Meanwhile, in a Universe with Space Ninjas and Sentient Insectoids: Neodymium Exodus by Jen Finelli MD

Meanwhile, in a Universe with Space Ninjas and Sentient Insectoids: Neodymium Exodus by Jen Finelli MD

Comments 6 comments

Neodymium Exodus (WordFire Press, October 2021)). Cover design by Janet McDonald

Kevin J. Anderson’s Wordfire Press has published plenty of SF the last few years, including exciting books by Cat Rambo, Paul Di Filippo, D.J. Butler, Bill Ransom, R.M. Meluch, Mike Resnick, Lou Antonelli, Robert Asprin, Alan Dean Foster, Frank Herbert, Brenda Cooper — and even the first Nexus novel by Mike Baron.

Of course, any publisher worth its salt really proves itself by discovering and promoting new authors. So I was intrigued to see Neodymium Exodus cross my desk, the first novel in a “fun, frenetic space opera” (Publishers Weekly) featuring “sentient insectoids, purple jungles, and insane electromagnetic fields.” I don’t much about the author, Jen Finelli MD, except that she likes to put ‘MD’ after her name, which tells me that at some point in our relationship she’s likely to remind me I’m overdue for a colonoscopy.

Anyway, you lot know how I feel about space opera. I think I’ll settle down with this one in my big green chair.

…

Read More Read More

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Year of Shogun

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Year of Shogun

Comments 2 comments

TV Guide featuring Shogun (September 6-12, 1980)

Before 1980, few people in America and Europe knew much about Japan’s samurai era — if anything, they associated its warrior ethos with the hostile mindset that had led the country into its big mistake in World War II. The unarmed combat skills of judo and karate had been popularized during the Sixties, but little was known about the martial arts of the samurai that had preceded them until Shogun, James Clavell’s blockbuster novel and subsequent hit TV miniseries, hit the American and European mainstream.

Suddenly samurai were top-of-mind for mass market consumers, from low-culture exploitation videos (as they were regarded then) like Shogun Assassin to high-culture art-house darlings like Kagemusha, the triumphant return of director Akira Kurosawa to the genre of his breakthrough film Seven Samurai. After 1980, “samurai” was nearly as recognizable a historical concept as “cowboy.”

…

Read More Read More

Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1954: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1954: A Retro-Review

Comments 2 comments

Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1954. Cover by Emsh

At the time I’m writing this article, we’re approaching the holiday season, just as people were when Galaxy’s December, 1954 issue arrived. And what could usher in the Yuletide spirit better than some festive, science-fiction artwork by Ed Emshwiller? That’s right. Nothing.

“Skulking Permit” by Robert Sheckley – The colony on the forested planet of New Delaware has been isolated from Earth for 200 years. It operates as a peaceful, small town, where the residents are harmonious, and crime doesn’t exist. When their ancient radio becomes active again, a person from Earth tells the mayor that an inspector is coming in two weeks to determine if the colony conforms to the “customs, institutions, and traditions of Earth.” The mayor takes action, determined to uphold those customs, institutions, and traditions. The colony builds a schoolhouse, a church, and a jail. And the mayor assigns new roles to people, such as Postman and Police Chief.

Tom Fisher wants to enjoy his vacation, but the mayor assigns Tom an important role – the Criminal.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

New Treasures: The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel

Comments 1 comment

The Body Scout (Orbit, September 2021). Cover by Lauren Panepinto

I rejoined the Science Fiction Book Club over fifteen years ago, because it was the only way to get Jonathan Strahan’s fabulous Best Short Novels anthologies. After a corporate shake-up in 2007 led to the retirement of editor Ellen Asher — who’d been at the helm since 1973 — and Andrew Wheeler was laid off, the SFBC sadly stopped producing original anthologies and those delicious omnibus volumes. I miss them.

I’m still a member, even though their Things to Come newsletter isn’t as interested as it used to be. Partly it’s because they choose my novel The Robots of Gotham as a Feature Selection back in 2018 (a dream I’d had since I was a kid). But also because I still discover interesting books through the club that I don’t find anywhere else. Like Lincoln Michel’s debut novel The Body Scout, a near-future SF noir that looks very intriguing indeed. Here’s the description.

…

Read More Read More

An Anthology to Help End Violence Against Women: Giving the Devil His Due edited by Rebecca Brewer

An Anthology to Help End Violence Against Women: Giving the Devil His Due edited by Rebecca Brewer

Comments 0 Comment

Giving the Devil His Due (Running Wild Press, September 2021). Cover uncredited

I’m getting word from a number of readers that a recent charity anthology, Giving the Devil His Due, is well worth a look. Published in September by The Pixel Project in partnership with Running Wild Press, it contains reprints and new fiction from Stephen Graham Jones, Kelley Armstrong, Nicholas Kaufmann, Nisi Shawl, Peter Tieryas, Dana Cameron, Jason Sanford, and many others. It was compiled by ex-Ace/Roc editor Rebecca Brewer; here’s the intriguing description.

Giving The Devil His Due is inspired by award-winning Horror author Stephen Graham Jones’s story “Hell On The Homefront Too” about a battered wife who finally gets rid of her abusive war-hero-turned-zombie husband. The theme of the anthology is the comeuppance of men who commit violence against women and girls. With a Twilight Zone vibe, this anthology evokes the spirit of Rod Serling to tell compelling stories that will help get the conversation about violence against women started amongst book lovers and fandoms worldwide while sending a clear message that misogyny, toxic masculinity, and violence against women is unacceptable.

