Table of contents for January 2018 in SFX

Regenerations are one of the best things about Doctor Who. There’s no other show where you know that next time you watch it it’ll be both a continuation of the same story, and something new. Come Boxing Day the Doctor will be Jodie Whittaker, in the biggest, most exciting TARDIS shake-up since William Hartnell morphed into Patrick Troughton. In the meantime we bid farewell to the wonderful Peter Capaldi – and showrunner Steven Moffat – as they make their final journey through space and time. We’ve pulled out all the stops for a massive 24-page Doctor Who celebration: we grill Capaldi and co-stars David Bradley, Pearl Mackie and Mark Gatiss about the Christmas special; Moffat talks about his time on the show in the definitive exit interview; First Doctor companion…

We know that Leilah wants to track down an all-powerful world-destroying wand in the movie. What motivates her? She wants to create a better world. She wants to make this world more beautiful. Way back when the Dark Lord was in charge, the world had beauty, it had dignity, morals, it had a divine glow. Now… she’s not wrong, look around you... it’s a fucking mess, the world is overpopulated, people are starving, people are killing each other, people are desperate, it’s fucking mayhem. So I can understand her – it’s just her method and what she wants to do and how she wants to do it. It’s in her blood, you know. Do you need to get into a villain’s head to play one? I always try to find…

SCI-FACT! Pasquale appeared on Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on vampire movies. He scored 19 out of 19. We reckon this is a genuine first for SFX – we can’t think of any other book we’ve covered whose genesis was inspired by an appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! But Deadknobs And Doomsticks, a collection of horror short stories from 2004’s “King of the Jungle” Joe Pasquale, might never have happened had his extended stay in Australia proved a life-changing experience. “I had a bit of a midlife crisis [after it],” Pasquale tells Red Alert. “I didn’t like flying, and I had to fly to Australia, and then jump out of a plane and hang out of a helicopter. Then I had to spend three weeks in…

SFX HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN! First Contact THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR IAN BERRIMAN, REVIEWS EDITOR Stuff that was floating your boat/grinding your gears this month included the latest MCU movie, fan reaction to Star Trek: Discovery and Winona Ryder’s face in Stranger Things. And of course, you wrote in to gleefully point all the things we got wrong last issue. We sprinkle a small handful of minor errors across every issue just to keep you happy, you know. Drop us a line (contact details can be found on the opposite page) and point one out and we might just reward you with a Black Library novel like The Warmaster! But we probably won’t. #THOR: RAGNAROK Jane O’Reilly, email Cate Blanchett was magnificent! Sadly she and Hemsworth spend too much of the…

“PERHAPS WE CAN EMBRACE CHANGE AND TRY TO WORK WITH IT” Earlier this year, an international group of scientists declared that Earth has entered a new, human-dominated epoch in its geological history: the Anthropocene. From around the middle of the 20th century, burning of fossil fuels, use of nitrogen and phosphate fertilisers, the ubiquity of plastic waste and spread of radioactive carbon isotopes around the world by atmospheric nuclear tests have begun to leave indelible marks. Significant areas have been transformed by the spread of cities and agricultural land, a multitude of species have been driven to extinction, and we need new words for the new kinds of weather caused by Anthropogenic climate change. Our footprints and fingerprints are found on the highest mountains and in the deepest ocean trenches.…

DOCTOR WHO AND THE KRIKKITMAN BY DOUGLAS ADAMS AND JAMES GOSS BBC BOOKS JAN He was rubbish at finishing projects, but Douglas Adams was rarely stumped for ideas. Based on newly discovered material in the Adams archive, James Goss works up a tale in which the Doctor promises to take Romana to the end of the universe. As the title hints, cricket is involved in a tale that certainly has familiar elements if you’re a Hitchhikers fan. THE WREN HUNT BY MARY WATSON BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS FEB Reading YA books after her youngest child was born, Irish resident and South African émigré Watson realised she wanted to write her own YA fantasy. The Wren Hunt, the tale of Wren Silke, a girl caught between two ancient magics, is the result.…

AT ONLY MILD RISK of hyperbole, to try to imagine science fiction without the contribution of Arthur C Clarke is to imagine a wholly different universe. Co-creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey; the Brit “Big Three” novelist whose reputation matched and surpassed Robert A Heinlein and Isaac Asimov; and public intellectual futurist before we even knew there was such a job, Clarke’s fame extended, and still extends, far beyond the field. “It’s amazing the amount of people who have actually heard of Arthur in some context,” says Tom Hunter, director of the Arthur C Clarke Award. “They might not be familiar with his work, but that legacy and knowledge of him as an individual is definitely there.” But, as we approach the 16 December centenary of Clarke’s birth, how did…

THE STORY BEHIND THE SF AND FANTASY OF YESTERYEAR 1974 By the mid-’70s, Planet of The Apes was a phenomenon that seemed past its sell-by date. Four sequels had followed the 1968 movie adaptation of the novel by Frenchman Pierre Boulle, which posited a distant planet where apes were the dominant species and humans their slaves. By the time of fifth movie Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973), the shamelessness with which the franchise’s success had been milked was being widely mocked. Some felt like it was a blessing that a TV series planned by franchise production head Arthur P Jacobs was derailed by his death. The perception of the casket having run dry, however, was altered in 1973, when the first television broadcasts of the Planet Of…

