The two works are The Imitation Game, a biography of mathematician Alan Turing by comics writer and science biographer Jim Ottaviani and artist Leland Purvis; and Red Light Properties by Dan Goldman, described as a "paranormal real estate tale" by literary agent Bob Mecoy of Creative Book Services, who represents all the creators and negotiated the deal on their behalf.

The two works were acquired by Tor.com producer Pablo Defendini, who described the acquistions as part of Tor.com's mandate to experiment with nontraditional publishing strategies. But he also emphasized that the acquisition also highlights how important and popular comics have become on the site, which he also said will be redesigned and relaunched in 2010..

"No, I haven't read any of the Twilight series, but I did see the film. I felt that it reflected the deep desire of young women to have the mystery and protection and wisdom of older men. I think many girls mature much earlier than boys, and they are frustrated when they approach young boys for love or protection. Hence the fantasy of a wise and protective vampire coming into the life of a young girl who, of course, appreciates him in a special way."

The official launch of the book is at the National Library of Scotland tomorrow, where a group of Edinburgh school children will attend a tea party hosted by Rowling. But bookshops across the country are opening at midnight to cater for fans desperate to get their hands on a copy of Beedle the Bard. The 128-page book is already known to Potter enthusiasts as the volume which Hogwart's headmaster Albus Dumbledore left to Hermione Granger in the final Potter novel.

"We expect it to crash into the number one slot tomorrow and it will be very difficult to dislodge it this side of Christmas," said Waterstone's spokesman Jon Howells. "It would take magic of Voldemort proportions to kick it off the number one slot."

Waterstone's is opening its flagship London Piccadilly branch from 10pm this evening, with 400 fans flying in from Australia, New Zealand, America and Europe to attend the event. The store is to feature a live Mugglenet podcast, magical entertainment and Harry Potter characters for fans to meet. Waterstone's branches across the UK will also open early tomorrow morning for children to buy the book before school.

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The Tales of Beedle the Bard contains five stories which helped Harry Potter to destroy Voldemort. The Tale of the Three Brothers is the only story to have been recounted previously, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the remaining four - The Fountain of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, The Wizard and the Hopping Pot and Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump -- unseen until now.

The controversy kicked off when Brand introduced "Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Cam Gigandet and Robert Pattinson for their much-hyped appearance. Strolling into an aisle to introduce a performance by Paramore in a re-creation of Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go, the actors each took a turn reciting their lines — but before Pattinson could conclude their moment in the sun, Brand cut off the 22-year-old heartthrob.

"This is a confusing concept," the VMA host rambled as Pattinson could only stand there, politely waiting his turn to speak. "It's bloody confusing, but something exciting is about to happen. Paramore are going to perform from the Whisky ..."

As Brand continued to go off the page, Pattinson tried once again to say his line, but all he could get out was a barely heard, "Please welcome ..." Suddenly, his position of honor (being the "Twilight" star to get the final word) had turned into a perceived embarrassment.

"He insulted all 'Twilight' fans," a Twilighter named Sukiyaki posted on MTV.com. "MTV, I hope you have enough space to house all the hate mails about Russell Brand."

The recently reopened message board on the Twilight series Web site has been very active, and on Amazon-where the novel remains ranked #1 in sales-the book has generated more than 1,600 reviews (nearly twice the reviews of the previous book, Eclipse) and more than 1,000 "customer discussions." Unhappy readers expressed a variety of opinions, including incredulity with certain plot points or the way threads were tied up, while others felt the writing wasn"t as strong as in the previous books.

In one heavily trafficked thread entitled "Unhappy with Breaking Dawn? Don't burn it-RETURN it!," commenters debated whether returning the book was a valid way to express unhappiness with the book. "Technically, reading a book and returning it is theft of knowledge," read one post, while the original commenter, a former bookstore employee, wrote, "I don't advocate making a habit of buying new books, reading them, and returning them. But once in a while... I do think mass returns are a useful form of consumer protest." Another poster recounted, anecdotally, returning the book at Borders: "They took back my book with no problem. Got into a discussion with the cashier about how I was the 15th (!!!) person to bring my book back today."

Never heard of her? Well that's probably because you are not 13 and female. But you soon will. Although five million of her sales have been in the US, momentum is growing in Europe and with the release of a film of Twilight, the first book, scheduled for early next year, the books are expected to take off here. British bookshops are planning midnight openings on the day that the fourth book in the series is published in August.

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She says that some people are surprised that a Mormon is writing vampire novels, but they generally haven't read her. "When you think about vampire novels, there is a lot of gruesomeness, a lot of sexuality, a lot of darkness, blood obsession. When you read my books it is completely different. Really, the whole vampirism thing is a metaphor for feeling trapped in a certain role. I never got into any trouble from the Latter Day Saints people. My strongest fan base is probably in Utah." How Meyer came to write about vampires, however, is a mystery to her, given that she was very far from steeped in the vampire tradition. She is too "chicken" to read horror and doesn't watch R-rated films because “there are things that you don't need to have in your head. There are R-rated movies that I would like to go and see - I heard The 40-Year-Old Virgin was hysterical. But when you have an unbroken streak, you don't want to mess that up."

