Table of contents for April 2015 in SFX

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES Absolutely delighted that Jenna Coleman is staying in Doctor Who. RANTS How can it be 10 years since Battlestar Galactica began? We’re still yet to see another sci-fi show like it. I loved The X-Files, but it makes me sad that Fox are looking to bring it back. The last movie suggested the old magic is long gone. IAN BERRIMAN HOME ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR RAVES I love Paul Kaye, so I’m really looking forward to seeing him and his tramp beard in Doctor Who. RANTS The cancellation of In The Flesh is so unjust. RIP Sad to hear about the death of Brian Clemens. A rewatch of Captain Kronos is called for. ALEX COX OPERATIONS EDITOR RIP Tim Roberts – The ECW Zombie, who I wrote about…

NEWBIES Guillermo del Toro bringing his long-mooted fantasy film CARNIVAL ROW to Amazon as a series. The show will be set in a Victoriantinged city where a serial killer is preying on mystical creatures. Sky 1 making APOCALYPSE SLOUGH, a series set in the Berkshire town in the lead up to the end of the world. Rob Lowe is set for the lead. TNT orders supernatural drama BREED, about a string of brutal murders committed by mysterious creatures, to pilot. Justin Chatwin will star as the cop on the case. Syfy developing 51ST STATE about a world where America has bought Greenland and turned it into a frontier prison colony. Kung fu is making a comeback. NBC’s filming a pilot for female-led fantasy martial arts show WARRIOR. Rise Of The…

RELEASE DATE 15 May 2015 SCI-FACT! 3,500 storyboards were created for Fury Road, roughly the same as the number of shots in the film. THIS MONTH: Buckle up – it’s the thrilling new trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road THE BUZZ IAN I’m usually indifferent to cars flipping in the air and things going boom, but this trailer presents them with an almost balletic grace. And the desert looks glorious – it’s like they’re racing on Mars! RICH This is the trailer as an artform; the edits, captions and classical music fusing into a beautiful whole. But best of all is the action – visceral, expansive and real. I’m now excited about Fury Road. DAVE All-new Mad Max was on my Not Bothered list… until this marmalade-hued trailer. The musical…

TORCHWOOD will return as a series of radio plays according to star John Barrowman. It’s been a sad month for sci-fi greats: AVENGERS creator Brian Clemens died at the age of 83, The Time Machine star ROD TAYLOR died at 84 and Robby the Robot designer ROBERT KINOSHITA died at 100. Their work will live on. CW Seed, The CW’s digital-only studio, is making new animated web-series VIXEN. The show will feature the DC comics character and be set in the Arrow/Flash TV universe. Speaking of The CW, the network may be planning to launch another ARROW spin-off show starring Brandon Routh’s Atom, but are only in “very early talks on a very general idea”. Classic dungeon crawler BALDUR’S GATE is getting a new sequel set between Baldur’s Gate 1…

ON SALE WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Marvel’s mightiest return to the screen! JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL Could it be magic? The BBC’s sorcerous new saga is incoming! ARROW SFX catches up with star Stephen Amell! PLUS: Outlander! Batman: Arkham Knight! Brian Clemens tribute! Tatau! Secret Wars! DC Comics’ Convergence! All contents subject to change. And that concludes our Project Genesis presentation. Yes, we’re using unstable protomatter. So sue us. Go to gamesradar.com/sfx for details. SUBSCRIBE NOW Never miss an issue – see page 34…

Sunderland Comic Con 21-22 February Al Ewing, Bryan Talbot and John Wagner are among the guests scheduled to appear at the northeast comic book festival. http://sun derlandcomiccon.com/ Bolton Comic Con 1 March Live in (or near) Bolton? Stuck for plans the first Sunday in March? Then you’re in luck because the comic con is coming to town. http://bit.ly/BoltonComicCon EM-Con 15 March Game Of Thrones, Red Dwarf, Atlantis and Doctor Who are among the shows represented at the Nottingham con. http://www.em-con. co.uk/ Cardiff Film And Comic Con 21-22 March Buffy’s James Marsters and Darth Maul himself, Ray Park, can be found at the dragon country con. http://www. cardiffcomiccon.com/ Yorkshire Cosplay Con 7 4 April Anime, comic book, videogame and, of course, cosplay fans won’t want to miss this family-friendly day out…

Fans want to see Daryl happy, perhaps with a partner. He came close to that with Beth… I think if they came close and Daryl had those feelings for her, he may have felt them but I don’t think he totally understood them. So there was a little bit of that there. I just don’t know that he knew what that was, to be honest. There’s a certain connection with Carol of course. She’s a lot like him. Carol’s probably his go-to girl for someone to lean on. But as far as relationships, I don’t know that Daryl’s ready for that. But never say never. Do you think he still has some growing up to do? I just don’t think he’s done a lot of it. He comes from a…

John Barrowman earned his geek stripes playing fan fave Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and its hit spin-off series Torchwood. Now there’s another genre credit on his showreel. A lifelong comic book afficionado, he jumped at the chance to appear in Arrow as Oliver Queen’s arch-enemy, the notorious Malcolm Merlyn (known as “Merlyn the Magician” in DC comics, the dark bowman first appeared in 1971’s Justice League Of America #94). Barrowman’s portrayal of the vengeance-minded businessman and assassin proved popular enough to win him a regular spot in the show’s current third season. SFX recently caught up with the charismatic performer, and he shared his thoughts on Merlyn’s determination to play an active role in his daughter Thea’s life this series, no matter how much suffering it causes her…

From highbrow to low culture this month as a fab new body horror takes on Hollywood, a possession movie takes on Arthur Miller and a giant crocodile takes on top secret nanobots. Also coming your way – tingling new television for 2015, a bloke in a dress with a katana and a new challenger to the title of worst movie ever made… VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE A good friend of mine and fellow horror fan thought he’d met the perfect woman when his date was super-impressed by his shelf stacked with video nasties. Thinking it was just the right level of cool/weird/obscure to win him geek points he decided to put on (admittedly great) anatomy dummy mental illness romp Pin and exclaim “this is a good bit” before a boy reads…

How would you describe the film? It’s a film that’s got everything: action, depth of character, humour, and a very surreal quality; which is understandable considering the people who directed it. I remember Lana saying, “We’re just trying to do something that’s different and original, and we care very passionately about that.” That’s difficult because it’s from a big studio. They’ve got their ideas and then the studio’s got theirs. But they stick to what they truly believe in. What’s the film’s vision of the future? Pools of people are created in order to feed off them and use them as workers. So they’re a bit like ants. There’s pretty wicked stuff that you can imagine from big companies who take control of everything. It’s got some nasty connotations to…

