The Earthling blog will return in fall 2007. In the meantime, our creator guy has been honored with the task of revamping and reinventing Weird Tales, the world's oldest fantasy magazine. Head on over and check it out!

Carnegie Mellon University's Robot Hall of Fame has announced that its 2006 induction ceremony will be held in June at the RoboBusiness robotics industry convention, just across the Monongohela River from CMU's main campus in Pittsburgh. And once again, the Hall is accepting nominations from the public -- hey, that's us! -- to aid in the judges' process of honoring the most significant real and fictional robots in history. As of today, online nominations are overwhelmingly in favor of everyone's favorite 1980s cartoon 'bot, Transformers icon Optimus Prime.

No shocker there, given the massive juggernaut that is American pop culture -- but in the same vein, it may indeed be a bit surprising that Futurama's sarcastic mechanoid Bender is only in fourth place. That's as it should be, though: No. 2 is representing for the U.K. science fiction scene with Doctor Who's robot dog K-9, and No. 3 is no less influential a figure than Isaac Asimov's most beloved and long-lived humanoid hero, R. Daneel Olivaw.

So how will the judges swing? In years past, they've included such elder statesmen as Arthur C. Clarke and Steve Wozniak, who might be expected to favor Daneel -- a character emblematic of Asimov, the Grand Master of science fiction who coined the very word "robotics," not to mention having provided the inspiration for Star Trek's immensely popular android Data. But Doctor Who is currently enjoying a renaissance on television, with K-9 due to make his triumphant return later this year. And there's no denying the love that an entire generation of geeks -- including plenty of today's cutting-edge young roboticists -- hold for Optimus Prime, who's practically Superman's cultural successor as the heroic, Lincolnesque father figure of compassionate steel we always wanted.

In each of the Hall's two previous slates of honorees, two real-world robots and two or three fictional ones were inducted -- which means there could be room for all three of 2006's odds-on favorites. If Prime and K-9 do make the cut, let's hope corporate parents Hasbro and the BBC are a bit less machine-minded than Lucasfilm was back in 2003, when they sent both Kenny Baker and a smiley corporate p.r. exec to Pittsburgh to accept R2-D2's induction -- but only allowed Smiley to take the microphone and speak. It was an insensitive gesture that made her seem like an empty suit -- which, you know, is exactly what R2-D2 would have been without Kenny Baker inside.

...because today is Earth Day! Woo hoo! Let's hear it for the Blue Planet! All together now: We're Number Three! We're Number Three!

Okay, you're confused. Isn't April 22 Earth Day? The answer is: Yes. But today was Earth Day first.

Iowa-born peace activist John McConnell first came up with the idea of a day to honor our whole planet in 1969. The concept was simple: to institute the first global holiday, when everyone on earth could strive for "harmony with nature and neighbors." McConnell chose the spring equinox -- a practical choice, for the first day of spring has long symbolized the bloom of fresh life and new beginnings. What's more, the equinox is an objective, nonsectarian date that's based on a regular astronomical occurrence: the annual transition from night being longer than day, to day being longer than night, as the tilted Earth reaches the halfway point of its orbit.

McConnell won fans for the idea. On March 21, 1970, the mayor of San Francisco proclaimed Earth Day in the city -- and, one year later, U.N. Secretary-General U Thant officially declared the same for all the United Nations. Which, you'd think, would do the trick.

But meanwhile, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, an ardent environmentalist, was organizing a national environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970. The event, also dubbed Earth Day, proved to be such a popular success in schools and universities across America that Nelson announced it would be repeated annually.

So, there you have it. The vernal equinox is the globally sanctioned Earth Day because of science and logic, and April 22 is the American-observed Earth Day because of the arbitrary happenstance of a marketing campaign -- albeit a very worthwhile one.

