J.K. Rowling

The news come via Booktrade.info, who give us the following quote from J.K. Rowling:

Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.

We know very little about the book(s) she’s got planned, except that it will be aimed more towards an adult audience than the Harry Potter series ever was. I expect the children who grew up reading Harry Potter from the beginning are just becoming old enough to enjoy this new endeavor of hers when it’s finally released.

If I were to have any ideas, suggestions or thoughts about the book, I’d love to see her try her hand on crime fiction, maybe even a suspenseful spy thriller series of some sort. Genre fiction is something that we know she does incredibly well, and I’m curious to see if she’s as good at doing anything else.

For more information, her official homepage has has a form that anyone can use to sign up for news and updates on her upcoming book.

Majel Barrett

It’s hard to think of any person who embodies the legacy of Star Trek as much as Majel Barrett does. She is, quite rightly, called “The First Lady of Star Trek”. Among her many achievements is that she is – along with Leonard Nimoy - one of only two actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of the original Star Trek. Also along with Leonard Nimoy, she is one of two actors to have appeared in a Star Trek series or movie every single decade from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Majel Barrett

She is the only actor to have appeared in all five live-action series, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise, having even completed voiceover work as the voice of the Enterprise’s main computer for J.J. Abrams‘s Star Trek movie shortly before she died in 2009.

In 1964, Majel began working on a television series named The Lieutenant, which was produced by Gene Roddenberry. Majel became good friends with Gene and ultimately, years later, his wife. The two, who had been lovers with for several years, married in a Shinto-Buddhist wedding in 1969. She was brought onboard for Star Trek as Nurse Chapel and – when The Next Generation – began, she became Deanna Troi’s (Marina Sirtis) mother, Lwaxana Troi.

Majel Barrett passed away on December 18th, 2008, following complications of her leukemia.

Calm down. It doesn’t actually make portals.

Stupid physics.

In case you want to make your own, here’s a better look at the blueprints:

Blueprints

I could write a whole lot of text right here about how most forms of anime and manga are forms of art that are difficult to translate into movie form. I could write about the creative abyss that Hollywood seems to have turned into that forces it to take on popular franchises for endless reboots and remakes. I could write about how sad it is that the “white-washing” of Asian creative endeavors continues like this.

Let me just say that I hope that this movie idea also stumbles and falls over, like the Akira movie seems to have done. I don’t see how they could make this any justice in movie form without sacrificing too much of the plot, character development and mythology that the anime has spent hundreds of hours building up.

Arkenor, who has Luke Skywalker fighting for him this week, commented that Petter’s in trouble, as Worf’s biggest role in Star Trek: The Next Generation is to be assaulted and having his ass thoroughly handed to him to show how terrible this week’s enemy was.

Turns out there’s plenty of video proof of this.

The game’s name is Dillon’s Rolling Western, a downloadable game for the Nintendo 3DS, and looks like it might be a load of fun. I’m getting a strange Rango feel from it, for some reason, but … with a twist.

(And yes, I’m aware of Chibi Robo, which is a 2005 game by Nintendo and may be their latest truly original IP, but how many people have heard of it before? Honestly.)

We spoke about what it means to now have a live show, the hate mail Jack got from his recent Game of Thrones series review, how the Playstation Vita launch has been received, how several gaming stores are underperforming, and how surprising it was to see Ami Ledger, developer of WipEout 2048, appearing in a skin-tight WipEout Pilot suit. We then philosophized about the various things that may or may not be going on in the future when it comes to handheld games.

Find all the links to things we’ve talked about on reddit.com/r/geekpositive and post links to anything you would want us to talk about!

Find us at @BrekiT and @Tofu_Jack; we’ll be back in a couple of days!

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From jokes that never get old to the benefits of exclamation points, here are the top ten panels of the week:

10. Fables #114

"...and no fighting on the airplane!"

I hope to someday yell this at my children. Well, let’s be real. I hope to someday have a war room.

9. Generation Hope #16

Does it count as a burn when you say it to an ice queen?

Generation Hope is getting closer to its end, but it’s not going to go down without casting a little bit of shade.

8. Super Dinosaur #8

That's a good philosophy.

Now there’s a phrase I wish I’d actually get a chance to use in real life.

7. Avenging Spider-Man #4

Hawkeye truly is bringing the class each week.

Truth be told, I do not know enough about archery to entirely get this joke, but I always approve of girly weaponry.

6. Amazing Spider-Man #679.1

Don't listen to him, Morbius! Keep doing what you do!

I am sad to say I can see the uses that being sparkly would bring to a fight. For example, it’s a lot easier to bite folks when they’re laughing at you.

5. New Avengers #21

With a name like Immortal Iron Fist, you're just asking for it, buddy.

I wonder how many superheroes have awkward/hilarious potential catchphrases.