Release Date: 9 February 2014 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Wes Ball Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, Kaya Scodelario, Blake Cooper SOME FILMS AREN’T necessarily bad, they’re just not necessarily… necessary. Take The Maze Runner. In so many ways it’s actually quite impressive. But it’s impossible to watch it without thinking, “Hunger Games rip-off”. A combination of Lost and Lord Of The Flies, this YA adaptation sees a group of amnesiac teenage boys dumped in a massive walled enclosure (it has its own forest!). The single exit – open only during the day – leads to a maze that fills up at night with CG monsters; you don’t want to get trapped in there when the doors close. By day, “Maze Runners” nip through the labyrinth trying to…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Creator: Vaun Wilmott Cast: Christopher Egan, Tom Wisdom, Roxanne McKee, Anthony Head, Alan Dale USING THE Bible as inspiration for your fantasy series is only slightly less desperate than using a Scott Stewart film for inspiration. Dominion uses both. This TV sequel to 2010 turkey Legion (in which an American diner becomes an unlikely battleground for good/bad angels) is set in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas, now walled-off from a world where feral angels run wild. Why feral? Well, they’re more interesting than harp-playing cherubs. Expressionless (though apparently guilt-ridden) archangel Michael helps the citizens of “Vega”, seemingly in return for an endless supply of soft furnishings, while evil brother Gabriel auditions for Baron Hardup in pantomime, plotting nasty stuff while twirling his…

DOCTOR WHO: LAST CHRISTMAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Steven Moffat’s fifth Christmas special was probably the best one since “The Christmas Invasion”, managing the impressive balancing act of cramming in all sorts of festive iconography while simultaneously being clever and creepy. If back in December you were too busy stuffing your face with mince pies to read our verdict, you can catch up with it at http://bit.ly/lastchristmasSFX. Bonus-wise, this release comes with a commentary by director Paul Wilmshurst and producer Paul Frift (who touch on important matters such as Nick Frost’s beard), plus the usual behind-the-scenes peek courtesy of Doctor Who Extra (13 minutes). JESSABELLE Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | DVD A vengeful spirit, possession and voodoo rituals figure in this latest…

Release Date: 16 February 2013 | 15 | DVD Director: James Ward Byrkit Cast: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon, Elizabeth Gracen, Hugo Armstrong WITH A HIGH concept idea that could easily confuse a good chunk of the audience, a budget that makes Paranormal Activity look like a blockbuster, a shoot that lasted a mere five nights and dialogue that’s largely improvised, Coherence should be anything but coherent. Instead, what we have here is an astonishingly gripping thriller that barely sets foot outside of somebody’s lounge and yet still has us gasping at its breadth. With a cast of actors you might not recognise (barring Buffy’s Nicholas Brendon, whose character is strangely meta – you’ll see what we mean when you watch it), at first the plot seems to be…

EXTRAS Release Date: 9 February 2013 | 15 | DVD Director: David Frazee Cast: Ty Olsson, Patrick Gallagher, Michelle Harrison, Christine Horne SURVIVAL CODE made its gogglebox debut two years ago – except it wasn’t called Survival Code then. The more alluringly monickered Borealis was originally a pilot for a never-pickedup Canadian TV series that pitched itself as a futuristic Deadwood, or an earthly Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Now it arrives on this side of the pond, with an agonisingly generic Syfy movie-like title and a DVD cover that makes it look like Andy McNab has finally gone genre. Set in 2045, Borealis (let’s call it that, okay? None of this Survival Code silliness) focuses on an Arctic town in an area where Russians, Canadians, Norwegians and the League…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 2013 | 12 | DVD Director: Mikkel Braenne Sandemose Cast: Pål Sverre Hagen, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Bjørn Sundquist IGNORE THE title, which has clearly strayed from the cover of some Scandinavian death metal album. There’s nothing especially apocalyptic about this Norwegian horror – and a distinct shortfall of Vikings, come to that (bad news if you have a taste for plaits, pillage and dragon ships). The prologue throws some token Odin-bothering Norsemen our way, but the action quickly moves to the modern day. Our hero is an archaeologist, studying cryptic runes unearthed in a burial mound – “the biggest and most spectacular Viking find in world history,” we’re told. Played with everyman charm by Pål Sverre Hagen, he’s more muesli-fed academic than two-fisted Indiana Jones clone,…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 2011 | 15 | DVD THERE’S AN initial creak of cliché about this one – but it’s deceptive. Three strangers meet at a secluded cabin in the kind of remote woodland where vengeful spirits swap touristslaying tips with axe-crazed hillbilly psychos. Who are they? Why are they there? What’s their life expectancy? By the time one of them declares, “I’m in the third ring of Hell” you may think you have this modest little horror rumbled. Then, to its credit, it does something rather more interesting, revealing itself to be a Twilight Zone-style chamber piece, more interested in the interplay of its protagonists than threatening their body parts. To say any more would spoil the twist, but this ends up as a considerably smarter proposition than…

Release Date: 19 February 384 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Paul McAuley Publisher: Gollancz BRITISH AUTHOR PAUL McAuley has long been a critical darling. His backlist comes with a host of awards – the Philip K Dick, the Arthur C Clarke, the John W Campbell, the Sidewise, the British Fantasy – and this new novel itself grows out of an award-winning short story. McAuley’s major work over the past half-decade has been the Quiet War series, hailed for its reimagining of the science fictional solar system, based on findings from recent space-bound probes. The end of that sequence, though, signalled a return to Earth and more immediate concerns. “The Choice”, in US zine Asimov’s (February 2011), took up this theme: it’s set in a near-future UK reeling from climate change, visited…

Release Date: 12 February 291 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Anna Smaill Publisher: Sceptre WITH THE SEQUEL TO Samantha Shannon’s similarly located The Bone Season also recently released, you have to wonder what it is about London and Oxford. But set in a post-apocalyptic future where music has replaced the written word and people carry around bags of trinkets to remind them of the past, The Chimes is more The Drowned World than His Dark Materials. The spirit of JG Ballard looms large over the New Zealander’s debut as she evocatively paints a society where the sinister Order have used a huge musical instrument, the Carillon, to render the populace amnesiac. Centring on young Simon Wythern, it begins with the orphan journeying to the capital, where he joins a band of…