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a magic wand is more powerful than either, or at least according to this year's Forbes' list of the world's richest celebrities. Harry Potter author JK Rowling earned more than any other celebrity, according to the annual Celebrity 100 list, taking home $300m (150 million pounds) last year. There were other strong British performances from Keira Knightley, announced as the world's second best paid female actor, Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe and David Beckham.

I didn't even know there was a film being made. For years! Not only two or three or four or five -- for almost 20 years. I didn't even know Erik was making a film all those years. I thought Erik was an odd little fanboy, superannuated elf if you will, who would come by periodically and push a camera in my face. I consider that part of the job. When I'm at home, I'm a writer. When I'm out on the road, you do what has to be done. You sit for four hours and sign books or answer silly questions or people want to take a photo and you do it. It's just part of the rigor. When Erik said, about two years ago, "It's about time you know what we're doing here: We're doing this movie," I still couldn't grasp it. And I'm not a slow pony! I get things pretty quickly. I thought, maybe this guy is going to sell it to the Sundance Channel, or it'll be on the History Channel or something.

I don't care much one way or another about it. I'm about as celebrated or as famous as I care to be, but what the hell? Can't do any harm, he seems a nice chap. When I went to look at the first cut, it was as if -- the trope that is most specific, I think, is the scene in "Tom Sawyer" where everybody thinks he and Huck are drowned and he comes back and he goes to the church where they're having the funeral service for him and he's up in the loft listening to all the wonderful things people are saying about him. It's an out-of-body experience. Last night, for instance, in the theater, I sat there and I looked at the movie with no vested interest. I don't look and say, "Gee I had a pimple that day," or "Gee, I wish somebody hadn't said that." I look at it as a movie about this funny, weird old guy. And I think, "That's a funny, weird old guy. I'd love to know him. He's really funny."

IDW Publishing announced that it will expand its hit comic series Angel: After the Fall with special interim issues, a new spinoff miniseries and new artists. The series, which picks up the story of the TV series Angel from the end of the fifth season, has sold out several first printings of its five issues so far. Issues six, seven and eight will begin a special three-part stories-within-the-story adventure, "First Night," IDW said.

Issue six looks at Spike (featuring art by David Messina), Connor (art by Stephen Mooney) and Lorne (art by industry legend John Byrne). All the stories in the issues will feature a framing sequence starring Betta George (the breakout star of the Spike: Asylum miniseries), illustrated by Tim Kane.

Spike will get his own miniseries in July, Spike: After the Fall, written and illustrated by Brian Lynch and Franco Urru. The four-part series begins in July and picks up Spike from the end of "First Night" and explores his changing relationship with Illyria.

King: I'm afraid of everything. It shows in my work. Elevators. Cars. One of the things ... the thing that started the new book was basically a combination of an accident that I had and a truck that was backing up, and the beeper was broken and somebody said, "Look out!" And a whole big long novel came out of that. But I'm with Frank on this, and that's one of the reasons why I love this movie, because it was a little bit like having somebody scratch a place on the middle of my back that I couldn't reach myself.

I mean, every night when I go to bed and nobody's popped a rogue nuke somewhere in the world, I feel this sort of combination of "I don't believe we escaped for another day," and gratitude because we did escape for another day. Because there's so much of that stuff out there. And I've written a lot of different things about that, from The Stand to The Mist, where you say a lot of people out there, they're afraid, they're angry, because fear and anger go hand in hand. They're the original-sin version of the Bobbsey Twins, you know, fear and anger.

And when they do there's always somebody to say, "Well, we had the answer, we had the only answer," because whatever the religion might happen to be, they're the ones who say, "We have the only answer, so let's get down on our knees and pray about it," and then on your way out there's guns in the vestry.

Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman joins a faculty that includes Kelly Link, James Patrick Kelly and Mary Anne Mohanra for the 2008 Clarion Writers Workshop, the Clarion Foundation announced.

Now in its second year at the University of California, San Diego, the workshop, one of the most highly regarded writing programs in the country, runs for six weeks, from July 29 to Aug. 9. Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman will team-teach the workshop's final two weeks.

Participants are selected from a pool of applicants who demonstrate the potential for successful writing careers. The Clarion Foundation will begin accepting applications on Jan. 2, 2008.

Child actor-turned-scribe Brad Caleb Kane will sink his teeth into "The Historian," Sony's adaptation of a bestselling tome about modern-day vampires. The studio ponied up seven figures for Elizabeth Kostova's novel, her first, shortly before it hit bookstores two years ago, and Red Wagon's Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher have been searching for the right scribe ever since. The key, according to Wick, was finding one able to modernize the Dracula myth in a believable way.

The book revolves around a young woman's search for her father, who is on the hunt for the grave of Vlad the Impaler, the feudal lord who inspired Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

"One of the things we've been looking for is someone who could not only capture the visceral, sexy part of the story, but who also has the talent to make it credible," said Wick.

A team of scholars traveled to a medieval library in Venice to create an ultra-precise 3-D copy of the ancient manuscript -- complete with every wrinkle, rip and imperfection -- using a laser scanner mounted on a robot arm. A high-resolution, 3-D copy of the entire 645-page parchment book, plus a searchable transcription, will be made available online under a Creative Commons license.

