News Archive: May 2005

Americans think ET is out there
28/05/2005. New survey shows that two thirds of our colonial cousins reckon alien life is out there. The other third clearly haven't been watching the X-Files.

Dalek game proves popular
28/05/2005. Doctor Who fans storm the BBC web site to play a free online Dalek game.

Howl's Moving Castle premiere
27/05/2005. Lauren Bacall to attend premiere of this movie in the US. World's most unlikely manga and anime fan?

New trilogy from Weis and Hickman
27/05/2005. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, co-creators of the Dragonlance world, to pen new adventure series.

Fill your sails
26/05/2005. First solar sail spacecraft ready for daring flight in June.

Upcoming books from Del Rey
26/05/2005. US science fiction and fantasy publisher Del Rey's forthcoming releases list.

Zivkovic goes to PS
25/05/2005. New Zoran Zivkovic collection goes to science fiction imprint PS Publishing.

Star Wars is the most used keyword on the Net
24/05/2005. Search engine Lycos announces that Star Wars is now the most searched for key word on its web indexing system.

Sky High
24/05/2005. Family superhero movie from Disney gets its first trailer download.

A hundred years of Heinlein
24/05/2005. Plans were announced today for a convention to be held in Kansas City, Missouri to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of American SF author Robert Heinlein.

Sidewise 2005
23/05/2005. Sidewise Award nominations have been announced. Except in a parallel universe, where they weren't.

Influx slays Hitchhiker's Guide
23/05/2005. Influx, the debut novel from 2003 AntiSF Award winning author J.C. Jones, has toppled Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the no.1 spot at Fictionwise's Science-Fiction Best Seller list.

Measuring Up to a Solar Sail
22/05/2005. The idea of using large, reflective structures to sail through space is nothing new. In fact, it's been around for a long time - first suggested nearly 400 years ago by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, after he discovered comet tails being blown by what he believed to be a kind of solar breeze.

'Some Fantastic' issue 4 hits the download streets
22/05/2005. Some Fantastic is a quarterly Adobe PDF-format journal focused on science fiction, fantasy & horror in literature and film.

The Island, new trailer
22/05/2005. New downloadable trailer for the Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson movie about the last 'paradise' on earth in the year 2070.

Stealth trailer
21/05/2005. Here's a downloadble trailer for the movie Stealth, about an AI-driven pilotless stealth plane that does a Hal 3000 and goes rogue.

Lois McMaster Bujold on May's Fast Forward
21/05/2005. This month, the indie TV show is mostly interviewing science fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold.

Going Mythopoeic
21/05/2005. The 2005 Mythopoeic Award finalists are announced.

Hugo fiction online
20/05/2005. Hugo nominees in short fiction categories available online for 2005.

Grace in Spider-Man 3 movie
20/05/2005. Topher Grace has joined the cast of Spider-Man 3, director Sam Raimi and producers Laura Ziskin and Marvel Studio's Avi Arad tells SFcrowsnest.

Gauntlet Press auction off Matheson manuscript
20/05/2005. Gauntlet Press is auctioning off Richard Matheson's handwritten and typewritten manuscripts of 'Woman', his new novel.

Xbox 360 puts its faith in fantasy and science fiction
19/05/2005. Out of the six launch games, only one is not a SF&F title. Thanks Bill.

Star Wars: film or religion?
19/05/2005. Some fans of George Lucas' Star Wars movies consider it to be a religious experience - as evidenced by the hype surrounding the May 19 release of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. So maybe it's not surprising that religion has had a role in its popularity, according to two professors who have studied the role of religion in science fiction.

Path of the Emperor
19/05/2005. Fantasy MMORPG lets you play for free by taking surveys. And there's a $1,000,000 prize for becoming top gamer.

R2-D2 and C-3PO hate each other
18/05/2005. He (C-3PO) looked down his nose at me like I was a piece of shit, R2-D2 actor Kenny Baker says in an interview.

Judge Dredd villains wanted
18/05/2005. Live in the UK? Dab hand with a brush'N'ink? Sci-fi comic 2000 AD has launched a competition to find the best new illustrators in Britain.

Teaser trailer for the Da Vinci Code movie
18/05/2005. Brush the dust off your Quicktime plug-ins.

First seeds of life planted in the land of Azeroth
18/05/2005. MMORPG World of Warcraft has achieved peak concurrency, including queued players, of approximately 500,000 players in the first week of its All-access Open Beta Test. That's a lot of barbarians and orcs!

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl
17/05/2005. Robert Rodriguez's new family fantasy flick arrives at US theaters June 10th.

Enter the (Net)Dragon
17/05/2005. Will everyone be kung fu fighting in this new oriental-themed Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game?

Batmobile to race in NASCAR
16/05/2005. The Batmobile is racing for real, but what are the odds the Joker will emerge and interfere with the pit stops?

June 2005 signings at Mysterious Galaxy
16/05/2005. San Diego's fave science fiction store announces its author line-up for signings and talks next month.