Release Date: 26 February 410 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Daniel Polansky Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton CLASS IS A CONCEPT THAT epic fantasy often avoids dealing with – after all, why talk about real social issues when there are quests to complete and dragons to fight? However, one interesting side effect of the recent darker strain of fantasy epics is that authors are increasingly engaging with political ideas, and the latest example is the gripping new novel from Daniel Polansky, author of the acclaimed Low Town trilogy. This first of the Empty Throne series, Those Above, is set in a world where most of humanity has spent the last 3,000 years under the rule of a group of near-immortal beings. All civilisation is now subject to the needs of “Those Above”,…

Release Date: 12 February 515 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Matthew Reilly Publisher: Orion MATTHEW REILLY SAYS that he’s “The world’s biggest Jurassic Park fan.” We believe him, because this is the world’s biggest piece of Jurassic Park fan fiction. It’s like he put a piece of tracing paper onto his telly. The plot follows a mixed group of experts, journalists and social media gurus as they explore The Great Zoo – part of China’s attempts to be as culturally significant as their rival superpower, America, via their very own Disneyland. As in Jurassic Park, the experts are mischievously kept in the dark as to the zoo’s real nature. As in Jurassic Park, their jaws drop as the truth is revealed – dangerous, giant, lizard-like beasts (here, there be dragons) have…

A modern-day faery tale Release Date: 5 February 336 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Holly Black Publisher: Indigo WHEN IT COMES TO faeries, there are two types of tale. Some are filled with pretty, friendly flower fairy types. Others talk about dangerous, primal creatures of older legends; faeries who care little for human lives, except when we can amuse them. This is one of those stories. Hazel and Ben are a brother and sister raised in Fairfold, a town sitting on the edge of the woods where tourists go missing. A faerie prince has slept in a glass coffin deep in the woods for decades, but he’s about to be rescued, with dire consequences for the town... Full of flawed and sympathetic characters from changelings to knights in training, this is…

Won’t blow you away RECENT YEARS HAVE shown us just how cataclysmic the weather can be, with tsunamis and hurricanes devastating coastal regions. Luckily, such phenomena are confined to the sea, running out of energy when they reach land – but what if they were powerful enough to keep on going? Here, global warming has led to the formation of hypercanes, super-sized hurricanes that destroy everything in their path. Cadet Jansin Nordqvist has spent her whole life hiding below ground, believing no one could have survived above – but she’s wrong. Some Fine Day doesn’t have the complexity or ambiguity that raises some YA fiction to literary heights, but then it doesn’t pretend to. It is, however, a pacey, easy-to-read tale that can be enjoyed by adults and teenagers alike.…

IN 2003 JUSTINA ROBSON brought out Natural History, with a mid-transhuman revolution setting that saw tensions drawn taut between dominant humans and the transhuman Forged they made to serve them. Into this conflict comes the discovery of the alien matter, “Stuff”. Living Next Door To The God Of Love shares the setting of this earlier book – building on those events but at sufficient distance that it can be read on its own. In God Of Love the nature of Stuff is better known. Stuff comes from Unity, a vast multi-dimensional hive-consciousness. Unity wants everything to become Unity, and those who play with Stuff run the risk of becoming just another part of the ever-hungry mass-mind. Why, then, would anyone have anything to do with it? Because it is the…

Comics guru crafts a masterpiece Release Date: OUT NOW! 500 pages | Hardback Writer/artist: Scott McCloud Publisher: Self Made Hero SCOTT McCloud’s fiction output has been limited of late. This enormous tome is the reason why – it took the Understanding Comics author five years to complete. David Smith is a struggling sculptor. Striking a bargain with Death, David gains mastery of his art, but at a cost: he will die in 200 days. He’s fine with that, until a chance encounter with a girl changes his life… As plots go, it’s far from remarkable: Faustian pacts and the redemptive power of love are both well-worn themes. It doesn’t matter – McCloud is aiming for mythic storytelling here. While the plot is archetypal, both David and his potential love, Meg,…

Jessy The Demon Layer Release Date: OUT NOW! Publisher: Image Writers/artists: Michael Avon Oeming and Taki Soma 2014 WAS A great year for female-fronted comic books. From the progressive relaunches of established titles such as Ms Marvel and She-Hulk, to fantastic new indie series such as Copperhead and Wicked + The Divine, last year was strong for the 51% of the population who haven’t traditionally been particularly well-represented in the industry. All of which makes Sinergy, launched towards the end of 2014, feel like a bit of a throwback. Ostensibly it’s got a strong female lead, but she’s so dependent on/reactive to the men in her life, she doesn’t feel especially aspirational, or very interesting. It’s a shame. The comic has a great high-concept (especially if you’ve seen the Buffy…

SERENITY PLUSH ETA: APRIL We find the whole “plush spaceships” phenomenon a bit puzzling – who wants to snuggle up with the Enterprise, or a Romulan Bird of Prey? Still, this Firefly range also includes a Jayne Cobb, and we doubt many people want to cuddle an Adam Baldwin replica any more either… Eighteen inches across, it comes with little plush shuttles tucked into landing bays on either side. WEEPING ANGEL BOOKENDS ETA: MAY This isn’t the first time someone’s had this particular idea – Ikon Collectables did a Weeping Angel bookend a while back. But just one of those would set you back a fair bit more than a pair of these. The only thing that rather spoils the effect here is the way they’ve slapped the legend “Don’t…

Hollywood is always looking for the “new” something or other, whether it’s the new Star Wars, the new Harry Potter, or the new Buffy The Vampire Slayer. So ever since The Hunger Games – itself hailed as the new Twilight for a time – became a smash hit franchise, everyone’s been looking for someone to follow in Katniss Everdeen’s footsteps. The Divergent Series is the closest we’ve come so far, a post-apocalyptic teen franchise set in a future where – as in The Hunger Games – the Powers That Be keep order in unconventional (but very sci-fi) ways. The first movie was far from perfect, but there was also plenty of potential in Tris Prior’s story, and in Shailene Woodley the saga has one of the most in-demand actors on…

CASTING CALL Marvel and Netflix have found their LUKE CAGE. Halo: Nightfall’s Mike Colter will play the super strong ex-con. THE WALKING DEAD’s LA set spin-off series casts Deadwood star Kim Dickens as the female lead. Spartacus actor Liam McIntyre, Dexter’s Devon Graye and The Tomorrow People’s Peyton List sign on for villainous roles in THE FLASH. Lucy Lawless and Stuart Townsend are heading to SALEM for the witchy show’s second season. John Rhys-Davies, Arrow’s Manu Bennett and Pan’s Labyrinth star Ivana Baquero all set for MTV’s SHANNARA. Admiral Adama (aka Edward James Olmos) to play Robert Gonzales in the second half of SHIE LD’s second season. Former Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson to appear as Poseidon in episode 15 of ONCE UPON A TIME’s fourth season. Chuck’s Zachary Levi joining the…

