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Welcome to The Genre Traveler! Please sign up using the form to the right so that you'll get all the latest updates to the site. You also might want to sign up for the RSS feed, which you can do via email or your favorite RSS Reader. On Sept. 30, King Tut will be leaving the United States to enjoy British hospitality while on display in London. So, if you are Stateside and want to catch the exhibit before it goes, you've got about five weeks left. To help Tut-enthusiasts out, The Loews Philadelphia Hotel has come up with a "King Tut Package," good through Sept. 30. Read more »

OK, living on Mars will probably not be a reality in our lifetimes, but you can always pretend. Avatar Reality, Inc., recently announced that it is developing an online massively multiplayer virtual world (MMVW) where players can develop an avatar to live on a virtual, terraformed Mars.

"Our goal is to create an online virtual world that will feature the highest-level of fun, imagination, romanticism and creative freedom," said Avatar Reality, Inc. co-founder Henk Rogers. "A highly talented team of celebrated game and movie developers has come together to share their knowledge in creating an online world that will quickly become 'the' place to meet your friends."

Sounds cool. However, I think it would have been cooler if they started out with a non-terraformed Mars and had players work on terra-forming it. Then again, maybe that would have taken too long.

For more information:

Avatar Reality: www.avatar-reality.com

Red Colony (on terraforming Mars): www.redcolony.com/art.php?id=0508290

Who wouldn't want a lovely lounge on a tropical beach to go with their excursion to the edge of outer space? Maybe that's what Hawaiian lawmakers had in the back of their minds when they passed a bill to turn Hawaii into a major player in space tourism last week.

According to a press release, under the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) will create an office for the development of space exploration activities. Also, the Center will creat a lunar base simulation on the Big Island, as well as develop support technology and astronaut training.

"Oahu is an attractive location for space flights because it is a tourist destination," said Charles Lauer, vice president for business at Rocketplace Kistler, which will be using Hawaii as its space tourism base.

"We can be a major player in space activities," said Jim Crisafulli, a research and development cooridinator for DBEDT, "but we need to be proactive."

So, it looks like Hawaii is becoming a genre-travel hot spot. LOST is shot there (by the way, did you read my post about the LOST Fan Party I'll be attending March 31?); soon it will be a center of space tourism; and its always had a rich, mythological heritage that is appealing to fantasy afficioandos. Have I missed anything? Please post your knowledge as a comment.

On Jan. 9, 1968, the Surveyor 7 space probe made a soft landing on the moon. This marked the end of the American series of unmanned explorations of the lunar surface. So what better time for Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Amazon.com, to finally show us what he's been up to at Blue Origin?

According to The New York Times, the Blue Origin website "showed the first pictures and video of a gumdrop-shaped test craft, dubbed Goddard, rising from the West Texas launch site to 285 feet and then, eerily, returning gently to the pad" last week.

This was a change in behavior, as the company has been very tight-lipped about what it has been doing.

What I've seen so far, makes me feel like the images from the 1950s pulp magazines are coming to life. Take a look for yourself at www.blueorigin.com.

If you'd like to read what it is like to be a space tourist, check out Anousheh Ansari's blog at spaceblog.xprize.org/.

Ansari spent 10 days at the International Space Station as a space tourist. In her blog she answers the age-old question: What does space smell like? Her answer: burned almond cookie.