Here at Earthling, our attitude is, the more Earth Days the better! So as of today, our CafePress store is offering T-shirts and mousepads emblazoned with the unofficial flag of Earth, designed in 1970 by Illinois farmer James Cadle. (Wow -- Earth Day was invented by an Iowan, the Earth flag by an Illinoisan... so much for the dumb idea that rural Midwesterners are all stereotypical "red-staters," eh?) Cadle passed away in 2004, but not before officially bequeathing his beautifully simple design to the public domain. So we want to spread it as far and wide as possible -- a bold graphical representation that we're all earthlings together on this spinning blue ball, and we should take the time to remember that before we fight with each other.

Better to get used to that idea now, before the alien invaders do come.

Holly Black's 2004 debut novel, Tithe, riled up readers both pro and con with its story of a moody, foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking 16-year-old from Philadelphia who learns that she's not really a blond-haired Asian girl with a drunken rock-musician mom, but a green-skinned pixie from the Unseelie Court of the faeries. Fans loved the book for its unflinchingly visceral look at the angst-ridden lives of teenagers, even ones who've stepped into a world of magic and fantasy; critics assailed it as a too-obvious glamorization of bad behavior. Black's followup, Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (Simon & Schuster, $16.95, hardcover), invites the same reactions from both sides. Not a direct sequel to Tithe but set in the same universe, Valiant opens with a scene of that most painful of adolescent experiences, betrayal, as 17-year-old Val Russell catches her boyfriend hooking up with her mom. Fleeing her home in a fit of nausea, she ends up living in the New York City subway tunnels -- where she meets Ravus the troll, an alchemist who supplies faeries with an addictive potion called Never, and who's mighty sexy in his own monstrous, trollish way. Earthling correspondent Nivair Gabriel sat down with the author for a chat about the origins of her twisted faerie tales.

When did you first become fascinated with faeries? When I was a little kid, I was really frightened of everything. I thought there were vampires; I thought the trees outside would come in and grab me. Actually, that was pretty realistic, as the trees were entirely untrimmed and would scrape my windows at night. During this time I read Brian Froud and Alan Lee's Faeries -- possibly the creepiest book ever! -- and I realized that faeries were not dignified, cute, little girls with wings. I began to have a sense that they were very frightening, and the more I read folklore, the more puzzled I became that they're portrayed in pop culture as so saccharine. It's really interesting -- they haven't quite made their way into the mainstream as being scary, like vampires have. But faeries can be horribly cruel as well as wonderfully kind, and I was fascinated by what I read about them from all over the world, from Charles de Lint to Emma Bull to Terri Windling.
What was the hardest part of Valiant to write? Writing about the drug use was really difficult, because my sister was a heroin user and she died of an overdose, so I obviously had a lot of personal issues surrounding drugs. When I was coming to this book, I really had to think about how I was going to separate myself. For instance, I very deliberately made it not actual drugs -- I think that changes some of the dynamics of what has to happen and how. It was very difficult, also, to calibrate how much of the drug use I could allow in, because it could have sucked the whole story under until the book was only about that. I didn't want that; I don't want to write a message book, where I'm like, "Hey kids, drugs are bad!" I just wanted to reflect some kids struggling with some stuff. A lot of times I thought: What am I bringing to this table that's my own baggage, and how can I add to the story without clouding it with my own emotions? It can't seem like the world is imposing a message.
The portrayals of children and teenagers in your books are so dead-on accurate -- how do you hold onto those emotions so well as an adult? Did you keep journals? I do have some journals, but I could not crack those open -- I couldn't bear to look back at them! Childhood is a very vivid part of our lives, and I'm not sure I remember it better than anybody else; I think most people just imprint those memories, especially the ones from high school. A lot of things that we decide in high school, or that happen to us in high school, have a profound impact on our worldview. I've had so many conversations with people, both in real life and online, where they'll come back to stuff that happened when they were teenagers. If two people are fighting, they'll always return to, "You are just like those bitches who tortured me in high school!"