WE STILL DON’T KNOW WHO all the cast are playing in The Force Awakens, and apparently we don’t even know the identities of all the actors yet. It’s rumoured that Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruyhian and Cecep Arif Rahman – stars of top Indonesian actioner The Raid – have all got roles in the movie. Skilled martial artists have history in Star Wars after Ray Park’s memorable outing as Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, so this is one piece of speculation we really hope is true. Having already revealed it was his voice growling over the already legendary 88 seconds of Episode VII trailer, Andy Serkis has divulged a few more titbits to Entertainment Weekly. Turns out he’s using the voice of his (still unnamed) character in the movie, and…

Remember my SFX 239 column on the joys of creating your own ebooks? Flogging these was a soothing microbusiness, without the hassle of wrapping and posting POD books. Money arrived via PayPal (for example) and books went out as email attachments or website downloads. Sales mightn’t be huge, but there was the quiet satisfaction of getting 100% of the profit – rather than the miserable 25% that so many large publishers have decided is a generous maximum. This simple way of life ended on 1 January. The problem was Amazon – not directly, but because EU governments hated Amazon’s ploy of selling from places like Luxembourg where VAT is low, giving them an edge over registered UK sellers who must charge VAT at 20%. UK microbusinesses weren’t bothered because you…

Ashley Beeching sent us pics of his Star Wars memorabilia, including “arguably the most sought-after item”, this Yak-Face Star Wars figure. Kathy Taylor of Vectis says: You have a fine example of a Palitoy/Kenner Star Wars Yak Face 3 3/4” Action Figure, dating from 1985. He was one of the “last 17” figures produced during the vintage run covering the first three films, just before the Star Wars line was discontinued. There were 15 new figures produced along with two bonus figures that were blacked out on the rear of the card (Ewoks Paploo and Lumat). He is one of the rarer figures – he was not available for retail in the US, and consequently was produced in smaller quantities than the rest of the line. In Europe Yak Face was…

How has Tris evolved since the first movie? When you first meet her, she’s very naive and hasn’t been exposed to the world. She’s learning things for the first time and is having to pull upon strengths she didn’t know existed. In this movie, she’s been through the wringer, and she knows how to fight a fight. So she’s much stronger and she has a lot of emotional fuel to bring her through the next stage of her fight against Jeanine. It looks like there’s more action in Insurgent… Yeah, there’s a lot more action. The world was just bigger. The action sequences in the first movie are maybe two minutes. In this movie they’re like seven or eight minutes. Filming seven or eight minutes of that type of thing…

How did Abraham’s distinct look develop? When we first started, Josh McDermitt — who plays Eugene — and myself, we both have similarly coloured hair and we both have similarly roundish faces. We both could be brothers out of Boston. Scott wanted to make sure we did not look at all similar. So they darkened his hair up, and my blond hair they turned red. Which is more like the colour in the graphic novel, if you look it up — because it’s bright Scooby-Doo Daphne orange. That’s what we went with. The moustache speaks for itself. The hair gets done every two weeks and the moustache we colour every day. Has Abraham had trouble adjusting to working with a broader group of people? Well, I always say it’s much…

Skye’s just been revealed as an Inhuman. What does that mean for her? I think it’s scary for Skye. She’s hit with this [Terrigen] mist that gives her these powers. I don’t think that right away she’s aware she’s even causing these earthquakes. The next part of the season will be about her discovering her newfound powers and dealing with them because she knows those with powers are put on the Index and treated a certain way. And she’s terrified how it will affect her most precious relationship, with Coulson. Did you know this reveal was coming? Since I was cast, every week I’ve emailed [the producers] questions like, “Am I this? Am I that? Am I SHIELD?” And they’re always like, “No, just stop.” About two weeks before I…

SFX had a small but crucial role in Doctor Who’s resurrection. In 2004 we played matchmaker, putting hotshot comic artist Bryan Hitch in touch with Russell T Davies. Hitch became Who’s official concept artist and, in collaboration with production designer Edward Thomas, dreamed a new TARDIS for the 21st century… “The cool thing we all wanted to talk about was what the TARDIS interior would look like,” Hitch recalls, a decade on. “Well, that’s not exactly true. We knew it had to look like the TARDIS or be recognisably the same thing, we just didn’t know how far we could go in making it fresh. We all adored the TV movie set but knew we couldn’t afford anything like that, unfortunately. This was all new territory for the BBC: they’d…

M IS FOR... MOTHER BAD BOY BUBBY Rolf de Heer, 1993 Seriously messed up Aussie black comedy horror about a 35-year-old man kept in a basement by his grotesque mother who physically and sexually abuses him. Eventually Bubby escapes, joins a rock band and leads a cult. Course he does. Warning: contains cat meanness. THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS Wes Craven, 1991 Creepy, brilliant fairytale horror about a twisted couple “mommy” and “daddy” who keep hordes of cannibal children in the basement and attempt to cultivate the perfect child upstairs. Grim but fun with a sense of humour, starring Wendie Robie and Everett McGill, aka Big Ed and Nadine from Twin Peaks. PSYCHO Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 The ultimate mummy-issue chiller, based on the true case of killer and body snatcher…

Release Date: 27 February 15 | 100 minutes Director: David Robert Mitchell Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto, Linda Boston, Heather Fairbanks, Ruby Harris MOST OF US SPEND OUR TEENAGE years haunted by something – constant embarrassment, the crushing weight of expectation. Perhaps it’s because, like ghosts, we’re trapped between two worlds, the prisoners of feelings we can’t quite escape or express. Often it’s the twin spectres of sex and death that hang the heaviest, and horror films aren’t shy in making this connection explicit. Spiked with a sense of what he terms “interactive anxiety”, David Robert Mitchell’s film knows the work of Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Dario Argento as surely as it knows what it’s like to be young and afraid. The first girl we…

Release Date: 9 February 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Gary Shore Cast: Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance INTENDED TO reintroduce and reboot Universal’s iconic monsters for a generation raised on Marvel’s all-conquering brand of cinematic superheroics, Dracula Untold is an underwhelming first step. Luke Evans stars as Vlad Tepes, dedicated family man and Prince of Wallachia. After years of peace, the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper) demands 1,000 Wallachian boys to serve in his army, including Vlad’s own son. Hopelessly outnumbered, Vlad ventures to Broken Tooth Mountain, where Charles Dance’s mellifluous Master Vampire grants him the unholy power needed to defeat the invaders. Set centuries before Drac’s bloodsucking Victorian heyday, the film puts an initially interesting historical spin on the tale, adding supernatural…