CINEMA Having a fin time of it RELEASED 6 DECEMBER PG | 112 minutes Director Masaaki Yuasa Cast Shôta Shimoda, Kanon Tani, Soma Saito, Shinichi Shinohara A problem with indie-spirited animated family films, like Kubo and When Marnie Was There, is that they can feel self-consciously virtuous and faintly preachy. Lu Over The Wall is zanier and more eccentric than these films, without collapsing into slapstick. Set in a Japanese fishing town, this colourful anime is the tale of a solitary teenage boy, Kai, whose flair for synthesising digital tunes draws the attention of little-girl mermaid Lu. She’s ecstatically friendly, springing round on her fins, turning dogs into fish, and taking Kai on magic journeys both above and beneath the sea. It’s all rather delightful. Little Lu herself is utterly…

Littlefinger in Game Of Thrones How do you feel your character has developed? So much of what Littlefinger is was laid out in the books, so it was almost about trying to hold something back and add a little shade in each season. The fact that Littlefinger’s journey became so entwined with Sansa’s wasn’t something I anticipated. Within that, I’ve always tried to show a warmer side. She’s a kid, or she started as a kid. She’s clever. So why would she trust him? Was much training required to get in shape for Game Of Thrones? The costume has been so tight-fitting that yeah. For about two months before I’d come back every year, I’ve got on my bike and cycled 50-70km rides, maybe three to four times a week up…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1991 | 15 | Blu-ray (4K, 3D, standard)/DVD/download Director James Cameron Cast Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick Rather than debating which of James Cameron’s Terminator movies is the best, let’s just accept they’re both bona fide classics, and try to forget the movies that have come since. Cameron recaptures the Aliens sequel magic by seamlessly expanding his universe, while showing us something we’d never seen before – the T-1000’s groundbreaking shapeshifting CG still stands up 26 years on. And because nobody marshals an action scene quite like Cameron, you barely even notice Arnie’s cheesier moments of robo-comedy. Spruced up for this year’s 3D theatrical re-release, you can now enjoy it in crystal clarity. Extras Most of the Blu-ray extras are from previous releases: two…

RELEASED 26 DECEMBER 1983 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Monsters may bite and ghosts lurk, but what could be crueller than a teenage girl? In this forgotten ’80s horror, an elite girls’ club called The Sisters force naive newcomer Julie (Meg Tilly) to spend the night in a mausoleum. There’s some great imagery here – how about a psychic vampire who feeds off the energy terrified young women exude? – but films like The Craft have mixed high school and the occult to greater effect. Extras Director interview (45 minutes); trailer; booklet.…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1978 | 15 | Blu-ray ‣ Director Irvin Kershner ‣ Cast Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif, Rene Auberjonois BLU-RAY DEBUT Interior: a serial killer’s den. The camera pans along the wall, coming to rest on a collage of images cut from fashion magazines and crime scene photos. Now imagine they made a movie of that collage. Directed by The Empire Strikes Back’s Irvin Kershner from a John Carpenter script, this glossy Hollywood take on giallo has all the key elements of the Italian thriller genre: point-of-view shots of a gloved killer; red herrings; a focus on vision. Faye Dunaway plays the photographer who suffers telepathic flashes of the murderer cutting a swathe through her social circle, seeing through his eyes. The mystery is involving,…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1993/2017 | 12 | DVD ‣ Director Keith Barnfather ‣ Cast Damaris Hayman, Nicholas Briggs Doctor Who’s “The Daemons” (1971) has long been considered a classic, from the village setting to the Brigadier’s famous line, “Chap with wings, there… five rounds rapid!” This three-disc set brings together a selection of works based around the story – some new, some on DVD for the first time. The headline act is White Witch Of Devil’s End, a six-part anthology spin-off featuring Damaris Hayman reprising her role as white witch Olive Hawthorne. Originally conceived as a Talking Heads-style monologue, it’s been reworked with occasional point-of-view sections bringing her narrative to life. It’s not a decision that really works, sadly, with these segments often poorly acted, while the stories themselves…

STAR TREK: THE BOOK OF LISTS ‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 223 pages | Hardback ‣ Author Chip Carter ‣ Publisher Harper Design • Looking for a Christmas present for a particularly anal Trekker? Pop this in their stocking. • Features 100 lists, divided into eight themed sections: Starfleet personnel, alien races, future technology/ spaceships and so on. • Coming up with that many interesting lists is tricky, and a fair few – like a catalogue of holodeck programs – are a bit dry. • The prose would really have benefited from a bit more of a sense of humour. • The more entertaining lists tend to be more visually orientated – like the ones which grab every use of the Vasquez Rocks location, or different appearances by recycled props. •…

‣ RELEASED 2 January 372 pages | Hardback/ebook ‣ Author Holly Black ‣ Publisher Hot Key Books Few authors capture the essential strangeness of fairies – visual artists often do a better job. This novel contains all the things you’d expect in a YA story, from the slightly socially awkward heroine (the human Jude, who was taken with her twin and her part-Faerie half-sister to live with said sister’s father) to a school setting where that heroine fails to get on with the cool, mean kids, to rather a lot about clothes… so it’s to Holly Black’s credit that she is able to infuse it all with a sense of weirdness. And the conventional elements play second fiddle to a much more interesting story as Jude gets drawn into spying…

