Inhaltsverzeichnis für April 2018 in SFX

BBC Radio 4 was like audio wallpaper in our house when I was a kid. Even now, the sounds are incredibly evocative: the Archers theme, for example, never fails to make me wish I was somewhere else. But nothing made as big an impact on my small ears as The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – hardly a surprise, seeing as Douglas Adams’s universe is among the richest and most inventive ever created. Where else would you encounter a being called Slartibartfast, understand every language in the universe courtesy of a fish in your ear, or learn that the answer to life, the universe and everything is… 42? Whether your first encounter was via radio, TV or the least accurately titled trilogy of novels in history (let’s not mention the…

What is the key to making Olaf more of an appealing villain than an obnoxious one? Olaf never learns from his mistakes. He thinks that when he fails, if he just tries one more time, he’ll succeed, and he gets more and more desperate as the show goes on. There’s something maniacal and delusional about that, which makes it easy to play in the repetition of it all. It’s been exciting to be Olaf as random characters who are as different from Olaf as possible to juxtapose the darkness of Olaf with the ridiculousness. That’s been the fun part, artistically. What are the challenges of being an actor playing an actor playing other roles badly? It’s a little meta. I have to choose my times to have his guises drop…

Ahead of Jodie Whittaker’s full debut later this year, four of the Time Lord’s previous female foils are taking centre stage in The Day She Saved The Doctor. Composed of four stories by Susan Calman, Jenny Colgan, Jacqueline Rayner and Dorothy Koomson, it focuses on four companions in Bill, Clara, Rose and Sarah Jane. “Elisabeth Sladen made Sarah Jane such a compelling character,” says Jacqueline Rayner, who sends Sarah Jane to ancient Rome to investigate why women are going blind. “She had strength and compassion, even when she was scared. And in The Sarah Jane Adventures, she effectively became the Doctor, so if you’re looking for proof that the Doctor can be played by a female actor, just look at Sarah Jane.” Stating that it “allowed her to look at…

Elvis didn’t die. He went into retirement and eventually teamed up with JFK to fight a resurrected Egyptian mummy – everyone knows that. But what was his life like before these events were detailed in Bubba Ho-Tep? If author Joe R Lansdale is to be believed, the answer is “strange”. Based on Lansdale’s 2017 novel, Bubba Ho-Tep And The Cosmic Bloodsuckers is a new comic miniseries co-written by Joshua Jabcuga with art from Tadd Galusha. It finds the King working with a new team to take down the forces of darkness. “What I can tell you,” says Lansdale, “is that before Bubba Ho-Tep, Elvis had a life he no longer remembers. His contact with Bubba in the old folk’s home was not his first encounter with the strange. And in…

SCI-FI WEEKENDER 22-25 March Want genre stars in their awesome person? Look no further! The likes of Christopher Judge, William Hope, Dawn Harris and others will all be here in North Wales. scifiweekender.com MARVEL MADAME TUSSAUDS March The waxy wonders are blasting off to Blackpool for a four-part exhibit that puts you up close and personal with Thor, Spider- Man, Hulk and others. madametussauds.com/blackpool MCM BIRMINGHAM 17-18 March Guardians Of The Galaxy’s Michael Rooker and Sean Gunn, Deadpool’s Brianna Hildebrand and Supernatural’s Mark Sheppard lead the impressive guest list at this NEC con. mcmcomiccon.com SECRET CINEMA 21 March-10 June Secret Cinema celebrates its 10th birthday, bringing the total immersion movie experience to Blade Runner: The Final Cut. secretcinema.org HOLLY BLACK March The US fantasy author visits the UK this month,…

NICK Promising, given the behind-the-scenes bloodletting. Howard nails a consistent tone and I like how Ehrenreich suggests the soft centre behind the scoundrel exterior. KIMBERLEY Call me snooty but the trailer isn’t very exciting. Why does everything look so grey? Why is the tone so wooden? And just where is Han’s roguish charm? Do not like. Do not want. RICH Han’s a rogue, meets Lando, flies the Falcon and there’s some heist element... Not much we didn’t know before, but I love the Western vibe, and Ehrenreich has some swagger. JON It’s Guardians Of The Galaxy, but without the gags, the colours, and the cool tunes. Not impressed so far. And why change that iconic shape of the Falcon? Donald G looks promising though.…

SCI - FACT! Mortal Engines has spawned three sequels and three prequels, so there’s scope for a franchise. “Everything’s colossal,” says Mortal Engines author Philip Reeve. “That’s kind of its USP!” Based on Reeve’s 2001 novel, the Peter Jackson-produced adaptation of Mortal Engines could literally be the biggest film ever. Directed by Christian Rivers, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic future that’s reminiscent of Mad Max: Fury Road – aside from the fact it’s filled with vast travelling cities that consume each other for precious resources. “The story takes place in Europe and then into central Asia but it’s so removed and so far away from our world that those national boundaries don’t really matter anymore,” Reeve tells Red Alert. “They’re gone and have been forgotten about, so it’s now just…

Kushiel’s Dart was the first book that showed me what an adult fantasy novel could be. Obviously I’m winking at the term “adult” here (because yes, this book has a lot of sex in it), but the fantasy part is why I read it. I’ve loved grand, epic adventure yarns since I was in grade school, and Carey’s debut is every bit the magical, sweeping story of larger-than-life heroes out to save their world. It’s also deeply sexual, deeply feminine, and, for me, challenged genre conventions in a way that still serves as a guiding light for where I see fantasy needing to grow. Carey’s Terre d’Ange is built from the ground up on love and sexuality. Aleister Crowley’s “do as thou wilt” becomes “love as thou wilt”, with the…