EXTRAS Release Date: 16 February 2014 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Showrunners: David Benioff, DB Weiss Cast: Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Charles Dance, Pedro Pascal Four years into HBO’s adaptation of George RR Martin’s saga and life in Westeros isn’t getting any easier. This time, however, there’s at least the sense that the tide of misery is about to turn – bad things have finally started happening to bad people, as well as the good ones who’ve been on the receiving end since day one. Impressively for a show made up of so many disparate story threads, there are few weak links here. Most of the mammoth cast get something meaty to chew on, though it’s newbie prince Oberyn Martell (an instant rival to Tyrion…

Release Date: 16 February 2014 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Jonathan Liebesman Cast: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Alan Ritchson, Pete Ploszek, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard AT ONE POINT during Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, William Fichtner’s Eric Sacks declares, without a hint of irony, “We will drain every last ounce of their blood to get it… even if it kills them.” Savour the moment, because it’s the only memorable thing about this half-witted reboot. April O’Neil (Megan Fox) is a reporter who discovers the story of a lifetime: anthropomorphic ninja turtles living in the sewers of New York City. At the same time, villain Shredder is planning to unleash a chemical weapon on New York. Cue empty eye candy. Despite dispensing with the planned extra-terrestrial origins after fan outcry,…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD AS DR PETER Venkman might almost say, the trouble with aliens is that you just can’t trust them. The ones who regularly visit William Cassidy (Julian Richings) aren’t nipping round for a cuppa. Oh no, they’re the abducting and probing sort. If that wasn’t bad enough, their experiments have made William a target for the military. This Canadian film is a bricolage of different directorial styles. It has moments of found-footage horror, first-person-shooter action and some intense, 24-style grilling scenes. It’s in the latter that Ejecta falls down. All the actors are capable enough, but William spends too much time in chains. Still, the aliens are convincingly creepy and the script, by Pontypool screenwriter Tony Burgess, finds a few fresh angles…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 1990 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Richard Stanley Cast: Stacey Travis, Dylan McDermott, John Lynch, William Hootkins, Iggy Pop THE PLOT OF this cult robo-thriller is nothing to write home about. In a post-apocalyptic landscape, a scavenger finds the broken remains of a robot. He sells them to a junk dealer and the knackered droid ends up in the hands of artist Jill. It’s not long, however, before it repairs itself and rampages through her flat. It’s a classic B-movie synopsis, with more than a dash of The Terminator in its DNA. Female protagonist? Deadly droid? Not much of a budget? All check. What is remarkable is how good the film looks. Reportedly made for $1.5 million, it’s incredibly stylish. Everything is suffused in a chemical…

EXTRAS Release Date: 23 February 2014 | E | DVD ATTRACTIVELY illustrated with copious clips, this zombie documentary ticks all the boxes, not only providing an overview of the development of the genre but exploring the undead’s broader cultural ascendancy – zombie-themed ads, flash mobs, porn spoofs and so on. Matters such as the “slow vs fast” debate are also tackled. The rollcall of interviewees is impressive, encompassing the likes of George Romero, Simon Pegg and Robert Kirkman – although only the reliably contrarian Alex Cox has anything particularly original to say. Hardcore Z-heads are unlikely to learn much, but there’s enough fun material in-between the talking heads – footage of a zombie wedding; dramatic sequences which poke fun at the genre’s absurdities – to ensure even know-it-alls are entertained.…

Release Date: 26 February 288 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Sarah Pinborough Publisher: Gollancz GROWING UP IS HARD, especially for teenagers. Life is already tough without hormones playing merry hell with your mind and body. For the kids in the Death House, that’s just the start of it. Toby and his friends suffer from a rare genetic defect that could erupt at any time with deadly results. Until then, they live out their lives in an isolated, islandbased school/prison under the watchful gaze of Matron. But are the nurses helping the sick, or hurrying them to an early grave? The title and gloomy cover design all prime you for a major downer, but the sweetest surprise about The Death House is how likeable it is. That’s down to its flawed, believable…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 176 pages | Paperback Author: Not credited Publisher: Titan Books A glossy guide to the characters from the Warner Bros show. Features plenty of full-page, photoshopped-to-perfection shots of good-looking actors. Covers everyone from the major players to one-night-only baddies like mob enforcer Nick Salvati and assassin Al Owal. “Fact Sheet” boxes note aliases and relationships, and discuss how characters were portrayed in the original comics. There are a handful of behind-the-scenes insights scattered throughout, in the form of interviews with producers Wendy Merricle and Marc Guggenheim. But mostly it’s pretty eye-glazing so-and-so-did-this-then-did-that-then-that stuff. This sort of thing seems a teeny bit pointless in the age of regularly updated wiki pages.…

Release Date: 13 February 400 pages | Paperback Author: Randy Henderson Publisher: Titan Books EIGHTIES NOSTALGIA IS big lately, with books like Ready Player One giving SF fans in their thirties and forties the chance to relive their childhood in imaginative ways. In order for this nostalgia to work, however, it needs to be linked with sharp and engaging storytelling. That’s where new fantasy comedy Finn Fancy Necromancy trips itself up. The offbeat plot follows Finn Gramaraye, who was an up-and-coming teenage necromancer in 1985 before he was framed for a crime he didn’t commit and exiled from the mortal world for 25 years. Now he’s returned to our reality having missed a big chunk of history, but almost immediately walks straight into another magical crime. Whoever framed him in…

Release Date: 12 February 208 pages | Paperback Author: Jonathan Barnes Publisher: Solaris MATTHEW CANNONBRIDGE is the world’s best loved author. Wait, what do you mean you’ve never heard of him? He was at the villa in Geneva where Mary Shelley dreamed up Frankenstein and he wrote The English Golem. He was friends with Dickens. He conferred with Arthur Conan Doyle while writing about the infamous detective, Monsieur Dupin. Cannonbridge! No? No. Cannonbridge is an invention. Not just for this novel, but in the world of the novel, too. Someone’s been changing history, inserting a new writer into the canon. And while making up Victorian authors might not seem like a particularly dastardly plan, it has nasty side-effects. Cannonbridge isn’t just a man. He’s something else… With a deft narrative…

