f the Dark Tower series is Stephen King's Jupiter—the single, massive literary planet that rules over the rest of his work—then DarkTower.net is his Io. Like that fiery moon, the Web site orbits King's creation, watching its turbulent surface and basking in its radiation.
The Web site dedicates itself to tracking every aspect of Stephen King's immense Dark Tower universe, and it begins that Herculean task with "Connections," a section that attempts to explain how the seven core books relate to the rest of King's work. It starts with what the author calls the "Central Canons," the three books Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis and Black House, which actively expand the Dark Tower mythos. From there, the site ventures into other works—like The Stand and Bag of Bones—which have more tenuous associations with the Tower.
Elsewhere, the "Dark Tower Road Map" provides a visual guide to how the books interrelate, and gives newbies an idea of where to start reading. The "Timeline" attempts to put the events of the Dark Tower into chronological order, while "Booksearch" allows readers to search the text of the core and related books. It will not serve up the entire book, just the portion that contains the text readers searched for.
There is a fan art section that contains some very good work, a trivia contest that readers can use to test their understanding of the series, and even a downloadable, Windows-based application for keeping up with the site. Rounding out the site is a heavily trafficked forums
section and "Other Rolands," which discusses books and movies beyond King's that nonetheless are important to the series.
— Ken Newquist
Site of the Week—August 2, 2004
n space, no one can hear you hop. So says AngryAlien.com, a science-fiction site that parodies famous films with ... bunnies.
Each parody is a 30-second Flash film featuring cartoon rabbits acting out the highlights of that film. The final results are weird, but also pretty funny.
The Shining parody has all the movie's signature elements—Danny screaming "redrum," his dad flipping out and axing through doors and cooks, cadaverous undead twins and the signature "Jack's in the picture" ending, though this time everyone in the 1920s-era photo is a rabbit. Other genre films mocked are Alien and The Exorcist, with the disaster flick Titanic rounding out the lot.
Elsewhere on the site, visitors will find some non-genre features, including an illustrated grade school diary, a strange "pigeon cam" and an animated lesson on where the site's cartoonist gets his ideas.
— Ken Newquist
Site of the Week—July 26, 2004
rmchair alternate historians can alter the path of time to their hearts' content at Other Timelines, a site where visitors change the outcome of well-known events, then get a chance to contribute to each others' creations.
An intriguing combination of discussion forum, blog and history lover's paradise, this site takes a proposed point of divergence and turns it into a group project. Browsing through the wealth of fan-generated histories at Other Timelines can be as easy as choosing a date and seeing what pops up. The site also offers pointers to most-altered historical events, most-discussed alternate timelines, and even oddities like an "Unusual Priests" series (where famous figures like Bill Clinton and Al Capone choose more spiritual life paths).
The people behind this site have rules for submitting timelines: Historical events must by physically plausible (no alien invasions or transporting medieval figures into the present day!) and cannot be slanderous or obscene. Within those boundaries, the timelines discussed and tweaked by site enthusiasts range from the obscure to the infamous, with alterations to events including the 2003 NBA playoffs, the life of Anne Frank, the Bay of Pigs fiasco and just about everything else imaginable.
Visitors will find the material on this site is mostly textual: There are few graphics. What's more, a visitor reading about altered events whose actual history they find murky may be hard put to discriminate between the real history and the convincing but sometimes subtle variations. Other Timelines is a perfect diversion, though, for alternate history fans wanting to take the "what-if" extrapolation of their favorite genre into their own hands.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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