Via John Scalzi and Charlie Anders (email) I have learned about a new, high-profile SF blog: io9. Scalzi points out that it is run by the same people who do various famous celebrity blogs, none of which I have heard of because the only time I ever notice gossip mags is when I’m queuing at the checkout in grocery stores. He speculates that the blog will be full of salacious stories about just which author had lunch which other author at Worldcon and all that sort of stuff, and gets his knuckles rapped by PNH for his trouble.

Having had a quick look at the site, the thing that interests me is that it is really about SF being more mainstream. I don’t think it will notice “the community” much at all. I expect the site to target itself mainly at people who watch sci-fi TV and movies, at comic readers, and at people who follow top-selling fantasy books like the Harry Potter series. The post on Spiderman is spot-on. Classic tabloid headline, and it is something people are talking about (I was in my local Borders yesterday and the staff were having a long and animated conversation about it).

But you know, it being about SF, why can’t it be a little bit more creative? There is this huge gap in my life due to the demise of the Weekly World News. And in SF anything can happen. So what if it is made up? I’m looking forward to posts about how Scalzi is pregnant with David Brin’s love child, and Jeff VanderMeer is secretly Bat Boy. (Stories about the Apocalypse will have to wait because, as Jay Lake pointed out this morning, it has already happened.)