Turns out we’re not getting a television show based on Nikki Finke’s life. Given how reclusive the famous Hollywood blogger is (for those not familiar, a real picture of her hasn’t been published in years, and she recently freaked out when it turned out Rupert Murdoch’s iPad publication, The Daily, might have a current one), I don’t know what the show would have been able to show her doing, other than working the phone and maybe interacting with a small handful of friends and sources.

And frankly, judging by the failure of Dirt, I’m not sure how interested ordinary viewers actually are in the inner workings of Hollywood industry:

Sure, we’re interested in actors and actresses and the gaps between the people the play on screen and who they really are, and their spectacular falls from grace. But I don’t know that there’s really much interest in the people who make money off of those revelations and narratives. Ari Gold is interesting because he’s a star-maker, not a star-chronicler. We don’t see shows about producers and writers and financiers, much less tabloid editors and industry reporters. The universe of people who are very interested in people like Nikki Finke is pretty small. And while I’d be interested in interviewing her for a story, I’m vastly more interested in her output than in her day-to-day, the reverse of how we feel about famous people, whose ordinary routines can eclipse their art.

Well, now we know that Jonas Akerlund does better work with Lady Gaga than with Britney Spears:

Britney’s me-against-the-media thing’s been done better, with fewer sci-fi trappings multiple times, perhaps best in the video for “Piece of Me.”As other, better critics have said, there’s nothing here to dispel the rumors that Britney can’t dance like she used to be able to, and there’s not much else to it either—it doesn’t seem high-concept or high-fashion in a world where Gaga’s queen of both of those domains, and it’s not really trashy fun, either. There’s always something a bit melancholy to Spears now, and I wonder if it might be smarter for Spears and her artistic collaborators to acknowledge that rather than trying to recreate her past glories.

But is it me, or does this owe a reasonable debt to Joss Whedon’s portrayal of Mr. Universe’s lair in Serenity? You’ve got the cloud cover, the room full of screens, and the pretty, but not-quite-human girl in the prom-cum-wedding dress lounging around inside of it. I don’t know that it’s a direct steal, and there’s certainly a bit of Satellite Five from Doctor Who in the external construction. But I think I’d like the video more if I had a sense that Akerlund had a familiarity with some recent popular sci-fi when he was conceptualizing this. It might make it feel deliberate, rather than like the awful mess it actually seems to be.

Sorry this has been so long delayed, all. The nominees are as follows:

1. Alastair Reynolds, Chasm City

Vote by leaving a comment or emailing me directly. Voting will remain open until midnight at Friday, I’ll get the book over the weekend and tell y’all by Monday what pace we’ll set. Looking forward to it!