Sci-Fi Storm

It certainly could use a lot of expansion, but they’ve got a good start: MADATOMS has a funny little chart which shows the differences between fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Avatar and Lost.

The Thunder Child’s new contributor, Matt Sanborn, has written one article and two reviews that I’d like to share iwht readers of Sci-Fi Storm.

Why We Love the Call of Cthulhu – an article on the Keepers and those who play this RPG – and why so many are so bad at it!
http://volcanoseven.com/TheThunderChild/CallofReviews/LoveCthulhu.html

Reviews of the first 2 comics in the 4-set release to coincide with The Crazies movie:
http://volcanoseven.com/TheThunderChild/CallofReviews/Crazies1and2.html

A review of Peter Brother’s “Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men”: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda”
http://volcanoseven.com/TheThunderChild/CallofReviews/IshiroHondaReview.html

Please read and enjoy

People who need to take the SATs, ACTs and GRE tests in order to get into a good college, use study guides to help them. As far as the verbal component of the test is concerned, the current craze to teach needed vocabulary is to write the study guide as a murder mystery, so that readers can see the vocabulary in action, rather than just studying dry lists.

The blog Wordsworth and the Visitor From Planet X is designed to build people’s vocabury, using a science fiction serial as its launch pad.

http://wordsworthandthevisitorfromplanetx.blogspot.com/

If you wish to build your vocabulary, or if you know of students who want help, send them to Wordsworth and the Visitor from Planet X.

TheThunderChild writes “Fan fiction has long been a part of science fiction fandom, getting its first serious start with Star Trek. There’s even a website that has thousands of fan fiction stories for hundreds of TV series and movies. (FanFiction.net). The vast majority of copyright holders have no problem with fan fiction sites – the handful who do make their wishes known and the sites take down any such fiction and do not accept new stories using their characters. A favorite Star Trek fan fiction story was Visit To A Weird Planet Revisited,in which a transporter malfunction causes William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley to materialize in the bodies of Kirk, Spock and McCoy during the episode Mirror, Mirror. That story has inspired The Thunder Child’s first fan-fiction offering, The People Out There, and its sequel, In The Dark. The first episode (new chapters uploaded every Monday) is available at our sister site: http://volcanoseven.com/ThePeopleOutThere/“

Kenth Johansson writes “Elfwood releases all new design –
Oldtimer Elfwood.com recently released an all new design that has been well received by the websites visitors. “It was time to do something new, says founder Thomas Abrahamsson. We have been trying to keep the original Elfwood feeling in the new design, but at the same time create something more modern and up to date”
Check out the new design and the amazing artwork at www.elfwood.com“

What if you could express how you felt about Episodes 1-3 of Star Wars, and have it be seen by millions – and perhaps by George Lucas himself? Exhibit A Pictures is putting together footage sent in by fans to do just that, and they have released their first official trailer. Check out the video, and also the official web site. Submissions for inclusion are still being taken until September 30, 2009.

SCI FI Wire has gone through a redesign (the third web site I’ve been to today), and I just have to say I’m not impressed. It was always a good site to at least know what was going on in SF, although the stories could be terse and require more investigation. Recently they seemed to be more interested in making “lists” instead of news, and the new site design bears that out. I did eventually find the news, but the formatting of the pages is completely off.

Hulu.com, which is a joint venture between NBC Universal and NewsCorp, will launch on Wednesday – and will include full-length episodes of Babylon 5 among its catalog thanks to a deal with the WB Television Group.

Update 3/13: I don’t see Babylon 5 listed yet – it may be coming later, but there are a lot of classic and recent genre shows in the meantime.