Geek News and Musings

Unicorn Chaser beverage from ThinkGeek!
ThinkGeek has launched a fantastic new Boing Boing-inspired product, the Unicorn Chaser! Sadly though, they got their facts wrong about the creator of the Unicorn Chaser. They said “the brilliant minds at BoingBoing (esp. Cory Doctorow!) originated the concept for a Unicorn Chaser.” Actually, it was Xeni. Our badass attorney will be in touch. So buy the beverage now before our C&D shuts 'em down! It'll be the best $2.99 you never spent. From the product description:

We’ve all been there. You are innocently Twit-blogging on the Interscape, logging a few hours on Facebook, or checking your e-mail and you click on a link without thinking. Suddenly, you are confronted with an image or video so horribly nauseating it makes your eyes bleed. Whether it be pictures of someone’s overstretched nether regions or a video of two young ladies sharing substances they oughtn’t - your mind begs for cleansing (or a swift death)!…

Introducing, the Unicorn Chaser - a drink shot specially formulated to cleanse your mind and soul. Featuring a perfect blend of vitamins, herbs and minerals (each selected for its body purification, mood elevation, stomach calming, and other beneficial qualities), the Unicorn Chaser is a life saver. Chug it within one minute of viewing the offending internet image (really, as fast as possible) and in mere seconds you will begin to feel better. It won’t erase your memory, but each Unicorn Chaser will pump you with enough goodness that it just won’t matter. You’ll be healed. You’re welcome.

Think Geek's Unicorn Chaser beverage

Unicorn Chaser beverage from ThinkGeek!
ThinkGeek has launched a fantastic new Boing Boing-inspired product, the Unicorn Chaser! Sadly though, they got their facts wrong about the creator of the Unicorn Chaser. They said “the brilliant minds at BoingBoing (esp. Cory Doctorow!) originated the concept for a Unicorn Chaser.” Actually, it was Xeni. Our badass attorney will be in touch. So buy the beverage now before our C&D shuts 'em down! It'll be the best $2.99 you never spent. From the product description:

We’ve all been there. You are innocently Twit-blogging on the Interscape, logging a few hours on Facebook, or checking your e-mail and you click on a link without thinking. Suddenly, you are confronted with an image or video so horribly nauseating it makes your eyes bleed. Whether it be pictures of someone’s overstretched nether regions or a video of two young ladies sharing substances they oughtn’t - your mind begs for cleansing (or a swift death)!…

Introducing, the Unicorn Chaser - a drink shot specially formulated to cleanse your mind and soul. Featuring a perfect blend of vitamins, herbs and minerals (each selected for its body purification, mood elevation, stomach calming, and other beneficial qualities), the Unicorn Chaser is a life saver. Chug it within one minute of viewing the offending internet image (really, as fast as possible) and in mere seconds you will begin to feel better. It won’t erase your memory, but each Unicorn Chaser will pump you with enough goodness that it just won’t matter. You’ll be healed. You’re welcome.

Think Geek's Unicorn Chaser beverage

Shimmer science fiction magazine issue 10 — free download
Mary Robinette Kowal sez, “For Shimmer magazine’s 10th issue, we’ve got twelve fantastic new stories and an interview with none other than Cory Doctorow. In honor of Cory’s work with Creative Commons, we are giving away the pdf of this issue as a free download.”

Issue Ten (Thanks, Mary!)

Shimmer science fiction magazine issue 10 — free download
Mary Robinette Kowal sez, “For Shimmer magazine’s 10th issue, we’ve got twelve fantastic new stories and an interview with none other than Cory Doctorow. In honor of Cory’s work with Creative Commons, we are giving away the pdf of this issue as a free download.”

Issue Ten (Thanks, Mary!)

Nominees announced for Prometheus Award for best “pro-freedom” sf novel; Little Brother’s a finalist!
The Libertarian Futurist Society has released its slate of nominees for this year’s Prometheus Awards, the award for the best “pro-freedom” science fiction of the year. I’m proud to say that my novel Little Brother made the cut, as did five other standout books, including a couple personal favorites: Half a Crown by Jo Walton and Saturn’s Children by Charlie Stross.

* Matter, by Iain Banks (Orbit Books) - Part of Banks’ series of far-future space operas about the Culture, a utopia which reflects Banks’ interest in anarchism through its avoidance of the use of force except when necessary for protection and defense. The novel focuses on an agent in Special Circumstances, the Culture’s special forces unit, who returns to her home planet, a “shellworld” with multiple layers of habitation, after her father has been killed in a coup.

* Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (TOR Books) - A cautionary tale about a high-school student and his friends who are rounded up in the hysteria following a terrorist attack, the novel focuses on how people find the courage to respond to oppression.

* The January Dancer, by Michael Flynn (TOR Books) -The classic space opera, set in an interstellar civilization created by a wide-ranging human diaspora, revolves around how discovery of a an alien relic sends agents of a multisystem federation on a quest that exposes them to political and economic institutions of many different cultures and requires them to deal with threats to freedom, from piracy to political corruption.

* Saturn’s Children, by Charles Stross (Ace Books) -A robot’s adventures after all the humans in a society have died raises complex issues of ethics, duty, family and struggle in this Heinlenesque novel.

* Opening Atlantis, by Harry Turtledove (Penguin/Roc Books) - Set in a world where medieval Europeans discover an island continent in the Atlantic Ocean, this first novel in a new atternate-history series explores the politics of colonization and the struggle for self-determination while offering parallels and contrasts with development of the Americas.

* Half a Crown, by Jo Walton (TOR Books) -The sequel to Walton’s Prometheus Award-winning Ha’penny concludes her alternative-history trilogy, set two decades after Britain reached accommodation with Hitler’s Germany in the 1940s, with a chilling portrait of people all too willing to trade freedom for security.

2009 PROMETHEUS AWARDS FINALISTS ANNOUNCED