December’s traditionally a quiet month for book releases, but there were still a fair few we couldn’t squeeze in. Written by Atomic Blonde creator Antony Johnston THE EXPHORIA CODE (14 December, Lightning Books) is the first in a new techno-thriller series about a female MI6 hacker. THE COMPLETE SOOKIE STACKHOUSE STORIES (out now, Gollancz) collects ten of Charlaine Harris’s tales about the True Blood heroine, previously scattered across anthologies. James SA Corey’s space opera series The Expanse returns with seventh instalment PERSEPOLIS RISING (7 December, Orbit), while Ian C Esslemont’s ventured back to Malaz for DEADHOUSE LANDING (out now, Transworld), the second in his Path to Ascendancy series. CLOCKWORK CITY (14 December, Hodder & Stoughton) is a new entry in Paul Crilley’s urban fantasy series Delphic Division, which sees an…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! ‣ Publisher Image Comics ‣ Writer/artist Matt Wagner ISSUES 1-3 The first book of Matt Wagner’s Mage trilogy was originally published in 1984, and almost two decades have passed since the second volume concluded in 1999. Much has changed for Kevin Matchstick – the reincarnation of the mythical Pendragon – in long-awaited third instalment The Hero Denied (drawn largely on the writer’s own life), as he now has two children with his wife, Magda. It’s actually Kevin himself who’s in denial, as he refrains from using his mystical abilities in a bid to hide from the malevolent Umbra Sprite and her equally scary brood, the Gracklethorns. Wagner takes his time unfolding the plot (which is easy to follow for any newcomers) as Kevin is forced to…

GAMES & STUFF The Alt Reich ‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! ‣ Reviewed on PC ‣ Also on Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One ‣ Publisher Bethesda Softworks VIDEOGAME It’s 1961, America has fallen to the Nazi war machine, and BJ Blazkowicz is a broken man. Pressed back into service with a resistance cell that includes his heavily pregnant girlfriend, he’s once again shooting bad people and bad robots with ever-larger guns. One of the best things MachineGames has done is to abandon Castle Wolfenstein itself. This game’s wider world, with missions linked through the hub level of the Eva’s Hammer submarine, easily beats a linear charge through stone architecture. Ditching the supernatural elements, replaced with terrifying biomechanical experiments, was also a good decision. The best things about the opening chapter are…

BIZARRE OPENING TITLES CHOICE The short opening titles are generally naff, but the cartoon Lockjaw – who looks like something from Godzooky-era Hanna- Barbera – is heinous. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION The Hawaii State Capitol building was used for parts of Attilan, the ancestral home of the Inhumans. IT’S WOSSERFACE! Wasted in three episodes as Audrey, Crystal’s human boyfriend’s whingeing ex, is Liv Hewson, who’s so much better in Santa Clarita Diet. TITLE TATTLE All the episode titles (except the premiere’s) are directly lifted from comic book stories that featured the Inhumans. WORST PLOT LINE Karnak becomes a ganja farmer. We’re not making this up! Arriving on Earth after Maximus’s revolution, he spends three episodes helping some lowlives grow cannabis.…

LOOKING BACK ON 2017 RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR HIGHLIGHTS Logan, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok showed there’s room for many different types of brilliant superhero movie; War For The Planet Of The Apes finished a trilogy in style; and Blade Runner 2049 was epic sci-fi with brains. On TV, I loved Stranger Things 2, The Good Place and Star Trek: Discovery. IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR HIGHLIGHTS I’m hooked by Star Trek: Discovery, I adored Tom Holland’s Spidey, and I’m gutted that Bill Potts was a one-season wonder. Get Out was my film of the year: creepy, funny and political. LOWLIGHTS With so much great TV to keep up with, it’s oddly comforting that Inhumans was quite so dreadful... JONATHAN COATES ART EDITOR HIGHLIGHTS Stranger Things 2 didn’t disappoint. Making…

THOMAS F WILSON Biff Tannen in Back To The Future It’s refreshing to find Back To The Future bully Biff is played by the genuinely lovely Thomas F Wilson. We spoke with the actor about this most repugnant of on-screen antagonists at Sydney’s Supanova Comic Con & Gaming Expo. Would you like to play the role again? I certainly would. Playing many different characters in the same family, in different times, under different circumstances... I would play it again for the free snacks or a good sandwich! Would any of your character’s skills or attributes be useful in real life? There’s zero attributes in a bully like Biff, Griff or Buford Mad Dog Tannen! What do you think Biff Tannen would be doing now? Living in a very small apartment…

“I feel I haven’t really done much at all,” says Takashi Miike. “I’m still thinking I’m beginning now, just starting off.” Well, that’s one way to look at the career of the cult Japanese director of films including Ichi The Killer, Audition and 13 Assassins. His latest, the thrilling adaptation of Hiroaki Samura’s manga series Blade Of The Immortal, marks the 100th movie of his 26 yearcareer. “Someone else counted,” the director chuckles. A cunning blend of swordplay and fantasy, Blade Of The Immortal follows the adventures of Manji (Takuya Kimura), a samurai who has been given the curse of eternal life by a vindictive crone who places life-sustaining “bloodworms” inside his body. “Any place, any time, people have been fascinated by the idea of immortality,” says the 57-year-old director.…

Tell us about your protagonist. Violet is a shy 17-year-old obsessed with fantasy franchise The Gallows Dance who dreams of being just like the heroine, Rose. Her dream becomes a reality when she’s transported into the world of the Gallows Dance and has to take Rose’s place… Where did the idea come from? Chicken House and The Blair Agency run a competition called The Big Idea, where new talent can pitch concepts for novels. A very clever lady called Angela McCann pitched the premise for The Fandom, where fans are thrown into the world they’re obsessed with. Chicken House matched this idea with my unpublished novel, The Gallows Dance. Are there many in-jokes? Lots! I’m a huge YA fan, so it was great fun dropping in Hunger Games and Divergent…

