Linkpharm:
- Gwenda Bond is right: this is a pretty terrific quote from George Saunders.
- My appreciation for Doctor Who has grown by leaps and bounds lately — thanks in no small part to a pretty terrific third season and Betty‘s essay about the show and its history in the current issue of Kaleidotrope — but I’m still not prepared to wear one of these talking Dalek neckties. I’ve had a tough enough time explaining my current desktop image to office co-workers. [via]
- There once was a starship, the USS Nantucket… A Space Western Limerick Contest [via]
- “Is this the end of zombie Shakespeare?” I have no idea if this production is any good, but c’mon: 12th Night of the Living Dead? How can you not grin at a title like that? [via]
- I think what I like best about this list of 10 Dumb Moments in Sci-Fi Cinema is the “Why we don’t care” part at the end. It’s worth noting that a movie can fail spectacularly in logic or as science fiction and still be entertaining. [via]
- Ben Bova wonders, “What if some of the startling things that astronomers see are not entirely natural? What if they are caused by the actions of intelligent creatures?” [via]
- J.K. Rowling discusses the Christian imagery in Harry Potter. Is it wrong that I sort of wish she hadn’t? [via]
- Some video:
- I know there are lots of reasons why a television pilot does or does not get picked up, but c’mon: how can you fail with a zombie crime drama? That’s sort of what Babylon Fields was supposed to be. And, having now seen the pilot episode, I really wish CBS had given this one a chance. It’s not perfect, but it would have been one of the more interesting shows of the season. If you have forty minutes to kill (and it’s still up there), I’d recommend it. [via]
If I wore ties, I would probably wear that tie. So I’m sure it’s just as well that I don’t. 🙂
*from the article – “(our galaxy).. the result of “an industrial accident,†caused by a civilization that dealt with unimaginable powers — and lost control of them.”
*Douglas Adams – “the Universe was sneezed out by a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.”
Pretty much the exact same thing.
Beware The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief!!!
Ben Bova wonders, “What if some of the startling things that astronomers see are not entirely natural? What if they are caused by the actions of intelligent creatures?”
Boo, Ben Bova, Stephen Baxter has already written an entire book which addresses this very issue. It is, I believe, “Manifold: Space.” (Though it might be “Manifold: Time,” I’ve read them both, but I don’t have them in the room to double check.) It is a very good book, although Baxter often writes like a treatise on theoretical physics with characters.
He shows how just about everything that we take for granted in the solar system could be the influence of ancient alien civilizations
Also, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle open their novel “Lucifer’s Hammer” with the drive exhaust of an alien spaceship causing a peculiar twisting of Saturn’s rings that science cannot completely explain.
So, yeah, not a new concept.