Category: Sci-Fi + Fantasy

Artemis by Andy Weir

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A Fun Crime Caper in a Hostile Environment Andy Weir’s rise to prominence with The Martian (2011) is well known, he started by serialising it on his website and then released a kindle version which shot to the top of the Kindle charts. This attracted the attention of publishers with whom he then managed to get a publishing deal with. Following up the success of The Martian was never going to be easy, and reading comments on Artemis has shown a mixed response. I congratulate Andy Weir of trying to…

City by Clifford D. Simak

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Picture of a book shop with words Book review over it along with the cover of City by Clifford Simak

A Lamentation to Mankind City is a Post Apocalyptic novel, don’t let anyone tell you any different. The Apocalypse may not be a large single world changing even but the slow isolation of Humanity, but it’s still an Apocalypse. It was written during and Post Second World War when the most destructive forces man had ever seen were used in anger. In this edition of the book there is a Foreword by Clifford Simak in which he states: ‘I, personally, was not so struck with the massive destructiveness of the…

All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

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A Solid addition to the Dragonriders Series Anne McCaffrey was inspired in part to write Science Fiction due to some of the ways women were portrayed in the genre. She was the first woman writer to win the coveted Hugo award and one of the female pioneers within the genre. After the original trilogy McCaffrey was encouraged by her publisher to write the Harperhall trilogy aimed at younger readers. To all purposes after the end of The White Dragon it feels like this is where the story was originally going…

Divine Invasions – Philip K Dick on Film

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I first discovered Philip K Dick through the film Blade Runner. I was lucky enough to see it on release in 1982 and as a 14 year old Science Fiction fan I was excited to go and see it. I also felt dangerous going to see the film, at the time U.K film ratings changed, previously Blade Runner would have been a AA, which meant no one under the age of 14 was allowed to see it. The ratings changed and the dropped the AA rating and changed it to…

Vangelis (29th March 1943- 17th May 2022)

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Vangelis – A Personal Voyage I was sad recently to hear of the passing of Vangelis at the age of 79, being a reclusive and private man it took a few days for the news to come out. I have been enthralled by his music for decades there has barely been a week where I haven’t listened to at least one of his compositions. There are plenty of obituaries published which will tell you of his full life, I thought though as my tribute I would talk about my personal…

Dave Prowse (1935 – 2020)

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There has been a great Disturbance in the Force When I sat in the Cinema in 1978 I along with the rest of the world had never seen anything the like of Star Wars. Two scenes everyone always remembers are the Star Destroyer flying overhead and our first glimpse of Darth Vader. Striding through the smoke and stepping over the bodies has there ever been a better entrance or introduction of a character? No words need to be said because long before you see the details of what he is…

Worlds to Escape into Part 2 ……. Mars

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Sometimes we all just need another world to escape into …… …. Part 2 – Mars In the second part of this article rather than give suggestions on different fictional (and real) worlds to escape to, I thought I would give you an entire planet. The planet in question is Mars, a place which has fascinated mankind for thousands of years. It is second only to Venus in brightness and can be seen with the naked eye from earth. It’s visibility means that man has constantly looked to the red…

Frightfest 2020 Digital Edition

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Frightfest (also known as London Frightfest) this year decided to do a Digital edition due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation. Just like some other well known festivals they decided to bring their content online in order to continue to engage with everyone. It is a huge achievement that they managed to bring this together both technology wise and with rights issues in such a short period of time. Frightfest started in the year 2000, it was put together by Paul MCavoy, Ian Rattray and Greg Day. In the past 20…

The Empire Strikes Back at 40

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Forty years ago ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ leapt onto our screens, following up on one of the biggest films of all time was not going to be an easy task. Empire managed it by taking a darker tone and by doing so managed to be different, yet keep the essence of what made Star Wars (later to be renamed A New Hope) such a great film. In an early draft of Star Wars George Lucas referred to his story being in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs “John Carter of…

Max Von Sydow (1929-2020)

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As a child of the 70’s and the 80’s the first time Max Von Sydow came to my attention was in his role as Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon (1980). His presence and ability along with Brian Blessed managed to raise the film from what could have been bad pantomime of a film, to what is a glorious burst of colourful celebration of Flash Gordon. Later while exploring films I came across his role in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957). The image of him as a knight playing…