SCI-FACT! Jensen Ackles has directed five episodes of Supernatural but will not helm one this year as he has new twins at home. SEASON 12 FALLOUT JENSEN ACKLES “Literally with Cas (Misha Collins) [dead] at Dean’s feet is where we [returned]. It’s interesting because Mom [Samantha Smith] is presumably dead, Crowley [Mark Sheppard] just killed himself and Kelly [Courtney Ford] is gone. It’s too much for Dean to process in that moment so he does the thing he knows how to do best which is neutralise the threat. Lucifer’s son, Jack, is something he can hit. Luckily, Sam stops him and tries to talk sense into him.” JARED PADALECKI “I think Sam’s hiding some things in his optimism. I think he’s really making the decision of not dealing with things…

Having spent the last 30 years celebrating the best in science fiction literature, the Arthur C Clarke Award is creating stories of its own. To mark the late author’s centenary, award director Tom Hunter has teamed up with NewCon Press to assemble an anthology of new short stories – all of them running to a not-at-all coincidental 2001 words. “We wanted to do something special to mark Sir Arthur’s centenary year,” Hunter tells Red Alert. “We thought about ways to directly acknowledge Arthur’s own work while still leaving creative scope for stories that stretched across the full range of science fiction, just as the award itself does. The idea of a new collection with stories from Clarke Award-winning and shortlisted authors seemed like a winner.” The list of authors includes…

Carrie Fisher isn’t Princess Leia. There’s so much more to her than that. There may be an alternate universe where Carrie Fisher starred in the original Star Wars trilogy, then fell off the Hollywood radar and lived the rest of her life as “the woman who played Princess Leia”. Not in our universe. In this universe Carrie Fisher – perhaps accidentally, perhaps not – became something much bigger than a sci-fi princess: she became Carrie Fisher. It wasn’t easy and there was a lot of pain and hardship along the way but she emerged as something unique; a clever, sassy, outrageously funny, insightfully analytical, often unflinchingly honest writer and media personality whom everybody wanted on their TV show. The world loved her for it. Especially when she responded to questions…

CELEBRATING CLASSIC SF & FANTASY NOVELS “No. Wait. Hold it. I am a journalist, Doc. Anything you tell me is liable to wind up on the opinion pages of a hundred and twenty-seven newspapers syndicated through Global. If you give me your trust, I will value it, I will brood over my ethics, I will agonize, and I will use your secrets, just to get through one more column.” One of the things frequently said about John M Ford is that he was a writer impossible to categorise. He was a game designer and poet, he produced works from alternate historical fantasy (The Dragon Waiting) to science fiction (Web Of Angels, Growing Up Weightless) to a Cold War spy novel involving Elizabethan drama (The Scholars Of Night), and two standout…

THE LEAGUE’S DARK INSPIRATIONS THE WICKER MAN There’s a lot of The Wicker Man in League, but it’s most blatant when a Scottish policeman (clearly modelled on Sergeant Howie) questions Tubbs and Edwards about a missing hitchhiker. THE SHINING It’s not hard to see echoes of The Shining’s eerily scary twins in the Dentons’ two daughters, Chloe and Radcliffe. Both return, now grown-up, in the three Christmas specials. DON’T LOOK NOW Nicolas Roeg’s chiller is referenced in series three when Reenie follows what she thinks is a crying little girl, only to find it’s a male dwarf. “I can’t believe you fell for that one!” he says. AMICUS MOVIES The League’s 2000 Christmas special is possibly their finest hour. Influenced by Amicus films like Tales From The Crypt and From…

AGAINST THE FALL OF NIGHT (1948, 1953) Expanded from a 1948 novella in 1951 and two years later published in book form, a tale that early on establishes Clarke as a purveyor of Big Ideas, comfortable with the idea of setting a story one billion years hence, if not yet the most accomplished writer. In 1956, Clarke revisited the manuscript yet again in a rewrite entitled The City And The Stars. CHILDHOOD’S END (1953) Another expanded shorter tale (the 1946 short story “Guardian Angel”), Clarke’s first publishing success tells of the relationship between humankind and aliens known as the Overlords, who announce they’re taking over to stop an extinction event. A book Clarke himself named as one of his favourites and, in 2004, was shortlisted for the 1954 Retro Hugo.…