“THE BIGGEST DANGER IS HOW WE CAN CREATE OUR OWN MADNESS” Biodata Occupation Actress Born 13 September 1951 From Seattle, Washington Greatest hits 24, Designing Women, Batman: The Animated Series, Static Shock, Project X Random fact Smart played serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story a decade before Charlize Theron did in Monster. If you’ve followed Jean Smart’s illustrious career at all over the last four decades, then you know just about every character she plays becomes a standout. From classic US comedies like Designing Women and Frasier, to her recent work on the TV series Fargo, where she terrified everyone playing a Midwestern crime family matriarch, Smart proves again and again that she’s a chameleon of frightening ability. However, genre fans have been robbed of her…

What’s Nate’s involvement in the Jaeger programme? He’s been in the Jaeger programme since he was a kid, and Nate is the tip of the spear. He’s also an instructor, so he’s instructing these kids, and that’s sort of his mission. He has to push them and not take it easy on them. There are no real-world Jaegers, obviously, but did you speak to pilots to get an idea of what it’s like to drive something like that? I’ve flown since I was a kid, so I didn’t need to talk to many pilots because I already was one. And I have been in a few military films, so I know how chain of command works, so it wasn’t a huge stretch. Ten years have passed since the events of…

Ever since its premiere, rumours of a mythical director’s cut of Event Horizon have abounded, especially in relation to the heavily edited hellscape sequences, where we glimpse the dimension of chaos through various characters’ visions. These scenes were cut drastically to help the film achieve an R rating instead of the dreaded commercial kiss of death, an NC-17. As archiving material wasn’t as common at that time, many scenes were lost, seemingly for good. Years later, however, original prints were allegedly found in a salt mine in Transylvania, but had deteriorated too much to be included in any subsequent release.…

METEOR MAN In this 1993 comedy, writer/ director Robert Townsend plays a mildmannered teacher who’s given powers like super-breath and dog telepathy by a glowing green meteorite, then uses them to take on a drug gang. BLANKMAN Damon Wayans is the titular hero in this childish 1994 spoof. A bumbling, bespectacled virgin, he fights crime using ramshackle gadgets built from junk, wearing a costume made from long johns and his gran’s housecoat! STEEL This 1997 DC movie was Incredible Hulk/V/Alien Nation creator Kenneth Johnson’s brainchild. Basketball star Shaquille O’Neal is the ex-army weapons designer who takes on the gangs with an armoured suit and a giant electrohammer. Does he say “It’s hammer time”? You betcha. CATWOMAN Halle Berry is Patience Phillips, a graphic designer who acquires feline abilities after being…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2018 | 12A | 106 minutes Director Scott Speer Cast Ross Lynch, Olivia Holt, Harvey Guillen, Courtney Eaton Ever been tempted to make your online self seem cooler, more interesting, or generally better than you really are? Well, what if an app could make that better you a reality? After moving from California to Connecticut, skateboardloving Kyle (Ross Lynch) struggles to fit in at his new school. But when bullies smash his phone, he visits a mysterious repair kiosk and comes away with a magical new app. Anything he types into its status box comes true, and soon Kyle’s blagging his way into everything he ever wanted. Inevitably, there’s a catch. This is a pretty straightforward be-careful-what-you-wish-for fable: think Mean Girls meets Wishmaster. Predictable? Sure, but it’s…

This film must have been huge fun to make. A friend was like, “This is the perfect film for you. You’re basically a six-year-old. And it’s like a bunch of six-year-olds got together and each put things into a movie idea. And then you went and shot it.” It really does feel like kids in a sandpit throwing stuff around, and suddenly it’s a movie. Are you very hands-on? I definitely get in there – ruffle up the clothes, smooth out someone’s hair. Coming from a world where you had to do it yourself, you get used to operating cameras and moving people around. You don’t have time to wait for things to go down the chain to the right person. I guess we’ve got slightly looser union laws in…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2018 | SVOD Director Julius Onah Cast Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl, John Ortiz NETFLIX All of a sudden, we’re starting to wonder if Paramount will ever release a full-on sci-fi movie into UK cinemas again. First came the news that Jeff VanderMeer adaptation Annihilation would be debuting in Blighty on Netflix. Then the third Cloverfield movie dropped out of nowhere. So: innovative “disruption” of the distribution model? Or just a guaranteed way of recovering the investment on films they’ve lost confidence in? With Earth teetering on the brink of global conflict as energy reserves near exhaustion, the international crew of a space station strives to solve the crisis using a particle accelerator (quite why this needs to be tested in orbit is never adequately addressed).…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | TBC | VOD Psychologist Holly Kane (Kirsty Averton) reckons she’s developed a radical therapy for altering subconscious thoughts. But while she plans to use it for therapeutic purposes, a creepy government agency has other ideas. Cue deceit, manipulation, eerie whispering – and way too many rape scenes. There’s something in here about how people in positions of power (particularly men) abuse that power, but it’s a bit too dreary. Nice use of the Brighton locations, though.…

