Thursday, April 12, 2007

Links du Jour: RIP Kurt Vonnegut, Mummy 3, and a Life on Mars sequel

Adventure

Mystery

  • While we wait for the American version of the BBC's Life on Mars, a British sequel is already in the works. I didn't want to read the article too closely for fear of spoilers (the series finale of Life on Mars just aired this week), but the new show will be called Ashes to Ashes and will feature Philip Glenister's returning as DCI Gene Hunt to be paired with another 21st century detective -- a woman this time -- in 1981. The character of Gene Hunt is arguably the best thing about Life on Mars, so I'm way more excited about this than about the American remake of the first series. (Thanks to SF Signal for the link.)

Horror

Science Fiction

  • Kurt Vonnegut is dead. Lots of people are talking about it today, but the nicest eulogy I've seen so far has been by Warren Ellis on his email newsletter: "14 novels in 84 years. 30 when he published his first novel. Two years older than I am now when he did Cat's Cradle. 46 or thereabouts when he wrote Slaughterhouse-5. Still in his early 20s, working as a POW in an underground factory, when we firebombed Dresden, an act he later described as 'a work of art.' 1984, and Vonnegut attempts suicide with booze and pills, ruefully noting later that 'I botched it.' May 1944, and his mother Edith gets it right. Six months later Vonnegut is captured by the German army after days wandering alone in the countryside. 'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."'"

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