Table of contents for March 2018 in SFX

Richard Edwards Editor RAVES Excited about the SFX Book Con! Hope to see you there. See p16 for more details! Saw Young Frankenstein in the West End and loved it – what better way to celebrate the bi-centenary of Mary Shelley’s novel? RANTS Sad that The Last Jedi has been so divisive – I still think it’s fab! ian berriman REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES Toby Hadoke’s podcast Who’s Round is always worth a listen, but his latest one, with outgoing Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, is particularly interesting: http://bit.ly/whosmoff. Delighted that Finders Keepers has reissued soundtrack compilation The B-Music Of Jean Rollin on vinyl: http://bit.ly/rollinLP. Jonathan coates ART EDITOR RAVES Such a shame that Bryan Talbot has decided that Force Majeure will be the final Grandville novel. I can understand his…

How would you describe your character? Matilda’s a bit troubled: she’s got a bit of a sex addiction, she smokes, she doesn’t take the best care of herself. She’s this virtuoso in one area of her life, but the rest of her life isn’t so together. She has a feeling that things aren’t quite settled and centred, and you don’t know if it’s just her youth or a specific trauma in her past. Then her mum kills herself and she starts to think, “Y’know what? I have never felt right. I’ve always felt my mum’s lied to me.” And it prompts her to really comb through who she is, and these strange feelings of not belonging she has. Is it immediately apparent that this is a supernatural story? Well, it’s…

MY SCI-FI Because famous people are fans too FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY FILM My favourite sci-fi movie (apart from Star Wars, Aliens, The Terminator and RoboCop) is probably David Cronenberg’s The Fly. I saw that movie when I was 12, and it disturbed the hell out of me. I definitely never looked at ring doughnuts the same way again… What I love about films like that is the practical effects, make-up and use of miniatures. A radio-controlled ED-209 would make an excellent gift. Santa, you have 15 seconds to comply… FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY COMIC When I was a kid, my uncle would take me to Forbidden Planet. He gave me my first Judge Dredd comic, and from that moment on I was obsessed with 2000 AD. He taught me to always keep the…

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT! Pairing Batman with a different hero from issue 59, The Brave And The Bold ran for 117 issues between 1955 and 1983. After teaming up with Greg Rucka on an acclaimed Wonder Woman stint, it was a natural step for Liam Sharp to write the Amazon’s adventures in The Brave And The Bold: Batman And Wonder Woman. “I learned so much about Diana from working with Greg,” he tells Red Alert. “He knows and loves her, and for me his version is definitive, and I tried to stay true to that in my own writing. I also just wasn’t ready to stop drawing her after finishing on the regular title, as I fell hard for her during our run!” In need of a sleuth for his…

SFX HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN! THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR NICK SETCHFIELD, FEATURES EDITOR Is The Last Jedi the most divisive Star Wars film of all time? Certainly looks that way, judging by the mixed reactions targeting the thermal exhaust port of the SFX inbox. Watch those opinions battle it out in this month’s Hot Topic, along with your thoughts on the Christmas Doctor Who, SFX book reviews, notso- surprise twists and more. As ever one lucky letter writer receives a star prize book from Black Library. Look for The Magos by Dan Abnett on your mat soon, Lesley! You do have a mat, right? Mats are good. #STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI David Cookson, email I wouldn’t mind seeing the next Star Wars film with your reviewer Richard Edwards who boldly…

“This is a tale of long ago, when knights still roamed the land.” So starts Tonke Dragt’s classic children’s book The Letter For The King, the story of Tiuri, a 16-year-old squire who, on the night before he is to be made a knight, abandons his vigil to help a stranger in need. What follows is a tale of daring and adventure that could easily have been part of the Arthurian legends, sparsely illustrated by the author herself. It’s archetypical, almost, and vividly immediate. I first read the book when I was ten, or around that time. I got to the last page, flipped the book over, and started again. I read the sequel – The Secrets of the Wild Wood – after that. Lather, rinse, reread. For a while,…

What’s your character like? He’s been a surgeon in the army, and now is doing jobs here and there to make money. I’m pretty good at it. Same with Justin [Theroux]’s character. My character’s a little more restless than Justin’s, who’s more the Donald Sutherland [as “Hawkeye” Pierce in M*A*S*H] counterpart to my Trapper John. When the movie starts, I’m making an effort to change my situation and try to leave… which is a little harder to do than you might think. Has any day of shooting really stood out? My very first day, I was pulling bullets out of a guy’s leg, and the prosthetics of the surgery were so realistic that it took about an hour to just get used to. So that was really fun. And disgusting!…

CLAIRE NORTH WRITER OF THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST AND THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE. HER LATEST, 84K, IS OUT IN MAY NEXT ON THE SLATE A book set at the dawn of the 20th century about curses, shamans, spies, war, truth, lies, opium, ghosts, imperialism, stethoscopes and the importance of punctual railways. And a story for Black Mirror [’s upcoming anthology book]. And a holiday. DESERT ISLAND BOOKS The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny and A Wizard Of Earthsea, by Ursula le Guin. Technically one of these is 10 books, and if I could get away with it I’d ask for the Earthsea Quartet and get four for the price of one, because they’re just so damn good. Both prove that you can have epic worldbuilding,…

JOHN JARROLD Agent specialising in genre fiction www.johnjarrold.co.uk How do you find authors you want to represent? I receive roughly 35 submissions by email every week. On one occasion, I went to the author because I’d loved his short fiction, and asked if he had an agent. That was Hannu Rajaniemi, and it led to The Quantum Thief. Are you primarily looking for great books, or books that will sell to publishers? The words always come first (if I don’t think “wow”, I say “no”), but of course I also have to believe the book is sellable in the market as it stands. Once you’ve signed up a writer, what does your role involve in terms of getting a publishing deal? With a new author I edit the book. Then…

“Ah, those unforgettable Jack Kirby hands!” Epic fantasist Tad Williams is throwing a suitably epic shape for our photographer. His fingers reach for the lens, Galactus-style, homaging the classic pose favoured by the king of comic book art. It’s a deep-dive geek culture reference, but that’s no surprise, as you’ll see. Williams is in Britain to promote The Witchwood Crown, the first full novel in the Last King Of Osten Ard series, returning to the world he created in his Memory, Sorrow, And Thorn fantasy trilogy. And he relishes the chance to discuss all the glorious stuff that’s fed his heart and mind since childhood. “I am a fanboy at heart,” admits the engaging, blacksuited Californian. “I’m just old enough now to call these things ‘influences’ – but it’s still…

