Xenagia News V1, #2

Welcome back to Xenagia News. This will probably be the last posting before Thanksgiving, so enjoy your holidays. In the meantime, we've got Xenagia News and Media News just like last time. If there's anything you'd like to see added to this newsletter, please let me know.

This Week: Book Club; Reviews; News Blog; Writer's Strike; Season Scorecard; and Threads of Note.

-Shannon

Site News

BOOK CLUB: We've selected our first book for the Xenagia Book Club. It's _Singularity Sky_ by Charles Stross. This is modern hard science-fiction at its best. The synopsis: "Four hundred years after the computer systems of Earth transcended and became the Eschaton, scattering the population across thousands of light-years of space and a thousand years of time, a backwater colony of a minor interstellar empire is contacted by a much-advanced culture. The empire responds by sending an FTL war-fleet, planning to violate causality by attacking before contact. But the Eschaton's First Commandment is, 'Thou Shalt Not violate causality in my light-cone.'"

We'll be starting discussion on December 1, though I expect the discussion will start really rolling on Monday December 3. Go pick yourself up a copy at your local library or bookstore, so that you can join us.

REVIEWS: Our reviews have continued to roll since last week. As usual, we've got them lined up for Tuesday and Thursday. Today we've got reviews of the books _Man Made Monsters_ and _Templar Chronicles: The Heretic_ as well as the comic book _Secret Identity_. There's three more scheduled for Thursday, and we've already started to put together our reviews for next week as well:

Read Reviews: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/

Submit Reviews: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/submit-review.phtml

NEWS BLOG: At the suggestion of a reader, we've created a blog for these newsletters. If you prefer, you can thus now subscribe to this newsletter online.

Blog URL: http://xenagia.blogspot.com/

Blog RSS: http://xenagia.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

(We'll be updating the look and feel of that blog soon, since it's currently in a rudimentary form.)

Media News

WRITER'S STRIKE: The strike, now entering its 8th day, continues to be the big news. Last time there was a TV writer's strike, back in 1988, it lasted for 22 weeks, so this probably won't be over soon. However, we're now starting to feel the repercussions, with shows going dark and announcing that they've just got a few more episodes in the can. We talked last week about how shows like _Lost_ and _Heroes_ will end up with truncated seasons. Meanwhile, the big winners will probably be the SF shows that got pushed back to spring: _The Sarah Connor Chronicles_, _New Amsterdam_, and _Jericho_ season two, since they should be getting released at a time when the airwaves are barren of pretty much everything but reality shows.

Writer's Strike: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=802

SEASON SCORECARD: So what were the best shows of this probably-to-be-abbreviated TV season? Here's your chance to discuss that:

The Best Shows: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=832

THREADS OF NOTE: A few other threads of note from Xenagia in the last week.

The Books We Read Novemember has kicked off, to talk about the newest tomes you're working on:

Books: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=829

Dr. S. is putting together an "advanced" reading list of swords & sorcery:

List: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=804