On paper 2010 has all of the ingredients of a great film: A story by Arthur C. Clarke, a cast that includes A+ actors like John Lithgow, Helen Mirren and Roy Scheider — and then add to that you’ve got a visual genius like Syd Mead working on the production design. Even more impressive is the fact that as a genre hard science fiction films represent a blank canvas of possibilities. Yet as a film fanboy (who loves science fiction) I hated every frame of it. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 22, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
There’s only a few days left before Christmas, but if you’re still doing your shopping please consider supporting your local independent bookstore or comic book shop. The recession has hit these folks hard and they need your love more now than ever before. Of course if there’s only a big chain bookstore near you, please go there as you’ll be helping the publishing business as a whole as well as giving the gift of reading. Read more…
Talking to my old friend Marc Thorner I got an interesting insight on legendary author Isaac Asimov: It seems that as a younger fanboy he was professing his admiration to Asimov for one of his lesser known treasures An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule which was written in 1965. Asimov then confided to my friend that it was the hardest book that he ever wrote. This is somewhat shocking given the sheer range of subject matter that Asimov tackled — every subject from Lecherous Limericks to a complete guide to the works of Shakespeare! Asimov’s reason for the difficulty? It seems that the book was very graphics intense and required a great deal of input into the illustrations. Here are two covers from this classic: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Dec 10, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
Sadly it seems that Frazetta’s son was caught trying to steal paintings from a museum honoring his father. Police report that Alfonso Frank Frazetta was caught loading up to 90 swiped paintings while loading them into his vehicle. The son claimed that his father told him to take the paintings, but his father claimed no knowledge of having said that. A source claims that Alfonso may have been motivated by a family feud. I suspect that’s the case given how easily he was caught, and my sad guess (and it’s only a guess) it that it’s a cry for help. My sympathies to the Frazetta family.
This is the second trailer for The Road which is due on November 25th. Normally I’m slightly pessimistic about post-apocalyptic films recently, however any film that’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy has a great deal of potential. In fact my understanding was that the film was moved to its current release date because it might be an Oscar contender which is also a good sign. Read more…
If you came of age reading science fiction in the late 60s, 70s or 80s you may have come across the illustrations of Don Ivan Punchatz who sadly just passed away. Punchatz’s illustrations were best known in the fantasy and science fiction genres and graced quite a few paperbacks, although his work covered other genres and he even did a cover or two for Time magazine (which is as good as you can get). Videogame fanboys however might best know him for his package art for the original Doom game (shown above), although his paperback cover art for the Isaac Asimov Foundation triology was my first encounter with his artwork: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 14, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
I missed the announcement last year that there would be an authorized sixth book in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series: However recently I came across a link in the sci fi section of reddit simple titled Fucking Blasphemy… which got my attention. This new book is coming out in october this year and is by Eoin Colfer, and of course pretty much every serious fanboy has already condemned the series. Although I find myself with mixed feelings which are just a bit more complex than condemnation. For starters this book was authorized by Adams’s widow Jane Belson so you get the feeling that his family isn’t against it. Next I don’t think anyone is trying to hide the fact that book isn’t by Douglas Adams; in fact I suspect that the readers will be his hard core fans more so than the general public. Read more…
This is the second trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes flick — normally I’d slag the mere notion of having to improve Holmes through cheap plot mechanisms like vampires (why not go all the way and have zombies too?) but I’ve got to say that the idea of teaming up high quality actors like Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and Jude Law as Watson makes me think that this film might be a bit better than I’d expect. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jun 15, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
Reverend W. Awdry
Wilbert Vere Awdry was born on this day in 1911, his fulltime gig for many years was serving as a clergyman (he was known as the Reverend W. Awdry after all). But luckily for us in 1943 when his son Christopher was suffering from the measles he would make up stories about anthropomorphic trains to distract him from his malady. By 1945 these stories would be turned into his first book The Three Railway Engines which was the beginning of 26 books (the last published in 1972) which were known as the The Railway Series. But it wasn’t until the second book in the series that the title Thomas the Tank Engine would be used: Read more…
What makes for good literature? Now, this is only an opinion, but the best stories… the ones that really make you squirm with delight, are never about the guns, the gadgets, or the girls, its about how these objects move our characters. Was the “Final Frontier” about uncharted space, or was it really about how exploring the last unknown effected our heroes? In The Time Traveler’s Wife we see how an all too overused plot device, time travel, is used to stretch a conventional romance to the brink and back. Read more…
Posted by John Martone on May 30, 2009 in Pulp Fiction
Isaac Asimov was an engaging speaker. I found myself almost unable to avoid being hypnotized by his soft, yet well modulated tones. Taken from a 1971 interview, Asimov comments on the “Golden Age” of science fiction. This sheds a sharp perspective on this genre during the 1940’s an era before moon landings, color televisions and the internet. Point of incredible interest: In this first excerpt Asimov logically explains why Science Fiction was so “adventure” laden leading up to this time frame. The this second expert focuses on the changes that took place after 1949: Read more…
No self respecting fangurl can be seen at the Mountains of Madness without the proper millinery and this 100% original crochet toque designed by Lesley A. Karpiuk does just the trick! With handmade tentacles and wings soft worsted weight yarn mere mortals will fear your every move. Frankly zombies are so last year — real fashion forward folks in-the-know know that Cthulhu is set for a huge comeback this season… Read more…