ATTACK ON TITAN SEASON TWO (out now, Blu-ray/DVD) is a splendid 12-episode continuation of the anime series where humanity is besieged by grotesque flesh-eating giants. Despite some clumsy storytelling, it boasts gripping setpieces and complex new characters (mostly female) who threaten to usurp the established leads. “Be careful what you wish for” is the takeaway from 1997 horror WISHMASTER (out now, Blu-ray). When a demonic djinn is reawakened in the modern day, he sets about harvesting souls by granting people’s wishes in a tricksy manner. Fans of trash will enjoy gory moments like a skeleton bursting out of a guy’s skin, and appearances by horror icons Robert Englund, Tony Todd and Kane Hodder. Also getting a first HD release: the 1990 film of THE HANDMAID’S TALE (out now, Blu-ray/ DVD),…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Jin Yong Publisher MacLehose Press Inevitably, Jin Yong gets described as “the Chinese Tolkien”. Both The Lord Of The Rings and his series Legends Of The Condor Heroes saw publication in the ’50s, both authors drew on much older literary forms, and both had a huge impact on popular culture. However, if you’re expecting high fantasy, A Hero Born won’t be what you’re looking for. This is wuxia, Chinese martial arts literature. It’s set in what’s now China in 1200AD. The Jin Empire is slowly conquering the Song Empire, seeking the aid of Temujin – Genghis Khan – and his Mongol warriors. Against this sweeping backdrop runs a story of two good men killed, their pregnant wives separated, and their two sons…

RELEASED 1 MARCH 272 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Ross Montgomery Publisher Faber & Faber There’s a delightful whiff of Monty Python about this very, very silly little book, which is aimed squarely at children who like the idea of plucky young schoolkids thwarting beastly headmasters or, if they’re of a more fantastical bent, miniature kings riding around on domesticated fleas. Well, we did say it was silly. The hero, Max, is a hearing aid-wearing outcast at a boarding school who discovers a tiny world on the floor of a teacher’s room: a world divided into three tribes (Red, Blue and Green) and full of bickering, teeny-tiny folks he must save from evil headmaster Mr Pitt. Ross Montgomery’s writing is often pure Douglas Adams – he can be very funny – and…

We rather liked Thomas Sweterlitsch’s future-noir debut Tomorrow And Tomorrow, calling him “a master of mood”. His latest, THE GONE WORLD (out now, Headline), sees an investigator looking into the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family by travelling forward in time, and there witnessing the end of humanity. Neal Shusterman’s latest YA book, SCYTHE (out now, Walker Books), is set in a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, so the only way to die is to be killed by professional “Scythes”. Meanwhile, Jen Williams’s epic fantasy trilogy The Winnowing Flame hits second instalment THE BITTER TWINS (8 March, Headline). Our reviewer loved volume one, The Ninth Rain – especially its eccentric scholar/vineyard owner/adventurer heroine. Also ongoing: RJ Barker’s The Wounded Kingdom series. Book two, BLOOD OF ASSASSINS…

COMICS RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writer Geoff Johns Artists Gary Frank, Brad Anderson ISSUES 1-3 In theory, it’d be great to review Doomsday Clock free of its complicated history. This is a sumptuous series that’s undoubtedly a cut above many recent event comics, offering gorgeous art alongside a complex storytelling approach, and under normal circumstances that would be enough. However, Doomsday Clock is also a follow-up to Watchmen, one of the most influential graphic novels ever published. It’s a book that wouldn’t be happening if original co-creator Alan Moore had any say, and it’s the centrepiece that DC’s current Rebirth saga has led to. It’s an attempt to stitch Watchmen’s characters into the fabric of the DC Universe, and the end result is a comic that’s both beautifully…

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES I don’t have enough words to say how forking brilliant season two of The Good Place was. Both exceedingly funny and exceedingly clever. Enjoyed Netflix doc The Toys That Made Us, especially the episodes on Star Wars and He-Man – now I have some idea of the thought processes that allowed Moss Man and Mekaneck to exist. IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES The second half of Star Trek: Discovery was awesome. I love how you never know where the hell this series will go next! LP of the month: “Space Museum” by Solid Space, a vinyl reissue of a bedroomband duo’s 1982 cassette with tracks inspired by Doctor Who – including a great song about “The Tenth Planet”! JONATHAN COATES ART EDITOR RAVES Watching Falcon Heavy’s boosters…

DATE Open Now LOCATION O2, London This month, a bunch of DC icons are arriving in London. After a successful run in Paris, DC Exhibition – Dawn Of Super Heroes is setting down in our fine capital, bringing with it a wealth of memorabilia, much of it never seen before, all of it guaranteed to drop jaws. “It took three years of research,” curator Jean-Jacques Launier tells Red Alert. He first unleashed the exhibit at Art Ludique-Le Musée, the museum he runs with his wife Diane, after garnering exclusive access not only to the archives of DC and Warner Bros, but also the DCEU movie sets. “We went on the set of Wonder Woman and Justice League, we met [director] Patty Jenkins,” Launier says. “There’s never been an exhibition like…

Ursula K Le Guin, who has died aged 88, was one of the towering figures within science fiction and fantasy literature. More than this, she was one of the most important writers of the latter part of the 20th century, a novelist whose work looks set not only to endure but to grow in influence over the coming decades. That’s primarily because of two novels she wrote in the late 1960s. A Wizard Of Earthsea (1968) can be read and enjoyed as a young adult fantasy, but it’s far removed from sword-and-sorcery or faux medieval fiction. As novelist and io9 founder Annalee Newitz noted when speaking to SFX: “The world-building in those books is so extraordinary. It’s an archipelago world, and she really makes an effort to think about the…

DUKING IT OUT! DUKE NUKEM ’90s gaming icon Duke Nukem is heading for the screen in the suitably outsized form of wrestler turned actor John Cena, the man with the most frankly terrifying arms in showbiz. He’s in talks to star as the pixel-punching defender of Earth in a movie currently in development at Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes and Paramount Pictures. Created by Apogee Software back in 1991, Duke is a cigar-chomping, pistol-packing, ego-stroking bad boy equipped with jet pack and blond flat-top. He’s starred in 19 games to date, including the recent Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour – but who knows if his traditional lashings of gratuitous sex and ultra-violence will make it to the big screen intact. As yet there’s no writer, no director and no release date…