Earthling correspondent and speculative-fiction writer/blogger/editor Matthew Kressel took some time out from his busy schedule over the holidays to dive into a pile of recent releases. What did he find? Everything from a true history of alien conspiracies to novels of dark fantasy and Caribbean deviltry.


The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture, by Jason Colavito (Prometheus Books, $19, paperback) -- This dense yet fascinating read proclaims that those theories suggesting humanity commingled with alien races long ago -- possibly even being spawned by one -- can be directly traced, not to historical reality, but to a series of fictional short stories by the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, written at the beginning of the 20th century. Author Colavito -- a former believer, and a contributor to Skeptic magazine -- takes us chronologically through the history of this idea, from Lovecraft's life to the present day, and he makes a convincing argument that "extraterrestrial genesis," the theory that humanity was created by aliens, is hogwash. Lovecraft, Colavito argues, was a lifelong atheist and materialist and had no room for these pseudo-scientific theories in real life -- but he knew well that they make for excellent fiction. The biographical portrait consumes only a fraction of The Cult of Alien Gods, though, and the rest of the work details long arguments intended to debunk dozens of alien-history theories, including those that claim: the Sphinx at Giza is much older than originally thought; Atlantis was real and home to an ancient, technological race; an ancient African tribe knew Sirius was a double star even before modern astronomers did. Though the links to Lovecraft seem reasonable at first blush, Colavito's arguments sometimes turn specious, and he's not immune to the same weakness of which he accuses others: presupposing a conclusion and then accepting only evidence that supports it. Nevertheless, it's a worthwhile read that seeks to shed light upon a hundred years of speculation and myth, while at the same time paying high praise to one of the last century's greatest storytellers.

John Crow's Devil, by Marlon James (Akashic Books, $19.95, hardcover) -- In the Jamaican town of Gibbeah, all is not well. The village priest is a drunk they've dubbed the Rum Preacher, and the devil's work roams as freely as the vultures. John Crow's Devil is rife with the black birds, which seem inextricable from the festering morality of this forsaken community. Enter a smarmy man from Kingston called the Apostle York, who drags the former priest from his pulpit and leaves him in a haunted river to rot. First-time novelist James drenches us in Christian symbols, as the river becomes the Rum Preacher's baptism and subsequent rebirth. While the Apostle slowly convinces the congregation to loathe the word Jesus, to murder cattle farmers, to attack visitors and destroy the only bridge into town, cows are born with heads turned backwards, and strange murders of crows congregate on rooftops and in yards. James weaves a dark, engaging tale from this mix of magic realism and religious literalism. While there are a few unnecessary distractions from the story -- sexual organs are mentioned a bit too frequently, and the narrative is often recounted in an awkward-to-read Jamaican patois -- in the end it's a remarkably solid debut novel, promising much from a young and talented writer.

X out of Wonderland, by David Allan Cates (Steerforth, $17.95, hardcover) -- The Global Free Market will solve all ills: That is the premise which propels "X," the protagonist of Cates' satirical novel X out of Wonderland, on a journey from successful radio talk-show host to third-world sweatshop laborer, from kill-or-be-killed soldier to oversexed commune citizen. Make no mistake, X out of Wonderland is diatribe -- but it's the funniest and most poignant diatribe about the state of our current society you may ever read. No matter how many times X loses all that he has, no matter how much pain he suffers, he still trusts in the redemptive power of the Global Free Market. Wonderland contains genius twists and turns of phrase which alternately delight and horrify; its only fault is that the novel is rather plotless, moving from one circumstance to the next literally with every gust of wind. But at a breezy 140 pages, this fact can be easily overlooked as we enjoy our light-hearted tour of the rife hypocrisy that passes daily under our noses. Despair over the hopelessness of life on earth has never been so much fun.