How do you survive a mage’s duel without magic? Kellen’s about to risk everything: his family, his home, even his own life… The old spellmasters like to say that magic has a taste. Ember spells are like a spice burning the tip of your tongue. Breath magic is subtle, almost cool, the sensation of holding a mint leaf between your lips. Sand, silk, blood, iron... they each have their flavour. A true adept – the kind of mage who can cast spells even outside an oasis – knows them all. Me? I had no idea what the high magics tasted like, which was why I was in so much trouble. Tennat waited for me in the distance, standing inside the seven marble columns that ringed the town oasis. The sun…

FRANKENSTEIN/ BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN Director James Whale told Shelley’s tale across two film masterpieces. Released in 1931 and 1935, both star Boris Karloff in his signature role. ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN The original horror comedy, this 1948 vehicle for the titular comedy duo marked the end of Universal’s classic monster cycle. THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN Hammer’s 1957 gamechanger, directed by Terence Fisher, began Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing’s reign as the kings of horror. YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s 1974 comedy remains one of the most perfect film spoofs ever created. It’s now “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in London’s West End.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 100 minutes Director Nick Park Cast Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall A century ago, some of the first stop-motion cartoons were goofy caveman comedies by Willis O’Brien, who later animated King Kong. Now Britain’s favourite stop-motion colossus, Nick Park, offers a plasticine feature in the same vein. It starts with a few moments of dinosaurs, but has far more jokes about prehistoric football, though Aardman makes them funny even if you don’t give two flints about the beautiful game. An eccentric but Aardmanloveable tribe of cavemen live in a verdant forest inside a meteor crater. Their pastoral life of hunting rabbits (badly) is disrupted when a newfangled Bronze Age tribe drive them out to mine ore. Separated from his pals, young Dug…

RELEASED 5 FEBRUARY (out now on download) 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Niels Arden Oplev Cast Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton Was anyone really crying out for a remake of Joel Schumacher’s glossy but vapid, post-Brat Pack trip to the afterlife? This mediocre rehash is a slice of sci-fi horror totally devoid of new ideas or genuine scares – aside from a single genuine shock and the fact that it comfortably passes the Bechdel Test, Flatliners mark 2 has almost nothing going for it. The set-up is a carbon copy of the original, as five medical students embark on a foolhardy experiment to discover what happens to their brains when their hearts are briefly stopped. Their subsequent visions of the afterlife feel like music videos gone…

RELEASED 12 FEBRUARY 1977 | 15 | Blu-ray Directors Nobuhiko Obayashi Cast Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ohba, Ai Matsubara BLU-RAY DEBUT The plot is throwaway, the acting (by a group of mostly amateurs) suspect, and the then-president of Toho Studios described the script as “completely meaningless”. Yet Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Hausu (marketed here under its English-language title) is a remarkable film. Angel (Kimiko Ikegami) and six teenage friends go to stay at her aunt’s house in the country. From the off, things are strange: the aunt is clearly several twigs short of a broomstick, her pet cat’s eyes flash green, and one by one the girls go missing. Realising that supernatural shenanigans are afoot, they must band together and use their individual skills to survive. Tasked to make something like Jaws,…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1982 | 12 | DVD This short BBC play from 1982 is a pocket ghost story, one that favours melancholy over menace. Among the pylons and hills of the Black Country two kids investigate the case of a tormented spirit, claimed by the local canal. There are flashes of hauntological atmosphere – and a moment of genuine chill involving a spectral reflection in the water – but an essentially dreary mystery and a stilted performance from the young lead conspire to drown it. Extras None.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1989-1993 | 15 | Blu-ray Creator Donald P Bellisario Cast Scott Bakula, Dean Stockwell, Deborah Pratt, Dennis Wolfberg BLU-RAY DEBUT If Quantum Leap were made today in its original format, it’d be crucified, and not just by so-called SJWs. That may seem a weird thing to say about a series that was widely celebrated in its time for its political conscience; it dealt with such topics as racism, sexism and mental disorders with a cheery bleeding-heart liberalism. But the original format would prove problematic: a white, middle-class, American male bouncing through time, inhabiting others’ bodies, “striving to put right what once went wrong”. Fine when he’s a priest losing his faith or a lawyer defending an innocent, but Sam also leapt into women and black characters. Then it…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | SVOD Director David Ayer Cast Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry NETFLIX With an A-list leading man (Will Smith), a bankable director (Suicide Squad’s David Ayer), and a blockbuster budget, Netflix’s Bright wouldn’t be out of place in any multiplex. What a shame, then, that the streaming giant’s biggest feature-length effort to date is one to file under “ordinary”. Bright’s problem isn’t the premise that, in its parallel Los Angeles, humans live alongside Orcs and Elves – if you can get past the incongruity of Lord Of The Rings types shooting guns in contemporary clothes, it’s actually a plausible bit of world-building. It’s more that its police drama is so run-of-the-mill and clichéd that not even the addition of magic can keep Bright fresh.…

Director Mike Flanagan shot supernatural fable BEFORE I WAKE (out now, Netflix) after 2014’s Oculus, but it ended up languishing in limbo after the distributor went bankrupt. When a grieving couple foster an orphan, they discover that he can manifest anything in his dreams – including their dead son. Unfortunately, those dreams also include the sinister Canker Man… Deliberately paced, with some entrancing visuals, it’s more interested in character than jump scares, and little Cody’s vulnerability inspires real pathos. Toni “Mickey” Basil, vamping it up as the ghost of a rock singer, is probably the main draw of derivative 1988 horror SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROCK (out now, Blu-ray/ DVD). After a student has nightmares about an incident at Alcatraz where members of a heavy metal band died in mysterious circumstances, he visits…

RELEASED 8 FEBRUARY 406 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Mary Watson Publisher Bloomsbury Gifted with a beautiful cover and prose to match, this YA novel draws on folktale and myth to weave a story that melds reality and fantasy almost perfectly. The action is set in a small Irish town that’s home to the gypsy-like “augurs” and the richer “judges”, two magical tribes who’ve always been in conflict. The judges terrorise a young augur named Wren with a traditional yearly “wren hunt”, while her people search for a way to remove their rivals’ powers to finally end their persecution – as with all good fairy tales, natural items such as trees and rocks are buzzing with energy, but it’s possible to vandalise them. However (because this is a YA book, after…

