Cory Efram Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of its licences for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, and post-scarcity economics.
Troy is a 2004 epic historical war film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and written by David Benioff. Produced by units in Malta, Mexico and Britain's Shepperton Studios, the film features an ensemble cast led by Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Sean Bean, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson and Orlando Bloom. It is loosely based on Homer's Iliad in its narration of the entire story of the decade-long Trojan War—condensed into little more than a couple of weeks, rather than just the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon in the ninth year. Achilles leads his Myrmidons along with the rest of the Greek army invading the historical city of Troy, defended by Hector's Trojan army. The end of the film is not taken from the Iliad, but rather from Quintus Smyrnaeus's Posthomerica, as the Iliad concludes with Hector's death and funeral.
Boing Boing is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won the Bloggies for Weblog of the Year, in 2004 and 2005. The editors are Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, Carla Sinclair, and Rob Beschizza, and the publisher is Jason Weisberger.
Ellen Kushner is an American writer of fantasy novels. From 1996 until 2010, she was the host of the radio program Sound & Spirit, produced by WGBH in Boston and distributed by Public Radio International.
Glen David Gold is an American novelist, memoirist and screenwriter. Known for his bestselling novels exploring the roles of entertainment and popular culture in historical America, he has also published a critically acclaimed memoir and worked extensively in a broad range of media, including comics, television and podcasting. Gold is also a collector and authority on comics and graphic novels, particularly the works of Jack Kirby and other architects of the Marvel Universe.
Maureen Johnson is an American author of young adult fiction. Her published novels include series leading titles such as 13 Little Blue Envelopes, The Name of the Star, Truly Devious, and Suite Scarlett. Among Johnson's works are collaborative efforts such as Let It Snow, a holiday romance novel of interwoven stories co-written with John Green and Lauren Myracle, and a series of novellas found in New York Times bestselling anthologies The Bane Chronicles, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, and Ghosts of the Shadow Market.
Ha'penny is an alternative history novel written by Jo Walton and published by Tor Books. First published on October 2, 2007, it is the second novel of the Small Change series.
Jasika Nicole is an American actress and illustrator from Birmingham, Alabama. She is known for her role as Agent Astrid Farnsworth on the Fox series Fringe. She has guest-starred in Scandal as Kim Muñoz. She starred as Carly Lever, the head of pathology, in the ABC medical drama The Good Doctor.
The Thrilling Adventure Hour was a staged production and podcast in the style of old time radio that was held monthly at Largo, a Los Angeles nightclub located in the former Coronet Theatre. The show ran from March 2005 to April 2015. Each episode featured three non-serialized segments as well as songs and commercials from fictional sponsors. The show was written by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker; and directed by Aaron Ginsburg. The show's original songs were written by Acker & Blacker with the composer and band leader Andy Paley.
Raising Steam is the 40th Discworld novel, written by Terry Pratchett. It was the penultimate one, published before his death in 2015. Originally due to be published on 24 October 2013, it was pushed back to 7 November 2013. It stars Moist von Lipwig, and features the introduction of locomotives to the Discworld, and an entirely new character.
Welcome to Night Vale is a satirical paranormal fiction podcast created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. It is presented as a community radio show in the fictional American desert town of Night Vale, with the eccentric local radio host reporting on the strange, supernatural events that occur within it. The series has been produced by Night Vale Presents since 2012.
My Real Children is a 2014 alternate history novel by Welsh-Canadian writer Jo Walton, published by Tor Books. It was released on May 20, 2014.
Scarfolk is a fictional northwestern English town created by writer and designer Richard Littler, who is sometimes identified as the town mayor, L. Ritter. It is trapped in a time loop set in the 1970s, and its culture, parodying that of Britain at the time, features elements of the absurd and the macabre. It was first released as a blog of fake historical documents parodying British public information posters of the 1970s, and a collected book was published in 2014, and the Scarfolk Annual was released in 2019. Scarfolk is depicted as a bleak, post-industrial landscape through unsettling images of urban life; Littler's output belongs to the genres of hauntology and dystopian satire; his psychologically disturbing form of humour has been likened to the writings of George Orwell and J. G. Ballard.
The Shepherd's Crown is a comic fantasy novel, the last book written by Terry Pratchett before his death in March 2015. It is the 41st novel in the Discworld series, and the fifth based on the character Tiffany Aching. It was published in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2015 by Penguin Random House publishers, and in the United States on 1 September 2015.
Desolation Road is a 1988 science fiction novel written by Ian McDonald. It was McDonald's first published novel. The plot takes place on a far future Mars in a town that develops around an oasis in the terraformed Martian desert. McDonald published a sequel, Ares Express, in 2001.
Alice Isn't Dead is a supernatural mystery horror podcast/radio drama created by Joseph Fink partnering with Night Vale Presents. It stars Jasika Nicole as Keisha, who broadcasts on a radio signal her experiences on her road trip across America to locate her missing wife, Alice, which leads to her uncovering several mysteries and conspiracies of a supernatural nature.
Within the Wires is a dramatic anthology podcast in the style of epistolary fiction. In the first season, the listener, a medical inmate at a place called the Institute, receives guidance from the mysterious narrator of instructional relaxation cassettes. In the second season, an artist named Roimata Mangakāhia communicates with the listener through a series of museum audio guides. The third season, "a political thriller set in 1950s Chicago", is narrated by the bureaucrat Michael Witten; listeners access letters and notes dictated to his secretary.
It Devours! is the second science fiction mystery novel based on the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, written by podcast writers Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. It was published in 2017 through Harper Perennial in the United States and Orbit Books in the United Kingdom.
Night Vale Presents, formerly known as Commonplace Books, is a production company and independent podcast network founded in 2015 by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. In 2016 Night Vale Presents expanded into a network hosting original podcasts other than Welcome to Night Vale. Night Vale Presents is partnered with Public Radio Exchange.
Bubble is a scripted science fiction podcast produced by Maximum Fun and created by Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn. The podcast was later adapted into a graphic novel published by First Second Books.