The Water Mirror: Dark Reflections, Book 1, by Kai Meyer, translated by Elizabeth D. Crawford (Simon & Schuster, $15.95, hardcover) -- What do a blind orphan girl with mirrors for eyes, mermaids, Egyptians, flying stone lions, and urban Italy all have in common? Apparently nothing -- until you pick up Kai Meyer's The Water Mirror and begin floating with her down the canals of Venice. This first volume of a young-readers series, originally published in German, centers around Merle, a bold and curious orphan who begins an apprenticeship under the reclusive magic-mirror maker Arcimboldo. In the spirit of Pullman's His Dark Materials, The Water Mirror's Venice exists in an alternate universe, where mermaids are raised in farms, stone lions guard the submerged city from imperious Egypt, and magic roams as freely as the flowing waters. And just like Pullman, Meyer leaves us waiting for the next book in the series. The author hints of great wonders -- two expelled wizards whose aged towers lean uncomfortably close, gigantic underwater cities abandoned to the ravages of time -- but she often gets caught up in relating this backstory, and long stretches of the narrative refer to events long ago, or are revealed rather awkwardly as conversations inside Merle's mind. Nevertheless, The Water Mirror is imaginative enough to evoke wonder, and one hopes that with the scene now completely set, Meyer can open the floodgates of her creativity onto Venice with the next installment.

So I'm wandering through Netflix, and I see Slaughterhouse-Five, and I realize that while I've read the book several times, I've never seen the movie. It seems like a good time to do it, as I recently rewatched Donnie Darko, and if there's one story that truly presages Donnie's screwed-up time-travel tripping, it's Billy Pilgrim's life spent "unstuck in time." So I click the Add button. Netflix adds it to my queue, and then suggests the other movies it thinks I might enjoy: Catch-22, Fahrenheit 451, 2001, THX 1138.

Please tell me Netflix isn't so simple-algorithmed that it just thinks I like movies with numbers in them.

Well, no, it isn't, and it doesn't. I don't see 101 Dalmatians on that list, or 9 1/2 Weeks, or 10 Things I Hate About You. In fact, it doesn't even just think I like science fiction movies with numbers, or else 2010 and Space: 1999 would be there too. No, Netflix is actually making the case that there's something qualitative about those particular movies that puts them in a micro-category of their own. (According to users'' viewing tastes, that is.)

And of course it's right. Ask most people who read Slaughterhouse-Five in high school to name a couple similar books, and you can bet a handful of nickels that they, too, will come up with Catch-22 and Fahrenheit 451. Yeah, the numbers are part of it, but only to the degree that they serve as a mnemonic, a shorthand notation that signifies something deeper. These particular stories all have numerical titles for a reason: They're all about the world's insanity.

(Let's bomb one of Earth's most beautiful cultural centers into a screaming mass of burning flesh. Let's feed people an endless stream of interactive "reality television" so they're too distracted to actually think about anything ever. Let's make sure the law treats everyone equally: No matter who they are, as long as they qualify to do something, then they can do it, but if they do it, that means they no longer qualify. Let's program a computer with contradictory directives sure to drive it out of control, then put it in charge of safeguarding people's lives.)

All these stories of humans doing truly insane things point out a common truism: When faced with insanity deep within our lives, most of us try very hard to convince ourselves that it's really perfectly normal -- because who wants to accept insanity? One of the ways we do this is with numbers. They seem so absolute, so rock-steady, so authoritative. What's that you say? You're being forced to live and work in a slaughterhouse? Oh, well, yes, of course, that's Slaughterhouse-Five. One through Four are up the road. It's an instant reframing of the question from "Why?" into the much less existential "How?" So you don't think this government rule, Catch-22, makes any sense? Look, doesn't the very fact that it's called Catch-22 imply that there are at least 21 other rules, and if we've got this whole list of rules, then they must have been very carefully thought out, so you can stop worrying about it!

Numbers mean science! Numbers mean statistics! Numbers mean truth!

Think about such rationalizations for more than a second, and they don't hold up. But oh, how easy it is to just go along with them. Because, as fractals or a Sudoku grid show, numbers are beautiful and true. What we can do with them -- that's where the lies come in.

