Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category

Titan Books has released a bit of info and the cover of their 3rd Firefly Companion book, "Firefly: Still Flying." They're keeping some stuff a secret for now, but we know it'll be the same format as the previous two.

In Still Flying, we’ll be uncovering even more secrets from the series, stuffing the book full of unseen material, including new photos, props, behind-the-scenes secrets and much more besides.

The first two were excellent resources (reviews here and here), as all Titan tie-in books tend to be, with plenty of new interviews, insider tidbits, and full-color photos even hard-core fans haven't seen. I'm hopeful this will be a worthy addition.

Titan's on a roll this year. In addition to this they're also working on the official movie novelization and official Visual Companion for Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's upcoming movie "Cabin in the Woods." And the collection of Kevin Smith SModcasts, "Shootin' the Sh*t With Kevin Smith." And the movie book for Mark Millar's "Kick-Ass."

If you've been listening to Kevin Smith's podcast with Scott Mosier (the SModcast) you know what to expect. Hell, if you've ever listened to Kevin Smith for more than 2 minutes you know what to expect.

If you haven't been listening (and why not? they're hilarious) you can read the best of the worst in Titan Books' new release, "Shootin' the Sh*t With Kevin Smith:The Best of the SModcast". An excerpt has been posted online, and vistors to the Titan Books booth at Comic-Con this week (booth #5337) can get a free sampler.

After the jump, a NSFW bit from the excerpt on Kevin and Scott lost on the "Lost" island:
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Terry Moore has signed a deal with "Watchmen" producer Lloyd Levin to make an "Echo" movie.

This doesn't mean there'll be one, of course. Movie deals are delicate, frail things that fall apart for all sorts of reasons. But I'm really hoping to see it (assuming it's done right) and I'm glad to see Moore,  getting the recognition (and the six-figure option amount).

Of course, I'd rather see a well-done "Strangers in Paradise" movie…

"Echo" tells the story of a photographer who is preoccupied with her personal problems until she gets doused by liquid metal from a military experiment gone awry. She discovers she can now harness the power of a nuclear bomb, and soon the military wants its walking weapon.

If you're not reading it, you really should be. Check out the first collection, "Moon Lake", at Amazon.

The North American Discworld Convention is coming! September 4 – 7, 2009, in Tempe, Arizona, it will feature a Guest of Honor talk, a Maskerade, a Gala Banquet, a Seamstress Guild Party, a Charity Auction, book signings, panels, and more.

Guests will include Discworld author Terry Pratchett himself, Terry's agent Colin Smythe, Jennifer Brehl and Anne Hoppe from Harper-Collins, the cunning artificer Bernard Pearson and his wife Isobel, and fellow authors Diane Duane, Esther Friesner, Peter Morwood.

If you've never encountered Terry at a con, you're in for a treat. Very friendly, very fan-friendly, and instead of staying safely behind an autograph table or in his room he'll walk around talking to people all over the place. To give him a bit of free time, the UK cons have developed an evil twin for him, so be aware of that fellow if you go.

The next Discworld book will be "Unseen Academicals," and is due to come out Oct. 6. And apparently he's taking on sports.

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Good news: Strangers in Paradise, the long-running, award-winning comic by Terry Moore, is finally being collected in one massive , two-book hardcover collection.

Better news: there's also a third book to the set, containing the artwork for all the covers.

Even better news: Moore has tweaked the stories so that everything runs in unbroken order, typos have been fixed, words have been uncensored, and the artwork has been checked page by page. This is the finest edition of these stories available.

Way cool news: The Omnibus is on sale now, although it will debut at the San Diego Comic-Con. You can pre-order it from the Strangers in Paradise site and pick it up at the con (in a cool Omnibus canvas bag to haul it around) or have it shipped afterward.

Limited edition news: Only 1250 of these will be printed; after that the 1st two books (but not the covers book) will come out in paperback. Copies are available through your local comic store, but don't dawdle to preorder, they're going fast.