Magic Miike RELEASED 8 DECEMBER 18 | 141 minutes Director Takashi Miike Cast Takuya Kimura, Hana Sugisaki, Sôta Fukushi, Hayato Ichihara Japanese director Takeshi Miike’s 100th film is as violent, crazy and genre-defying as everything else in his filmography (which includes Audition, Ichi The Killer and 13 Assassins). Blade opens with a prologue so violent you assume the censors insisted it was switched to black and white to get a certificate. When our hero Manji is cursed with immortality as a punishment for killing 100 people (right in front of us), we cut to 50 years later, shift to glorious colour (mostly red) and our story kicks off for real. An orphaned girl, Rin, searches out Manji, who is grumpily living in isolation, hiring him to be her bodyguard as…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director David F Sandberg Cast Talitha Bateman, Stephanie Sigman, Miranda Otto Anthony LaPaglia Another year, another Conjuring film – this time a prequel to a prequel, 2014’s forgettable Annabelle. It’s 1955 and former dollmaker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) run an orphanage in rural America. Sister Charlotte moves in with a group of girls, but it’s not long before one of them, Janice (Talitha Bateman), discovers a sinister doll… Lights Out director David F Sandberg and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre bring some elegant visuals to an otherwise formulaic tale. The sun-blasted setting provides an effective contrast to the orphanage’s gloomy interiors, and an outdoor cameo from demonic nun Valak provides the film with its eeriest moment. The young cast…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | PG | DVD/download How many stories are there to tell about difficult relationships between fathers and sons? Quite a few – and we can now add “thought dad was dead, actually he’s Bigfoot” to the list. Just being Bigfoot isn’t really the problem either – that’s the evil pharmaceutical company trying to track him down. This feel-good family movie is more silly than substantial, but it’s always fun to root for the little guy against the big bad corporation. Extras None.…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2014 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD ‣ Director Gorõ Miyazaki Cast Teresa Gallagher, Rufus Hound, Kelly Adams, Gillian Anderson Hooray, a new Studio Ghibli animation! Well, kind of. This 26-ep TV serial is more childish than any of Ghibli’s movies – even the children’s ones. Shockingly for purists, it’s a dubbed-only release, narrated by Gillian Anderson. The animation is cel-shaded CG, actually made outside Ghibli, which has a “cooperation” credit. Ronja’s director is Gorõ Miyazaki (son of Hayao Miyazaki), who made the much-disliked Tales From Earthsea. And yet Ronja has much of the spirit of Ghibli classics like Totoro and Laputa. Based on a book by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, it centres on a bold little girl, Ronja, who lives in a forest of wondrous creatures. Rufus…

HOME ENTERTAINMENT Get sci-fi news, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx Scat’s entertainment ‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1977 | PG | Blu-ray ‣ Director Terry Gilliam ‣ Cast Michael Palin, Harry H Corbett, John Le Mesurier, Warren Mitchell BLU-RAY DEBUT There’s never been a scatological comedy as intermittently beautiful as Jabberwocky. Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s poem, this grimy, rambunctious Dark Ages fantasy is brimming with bodily functions, but also studded with moments lit like a Caravaggio painting. Terry Gilliam’s first solo flight as a director, it stars his Python comrade Michael Palin as Dennis, the innocent who heads for the city as a fearsome monster lays waste to the countryside – and, after a series of absurd misadventures, ends up pitted against it in battle. A line-up of Britcom titans, including…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 295 pages | Hardback/ebook ‣ Authors Saladin Ahmed, Mira Grant, Rae Carson, John Jackson Miller ‣ Publisher Century The original Star Wars trilogy was great at making locations like Mos Eisley or Cloud City feel like real, lived-in places. Now, The Last Jedi is bringing us a new destination: Canto Bight, the galaxy’s most high-class gambling spot. The latest tie-in book gives us the chance to properly explore this decadent desert city. It’s a collection of four novellas that focus strongly on the clash between Canto Bight’s super-rich elite, and the poorer inhabitants who are struggling to survive. The city is essentially a sci-fi take on Las Vegas, and each story combines traditional Star Wars intrigue with a distinctly noir-thriller flavour. The results vary from effective…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 403 pages | Hardback/ebook ‣ Author Chris Brookmyre ‣ Publisher Orbit Officially, there’s never been a murder committed aboard the space station Ciudad de Cielo – every previous untimely demise was declared an accident. But when a skinned, dismembered corpse shows up, it’s hard to claim mere misfortune. The case falls into the lap of Dr Alice Blake, newly arrived Principal of the Security Oversight Executive, and the only person on the station experienced in homicide investigations, corrupt ex-cop Nikki Fixx. Crime writer Chris Brookmyre’s second foray into science fiction is, at heart, a police procedural with sci-fi trimmings. The mismatched pair of Blake and Fixx function as a distaff Riggs and Murtaugh, with Brookmyre pitting the uptight official against the rule-breaking, booze-swilling Fixx. Many of…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Paperback/ebook ‣ Author Colin Sinclair, Tim Major, Julian Benson Publisher Abaddon One book, three novellas, this alien invasion collection opens with Colin Sinclair’s Midnight In The Garden Centre Of Good And Evil, a slackers vs aliens tale which crosses The Day Of The Triffids with Shaun Of The Dead. It’s followed by stand-out story Blighters (Tim Major), which feels like Starship Troopers meets Body Snatchers for the Snapchat generation. It features giant slugs (nicknamed Blighters) crashing to Earth, being filmed on camera phones and gossiped about on Facebook; but when our heroes encounter one of the creatures, their lives change in (very) unexpected ways. The collection’s closed by Julian Benson’s Rags, Bones And Tea Leaves, which has an extremely original take on alienation,…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 496 pages | Paperback/ebook ‣ Author Mira Grant ‣ Publisher Orbit Seanan McGuire’s pseudonym Mira Grant is well-established by now, and Into The Drowning Deep contains all the ingredients that have made Grant’s other novels so popular: a near-future setting, a convincing-sounding scientific explanation for the horrors faced (there’s not a whiff of the supernatural), and a good dollop of gore. This story of a scientific expedition to the Marianas Trench, searching for the mermaids that killed everyone on a previous research mission, feels akin to a classic monster movie: there’s no doubt from the start that the mermaids are there and are lethal, most of the characters are sympathetic (though you won’t be able to help hoping that a pair of big game hunters get…

‣ RELEASED 7 December 141 minutes | CD/download ‣ Publisher BBC Audio AUDIOBOOK For anyone who grew up a Doctor Who fan in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s, the Christmas annual was a festive delight – colourful pictures in lurid shades, puzzles, quizzes and, of course, short stories. Now BBC Audio has put together a collection of tales from annuals ranging from 1966 to 1985. There are six stories and two essays in total, all read by actors from the show. For the most part they do a good job and it’s a great way to evoke the eras the stories hail from. The stories themselves unfortunately fall short. It’s fun listening to earlier tales refer to the character as “Doctor Who”, and his ship as “TARDIS” rather than “the…