RELEASED 1 FEBRUARY 320 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Nicola Mostyn Publisher Piatkus This chirpy adventure from debut author Nicola Mostyn isn’t quite an out-and-out comedy, but at times it does feel as though you’re reading the script from an abandoned Disney or Pixar movie that’s been turned into a book… though it does perhaps lack the wit of a film such as Hercules. And we cite Hercules for a reason, as this is the tale of bickering Greek gods (are there any other kind?). Our unsuspecting narrator is divorce lawyer Frida, who also happens to be the descendant of love-god Eros, and soon finds herself tangling with his disgruntled brother Anteros. Never heard of him? Well, that’s why he’s disgruntled! He’s planning something big for humanity on a certain date…

RELEASED FEBRUARY 344 pages | Paperback Author Craig Stevens Publisher McFarland & Co Like watching Star Wars in franchise order, this book (subtitle: The Blockbuster Impact And The Galaxy Of Merchandise, 1977-1983) starts badly. The preface is poor, and the introduction isn’t much better; both contain the elegant poetry (and spelling mistakes) of a first-time blogger. Still, force yourself through those early chapters, and you’ll embark on a space adventure worth taking. Compiled by former Star Wars UK Fan Club co-founder/ fanzine editor Craig Stevens, Phenomenon features a cast of characters (mostly fans, but some industry folk), varied enough to fill a Cantina scene, recalling their memories of the series’ UK release. Reading it feels like being a protocol droid having a mind wipe reversed. Covering the history of the…

RELEASED 6 FEBRUARY Publisher Hermes Press Writers Dick Wood, Dave Wood Artists Jack Kirby, Wally Wood collection Sci-fi ages quicker than any other genre, and there’s often a weird delight in looking back at past visions of what the future could have been. A case in point is Sky Masters Of The Space Force, a daily newspaper comic strip that ran from 1958 to 1961 and gives us a gloriously pulpy portrait of how ’50s America thought the Space Race was going to go. An action-packed tale of square-jawed heroes and high adventure, it follows Sky Masters, one of the heroic pilots trying to get America a foothold in space. The strip packs in the maximum levels of drama as it rushes from one cliffhanger to another, and Sky ends…

There’s more science fiction and fantasy TV and movies around than at any time in history, but even the screen struggles to compete with books when it comes to variety. Publishing is one of the most vibrant and creatively prolific areas of the genre – a medium unbounded by production budgets or technology – so we’ve devoted this month’s mag to celebrating the printed word. SFX’s very first Books Issue features contributions from a whopping 65 SF and fantasy authors, ranging from star names like Michael Moorcock, Robin Hobb, Joe Hill and Charlaine Harris, to newcomers publishing their very first novel. Some writers talk about their favourite screen adaptations (p80), others about the books they’d read if they were marooned on a desert island (like that would ever happen...) and…

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT! Made for just $15,000, Blumhouse’s Paranormal Activity grossed $193 million – the most profitable horror ever. No one in Hollywood has done more for low-budget horror than Jason Blum, with his hugely successful Blumhouse Productions bringing us franchises for Paranormal Activity, Insidious, The Purge and Sinister. With critical hit Get Out currently making waves in the awards season, Blum takes us through the next phase for the company… GET OUT ETA Out now The last time horror pitched up in the awards season, it was The Silence Of The Lambs. Now, it’s the Blumhouse-produced Get Out, with nominations at the Golden Globes and Independent Spirit Awards among others. Jordan Peele’s tale of an African-American youngster meeting his white girlfriend’s parents hit a nerve. “I think it…

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT! Conan O’Brien has previous in animated comedy – he used to be on the writing team for The Simpsons. With more than 65 authors inside, this issue of SFX is our biggest-ever celebration of science fiction and fantasy books. We enjoyed assembling it so much that we’ve decided to carry the literary vibe out into the real world with the inaugural SFX Book Con, a live event with real genre pedigree. We’ve teamed up with Foyles bookshop for a convention that puts authors very much at centre stage. Taking place in the wonderful surroundings of Foyles’ Charing Cross Road branch (one of London’s best bookshops), the event will assemble some of the biggest names in SF and fantasy for a day of panels, signings and mingling…

Tell us about your protagonist. Nahri is a con artist living in Cairo at the time of Napoleon’s invasion. She’s had odd abilities since she was a child but uses them only to pretend at the magic – until she goes too far and finds the creatures whose existence she’d mocked coming after her… How long did the book take to write? About six years. It started as a private world-building project – sort of historical fanfiction – and later became a novel, so it evolved quite a bit! Did you have to do much research? Find anything surprising? I spent six months studying history in Egypt during college, and intended to go back to graduate school to study medieval Islamic history (much of the magical world-building pulls from earlier…

At the Golden Globes, there are genre wins for The Handmaid’s Tale (Best TV Series (drama) and Best Actress in a TV Series (drama) for Elisabeth Moss), Coco (Best Animated Movie) and The Shape Of Water (Best Director for Guillermo del Toro). The Shape Of Water leads the Bafta nominations, with 12. There are also nods for Get Out (Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor for Daniel Kaluuya) and Blade Runner 2049 (Best Director for Denis Villeneuve). Bright to get a sequel on Netflix. Royal Mail launches set of Game Of Thrones stamps. No news on whether Westeros’s ravens are now out of business. Alton Towers announces Wicker Man rollercoaster. Alfie Curtis, aka Dr Evazan in Star Wars, passes away at 87. Channel 4 developing TV show based on Gareth Edwards’ movie debut Monsters. Gary Barlow appeared as a…

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx Nanite new man! BLOODSHOT Vin Diesel – officially the most pumped D&D enthusiast on the planet, by the way – is in the frame to play Valiant Comics icon Bloodshot for Sony. First seen in 1992, this brutal, gun-toting hero’s an ex-soldier by the name of Ray Garrison, who gains superpowers after an injection of experimental nanites as part of a military programme (it also leaves him with chalk-white skin and red eyes, but hey, so does a night on the lash in Stockton-on-Tees). Operating as an assassin he’s sent to take down superpowered beings known as Harbingers. Sony is planning an interconnected fivemovie Valiant universe. Jared Leto was orbiting the role last year but probably mailed a box of used experimental nanites to the producer or…

