ZOMFG teens <3 books, Amazon leverage tips for authors, water-on-Mars back on (yet again), time travel a scientific no-no…

• 1 – Teens buying books at fastest rate in decades

  “Credit a bulging teen population, a surge of global talent and perhaps a bit of Harry Potter afterglow as the preteen Muggles of yesteryear carry an ingrained reading habit into later adolescence.” Hmmm. Via SFBC.

  (tags: trends industry expansion market genre fiction literacy reading teens books)

• 2 – The End of Science Fiction: When Technological Extrapolation Hits A Wall Across the Future

  “As our everyday lives become increasingly science fictional — as the stuff of fiction becomes the stuff of mundane reality [...] — what are the dangers we face?” Heavy essay by James John Bell via SF Signal.

  (tags: future singularity innovation progress technology futurism sf scifi fiction science)

• 3 – Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com

  Leverage that bookseller, folks. There’s a lot of promotional tools on there.

  (tags: advice tips resources Amazon publishing promotion marketing book author)

• 4 – Rocket Plane Roulette

  “…there is a big problem with this nascent industry [space tourism] that most of its supporters are glossing over: Safety.”

  (tags: accidents danger record safety flight rocket winged suborbital tourism space)

• 5 – Scientists Find A Solar-powered Asteroid

  “For the very first time, astronomers have witnessed the speeding up of an asteroid’s rotation, and have shown that it is due to a theoretical effect predicted but never seen before.”

  (tags: power solar increase speed rotation asteroid physics science astronomy space)

• 6 – Early Mars Had Underground Water System

  “Opportunity found sulphate-rich sediments that some experts claimed were the remains of seas that once washed over the planet.” Seems the ‘Martian water’ switch is set to ‘on’ this month.

  (tags: science debate evidence sediments traces water exploration space Mars)

• 7 – Scribd “YouTube for Documents” Gets $300K

  “Scribd is most easily described as a text version of YouTube. It is a social network that lets you tag, share, and comment on uploaded documents.” Interesting development. Via Jeremy Tolbert.

  (tags: futurism story literature text commenting rating tagging sharing collaboration document startup web2.0)

• 8 – New Greg Egan novel

  “Greg Egan has sold a new science fiction novel, Incandescence, to Gollancz. The book will be published in May 2008.” That’s damn fine news from where I’m sitting.

  (tags: sold novel book new Incandescence Egan Greg hard sf scifi fiction science)

• 9 – You Can’t Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say

  “However, some scientists believe that travelling to the past is, in fact, theoretically possible, though impractical.” I wish they could all agree on this, or let the sf writers sort it out.

  (tags: string cosmic wormholes impractical impossible travel time physics science)