BEST EPISODE Time-looping bottle episode “Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad” (1.07) is a fantastic showcase for Rainn Wilson, brilliant as Harry Mudd. LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION The scenes on Vulcan in “Lethe” (1.06) were filmed at Toronto’s Islamic-themed Aga Khan Museum. SWEAR COUNT So far we make the potty-talk total eight: one “bastard”, one “crap”, two “fuck”s, two “piss”es and two “shit”s. SPECULATION Spoilers ahead! It’s not hard to work out where Discovery ended up, as Jonathan Frakes (episode 10’s director) has said the series is visiting the Mirror Universe. Anyone else betting on an appearance by an alternate Georgiou? UNSUNG HEROES Here’s hoping the second half of the season will toss a few more lines the way of the bridge crew trio of Joann Owosekun, Keyla Detmer…

BEST EPISODE “Mechocracy” (12.04): the machine revolution, Red Dwarf-style, complete with bonkers election campaign, Lister getting promoted and demoted, and Rimmer’s Yellow Alert love-fest. BEST IMAGE The mechanoid versions of Cat, Rimmer and Lister in “Siliconia” (12.02) – even if Craig Charles does look a bit like a turtle that’s withdrawing into its shell. BEST GUEST STAR Ryan (The Hobbit) Gage’s camp-as-Butlins faux-Hitler accompanying Lister on guitar for “The Happy Wanderer” in “Cured” (12.01) will never leave your mind. TRIVIA Filming in mechanoid masks for “Siliconia” was hard on the cast: Chris Barrie was so ill he had to go to bed for three days, while Craig Charles says the sweat was “coming out of my eyelids”. BEST MOMENT Rimmer and the dry-asever Holly putting a new spin on the…

MY SCI-FI Because famous people are fans too FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY BOOK There’s a book called Rant by Chuck Palahniuk – he’s the guy who wrote Fight Club and I really like his writing. It’s just disturbing in so many different ways. Rant is kind of an oral biography about this guy who’s quite hard to describe because there’s just so many elements to him. There’s this element of him where he leaves his hometown and goes to this kind of dystopia where the lower class are only allowed to come out at night and there’s curfews for day and night people. They do this thing called “Party Crashing” where they have these deliberate car crashes and travel through time. It sounds quite complicated but it’s an incredible book. It’s very…

SCI-FACT! As a kid, Holly Black read about faerie folklore in Brian Froud and Alan Lee’s classic 1978 illustrated book Faeries. After viewing the kingdom of the Fey from the outside in Modern Faerie Tales, Spiderwick Chronicles author Holly Black wanted to explore the ethereal realm from a more intimate perspective in her new series, The Court Of The Air. “I’ve written a bunch of books with fairies in them, and a bunch of books where people discover the Faerie world,” says Black. “So this is the first time I’m writing from inside Faerie.” Optioned for a film by Universal Pictures, first instalment The Cruel Prince introduces mortal teenager Jude, who, along with her two sisters, was raised in Faerieland by her sinister stepfather, Madoc. “I wanted it to be…

WORD UP! SHAZAM! The major players are coming together for the big screen adaptation of DC’s very own Captain Marvel (not that we can call him Captain Marvel anymore, of course – not since an ancient wizard uttered the magic word “Litigation!”). Chuck star Zachary Levi – Asgardian warrior Fandral in the last couple of Thor flicks – will play the hero alternately known as The World’s Mightiest Mortal and The Big Red Cheese. Asher Angel from the Disney Channel’s Andi Mack is Billy Batson, the kid with the power to transform into his caped alter-ego by yelling “Shazam!” – actually a magical acronym invoking the immortal powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Marjorie Proops. Kingsman’s Mark Strong is on supervillain duty as the deeply sinister Dr Sivana,…

SFX's high priestess of horror A TIME TO SCREAM This month in film has been frankly very depressing. Not the features (Happy Death Day! Stranger Things 2! Err… Jigsaw!) but in the unfolding horror that is the widespread abuse carried out by powerful blokes in Hollywood. You’re tired of hearing about it. But horror reflects society – it always has done – so I’m quite sure we’ll be hearing about it more in times to come. Where victims have felt unable to speak out, horror is a great place to do so. It was always so – the Soska Sisters’ autobiographical American Mary, for example, deals with a young woman abused by a powerful male colleague who takes revenge into her own hands. What’s emerged is a picture of an…

AVENGERS NO SURRENDER MARVEL JAN Beginning in Avengers #675, this 16-issue weekly storyline spans not only Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ flagship title but also Uncanny Avengers and US Avengers. Opening with the Earth being stolen, this epic penned by Al Ewing, Mark Waid and Jim Zub not only marks the debut of a powerful new character in the mysterious Voyager, but also the return of Bruce Banner’s original Incredible Hulk. NEW CHALLENGERS DC MAR Part of the DC Metal-related Dark Matter line, this new launch reboots Jack Kirby’s 1957 team of paranormal explorers. Written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Andy Kubert, New Challengers features a whole new cast of characters, but with the fabled Challenger Mountain returning after many years away, it also boasts many intriguing links to the past.…

FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS James Marsters has a knack for embodying cerebral baddies. From his spin on Professor Milton Fine, aka Brainiac, on Smallville to his punk vampire Spike on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, he has a penchant for leaving audiences just a little besotted with his no-good characters. So it’s no wonder that Runaways showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage lured him back into a TV series to play the brilliant yet darkly complicated engineer, Victor Stein. In the Marvel comic book and the series, Stein is a fantastic inventor but painfully estranged from both his wife (Ever Carradine) and his son, Chase (Gregg Sulkin). Breakfasts are tense, expectations run high, and Stein clearly has issues with anger management. However, as always when Marsters…

THE SFX AUTHOR INTERVIEW As opening sallies for a Brought To Book interview go, Stephen Donaldson’s first remarks are unexpected: “The story of my life as a writer is that I don’t know how to write.” Not that he lets this alleged lack of literary skill hold him back. “I have to tackle challenges that I’ve never faced before, I have to develop skills that I’ve never had before,” he continues. “I don’t know why that’s true and it does make life difficult, but it’s necessary to my imagination.” More seriously, what Donaldson is trying to get across is he doesn’t want to “write novels that I already know how to write”. So Seventh Decimate, the first volume of a new trilogy, eschews the high fantasy of his much-loved Thomas…

VIBE Chippy, shadeswearing Detroit street gang member Paco Ramone brought his seismic vibrational powers to the League in the mid-’80s. Has also been known to improve any party. RED TORNADO The original Red Tornado was bucket-headed comic relief (secret identity: Ma Hunkel). This sleeker, cooler android incarnation whipped up cyclone-force winds by twisting his body at mind-boggling speed. ROCKET RED 4 Introduced in 1987, just as Glasnost was melting the Cold War, Rocket Red was Dmitri Pushkin, part of an elite brigade of armoured heroes wrangled by the Soviet government. “Mechaempathy” allowed him to control any computer. ZAURIEL Unlike Marvel’s Angel, this celestial Justice Leaguer was a genuine member of the Heavenly host. Wielded a flaming sword and had the power to part water, Moses style. CONGORILLA Jungle adventurer Congo…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1974 | 12 | Blu-ray Director Jacques Rivette Cast Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Philippe Clévenot, Barbet Schroeder BLU-RAY DEBUT Jacques Rivette’s freewheeling blend of comedy and fantasy is also an extended metaphor for the joys of narrative – consuming it and creating it. A little French helps: idiomatically, to “aller en bateau” means to get caught up in a story. That’s what happens to BFFs Céline (Juliet Berto) and Julie (Dominique Labourier) on exploring the mystery of an old mansion. Each time one visits, they emerge with no memory of what occurred inside, but by sucking on a boiled sweet (!) or mixing a potion they’re able to recall snatches of events from the house’s history, stepping into the past to witness events – and, eventually, altering…

RELEASED 15 DECEMBER (Blu-ray & DVD 8 January) 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Beyond ridiculous, more like. 2010’s Skyline presented an invasion by brain-harvesting aliens from the perspective of an LA condo. The sequel hurls Frank Grillo from subway to spaceship to South East Asia, spouting dialogue from the Big Book Of Laconic Swears – often cradling a newborn, like a Bruce Willis Athena poster. A cavalcade of explosions, martial arts and mecha rumbles distracts you from calculating precisely how stupid it is. An IQ-reducing guilty pleasure. Extras None.…

HOME ENTERTAINMENT COALITION OF CHAOS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Directors Shinji Higuchi, Hideaki Anno Cast Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, Satomi Ishihara, Ren Ôsugi Godzilla is a huge part of western pop culture. Whether you watched the ’70s Hanna-Barbera cartoon, stepped on the big G’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or bought tickets to the movies, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s an American creation. Shin Godzilla is here to tell you that’s very much not the case, returning the character to his roots to create a film that’s probably more rewarding if you’ve got a working knowledge of the modern Japanese political system. It’s basically In The Loop with an occasional monster, as Godzilla’s existence is used to satirise governmental bureaucracy, cutting from…

Arrow Video’s 2016 box set American Horror Project collected three obscure indie horrors; now all three are available separately. Good news, as it means you can pick up the woozily dream-like MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD (out now, Blu-ray) on its own. Following the new owners of an amusement park as they fend off cannibalistic ghouls, it’s John Waters making Spider Baby, as dreamt by Agent Cooper. We said: “There’s real lo-fi, bad-trip ingenuity on display.” While The Walking Dead slowly rots, its sister show only got more interesting this year. Shuffling from war movie to Western and beyond over the course of 16 fraught episodes, FEAR THE WALKING DEAD SEASON THREE (out now, Blu-ray/DVD) mixes complex new characters, shock deaths and fascinating politics (including, bizarrely, the ethics of colonisation). All…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 600 pages | Paperback/ebook ‣ Author Fonda Lee ‣ Publisher Orbit The fantasy element of Jade City is extremely subtle. The novel is part The Godfather, part Hong Kong action movie, with a single vein of magic running through it. Two mafia-like clans, governed by an accepted code of conduct, and made faster, stronger, and more perceptive by jade operate covertly within the fictional Kekon (which, though it has a very Asian feel, is not analogous to any one real country). Despite jade being the only magical element in the story, it’s fundamental to everything. On an immediate level it fuels spectacular fights between superpowered, jade-wearing “Green Bones” gangsters; on a slower level it’s led to the clans declaring war; and in the background, moving at an…