Dick Tracy coming back to TV
16/05/2005. Outlaw Productions and Lorenzo di Bonaventura are bringing Dick Tracy back to the small screen.

Jonathan Lethem signs up for Omega the Unknown
16/05/2005. Writer of Fortress of Solitude to reintroduce cult Marvel Comics super hero from the 1970s.

Free Dr Who E-books
15/05/2005. The good old BBC are making some of their out-of-print Doctor Who novels available as free e-book downloads.

Sith Happens
15/05/2005. With just three days to go, here comes the last trailer download.

Star Wars beats Trek in the card wars
15/05/2005. Yes, Star Wars is now officially the most popular movie trading card franchise produced. And all the others are science fiction and fantasy based too.

Large reward for 'missing' Loch Ness tooth
14/05/2005. Forensics investigator Bill McDonald has announced a big reward for the return of a four-inch barbed shed tooth found lodged in the ribcage of a mutilated deer carcass on Loch Ness.

How do lightsabers work, mom?
14/05/2005. More web sites shamelessly cash in on the Star Wars craze.

Speculative Literature Foundation announces 2005 Fountain Award
14/05/2005. The Speculative Literature Foundation has announced the results of the second annual Fountain Award, which carries a cash prize of $1000.

Bewitched trailer
14/05/2005. And yet another trailer - this one for the Nicole Kidman witchy update of the classic TV series.

Batman Begins
14/05/2005. And another new trailer for the bats prequel movie.

Legend of Zorro
13/05/2005. Flashing blades, Latin style, with a new trailer for the latest Zorro flick.

Astronauts guest star on last Star Trek
13/05/2005. NASA Astronauts Mike Fincke and Terry Virts recently suited up for a voyage in space without ever leaving Earth. In fact, their most recent space expedition was in an episode of Trek.

Sony looks for a real-life fantasy game heroine
13/05/2005. Barbarian lasses with sharp axes and even sharper muscle tones searched for in the USA.

Skinwalkers news
13/05/2005. Visual effects guru Stan Winston to supervise creature special effects for contemporary werewolf fable with a twist.

Scratch my robot skin
12/05/2005. NASA Goddard technologist proposes a sensitive skin covering for robots.

Nominees announced for the 2005 SESFA Award
12/05/2005. SCIFIdimensions has just announced the nominees for the 2005 Southeastern Science Fiction Achievement Award (aka the SESFAs).

'Crood Awakening' for DreamWorks and Aardman
12/05/2005. The makers of 'Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit' go back to the stone age for their next fantasy flick.

SF all the way for Dallas
12/05/2005. Texans gear up for the Dallas ComicCon and SciFi Expo this Weekend.

China Miéville wins his second Arthur C Clarke Award
12/05/2005. The 19th Arthur C. Clarke Award has been won by Iron Council by China Miéville. It is the second time that Miéville has won the Award, he was the 2001 winner for Perdido Street Station, which makes him onlt the second person after Pat Cadigan to have won the Award twice.

Trailers for graphic novels? What will they think of next.
12/05/2005. Trailer for 'War of the Worlds' graphic novel playing on the internet.

Sounds of the Sith
12/05/2005. Episode III Revenge of the Sith soundtrack makes history as the third Star Wars soundtrack to debut in the Top 10 on Billboard's Top 200 Album Chart.

Let the jazz monsters attack
11/05/2005. Gregory Frost's Attack Of The Jazz Giants And Other Stories - is now shipping.

Interaction to Preview Howl's Moving Castle
11/05/2005. Howl's Moving Castle to be previewed at Interaction - UK release date set for September - Appleseed and Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem also to be shown.

World's greatest Batman collection offered for sale
11/05/2005. In an opportunity for investors, collectors and Batman fans around the globe, cos the World's Greatest Batman Collection is being offered for sale.

Birth of a black hole
10/05/2005. NASA scientists have, for the first time, detected and pinned down the location of a short gamma-ray burst, lasting only 50 milliseconds. The burst marks the birth of a black hole. The astronomy community is speculating on what may have caused the burst; perhaps a collision of two older black holes or two neutron stars.

Shadows of Angmar fall across the land
10/05/2005. Read the first details about The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, the first massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) based on the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Scientology overtaken by fictionology
10/05/2005. Scientology, then only religion created by a science fiction author, is reported to be losing ground to fictionology.

The great impact debate
10/05/2005. Asteroid impact - we're all going to die? Roundtable with leading experts in the field.

Potter's on fire
10/05/2005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire welcomes back stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Tom Felton as their archrival Draco Malfoy.

The Force is strong with Sith
10/05/2005. With less than two weeks to go before the May 19th 2005 opening of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Fandango, the USA's largest movie ticketing service, reports that Sith is projected to be the top-selling title in the company's five-year history.

Author Sheckley in a grave condition
10/05/2005. Golden age science fiction author Robert Sheckley taken to a Kiev hospital.

Blade to become TV series
10/05/2005. Vampire slayer Blade joins the ranks of Buffy as movie series jumps over to television.