Extremely limited edition news: a lettered edition, only 26 copies, has been created to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. This is the rarest Strangers in Paradise collectible imaginable and it comes with an original drawing by Terry Moore and a bottle of "Parker Lily," a fragrance based on Terry Moore's beloved epic created by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, strictly limited to 26 bottles. And right now the CBLDF is offering the rarest SiP item of all on eBay — Letter A of this limited edition set, plus a bottle each of the two prototypes of Parker Lily, the same ones sent to Terry Moore for approval. Short of auctioning off Terry Moore himself, it doesn't get better than this.

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Just when I think there are no cool collectibles any more…

Robert Anton Wilson, futurist and writer, died with a large amount of medical debt and his daughter, Christina, is auctioning off some of his belongings. Including this: Robert Anton Wilson's medical marijuana card

As we all know (or should) RAW was a great champion of decriminalizing marijuana. In his late sixties, when his post-polio syndrome started getting bad, he really found great relief and was a staunch supporter of WAMM. WAMM is Wo/Man's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, located in Santa Cruz. His doctor gave him the necessary paperwork and here is his official WAMM card granting him the right to use marijuana medicinally. He is of course, patient #2323. There is no signature, but his picture is emblazoned on the front with a twinkle in his eye…

RAW's work… hell, his attitude… was a huge influence on my teenage years, and I reread "Illuminatus!" every year for quite a while. The concept of fun and delight being a necessary component to any personal, religious, or philosophical belief system ran through everything he wrote and it has stuck with me all this time.

Bookz Pro, on the many ebook readers available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, just updated to be fully compatible with the 3.0 OS, and it's added some functionality. Version 2.6 now includes auto-rotation, a search bar in your library, and the ability to read from ZIP files. This is added to a decent list of ebook reading tools for a program that has set out to be the easiest native text document reader for the iPhone. Bookz Pro has a built-in dictionary, multi-language support, it opens large text files extremely quickly, and it even allows you to password-protect specific books. Bookz Pro is $4.99, the free version (without the dictionary, password protection of appearance mods) is, well, free.

All well and good. But when they updated why did they change the app's icon, which was cool and distinctive (see above left), into something that looks like an "I Can Read!" book? Clipart restrictions? Aiming at the children's iPhone market? Lost a bet? I don't recall offhand if the pro and free versions had different icons before so perhaps this is a way to make the difference more obvious, but jeez.

It's never made a lot of sense that ebooks – which require no materials, no shipping, no storage, no stocking or maintenance manpower, and no destruction of unsold inventory – often cost as much or more than their print equivalents. eBook aficionados have spent the last 10 years shaking their heads and wondering when the publishing companies would get a clue… when the aficionados weren't simply scanning in the books themselves and sharing them for free, of course.

OK, not all the publishing companies. Baen Books, as always, was ahead of the curve with a sensible and attractive pricing plan from the very beginning. But I almost have to throw them out when complaining about publishers; they keep throwing off the curve. Meanwhile the rest of the publishers priced their ebooks high and huddled together, hoping that it wouldn't catch on.

Then Amazon shook things up with the $9.95 New York Times Bestseller ebook pricing. Suddenly that seemed to be a better deal – it certainly helped drive sales of their otherwise overpriced Kindle – and we saw a chink in the pricing wall.

Now it's spreading, and I hope it continues. eReader.com, one of the oldest ebook retailers, has changed their pricing structure and they're going Amazon one better. Now all new books start at $9.95 or less the first week of their release. After that the books revert to the publisher's list price but will not exceed $12.95. Read that again: will not exceed $12.95. And you can still earn 15% Reader Rewards, rebates which can be applied to future purchases.

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In ABC's "Castle," Nathan Fillion plays a best-selling mystery novelist. So when they need a cute tie-in to drum up interest in the show's second season what better way than to publish one of his books?

Starting Aug. 10 ABC will publish chapters of Richard Castle's "Heat Wave" as they air reruns of the show, leading up to the season premiere in late September. The book will reportedly include elements from the shows — which makes sense, given the premise, that he's following the cops to get story ideas. The book itself will be published September 29 by Hyperion.

There's one problem with stuff like this: what if the book by this fictional bestselling writer sucks? No one's saying who the real author is. Personally, I hope it's Nathan. Look for these to show up on Fillion's autograph lines real soon.

If you're not following @drhorrible on Twitter, you're missing some good stuff and sneaky updates like this one. Just sayin'.