Katniss meets the X-Men Release Date: 12 February 393 pages | Paperback/ebook Author: Victoria Aveyard Publisher: Orion SOMETIMES YOU CAN CALL a book derivative and it’s an insult, plain and simple: the author has plucked characters, scenarios and ideas from other works and shamelessly Xeroxed them. Red Queen is so like The Hunger Games you keep wondering when its lead character, Mare, will volunteer as a tribute; meanwhile, the rest of the cast have X-Men-style superpowers. Did we say “shameless”? It is. However, once you’re over your outrage there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy the result. Mare is a poor street-thief who finds herself working in a palace filled by her world’s silver-blooded, heartless rulers, and before long there’s a rebellion brewing among her fellow red-blooded humans. It’s slick, it’s…

DOCTOR WHO: THE HISTOR Y COLLECTION Release Date: 12 February Publisher: BBC Books Eight rejackets of old Who novels, including three by writers who later wrote for the TV show: Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts. Cornell’s is Seventh Doctor story Human Nature (1995), later the basis of a David Tennant two-parter. It’s an excellent book on its own terms, plus the differences between the two versions are interesting; the original is much darker, and able to give the central love story a bit more depth. THE HOUSE OF WAR AND WITNESS Release Date: 12 February Authors: Mike, Linda and Louise Carey Publisher: Gollancz This latest team-up by three members of the same family is set in 1740, and follows a company of Habsburg troops sent to protect a…

Do you spend your life with a book in your hand? Do you have opinions you want to share about everything you read? Then you’re the sort of person we’re looking for to become part of our exciting new SFX Book Club Reading Group. The Reading Group will be our first port of call every month for comments in the Book Club – we’ll give you advance warning of what’s coming up on the page, and invite you to read the book with us. Then, you’ll be given the opportunity to tell the world what you think about the book and what it means to you. The best bit? Every time you contribute, we’ll find you a free book from our vast repository in the SFX office. If you want…

LOOK OUT FOR SF X TV REVIE WS AT GAMESRADAR.COM/TV Mondays – Rick and co try to keep on surviving, as season five of The Walking Dead rises again on Fox from 9 February. Tuesdays – The Winchesters continue to settle into their new home on E4 in Supernatural, alongside the marooned space kids of The 100. Meanwhile, The Flash kicks off on 10 February on Sky 1 and Halle Berry’s astronaut drama Extant is joined by the return of The Originals on Syfy from 24 February. Wednesdays – More Canadian time travel shenanigans as Continuum continues on Syfy, while Grimm tells tales on Watch. Thursdays – Super-sharp shooting superhero show Arrow comes to Sky 1 from 12 February. Fridays – Get your first glimpse of the rebooted 12 Monkeys…

SCI-FACT! The first Afterlife featured William Sanderson, aka JF Sebastian in Blade Runner. ISSUE 161 | OCTOBER 2007 #4 MARY TAMM WHAT’S THE STRANGEST REQUEST YOU’VE EVER HAD FROM A FAN? A guy said at a convention that he’d named his son after me. I said “Mary?!” and he said, “No, Tamm – Tyler Aaron Michael Martin or something, and he said, “Because he’s named after you could I ask you to be his godmother?” I said, “No, I’m really sorry, because it means something to me to be a godmother” – it’s a religious ceremony, not something that’s just based on a name. So he looked a bit crestfallen. But you have to be firm! ISSUE 251 | SEPTEMBER 2014 #93 TOM LENK DID YOU GET ANY SOUVENIRS FROM…

TRACY ELEMENTS 1 ITV has given us a first glimpse of the new-look Tracy brothers and… well we’re sure we’ll grow to love them. Thunderbirds Are Go! is set to feature a mix of CG characters (created by Middle-earth maestros Weta) and live action sets when it airs in April. Game Of Thrones’ Thomas Brodie-Sangster will voice John Tracy, Oscarnominated Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike will play Lady Penelope and David Graham, the original voice of Parker, is reprising his role in the new series. DOCTOR SWHOUS 2 What would happen if Dr Seuss adapted Doctor Who? It would be quite the coup! And probably look a little something like this. The Doctor’s Who is by DrFaustusAU, an Australian artist who gives the Time Lords a Seussian twist. If only…

EMILY BLUNT joining Snow White And The Huntsman 2… MICHAEL KEATON orbiting Kong: Skull Island at Legendary Pictures… TOM HARDY out of Suicide Squad (did he see last month’s Dev Hell illo, by any chance?)… Eagle Eye’s DJ CARUSO potentially helming GI Joe 3… FRANK BYERS directing remake of Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville… TJ MILLER and ED SK REIN in talks to join Deadpool cast… Twentieth Century Fox bringing remake of Escape From New York to the screen… Shrek’s ANDREW ADAMSON directing Inherit The Earth for Sony, adapting Zombies Vs Robots comic series… The Purge 3 arriving 1 July 2016… ALEC BALDWIN joining shrinkage-based satire Downsizing… WES BENTLEY onboard for Pete’s Dragon remake… ELLE FANNING in talks for NICOLAS WINDING REFN’S female-fronted horror The Neon Demon… X-Men spin-off Gambit arriving 7…

Celebrity is the kind of phenomenon that can change a marginally successful character actor into a demigod in just a few years. Such is the case with actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who is so popular that the blog site Tumblr included him in its User Guidelines: “Don’t impersonate anyone. While you’re free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can’t pretend to actually be Benedict Cumberbatch.” Cumberbatch earned his theatre cred in dozens of roles in plays since 2001, as well as TV work like Heartbeat, Silent Witness and Hawking, playing Stephen Hawking himself. He also appeared in films like Atonement, The Other Boleyn Girl and War Horse, collecting acting awards like a man with unlimited mantel space. But it was his stellar performance as…

SFX WRITERS’ PERSONAL RANTS Dave Bradley believes there’s a reason for so many sequels and reboots Whenever a reboot or a prequel is announced, there’s a predictable outcry from SF fans. Twitter and Facebook light up with shrieks of “Have filmmakers run out of ideas?!” or “Why do we NEED another Terminator movie?!” They’re heartfelt and valid criticisms. But here’s the truth: it’s your fault Hollywood is like this. This isn’t a rant about the merits of individual franchises. I’m here today to simply recommend you put your money where your mouth is. Or more accurately, put your money where you think the film business should put its money. Did you go to your local cinema to see Safety Not Guaranteed, or What We Do In The Shadows, or Her?…