Of course, you can safely ignore this post, because these stories were all written in the '60s, so none of them can possibly have any bearing on life today whatsoever. Or, as Catholic League president William Donohoe authoritatively insisted this week while attacking President Bush's holiday cards because they don't explicitly say "Merry Christmas": "Ninety-six percent of Americans celebrate Christmas, so spare me the diversity lecture."

Alas, the birthplace of civilization continues to produce real-life horror stories. Two days ago, the news media reported that German-born archaeologist Susanne Osthoff had been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents as a hostage to use against the German government. But aside from the report on Science magazine's website, the American news stories -- which have been more concerned with the roughly simultaneous abduction of Virginian peace activist Tom Fox -- have mostly neglected to detail Osthoff's years of heroic work in Iraq, where she helped excavate the ancient Babylonian city of Isin almost 20 years ago.

More recently, Osthoff has risked life and limb to document the wholesale looting of archaeological treasures after the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government. Along the way, she worked to personally bring mass quantities of food and medicine to innocent Iraqi civilians in need. (A Mother Jones magazine feature from 2003 shows Osthoff in the field, and the Iraq War & Archaeology website archives much related material.) Whatever anyone thinks of the war in Iraq, it's pretty clear that the abduction of a noble, caring and courageous earthling like Osthoff, who's out there trying to save not only ancient civilization's legacy, but living human beings as well, should be an outrage to us all.

Can't stand the artificiality of the modern-day holiday season? Despair not -- there's an alternative, a more relaxed tradition that's coming back into vogue two thousand years after its first heyday. No, not Solstice -- Festivus! The holiday made its modern debut on an episode of Seinfeld, where we saw Frank Costanza plague his son George come wintertime with a twisted celebration involving an undecorated metal pole and such rituals as "feats of strength" and "the airing of the grievances." Since then, a surprising number of people have adopted Festivus as their own, and now journalist Allen Salkin has written a book exploring the phenomenon (Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us, Warner Books, $14.95, paperback). Earthling correspondent Maura Judkis chatted with Salkin about his exploration of the surprisingly legitimate holiday.

What prompted a book on Festivus? A friend of mine told me he was going to a Festivus party in Ohio and I said, "What, from Seinfeld?" So I wrote a story for The New York Times... and then I kept hearing more and more about it. I knew that I had struck gold -- it was like I had discovered punk rock. So I set about mining that vein.
What was the most surprising thing you discovered in your research? That Festivus dates back to ancient Roman times. It was kind of like Mardi Gras -- it was the one time the lower classes could get drunk in public and have orgies and go nuts. The spirit of the holiday is that people do what they want to do, not what people tell them to do, and it's remained constant throughout the millennia.
What was the oddest Festivus tradition you encountered? At an art space in Phoenix called the Alwun House, they have an annual erotic poetry and music Festivus. This one has almost nothing to do with Seinfeld -- it goes back to the carnival-like scene of Rome. You walk in and see women dressed as Playboy bunnies, people dancing and smearing themselves with flammable gel, even a man arguing with a sock puppet that's supposed to represent a certain part of the male anatomy.
Let's hear you air three grievances right now. I guess the first one would be that the new diner that opened near my house serves terrible food and isn't open 24 hours like a real diner should be. That really makes me mad.
Wait, it makes you mad that it's terrible and that it isn't open long enough for you to eat more of it? No, I want them to be open longer and have great food. The next thing is that I hate that if you ask for the music to be turned down wherever you are, you get labeled as old or uncool. I think silence is cool. And next, I wish gas prices would stay three dollars a gallon, so that people will start making environmentally friendly decisions. It makes me mad that people won't conserve until they feel it in their pocketbook.
If you could have a fantasy feat-of-strength matchup, what two celebrities would you match, and what would their feat be? Oooh -- I would match up the guy that played Frodo, Elijah Wood, with the guy that played Sam (Sean Astin). I'd want them to take turns competing in a greased-hog wrestling contest. The winner would be the one that pins the hog faster. I think Sam would win because he has slightly stronger chest muscles.
What do you have against Elijah Wood? I hate how lovey-dovey they were in Lord of the Rings, so syrupy. I'd like to see them wrestle a pig and see how syrupy they stay. I want to hear some profanity from those guys.