The Venetus A is the oldest existing copy of Homer's Iliad and the primary source for all modern editions of the poem. It lives in Venice at the ancient Public Library of St. Mark. It is easily damaged. Few people have seen it. The last photographic copy was made in 1901. I was lucky enough to see the manuscript when I went to Venice with my husband, Christopher Blackwell, who is part of a team organized by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies to photograph and digitize the ancient book.

The idea is "to use our 3-D data to create a 'virtual book' showing the Venetus in its natural form, in a way that few scholars would ever be able to access," says Matt Field, a University of Kentucky researcher who scanned the pages. "It's not often that you see this kind of collaboration between the humanities and the technical fields." Venice is not the most convenient work site. All the gear had to come by boat and be carried or dragged up the stairs of the library. Built in the 1500s, the library has been renovated periodically, but its builders never envisioned a need for big lights, a motorized cradle, 17 computers or wireless internet.

Forte and Pullman had a "dream casting session" a decade ago, when she negotiated an option to Pullman's work, to which Pullman added: "I always wanted Nicole Kidman for her extraordinary quality of being warm and cold, terrifying and seductive." He also envisaged Laurence Olivier, circa 1945, as Lord Asriel, a role eventually taken by Craig because Olivier "wasn't available".

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Although Lewis's and Pullman's religious beliefs are radically different, Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia shares much with The Golden Compass: talking animals, witches and child protagonists travelling to fantasy worlds. But Pullman's coup is all his own: the daemon, pronounced "demon". In The Golden Compass, almost everyone has a daemon, an animal that is another version of the person to whom they belong. They feel the same things, mentally and physically. The daemon is an idea borrowed from Socrates, who believed he had a divine presence within himself. He called it a "daimon" and it would warn him if he was about to do something bad.

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For Pullman, the daemon was also a great literary device. As he told the Oxford audience: "The moment I thought of daemons was on the 16th draft of the first chapter. Before that I had to tell the reader what Lyra was thinking. I realised then I didn't have to explain so much. You don't need exposition. Exposition kills the flow of the narrative.

"The best advice ever given to a writer was by Raymond Chandler, who said, 'When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun.' This works. If you're stuck with the story, it moves it on like nothing else." Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon, "was my man coming through the door with a gun. It was a wonderful moment when I realised that."

Spielberg will executive-produce a six-hour miniseries based on Stephen King and Peter Straub's best-selling supernatural thriller The Talisman for the summer of 2008, with DreamWorks Television producing. Spielberg, who produced Into the West for TNT, will be joined by his longtime partner Kathleen Kennedy as executive producer, along with Ehren Kruger (Skeleton Key, The Ring), who will adapt the King/Straub novel. Darryl Frank, who heads up DreamWorks Television, will be co-executive producer, along with Justin Falvey.

The Talisman, which was published in 1984, marked the first collaboration between King and Straub. It tells the story of Jack Sawyer, a boy who goes on a quest through this world and through a parallel world known as "The Territories" on a mission to obtain a mysterious talisman that will save his dying mother's life and that of her "twinner," the Queen of the Territories.

In Inkheart, directed by Iain Softley, Mirren plays Elinor, the reclusive book-loving aunt of Brendan Fraser's Mo, a man with the ability to bring literary characters to life by reading aloud. Andy Serkis and Paul Bettany also star as two characters from a book called Inkheart, who are brought into the world by Mo. The film, based on the best-selling novel by Cornelia Funke, is currently filming at Shepperton Studios in London.

Mirren, who has already won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award this year for The Queen, said that working on Inkheart has reminded her of her experience on the 1981 film Excalibur. "I love fantasy movies," she said. "One of the happiest movies of my life was doing Excalibur, which was many years ago and done as Iain was making this, without special [computer] effects. ... Excalibur was done completely with lighting gels and real stuff." Inkheart will be released in 2008.

Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter film franchise, told SCI FI Wire that he'll have a lot more to do in the upcoming fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, including (spoiler!) a wand-to-wand fight with Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). "I had virtually nothing to do in number four," Isaacs said in an interview at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., where he was promoting his upcoming BBC America miniseries The State Within. "In fact, when there's nothing to do like that, and they say, 'Do you want to come in for a couple of weeks?' you go, 'Well, I'm busy. Oh, God. All right.' Because the thought that somebody else might wear my wig is just too painful. But I have a little bit more to do in this."

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Isaacs said that the fifth film will include a harrowing showdown between his character and Harry's godfather, Sirius Black. "I get to have a wand battle with Gary Oldman, possibly my favorite actor in the universe," Isaacs said. "We get to play around like two 10-year-olds. And with kind of unlimited sci-fi imagination. It's fun. We just go, 'Well, how about if I ... .' And anything you finish that sentence with, they go, 'Yeah, OK. You can do that.' So it was magnificent."