GAMESRADAR+ SFX, Total Film and GamesRadar.com have teamed up to create the ultimate multimedia site. Bringing together the brightest minds in sci-fi, fantasy, movies and gaming, GamesRadar+ is the perfect complement to everything you love about the world of entertainment, straight from the experts. Besides hot news, the latest film and TV reviews and exclusive features, we’ll bring you the best trailers as soon as they hit, and challenge your grey matter with the most fiendish screen quizzes on the planet. It’s all at gamesradar.com. and you can bookmark gamesradar.com/sfx to see only content from us. TOTAL FILM Every month SFX’s sister magazine Total Film brings you fantastic coverage of all aspects of the movies. In the latest issue, the TF team takes an indepth look at the Oscars and…

Are you much like Four in real-life? I love beating people up [jokes]! I guess he’s probably more uptight than me. I hope. He’s a bit damaged, I guess you’d say, and probably more highly strung in a way. I do like playing this character because there’s a stillness to him which I always found interesting, even from the books. It’s fun to come back to him Four has a lot of tattoos. Did you get tired of putting them on every day? Yes. I was thinking about getting them for real, just so I didn’t have to go through the make-up process – because you do them every day for five-and-a-half months, it gets a little bit wearing at the end. The one on the back is fine because…

LORI GRIMES Sure she’d gone all Lady Macbeth on us in season two, but the aftermath of Lori’s death — the birth of Judith, Carl’s shooting his mother, Rick’s breakdown — was multilayered in its tragedy. MERLE DIXON After saving Michonne and killing the Governor’s men, Merle himself was killed in turn by the tyrant; proving the death of a reformed man can be as sad as that of an innocent. LIZZIE SAMUELS After losing her own little girl to walkers, Carol is forced to kill the crazed child Lizzie to protect Judith, herself, and Tyreese. We knew she had no choice, but in so doing, she kills a part of her soul. BOB STOOKEY Having conquered alcoholism and survived Terminus, Bob has renewed hope for the future, and the…

What made you want to work on Lost River? I really responded to the script. You read so much these days, it’s hard to find something original and I thought this had real originality. How was Ryan Gosling as a director? Brilliant, which gave me real courage and trust, which is what you want from a director. But also [there was] guidance when you need it. What he did was set up a tone and an environment, where you could take risks and where you could do something bold or where you could, say, go and talk to a character in the road and the camera would come with you. What sort of reaction will Lost River get? It divided the critics… Well, my best friend saw it – and…

BIODATA OCCUPATION: Novelist BORN: 1986 FROM: London GREATEST HITS: As Catherine Webb, North has twice been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. As Kate Griffin, she’s written six Matthew Swift novels. RANDOM FACT: North often thinks about her books while working in the theatre. But not when she’s busy, it’s more a case of, “I’ve got a 10-minute break, I’ll sit and have a mull.” It’s somehow appropriate that Claire North was somebody else the last time SFX spoke with her. That’s because her new novel, Touch, is the tale of a body-hopping entity, Kepler, that jumps from human host to human host. “A friend of mine described it as The Bourne Identity but without the need for passports,” says the writer. But while Kepler, of whom more later, has “no…

The story behind the SF and fantasy of yesteryear 1989 IN THE 1980S VIRTUALLY any fright-flick that earned back its money was deemed worthy of a franchise. From the likes of Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street to the cheapjack straight-to-video likes of Sleepaway Camp and Slumber Party Massacre, horror-hounds had a hard time keeping up with each new series. Consequently, when David Cronenberg finally broke into the A-list with his unexpected summer smash The Fly back in 1986 it was only a matter of time before Jeff Goldblum’s creepy-crawly classic gained its own gore-laden legacy. Unfortunately, 1989’s The Fly II remains one of the decade’s less remembered follow-up features – a rare example of a major studio shocker that notched up a widespread release but failed…

Release Date: 27 February 15 | 123 minutes Director: Tom Green Cast: Joe Dempsie, Sofia Boutella, Johnny Harris, Sam Keeley, Nicholas Pinnock GARETH EDWARDS emerged as a talent to watch back in 2010 with Monsters, a passion project that he wrote, directed, designed and shot, while also conjuring up impressive visual effects on his own computer. The result was a fascinating, character-driven stroll through a world forever changed, where giant alien creatures arrived on the back of a crashed Nasa probe and created “infected zones” where it’s dangerous for humans to tread, lest they see giant squid things having it off near petrol stations. Edwards has since moved onto bigger beastly things with Godzilla, so for Vertigo Films to make the most of the critical and commercial love for Monsters,…

Are you a fan of horror? I am. I certainly don’t look down on it. A lot of amazing directors cut their teeth on horror, especially if you look to the early horrors – back to the ’20s with Carl Dreyer. A lot of those films are really artistic and beautiful, and that’s what I saw as the potential for The Babadook. And I love the Polanski domestic horrors. Repulsion and The Tenant are great. How did you approach working with a six-year-old? We took three weeks beforehand to prep him to know what acting was, but also what the Babadook was. He was drawing pictures of him and the Babadook and his mum and dad. He felt a really important part of the team. And I tried to shoot…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Jeff Baena Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, Anna Kendrick, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines, Paul Reiser, Matthew Gray Gubler, John C Reilly DON’T YOU JUST hate the way any new zombie comedy is inevitably compared to Shaun Of The Dead? Surely a movie can be judged on its own terms! Well, sorry… but we’re about to do it again. To be fair, there’s more reason to do so here than is often the case. There are points of comparison between Shaun and this latest zomcom – and not just the punning use of Christian names. Both have romantic elements; both make use of suburban settings; both draw comedy from awkward relationships with parents. Dane “Green Goblin” DeHaan plays the grieving Zach,…

EXTRAS Release Date: 23 February 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director: John R Leonetti Cast: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Tony Amendola, Alfre Woodard, Kerry O’Malley IT’S EASY TO pour scorn on Annabelle and its predecessor, The Conjuring. Both suffer from a dearth of new ideas and borrow heavily from older, better films. They go for quiet/loud jump scares too often, rather than building a real sense of dread. The ingredients here are familiar: a happy couple buy a doll that gets possessed by a demonic entity. They move house, but the doll comes after them, causing all manner of supernatural havoc by slamming doors, attacking priests and – really frightening this – dicking about with their record player. It’s old hat, then. But there’s a charm to Annabelle. The ’60s…