Reuters is reporting that a newly published letter written decades ago by C.S. Lewis shows that the author wouldn't have approved of Disney's new movie adaptation. Alas, it's a simple-minded snippet of journalism that completely fails to do its job.

C.S. Lewis... was "absolutely opposed" to a live action version of his stories...

Although Lewis, who died in 1963, said he would have considered a cartoon version, his letter suggests he is unlikely to have approved of Disney's interpretation, particularly its computer-generated Aslan.

"Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare -- at least with photography," he wrote.

"Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) would be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan would be, to me, blasphemy."

Well, that seems clear enough: Lewis' beef with the concept of a live-action Narnia was that photographic renditions of anthropomorphic animals "always" look absurd. A reasonable stand for him to take -- given that he died in 1963. I dare say if he'd lived to see Jurassic Park, he'd have paused at least briefly to wonder what 21st-century animation technology might be able to do with the denizens of Narnia.

How is it possible that both a reporter and an editor at Reuters are unable to grasp the basic concept that a "computer-generated Aslan" is a cartoon, albeit an incredibly sophisticated one? Especially with it staring them right in the face that Lewis admired Disney's artistic achievements, and the new movie is a Disney movie?

Now, it might be that by "absurd," Lewis didn't mean "unrealistic," he meant "too realistic." Perhaps his point was that a real talking lion, no matter how magnificent, could not help but appear unsettling rather than divine, by the very "wrongness" of its nature, and that the visual abstraction of classic cartooning makes the idea of an anthropomorphic animal more palatable by placing it in an equally abstracted world.

Yeah, maybe -- but it doesn't say all that in the letter, and it sure doesn't say that in the Reuters story.

It would be oversimplistic, perhaps, to call this season's crop of femme-oriented dark fantasy novels "the daughters of Anne Rice." After all, the four listed below vary significantly in concept, tone, and likely reader age. And yet all of them are written at least in part with one common goal in mind: to excite readers with the thought of otherworldly lovers awaiting in the shadows.

Kitty and the Midnight Hour, by Carrie Vaughn (Warner Books, $6.99, paperback) -- It seems to be official: The open-ended chick-lit series has replaced the epic trilogy as fantastic fiction's preferred form of serial. So Frodo, Garion, Raistlin and all their majestically questing pals can just step aside and make room for Kitty Norville, a werewolf from Denver who finds herself pissing off her packmates big-time when they discover that she's hosting an overnight talk-radio show about the trials and tribulations of lycanthropy. Werewolves and vampires prefer to keep their existence secret, see, but Kitty wants to provide a sympathetic human voice to comfort all those lonely, self-loathing shape-changers out there in the urban night. Along the way, she gets tangled up in a murder investigation, comes out to her parents (and, wow, you haven't been in a closet until you've been in a werewolf closet), and gets hot and bothered over a sexy monster-hunter named Cormac. Goofy? Maybe, but don't even bother rolling your eyes, because if you read page one, you won't stop till the back cover hits you on the way out. | STACIA JUDE

Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer (Little Brown, $14, paperback)
Fledgling, by Octavia E. Butler (Seven Stories, $23.95, hardcover) -- As vampire fiction continues evolving as a full-fledged genre all its own, two new neck-biting novels eschew the trappings of horror -- one in favor of pure romance, the other, science fiction. In Stephanie Meyer's high-school tale Twilight, teenage Bella falls in love with Edward, the handsome "bad boy" who turns out to be badder than anyone suspected. He returns the affection, but it's not that simple, as Edward comes from a family of pacifist vampires, and he'll need to protect Bella from the evil ones if she's really determined to hang. More compelling than the bloodsucking shtick is the spot-on psychology of it all: Bella yearns for Edward because he's clearly too dangerous for her, the perfectly unattainable boy-man whose sexuality could ruin her life. A more complicated conflict drives Octavia E. Butler's Fledgling, which follows the dark-skinned vampire Shori as she awakens from the confusion of total amnesia. As in much of Butler's work, the issue of race is central: Shori discovers that she owes her melanin-rich complexion to a genetic experiment that sought to create vampires able to survive in the daylight, and she owes her memory loss to a hate-crime attack by a gang of "pure-blooded" vampires. The reader is introduced to vampire society (they call themselves "Ina") as the amnesiac Shori is, learning that every Ina keeps a personal flock of willing human blood-slaves, who are addicted to the vampire's venom and devoted to their master's happiness. This dominance relationship isn't the only sexual taboo Butler tackles, either: Shori is 50-odd years old, but her physical appearance is that of an 11-year-old girl, and this fact doesn't get in the way of wanton intimacy with her human lovers. Though the end of the book gets somewhat dragged down in an extended courtroom drama, Fledgling is a thought-provoking story from a novelist who has more to offer the vampire genre than just the same old gothic tropes. | WAYNE WISE

The Hunter's Moon, by O. R. Melling (Abrams, $23.95, hardcover) -- Above all else, O. R. Melling's kid-friendly faerie story is a powerful enticement for readers to visit Ireland; her description of its geography, hidden wonders, and folklore is enchanting and authoritative. She takes special care to pay respects to its people as well -- it seems every redhead in the country is eager to help the protagonist, 16-year-old Gwen, who embarks on a bold rescue mission when her cousin is kidnapped by faeries. Along the way, she grows out of her weight insecurity, scrutinizes her childhood dreams, and gets a cute boyfriend. It's unfortunate that both Gwen and cousin are drawn as simple teen-heroine stereotypes, but real delights come in the form of the supporting cast: a sweet-hearted businessman who still believes in faeries, a practical farm girl with wild dreams, a teenage boy who honors his grandmother's every word. Melling's take on the fantastic is classical: Faeries, like Tinkerbell or the deities who inhabit Neil Gaiman's American Gods, need people's belief to survive, and as technology and skepticism grow, their world shrinks. The Hunter's Moon is as much a lament for the creeping modernization of Ireland as it is for the disappearance of fantasy from the minds of adults; in one particularly memorable scene, Gwen finds herself in a monastery that's physically transferring itself piecemeal back into the 14th century. While Gwen herself may not be a unique character, Ireland is, and anyone who dreams should listen to its story. | NIVAIR GABRIEL

There's a geek convention or three going on somewhere in the U.S. every weekend of the year, and this weekend it's Anime USA, the annual Japanese-cartoon fest in Tysons Corner, Virginia, a strip-mall suburb just outside Washington, D.C. Of course, at the same time, Farscape fans are getting together in California and s.f. literati are lining up for David Brin's autograph in Arizona -- so what makes this bunch of 2,500 manga and anime lovers so special? Strolling through the lobby of the Sheraton hotel, where Yuna from Final Fantasy is perfectly likely to bump into Emily the Corpse Bride, one answer presents itself: Youth. It's everywhere, and it's got this incredible punk-rock-hip-hop-cyber- Matrix-via-Woodstock kinda vibe going. These kids, these costumed throngs of pink-haired and thigh-booted and staff-wielding kids, have simply way more energy -- enthusiastic, hyperkinetic, physical energy -- than most of the introspective types who've so frequently gathered over the years to celebrate their love of genres fantastic.