The character does not appear in the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but Isaacs said he recently had an opportunity to meet author J.K. Rowling and appealed to her to include him in the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due this year, possibly July. "I fell to my knees and begged," he joked. "It didn't do any good. I'm sure she doesn't need plot ideas from me. But I made my point. We'll see. Like everybody else, I'm holding my breath to July to see what's in there. I just want to bust out of prison, that's all. I don't want to stay in Azkaban most of my life."

We heard that you weren't interested in doing a science-fiction project at first. Is that true?

Cuarón: True. I was not interested in the project. I didn't respond to the material. I was not interested in doing science fiction. ... The book takes place in a very posh universe. I love [P.D.] James, but I couldn't see myself doing the movie. Nevertheless the premise kept on haunting me, for weeks and weeks and weeks. ... I used the book as a jumping-off point.

Did you divert a lot from the book?

Cuarón: Yes. In the book Kee doesn't exist; it's [the] Julianne Moore [character] who was pregnant, and we just took a big departure there. ... We did have to honor the part of the story of the immigration [addressed in the book], but we created the whole thing with the refugees. We took the book as a point of departure to look at the state of men now, and added things like the Homeland Security and the whole idea of what is happening outside in the world.

Did the author see the final version of the film?

Cuarón: She did see the final version, and it is quite different, and she said she is proud to be associated with the film.

When it comes to power games, some in Hollywood are beginning to learn a basic lesson of digital politics: the Internet plays rough. Such is the case with a growing spat between New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson, the A-list director of the Lord of the Rings movies and a savvy player when it comes to the power of the Web. Last week Mr. Jackson posted a letter on a fan Web site, theonering.net, explaining that he had been dumped by New Line from The Hobbit, a movie based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkien, and still in the planning stages.

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Within hours thousands of other fans weighed in on lordotrings.com, onering.com and other sites, worrying about the future of the Tolkien enterprise and asking New Line, which has an option to produce the film until 2009, to back down. Theonering.net was among those calling for a boycott of any Hobbit film not made by Mr. Jackson.

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On the heels of the protest, reporters and entertainment bloggers called the studio to ask about the film's fate. In what was once an insular club of power brokers and back-stabbers, the voices of outsiders — dancing across the globe at the speed of a modem — have begun to penetrate.

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But anxiety continued to reverberate in cyberspace. Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in the Rings series, wrote on his Web site, mckellen.com: "I'm very sad as I should have relished revisiting middle Earth with Peter again as team-leader. It's hard to imagine any other director matching his achievement in Tolkien country."

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It was left to another studio entirely, MGM, which owns the distribution rights to The Hobbit, to step in and calm the raging waters — and the Web sites. "We expect to partner with New Line in financing The Hobbit," a spokesman for MGM said. "We support Peter Jackson as a filmmaker, and believe that when the dust settles, he'll be making the movie. We can't imagine any other result."

A talented cake-ist made this beautiful wedding cake in the form of the Great A'Tuin, the galactic turtle on whose back the four elephants that support Terry Pratchett's Discworld stand. The cake A'Tuin has marzipan elephants that support a rolled fondant icing Discworld with hand-painted landmasses and miniature cities.

The main board is covered in a thin layer of black marzipan, and the turtle is given a coating of metallic colours, with dark cratering effects added. Finally the Disc is positioned on top of the elephants. A wire arc is inserted through the Rimfall collar, to produce an orbital path for the Sun and Moon.

Fan fiction, stories by amateur writers about characters from their favorite books, movies and television shows, was once mainly a fringe pursuit. Now, it's changing the world of fiction, as Internet exposure helps unknown authors find mainstream success. Some Web sites are attracting unprecedented numbers of readers and, in some cases, leading to book deals. They are also feeding the appetites of readers and viewers who can't get enough of shows like "Lost" or "House."

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One sign of the growing influence of these authors and stories is that media companies, usually quick to go after people who use their copyrighted material, are increasingly leaving fan fiction writers alone. Mindful of the large, loyal audience the writers represent, many companies are adopting an attitude one media professor describes as "benign neglect." While most professional writers say their lawyers advise them not to read fan fiction to protect themselves against charges of plagiarism, some say they check the numbers of fan fiction stories posted about their work regularly as a measure of their success.

The rise of fan fiction is part of the spread of amateur-created content online, from viral videos to music playlists and blogs. Increasingly, audiences have become used to watching videos posted by other users on sites such as YouTube and MySpace. Reading fiction online is another extention of this trend.

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Some authors take a less friendly view of the genre, however. "No matter how flattering, it's still robbery," says fantasy novelist Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, whose vampire works have inspired a number of fan-fiction writers. She estimates that her attorney has sent out about 20 "cease and desist" letters to writers and owners of fan sites. Ms. Yarbro says this has caused some of the writers and sites to take their stories down.

Over the next few years, MGM is planning to release half a dozen films, some in the $150 million to $200 million-plus range. Studio is ready to unveil such high-profile projects as "Terminator 4"; one or two installments of "The Hobbit," which Sloan hopes will be directed by Peter Jackson; and a sequel to "The Thomas Crown Affair" with Pierce Brosnan.

