This week’s Seattle Geekly podcast is going to be all about steampunk. Steamcon, Seattle’s first steampunk convention is coming up in two weeks and we have interviews with guest of honor Tim Powers, author of many books at the foundation of Steampunk, convention chair Diana Vick and Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett the creative team behind Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel.

In other steampunk related news, the launch method used in Jules Verne’s classic From the Earth to the Moon may have been a little more prescient than anyone suspected. New Scientist has the story on a project headed by physicist John Hunter who is building a compressed hydrogen cannon that promises to reduce the cost of launching cargo into orbit by as much as a factor of ten.

At the Space Investment Summit in Boston last week, Hunter described a design for a 1.1-kilometre-long gun that he says could launch 450-kilogram payloads at 6 kilometres per second. A small rocket engine would then boost the projectile into low-Earth orbit.

The rest of your Monday news is under the fold

Anime

Anime News Network has word from the official Studio Ghibli site (site in Japanese) that the next Studio Ghibli film is going to be headed by a new, but unnamed director. More details are expected in December. They are also reporting that Studio Ghilbi co-founder Hayao Miyazaki has a new film in development and it could be finished by 2013.

Books

Paranormal/urban fantasy publisher Juno Books has a special Halloween giveaway that ties in with two of their upcoming releases. Maria Lima’s Blood Kin and Linda Robertson’s Hallowed Circle both “feature some fairies that are, well, not ‘good’ by any means,” according to Editor Paula Guran. To help promote the books Juno is giving away Scary Fairies: Four Fearful Tales of the Fey a collection that includes “The Child That Went With the Fairies” by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “The Adventure of Cherry of Zennor” by Robert Hunt, “Ethna the Bride” by Lady Francesca Speranza Wilde and “Tamlane/Tam Lin” by Joseph Jacobs and Anonymous. The collection is available for download as a 54 page pdf.

Comics

The 2009 Harvey Awards were given out at Baltimore Comic Con this weekend. The winners were

TV

Will Red Dwarf be returning for a tenth season? Early signs are promising if you want to believe the official twitter of Robert “Kryten” Llewellyn who was updating from Red Dwarf fan convention Dimension Jump 09 this weekend.

Series 10 of Red Dwarf announcement just been made at DJ 09. To clarify the scripts have been commissioned, wont be filming til 2010

He followed that up with

Want to re-state that UKTV, aka Dave have commissioned Doug Naylor to write scripts, still a long way to go before it’s all official

Movies

Paramount’s tiny budget horror film Paranormal Activity took in more than $7 million at the box office over the weekend. For those keeping score at home that means that the movie made more than double the $15,000 it cost to make in every single theater showing it.