BOOKS Suicide Girl ‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 180 pages | Hardback ‣ Author Andrew Farago ‣ Publisher Insight Comics Gotham villain. Quirky girl. Lovesick puppy. Crazed killer. Harley Quinn has worn many masks since her first appearance in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. In celebration, this large hardback collection is devoted to her, featuring comic book art from the last 25 years. It’s fascinating to see how one character can be brought to life in so many ways. We find Harley as a masked menace in Mike Parobeck’s ’90s comic strips that ran alongside the Batman cartoon; a bodacious, gun-wielding femme fatale in the art of Terry and Rachel Dodson; and a long-lashed porcelain doll in the soft pencil strokes of Joe Chiodo. There are some surprises, too. In…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Hardback/ebook ‣ Author Nora Roberts ‣ Publisher Piatkus Books As apocalypses go, the one in Nora Roberts’s series-starter Year One might just be the most romantic. Okay, not for the literally billions of people who die of a mysterious plague, but for the survivors, for whom the end of the world brings something magical. In the wake of disaster, apparently normal people discover they’re actually paranormal: they’re elves, or fairies, or witches, or some other kind of fairytale creature. Sounds bonkers, right? It’s definitely an inventive way to add sparkle to a tired subgenre, so it’s a shame it doesn’t quite work. The magic lets Roberts play with characters who’d never survive, say, a Cormac McCarthy novel, but it also makes things a…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! 206 pages | Paperback/ebook ‣ Author Alex Cox ‣ Publisher Kamera Books Who is Number 6? Fifty years on from the debut of Patrick McGoohan’s surreal TV series The Prisoner, it’s a question that has yet to be definitively answered. But does it really matter? Surely it’s the subjects the series tackles – surveillance, individualism, conformity – that are important, not its protagonist’s CV? Agree? Then you may find this book a little guilty of tunnel vision. Repo Man director Alex Cox (a fan since the series’ first transmission) sets out to identify why Number 6 resigned, where the mysterious Village he’s imprisoned in is located, and who’s running it. He has a theory, which he sets about proving by going through every episode, combing for…

‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! ‣ Publisher Image Comics ‣ Writer Jay Faerber ‣ Artist Sumeyye Kesgin ISSUES 1-4 Legendary historical disappearances can be great places to start a story, especially when they’re as well-known as the vanishing of ’30s pilot Amelia Earhart. This new Image Comics series throws together fact and fantasy, casting Earhart as a pulp heroine who ends up voyaging to a strange new world. The story kicks off as Earhart’s disappearance in 1937 takes both her and co-pilot Fred Noonan through a mysterious portal to the world of Korvath, a place of magic and mysticism. Separated from her friend, Amelia gets involved with a rebellion against the despotic Lord Kragen; she then also discovers that she’s not the only mysteriously “vanished” arrival from Earth… Copperhead writer Jay…

Volume One ‣ RELEASED OUT NOW! ‣ Publisher Rebellion ‣ Writer/artist Ken Reid COLLECTION The strips in British humour comics often went uncredited, so generations grew up never knowing the names of the writers and artists who generated their weekly fix of anarchic hi-jinks. But many of the best were created by Ken Reid, and this book collects the first 100 instalments of his finest work: Faceache. And it comes with an introduction by Alan Moore, no less. The concept of Faceache – a boy with the peculiar ability to contort his face (and body) into extraordinary shapes – allowed Reid to give free rein to his visual creativity, coming up with new and increasingly grotesque forms for his lead character every week. Even more impressively, Reid also generated endless…

ETA APRIL EXPECT TO PAY £600 SABINE WREN HELMET ✦ The Mandalorian graffiti artist with the multicoloured hair is one of our favourite characters in Star Wars: Rebels. Now ANOVOS is producing a replica of her helmet. Made of fibreglass, it has a rangefinder attachment that rotates 90 degrees. ETA MAY EXPECT TO PAY £19 STRANGER THINGS PLUSH ✦ You get three cuddly toys in one with this plush of Dart, Dustin’s pet from the Upside Down: a 1” tadpole, a 2” slug and a 9” Demodog. Each stage fits inside the next, Russiandoll style! ETA JULY EXPECT TO PAY £60 PUNISHER BOOKENDS ✦ We don’t imagine the Punisher has ever used a bookend – except possibly to pummel some miscreant’s skull to a pulp. Made of polystone, these are…

The characters who make TV great ‣UK Broadcast Netflix ‣US Broadcast Netflix Hold up! Have we just entered a parallel reality? How else can you explain the existence of a male computer geek sidekick in a sci-fi show who has a family? Who has a love life? Who doesn’t quote Star Wars’ every other line, or wear Battlestar Galactica t-shirts? Good grief, how can that be any fun? Micro, aka David Lieberman, remains one of the best things about Marvel’s The Punisher despite – or to be honest, partly because – he doesn’t conform to those clichés. He has his moments of quirky humour, sure, but he’s no quipmeister; he’s more likely to be intense, driven and a little scary. The fact that this apparently cosy middle-class Nerd Herd-er seeks…

Mercer “Why do we have to put people in boxes? Why even call a box ‘a box’?” Malloy “I think it’s just easier to have words.” The Orville, 1.09 Mudd “There really are so many ways to blow up this ship. It’s almost a design flaw.” Star Trek: Discovery, 1.07 Lucifer “Hanging out with a cop in Las Vegas is like bringing your grandmother to an orgy.” Lucifer, 3.06 Dominator Queen “You know what I’m looking for.” Sara “Breath mint? A dermatologist recommendation? Reese’s Pieces?” Legends Of Tomorrow, 3.04 Killer Frost “I’m out, Amunet.” Amunet “Out? Out of what? Out of options, out of your mind, out of the closet?” The Flash, 4.05…