REVOLTING READS Made a new year’s resolution to devour more books? Good, here’s your reading list – five great books that are being made into horror films. 1) Annihilation : Alex Garland directs this adaptation starring Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson about a group of female scientists exploring a strange landscape with alien flora and fauna. I can’t wait to see how Garland tackles the scary, complex and ambiguous source material. 2) The House With A Clock In Its Walls : Cate Blanchett and Jack Black star in this horror fantasy about an orphan and his uncle searching for a clock that could end the world. Eli Roth directs. Gulp. 3) Breed : grim, brilliant body horror about a couple who undergo radical fertility treatment which awakens terrible desires. Karyn…

The Black Panther debuted in Fantastic Four 52 in 1966, the creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, tapping into America’s civil rights revolution. “I suddenly realised that there were no black superheroes and I felt we ought to have one,” Lee later recalled. An ad for that first appearance trailed him as a mystery villain… Marvel’s new hero was originally going to be called the Coal Tiger. Kirby’s initial character design showed him unmasked, with a cape. The eventual name was inspired by boxer Harry “The Black Panther” Willis and the African- American 761st Tank Battalion, nicknamed the Black Panthers. Controversial black political action group the Black Panthers formed shortly after the character’s debut, prompting Marvel to temporarily rename him the Black Leopard. “I neither condemn nor condone those…

FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS While Marvel has dominated the cinema box office in recent years, the DC Universe has exploded across television screens. But despite the company’s rich history of super-powered champions, there hasn’t been a DC solo series focused on a person of colour — until Black Lightning. Cress Williams stars at the titular African-American avenger, offering a unique take on the genre as a retired hero who dons his costume once more for the sake of his family. The actor has won fans for his work on genre hits such as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well as mainstream fare such as Beverly Hills, 90210 and Friday Night Lights. But it’s immediately clear from the Superman t-shirt he’s wearing when he sits down to…

Space operas are, as Gareth L Powell points out, usually set either in the build-up to interplanetary conflict or, in order to get maximum widescreen action as starships slug it out, at the height of battle. But what if you were to set a space opera after former combatants have stopped lobbing missiles and firing death rays at each other? This was the question Powell posed himself as he began work on Embers Of War, the first volume in a new trilogy that follows “a rescue organisation that [goes] after crashed and disabled spaceships”. Like Thunderbirds? “Yeah, basically Thunderbirds in space,” Powell replies. Which in itself turns out to be an idea keyed off by a magazine article about liners lost in the Atlantic and how, in the days before…

THE PANEL NATASHA BARDON Publishing Director, HarperVoyager JENNI HILL Commissioning Editor, Orbit BELLA PAGAN Editorial Director, Tor GILLIAN REDFEARN Publishing Director, Gollancz Should you write what seems to be popular or what you want to write? JH While I encourage every writer to read around their chosen genre and see what’s out there, I’d recommend doing this as a fan rather than doing it with a purely commercial mindset. GR A story which is perfect for the market right now might have been acquired two years ago, and written five or six or even ten years ago, when the market was radically different. And there’s no predicting where it’s going to go next. BP Personally, I feel a combination would produce the best result. I’m a big believer in authors…

THE PANEL ROB BOFFARD Author of the Outer Earth trilogy DHONIELLE CLAYTON Author of The Belles (out 8 February) LUCY HOUNSOM Author of the Worldmaker trilogy MARIA LEWIS Author of Who’s Afraid? and Who’s Afraid Too? How important is social media for an author? ML It’s so valuable and so awesome. I honestly cannot stress that enough. Writing books can be a lonely thing and often it feels like you’re trapped, alone in a room for a long time shouting into the void and hoping just one person will give a damn about the world you’re creating. Social media and the online community is the way people reach out whether they’re in Aberdeen or Alaska. LH I do feel an author has a duty to her audience – at least to be visible. It’s no longer solely up to…

IT’S THE URTEXT OF SCIENCE FICTION. THE Rosetta stone. The book responsible for the genre’s vocabulary – establishing its themes, announcing its promise. Tales of speculative fiction were told before Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus was first published 200 years ago, on 1 January 1818. It was author Mary Shelley, however, who launched SF as a viable means of mainstream storytelling. Before HG Wells wrote of Martians invading Earth, before Jules Verne made Captain Nemo the scourge of the planet’s oceans, a teenage girl conceived of a man, Victor Frankenstein, who tried to create life, but instead birthed a monster. Shelley’s story began in June of 1816, when she and her husband, the Romantic poet Percy Shelley, challenged each other and their friends Lord Byron and Doctor John Polidori to…

RELEASED 16 February 15 | 123 minutes Director Guillermo del Toro Cast Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones Eleven years ago, a girl met a faun at the bottom of a labyrinth. During a slow waltz of seduction, he revealed that she was a princess and that he could return her to the magical kingdom of her birth. In kind, the intoxicated girl promised to do anything he asked. The Shape Of Water swaps the war-torn 1940s for the early ’60s, and the leafy forests of rural Spain for a slice of urban America, but it could easily be the sequel to Pan’s Labyrinth. It creates a bubble of the otherworldly out of the mundane and conjures romance in the midst of conflict –…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 103 minutes Director Adam Robitel Cast Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Kirk Acevedo Four films into the Insidious series, it’s starting to feel like we’ve seen every trick this particular franchise has to offer. Despite its title, The Last Key – written by co-creator Leigh Whannell (who pops up as usual as nerdy ghost hunter Specs) – again turns back the clock to before the first film, and brings the supernatural closer to home for Lin Shaye’s psychic Elise Rainier. Called to investigate creepy goings-on at her childhood home – it may not surprise you to learn that she didn’t exactly enjoy an idyllic family life – she discovers some very real monsters that have a connection to the sort of demonic goings-on she…

DEMON SEED In Donald Cammell’s 1977 SF-horror (based on Dean Koontz’s novel) Julie Christie’s character is imprisoned and impregnated by Proteus IV, an AI which synthesises spermatozoa from her cells. Their spawn is really, underneath its covering of golden armour, human… but speaks with Proteus’s robotic voice. FARSCAPE Your average bairn isn’t born packing a sonic ascendancy cannon, but then Farscape isn’t your average TV show. John Crichton and co travel in Moya, a sentient biomechanical spaceship. After a synthetic conceptive is accidentally released, she gives birth to a child, Talyn. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Are Blade Runner 2049’s writers BSG fans? The reboot series’ Cylons were very like Replicants, and a recurring plotline featured Hera, a human/Cylon child born to Eight-model Cylon Athena and Raptor pilot Karl Agathon. BINARY DOMAIN Sega’s…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/ DVD/download Director Matthew Vaughn Cast Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Channing Tatum The sequel to Matthew Vaughn’s spirited 007 pastiche opens with a stylised scrap in a London black cab. It’s indicative of the film’s approach – forget going funnier or deeper, The Golden Circle is, effectively, a steroidal remounting of the original that pushes the action sequences to ever more implausible levels. That’s a shame. For while the original was punchy fun, it also had likeable characters, a platonic friendship between its male hero and the female lead (Sophie Cookson’s Roxy) and a genuine sense of peril. The Golden Circle rapidly dispenses with all these things. Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is brought back to life thanks to magic Polyfilla.…

