The Graun talks space opera

Another nice Guardian interview, this time in the dead tree edition, with Al Reynolds — whose works Stuart Jeffries wishes he'd discovered earlier — ahead of the paperback edition of the excellent House of Suns. Plus, to acompany it, a little featurette on some of the Best of British SF, featuring a number of the usual suspects (ETA: Niall has a good post on Torque Control discussing some of the oddities).

Could it be that SF is actually gaining, whisper it, literary respectability?

Catsploitation

According to the BBC, scientists have discovered that cats exploit our monkey brains by purring in a way that gets us to do exactly what they want. I'm shocked. Shocked. Actually, wait, no, I'm not.