Crocs, monsters and how JJ Abrams may have ruined horror OVERFIELD JJ Abrams has done it again, sneaking out a new Cloverfield movie while no one was looking – this time releasing to Netflix at the same time as the first trailer was released. Full marks for the surprise attack, I wouldn’t want to play hide and seek against him. I’m a bit worried he might have just buggered up the franchise though. Don’t get me wrong, I rather enjoyed The Cloverfield Paradox, it had some fun horror moments including bits I’m calling “worm-face”, “give us a hand” and “ice to see you”, and it reminded me of Event Horizon. But ultimately it was low rent nonsense that cheapens the series. 10 Cloverfield Lane was an excellent movie, so whether…

“Having immersed myself in the British comic heritage, from Wodehouse right the way up to Monty Python and beyond, it’s hardly surprising that The Hitchhiker’s Guide turned out as bizarre as it did.” “If I had to select just one seminal influence it would have to be Doctor Who. It’s interesting to remember how very good and utterly original Doctor Who was when it started. It genuinely conveyed the sense that you were embarking on a journey into the utterly unknown.” “2001: A Space Odyssey was another major influence. I saw it several times at the cinema soon after it came out, and [I’ve] watched it at least once a year ever since. Talking of Kubrick, I would love to write a script which he directed. Although people in the business caution me…

The working life of writers is necessarily solitary, and many novelists come across as loners. But there are exceptions. Californian Kim Stanley Robinson of Red Mars fame – who lives, in his own words, in a kind of “hippy, yuppie suburbia” cohousing community – is a man whose work constantly explores the idea of people working together to overcome shared challenges. This emphasis on the collective over individual endeavour is again to the fore in New York 2140, a tale of rising waters turning the Big Apple into a new Venice that was recently published in paperback. It also came through loud and clear when SFX sat down for an hour with Robinson, and asked him to select his heroes and inspirations… THE CHAUVET-PONT-D’ARC CAVE PAINTINGS AND THE CAVE OF…

22 YEARS. 17 GAMES. Probably too many accidental painful deaths. Can we have an RSI-plagued thumbs-up from everyone who can still remember their first Tomb Raider experience? Perhaps you’ve been acquainted with Ms Croft since her first appearance, cool and collected in her Dracula-esque round sunglasses phase as she prepared to hunt down a McGuffin known as the Scion. Or maybe you started out a little later as she took in the sights of Venice from behind dual Uzis in Tomb Raider 2. If you’re part of the latter group, yes, everyone locked the farting butler in the freezer. But who is Lara Croft? Where did she come from? And, more importantly, why are we still talking about a heroine who was once best known for her spinal-injury defying assets?…

“THIS IS THE WEIRDEST TIME I’VE LIVED THROUGH” Does it matter much how science is funded? If that sounds like a dry question, Annalee Newitz begs to differ. “A lot of scientific research is either funded by corporations or research institutions that really limit the scope of what scientists are allowed to study, but even more the scope of how they’re allowed to talk about what they study.” One result of this, she says, is that working scientists sometimes get into “grey areas” according to what’s “permitted within the scope of their grants” when it comes to doing research. “I’m not talking about anything dramatic, like stealing research equipment or murdering rivals, though that would be kind of exciting. They’re just breaking the rules, so that they can gain access…

After Event Horizon, Anderson went straight on to filming Soldier, with Kurt Russell. He decided to show Event Horizon to the star first, though. “He came around after the screening,” Anderson says, “and he said, ‘You know what, in 15 years’ time, that’s gonna be the movie you’ll be glad you made,’ which is incredibly generous from an actor who you’re just about to make a movie with, and he wasn’t going, ‘My movie’s gonna be better,’ but ‘that’s gonna be the movie’. And sure enough, you catch it 15, 20 years later, it’s the movie I’m really glad I made.”…

RELEASED 9 MARCH 15 | 83 minutes Director Brian Taylor Cast Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zackary Arthur Horror films that explore the dark side of suburbia through some kind of madness are hardly a new idea, but the sort of frenzied action beats beloved by writer/ director Brian Taylor (especially in his work with Mark Neveldine, such as Crank) bring something fresh to the table. Ostensibly a rage infection film, Mom And Dad posits a world where something mysterious triggers all parents to turn on their own kids – and just their own children, unless you happen to get in their way. If you’re looking for someone to play a father who already seems a little off-kilter, Nicolas Cage is among the top choices. He throws himself into…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2018 | U | 85 minutes Directors David Alonso, Enrique Gato Cast Trevor White, Alex Kelly, Ramon Tikaram, Gemma Whelan This is the sequel to Tad, The Lost Explorer, a 2012 animated film which was a hit in Spain, though you don’t need to have seen that to figure out what’s going on here. While it’s a bog-standard adventure romp, it’s had a lot of love and a fair bit of money lavished on it (by Spanish standards, at least), though it’s still lightyears away from the kind of quality you’d expect from an animation studio such as Pixar. It follows the titular Indiana Jones wannabe (voiced by Trevor White) on his quest to find King Midas’s golden necklace, all the while pursued by the sleazy Rackham (Ramon Tikaram)…

HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASED OUT NOW! 1953/1969/1981 | PG/U/12 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Directors Eugène Lourié, Jim O’Connolly, Desmond Davis Cast Paul Hubschmid, James Franciscus, Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker BLU-RAY DEBUT Spawning like sword-wielding skeletons, three more Ray Harryhausen classics arrive in HD as HMV exclusives. The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms finds the stop-motion magus in archetypal ’50s monsterflick mode, all lurid title font, A-bomb paranoia and citycrushing climax. An atomic test in the Arctic springs a prehistoric creature from an ice shelf – nature’s payback, clearly, for those pesky scientists writing “the first chapter of a new Genesis”. It’s inspired by Ray Bradbury’s “The Fog Horn” but misses the strange melancholy of the original: instead of a frustrated encounter between a lovesick dinosaur and a lonely lighthouse, it’s…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1988 | 18 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Ken Russell’s Bram Stoker adaptation is an absurdist, ultra-camp spectacle about a man-eating aristocrat trying to raise a demonic snake. Peter Capaldi and Hugh Grant are charismatic, but it belongs to Amanda Donohoe’s seductive Lady Sylvia, emerging from a wicker basket in thigh-high boots. It’s daft, but its melange of pagan and Catholic imagery has a hallucinatory quality. Extras Two commentaries; effects doc; two interviews; galleries; trailers.…

RELEASED 5 MARCH 1980 | 18 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Somewhere between nudie and New Wave, this Jean Rollin film sees Elysabeth (Brigitte Lahaie, terrific) found in a lane with apparent amnesia. Quickly captured, she’s returned to a tower block where similarly afflicted people are left to rot. Copious sex plays to Rollin’s reputation as an exploitation director, but his meditations on memory are more intriguing, and he evokes a disturbingly empty Paris. A strange, sad film. Extras Trailers.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 15 | DVD Director Huh Jung Cast Yum Jung-ah, Park Hyukkwon, Shin Rin-ah, Bang Yu-seol Director Huh Jung conjures both monsters and melancholy in this South Korean ghost story. Min-ho’s elderly mother is deteriorating, but he and his wife Hee-yeon (A Tale Of Two Sisters’ Yum Jung-ah) hope that a trip home to rural Mt Jang will lift her spirits – and perhaps jog a few memories of what happened to their young son, who vanished five years previously. But the town is a strange place and something nasty dwells inside the local caves. When Hee-yeon brings home a mute little girl (Shin Rin-ah) found wandering in the woods, she draws the attention of a demon with the power to copy loved ones’ voices. The…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2001 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD Director Sunao Katabuchi Cast Houko Kuwashima, Tsuyoshi Koyama, Minami Takayama, Yûsuke Numata Princess Arete is a beautiful tangle: a Japanese animation set in medieval Europe, not Japan, that was dubbed in French but never English. Released in 2001, it was overshadowed by Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, and while it’s easy to see why – Princess Arete feels cosily old-fashioned in comparison – there is a lovely story here. Informed by the sort of narratives so often found in books of fairytales, it follows a young princess who is locked away while her father chooses a worthy suitor for her. Soon, Arete is married off to a cruel, corrupt wizard who imprisons her in his castle the moment she arrives, frightened by a…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 352 pages | Hardback/ebook/ audiobook Author Nick Clark Windo Publisher Headline If you enjoy postapocalyptic fiction and tutting passive aggressively when your friends whip out their phones at the pub, you’re precisely the target demographic of Nick Clark Windo’s debut. The Feed is a sort of super-charged futuristic extrapolation of social media. Six years after its catastrophic collapse killed millions, survivors who had come to depend on the service for quasi-telepathic communication and memory storage face a struggle to survive, lacking the necessary skill sets. What’s more, they must watch one another while they sleep, in case they’re mysteriously taken over. When Tom and Kate’s daughter is abducted, it looks like a basic quest narrative is in store. But about halfway in, a twist throws everything in…

RELEASED 8 MARCH 416 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Chloe Benjamin Publisher Tinder Press How would you live your life if you knew the date of your death? That’s the dilemma facing the four children of New York Jewish family the Golds, who learn their expiry dates from a Romany woman in 1969. The book then details the lives of each sibling, from Simon (who dies first) to Varya (who dies last) over the next half century, as Chloe Benjamin explores whether this arcane knowledge shapes their life choices. The fantasy elements pretty much end with the opening prediction (later possibly supernatural events can be explained away). But that prediction powers the story, as the siblings choose very different paths. Simon decides that if he’s going to die young he may…

Leading the charge when it comes to this month’s paperback editions is Neil Gaiman’s NORSE MYTHOLOGY 8 March, WW Norton & Company). It includes 15 stories of Thor, Loki, Odin and co, organised in a chronological cycle, recounted with a lightness of touch and humour. We said: “The ancient tales are very much retold, not reinterpreted... Although marketed at adults, it’s suitable for all ages – a confident 10-year-old could handle it.” What would it be like to wake up in a skyscraper built on what was once Manhattan Island, and look out at an intertidal world of boats and canals? Kim Stanley Robinson’s NEW YORK 2140 , 8 March, Orbit) shows us by focusing on the residents of a single skyscraper in a mid-21st century future transformed by global…

Matt Berry and Kayvan Novak to star in pilot of What We Do In The Shadows TV spin-off. No happily ever after for Once Upon A Time, which is cancelled after seven seasons. The Shannara Chronicles also given the axe after two seasons. Bryan Fuller leaves his showrunner gig on Apple’s reboot of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories. HBO gives greenlight to new JJ Abrams sci-fi show Demimonde. Disney boss Bob Iger confirms that more than one Star Wars TV series is in development. Joanne Whalley joins Daredevil’s third season as Sister Maggie. The CW is going back to the ’90s for ideas, ordering pilots for reboots of Charmed and Roswell. New Superman prequel series Metropolis (set in the city before the Man of Steel’s arrival) coming to DC’s new digital streaming service.…