Release Date: 16 February 2014 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Jorge R Gutierrez Cast: Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman, Kate del Castillo LESS A MOVIE, more an animated celebration of every Mexican cultural cliché you could think of, The Book Of Life is a trad Disney-style fairytale given a manic mariachi makeover. Catholic nuns, Mexican wrestling priests, a troubadour bullfighter, moustache obsessions, bandits, the Day of the Dead, Mayan gods… they’re all cheerily thrown into a mix that’s spicier than an extra-hot quesadilla. The tale of two friends who fall in love with the same girl, whose fates are bound to those of two bickering gods who can’t resist a wager, this Guillermo del Toro-produced toon looks stunning, with marionette characters and a Tim Burton vibe (though…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | DVD GRACE (ALEXIA Fast) is a sheltered teenage girl whose religious upbringing makes for one hell of a culture shock when she gets to university. Especially since Grace is possessed by a demon. It’s a clichéd premise, but director Jeff Chan does have one trick up his sleeve: the film is shot in the first person, the story told through Grace’s increasingly unreliable POV. There’s scope for a really original take on old tropes, but instead, the quirky conceit is just a crutch propping up a dull (and occasionally offensive) story.There are too many mirror scares, and every authority figure in the movie is moronic beyond belief. Poor Lin Shaye brings her best crazy face as Grace’s strict grandmother, but she’s wasting…

Release Date: 16 February 2013 | E | DVD TAKE A SLUG OF bourbon each time you hear the word “iconic” in this celebration of poster artist Drew Struzan and you’ll be blotto by the end credits. For once, however, it’s the perfect word: illustrating campaigns for everything from ET to Star Wars, Blade Runner to Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Struzan’s fusion of romance and realism defined the iconography of these films as much as anything contained in the celluloid itself. It’s a fond, respectful tribute, marshalling a galaxy of collaborators and admirers. Spielberg admits, “I have to live up to his art,” while Michael J Fox decodes Struzan’s lively brushstrokes as being like warpaint on the face of Indiana Jones. Struzan himself emerges as heroically modest. EXTRAS: None.…

Release Date: 9 February 2014 | 15 | DVD SHAME director Daniel Simpson didn’t resist production company demands to adopt the found-footage format. For beneath the tired tropes, there’s an interesting film struggling to get out here. It takes inspiration from 1980’s infamous UFO sightings in Rendlesham Forest, but fastforwards to the present day as three treasure hunters enter the spooky Suffolk wood, constantly squabbling before predictably getting lost. Danny Shayler’s Jake is so irritating you can’t wait for him to be eaten by bug-eyed aliens. It concludes with some nifty CE3K-style pyrotechnics, and you can only wonder about what might’ve been if they’d left that bloody camera at home. EXTRAS: Making Of; deleted scenes; music video.…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 352 pages | Hardback/ebook Writer: Neil Gaiman Publisher: Headline PART OF NEIL GAIMAN’S introduction to this book is headed “General Apology” and states that short story collections “should not, hodgepodge and willy-nilly, assemble stories that were obviously not intended to sit between the same covers,” before admitting that “This collection fails this test.” Trigger Warning is a compilation of stories and poems written for anthologies, magazines and so on – plus one all-new story. That said, it’s unlikely you will have everything else, and it’s much neater to have it all in one volume. This collection includes fantasy, SF, horror and even some straight fiction; tributes to Ray Bradbury, Jack Vance and Harlan Ellison; and adventures for Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who. There’s even a sort…

Release Date: 12 February 700 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky Publisher: Tor ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY’S latest fantasy novel leaves behind his popular Shadows Of The Apt series. The author’s working title for Guns Of The Dawn was A Woman’s War, and this neatly sums up a story that Tchaikovsky describes as “Jane Austen meets Bernard Cornwell by way of Ursula le Guin” – a heady mix of romance, muskets and magic. Emily Marshwic is the woman in question, drafted into a civil war against the neighbouring Denlanders because all the able-bodied men have already been called to fight. She leaves behind two sisters, a big old house and the unwanted attention of the slimy Mr Northway, swapping them for a swampy battlefield, slow-firing muskets and mysterious warlocks. For the latter,…

Release Date: 12 February 271 pages | Paperback Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia Publisher: Solaris WHEN IT COMES TO written science fiction, novels are only half the story. Many authors spend years honing their craft in short stories before their books appear in your local Waterstones; many continue producing short fiction throughout their careers, in magazines like Interzone, or websites like Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons and Tor.com. And some of the most celebrated genre writers of the past decade or more, like Ted Chiang and Kelly Link, have never published novels at all (or yet, in Link’s case). Silvia Moreno-Garcia has a plethora of short stories to her name, so while this is her debut novel, she certainly can’t be branded a novice writer. Signal To Noise centres on Meche, a software engineer…

Release Date: 6 February 614 pages | Paperback Author: Chris Evans Publisher: Titan Books THIS BOOK SHUNTS THE Vietnam war into an alternate world where napalm is replaced by dragonfire, soldiers fight with crossbows and catapults, dwarves are the angry racial underclass and magic is a tool of cutting-edge army research. For all that, though, it’s still clearly ’Nam. The wide-eyed, patriotic boys rapidly become grunts off-their-heads on drugs and atrocities, in a war without shape or meaning. Like many Hollywood ’Nam films, it’s all told from the POV of strangers in a foreign land. The locals are inscrutable; instead of “gooks,” they’re “slyts”. The most impressive worldbuilding concerns the dragons (abbreviated to “rags”). They’re used both as weapons and transport, but they’re explosively dangerous and nauseously uncomfortable. (Dragonflights involve…

Post-apocalyptic sibling rivalry Release Date: 26 February 416 pages | Hardback Author: Francesca Haig Publisher: Harper Voyager SO MUCH ABOUT THE FIRE Sermon feels familiar: a world devastated by war, where people have regressed to a lower level of technology. People are either privileged, able-bodied Alphas, or Omegas, who are mutated in some way, and repressed. The twist is that every birth is of twins, one Alpha and one Omega, and when one twin dies, so does the other. The story follows Omega seer Cass, whose Alpha politician twin is trying to imprison her to protect himself, as she flees in search of an island ruled by Omegas. The notion of society splitting into an under- and over-class is nothing new, and an awful lot of recent YA novels have…

Apocalypse Now meets The Lord Of The Rings in a bold new fantasy from the acclaimed author of the Iron Elves trilogy. THE AUTHOR Chris Evans is the author of The Iron Elves trilogy: Ashes Of A Black Frost, A Darkness Forged In Fire, and The Light Of Burning Shadows. He’s a historian as well as an editor of military history and current affairs, having worked with Ballantine/Del Rey of Random House and then Stackpole books where he launched the highly successful Stackpole Military History series. Born in Canada, he now lives in New York City where he writes full time. Channelling the turbulent period of the Vietnam War and its ruthless pitting of ideologies, cultures, generations, and races against each other, military historian and acclaimed fantasy writer Chris Evans…