This Week: Book Club; New Author Blogs; Reviews; Writers' Strike; Wizards Expands Book Publishing; Threads of Note.
-Shannon
Site News
BOOK CLUB: We are moving up on our first Book Club discussion group. The book is _Singularity Sky_ by Charles Stross, and we'll begin talking about it on Saturday the 1st, though it'll probably be next Monday before things really get going. Though a dense, hard-science book, _Singularity Sky_ is also pretty short, so if you haven't started reading it yet, you could probably pick up a copy and get through it before Saturday.
We'll also begin nominations for January's book on Friday, so if you have anything that you'd particularly like to read next month, watch for that and post.
NEW AUTHOR BLOGS: We hope to eventually make the Xenagia forums a mirror of every notable blog by a science-fiction, fantasy, or horror author. A technological limitation has prevented us from adding in the many authors who have Blogger accounts, but we've now started adding in feeds from authors on LiveJournal. In the last few weeks we added Elizabeth Bear, Steven Brust, John Crowley, and Ellen Kushner. These join old favorites like Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin.
Author Blogs: http://forum.xenagia.net/forumdisplay.php?f=9
REVIEWS: We ran some more reviews last Tuesday, and we have reviews scheduled again for both Tuesday and Thursday this week. You can read these from our website, or via RSS:
Reviews Web: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/
Reviews RSS: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/index.xml
For those of you writing reviews, we're continuing to post links to our forums and also to announce them over at RPGnet, to get the maximum viewers possible. If you'd like to review books, TV shows, comics, movies, or anything else of note for fantasy, science-fiction, and horror genres, we invite you to join in. Cross-posting a review you've written for a blog or elsewhere is fine.
Reviews Submission: http://www.xenagia.net/reviews/submit-review.phtml
Media News
WRITERS' STRIKE: For the third week running, the big media news continues to be the writers' strike. Word is that the public reaction and the writers' solidarity have driven the media conglomerates back to the bargaining table, starting today. However info on how this all will affect current shows continues to be grim. In the last few weeks we've heard that _Lost_ will broadcast half a season, _Heroes_ will probably end its season with next Monday's episode, _Journeyman's_ 12th episode will probably be its series finale, and that the producer of _Battlestar Galactica_ has 13 episodes in the can and is gloomy about whether the last 7 will ever get produced.
Strike Thread: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=802
WIZARDS EXPANDS BOOK PUBLISHING: The other interesting news of the last few weeks is that roleplaying-giant Wizards of the Coast is trying to expand their book publication beyond the realms of gaming fiction. They're not the first RPG company to move in that direction (or even the first this year, as Paizo Publishing has already begun "Planet Stories", their line of pulp era reprints).
Wizards Thread: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=845
THREADS OF NOTE: Finally, I'm going to offer pointers to a few threads I've been working on.
First, I'm done watching season one of Heroes. I invite you to take a look if you'd like to see some episode-by-episode thoughts on the first season, before season two finishes up:
Heroes Thread: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=704
Second, I've started a new thread about reading many of Michael Moorcock's books. I don't have the same patience or sense of order that Bob Cram has, but I hope to work through a lot of Moorcock's writing in an order that interests me. If you're a fan I encourage you to join in.
Moorcock Thread: http://forum.xenagia.net/showthread.php?t=840
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