Geek Media Round-Up: May 21, 2012

Comics

• 10 High-Risk Sci-Fi/Fantasy Careers

Cross-Media

• 10 Coolest Fictional Asteroids of All Time

Film

• Interview: The BBC meets the cast of Snow White and the Huntsman and learned how they were shrunk to fit the part.
• Interview: Damon Lindelof Talks LOST Homages, 3D, and Hints at Further Sequels During PROMETHEUS Twitter Q&A
• Interview: Idris Elba Confirms He’s Returning for THOR 2
• Interview: Joss Whedon talks Avengers sequel
• News: ‘The Avengers’ is officially the 9th biggest film of all time globally, passing ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and ‘Star Wars Episode 1′
• News: Robert Downey Jr. ‘Avengers’ pay set to hit $50 Million.
• The Avengers trailer as a Lego remake
• io9 picks the 10 Best Time Travel Movies of All Timelines
• Why the Avengers is the best TV show in movie theaters: The AV Club’s Todd VanDerWerff examines what t.v. lessons Joss carried into the film world.

Internet

• Interview: Each morning at 9am for the next two weeks, (Mefi’s Own) scifi and fantasy author John Scalzi will be chatting with musician Jonathan Coulton about one of his science fiction songs — a different song each morning, — in a daily podcast over at Tor.com called Journey to Planet JoCo. Series index. On May 29th, they’ll be premiering a brand new, previously unheard Coulton song.
• There’s a kickstarter running for a Steampunk RPG called The Terah Project: Steampunk for Pathfinder. If you’ve ever wanted to play a Girl Genius-style Spark, this is the game you’ve been waiting for.

Literature

• Interview: Dalal al-Mutairi, the senior book censor for the Kuwaiti government, sits down for a chat about her job and what it entails.
• Interview: Geek and Sundry interview Lev Grossman of The Magician King
• Interview: Helen Lowe answers questions on Reddit
• Interview: The Terrible Mind of Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds
• News: Scholars study literary merits of Harry Potter novels
• News: True Blood author can suck no more out of vampire series: Charlaine Harris has announced that the final novel in her Southern Vampire Mysteries series will be published next year. Novelist Charlaine Harris made the announcement on Facebook: “the final Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead Ever After, will be on sale May 2, 2013!” In less than an hour, the post generated more than two thousand “likes” and three hundred comments.
• The 50 SF Books You Must Read, according to Forbidden Planet
• The Book Depository, the UK’s largest online bookseller, which is owned by Amazon, has created a mesmerizing live map that apparently tells viewers when a book is purchased through their system. [Via]
• The Evolution, Development, and the Magic of Harry Potter
• A Grade 11 student, with a summary of Sean Dixon’s novel The Last Days of Lacuna Cabal due in two days, gets help from the author. It does not go well.
• How Fast Do You Read? Compare yourself with national averages. Compare yourself with Anne Jones, a Champion Speed Reader who consumed the last Harry Potter book in 47 minutes, about 1 page every 3.75 seconds.
• How Reading Novels Can Make You A Better Person
• WSJ asked if YA novels today are too dark- with abuse, violence and depravity. A YA writer took it literally and researched the color distribution of YA novels.
• Worlds Beyond Your Ken: A Guide to the Nebula Awards

Science

• Space program’s future and landing on the moon: How nostalgia for the Apollo program doesn’t help.

Technology

• For the first time since she was paralyzed by a stroke 15 years ago, a woman in the BrainGate2 clinical trial served herself a drink of coffee … with a brain-controlled robot arm (with heartwarming video)
• Light-powered bionic eye invented to help restore sight
• Microsoft-backed HTML5 ‘Prometheus’ tie-in recruits you for Weyland Industries
• Paralysed patients use thoughts to control robotic arm

Television

• Interview: Jenna Busch and Stan Lee welcome Jane Espenson, whose writing and producing credits include Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, Battlestar Galactica, and Once Upon A Time. Stan and Jane compare notes on the art of creating villains and heroes!
• 10 of the Most Profound Sentiments Ever Uttered on Community
• In a video uploaded by the BBC today, Karen Gillan, who recently wrapped up filming her final episodes of Doctor Who, asked the crew of Community to include her in an “Inspector Spacetime” episode. Last week’s season premiere of Community featured a bumper crop of pop-culture parodies, including a Glee-style opening number, a 2001 homage (with excellent use of Old Chevy Chase) and most significantly, the Instant Meme of a 22-second take-off of Doctor Who*. In the few days since, the intersection of Community fans and Who fans have been reverse-engineering the 49 year run of “Inspector Spacetime” with a forum board, a TV Tropes page, and, of course, a tumblr.

Video Games

• News: Diablo 3 Beaten In 12 Hours

Writing

• Fourteen Ways To Spot A Bad Critic: Tarol Hunt, illustrator of the webcomic Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes, weighs in on hate mail sent by his readers.

Related posts:

1. Geek Media Round-Up: May 10, 2012
2. Geek Media Round-Up: May 8, 2012
3. Geek Media Round-Up: May 15, 2012
4. Geek Media Round-Up: May 3, 2012
5. Geek Media Round-Up: April 7, 2012