As luck would have it, I interviewed Peter Jackson this afternoon. We talked about everything he's involved in and in the next week you'll see the interview go up in pieces, including one about The Hobbit. But he did say that he woke up this morning to see that MGM says he's making The Hobbit with them, which was strange. He said that as unbelievable as it may be, he's never once talked to any studio, be it New Line or MGM, about doing THE HOBBIT. So, as of today Jackson has not talked to anybody about doing the movie, but he did say he'd like to do it, even though his schedule gets more crowded every passing week. So, if MGM wants to do this thing it might be a good idea to see if Jackson is up for it, no?

As some might know, the rights to The Hobbit. are kind of jumbled. If I have it right, MGM owns the distribution rights, yet somehow New Line owns the rights to make the film. Meaning New Line could make the movie, but couldn't release it. I'm thinking MGM is trying to partner with New Line in order to do this thing, which would be really cool if I don't say so myself. I'd love to see Smaug realized in the Peter Jackson LOTR universe.

The plot centres on British naval captain Will Laurence, who seizes a French ship and discovers an unhatched dragon egg - a gift from the emperor of China to Napoleon. When the egg hatches, he is forced to become the dragon's keeper. The monster is called Téméraire (meaning "Daring" in French).

"Téméraire is a terrific meld of two genres that I particularly love - fantasy and historical epic," Jackson told The Hollywood Reporter. "I can't wait to see Napoleonic battles fought with a squadron of dragons. That's what I go to the movies for." Jackson is also planning to turn Téméraire into a computer game franchise. "As I was reading these books," adds the New Zealander director, "I could see them coming to life in my mind's eye. These are beautifully written novels, not only fresh, original and fast-paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart."

The book series was written by New York computer-programmer-turned-novelist Naomi Novik."I was warned that whatever happens in Hollywood, you should assume it is 10 degrees below reality," explained Novik. "So if they say Peter Jackson has it, it really means Peter Jackson's assistant's personal trainer has it." "I never took it seriously until [the film rights agent] called myself and [my literary agent] and said, 'Peter wants the book.' There was lot of screaming in my household when I first got the call," she said.

Reporter have confirmed recent rumours that Nicole Kidman has signed on to play sinister Mrs. Coulter in the His Dark Materials trilogy. The Golden Compass is the first film in the series, and production is scheduled to begin in London on September 4th.

The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, states that Kidman and her new husband Keith Urban are moving to England for the duration of the filming. Kidman's casting is reportedly the result of two months of "complex" negotiation with Kidman's agents and New Line Cinema. The requirement to sign on for all three movies in the Dark Materials trilogy was apparently a sticking point. Kidman's character, Mrs. Coulter, is an important villain who appears in all three stories.

The movie's other key role, that of young Lyra, has been given to first-time child actress Dakota Blue Richards, as previously reported. The story of The Golden Compass revolves around her quest to find a friend who has been kidnapped by scientists with a sinister agenda, of which Mrs. Coulter is a part. Aided by her personal animal "demon" — which all people in the Dark Materials universe possess — Lyra travels across Britain and Scandinavia, chasing clues that will lead to a monumental discovery.

Freddie Highmore and Sarah Bolger have been cast as the three Grace children in the fantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles, which Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies will been shooting Sept. 12 in Montreal, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Written by Holly Black and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi, The Spiderwick Chronicles, is about two twin boys and their sister who discover a land filled with fairies and goblins inside their great-uncle's dilapidated house. The project was first optioned for film back in June 2003.

Mark Waters will direct the film from a screenplay by John Sayles based on the best-selling series of children's books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. In the movie, the three Grace children move to the ancient Spiderwick mansion, where they discover Brownie, an enchanted creature who introduces them to a world of goblins, fairies and sprites.

Highmore will play the dual role of the troubled Jared and his bookish twin Simon. Bolger will play their sister Mallory.

At midnight Thursday, at Paramount's Melrose Avenue lot, Abrams' representatives finalized the terms of a five-year movie deal with the Viacom Inc.-owned studio. Then they drove across town to the private Regency Club in Westwood to hammer out the details of a six-year TV pact with Warner Bros. In the wee hours Friday — 3:08 a.m., to be exact — as the Warner deal wrapped, the 40-year-old writer-producer who co-created the hit ABC television show "Lost" and made his directorial debut this year with Paramount's sequel "Mission: Impossible 3" suddenly became one of the entertainment industry's most highly paid auteurs.

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The TV deal cements Abrams' status as what one Warner executive dubbed "an A-plus" talent. His package rivals that of the studio's other top-flight producers, including Jerry Bruckheimer, whose credits include "Without a Trace" and "Cold Case," and John Wells of "ER" fame. Roth declined to discuss the financial details. However, two sources said Abrams would receive at least $4 million a year for six years guaranteed and overhead costs that would average about $2 million a year for his Bad Robot production label. Two other sources close to the negotiations said Abrams' annual fee was closer to $6 million a year, which when combined with the movie deal would bring the total to $68 million.

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For the first movie he directs, which the studio hopes will be a "Star Trek" film, Abrams will get $5 million plus some back-end profit if the movie is a hit. On movies he initiates to direct, he could earn as much as double that. For producing movies, he will get an additional $2 million at the minimum. He will always have final cut. As is typical, Paramount will get a first look at all projects Abrams develops. Less common is a provision that limits the number of producing projects that Abrams can shop to rivals if Paramount passes. That gives Abrams an incentive to make movies at Paramount, though he can accept director-for-hire gigs elsewhere.