RELEASED 5 FEBRUARY 1974 | 18 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Not many films feature a woman squatting in seaweed pleasuring herself, to explosion sound effects, but c’est rien d’exceptionnel for cult director Jean Rollin. After wreckers guide a ship onto rocks, they terrorise two mute survivors, later given vengeful powers by a mysterious figure. Are they dead? Is he the Devil? Don’t expect answers. Do expect abundant nudity, dreamlike oddness and scenic locations (like a ruined Abbey). Sadly, bookending rape sequences spoil the fun. Extras Trailers.…

RELEASED 19 FEBRUARY 2016 | 15 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Director Derek Nguyen Cast Kate Nhung, Kim Xuan, Jean-Michel Richaud, Rosie Fellner In French-occupied Indochina in the 1950s, impoverished young Linh (Kate Nhung) arrives at the rubber plantation of Captain Laurent (Jean-Michel Richaud) begging for work. She becomes his housemaid, and quickly begins to fall for him, despite whispers about murdered slaves and the Captain’s wife, who the servants say killed herself and their baby. Taking cues from films like The Others and Crimson Peak, The Housemaid tries so hard to be a lush gothic melodrama. The setting is ripe for it too, with the balmy Vietnamese heat contrasting so deliciously with the shadowy chill of the Captain’s mansion. But the film feels derivative, laden with overworked imagery…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2015 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD/ download Director Raman Hui Cast Balhe Bai, Boran Jing, Wu Jiang, Elaine Jin A huge hit in its native China back in 2015, Monster Hunt has nevertheless been slow to make its way to the UK. It’s something of a mystery as to why it wasn’t snapped up earlier: this is a familyfriendly treat. The love child of Men In Black and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it sees director Raman Hui and writer Alan Yuen mine monster tales for the story of a conflict between the worlds of humans and creatures. Part slapstick comedy, part grand adventure, it’s a little frenetic in places, but consistently entertaining thanks to winning lead performances by the likes of Boran Jing and Balhe Bai, and some…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1964 | PG | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Director Terence Fisher Cast Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Thorley Walters The only SF film (thus far) to have had its title pinched for a UB40 single, this British B-movie transcends its small budget and limited horizons thanks to solid characterisation and an air of the uncanny. The setup has echoes of The Midwich Cuckoos, as the inhabitants of a village (and, presumably, the whole country) are knocked out. No one wakes up though, with a handful of survivors theorising that a gas attack took place. It anticipates Night Of The Living Dead, as the dead are reanimated; a caddish “every man for himself” type (the excellent Dennis Price) also brings to mind Romero’s classic. Doctor Who…

RELEASED 22 FEBRUARY 368 pages | Hardback/ebook/ audiobook Author Holly Cave Publisher Quercus In Holly Cave’s debut novel, the rich can buy their way into heaven. But this is no fantasy tale. The Memory Chamber is set in a near future where you can have your consciousness preserved in a bespoke VR afterlife created from your favourite memories. Isabel Argent is one of the world’s top heaven “architects”, but while she enjoys her job she has nagging doubts about its ethics. She’s forced to face those doubts head on when she has an affair with a client, whose wife is found murdered on the same day he dies. Does Isabel have the right to enter his heaven in order to prove his innocence? All of which sounds like a great…

RELEASED 8 FEBRUARY 480 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Robert Dinsdale Publisher Del Rey As genre readers, we have more tolerance than most for lengthy stories. Thousand-page space operas? Sounds perfect to us, Mr Hamilton! A fourteenvolume fantasy saga? Sign us up pronto, Messrs Jordan and Sanderson! Okay, the idea that perhaps some books don’t need to be quite as long as they are isn’t exactly a groundbreaking observation for a genre reviewer to make. Nor is Robert Dinsdale’s latest anywhere near the Wheel Of Time in this regard. But it’s always frustrating when a neat little tale gets smothered under the weight of Too Many Pages. And neat it is. One winter’s day in 1917, a desperate teenage runaway takes a job in Papa Jack’s Emporium, a toyshop teeming with…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 311 pages | Hardback/ebook Authors will.i.am, Brian David Johnson Publisher Penguin Books Celebrities-as-authors can be a wobbly genre – the pull of a familiar name can be a big selling point, and it often seems to be the case that the lure of star-power matters more than actual quality. For this YA novel, musician will.i.am has paired up with futurist Brian David Johnson to create a story about, well… wizards and robots. The story is told over three timelines: a medieval castle, where storming robots destroy a magical text; the near future, where teen Ada Luring watches her mother’s work developing the first true artificial intelligence; and the year 3019, where robots attempt to defend the last of humanity from an invading Swarm. There are time travel…

As ever, there’ve been far more books published this month than we could possibly cover. Co-written by Dana Fredsti (author of the Plague Town trilogy) and David Fitzgerald, TIME SHARDS (out now, Titan Books), sees a cataclysmic event in the 23rd century shattering 600 years of history into fragments, resulting in past, present and future existing alongside one another. Katherine Arden continues the adventures of her heroine Vasya in THE GIRL IN THE TOWER (out now, Del Rey), the second in her folktaleinspired Winternight series, set in medieval Russia. We awarded predecessor The Bear And The Nightingale , calling it, “beautifully written and richly textured”. Elizabeth Moon’s military SF series Vatta’s Peace (featuring recurring protagonist Admiral Ky Vatta) also has a second instalment, INTO THE FIRE (6 February, Orbit); we…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Black Crown/IDW Writer Peter Milligan Artist Tess Fowler ISSUES 1-3 The first offering from former Vertigo editor Shelly Bond’s new Black Crown line, Kid Lobotomy’s mindbending scenario harks back to Peter Milligan’s surreal reinvention of Shade the Changing Man for DC’s cutting edge imprint in the early ’90s. An erstwhile rock musician who suffers from a deep psychosis, the eponymous Kid undergoes a radical procedure known as “new lobotomy” which combines “hints of cannibalism, shamanistic ritual and Dada”. Much to the annoyance of his treacherous sister Rosebud, Kid’s scheming father then puts him in charge of rundown haunted hotel the Suites, whose oddball guests include shapeshifting manager Ottla and receptionist Gervais. With Milligan channeling his long-standing influences, the series takes its name from the Lobotomy Kid,…

