? Tomato soup? You want to order the world’s easiest to prepare food? I know you sup on dewdrops, but you don’t have a can of soup in the house?

[Then things get weird]

Be vewy, vewy quiet. I’m hunting power-crazed dads and wesen rebels. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh….

Last week, in the Battle of the Network Fairy Tale Shows, it was all about the hunter and the hunted. On Once Upon a Time, Rumpelstiltskin is hunted down by an important figure from his past, and we learn exactly who August Booth is!

Well, not really.

On Grimm, we’re thrust into a WWII-style political climate as a wesen rebel from Europe makes his way to Portland with a wesen hit-man on his tail, and Nick has to choose between acting like a cop and acting like a Grimm.

[“I’m taking back my son!”]

You must listen to this original song by Rob Cantor, done in the style of a Vincent Price radio drama, about the horrors of encountering superstar actor Shia LeBeouf in the woods. Yes, you heard that right, actual cannibal Shia LeBeouf. Your safety depends on it. (This is a somewhat NSFW song, so headphones on.)

God, this song is so good we’re going to sing it at the next Tor.com Talent Show.

Stubby the Rocket is the mascot of Tor.com and whispers “Shia LeBeouf” at its crew when it’s sleeping.

“Rhapsody In Blue”
Story by David Kemper and Ro Hume, teleplay by David Kemper, directed by Andrew Prowse
Season 1, Episode 12

1^st US Transmission Date: 23 July 1999
1^st UK Transmission Date: 13 March 2000
1^st Australian Transmission: 30 September 2000

Guest Cast: Darlene Vogel (Alexandra/Lorana), Kate Raison (Tahleen), Max Phipps (Tuzak), Michael Beckley (Hasko), Aaron Cash (Pa’u Bitaal), Grant Magee (Jothee), Robert Supple (Young Crichton)

Synopsis: Moya’s crew are experiencing dreams of past sexual encounters when Moya StarBursts in response to a distress call from a Leviathan. The call was a ruse to lure Moya to a planet inhabited by a fugitive Delvian sect who need Zhaan’s help.

[Almost everything we see, almost every day, is new to us, and it’s worthy of response.]

So John Cusack just had his first onscreen turn as Edgar Allan Poe. And while historical figures being liberally interpreted as action-oriented, larger than life figures is common these days (How many vampires did Abraham Lincoln really hunt?), how much do you really know about Edgar Allan Poe?

Here are 10 factoids from the former head docent of the Edgar Allan Poe cottage. Perhaps they will change your view of Poe... evermore.

[Read more]

Welcome to the Malazan Re-read of the Fallen! Every post will start off with a summary of events, followed by reaction and commentary by your hosts Bill and Amanda (with Amanda, new to the series, going first), and finally comments from Tor.com readers. In this article, we’ll cover Chapter Thirteen of The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson (TB).

A fair warning before we get started: We’ll be discussing both novel and whole-series themes, narrative arcs that run across the entire series, and foreshadowing. Note: The summary of events will be free of major spoilers and we’re going to try keeping the reader comments the same. A forum thread has been set up for outright Malazan spoiler discussion.

[Read more]

The forthcoming movie Avengers movie, the summer’s big kick-off superhero blockbuster, is the culmination of five superhero films released over the past four years, all of them set within the same universe. But if you’re not familiar with the comics world these characters stem from, you may not know that.

Don’t panic! The good news is that you don’t need to see the five previous films to get the full Avengers experience. But if you want to afterwards, I’ll illustrate below how The Avengers has been quietly (and rather brilliantly) building to a head since 2008.

[Five film series, one universe]