The perfect example: At 9 a.m., there's already a small crowd in the ballroom. Twelve hours ago the place was jumping with a J-rock concert; twelve hours hence it'll be a red-carpet extravaganza as the Cosplay Contest gets into full swing. But right now, in the relatively quiet time while a bunch of the hardcore cosplayers are down the hall waiting to hear costuming goddess Yaya Han reveal her secret makeup tips, 15 or 20 kids are here to make their own entertainment. They're standing around an eight-foot-square thing that looks like an inflatable boxing ring and is inhabited by two inflatable bodysuits -- which, in turn, are inhabited by two grinning teenage guys, about to throw down in a friendly, early-morning bout of sumo wrestling. This is not fiction, not an imaginary story: These two geeks at this geek-filled geekfest have woken up early to engage in athletics.

The ref steps back from his position straddling the edge of the ring, and one of the boys shouts, "Mortal Kombat!" He flexes, videogame-like, at his opponent, and seconds later he is flopped to the faux-fleshy floor. Thud. Well, really, considering all the aerated padding, Thfffdfffd. Game over.

They de-skin, and two petite girls hop in to take their place, giggling. "Go Gina!" comes the cry from the peanut gallery as the wrestlers, smothered in puffy plastic, face off. For the second time in a row, the actual melee takes less time than getting into the sumo suit did: The smaller girl goes down quickly, and then again. The victor, in pointed contrast to the boys' jerky pixel-warrior poses, does a happy little victory bounce like Muhammed Ali. (Or maybe like Tigger. Or a bunny rabbit.)

Then, with a big, fat smile, she hurls herself face-first to the ground so the ref can unzip her.

Need some literary stocking stuffers for a geek? Here are six smart-but-breezy reads including something for everyone, from the tormented goth to the comic-book fanboy:

Go to Hell: A Heated History of the Underworld, by Chuck Crisafulli & Kyra Thompson (Simon Spotlight, $15.95, paperback) -- Tour the land of the damned with this light-hearted beginner's guide to hell. The authors catalog the incarnations of Hades throughout history, from Bertolt Brecht to Buffy. Just don't expect philosophical debates: This is cultural history, not religious contemplation.

The Physics of Superheroes, by James Kakalios (Gotham, $26.95, hardcover) -- Physics prof Kakalios says Krypton's explosion is surprisingly realistic, Spider-Man's webline was indeed to blame for Gwen Stacy's death, and Cyclops' neck should snap like a twig every time he uses his optic blast. Real math proofs back it all up. Comics scribe Mark Waid says he keeps the book close at hand.

How to Survive a Robot Uprising, by Daniel H. Wilson (Bloomsbury, $12.95, paperback) -- Carnegie Mellon roboticist Wilson knows from personal experience what the new generation of autonomous robots are capable of. Here he intersperses information about real cutting-edge research with tongue-in-cheek (but accurate!) suggestions for subduing an out-of-control mechanoid.

How to Rule the World: A Handbook for the Aspiring Dictator, by Andre De Guillaume (Chicago Review, $9.95, paperback) -- For those who liked the idea of Machiavelli's The Prince but found the period prose a bit dated. Robin Chevalier's cartoons provide smiles, but the actual text is quite deadpan; readers may complete chapters like "Dress Like a Leader" and "How to Tell Who Is Plotting Against You" only to find themselves thinking it all sounds quite doable.

The Space Tourist's Handbook, by Eric Anderson (Quirk, $15.95, paperback) -- Author Anderson is CEO of Space Adventures, the company that trained multimillionaire Dennis Tito for his $20M paid excursion on a Soyuz mission. This fun volume offers that same training in a "how-to" format, and comes with a contest entry form offering readers a real shot at a suborbital flight.

Navigating the Golden Compass, edited by Glenn Yeffeth (BenBella, $17.95, paperback) -- The latest collection in BenBella Books' Smart Pop series sees literary visionaries Gregory Maguire, Michael Chabon and Harry Turtledove join 15 other writers in offering their own takes on Philip Pullman's fantasy epic His Dark Materials. Provocative essays include titles such as "Science, Technology and the Danger of Daemons."