For those of you who missed the premiere of the new SCI FI show, Eureka, you can watch the entire two-hour pilot episode online at SCIFI.com’s new SCI FI Pulse component.

And while you’re there, be sure to check out another pilot SCI FI is offering online: The Amazing Screw-On Head, which is based on the comic by Hellboy-creator Mike Mignola. As much as I liked Eureka, I think this one’s even better and more fun, and probably has more potential. But the thing is, Screw-On Head doesn’t premiere on SCI FI until July 27, so this SCI FI Pulse availablity is kind of a test run for the show. Go watch it, then take the brief survey afterward, letting SCI FI know what you think. The survey results will be used to help determine whether or not to greenlight the show as a series.

But even if you don’t have any interest in watching it, I say go there and vote for the show positively, because even if it’s not your thing, letting SCI FI know that you want intelligent, well-written shows like this one (rather than rehashes of Mansquito) is a good thing. If we keep telling them that, maybe they’ll start listening. It seems that they’re already on the right track as of late, first with Battlestar Galactica, and now with Eureka and Screw-On Head (not to mention that the forthcoming Dresden Files looks promising as well), so let’s do what we can to convince them that there is an audience for a more sophisticated SF show on their network.

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Apparently, there’s a new spoof film of SNAKES ON A PLANE called CATS ON A PLANE, which is set to debut on MySpace at 10PM tonight (Tuesday). F&SF author Jim Young has been spreading the word, as the filmmakers are friends of his out in La-La land.

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Just a reminder that the new SCI FI Channel show Eurkea premieres tonight at 9PM (EST). In case you missed it, I gave Eurkea what is practically a rave review over at Intergalactic Medicine Show.

So check it out tonight, and let me know what you think!

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A few days ago, I received a copy of Jonathan Lethem’s How We Got Inspid, a 1500-copy limited edition hardcover which reprints two of Lethem’s previously uncollected stories, “The Insipid Profession of Jonathan Hornebom,” and “How We Got in Town and Out Again,” and includes an original afterword by the author.

Along with the book was a somewhat puzzling note.  It says that the publisher can’t send review copies of the book to trade journals or to book reviewers for newspapers or magazines.  Why?  I’m guessing that Lethem’s regular publisher–the one who’s publishing his novels that keep making the bestseller lists–are afraid that Subterranean publishing this collection might somehow interfere with their corporate marketing machine and/or cut into Lethem’s sales of the books they publish.  Not only that, but Subterranean is also forbidden from selling the book in stores via normal channels.  And all of this is actually contractually forbidden. 

So, given the handcuffs placed on Subterranean’s marketing efforts, I guess we’ll find out if bloggers and other non-traditional review sources can be just as effective at selling books as Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, and the rest. 

I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ll post some thoughts once I have the chance to take a look at it. 

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Paradise Lost is a documentary about a triple-homicide in West Memphis, AR in the mid-90s, in which three teen social outcasts were railroaded by the justice system and imprisoned for a ghastly crime they didn’t commit.

How this film evaded my radar I’ll never know, but though it originally aired on HBO over ten years ago, I just saw it recently. It’s a powerful and troubling film. What’s troubling about it is what a complete travesty of justice it depicts. The case was so riddled with police misconduct and incompetence, I wouldn’t have believed it it I’d seen that on Law & Order. It’s a case where truth is stranger than fiction; I’d’ve thought that no police force would conduct an investigation that way, not in this modern era. Yet it really happened, and these innocent kids are still rotting in jail. And how did they end up there? Well, it’s complicated, but it’s mostly because of this: they thought metal and witchcraft were cool.

There’s a follow up documentary (and a third one in the works), which updates the status of the West Memphis Three (as the convicted teens came to be known), and examines the actual physical evidence found at the crime scene. What’s funny (or sad) about it is that it confirms what seemed obvious to me even without all the extra detail. The police’s case indicates that the kids were murdered in the woods in Robin Hood Hills, where they were found, but it was immediately clear to even an untrained investigator like me that it was simply a dump site and not the murder scene. A forensics expert confirms this in the sequel, and shows other evidence not previously disclosed in the documentary: namely that one of the victims had bite marks on him. And oh yeah, the creepy and obviously unbalanced step-father of one of the victims just happened to have all his teeth removed at some point (when and how varies, depending on when you ask him–he’s provided several different stories).

In any case, it’s riveting stuff, though prepare to be outraged before viewing it. You can read more about the West Memphis Three and the case on the Free the West Memphis Three website.

On a lighter, but related note, in the documentary, the crazy step-father at one point says on camera, as if addressing the West Memphis Three: “The day you die, every year on May 5 I’m gonna come to your grave, I’m gonna spit on you, I’m gonna curse the day you were born, and I’m sure while I’m standin’ there I’m gonna have to let go of some other bodily functions on your grave!”

Well that little snippet was used at the start of some metal song, and now for the life of me I can think of what it was, or what band it was. When I first heard the song, I had no idea of the significance of that as an epigraph, so now I’m curious to go back and read the lyrics to see how deep the song actually is. Anyone have any idea what song that’s from?

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