Clarence Young was the first one to tip me off to the book, and it wasn’t long before I found Seven Jane’s enthusiastic review at Nerd Daily. Here’s a slice.

…

Read More Read More

What a Book This Is: Passchendaele: A New History by Nick Lloyd

What a Book This Is: Passchendaele: A New History by Nick Lloyd

Comments 0 Comment

Passchendaele: A New History (Penguin, 2017). Cover by Jeremy Sancha

What a book this is. An absolutely brilliant new assessment of one of the hardest and bloodiest battles ever fought. The engagement, technically Ypres III, popularly called Passchendaele, which was launched to capture the U-boat pens on the Belgian coast, and pitted the British Expeditionary Force (including divisions from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa) and parts of the French Army against the forces of the German Empire, lasted from June to November 1917, took place in a landscape from Hell, and claimed over half a million casualties. Nick Lloyd’s new book takes a number of different perspectives on the battle and tells many untold stories.

We get POVs from everywhere, including the High Command, the Royal Flying Corps, the politicians in London and of course, the mud-spattered Tommies in the teeth of the maelstrom. It’s a very accessible and informative read, painting vivid pictures of bitter hand-to-hand fighting for possession of railway heads, blockhouses, bunkers and trenches. It brings you closer than you could imagine to the terror of unrelenting shellfire, flame-throwers, poison gas and machine guns, but it isn’t all a story of doom.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Manifest Destiny by Barry B. Longyear

Vintage Treasures: Manifest Destiny by Barry B. Longyear

Comments 5 comments

Manifest Destiny (Berkley Books, 1980). Cover by John Rush

I started buying science fiction magazines in 1977, after learning such things existed in the pages of paperback anthologies edited by my new favorite author, Isaac Asimov. I pedaled my bike off Rockcliffe air base in Ottawa in search of a corner store, and found one with a well stocked magazine rack. Hiding behind Better Homes and Gardens and the latest issue of Newsweek I found a row of compact marvels with colorful covers depicting spaceships and far planets. They included Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing, and the second issue of Asimov’s very own magazine, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

I still recall that bike ride home, clutching Asimov’s and Analog in one hand, and staying up late to read them. It was a good time to discover SF magazines. A lot of new writers were exploding on the scene. One of the biggest was Barry B. Longyear, who published his first story in Asimov’s in 1978, and in 1980 became the first person to win the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in the same year.

…

Read More Read More

Weird Tales Deep Read: February 1936

Weird Tales Deep Read: February 1936

Comments 0 Comment

This installment of the Weird Tales Deep Read continues our examination of 1936 with the February issue, which would have ranked among the best ever if not for a terrible cover story that dragged the rating down to a still very respectable 2.1, making it the year’s second best issue. We see some very familiar authors, including C. L. Moore, Paul Ernst, Robert E. Howard (who managed to appear in ten of the eleven ‘36 issues, largely because of two serials), and H.P. Lovecraft (with a reprint).

The best of issue once again comes down to Howard and Moore, and Howard again gets the nod by a hair. Of the 11 stories eight (73%) are set in the United States, and one each (9%) on Mars and an unnamed Jovian moon, China and other Asian territories, and in a fictitious realm. Eight (73%) are set in contemporary times, two in the past (18%) and one (9%) in the future.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Showtime’s New All-Girl Survival Drama Yellowjackets Promises to Be a Wild Ride

Goth Chick News: Showtime’s New All-Girl Survival Drama Yellowjackets Promises to Be a Wild Ride

Comments 0 Comment

Mike Bockoven’s book Fantasticland is one of my favorites. It takes the concept of Lord of the Flies and plops is right down in an imagined Disney World competitor theme park whose employees get cut off from civilization due to a hurricane. It explores what happens when once normal college-aged kids divide into Mad Max-esque factions to fight for survival. I’ve long thought that, in the right hands, this story would make for an incredible movie. But though an ambitious theater company in California took it on as a play earlier this year, there have been no murmurs about Fantasticland making it to the big screen.

However, it seems like Showtime is going to take up the concept with their new series Yellowjackets, and it looks like this could be the savage girl thriller we all need.

…

Read More Read More

Not Streaming: The Fall

Not Streaming: The Fall

Comments 5 comments
The Fall
The Fall (2008)
Directed by Tarsem Singh
Shown: British Quad Poster

By chance, there is one actor who I’ll be returning to several times in the course of these articles.  Lee Pace appeared in a support role in Wonderfalls, which aired in 2004. He returned as the main character in Pushing Daisies from 2007 through 2009. And in between, he appeared in the movie The Fall, released in 2006.

The film is the story of Roy (Pace), a stuntman during the silent movie era.  A stunt gone wrong lands him in the hospital without the use of his legs and also results in the girl of his dreams leaving him for the film’s leading man.  While in the hospital, Roy makes the acquaintance of Alexandria (Catinca Untaru) an inquisitive young girl in the hospital with a broken arm. To pass the time, Roy begins telling Alexandria a complex story of a group of antiheroes fighting against the evil General Odious (Daniel Caltagirone). The story is depicted the way Alexandria imagines it, with the various characters bearing resemblance to the hospital staff and patients.

One of the features of Pushing Daisies was the over saturation and use of color throughout the series. The Fall also makes use of oversaturation to good effect as it helps divide the films reality from the fantasy sequences described by Pace and imagined by Alexandria. Roy’s story begins as an escapist fantasy to while away the time for himself and Alexandria, but it quickly becomes apparent that the tale is more than just a story and has dark ramifications, both within the story Roy is telling and for the life in the hospital that he and Alexandria are experiencing.

…

Read More Read More