Sir Ian McKellen recently spoke to MTV while promoting his re-imagining of the 1967 mini-series The Prisoner. It did not take long before the conversation jumped to the obvious priority of all news seekers: Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson’s two-movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Topics discussed mainly hovered around his urge to return to the epic fantasy role that netted him an Academy Award nomination, the surprise arrival part of the script and the security lengths being taken to ensure its safety, and also his curiosity when it comes to del Toro and his directing methods.

McKellen states that he longs to become the “fantastic” Gandalf character again and can’t wait for production to start. He also speaks about how he and Jackson both preferred the original Gandalf the Grey character before he took on his god-like White persona. “He was more humane somehow. He was the guy who liked to hang out with the Hobbits and drink too much and smoke too much,” McKellen admits. [...]

The Gathering Storm
Written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Tor Books
Released: October 27, 2009

It’s time for fans of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series to stand up and celebrate. The release of a new book is upon us. Even more than just a new book, this is the beginning of the end; the final book in the series. Okay, so there’s actually three books remaining, but they were meant by Jordan to be one book. Unfortunately (or perhaps, very fortunately depending on your point of view), the story became too large to release as one volume, so the editors decided to break the final book into three parts, the first of which, titled The Gathering Storm, saw release on October 27th, 2009, with the other two seeing release at a later date, hopefully in 2010 and 2011.

Unfortunately, the book split isn’t the big story about this release. No, the big story concerning this book was the untimely passing of original author Robert Jordan on September 16, 2007. With Jordan’s passing, many feared that we would never see the end to his sprawling series. Fortunately, Jordan had written a large portion of the book before his passing, and left detailed notes on the rest and writer Brandon Sanderson was quickly chosen by Jordan’s editor and wife to finish the series, putting fans’ minds at ease [...]

The follow-up to Frank Beddor’s Hatter M graphic novel series, Hatter M, Vol. 2: Mad With Wonder, was released last month along with his latest The Looking Glass Wars novel, ArchEnemy. Also, coming soon will be the online MMO card game Card Soldier Wars.

For this event, we here at Geeks of Doom have three (3) copies of Hatter M: Vol. 2: Mad With Wonder to give away to some lucky readers!

Three (3) winners will each receive:
– One (1) Hatter M: Vol. 2: Mad With Wonder graphic novel

About Hatter M, Vol. 2: Mad With Wonder:

It’s a mad, mad, mad world as Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan’s maniacal quest to find Alyss continues! In Volume 2, Mad With Wonder, Hatter follows the Glow from London to the battlefields of America ’s Civil War in search of the Princess who must some day be Queen. The America that Hatter encounters is a sprawling, wounded, boiling landscape of innocence and energy run amok [...]

We’ve certainly seen the story before: high technology machines and robots evolve, rise up, and take over the world of men. Whether it’s Battlestar Galactica, the Terminator franchise, or a movie like I, Robot, people love being scared by the thought of man-made machines turning on us and killing us all. If this trend is kept up, the robot apocalypse could become a genre in itself like zombies, but that isn’t stopping DreamWorks, who are on the verge of acquiring the rights to an unpublished manuscript entitled Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson.

So what makes this project so attractive? What makes Robopocalypse different from the other movies that we’ve seen? Well, it’s realism. Wilson is an actual Ph.D. in robotics, and he has injected a massive level of realism into his tale of man vs. machine, which is what immediately grabbed DreamWorks’ attention. Over the past few years, there have been some terrifying videos of actual man-made robots that are so freaky-realistic, you almost expect them to evolve and slaughter mankind. [...]

It’s quite likely that 99.9% of you have already decided that you will not be seeing either of the movies discussed here based solely on the title of this post. Sadly, you are perfectly fair to judge so quickly, and you are not alone in your disdain for these and other childhood characters (liked or not) being made into feature films.

First up, it’s being reported that Owen Wilson has signed on the dotted line to voice the role of Marmaduke, a giant clumsy CGI dog based on the 1954 comic strip of the same name. The movie will do the same as all of these movies do in mixing CG and live-action. The plans for a Marmaduke movie have apparently been around for a while now as it has a cast of known names that will surely regret ever agreeing to appear in it down the road. The names include William H. Macy, Judy Greer, and Lee Pace as live-action characters, while Steve Coogan, Emma Stone, Damon Wayans, George Lopez, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Marlon Wayans, and Fergie will all voice CG characters. You might as well call it Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2: Honey, I Blew Up the Chihuahua. Marmaduke is set for release in June of 2010 — get excited. [...]