released 8 February Publisher Rebellion Writers Gerry Finley-Day, Simon Spurrier Artists Jose Luis Ferrer, Alfonso Azpiri, Cam Kennedy COLLECTION Ants as the enemy had been done before Ant Wars – notably in the films Phase IV and Empire Of The Ants, and the Doctor Who story “The Web Planet”. But none of those had a scene where two Scottish football fans, hiking across Argentina after their team was knocked out of the 1978 World Cup, get eaten by giant ants. Ant Wars was a very early 2000 AD series, and it’s pure, unabashed pulp thrills and violence. It follows a Brazilian army captain and a young man from a jungle tribe, who encounter ants that have grown vast after (inevitably) being exposed to an experimental pesticide. The depiction of South…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PC Publisher Mind’s Eclipse Interactive VIDEOGAME Low on budget but high on ideas, this visual novella sadly betrays the inexperience of its makers. Set over 300 years in the future, it casts you as an amnesiac scientist who wakes up inside a deserted research station, keen to find his wife and daughter with the help of an AI companion. Gradually, the mystery of what happened is teased out through dozens of messages, accessed via datapads, terminals, and by interfacing with the operating systems of various corpses. There are moments of intrigue, with the nature of an event called the Eclipse proving one of the more compelling mysteries. The narrative explores weighty themes: transhumanism, surveillance, mortality. It poses uneasy questions about the role of the protagonist,…

RELEASED 1 FEBRUARY 197 minutes | CD/download Publisher BBC Audio AUDIO DRAMA Dirk Maggs has had a very successful run adapting Neil Gaiman stories for radio: Neverwhere, Good Omens, Stardust, and now Anansi Boys, Gaiman’s 2005 story of a dead African father and his hapless son – or should that be sons? Fat Charlie Nancy is still recovering from his dad’s death when he learns that he apparently has a brother he never knew – one he can summon with a few muttered words to the nearest eight-legged creature. But when Spider shows up and sets up home in Charlie’s spare room, impersonating him at work and falling in love with his fiancée, Charlie soon regrets inviting him into his life. Oh yes, and it turns out their father was…

We all knew it already, but HBO has finally confirmed that we will have to wait until 2019 for the final season of Game Of Thrones. In further unsurprising news, The Walking Dead has been renewed for ninth season. In another corner of the George RR Martin-verse (is that a thing?), a series based on his space-set novella Nightflyers has been picked up by Syfy. Boardwalk Empire’s Gretchen Mol leads the cast. Gillian Anderson says that season 11 will be her last on The X-Files. TV series based on Snowpiercer gets the greenlight from TNT in the US. X-Men saga The Gifted, and Netflix shows The Punisher and Dark all awarded second seasons. In slightly interconnected news, the second season of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (now on Netflix) will be its last. Catastrophe’s…

SCI-FACT! John Krasinski dropped out of Cloverfield 3 to star in Amazon series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. 135 CHRISTOPHER LAMBERT Connor MacLeod in Highlander He was the immortal Connor MacLeod in Highlander, the melancholic hero who wandered through time, avoiding getting his head chopped off. Now, after four decades in the industry, he plays a villain for the first time in Kickboxer: Retaliation, out now to download, and available on Blu-ray and DVD from 5 March. Would you play Connor again? I could play Ramirez. I don’t think I could play the role of the Highlander because, the thing is, Highlander is immortal, therefore 100 years for him is like ten years for us. He ages very slowly, Sean Connery in the first Highlander or the second is probably 2,000…

SCI-FACT! Altered Carbon was inspired by an argument that Richard Morgan had with a Buddhist about the unfairness of karma. IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE “I’m so engulfed in this world. That’s one of the main reasons that I wanted to become an actor. I felt that the first time, when I did Crime And Punishment on stage. It was one of my favourite novels, and I was like, ‘Oh, now I get to meet these people!’ Because when another actor embodies these characters, they come to life. All of a sudden, my favourite novel… I was in it. And I’m having a similar experience with this.” MIND TRAINING “I felt it was more interesting to downplay [Kovacs’s mental abilities]. Richard Morgan does the same thing in the novel. It becomes less interesting…

SCI-FACT! Johnson’s 2014 book, 21st Century Robot, combined stories about robots and AI with a guide to building them. As Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein celebrates its 200th birthday, Sarah Maria Griffin is putting her own spin on that old tale of life from lifelessness. Spare And Found Parts is set in a future that has shunned advanced technology, where a young woman decides to build her own artificial being. “Generally, classic literature feels a lot like homework… but nothing about Shelley’s original has that effect,” Griffin tells us. “She became the mother of science fiction, and in that spirit, Spare And Found Parts came to be about a young woman who is a creator, too. I wanted to subvert the idea of a female creator. Nell, the protagonist, does not become…

Oscar Isaac voicing Gomez in animated Addams Family movie… Walter Hamada (IT, the Conjuring movies) the new head of DC movies… Paramount bringing legendary ’70s toy line The Micronauts to the screen 16 October 2020… Gore Verbinski bowing out of directing Gambit… Judi Dench and Josh Gad joining Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Artemis Fowl… Original Michael Myers Nick Castle reprising the role in the new Halloween… The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius co-scripting 3D animated feature Little Jules Verne… The next GI Joe set to open 27 March 2020… New Mutants release date pushed back to 22 February 2019 while Deadpool 2 moves forward to 18 May 2018… James Gunn producing an untitled horror movie to be directed by David Yarovesky… John Wick Vol 2’s Chad Stahelski directing adap of Ed Brubaker’s Kill Or Be Killed comic, and the Highlander reboot… Jim Broadbent and Dunkirk’s Harry Collett joining The Voyage Of Doctor Dolittle… Woody…