"We think J.J. is the next Steven Spielberg," said Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey, who had been pursuing Abrams to make Paramount his movie home base since late last year when Abrams was prepping "M:I:3." "He's a triple threat: a great writer, producer and now, a first-class movie director."

"The final chapter is hidden away, although it's now changed very slightly," she said in an interview broadcast on Monday on Britain's Channel 4. "One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die." When asked to be more specific, she added: "No, I'm not going to commit myself, because I don't want the hate mail or anything else."

She did explain that she understood an author's desire to kill off the main character of a successful series. "I've never been tempted to kill him (Harry) off before the end of book seven, because I always planned seven books and that's where I want to go. "I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks 'Well, I'm going to kill them off because that means there can be no non-author-written sequels ... so it will end with me, and after I'm dead and gone they won't be able to bring back the character'."

The new series, which follows mostly new characters, takes the existence of Jokers and Aces for granted, Martin said in an interview. "All the changes made in the world [by the virus] is history to them, stuff their parents talk about, like FDR and the Kennedy assassination," he said.

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Many of the original series' writers will return for the new one, and Martin has also brought on new writers. "[These new writers] brought some great characters and concepts to us, and I think they'll be great additions to the Wild Cards crew," he said.

Martin said that he never abandoned Wild Cards, though he has most recently been writing his popular fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. "I've always juggled," he said. "As a writer you don't just do one thing. For 10 years I was [in Hollywood] working on Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, and I'd write and edit Wild Cards on the weekend. You just find time to do it."

Will he now take a break from Ice and Fire in favor of his longtime love? "Oh, no," he said. "I'm working on the fifth book now, and after that there will be at least two more equally large books. That's going to take me another five or six years to finish."

Multiple award-winning SF and fantasy author Lois McMaster Bujold, whose novel The Hallowed Hunt was just nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for adult literature, told SCI FI Wire that the book started with two chance encounters with other books, the first of which was Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. "[I] read [Shippey's book] with great interest, especially the parts about how the history of words unfold from them, Tolkien's interest in what is sometimes called 'that great Northern thing' and some of his original sources, which I also went on to read: Beowulf, of course; Kalevala; and The Nibelungenlied," Bujold said in an interview.

Bujold's second fortuitous book discovery was Mad Princes of Renaissance Germany by H.C. Erik Midelfort, an academic historian. "[There was] wonderful, lurid, sometimes horrifying and heartbreaking stuff there in that slim [volume]," Bujold said. "But it got me to thinking how under-utilized German medieval sources are in modern fantasy genre writing. ... One of the histories caught in my mind, and I couldn't help thinking about how I would have wanted it to come out instead of the tragedy it was."

Crown's Destiny
Curse, Dark and Emerald
Desert of Destiny
Desert of the Shining Stone
Enigwas's Lady
Heart and Empire
Island and Realm
Master, Winter and Hero
Mistress of Pride
Secret Hero of Enijil
Spirit Citadel of Vermoriel
The Findrinarf City
The God and the Sword
The Light of Spirind
The Pillana Master
The Prophecy of Pilmene
The Repetidian Sun
The Rogue and the Master
The Rune Ruby
Twilight of Destiny

NOVEL

Camouflage, Joe Haldeman (Analog; Ace Books)

NOVELLA

Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners Small Beer Press; F&SF Sep 2005)

NOVELETTE

The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link (The Faery Reel Viking; ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling)

SHORT STORY

"I Live With You", Carol Emshwiller (F&SF Mar 2005)

SCRIPT

Serenity by Joss Whedon

ANDRE NORTON AWARD

Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black (Simon & Schuster)

A story issued by financial news agency AFX on Sunday, picked up by several other outlets, has left a series of red faces by faithfully reporting a press release from "the independent state of Narnia". The story claimed Narnia had walked out of the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong because it was fed up with being bullied by the US and Europe. It claimed the major powers were attempting to enforce liberalisation of its clothing sector.

It quoted Narnia spokeswoman Susan Aslan (Aslan is the name of the Christ-like lion featured in the film, and book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe). Narnia's delegates "were tired of bullying by EU and US delegations and would be returning immediately to their state capital at Cair Parvel," Ms Aslan was reported as saying. "If this brings the Hong Kong talks to the knees we will be delighted," it went on. The story was picked up by top business websites, including Forbes.com. The agencies involved have since removed the reports.

...[A]a reader pointed me to an astonishing website run by a Tennessee piano tuner named Steve Van Natten and his daughter, Mary. Unlike typical anti-Harry Potter fundamentalists, who often haven't even read the books that so infuriate them, the Van Nattens have studied Lewis very, very closely, and their site is loaded with citations and footnotes. They think, among other things, that Lewis was actually a pagan sun god worshipper and occultist, not a Christian, although they suspect that the famous Anglican was also a secret Catholic, which in their view is just as bad as being a pagan....

