A very busy day in a very busy week, but here are a few small news items to keep you going until Podcast Day on Thursday.

Anime

♦ New science fiction anime from Atsuya Uki coming in 2009. The project, titled Cencoroll, begins when a giant monster sends a town’s citizens into a panic – except for a girl named Yuki and her acquaintance Tetsu. Tetsu happens to have his own strange creature named Cenco as a pet. Another boy appears in the town and controls the monster threatening the people, and the stage is set for a battle.

more news under the fold.

MMO

♦ An MMO company in Europe has been given license to run an actual bank (using real money) in its virtual world. If this is a trend that catches on, tax collectors the world over will be drooling in anticipation at the prospect of finally being able to collect on the thousands of gold coins that people have been gathering.

Comics

♦ Robot 6 has a very good interview with local comic creator Donnar Barr about her newest project Afterdead, a work which features characters from her past works Desert Peach and Stinz

TV

♦ SyFy *shudder* to make a TV series out of Philip Jose Farmer’s classic Riverworld books. This will not be a continuation of the 2003 Riverworld TV movie but an entirely new version.

Books

♦ The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announced their final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement. The winners will be announced at at the 2009 Stoker Weekend, 12-14 June 2009, at the Burbank Marriott Hotel, near Los Angeles, California. Lifetime Achievement Awards at this year’s banquet will be given to F. Paul Wilson and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. The rest of the ballot is:
Superior Achievement in a Novel:

• Coffin County by Gary Braunbeck (published by Leisure Books)
• The Reach by Nate Kenyon (Leisure Books)
• Duma Key by Stephen King (Scribner)
• Johnny Gruesome by Gregory Lamberson (Bad Moon Books/Medallion Press)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel:

• Midnight on Mourn Street by Christopher Conlon (Earthling Publications)
• The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti (Dark Hart Press)
• Monster Behind the Wheel by Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin (Delirium Books)
• The Suicide Collectors by David Oppegaard (St. Martin’s Press)
• Frozen Blood by Joel A. Sutherland (Lachesis Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction:

• The Shallow End of the Pool by Adam-Troy Castro (Creeping Hemlock Press)
• Miranda by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
• Redemption Roadshow by Weston Ochse (Burning Effigy Press)
• The Confessions of St. Zach by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction:

• “Petrified” by Scott Edelman (Desolate Souls)
• “The Lost” by Sarah Langan (Cemetery Dance Publications)
• “The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft” by Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt (Chizine)
• “Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment” by M. Rickert (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
• “Turtle” by Lee Thomas (Doorways)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology:

• Like a Chinese Tattoo edited by Bill Breedlove (Dark Arts Books)
• Horror Library, Volume 3 edited by R.J. Cavender (Cutting Block Press)
• Beneath the Surface edited by Tim Deal (Shroud Publishing)
• Unspeakable Horror edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder (Dark Scribe Press)

Superior Achievement in a Collection:

• The Number 121 to Pennsylvania by Kealan Patrick Burke (Cemetery Dance Publications)
• Mama’s Boy and Other Dark Tales by Fran Friel (Apex Publications)
• Just After Sunset by Stephen King (Scribner)
• Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan (Prime Books)
• Gleefully Macabre Tales by Jeff Strand (Delirium Books)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction:

• Cheap Scares by Gregory Lamberson (McFarland)
• Zombie CSU by Jonathan Maberry (Citadel Press)
• A Hallowe’en Anthology by Lisa Morton (McFarland)
• The Book of Lists: Horror by Amy Wallace, Del Howison, and Scott Bradley (HarperCollins)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection:

• The Nightmare Collection by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions Press)
• The Phantom World by Gary William Crawford (Sam’s Dot Publishing)
• Virgin of the Apocalypse by Corrine De Winter (Sam’s Dot Publishing)
• Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster by Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty (Skullvines Press)