I briefly came across the German science fiction series Perry Rhodan in the mid-seventies when Futura/Orbit published the first 38 novels in the series, and later on when I picked […]
The BBC Television Shakespeare (1978 – 1985)
The BBC’s failed attempt to create the definitive set of the complete works of Shakespeare adapted for TV demonstrates just how hard to pin down the bugger can be. From […]
It Figures Models
This week’s post is an interview with the owner of It Figures Models, Siobhan Marshall-Jones. It’s fascinated me how, in this era of computer games, Virtual Reality and 3D, actual […]
Astral Jewellery and the Mind-Exploding Climax
At the end of his ground-breaking book One Hundred Years of Science Fiction Ilustration, 1840 – 1940 (1974), Anthony Frewin included an appendix on the adverts that appeared in the […]
Point and Click Horror – The Last Door
Recently I’ve started playing a handful of point and click horror games, mainly because I do a lot of travelling and at the end of the day I often want […]
1984 – John Hurt (1984)
My favourite John Hurt film has to be Michael Radford’s 1984, released in the same year, with Hurt as Winston Smith, Richard Burton as O’Brien and Suzanna Hamilton as Julia. […]
Abel Gance’s Napoleon – 1927
Looking at the practicalities of even showing Abel Gance’s Napoleon makes you wonder how on earth it ever got made. Not only is the full version five and a half […]
Sally Oldfield
The last thing you probably wanted to be in 1978 was a hippy folk singer with a single about love and light complete with Hawaiian chorus. To be fair, Sally […]
Ring (1998) – Sadako the Angry Ghost
When Hideo Nakata’s Ring came out in 1998, followed by Ring 2 in 1999 – they looked like groundbreaking Japanese horror movies. The Japanese film industry is, on the whole, […]
Voyage of the Acolyte – Steve Hackett 1975
I have a huge soft spot for Prog Rock, well – to qualify that, I have a soft spot for a handful of Prog Rock albums that I came across […]
Space Games
I guess, like many, I fell in love with the visual style of No Man’s Sky. The screenshots posted in the build up to its release looked like the covers […]
An Interview with Edmund Cooper by James Goddard
James Goddard has very kindly agreed to let me reprint his interview with Edmund Cooper from Science Fiction Monthly Volume 2 Number 4. This first appeared in 1975 when Cooper’s […]
Edmund Cooper
There’s a poignant anecdote that Terry Pratchett once told about a book signing. A young woman in the queue told him that her father was once a famous science fiction […]
The Final Programme (1973)
Here’s another film that seems pretty apt for the current state of the UK post-Brexit – Robert Fuest’s end of the world-lite version of Michael Moorcock’s classic novel The Final […]
High Rise and Brexit
I’ve been scrabbling around for an appropriate metaphor for the colossally surreal act of self-harm the UK inflicted on itself 48 hours ago, and early this morning, on the borders […]
The Art of Jack Gaughan
Hot on the heels of Peter A. Jones, here’s my tribute to another great SF artist who, sadly, is no longer with us. The vast majority of science fiction art […]
Caligula – 1979
One of the oddest worst movies ever made has to be the Penthouse ‘erotic epic’ Caligula, released in 1979. It’s an extreme example of a massive gap between proclaimed artistic […]
The Art of Peter A. Jones
As part of my ad hoc trundle through the greats of 70s and 80s Science Fiction book covers I thought I’d turn my attention this time to the work of […]
Dark Feathered Hearts Out Now…
The Book of the Colossus is now complete with the final volume – Dark Feathered Hearts. “You shut us down in the darkness, you skin people oh so bright beneath […]
Tormentum– Dark Sorrow and Darkest Dungeon
Platforms like Steam have opened the game market to a horde of independent developers, some brilliant and some dire. One of the great advantages is that concepts that would never […]
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