4. Uncanny X-Men #7

Exclamation points: They save lives.

Alternatively, overuse of exclamation points could lead to death. You should probably also be careful with Caps Lock.

3. Wonder Woman #6

You have to choose your language carefully when you're palling around with gods.

This is a joke that never gets old for me. The god design in Wonder Woman is pretty much amazing, as is the phrase “god design”.

2. Daredevil #9

Good thing you're the man without fear, Mr. Murdock.

Daredevil’s blindness is almost never used to make a situation creepier, which is why it’s pretty powerful when it actually is. This is a good issue for anyone in the mood for something spooky.

1. Batman #6

Suddenly, I'm dreaming of Batman as a tokusatsu monster.

Scary Batman is the best Batman. Except for funny Batman. And singing Batman. I just love Batman.

Borderlands 2 rolls out a new trailer which manages to squeeze in as much ‘cool’ stuff as possible. I used to be cool but then they changed what cool was. Now cool just seems weird and scary to me. What I assume is this new craze of music entitled dubstep, whose overall goal is to turn your ear-drums into suitable destroyed relics for a history museum, blasts out over the trailer as game-play frames flash past like vacant faces on a train station platform.

Some interesting tid-bits are shown in the trailer that are mostly expected; four player co-op, further weapon upgrades, and drive-able vehicles able to accommodate four people this time around. All in all a good trailer and it’ll be fun to see what the game does with itself. The game is set for release for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 18th September 2012 in the US and 21st September internationally.

Enjoy the trailer below and be prepared for that drop kiddies! Wub wub wub wub!

Back in 2007, a Call of Duty game called Devil’s Brigade, nine months into development, was canned by Activision. It was a surprising move, given that most people would think Activision would try milk the Call of Duty brand as much as they could and release Call of Duty condoms if they saw a possibility to earn a quick buck. The slogan could have been ‘All Bang But No Go’.

Shouldn't there be a crashed helicopter or three soldiers on fire here?

The game was pitched to Activision (meaning it was never truly green-lit) as a vertical slice build. A vertical slice build is a strange practice in the games industry of demonstrating to a publisher all the features of a game but in a much smaller piece; basically showing a slice of a cake that is to yet to come.

'Ramierz! Drain that lake! Ramierz! Collect those flowers!'

The much slower-paced squad-based [Hey, that rhymes! - Ed. note] third-person shooter version of the Call of Duty franchise was never to be, with Activison’s merger with Vivendi in late 2007 taking the blame for its demise. It is, in my honest opinion, probably for the best. Nine Call of Duty games, all appearing on one game console’s life-span, is mind-boggling. Now, excuse me whilst I hunt for previews of Black Ops 2.

Enjoy some of these screen-shots for a game that was never to be. If though you are deeply angry the below game was never made, go and play Call of Duty 2; it looks exactly the same.

Jason Statham

This is what the on-line servers for World at War looks like now.

Bridges. This demo had a lot of bridges.

The war against ghosts.

I've run out of funny things to write beneath these images so just leave me alone.

She says:

We’re working on Episode 12, right now. I’ve read Episode 13, which is the last episode, and man, the writers really delivered. If you like the show and you like the mythology and the mystery, Episode 13 is such a pay-off for the entire season. I think it’s brilliant. Fans of the show are really going to like the last two episodes. They’re going to be shocked and amazed!

Firstly, I’m not entirely sure what she means by “last episode”, because I was assuming this was going to be a 24-26 episode season like we usually get. Maybe she means ‘last’ before a mid-season break? I don’t know, but IMDb only has the thirteen episodes listed so far.

I’ve yet to review the last episode, Johnny McKee, which leaves six more episodes to go. We’re more or less at the half-way point on the way to the end of the season. Here’s what I’m really hoping that we’ll see by the end of the thirteenth episode:

• I want to know the method that the inmates are being brought to our time. Is it magic? Future technology? A natural phenomenon? Aliens? A mad scientist in 1963 who just happened to invent time travel?
• I want to get at least a hint as to what the endgame is for the people who have been thrown into the future. Are they just sent to perform havoc to distract from something else? Are they trying to do something specific for somebody else?
• Why isn’t Lucy Banerjee (Parminder Nagra) a baddie like everybody else appearing from the past?

There are other questions as well, of course, but those three are the ones that feel most relevant and would still be able to set the show up for many more seasons.

The people at Sony Online Entertainment sure aren’t strangers to controversy and today they announced yet again that they had done something that the players actually didn’t want; in this case, joining forces with German ProSiebenSat.1 to serve European players. The deal has already been made for eight of SOE’s games and effectively cuts off American players from European players, some of which have already formed social bonds across borders. Good luck playing Planetside 2 with your international buddies come launch!

This made the Three MMOsketeers so upset they had to record a podcast about the whole thing, which is available through all the usual CSICON podcast channels. Links below!

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