Quirk Classics has announced their latest title: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls.

That’s right, the publisher has decided to take another swing at Jane Austen with a revisit to their highly successful zombie mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to give us a prequel. Co-ritten by Steve Hockensmith and with a release date of March 24, 2010, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls takes us back to early 19th century England to the beginning of the zombie plague.

When we first were introduced to the Elizabeth Bennett in Zombies, the young miss and her sisters were a zombie-slaying brood with a mastery of self-defense and martial arts. But the young ladies didn’t start out that way. In Dawn of the Dreadfuls we’ll meet Elizabeth the novice, clumsy with a sword and over emotional in the matters of the heart.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which was recently re-released as a hardcover heirloom edition, made it onto my Geek Read list of 10 New Books To Read This Fall [...]

Oh how I love the Fall — the changing of the leaves, jacket weather, Halloween, my birthday (!). And on my birthday wish list is typically a slew of books by my favorite authors and publishers released from early September through November. Anne Rice’s The Vampire Armand, Clive Barker’s Abarat, Max Brooks’s World War Z all came out during this season, and nearly every Fall Neil Gaiman (Coraline, The Graveyard Book) offers up something new.

For 2009, here are some of this Fall’s coolest literary offerings of vampires, zombies, monsters, mysteries, and more. Note, I’ve kept the list to just novels (meaning, no graphic novels), and remember, these are just items that I’m interested in. If you have more suggestions, we’d love to know ‘em!

Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter
By A E Moorat
Hodder | Eos
October 15, 2009 (UK) | January 5, 2010 (U.S.)

A few weeks ago, I received a publicist’s email asking me if I’d like a copy of Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter for review. I didn’t read any further before I hit Reply with an “Absolutely” as my response. Serious, Queen Victoria as a demon hunter, that’s really all I needed to know. When the book arrived, I figured I’d leaf through it and take a few seconds to familiarize myself with it; next thing I knew I was a third of the way through the book. Yes, it was that good.

I’m a big fan of historical fiction, so even if various types of demon folk weren’t involved, I think I’d have enjoyed the story of a young Victoria coming of age as the Queen of England and falling in love with Prince Albert nevertheless. But add in the Queen’s inherit ability to battle demons, along with demons, zombies, reanimators, and two-headed creatures, and damn if that’s not good stuff. It’s an historical fiction/horror mash-up sprinkled with humor in all the right places. One of my favorite characters is a manservant who becomes zombie lunch only to return to life … to continue being a manservant! Seriously, I love this guy, and you will too [...]

All the haters can say what they will about the Twilight franchise, but there’s one positive aspect about the whole phenomenon that can’t be denied — it’s prompted teenage girls to read more.

Young girls (and their moms) are not only picking up the Twilight books, but also literary classics like Wuthering Heights, and the series has sparked interest in the horror/fantasy genre in general, serving as a gateway to more books like Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire series (from which HBO’s True Blood is based) and more.

Twilight’s also become helpful in the test prep department with Defining Twilight, a vocabulary workbook to help students prepare for tests like the SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT.

Now, just released this week is the New Moon-inspired follow-up Defining New Moon, with over 700 vocabulary words and synonyms found on the SAT, ACT, GED, and SSAT tests [...]

On Tuesday, October 27, The Gathering Storm, the newest edition to Robert Jordan’s bestselling fantasy series Wheel Of Time, will be released. In conjunction with this grand event, Tor has given us three (3) prize sets to give to our U.S., UK, and Canadian readers!

The Gathering Storm, which is the first of three novels to conclude the Wheel of Time series, was written by Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, so to get you all ready for the new book, each prize set will have two of Tor’s best “Fantasy Firsts” by the authors.

Three (3) winners will each receive:

– The Eye of the World (Book 1 of Robert Jordan’s the Wheel of Time series)
– Mistborn: The Final Empire (Book 1 of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series).

What do you have to do to get a chance to win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then simply leave a comment on this post. Done [...]

In honor of Leif Erikson Day today, which observes the Viking explorer’s achievement of being the first to bring over Europeans to North America (and also commemorates the first immigrants to come to the United States from Norway in 1825), I thought I’d bring your attention to Neil Gaiman’s latest U.S. release Odd and the Frost Giants, a cute little tale inspired by traditional Norse mythology.

