February's meeting is upon us, though I've felt as if it should've already taken place. Perhaps because I finished The World Inside so long ago. My usual practice is to be polishing off the current selection only a few days beforehand. The book's come up as I've crossed paths with some of the gang over the last week and I'm now wondering if the discussion's going to follow the path I'd anticipated. Thursday will tell.

In the meantime, let's clean out the inbox and roll out a few tidbits from here and there. First, the last post (This one goes to eleven ) mentioned the new fantasy book group moderated by Holley at the Emmet O'Neal Library. The first meeting was small but the discussion of GRRM's A Game of Thrones was interesting. As I understand, the next couple of meetings will be devoted to discussing the other three novels (Clash, Storm, Feast). That way, the group will be caught up and ready to Dance... whenever that happens. Below are their tentative meeting dates for the rest of the year. It's a good idea to check with the library to confirm the dates and times (should be 6:30 pm).

Word came Tuesday (2/8) that Brian Jacques, author of the popular Redwall series, had died of a heart attack at 71. While considered a children's series, B&N has always shelved editions of the Redwall books in the science fiction and fantasy section of the stores, a recognition of their broad appeal.

On the lighter side, Mary Anne passed along this mash-up of Star Trek and Monty Python's Holy Grail. It's pretty funny, as is the A-Team one and this one which is based on an old 1950's educational film. Darn that Pete! Heck, while you're wasting time, here's the Fellowship as the A-Team as well.

Just a couple of tidbits on The Hobbit. First is this article about the casting process and second is the announcement of the start of filming on March 21 . Originally, I'd seen reports it was to begin lensing this week, but Peter Jackson's tummy didn't cooperate. Dude had a perforated ulcer. This has been a troubled production off the set for a long time. Let's hope all the major glitches are out of the way and that filthy Bagginses can get about his business at last, Precious.

On the book business front, all signs point to Borders declaring bankruptcy , possibly as soon as Monday (2/14). That's a mixed bag for B&N, who ain't showin' no mercy for their embattled rival. Borders going bye-bye is less competition for them, but its also a sign of the increasing vulnerability of bookstores themselves in the evolving market. Of course, Borders has brought a lot of this on themselves. They were slow to get into the digital market and then did so in a craptacular way. Here's a link to a SF Signal podcast featuring Lou Anders, Sue Lange, Mike Resnick and John Picacio discussing ebooks, their future and impact on the industry, touching on the Borders issue as well. One change is the way publishers are handlng audio rights and distribution. HarperCollins is eschewing CD releases of audio books and amended their contracts to bundle audio rights with digital which could complicate the relationships between authors, agents, and publishers in the future.

A few weeks back, I finished Robert J. Sawyer's Flashforward , which is an interesting book and well worth seeking out although as it features a smoothly running LHC in April 2009 when it didn't carry out its first proton-proton collisions until nearly a year later, it's a bit of a Flashback. One thing I thought Sawyer got wrong was his portrayal of 2009's bookstores. They're essentially cafes where people wait while an onsite machine prints and binds a copy of whatever book they want. Hah!, he missed the whole ebook development completely. Well, sorry, Mr. Sawyer. You may well be right. Meet the Espresso book machine which can cough up a physical copy of any book in its digital files in ten or fifteen minutes. The emergence of this technology alongside the ebook makes the ultimate demise of chain bookstores a real possibility.

I should thank TeleRead for being my new favorite site since I linked to damn near everything on there except Neil Gaiman's thoughts on book piracy being a good thing.

Oh, what the heck. Here you go: Interview with Neil Gaiman about piracy .