“NEW WAVE PAVED THE WAY FOR AUTHORS SUCH AS PHILIP K DICK” Science fiction is a progressive and transgressive genre which challenges our perceptions and conceptions and forces us to look at our own world and lives, whether it’s set in Gotham, Gondor, or Golgafrincham. In short, it has a lot in common with punk, both the musical movement of the 1970s and the post-punk flowerings it begat, and the general aesthetic administered to a staid and cosy establishment, turning things on their heads and sticking two fingers up to the mainstream. But what SF media really embodies the ethos and spirit of punk? Well, on the face of it, genre is dripping with punk… cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, biopunk, atompunk, Uncle-Tom-Cobley-And-All-Punk. Cyberpunk was the granddaddy of these, of course, and…

When did you first encounter the Black Panther? discovered the character in college. I went to Howard University, which is a historically black college, so seeing that character at that particular time obviously resonated for me. To be able to do this, having that background, is an amazing thing. Were there any stories or visuals you drew on for inspiration? The Killmonger fights are ones I paid particular attention to. There’s a fight by Christopher Priest that lasts for a long time – days and days. T’Challa’s sense of losing a battle in order to win a battle was something of particular interest for me, because that reveals his strategy. There’s also a Christopher Priest scene where he draws Mephisto the devil into his ancestral realm, and he’s surrounded by…

Lots of people have a novel in them, but how do you get it published? We get tips from the professionals… THE PANEL HEATHER CHILD Everything About You is out in April ALEXANDRA CHRISTO To Kill A Kingdom is out in March DOMINIC DULLEY Shattermoon is out in May DAVID MEALING Soul Of The World is out 8 February NICK SETCHFIELD The War In The Dark is out in July Did you have any strategies for getting published? AC I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I suppose my strategy was making sure I revised my work over and over until I knew it was good enough. NS It’s wise to research the market but there are so many variables you’ll never be able to calculate, from the individual tastes of editors to the number of titles a publisher has…

BETH LEWIS Author of The Wolf Road, whose new novel, Bitter Sun, is out in June The editing process feels like you’re five years old and you’re proudly presenting a drawing to your parent only to have them re-sketch the whole thing and tell you to start again. It can be brutal, frustrating and demoralising but it can also be exciting and invigorating. It forces you to take a step back from your work, give you a new perspective on how a certain character or story beat comes across to readers. It’s not an exaggeration that you need a thick skin to be an author. But editing is such an important part of the process and I don’t believe any published book has not benefitted from a solid edit. Now…

THE PANEL VIC JAMES Author of The Dark Gifts trilogy CHARLES STROSS Author of Dark State (and many more) EJ SWIFT Author of Paris Adrift, (out 8 February) How did writing your second book compare with the first? CS Every novel is different. VJ The second book was the most… fiddly. It had to both develop all the plot strands that are relevant to the finale in book three, and snip off the threads that have resolved. In book two, several characters surprised me – one of them rather inconveniently, by dying! EJS The second book in the Osiris Project, Cataveiro, was easier and the third, Tamaruq, was definitely the hardest. With Cataveiro I was working with new landscapes, new characters and narratives, and that was very freeing. Tamaruq widened the canvas again, but with that decision…

CHARLAINE HARRIS AUTHOR OF THE SOUTHERN VAMP IRE MYST ERIES SERIES THAT INSPIRED SEVEN SEASONS OF TRUE BLOOD When you were first writing the novels did film/TV even cross your mind? When you were first writing the novels did film/TV even cross your mind? How involved were you on a day-to-day basis with True Blood on TV? I wasn’t involved at all, though I was always welcome on the set, and I was ready to be consulted, which happened a couple of times. It was important to me to maintain a separation. My job is writing books, not monitoring someone else’s expertise in visual arts. Did the TV show coming back to the stories after you’d written them allow you to get a different perspective on them? I’m maybe not as detached…

If you need evidence that a film shouldn’t adhere too closely to the book on which it’s based, look no further than director Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 misfire, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Starring Branagh as Victor Frankenstein and Robert De Niro as the creature, it’s the most faithful of all Frankenstein adaptations, but loses the book’s spirit in a sea of histrionics. It does, however, yield one memorable scene… “The monster,” recalls Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, “has just been brought to life, and Branagh and the monster wrestle in this amniotic fluid. It’s just so excessively visually homoerotic and gooey. That was a good touch by Branagh, because it’s nowhere in the novel.”…

THE GILL-MAN & KAY Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) was a big influence on Guillermo del Toro. After seeing the film at age seven, he used to sketch the titular Gill-Man and Kay (the ichthyologist he abducts) over and over: “I had them eating ice cream, on a double bicycle, having dinner…” ABE SAPIEN & NUALA This isn’t Doug Jones’s first chance for romance in a del Toro film. In Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Abe Sapien becomes smitten with Elf princess Nuala… who ends up sacrificing herself to save Hellboy’s life, and dying in Abe’s arms. Gulp. ICHTHYANDER & GUTIERE Like Abe Sapien, the titular character of 1962’s Amphibian Man (made in the USSR, but set in Mexico) was born a regular human. Then his surgeon father saved…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1971/1970/1976 | 15/12/18 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Directors Roy Ward Baker, Jimmy Sangster, Peter Sykes Cast Ralph Bates, Martine Beswick, Kate O’Mara, Richard Widmark, Christopher Lee BLU-RAY DEBUT Changing a character’s gender? Pfft, there’s nowt new about that. Thankfully, Doctor Who’s Christmas special didn’t feature the regenerated Time Lord delightedly examining their new breasts in a mirror – unlike Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde, the most eye-catching entry in StudioCanal’s latest wave of Hammer Blu-rays. A characteristically mischievous effort from former Avengers script editor Brian Clemens, it’s more Jack the Ripper flick than Stevenson story, all pea-soupers and dead doxies (the source of the female hormones that effect the transformation). Ralph Bates – then being groomed as a replacement for Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing –…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 12 | DVD Like a less malevolent episode of Black Mirror, Rememory takes a single concept – what if you could experience memories again thanks to a technological innovation – and pushes it to its extremes. Peter Dinklage plays Sam Bloom, forced to confront a tragedy in his past while solving a vague whodunit. It’s sedately paced, and the score bashes you over the head with its attempts at profundity, but it’s a thoughtful, likeable movie, and Dinklage is superb. Extras Commentary; Making Of.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 15 | DVD For a fleeting moment in this supernatural revenger, The Room’s Tommy Wiseau shows up as a snake-handling showman. It’s cringe-inducing, but he’s still not the worst actor here. That goes to Candy Clark, whose turn as the hysterical grandmother of a murdered teen is so embarrassing it’s almost impossible to look at her. Dated monster effects and a complete lack of story (the killer’s revealed within 30 minutes) make this a strong contender for the worst horror you’ll see this year – already! Extras None.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Michael Almereyda Cast Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Lois Smith, Tim Robbins Michael Almereyda began his feature career writing about sexy gynoids (see Cherry 2000). But his latest examination of the relationship between humanity and technology is rather more mature. Coming across like a chin-stroking, arthouse take on Black Mirror, it’s set in a future where people use “Primes” of dead loved ones to aid the grieving process, or provide companionship for the elderly. These holographic simulacras learn via conversation, gradually growing more like the dearly departed – or rather, the way people remember them. Jon Hamm plays a Prime of the dementia-stricken Marjorie (Lois Smith)’s late husband. But he’s only the first one we encounter as the story proceeds through the…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Rachel Talalay Cast Peter Capaldi, David Bradley, Pearl Mackie, Mark Gatiss “Doctor, I let you go…” Peter Capaldi’s final line feels like this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special in miniature: not only an actor surrendering the best gig in television but a showrunner, too. “Twice Upon A Time” is as much a festive victory lap for Steven Moffat as its star. A fond, witty coda to an era, it extends the Twelfth Doctor’s regeneration to tantric proportions to tell a surprisingly small-scale story. For all the dark god posturing – the Oncoming Storm! The Butcher of Skull Moon! – the Doctor’s out to save a single life, a doomed English army officer given authentic heart by Mark Gatiss (the Lethbridge- Stewart…