Right now, HarperCollins has posted the first chapter of the book online for free, so which I suggest you take advantage of that by checking out the widget here below.

The novel contains illustrations by Brett Helquist, best known for this artwork in the Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events books. There’s also the audio CD.

Both of these are going right on my Wish List for sure (for those of you wondering what I want for my upcoming birthday, there you go). I’ve been wanting to get my hands on this story since I heard about it early last year when Gaiman offered it up for World Book Day 2009 in the UK and Ireland [...]

Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less
Edited by Nick Douglas
Published by It Books
Release date: August 25, 2009

My first thought was “you’re missing the point” when I heard someone was planning to publish a book containing only 140-character messages from micro-blogging site Twitter. Then I discovered that this someone was former Valleywag editor Nick Douglas and my thoughts instantly shifted to intrigue.

Douglas is a talented wordsmith, who in years past, has demonstrated a vivacious ability to both inform and entertain readers, [See, Everything indie sucks now]. Having been with Valleywag, it’s obvious that he understands technology from all angles, including the cultural level. If anyone is qualified to create a book of tweets worthy of being collected and bound for $12.99, Douglas is certainly a front runner. Twitter Wit is such a book, featuring about 600 tweets and a foreword by Twitter Cofounder Biz Stone [...]

Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith
The Best of Smodcast
By Kevin Smith
Titan Books
389 pages
US $14.95/CAN $18.95

“I’m telling you man, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again- I am really am one cock shy in the mouth of being gay.”

I’m a huge fan of Kevin Smith and his films. I was first introduced to the man’s work back in early 1995 when, after hearing nothing but raves about how it was the funniest film of the previous year, I took a chance on renting his directorial debut Clerks from the video store down the street from my house. Raw, naturalistic, shot in grainy black-and-white like it was recorded straight off a convenience store’s security camera, and joyfully vulgar and funny as a motherfucker, Clerks was my first official introduction to the world of independent film and a brilliant new voice of cinematic comedy. I’ve been hooked on Smith’s films ever since, and yes even Jersey Girl had its share of memorable moments. What attracted me to the cinema of Kevin Smith was his gift for crafting bold and colorful characters through profane but hilarious dialogue that revealed their innate intelligence and vulnerability. Next to Quentin Tarantino and the writing staff of Seinfeld Kevin Smith was the best at turning convoluted conversations about pop culture and sexuality into windows into the souls of unconventional characters who would typically be sidelined in a conventional Hollywood feature [...]

Eclipse, the third book in author Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular vampire series Twilight, has unexpectedly given a major boost to the classic novel Wuthering Heights.

The Telegraph reports that fans of the Twilight books are running out to get Wuthering Heights thanks to the reveal that the 1847 Emily Brontë novel is a favorite of Bella’s, the main character in the Twilight series.

To get in on all the new readership from the Twilight fanbase, HarperTeen Publishers are re-releasing Wuthering Heights on October 6 with a new Twilight-inspired cover, which will include a new stamp that reads “Bella and Edward’s Favorite Book.” A similar cover revision was already done earlier this year for the UK version of the book.

In Eclipse, Bella references the Brontë novel several times, comparing her relationship with her vampire love Edward to that of Heathcliff and Catherine from Wuthering Heights, quoting the part of the classic novel where Catherine talks about Heathcliff [...]

Let the Right One In is a Swedish horror movie about vampires that took film festivals by storm and received countless amounts of gushing praise. As with most foreign horror movies that become incredibly popular (The Ring, The Grudge, Quarantine), the movie was immediately pursued for U.S. remake treatment. What we already knew about the remake is that it will be called Let Me In, and it will be directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield); what wasn’t yet known is who would star…until now. It’s being reported that the first three cast members that have been hired are Richard Jenkins, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz.

The movie tells the story of two children who bond through some very difficult times in the cold winters of Sweden. One is a 12-year-old boy, and the other is a 200-year-old vampire child. The original film is directed by Tomas Alfredson and based on the book of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It focuses on the story of these two kids’ relationship and many real-world issues like drugs and prostitution while keeping the unique vampire elements in-tact as well. [...]

As the follow-up to their mega-successful Jane Austen horror mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Quirk Books has recently released their newest take on an Austin classic with Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. While Zombies was 85 percent of Austen’s original work, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters contains 60 percent of Austen’s original novel, Sense and Sensibility, with the edition of all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, swashbuckling pirates, and other seaworthy creatures co-written by Ben H. Winters.