*****

Narnia offers "the salvation message of an occult, New Age lion," writes Jeff Zakula of Keepers of the Faith, a business that sells children's books to home-schoolers. "Lewis, like Disney, was a New Ager. He built entire surrealistic worlds for our children to escape into — escape from reality and from real life. These worlds invariably contain creatures of every sort endearing to our children, performing heroic feats and displaying often greater powers than our savior."

My shock at this bizarre anti-C.S. Lewis campaign eventually became a kind of amazed appreciation. The screeds from Robbins and Zakula are actually quite well written — disturbingly so, in fact. And the Van Nattens offer up a strangely compelling American folk art that can't be faked. They also complain, for instance, that Lewis smoked and drank and that he used the word "ass" four times in books written for children.

OK, he was writing about a donkey in these instances, Mary Van Natten admits, and "being British, it probably did not mean the same to him as it does to Americans (as a swear word), but he could have left it out, especially since he only used it four times and did use 'donkey' in other places. However, considering the filthy state of his mind, it is possible that he thought this cute."

Playing on about 6,800 screens across 3,616 locations, Narnia drummed up $65.6 million, exceeding industry expectations in the $50 million range. The opening was the second-biggest ever for December behind The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King's $72.8 million and the third best start for distributor Buena Vista, behind The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.

Saturday exit polls by Buena Vista indicated that families made up 53 percent of Narnia's audience, and that 55 percent of moviegoers were under 25 years old and 52 percent were male. Audiences generally liked the picture, grading it an "A+" in CinemaScore's opening night surveys, which also showed that the "subject matter" was by far the top reason people saw the movie.

"No movie can do this kind of business on this weekend of the year without playing to everyone," said Chuck Viane, Buena Vista's head of distribution. "When you look at the balance of this film, every part of the country is playing at its potential."

Hollywood will continue to follow the literary fantasy trend with Eragon due next December and His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass for December 2007 among other projects, while The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was conceived as the first adaptation of Lewis' seven-novel Narnia series.

Dale said: "She's lived with Harry Potter so long she really wants to kill him off." The hammer-blow to Harry Potter fans the world over, could be supported by previous suggestions from Rowling herself that either Harry or his nemesis Voldemort must die at the end of the series.

At a recent fans convention, one fanatic asked Rowling if they would get to see Harry living out the rest of his days with Hermione as a happy family. Rowling replied, albeit with a smirk: "Assuming anyone survives, I may kill the whole lot."

And the actor who plays Harry in the silver screen versions of the books, Daniel Radcliffe, has also refused to rule out his character's demise. "It's dangerous to say, 'Daniel thinks Harry might die'. But I do maintain there is a possibility he could be killed in the final book," mused the 16-year-old.

Sales of science fiction and fantasy books have jumped 8.5% in the past five years -- nearly double the rate for all consumer books, according to Simba International, a publishing research company.

And much of that growth has its roots in the popularity of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series as well as renewed interest in J.R.R. Tolkien, thanks to the blockbuster movies based on The Lord of the Rings.

"Many of the kids who read the Harry Potter books when they first came out are now 15, 16 and 17 and are reading adult fantasy," says Brian Delambre, a buyer for Joseph Beth Booksellers, an independent chain based in Kentucky.

"As a lifelong fan of Marvel comic books, and as an adult reader who’s seen comics "come of age" and take their rightful place in the world of fantasy and science fiction," says Stephen King. "I’m excited to be a part of Roland’s new incarnation."

The series will be illustrated by Eisner-award winning artist Jae Lee. "My life changed overnight when I learned I'd be working with Stephen King!" exclaims Jae Lee. "I know how special The Dark Tower series is to him. I'm incredibly honored that he would allow me to be a guest in his world."

In 1998 Ms. Rice rejoined the Roman Catholic Church for the first time since suffering a "total breakdown of faith" at age 18. "That was in 1960, before Vatican II, and I was a very strictly brought-up Catholic," she explained. "I lost my faith because what I had been taught was so wrong." An overwhelming desire to "return to the banquet table" and assurances from a priest in New Orleans that she didn't have to resolve all her differences with the church (most notably over the issue of homosexuality) led to the reconciliation.

"Christ the Lord" is one result of Ms. Rice's rediscovery of her faith. With classic Ricean audacity, the story is told in the first person by Jesus himself. Otherwise, "Christ the Lord" seems likely to surprise Ms. Rice's fans and detractors alike. It is devoid of vampires, witches and feverishly gothic prose. Instead, in simple sentences, it describes the domestic life of an extended Jewish family in first-century Palestine as seen through the eyes of a 7-year-old boy who has only an inkling of his true nature.

*****

Ms. Rice, however, does not suffer casual observations. "Only people who don't know my books," she said gravely, would perceive the change as a major shift. A clumsy question about demons provoked an icy response: "I never wrote about demons. Have you ever read my books?" In particular, Ms. Rice bristles at the notion, held by some ill-informed persons, that her vampire books are light amoral entertainment. "I think they're very Christian books," she insisted, "by somebody outside the church, lost in the darkness, striving to find meaning and sometimes being rebellious."

