We’re getting into the swing of the new year and back into our routine of pumping out the geekiness. This Tuesday we have an Author Spotlight with Matt Youngmark author of the choose your own zombie adventure Zombocalypse Now and for Episode #44 on Thursday we’ll be having our look back at the 2009 year in geek.

Your Monday news is under the fold.

Anime

• The live action Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers) movie is set for release in Japan in December and a trailer has finally hit the internet. It’s in Japanese, but it looks pretty amazing. Enjoy!
  

Books

• The organizers of the World Fantasy Convention have announced the guests that will be at the 36th annual convention in Ohio this year. They include Dennis McKiernan (The Iron Tower, City of Jade), Esther Friesner (Chicks in Chainmail), David G. Hartwell (editor The New York Review of Science Fiction) and Darrell K. Sweet (cover illustrator for The Wheel of Time series)

  

• Editor Gardner Dozoi has announced the line up for The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Seventh Annual Collection. The stories that will be included are:
  • “Utriusque Cosmi” by Robert Charles Wilson (first appeared in New Space Opera 2)
  • “A Story, with Beans” by Steven Gould (Analog Science Fiction and Fact)
  • “Under the Shouting Sky” by Karl Bunker (Cosmos)
  • “Events Preceding the Helvetican Revolution” by John Kessel (New Space Opera 2)
  • “Useless Things” by Maureen F. McHugh (Eclipse Three)
  • “Black Swan” by Bruce Sterling (Interzone)
  • “Crimes and Glory” by Paul McAuley (Subterranean)
  • “Seventh Fall” by Alexander Irvine (Subterranean)
  • “Butterfly Bomb” by Dominic Green (Interzone)
  • “Infinities” by Vandana Singh (The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet)
  • “Things Undone” by John Barnes (Jim Baen’s Universe)
  • “On the Human Plan” by Jay Lake (Lone Star Stories)
  • “The Island” by Peter Watts (New Space Opera 2)
  • “The Integrity of the Chain” by Lavie Tidhar (Fantasy)
  • “Lion Walk” by Mary Rosenblum (Asimov’s Science Fiction)
  • “Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction” by Jo Walton (Tor.com)
  • “Three Leaves of Aloe” by Rand B. Lee (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
  • “Mongoose” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette (Lovecraft Unbound)
  • “Paradiso Lost” by Albert E.Cowdrey (F&SF)
  • “It Takes Two” by Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
  • “Blocked” by Geoff Ryman (F&SF)
  • “Solace” by James Van Pelt (Analog)
  • “Act One” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s)
  • “Twilight of the Gods” by John C. Wright (Federations)
  • “Blood Dauber” by Ted Kosmatka & Michael Poore (Asimov’s)
  • “This Wind Blowing, and this Tide” by Damien Broderick (Asimov’s)
  • “Hair” by Adam Roberts (When It Changed)
  • “Before My Last Breath” by Robert Reed (Asimov’s)
  • “One of Our Bastards is Missing” by Paul Cornell (Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Three)
  • “Edison’s Frankenstein” by Chris Roberson (Postscripts 20/21)
  • “Erosion” by Ian Creasey (Asimov’s)
  • “Vishnu at the Cat Circus” by Ian McDonald (Cyberabad Days)

  The anthology will be published in June.

Comics

• Dark Horse has announced the production of a new Usagi Yojimbo plush doll. Straight from the press release:
  

  In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Stan Sakai’s best-loved character Usagi Yojimbo, Dark Horse brings this fluffy, badass bunny to life with an all-new plush toy, with art direction by the creator himself! This new toy stands fourteen inches tall from his carefully detailed sandals to the tips of his movable ears. Stan Sakai, who provided extensive reference art for the project, oversaw every detail in the design process. The upcoming Usagi Yojimbo plush toy hits Diamond’s Previews this month, with an on-sale date of May 2010.

  Click on the picture for a larger view.

MMO

• The browser-based MMO BC Wars has officially gone gold according to developer Goldfire Studios. Billed as “the web’s first gaming experience in the prehistoric world” BC Wars has players taking on the role of “a regular caveman who minds his own business picking berries and hunting for food” and allows you to progress to legendary status through exploration, real time battles against dinosaurs and other players and developing your cave. BC Wars is free to play, but does have optional real money transactions. Interestingly the RMTs go both ways. You can buy “clams” (the in-game currency) at a fixed exchange rate, but you can also sell clams for real currency at the same exchange rate.

Movies

• The prequel to John Carpenter’s classic The Thing is coming closer to actually getting made according to Production Weekly‘s Twitter feed. The update states that the movie is scheduled to shoot from March through June of this year. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that anyone associated with the original is involved in the prequel. The script is being written by Eric Heisserer (who also wrote the upcoming remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street) and directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (who is directing Army of the Dead).

TV

• David Tennant’s run as the Doctor is all but over and new Doctor Matt Smith is poised to take over. There is a new trailer showing the first look at Smith’s Doctor. Fair warning: the trailer contains at least one item that could be considered a semi-spoiler. Enjoy!
  

Video Games

• Fans of Chris Giarruso’s G-Man comics will want to check out the all new G-Man: Cape Crisis: Escape From Dark Forest video game. Escape From Dark Forest adapts the chase scene from G-Man: Cape Crisis #4, where G-Man must stay one step ahead of the deadly forest monsters seeking to devour him. The game is available for free online play right now at http://www.chrisgcomics.com/ccgame3.html.