“First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.”

—Roland Deschain, of Gilead

Welcome to A Read of the Dark Tower series. Join me each week as I, Constant Reader, tackle the magnum opus of Stephen King’s career for the first time. If you want to discuss in general terms or talk about these first sections, join me by commenting here.

We last left our story with the town meeting our ka-tet holds with the folken of Calla Bryn Sturgis, setting up Ben Slightman and slowly doing the prep-work for whatever Roland has planned.  

[Read this week’s post]

Why, hello, Daario.

“Second Sons” is fine for a title, but it doesn’t leave much room for the women of Game of Thrones, many of whom also had a difficult time performing their duties this week. So much duty this week. And boobs. And leeches and lechers.

Gendry bled, Tyrion wed, Davos read, and... Samwell got to not be a big fat stupid for about five minutes.

Note: episode reviews are largely spoiler-free for the books, but spoilers are fair game in the comments. Be warned.

[Do not trust men who fight for gold. Unless they have killer cheekbones...]

Even before Game of Thrones first season debut, fans of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series have quietly wondered if the author could have the final two books out by the time the HBO television adaptation caught up with him. Recent statements from HBO producers at this past weekend’s BAFTA Awards reveal that there is now a defnite timeline they’re expecting the story finished by, leaving us to wonder... will Game of Thrones reveal the ending of the series before it’s actually ended?

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Thanks, all, for joining me on this trip to Khatovar. Those of you who have made this trip before know what’s coming and are probably as excited as I am about travelling to familiar locales and meeting old friends (and enemies...) once again. Those of you who are making the trip for the first time... Well, keep your eyes open and you should be fine. Just be wary of the talking menhirs, they like to play tricks on unwitting travellers.

Here’s the thing though. We’re not going to set off just yet.

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It apparently took a gentleman named Vassal about a year and half to make Babylon 5 out of LEGO. Apparently he had to figure out some balance issues, but with a little bit of help from the Vorlons, it all worked out. No word on what happened to LEGO Babylons 1-4. (Though we imagine the first three were sabotaged and the fourth disappeared without a trace.) More pics here.

Your collection daily offsite links can sometimes be a dangerous place, but they’re the last, best hope, for killing boredome/wasting some time. 

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Unfettered is coming, a masterful anthology of epic fantasy edited by author Shawn Speakman, featuring unfamiliar stories set in familiar worlds. A sneak peek of Unfettered will debut at this year’s Phoenix Comicon, which runs through Memorial Day weekend, and all this week Tor.com will be discussing the stories included in that sampler: including new tales from the worlds of Terry Brooks, the Vault of Heaven, and what may possibly be the last glimpse we’ll get from inside the world of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

Unfettered is more than just an anthology, however.

[More about Unfettered, its stories, and how to obtain it]

A special five story preview of Shawn Speakman’s epic fantasy anthology Unfettered will be released at Phoenix Comicon this Memorial Day weekend. This week, we’re taking a look at all five stories, many featuring new glimpses of our favorite fantasy worlds.

When Tor.com asked me to write an appreciation of Shawn Speakman’s “The Unfettered Knight”—Shawn’s own story in the anthology he’s editing and publishing—I said yes. Not for any of the obvious reasons. Not because this is one of the stories in the awesome, forthcoming fantasy anthology Unfettered. Not even because the book is Shawn’s effort to pay medical bills resulting from his recent bout with cancer. No, none of that. I said yes because I liked the story.

[Read on]

“The Name of the Doctor” is not a good episode of television, but it is a fascinating episode of Doctor Who.

The season seven finale re-frames the Eleventh Doctor’s adventures from the last two seasons as a journey that has always been leading to this point, and although the plot is shakier than a game of bar Jenga “The Name of the Doctor” nevertheless pulls this off successfully. This is mostly due in part to show runner and episode writer Steven Moffat putting the Doctor and his companions in situations that challenge the truth of their characters, even when some of those characters are anything but.

[The name you choose is more important. Spoilers ahead!]

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) have announced the winners of the 2012 Nebula Awards, the Ray Bradbury Award, and the Andre Norton Award.

Tor.com was eye-wideningly honored to be represented so heavily in the Novelette department by Brit Mandelo for “The Finite Canvas,” Meghan McCarron for “Swift, Brutal Retaliation,” and Rachel Swirsky for “Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia.” All three novelettes can be read for free in the above links. Tor Books was thrilled to have two nominees in the Novel division, Tina Connolly’s Ironskin and Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamour in Glass.

Congratulations to the winners and all the honorees!

[The 2012 Nebula Award Winners]

The 20th Spectrum Fantastic Art Awards were announced this evening at the awards ceremony at Spectrum Live, a weekend long celebration of fantastic art, in Kansas City. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners!

[The winners are...]

Recently, everyone and their grandmother are trying to place steampunk in the grander scope of things. Most of pop culture has poked at it at this point. Many in the SF/F community gives the subculture a passing nod (or are slowly edging away, since, being early adapters by nature, quite a few in sci-fi are tired of it already).

Still, questions about steampunk have set people in pursuit of the deeper meanings behind the aesthetic movement. Two years ago, Intel’s futurist Brian David Johnson wanted to answer the biggest one about steampunk’s rise: “Why now?” He was joined by a cultural historian James Carrott and they filmed a documentary, and also wrote a book by the same name: Vintage Tomorrows (or two books, actually. Steampunking Our Future: An Embedded Historian’s Notebook is the free e-book companion you can get online).