On the Internet she has challenged bloggers who dismiss her, on religious grounds and otherwise, as unqualified to take on the subject. "I tell them it's sincerely written and it's the Jesus of the Gospels," she said.

Ms. Rice's best-known characters may turn to piles of ash in daylight, but she craves it. When the real sun comes up, it floods her bedroom and balcony. That and the proximity of Christopher are the main reasons she chose La Jolla. "I get very high from the light," she said. In the closet are stashed dozens of pink and blue printed flannel nightgowns, some still wrapped in plastic, a year's supply of Ms. Rice's favorite work clothes. "They shrink and get rough after you wash them a few times," she explained.

Roger Avary: I'd played the original Silent Hill on the first PlayStation and it was a fantastic game. I remember it being so advanced in its story, atmosphere, in the way the camera and game engine operated and in how playable it was. One of the most important things to me while playing an interactive application like a game is that the interface is as invisible as possible. A good example of an interface vanishing after you play it for a while was Resident Evil - it wasn't like you were telling your brain to press the A button and the L button simultaneously. You were able to fall into it much more quickly. GTA is another game with such an interface, though I've kinda fallen out of step with that because they’ve altered the interface as the game has evolved. I was very comfortable with the original and felt that a lot of the changes were needless.

*****

Some time afterwards, I was showing the Rules Of Attraction in France and Christophe [Gans] and I went out to dinner. There, he brought up the possibility that he would be doing Silent Hill. Now, authorship in Japan is very tightly maintained and controlled, and the authors of videogames need to be wooed very carefully if you intend to make a movie from their material. So what Christophe did is make a presentation on video, cutting together scenes from Silent Hill and other movies, and he put it all together on his own dollar. Additionally, he did a videotape interview that he then had translated and sent over to Konami and Akira Yamaoka. Yamaoka watched and immediately he said 'Oh my God, this is the guy'.

*****

I think that as videogames evolve and become more cinematic, there'll be a natural convergence. I think that one of the greatest frustrations between games and cinema is that game designers have been attempting to fall into passive entertainment. You're playing an interactive game and then suddenly you stop and you’re sitting there watching a cinematic. It's like 'well hold on a minute, this is a game and I'm not an active participant'. So I actually think that eventually game designers will realise that trying to make movies out of their games is not the key, and that it's instead creating an interactive experience full of consequence that drives the story along without stopping. Movies, by design, are passive entertainment, which is not to say that that's any worse or lesser than gaming.

Author Philip Pullman has attacked plans to turn The Chronicles of Narnia into a movie series, calling CS Lewis' books "racist" and "misogynistic". The first film in the series - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - is due to be released in December. His Dark Materials author Pullman said the 1950s stories were "reactionary". "If the Disney corporation wants to market this film as a great Christian story, they'll just have to tell lies about it," he told The Observer.

"It's not the presence of Christian doctrine I object to so much as the absence of Christian virtue. The highest virtue, we have on the authority of the New Testament itself, is love, and yet you find not a trace of that in the books."

The Narnia books, Pullman said, contained "...a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice; but of love, of Christian charity, [there is] not a trace."

"The results of literary awards [are] so subjective, they can be determined by the digestion of the judges on a particular day," Donaldson said in an interview. "My progress in the martial arts is tangible, and I can, if I have to, demonstrate it to other people. In that sense, it's much more verifiable."

Donaldson, a third-degree black belt in Shotokan karate, credits his recent success to martial arts. "It has improved my focus, my ability to center and discipline myself." He added: "I've had the ideas in my head since 1980, but writing the second Chronicles persuaded me that I wasn't a good enough writer to write the last Chronicles: an extraordinarily complex and difficult story. Twenty years [later], now, finally, I am."

Donaldson returns to his best-selling series of books, centering on the antihero Thomas Covenant, in what he calls his last series. "However," Donaldson said, "I'm not simply announcing that I don't intend to write more Covenant books. The word 'last' is also relevant to the themes in the story." In this first book, Dr. Linden Avery finds herself back in the Land, the world of wild magic, which has radically changed since her last visit.

Donaldson is currently at work on the next book in the series, Fatal Revenant. The two words are a bit of a riddle: "fatal" means causing death, and "revenant" means one that returns from the dead. Donaldson chose his title carefully. "Both words are critical," he said. "Each has a double meaning, depending upon where you are in the story. "

How does a company market a science fiction-tinged novel that it thinks could be the next "Da Vinci Code" if the author refuses to do publicity? Jason Kaufman, the editor of "The Traveler" and "The Da Vinci Code." To promote "The Traveler," a story set in a futuristic society written by John Twelve Hawks, Doubleday turned to the film and television industries for inspiration.

"If you're going to look to an industry for innovative and aggressive marketing tactics, it's definitely those industries - not the publishing industry," said John Pitts, the marketing director at Doubleday, an imprint of Random House.

Doubleday worked out a low seven-figure deal for the worldwide rights to "The Traveler" and its two planned sequels, according to Publishers Weekly. The book is being published in 18 countries, and has been optioned by Universal for a film. All that hype does not mean the book will succeed. Publishers and booksellers often have few hard clues about which book will become popular and which will languish on shelves.