SCI - FACT! Lansdale says his favourite Elvis song is currently “Promised Land”, “his version of Chuck Berry’s great song”. FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY FILM I have to say one of my favourites is a film called Serenity. It was out a few years ago and there’s sort of an ingénue, the kind of person with the special powers being protected from some evil empire, and in that regard there’s echoes of the Jedi or The Matrix or even The Hobbit. It’s very stylish and unique – what it’s characterised with is a very sharp and funny script, and I think that’s sometimes lacking in the big epics. They tend to get rather lost under the weight of the expectation of the whole thing and feel ponderous. I think Serenity had a…

One of sci-fi TV’s most recognisable redheads, Patricia Tallman has been demonically screaming, killing zombies and reading our minds since the ’80s. She played telepath Lyta Alexander in Babylon 5 and Barbara in the 1990 remake of Night Of The Living Dead. These days she’s still entertaining people but in a less traditional and screamy manner, as CEO of an adventure excursion company. She’s also on the convention circuit, where there’s probably still some screaming involved... Would you like to play Barbara again? Yeah, but as my age – so an old grandma zombie killer! Because I keep seeing people as zombie killers and they’re not doing it right. I think I need to teach them how to do it! What’s the best way to kill a zombie? Definitely in…

DATE 30 March-2 April LOCATION The Majestic Hotel, Harrogate The 69th British National Science Fiction Convention is kicking off in its annual Easter slot. Pledging to deliver “a thoughtful and interactive programme that will celebrate science fiction”, it’s lined up a quartet of stellar wordsmith guests of honour. They include graphic novel writer Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + The Divine), Nova-winning author Christina Lake, Arthur C Clarke Award shortlistee Nnedi Okorafor and US author Kim Stanley Robinson. Additionally, there’ll be a space for fan-made poster art (if you have something to contribute, head over to the website for more info), plus two big concerts to rock along to. Jon Boden, formerly of folk legends Bellowhead, will be performing, while singer-songwriter Keith Donnelly will perform an evening set. To buy tickets,…

SCI - FACT! Mimban, a planet first referenced in Alan Dean Foster’s 1978 novel Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye, will appear in Solo. OUT 25 MAY 2018…

SCI - FACT! Titan will also publish Jack Kirby, Gil Kane and Steve Englehart’s long-lost ’70s Prisoner comic this July. Tell us about your protagonist, Roper. He’s the young heir to the throne of an alternate human race. His father dies in the opening chapter, which plunges him into a struggle of succession with an extremely capable and manipulative rival. He’s completely outmatched, and has to learn very fast how to fight in a completely new theatre. Are there any echoes of real-life historical situations? History is stuffed with people who’ve nailed extraordinary political coups, and that provided endless inspiration. The Romans were delightfully underhanded, and my favourite devices in the book are lifted shamelessly from them. How long did The Wolf take to write? Actually writing it down took…

This year’s Academy Award nominations are the best for SF and fantasy in recent memory. Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape Of Water picks up most nods with 13 (including Best Film, Best Director and three acting categories).Get Out also in the running for film, director and actor. Ridley Scott awarded BAFTA fellowship. Jurassic World live touring show in development, featuring life-size dinosaurs. Jason King star Peter Wyngarde dies aged 90. Jodie Whittaker confirms she’s being paid as much as Peter Capaldi was for Doctor Who. Official range of new Firefly novels coming from Titan Books. George RR Martin launches an annual “Worldbuilder” scholarship to help aspiring authors to create their own “imagined landscape”. Nick Clark Windo’s The Feed picked up as series by Amazon/Virgin Media. Alex Garland working on TV…

Emily Blunt boarding Disney’s Jungle Cruise… Mike Flanagan directing Doctor Sleep, Stephen King’s sequel to The Shining … Universal bringing Image Comics series Birthright to the screen… Screenwriter Ed Solomon exiting Universal’s The Invisible Man … Paramount adapting the Ology books… Juan Carlos Fresnadillo in negotiations to direct Disney’s live-action version of The Sword In The Stone … Agents Of SHIELD ’s Rafe Judkins rewriting the Uncharted movie… Bill Nighy, Ken Watanabe and Suki Waterhouse joining Detective Pikachu … Dileep Rao returning to Avatar … Hans Zimmer scoring X-Men: Dark Phoenix … Jumanji 2 targeting Xmas 2019… Rachel Weisz to star in SF indie Cloud One … Stephany Folsom writing Toy Story 4 … Tom Holland rumoured to cameo in Venom … Mary Elizabeth Winstead the female lead in Ang Lee’s…

“FANTASTIC PLACES ARE TETHERED TO THE REAL WORLD” There are some places that feel a bit different. That affect the senses, or the mind, or invoke an emotional response that’s hard to describe. Maybe a copse of ancient oaks that you stumble upon. Or an unmapped but-must-be-around-here-somewhere ring fort that you eventually find. Visiting these stones or trees, or a ruined church on a small island, and walking around, finding the faded carvings, creates odd sensations: why are these here? What purpose did they serve? How on earth did they get that top stone up on that dolmen without a machine? I think that there are two kinds of research for writing fantasy. One is active, where the writer goes into the world and experiences things for the sake of…

