Its going to be a busy week here at Seattle Geekly. We have our Author Spotlight coming tomorrow, this time featuring Jillian Venters, the headmistress of the Gothic Charm School. She talks about her latest book, some upcoming projects and offers some off-the-cuff advice for the goth set.

For our regular show on Thursday we have our pre-PAX show. The three day passes for PAX are sold out and a limited number of day passes available so act fast if you’re planning on going. We’re going to be previewing some of what will be going on over the weekend and talking to a few of the people involved.

Your Monday news is under the fold

Anime

We mentioned this previously but a reminder comes from Anime News Network that Cartoon Network is airing new episodes of Moribito.

The series adapts Nahoko Uehashi’s fantasy novel about a spearwoman who protects a prince from his own father and other enemies. Episode 11, “Flower Wine for Tanda,” will debut at 1:30 a.m. EDT/PDT. Adult Swim had shown the anime’s first 10 episodes three times since last August.

Boardgames

A couple releases from Steve Jackson Games to mention. First a brand new release, Nanuk. Nanuk is a fast-playing, highly social game of bidding and bluffing for 5 to 8 players. Players take the role of a hunter in the great white north.

Each player bids for how long he can stay on the trail and how much he will bring home. Each boast must be greater than the one before, until one hunter refuses to raise the bid, saying “You’re doomed!” Then the hunt begins. Will the hunt leader make good on his boast, or will the doomers be right? Every player decides secretly to help . . . or to let it fail.

Nanuk should be in stores this November.
Also coming in November is a reprint of one of our favorites, Chez Goth.

This stand-alone game puts a new spin on the award-winning (and all too realistic) Chez Geek. You’re still living with a bunch of roommates . . . but now you’re a Goth!
Work at your dreary job. Spend your hard-earned money and precious time to accumulate Slack points . . . or collect Gloom when life turns against you. As it will! You can earn Slack for buying Clothes, Shinies, and Booze . . . or you can just Cough, Complain, or even Faint Dramatically, especially if you have an audience. And if you get very lucky, there might be some Graveyard Nookie in your future.

Books

Two new releases of note in the book department as well. Greg Bear’s City at the End of Time and Alan Dean Foster’s Quofum. City at the End of Time is the story of three young people with the ability to “skip across the surface of the fifth dimension, inhabiting alternate versions of themselves” who are linked not only by their unusual powers but also by their dreams of the Kalpa, a decadent, doomed city of the distant future. Quofum deals with an expedition that becomes stranded on an unexplored planet with unusual biodiversity and physical properties that may hold the key to stopping “the Great Evil racing toward the galaxy”. Both books should be in stores this week.

MMO

Blizzcon wrapped up this weekend and of course the big announcement was the next World of Warcraft expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Cataclysm will raise the level cap from 80 to 85 and introduce two new playable races, the werewolf-like Worgen for the Alliance and Goblins for the Horde. Cataclysm will also bring about dramatic changes in the map of Azaroth, destroying some old zones, raising new ones and changing the environment in others. No official release date has been set but rumor has it that it will be out next year. Slashdot has a very good review that includes all the big details on not only Cataclysm but also Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Battle.net.

Good news for those who are both Final Fantasy fans and XBox 360 owners. It seems that the announcement that Final Fantasy XIV Online would be a PS3 exclusive title is not entirely accurate. FFXIV will only be available for the PS3 and PC at launch but as vg247 reports, an XBox 360 version will be released “in the future”.

Movies

Comic Book Resources has a very interesting interview with Kevin Feige, the President of Production for Marvel Studios. Among other tidbits, he drops some hints about who we might be seeing in the planned Avengers movie and mentions that Scarlett Johansson has signed off on a Black Widow movie “should we be lucky enough to have an audience that wants to see [it]“.

Slash Film is reporting some casting news for the movie version of The Hobbit. Ian Mckellen made an appearance at a special marathon screening of all three Lord of the Rings films in London and confirmed that he will be back playing Gandalf for The Hobbit. Their report also says that Sir Ian let it drop that “the starring role of Bilbo Baggins has been successfully cast already. Not only that, but he knows who has the role and he’s sure that the fans will be very, very pleased.” Of course he isn’t actually TELLING anyone who it is but interesting news nonetheless.

Video Games

Finally, GamesIndustry.Biz has an interview with Iain Simons and James Newman who are working on England’s new National Videogames Archive. The project, operating under England’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport aims “to preserve – and also ask questions about the best ways of explaining what videogames are and what they can be to people who aren’t necessarily aficionados.” I wonder how hard it would be to get government funding for something like that in the U.S.?