This anthology ‘Robots & Artificial Intelligence’ from Flame Tree Publishing has the exciting notion of mixing classic tales on the theme with new ones by modern writers. The stories and extracts come at you in alphabetical order by author, beginning with Frank L. Baum and ending with Eleanor R Wood. Although I enjoyed the mix, […]
With any book, always pay attention to the title as to what the content is supposed to be. ‘The Astounding Illustrated History Of Science Fiction’ is supposed to be about the illustrated aspect of SF and despite Pat Mills introduction, the initial focus is on SF origins than where art, beyond covers, entered into the […]
Back in the late 1970’s, the film Star Wars was released and it became a sensation. It made so much money everyone was searching for the next Star Wars clone. Sandy Frank saw his opportunity in a hyper-popular Japanese anime called Gatchaman. He purchased the English rights, re-edited, and re-dubbed the episodes, and thus was […]
The monster-massive Studio Ghibli theme park which is being designed for construction in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture has just released details for its life-size Howl’s Moving Castle. Now, the good news is that you’re getting this beast, the slightly less good news is that they’re building the HMC in the three-storey-tall ‘scout mode’, which is when […]
Horror TV series Fear the Walking Dead is heading back to TV screens and here is a little trailer which features perhaps the strangest and nastiest character to yet make an appearance in the post-zombie apocalypse. And heck, that’s quite a contested title I would imagine.
Actress Gina Carano is interviewed about her role playing bounty Hunter and space sheriff Cara Dune in the first two seasons of the Disney+ live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian, in this hour-long piece from YouTube. She’s a former professional fighter in the mixed martial artist (MMA) leagues and also made appearances in the movies […]
The latest issue of ‘Retro Fan’ starts running with interviews by Mike Eury with Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen about their time on ‘Lost In Space’ and both being told that it wasn’t likely to get beyond a pilot episode otherwise they might not have done it. Ultimately, it only got cancelled because Irwin Allen […]
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a political writer, a powerful orator and statesman who came to a rather sticky end in 43BC on the way to Macedonia. He was seeking to escape after falling out of favour with the new government of Rome. There weren’t any deselect ions or impeachments in ancient Rome but there were […]
The largest rover NASA has sent to another world touched down on Mars this Thursday Feb 18th 2021, after a 203-day journey traversing 293 million miles. Unlike with past rovers, the majority of Perseverance’s cameras capture images in color. After landing, two of the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) captured views from the front and rear of […]
Here’s a short science video examining what will happen after the Martian colonies reach millions of people and the urge to declare nationhood and independence beckons. Can Mars win its independence peacefully, or will there be conflict on the way out?
Remember me writing last month that I got a second book focusing on photographic composition and saying there isn’t much difference between the two mediums, well apart from artistic ability. I do wonder if anyone has ever gauged just how well artists do as first-time photographers? After all, we already have an eye for composition. […]
‘The Ninth Talisman’ is the second volume in ‘The Annals Of The Chosen’ series, following ‘The Wizard Lord’. In that book, ordinary village bloke Breaker became The Swordsman, one of the Chosen who act as a check on the Wizard Lord who rules the land of Barokan and have the duty to either remove him […]
Going back nearly nine years, we have the 23rd edition of ‘Draw!’ where there is some focus on comicbook artist Al Williamson (1931-2010) and the people who worked with him. He was the penciller on Marvel’s first Star Wars’ comicbook series amongst other comics, don’t forget. In his later years, Williamson turned inker after an […]
Dune is one of the most popular classic science fiction franchises both in books, TV form, and the movies now. But there is one question that has long been nagging fans of this evergreen science fiction universe – and that is, where are the flipping sentient aliens? After all, there are over 13,000 settled planets, all colonised by humanity, with […]
