An e-mail containing the most astounding news just surfaced in my inbox, still dripping wet from the great oceanic Interweb. Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., you know who he is, has a new novel out this September. It’s called Anathem. Below, lovingly hand-transcribed, is the catalog copy:

I could have split these up and given them their own posts, but that would have required extra effort, and that’s not how we roll at the NW. Thing 1: You’ve probably already seen this cardboard animation of the light cycle sequence in Tron, but you haven’t seen it here! Now you have. A testament [...]

I have been to the opera on two occasions this spring. Once to Prokofiev’s War and Peace and once to Wagner’s Die Walkure. This brings to two the total number of times, lifetime, that I have ever been to the opera. Though I have occasionally dabbled in classical music, the opera house is not my [...]

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you watch all 11 minutes of this. But I don’t see how any true green-blooded nerd wouldn’t want to watch some of it. Dead Fantasy II (there’s also a Dead Fantasy I) is a ridiculous fan film in which the women of Final Fantasy and the women of Dead or [...]

THE STAR WARS EMPEROR’S CLUB V.I.P. — VERY IMPERIAL PALPATINE

So you’re making Dune. Good stuff, good stuff. Epic story, sandworms, the whole environment angle. Could be a serious thing.

The science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke has died, in Sri Lanka, at the age of 90.

Popular Mechanics is reporting that BattleBots will be returning to ESPN, or at least to ESPN2 and ESPNU, which I don’t even know what that is — presumably it covers sports events taking place in the Underverse.