Features
Gru, a super-villain of the James Bond film type, goes into competition with another super-villain, Vector. Gru needs three little girls from a local foundling home to penetrate Vector's stronghold. But Gru does not count on the power of three cute little girls to transform his life. Pixar raised the bar even higher for digital animation films with Toy Story 3 and it is well out of reach for Illumination Entertainment, the producers of Despicable Me. There comes a point when enough is too much. Writer and director Christopher Nolan makes an intelligent thought-piece that is at the same time an explosive action thriller. There is little time to absorb the ideas. Still, where else are you going to get so intelligent a film in mid-summer? Nigel Kneale combines science fiction and the supernatural again in his 1972 story of cutting-edge electronics research laboratory haunted by a ghost. At one time Kneale was a font of new ideas, but this play is mostly a reworking of some of the ideas from the much superior Quatermass And The Pit. Still the narrative is tense and at times unnerving. Spoiler: The review will be followed by a spoiler discussing Nigel Kneale's idea. a short story by: GF Willmetts. Something we’re aware of this time of the year is that many of you people are off on you holidays or even taking in the sun instead of the computer screen and only occasionally looking in on us, let alone my editorials.
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REVIEWS
Reviews of fantasy, science fiction and horror
books, comics, magazines, DVDs and any other sci-fi
genre gear we've laid our grubby hands on this month.
pub: DC Comics. 427 page graphic novel softcover. Price: $19.99 (US), $23.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4012--1486-9. pub: DC Comics. 403 page graphic novel softcover. Price: $19.99 (US), $23.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4012--1443-2. pub: Prometheus Books. 441 page enlarged paperback. Price: $21.98 (US) ,£18.50 (UK). ISBN: 1-59102-248-7. pub: Gollancz. 407 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK only). ISBN: 978-0-575-08532-9. pub: Andromeda Spaceways. 100 page A5 magazine. $ 4.95 (AUS) PDF copy online. Subscription six issues $ 27.00 (AUS). pub: Immanion Press. 233 page enlarged paperback. Price: £11.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-904853-49-7. pub: O'Reilly Media. 432 page hardback. Price $24.95 (US). ISBN: 978-0-59600-037-0. DVD region 2: pub: Universal/Medium Rare FHED2472. 1 DVD 95 minute film with extras. Price: £ 4.95 (UK) if you know where to look). stars: Eric Braeden, Susan Clark and Gordon Pinsent pub: Pyr/Prometheus Books. 363 page enlarged paperback. Price: $15.98 (US). ISBN: 978-1-59102-744-7. pub: Big Finish. 2 CDs 100 minutes. Price: CD £ 14.99, Download: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84435-450-4). cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, John Benfield, Neville Watchurst, John Banks, Susan Brown, Toby Longworth and Alex Lowe. Big Finish: 2 CDs 120 minute story. Price: CD: £14.99, Download: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84435-459-7). cast: Colin Baker, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Steven Kynman, Abigail Hollick, Ian Gelder, Charlie Ross and Nicholas Briggs pub: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press. 326 page small hardback. Price: $23.99 (US) $28.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-312-53288-8. pub: Big Finish. 1 CD 60 minute story with extras. Price: CD: £ 8.99, Download: £ 7.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84435-467-2). cast: Frazer Hines and Hugh Ross pub: Del Rey/Ballantine. 482 page hardback. Price: $26.00 (US), $31.00 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-345-49116-9. pub: Bantam Press/Random House. 482 page hardback. Price: £17.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-59305-587-8) pub: Quercus Publishing Plc. 773 page enlarged paperback. Price: £14.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84724-795-7. pub: Gollancz. 399 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-575-08502-2. region 2 DVD: pub: Sony Pictures C822 9280. 1 DVD 102 minute film with extras. Price: £ 3.00 (UK) if you know where to look). stars: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin, Jude Law and Loren Dean pub: Pyr/Prometheus Books. 237 page small enlarged paperback. Price: $16.00 (US). ISBN: 978-1-61614-194-3. pub: McFarland & Company, Inc. 173 page indexed small enlarged paperback. Price: $35.00 (US), £32.95 (UK). ISBN: 0-7864-2091-X. (pub: TOR/Forge. 208 page small enlarged paperback. Price: $ 9.99 (US), $10.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-765-2182-4) bi-monthly magazine: UK publisher/editor address: Andy Cox, TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB6 2LB. Price: £ 3.75 (UK) $ 7.00(US). ISSN: 0264-3596. region 2 DVD. pub: Sony Pictures B0033AGJ1S. 1 DVD 100 minute film with extras. Price: £19.99 (UK). pub: PM Press. 142 page small enlarged paperback. Price: $12.00 (US), £ 8.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-60486-075-7. pub: La-La land Records LLLCD 1141. 68:37 minute 24 track CD. Price: $17.99 (US), £18.49 (UK). pub: Rebellion/2000AD. 400 page softcover graphic novel. Price: £13.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-906735-43-2. pub: HarperCollins. 439 page hardback. Price: £17.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-00-728963-9. pub: Del Rey/Ballantine Books. 434 page paperback. Price: $ 7.99 (US), $10.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-345-51113-3. pub: Bantam Spectra. 387 page hardback. Price: $25.00 (US). ISBN: 978-0-553-80788-2. pub: Titan Books. 310 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK), $ 7.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-84856-088-8. pub: Subterranean Press. 70 page illustrated deluxe hardback. Price: $25.00 (US). ISBN: 978-1-59606-313-6. pub: TOR/Forge. 475 page hardback. Price: $27.95 (US), $30.95 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-2135-0. (pub: Prion Books/Carlton Books. 304 page hardback. Price: £20.