SF great Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) passed away this morning in his sleep. Perhaps best-known for his Riverworld series, he has been a major part of SF since the early 1950s.

Sci-Fi Wire is reporting that Viz Media has launched a new imprint, Haikasoru, to bring translate Japanese SF and Fantasy novels into English and release them in the US. The imprint will mainly focus on “Light Novels” shorter novels, often serialized in Japanese SF magazines.

A not-insignificant amount of Japanese Anime has begun to be adapted from Light Novels instead of Manga (notably the “Full Metal Panic” series, as well as the “Crest/Banner of the Stars” series and well before that the “Slayers” series. The first novel scheduled to be released is The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa.

Just in case it wasn’t on your calendar, today marks Edgar Allan Poe‘s 200th birthday. Apart from being one of the creepiest authors of all time, he is also credited as the creator of the Detective-fiction genre.

If you haven’t actually read any Poe, be sure to head over to Project Gutenburg and download one or all of his works (for free). Amongst my personal favorites: Tell-Tale Heart, Pit and the Pendulum, and The Cask of Amontillado.

But don’t let me have the final word on the subject, what’s your favorite?

The Burning Man opened his tiger mouth. A grating sound emerged. It was like flaming laughter.

“She hurts,” he said.

We’ve been a bit content-lite this week, with so many genre shows on hiatus, so I’m posting this review of one of the classics of SF literature. Alfred Bester won the first Hugo for The Demolished Man and wrote the Green Lantern Oath for DC comics, but many feel his greatness lies in this book, a complex tale of revenge, teleportation, and a prophetic Burning Man.

A movie is in the works for 2012, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

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Ekaterina Sedia’s The Alchemy of Stone has found a certain measure of success, even among more mainstream readers. She’s a fine crafter of words; does her steampunk take on Pygmalion do her prose justice?

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“When do we get to the good part?” he demanded.
“What do you have in mind, Arsibalt? Like in a spec-fic speely, where something amazingly cool-to-look-at happens?”
“That would help,” he allowed. (862)

By now, you may just have found time to make it through Neal Stephenson’s heavy autumn offering, Anathem. In one volume, he manage to match the ambitiousness of The Baroque Cycle— but are the results for the reader worth its considerable weight?

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In news that’s surprising virtually everyone the world over, Michael Crichton has died after a private battle with cancer.

Best known for his book Jurassic Park, Crichton was adept at bringing a heavy dose of real-life science into his books and then going the next step with fantastic and sometime horrific results.

The BBC reports that Jane Belson, widow of Douglas Adams, has asked Eoin Colfer (author of the Artemis Fowl books) to write another novel featuring Arthur Dent.

Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union handily won the Hugo for this year’s best novel, and its success among SF and mainstream readers may bring wider attention to the genre of alternate history. Jo Walton’s Farthing (2006) also takes the form of a political mystery, set in a timeline that diverged from ours in the 1940s. In this case, England made peace with Germany, and the Nazis went on to conquer continental Europe. A sequel, Ha’Penny appeared in 2007, and a third book, Half a Crown will be available in late September.

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This was, sadly, only brought to my attention this morning, but Tor has put up for download 24 books in DRM-Free digital form. The reason it’s sad? You’ve got ’til tomorrow to download them.
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