The reptiles can swim, cartwheel, and even fly. They strike, glide, and even fly. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You know that scene in where Harry accidentally frees a boa constrictor from the zoo? But there's nothing supernatural about how snakes move.

If you've heard of Chuck Tingle, it's likely due to the wild titles of his extremely niche, parodic, self-published gay erotica, many of which have gone viral since Tingle became involved in the culture wars within the science-fiction community in the 2010s. And if that's so, you may be surprised to learn that Tingle has, over the past few years, evolved into one of the better horror/technothriller authors around. The mainstream publishing success of the author of This Handsome Sentient Baseball Hits a Home Run Into My Butt is one of the most unlikely, inspiring, and downright sweet underdog stories in book publishing, an industry not known for its abundance of sweet underdogs. Tingle's first taste of mass-culture fame came in 2016, when one of his short stories was nominated for a Hugo Award. The Hugos, presented every year at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon), are among the genre's most prestigious prizes.

She speaks in a low, patient whisper punctuated by a wide smile, her face inches away from the camera. Her voice is soothing and her eyes are warm. "Let me give you this shield potion," she says, reaching out of frame. "I only have one of them, all right, so you can have it." She pulls out a squat mason jar filled with baby-blue liquid, a blue ribbon tied around the top.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – Spacewalking astronauts gave a hand to the International Space Station's big robot arm Tuesday. As the federal government geared back up 250 miles below, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Scott Tingle successfully installed the new mechanical gripper. Because of the lingering effects of the government shutdown, the spacewalk got started in the morning without coverage on NASA TV. An on-air message simply stated: "We regret the inconvenience." Nearly an hour into the spacewalk, however, NASA TV came alive and began broadcasting the event with typical blow-by-blow commentary.

Concept art showing the in-development Sea Emperor, the largest known fauna currently in the game. After playing, at length, a few of the game's early access builds over the years, I can say that Unknown Worlds Entertainment's Subnautica probably is the best survival game ever made. It's certainly the best one I've ever played, and I've spent many hours in countless survival games mining and farming, building self-sustaining bases, and being incredibly frustrated with losing all of my hard-earned raw materials when I stupidly die somewhere far away from home base. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild recently released to glowing praise (and with the excitement of a new console, no less), Blizzard finally seems to be trying to fix Hearthstone, and a brand new installment in the Mass Effect franchise just dropped, but I'd trade it all for Subnautica to magically leave early access right now instead of in the fall. Unknown Worlds' first game, Natural Selection, released way back in 2002 -- a free Half-Life mod that was something the gaming world hadn't really seen before, a hybrid of a first-person shooter and real-time strategy game.

The winners of the Hugo Awards were announced at a gala ceremony in Kansas City, Mo., on Saturday, marking a good night for women and authors of color, and a very bad one for the "Puppies." Writers N.K. Jemisin and Nnedi Okorafor, both of whom are African American women, won the novel and novella awards, respectively. It was a defeat for the groups the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies, who for two years have semi-successfully gamed the nominations for the Hugos -- which along with the Nebula Awards are generally considered the preeminent awards in science fiction and fantasy -- in an attempt to advance their anti-diversity agendas. Jemisin, who won for her novel "The Fifth Season," referenced the Puppies in her acceptance speech, io9 reports. "Only a small number of ideologues have attempted to game the Hugo Awards," Jemisin said.

We live in a post-mainstream culture. As the way we consume books, movies and television changes, artists and directors no longer need to cater to a "universal" audience viewpoint. This means there is slightly less obligation to pander to what straight white men are supposed to want from culture. Not everyone is happy about that fact, and across the literary and cultural spectrum, tantrums are being thrown. This week the target is the new, all-female Ghostbusters.

They sound cute, but for the second year in a row, politically motivated groups calling themselves the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies have more or less successfully gamed the Hugo Award nominations, some of the most prestigious prizes in science fiction and fantasy. The Chuck Tingle book is one of their recommendations. The puppies oppose diversity initiatives and support lists that are dominated by white men. Their targets, which they call SJW for "social justice warriors," are women, people of color, LGBT writers, editors and artists and the people who support them, including L.A. Times Critic at Large John Scalzi. Rabid Puppies leader Vox Day, a self-described libertarian, has criticized best-selling science fiction writer N.K. Jemisin, who is black, as an "ignorant half-savage," writing, "Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence to be found anywhere on the planet that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without significant external support from those white males."