[Read more]

People tend to pay attention to big animals when they go to the zoo or museum. They go to see the gorillas, or the tigers, or the dinosaur bones. I get it; dinosaurs are awesome. The problem is that charismatic megafauna tell only a very narrow story about evolution and biology. Again, admittedly an awesome one—dinosaurs!—but there are plenty of other neat stories that smaller critters can tell. The lives of rodents, or the humble honey bee, of fungi who infect ants and drive them to literal lunacy. Focusing on all those oddball forms of life, big or small, can lead people to overlook the unsung heroes of the ecosystem. June’s Scientific American doesn’t fall into that trap, with its article on the “Tiny Plants That Once Ruled the Seas” being a bit of a love letter to...plankton. In particular, that the rise of modern sea life, in the wake of the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, can be traced to phytoplankton, which literally fueled the bloom of diversity in the Mesozoic (that’s dinosaur times!) and Cenozoic (that’s now). In doing so, the authors Ronald Martin and Antoinetta Quigg also tie the rise of phytoplankton into the threat of climate change.

[Read more]

For the past twenty years, the Spectrum Fantastic Art Annual has been the gold-standard of fantasy and science fiction art. Cathie and Arnie Fenner created Spectrum as means to celebrate genre art in an era when it was largely overlooked by the mainstream illustration industry. Since then it has grown to become the most widely distributed and anticipated annual publication of contemporary illustration on the shelves.

Today, at the second annual Spectrum Live convention, the Fenners announced that it was time hand the reins over to another publisher.

[Read more]

“Dax”
Written by Peter Allan Fields and D.C. Fontana
Directed by David Carson
Season 1, Episode 7
Production episode 40511-408
Original air date: February 14, 1993
Stardate: 46910.1

Station log: Dax and Bashir are having dinner. Bashir is flirting aggressively, and Dax is studiously ignoring his advances. Dax excuses herself; Bashir offers to walk her to her quarters, which she says isn’t necessary. After she goes off, Bashir grins and rationalizes that not necessary means not forbidden, either, thus cementing his skills as a stalker.

He turns a corner to see Dax struggling with two thugs in hoods. Rather than call security, Bashir instead wades in, clubbing the thugs’ boss in the jaw and then getting his ass kicked by those same thugs. Dax does try to struggle free, and also tries to call for help, but it’s for naught. By the time Bashir comes to and it finally occurs to him to use the combadge that’s right there on his chest, Dax and the kidnappers are gone.

[Which not only compromises Bajoran security, but also... annoys us.]

Who better to interview a living legend than another living legend? “Talking with Tom” is the third installment of a Tor.com series in which Tor publisher Tom Doherty chats with one of the many authors and industry icons whose careers he influenced. Previous installments covered conversations with L.E. Modesitt Jr.and Harriet McDougal.

Please enjoy this fascinating and wide-ranging conversation between Tom Doherty and award-winning science fiction author Gregory Benford.

[The sound of time’s sure falling]

Welcome back to A Read of Ice and Fire! Please join me as I read and react, for the very first time, to George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

Today’s entry is Part 29 of A Storm of Swords, in which we cover Chapter 49 (“Catelyn”) and Chapter 50 (“Arya”).

Previous entries are located in the Index. The only spoilers in the post itself will be for the actual chapters covered and for the chapters previous to them. As for the comments, please note that the Powers That Be have provided you a lovely spoiler thread here on Tor.com. Any spoileriffic discussion should go there, where I won’t see it. Non-spoiler comments go below, in the comments to the post itself.

And now, the post!

[Oh, what, “tenterhookian” is totally a word]

Welcome to the Malazan Re-read of the Fallen! Every post will start off with a summary of events, followed by reaction and commentary by your hosts Bill and Amanda (with Amanda, new to the series, going first), and finally comments from Tor.com readers. In this article, we’ll cover Chapter Nine of Toll the Hounds (TtH).

A fair warning before we get started: We’ll be discussing both novel and whole-series themes, narrative arcs that run across the entire series, and foreshadowing. Note: The summary of events will be free of major spoilers and we’re going to try keeping the reader comments the same. A spoiler thread has been set up for outright Malazan spoiler discussion.

[Read more]

I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted after last week’s half-chapter. Breaking into the mint, breaking out of the mint, carrying 160,000 kilogrammes of gold back and forth… makes me nostalgic for quieter days of plague and assassination.

This week—and this half-chapter—the Vesani get their revenge. For our intrepid bank robbers have made a terrible mistake. There are only three real blunders, you see. Never get involved involved in a land war in Asia. Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line. And never, ever mess with Basso’s money.

[Read more]

Whenever a television show makes it beyond four of five seasons, viewers have cause to be impressed, but commonly worried as well; often a series has played out their greatest themes by then, most of the arcs have come full circle, and whatever the narrative was trying to say has been shouted at you, or possibly sung as a libretto. It’s done its thing, and now wants the three act play to become six or possibly twelve acts.

Supernatural is on its way to a ninth season. And besides finding new, improbable ways to keep their universe fresh and untested, the show also seems to have realized the key to infusing the story with new life—by allowing its main characters, who started the show at ages 22 and 26, to grow up. And what that has meant for the eldest Winchester brother, Dean, is a glorious transformation from posturing, macho alpha dog to… well, something that is no longer capable of being pared down into a caricature. It’s been an awesome ride.

[“I’m nesting. Eat your burger.”]

There is some corner of England that will forever be a foreign field—creepily familiar but horrifyingly other. Welcome to Scarfolk; you might even survive the experience.

Scarfolk is the latest stop on a psychogeographical tour of the United Kingdom that probably starts on the Summerisle of the original Wicker Man movie and chugs off—watched by silent villagers in animal masks—towards the Royston Vasey of the League Of Gentlemen TV series.

[Read more]