An Ender's Game movie is still no where to be scene, but at least we've got Marvel's upcoming comic book series to distract us while we wait for the latest round of cinematic rumors. Following its success with Stephen King's Dark Tower adaption, Marvel's tasked writer Chris Yost with penning a Ender's Game: Battle School comic book that'll be illustrated by Pasqual Ferry.  You can check out an interview with Orson Scott Card at Marvel.com and I reviewed the book way back in 1998.  The first issue of the comic book drops Wednesday, October 7, 2008.

SF Site's early October edition is online with reviews of: 

• Poison Sleep by T.A. Pratt
• The Queen's Bastard by C.E. Murphy
• Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy edited by William Schafer
• Dragon and Liberator by Timothy Zahn
• Love in the Time of Fridges by Tim Scott
• Ubik: The Screenplay by Philip K. Dick
• Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn
• Dead To Me by Anton Strout
• The Lost Children of the Namuh and the Chamber of Souls by David A. Lindon

In this old article (as in 1998) Tim O'Reilly provides a rundown of his favorite science fiction novels, including Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land, Snowcrash, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Stars are Ours.

He prefaces this list by discussing the book The Meaning of Culture by John Cowper Powys and draws the conclusion "a truly cultured person appreciates what has really shaped his world view, and uses literature and the arts as a tool to get more out of life." He then provides the list as examples of science fiction literature that shaped his world view.

What's missing from this article is the critical other half that explains how these books informed his world view. It's all well and good to say that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but how did a novel about libertarian lunar revolution inform his world view? Was it an appreciation for the merits of a free market economy? The insidious effectiveness of revolutionary cells working in isolation from one another? Group marriages? We don't know because he doesn't say.

This is simply brilliant: A free pattern for a crochet Cthulhu. It tells you what materials you need to make your own tentacled monstrosity from beyond imagining, as well the pattern to create it.

Many thanks to my wife Sue, who saw this project featured on the CRAFT Zine blog.

My good friend (and geeky partner-in-crime at Knights of the Dinner Table) Mur Lafferty launched her the print edition of her superhero novel Playing for Keeps today.

Go buy the book.

Initially released as a podcast, Playing For Keeps tells the story of Keepsie, a bartender with third-rate superhero powers that kept her out of Seventh City's equivelent of the Justice League. Other "Third Waves" -- those who have minor or seemingly inconsequential powers -- frequent her bar. These Mystery Men-style also-rans suddenly become important though, when villains and heroes battle in the sky, and a certain something falls into Keepsie's posession...

My friend Damon's got a review of Rendezvous with Rama up on his blog, Books Like Dust. Rama's one of my all-time favorite books, so naturally I had to go and comment.

Summer is in roasting and roaring its way across the United States, which means its time for me get cracking on my summer reading list. As I discussed in Radio Active #69, this summer I've decided that rather than buy a new armload of books, I'd delve deep into the Nuketown library and dig out a bunch of unread or unfinished books that I already own.

There are a few exceptions to that rule, but for the most part I'm reading books that I've meant to read for the last few years, but abandoned in favor of whatever was thrilling me at the moment.

Here's my summer reading list, as discussed in Radio Active #69, broken out for easy reference (by me). Got a summer reading list? Don't have one? Wish you had the time for one? Nuketown wants to know: vote in our poll!

Print Novels

• The Last Colony by John Scalzi - A novel of intergalactic intrigue featuring the main characters from Scalzi's Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades
• Quicksilver by Neil Stephenson - adventures in science during the Age of Enlightenment
• The Golden Globe by John Varley - Humans get kicked off Earth by aliens and are forced to live at the edge of the solar system.
• The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin - A man's dreams can reshape reality.

Mongoose Publishing's latest edition of its homegrown magazine Signs & Portents is out. Issue #56 of the role-playing/wargaming magazine includes "An introduction to 760 Patrons" detailing a new mission-oriented source book for Traveller, "Conan Combat Styles", two alternative campaigns for Babylon 5 Call to Arms, "Cthulhutech Spells" and much more.