SIMON JONES “I quite enjoy my argument with the Nutri-Matic Machine, because it’s something that happens to me in real life – imbuing inanimate objects with a perversely hostile personality. When they don’t work, we have fierce arguments! You should see me using an automatic checkout. The things I say to that bloody woman! “There is an unidentified object in the bagging area.” “There isn’t! It’s my bag! You said if I’m using my own bag to put it there!” We have these dialogues. It’s pure Arthur Dent, and I suddenly realise and stop because people are beginning to look at me rather oddly…” GEOFFREY McGIVERN “I liked it when it had all gone wrong with the telephone sanitisers and everybody from Golgafrincham, when [producer] Geoffrey Perkins played in “What…

• Krypton’s debut occupied just one panel of Superman’s first appearance in June 1938’s Action Comics #1. The following summer, in Superman #1, it received its chemical-derived name. • When the first Superman newspaper comic strip arrived in 1939 it described Krypton as Earth’s twin planet, populated by a race of supermen. • While Superman was initially unaware of Krypton’s existence, he finally learned of the planet in November 1949’s Superman #61 (“Superman Returns to Krypton!”). • In the 1940 Superman radio serial, Krypton was described as existing on the “opposite side of the sun” from Earth. Throughout the Silver Age of comics in the 1950s, its location moved further into space. • Krypton’s first screen appearance was in a 1941 Max Fleischer animated Superman short. In live action, it…

THE WOMAN WHO WOULD BE LARA Croft was terrified. Was she cage-fighting with a leopard? Suspended from a fraying rope over a flesh-crazed shoal of piranha? Squeezing between tumbling boulders as the ruins of an ancient Mesopotamian temple flooded with blazing oil? Nothing so mundane. We’re talking serious threat level. “We had on set what are called social influencers, like the biggest gamers,” Alicia Vikander tells SFX. “And I was terrified, for obvious reasons. It’s a very beloved character. People who have followed Lara Croft over the years know her inside out. I want to make a character that lives up to the character that they all love.” Tomb Raider is a cinematic reset for the relic-chasing gaming icon, first upgraded from pixels to flesh in the form of Angelina…

Time Machine THE STORY BEHIND THE SF AND FANTASY OF YESTERYEAR 1997 MUCH LIKE ITS TITULAR SPACESHIP, WHEN space horror Event Horizon came out in August 1997, it quickly and quietly disappeared after launch, only to reappear in the public consciousness much later. But why did that happen, and what brought it back, making it the genre classic it is today? Director Paul WS Anderson’s third full-length film, Event Horizon was his first fully studio-backed feature. “I was sent the script by Paramount,“Anderson tells SFX. “Mortal Kombat was a big hit, and I had multiple options and offers, because that’s the way Hollywood works. When you have a hit, you’re a genius; when you don’t, you’re an idiot. I read Philip Eisner’s script for Event Horizon and it really stuck…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/ download/SVOD Director Taika Waititi Cast Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Mark Ruffalo, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum “Everything is punctuated by the perfect one-liner” One may be a rip-roaring, space-set adventure comedy, and the other a dour, earthbound Western about a couple of old guys whose glory days are behind them, but 2017’s two best comic-book movies have one big thing in common – Thor: Ragnarok and Logan both push the boundaries of what a superhero movie can be. Turns out there’s more to the super life than origin stories and ever-expanding fight scenes... Of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s big-hitters, Thor was the one still waiting for a truly great solo movie. Marvel’s solution to the problem is ingenious: jettison…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2018 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/VOD/ download Director Sam Liu Cast Bruce Greenwood, Jennifer Carpenter, Scott Patterson There’s something malleable about the Batman myth. Over the decades he’s been incarnated as everything from upstanding scoutmaster to pseudo-psycho, sleek creature of the night to camp icon. 1989 one-shot Gotham By Gaslight gave him a Victorian spin. This new DC animated movie springboards from that, preserving the essence of the concept – Jack the Ripper stalks an antique Gotham – but takes liberties with the plot, one so audacious that it mutates the original tale into an essentially new experience for anyone familiar with the graphic novel. The Ripper makes for a wearily predictable choice of villain. A Dickensian riff on one of Batman’s classic rogues would have felt fresher…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1987 | 15 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Attention, all Stranger Things fans! This is just the sort of thing the Netflix series pays homage to. Stephen Dorff plays Glen, one of two 12-year-olds who open a portal to hell. Crimped hair, backmasking and casual use of homophobic epithets make it an ’80s time capsule, while likeable characters, pop surrealism and solid stopmotion effects (particularly the creepy, foot-high demonic minions) ensure it’s great fun. Extras Three commentaries; seven interviews; Making Of; galleries; trailers.…

HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASED OUT NOW! 2018 | 15 | DVD Director Kornél Mundruczó Cast Merab Ninidze, Zsombor Jéger, György Cserhalmi, Péter Haumann Given the torrent of superhero movies that are currently raining down on us, we’ve almost become numb to the wonder of seeing people bestowed with out-of-thisworld powers. But Jupiter’s Moon isn’t telling a capes-andmasks superhero story. When Syrian refugee Aryan is shot through the heart by a trigger-happy cop on the Hungarian border, only to find himself resurrected with the power of flight, nobody references Superman. “Do you believe in angels?” disgraced doctor Stern (Merab Ninidze) asks his girlfriend, after witnessing the miracle. “Why is the Bible full of angels and yet we never see a single one?” Visually, Jupiter’s Moon is ravishing. The shots of Aryan (Zsombor…

HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Joachim Trier Cast Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen First there was Carrie. In its wake came Jennifer and Patrick. When a horror title puts you on first-name terms with a character, you should know what to expect... Eili Harboe plays the protagonist of this Norwegian film, a shy student from a rural Christian background who slowly emerges from her shell – and out from under the thumb of her controlling parents – as a friendship with Anja (Kaya Wilkins) blossoms into something more. But after suffering a series of frightening fits, Thelma learns the truth about her past, and the full extent of her emerging abilities… Melding supernatural thriller and romance to weave an allegory…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 298 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Simon Ings Publisher Gollancz With its title redolent of smoggy streets and its setting on an alternate Earth where “the bloody farrago of the world’s Great War” was Berlin being nuked in 1916, Simon Ings’s new novel borrows freely from the toolkits of steampunk and alternate history. But there, most comparisons with contemporary genre fiction end. In truth, Ings doesn’t seem much interested in SF&F as, to use a hoary phrase, a literature of ideas. Rather, he co-opts its weirdness to explore identity, regret and loss. For The Smoke, this means imagining humanity splitting into distinct species, none of whom truly understand each other. Whether intended as a metaphor for Brexit or not, it’s difficult not to think of recent events as…

RELEASED 8 MARCH 544 pages | Hardback/ebook Author SA Chakraborty Publisher HarperVoyager It’s probably too soon to call it a trend, but it’s been a refreshing change in the genre landscape, lately, to see more stories set in the Middle East. The likes of Saladin Ahmed and G Willow Wilson are now joined by SA Chakraborty, whose highly engaging debut novel blends legend and history to create a fascinating world we’d be more than happy to spend a trilogy in. In the streets of Cairo at the turn of the 19th century, orphaned thief and would-be healer Nahri gets more than she bargained for when she dabbles in a spot of exorcism. With demons on her tail and a really annoying but really attractive djinni by her side, she’s soon…

TALES OF INDIA RELEASED OUT NOW! 168 pages | Hardback/ ebook Authors Various Publisher Chronicle Books This handsome illustrated hardback selects folktales from the Indian regions of Bengal, Punjab and Tamil Nedu. There are 16 in total, ranging from three to 15 pages in length. A ribbon marker helps you to keep your place. These tales of shapeshifting witches, ghosts and talking animals were collected by folklorists in the late 19th/early 20th century, in collections that are now in the public domain. Like the stories the Brothers Grimm collected, they’re surprisingly gruesome at times: “The Son Of Seven Mothers”, for example, features a necklace made of eyeballs, and mothers eating their babies! The main draw is the full-colour illustrations (one for each story) by Goan artists Svahbu Kohli and Viplov…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 272 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Ryan Lambie Publisher Robinson The Geek’s Guide To SF Cinema is a slightly misleading title. Far from being super in-depth and nerdy, this slim volume is very much targeted at the newer fan, or someone looking for a way into science fiction cinema. The 30 films studied here are classics that most will have seen at some point – Godzilla, 2001, Alien, Star Wars, of course – which gives it a fairly broad appeal. Each chapter looks at a specific film, before briefly examining movies related to a relevant theme. The Terminator 2 section, for instance, also covers films about the perils of rampant technology, while Independence Day is accompanied by an essay on disaster movies. It’s a smart way of telling a…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 434 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Dhonielle Clayton Publisher Orion Books Fashion and make-up are – and have always been – big business. Though often seen as female-focused, the desire, and pressure, to perfect our bodies is near-universal. But even the most beauty-obsessed of our societies has nothing on the world of Orléans… Its people are born “ugly” – grey skin, red eyes, dry hair – all except for one select group of women, the Belles. But the Belles aren’t just beautiful themselves: they have the power to change the appearance of others, altering skin tone, hairstyle, body shape and more to literally – and painfully – sculpt people’s bodies into “better”, more appealing shapes and colours. Camellia is a new Belle, working with the upper classes of…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 224 pages | Hardback/ebook Authors Various Publisher BBC Books The moment that Missy revealed herself to be the Master was a proper showstopper, and her time on-screen felt oh-too-short. This six-story collection gives more insights into her lifetime, from shortly after regeneration to the events of the most recent series finale. James Goss’s playful story “Dismemberment” sees Missy visit her former members’ club, where her femaleness doesn’t go down well. As to what happens next... the clue’s in the title. A fun adventure with echoes of Narnia and E Nesbit, Paul Magrs’s “Teddy Sparkles Must Die!” sees Missy take on a governess role to influence children who go on to powerful positions. There’s also a reality-altering teddy bear! “Girl Power!” by Jacqueline Rayner is the highlight, as…

RELEASED 13 MARCH 308 pages | Paperback/ebook Editor David Thomas Moore Publisher Abaddon Books Letters, diaries, journals and inventories are some of the sources used to build this five-part, century-spanning story of the changing fortunes of Dracula and his kind. Five authors take on the task; hailing from different parts of Europe and America, each has a distinct voice, with some weaving in snippets of non-English language and dialect. It’s a technique that makes the reader work harder, but it also adds authenticity and a folkloric quality to a novel attempting to build a wider mythology extending right up to the present day. It also brings in familiar faces – both real and fabled – like Elizabeth Bathory and Baba Yaga. Framed via emails sent from Jonathan Holmwood, great grandson…

The sentient warship Trouble Dog hurtles through higher-space to rescue the distressed ship Geest Van Amsterdam, whilst ruminating on its new role in the House of Reclamation. When we were far enough from the planet’s gravity well, I began to oscillate, skimming the membrane of the universe like a pebble flicked across the clear waters of a tropical bay. I could feel the faint touch of raw starlight on my hull, and hear the tortured howls of the solar wind. I heard the faint overspill of comms chatter from other ships in nearby systems, the echoes of their signals cast across the intervening light years by the peculiar physics of higher-space. Some of these ships were from the Human Generality, some from the other races of the Multiplicity. My hull…