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-85375-718-1) region 2 DVD. pub: Network B003WFO4NE. 200 minute 4 * 48 minute black and white episodes and a photo gallery. Price: £10.99 (UK)). stars: John Sharp, Elizabeth Shepherd and Gary Cockrell. pub: The University Press Of Kentucky. 232 page enlarged paperback. Price: £18.95 (UK), $19.95 (US). ISBN: 978-0-8131-9260-4. pub: McFarland & Company, Inc. 158 page indexed small enlarged paperback. Price: £31.50 (UK), $35.00. ISBN: 0-7864-2091-X. pub: Orbit. 614 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 7.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84149-560-6. pub: Marvel Comics. 26 pages (with extra authors interview). Price: £ 3.10 (UK), $ 3.99 (US). pub: Titan/Vertigo. 304 page graphic novel. Price: £ 7.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84856-577-7. pub: TOR/Forge. 590 page hardback. Price: $27.95 (US), $34.95 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-1688-2. pub: TOR/Forge. 781 page paperback. Price: $ 7.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-5610-0) pub: Simon and Schuster. 448 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84737-423-3. Region 2 DVD: pub: 20th Century Fox 00079DVD. 1 DVD 118 minute film with extras. Price: £ 2.00 (UK) if you know where to look). stars: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Martin Landau, Blythe Danner and Armin Mueller-Stahl pub: Audio Text/Infinivox. 570 minutes 8 CDs. Regular Price: $35.99 (US), CD Sale $29.99 (US). ISBN: 978-1884612-91-6). read by: Vanessa Hart, Sue Bilich and Tom Dheere pub: Prometheus Books, 2004. 363 page enlarged paperback. Price: $21.98 (US), £18.50 (UK). ISBN: 1-59102-246-0. Only one conversion for this month of August 2010 but then, it is the middle of the summer.
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FORUM
The
price of fantasy and science fiction books
One
will be rebooted - Firefly or Farscape?
Jackelian
art wanted
Science
Fiction Hall of Fame
NEWS
The first trailer for the Thor movie hits the virtual streets fresh on the heels of comic-con. Now that's the hammer action I'm talking about. The Last season, season 10, of Smallville is heading our way, and to mark this sad good-bye to the not-yet-caped hero of Krypton, here's the trailer for the season. Have you been enjoying the last season of Caprica? Well, wait until you see what the next one holds. You don't have to wait of course, because here's the new trailer. Looks good, eh? Sucker Punch is best described as Alice in Wonderland set in a mental institution with leather, machine guns, steampunk and kinky girls. Give Zack Snyder this, he knows what the genre audience likes! HarperCollins Voyager, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of HarperCollins, is currently in the process of re-jacketing many of the old classics on their list to bring the novels up-to-date. So what’s the new look for authors like Raymond E. Feist and Stephen Hunt? SFcrowsnest investigates. Just when you thought there wasn't any more room for vampire movies, along comes Priest. But wait a minute, this isn't your daughter's fracking twinkly Twilight, it's hard ass futuristic alternative reality vampire killing action based on a Japanese manga. The first picture for the scifi movie Cowboys and Aliens is released, with Daniel Craig looking like a cowboy with alien technology. Well, at least the film is doing what is says on the tin. God bless the herd of nerds that is comic-con, for witheth the annual gathering of the clans, comes the annual release of the scifi trailers. In this case, the second trailer for the Tron movie reboot, TRON: Legacy. A comet hits Earth and - forget about the immediate nuclear winter - it knocks our world into a new freezing cold orbit. A grim story of survival from MGM. Kind of like The Road, but with snow and a reason for the disaster. A nice dieselpunk short movie called Reign of Death, with apologies to Raymond Chandler. Stars good old Noel Clarke who played Mickey Smith in Doctor Who, as the private dick with a secret. John Jarrold has concluded a four-book World Rights deal with Simon Spanton of Gollancz, for fantasy novels by Stephen Deas, for a high five-figure sum in pounds sterling. Jonathan Oliver, commissioning editor of Solaris Books, has concluded a three-book deal with Australian fantasy writer Rowena Cory Daniells. The agent is John Jarrold, and the deal is for world English language rights. The books are due for publication in 2012. Jo Walton's novel Lifelode wins the 2010 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for adult fantasy literature. Cinema has long striven to imagine the future, near and distant, but what would it mean to live in the societies depicted in such cinematic speculations? Our chums in the movie biz tell us that Surreal 60s crime/fantasy series The Corridor People is coming our way on DVD shortly. Solaris Books have written in to tell us that Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Ellen Datlow, won the Shirley Jackson Award for ‘Edited Anthology 2009’ announced at Readercon 20. Bosnian-based comics publisher PrintMedia has announced plans to move into the UK scifi comic-book market with a new comic magazine later in 2010. The Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic is a prized and juried award that is presented annually. Michael Gambon - AKA Dumbledore in Harry Potter - is to star in the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special, which started shooting today. Wizard news, if you forgive the pun (not that we expect you to, of course). The original Darth Vader, Dave Prowse, has he informs his fans, been given the cold shoulder by LucasFilm. He is no longer welcome at any official Star Wars events and even fan organisations he is patron of have been given the old heave-ho.
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Do you like curling up and reading a book?
Do you have a preference for fantasy, SF or
horror? Do you find it the greatest pastime you have next to being on
your computer?Are you very vocal about what you like and don’t like in
what you read? Would you like to share your thoughts with others about
books? Would you like an endless supply of books to do this with? Do
you live in the UK?
If you’ve been nodding your head up to this
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