As a special treat for our readers, Quirk has given Geeks of Doom five (5) copies of the book to give away!

Five (5) winners each will receive:

– One (1) copy of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

What do you have to do to get a chance to win? Glad you asked ’cause it’s really easy. Just make sure you’re a subscriber to our email digest, and then go ahead and fill out the handy dandy form. Done.

Good luck! [...]

Finding Nemo and Wall-E director Andrew Stanton’s first foray into live-action film making is still a ways off, but over the past number of months, many exciting names have been cast in John Carter of Mars. The castings have come in interesting succession, with new additions being revealed every month. We were first informed in June that leads John Carter and the Princess of Mars would be played by X-Men Origins: Wolverine co-stars Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins. Next up was the announcement in July that Willem Dafoe was also cast in the movie as Tars Tarkas, a friendly outcast within a species of vicious warriors. In August, it was reported that three supporting roles were filled by Polly Walker, Dominic West, and Samantha Morton, and all was shaping out nicely.

Like clock work, just before September ends, three new names have been added to the cast, and it keeps getting better and better. Disney has announced that the newest trio of faces added to the cast are Thomas Haden Church, James Purefoy, and Mark Strong. [...]

The new Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) 8-copy Boxed Set has been released and is available for the low price of $37.38 (42% off the list price of $63.92).

Do the math and you know you’ve scored with 8 paperback books for about $4.68 each.

This is the Southern Vampire book series by author Charlaine Harris, which spawned the hit HBO series True Blood starring Anna Paquin as the mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse who falls in love with a vampire.

The box set contains all 8 books to date (see listing below). Harris is also releasing a book of Sookie short stories on October 6 called A Touch of Dead [...]

Kevin Smith is a household name here at Geeks of Doom HQ. He a comic book and movie writer, a movie director, a frequent guest on the podcast of our friends over at Slashfilm, and he attends comic conventions yearly with the sole aim of making a room full of 5,000 geeks laugh for an hour. His commitment to all things geek is beyond reproach. So when our friends over at Titan Books asked us if we’d like to run an exclusive excerpt from his new book Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith, as well as a giveaway, I nearly broke gmail answering ‘Hell Yes!’ so fast.

So, without further preamble here’s an excerpt from Shootin’ the Sh*t where Kevin Smith and his daughter Harley (you gotta love that he named his daughter after a Batman villain) discuss the finer points of old school Mix Tapes vs. the new school of iPod culture.

Lastly, check below the excerpt where you can enter to win your very own copy of Shootin’ the Sh*t from Geeks of Doom [...]

Universal Pictures is in negotiations to acquire the rights to make a feature-length movie based on the popular book series Sweet Valley High. If the deal works out smoothly, the studio already has Juno and Jennifer’s Body writer Diablo Cody in line to pen the adaption. Cody set the project in motion with Mason Novick, who together went looking for the rights and made their pitch to Universal. Cody and Novick would also be producing along with Marc Platt.

Cody has settled into a groove where high school kids are a prime element to her stories. Juno, Jennifer’s Body, and her Showtime series The United States of Tara all have characters who are dealing with that time in their lives, so this would certainly be a fitting project for her, though some may want to see her spread her wings and fly a little.

Sweet Valley High revolves around two twin sisters named Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield who are polar opposites of themselves: one a good girl who works hard on trying to become a journalist; the other a resident flirt and cheerleader who gets into more trouble. [...]

Fox 2000 has pushed forward a seven-figure deal with screenwriter John Logan to script a movie based on the Jordan Ainsley (pen name of Justin Cronin) vampire novel, The Passage. The project is being developed as a possible directing vehicle for Ridley Scott, which would re-team him with Logan, who co-wrote the script for his Oscar-winning epic, Gladiator, with David Franzoni and William Nicholson.

The book is part of a three-book series that Fox 2000 purchased for an equally large sum a couple of years ago. This leads to the potential for a trilogy of films if the first finds success. The real challenge lies in the length of the first book, which runs 1,200 pages. Though Ainsley did sell the book based only on the first 400 pages and an outline, so it must have really impressed some people.

The Passage is of the vampire genre, which some may feel is too over-done, but to its credit, the story is a fairly unique and fresh take. It tells of a group of terminally ill people who are bitten by bats in South America, and miraculously recover from their sickness to full health. [...]