First time in an Æon
10/05/2005. The editors over at Æon Speculative Fiction magazine are happy with SFcrowsnest's review of their publication, but reservations, they have a few.

Spider-man 2 Big wins at 31st annual Saturn awards
10/05/2005. Spider-man 2 scoops the gongs at the Oscars of the science fiction and fantasy movie world for this year.

Orson Scott Card says ciao Trek, you won't be missed
09/05/2005. So they've gone and killed Star Trek. And it's about time, he quips.

Bloglines speaks Klingon
09/05/2005. News feed and blog reading in the warrior tongue. Those dirty humans.

Prospecting for oil, and life on Mars
09/05/2005. Techniques usually used to find oil and gas in the North Sea could help scientists establish whether life could survive on Mars.

White Wolf's Son & the Scattered Suns
09/05/2005. SFF novels coming soon from Aspect and Warner Books.

Six pages of New Spring
09/05/2005. See a six page preview of author Robert Jordan's 'New Spring' comic, the first issue of the illustrated adaptation of his latest fantasy novel.

Scavenging the Future
09/05/2005. The Richard Hugo House in collaboration with the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame is presenting "Scavenging the Future," a mini-inquiry into the world of speculative fiction at the US Sci-Fi Museum on May 21st 2005.

Earthling announces Modern Classics Series
09/05/2005. Small-press Earthling Publications is launching a new line of high-end books called the Earthling Modern Classics Series.

Stephen Deas joins the House of Jarrold
09/05/2005. New UK fantasy author Stephen Deas has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
09/05/2005. New photos and the inside track on this new fantasy movie out in the Winter.

Samuel L. Jackson gets animated with 'Afro Samurai'
08/05/2005. Actor Samuel L. Jackson is set to voice and produce the animated SFF action-adventure Afro Samurai for Spike TV, with Japanese anime studio Gonzo and Japan's largest TV network, Fuji Television.

Alien graffiti
08/05/2005. A new web site goes online ... but what it is it all about? The truth is out there. Somewhere.

Jigging Jedis
08/05/2005. Star Wars the opera? The things they will do to market the Revenge of the Sith movie.

The Write Fantasy Stuff
08/05/2005. The 'Write Fantastic' launches tomorrow in London.

First exo-planet discovered
08/05/2005. Astronomers confirm the first image of a planet outside of our solar system.

All aboard the Skylark
08/05/2005. The last embers of the British space progamme have gone out.

1st annual Forrest J Ackerman Fan film awards
08/05/2005. This year will see the First Annual Forrest J Ackerman Fan Film Awards. These will be awards for creators of fan films.

Bewitched trailer
07/05/2005. Here´s the new trailer download for the remake movie for Bewitched. Twitch that nose, girls.

Fantastic Four trailer
07/05/2005. A new trailer for the Fantastic Four ... but you need QuickTime 7, because it´s high definition.

Night Watch
07/05/2005. The new trailer for this ´cough´ epic fantasy trilogy.

POD ... saint or sinner
07/05/2005. The debate over the future of print on demand for science fiction publishers rages.

Marvel and Stan are friends again
07/05/2005. Marvel Comics has announced that it has settled all pending litigation with Stan Lee.

Revenge of the Sith photo gallery
06/05/2005. Some more pictures from the new Star Wars revenge of the Sith film.

Batman Begins
06/05/2005. Another online trailer for the Batman Begins movie.

Chelsea gets a message from Michael
06/05/2005. Author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's official website has been re-launched and she has a new one for her Messages from Michael novel.

Ramsey Campbell joins the House of Jarrold
06/05/2005. Ramsey Campbell, winner of four World Fantasy Awards, eleven British Fantasy Awards, the Horror Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, the World Horror Convention's Grand Master Award and many other honours in the horror and fantasy fields, has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency - Jarrold will represent his UK and Commonwealth rights.

Hunting the death worm
05/05/2005. A group of English scientists are to spend a month in the hostile Gobi desert in search of one of the world's strangest and most elusive monsters, the Mongolian Death Worm. Known to the locals as Allghoi khorkhoi (Mongolian for intestine worm due to its resemblance to a length of cow's stomach), the blood red creature is much feared.

Another lousy Bee movie
05/05/2005. Jerry Seinfeld is the voice of Barry the Bee, a lowly drone who rises up to sue humankind for stealing the bees' honey, in DreamWorks Animation's Bee Movie, which Seinfeld also co-wrote and is producing.

National Geographic imagines alien life in new TV series
04/05/2005. Hot on the heels of the highly anticipated premiere of the sixth and final Star Wars movie, the National Geographic Channel presents an array of new and bizarre planetary creatures - but these are scientifically based visions of life as predicted by some of the world's leading scientists.

Interaction gets shipping
03/05/2005. This year's World SF con, Interaction, has announced the appointment of Kuehne and Nagel as lead partner for shipping and customs activities. They're getting arty too.

A sword is drawn
02/05/2005. New SFF magazine starts up ... The Sword Review.