Mike's Pick of the Week:

David J Williams first novel The Mirrored Heavens is set in a dystopian future in the midst of a new cold war. The book follows three main characters, an aging government hitman, a Razor, which is a super hacker, and a Mechanic who pilots something like an Iron Man suit on steroids. From Williams rat a tat prose to the purely cyberpunk settings to the blistering action sequences and sharp political commentary this book is worth a read from anyone who likes military scifi, post cyberpunk or old classic cyberpunk. Williams debut is a strong one and with a new breed including him, Richard Morgan and David Gunn it's a great time to be a scifi fan.

Larry's Pick of the Week:

Everyone my age is running things. How else to explain using Mr. Bill to sell a debit card to the kids?

Mr. Hands pours hot coffee on him (“coffee: $2”), a personal trainer launches him off a treadmill (“gym: $59/mo.”), and an opened briefcase flips him onto the windshield of a city bus (“briefcase: $120”). Mr. Bill, rolling with endless punches, just enjoys the ride home: “Making it through the day: priceless.” A voice-over adds, “For whatever comes your way, there’s debit MasterCard.”

Can Max Headroom's return be so very far behind?

Erin's Pick of the Week:

"You! Me! Dancing!", Los Campesinos!: Look, I understand that I am the last person in the entire world to hear this song (but when I did, it was on NPR for bonus points). I get it, okay? I am neither on the cutting edge of music nor cool anymore and I'm down with that. I'm old. I'm married to someone who, lately, has been listening to Vince Gill or Iron Maiden and he gets home from work first, giving him total dominance over the hi-fi. But, oh, my god, what is that? Is that an xylophone? Handclaps? A chorus of drunken, twee Welsh folk? I think this song is the aural equivalent of at least two cups of coffee and some pixy sticks and that, if you haven't heard it, you need to go download it right now. No, not later - now. It's happy, it's perfect for those mornings when you can't seem to kick yourself out of your bathrobe and get dressed for work, it's going to irritate someone in your life. It's about DANCING! and bubblegum pop needed this. So do you.

Julian's Pick of the Week:

It's summer in Toronto, what does that mean? Well... a lot of patio-drinking, to be honest, as canadians rush to spend as much time outdoors as they can before Winter comes back. But other than patio drinking, summer in Toronto is synonymous with events and festivals all over the city, many of which are film-related (such as HotDocs for documentaries, the Hispanic Film Festival that was a previous pick and the Gay & Lesbian one that I completely missed sad.gif ) But I digress; June 10 - June 15 is when the Worldwide Short Film Festival is back in town. With films grouped into categories such as Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, Sci-fi: Out There, Midnight Mania: Creepy, Japanese Spotlight: Emerging Auteur Aminators and Creatures Great And Small, among others, it seems that Torontonians are in for a treat.

Schedules, info, tickets and more at http://www.worldwideshortfilmfest.com/

Rich's Pick of the Week:

Fables Vol. 10: The Good Prince - It feels like a long time since we got a new trade of Vertigo's best ongoing series. Probably because this latest book collects a full 10 issues, which will make for a nice bit of reading. Volume 9, with it's imagined invasion of the Mundy World by the Adversary's forces was my favorite volume since March of The Wooden Soldiers, so needless to say I'm jazzed for this one.