RELEASED 6 FEBRUARY 320 pages | Paperback/ebook Author EJ Swift Publisher Solaris Everyone knows how time travel works. You accidentally squash a mosquito in the past, then get home to discover that Ned Flanders rules the world. With the tiniest change sure to have massive unintended consequences, maybe it’s safest just to stay put. There’s no place like now, right? Hallie certainly tries not to time travel. She really does. The fact that her particular now is Paris, in 2017 – specifically, the legendarily bohemian Boulevard de Clichy, haunt of artists and home of risqué cabaret for over a century – probably helps with her chronometrical abstinence. So when she stumbles on the local anomaly, a time-travel portal located in the beer cellar of the bar where she works, she…

RELEASED 8 FEBRUARY 372 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Katherine Clements Publisher Headline The ghosts of the Brontë sisters loom large over this gothic chiller set on the Yorkshire Moors in the aftermath of the English Civil War. You can almost feel the wind whipping through the pages of this clever gothic horror, which mixes a Wuthering Heights-esque love story with a MR James-esque fire-side frightener and a James Herriot-esque fascination with sheep. Mercy Booth is a dyed-inthe- wool farmer and mistress of the ominous Scarcross Hall, an estate that’s rumoured to be cursed after the deaths of the previous owners. When lambs are found sacrificially slaughtered and odd goings-on observed in Scarcross, Mercy has to rely on a mysterious stranger to save her livelihood and the deteriorating sanity of her…

RELEASED 13 FEBRUARY 144 pages | Hardback Author Simon Ward Publisher Titan Books A companion to last year’s Netflix movie about a girl’s friendship with a genetically modified creature. It’s packed with stills, behind-the-scenes photos, concept art and storyboards. The designs featuring Mija with her giant pig are cute enough to work as art in their own right. The plans for Okja herself boast impressive levels of detail – there’s even an anatomically correct “butts up” shot. There’s also plenty of behind-the-scenes info – including the sight of “Stuffy”, the scale model of Okja who filled in on set. While the words play second fiddle to the pictures, they’re often worthwhile, particularly when quotable director Bong Joon Ho chips in – apparently the male super-pig Alfonso is “just one giant…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx Paperback highlights this month include China Miéville’s novella THE LAST DAYS OF NEW PARIS , 8 February, Picador), which imagines an “S-Blast” – an explosion of surrealistic energy – hitting Paris during World War II. By 1950, surrealistic artworks made real roam the streets of the French capital, which the Nazis have attempted to seal off. We said: “A strange and uncompromising book that reminds us that the old weird of surrealism still has the power to shock.” The Company Of Wolves director Neil Jordan’s CARNIVALESQUE ( , 8 February, Bloomsbury) centres on a carnival with a very unusual hall of mirrors. After Irish teenager Andy walks in, a reflection walks out, and goes home with his mum and dad… We said:…

RELEASED 6 FEBRUARY 403 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Sarah Maria Griffin Publisher Titan Books A constructed, patchedtogether body; flashes of lightning; the creation of new life… nope, not Frankenstein’s monster, but in its 200th year there are definitely shades of Mary Shelley’s creature in this post-apocalyptic tale. Years after “the Turn”, in which modern society was destroyed and survivors left with missing organs or limbs, Nell struggles to make her mark and find her own way of contributing to the new community. Her father is the pioneer of biomechanical body parts, including her own ticking artificial heart, while her mother engineered a towering statue bringing hope and focus to the town. Nell dreams of bringing together her father’s work with the remnants of computers that still exist to create a…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx COMICS RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writer/artist Sean Gordon Murphy ISSUES 1-3 “What if the Joker turned sane?” is an irresistible story hook, and it’s no surprise that the concept has been explored several times in Batman’s 79-year history. The latest outing for the idea arrives in miniseries Batman: White Knight, and this time it’s given an additional, more political twist: “What if the Joker was Gotham City’s true saviour?” Taking an out-of-continuity, Elseworlds approach to the Batman mythos, this eight-issue story begins with the Joker being brutally apprehended by Batman and overdosed with experimental psychological medication. The result is a return to the Joker’s original identity, failed comedian Jack Napier, and with his newfound sanity Napier sets out to expose…

Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx RELEASED OUT NOW! 221 minutes | CD/download Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA “Twice Upon A Time” was a charming showcase for David Bradley’s take on the First Doctor, but it didn’t give away much about how he would play the character in a normal adventure. These two stories rectify that – and feature 100% less comedy sexism. “The Destination Wars”, by Matt Fitton, finds the ship landing in “Space Year 2003” on an alien world. This apparently peaceable utopia has dark secrets that are revealed when it becomes clear that the world’s development has been heavily influenced by the Master. Though a little over-stretched at just over two hours (that, in itself, is authentic to the era!), there’s a lot of fun…